The paragraph where he says "cranks and weirdoes" is incredible painfull to read and totally unexpected from him.
Not at all painful for me. Having met and worked with Prof. Hawking on his Fate of the Universe program some years ago, I can say that such remarks are entirely within his character. He has a wry sense of humor and very little tolerance for pretense.
While there may be some honorable claimaints among the abductee and visitee camps, they are entirely drowned out by the attention-seekers whose stories at best lack any verifiable credibility, and at worst are provably fabricated. If the UFO enthusiasts want any sort of favorable attention from the scientific community, they must eschew the rampant showmanship that is so painfully evident in their ranks.
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