SAN FRANCISCO In the X-Files it would be called the case of the CEO and the UFOs. Joe Firmage, who at the age of 28 has made not one but two mega-fortunes as a computer pioneer in California's Silicon Valley, has quit the $2 billion company he helped found to promote what he says could be the most important news event in 2000 years humanity's potential rendezvous with space aliens.

There is truth to the UFO phenomenon, that is undeniable. The evidence is overwhelming from around the globe, Firmage told Reuters in an interview. To deny it is to simply stick your head in the sand. Firmage is so convinced that the time has come to popularize a broader vision of mankind's place in the cosmos that he has quit his job at USWEB/CKS, the Silicon Valley Internet marketing and consulting company he helped to launch, and is now devoting himself to broadening scientific inquiry into UFOs and uncovering what he believes is a government conspiracy to conceal evidence.

We trivialize everything, we turn everything into the X-Files, said Firmage, who himself has been dubbed the Fox Mulder of Silicon Valley after the hero of the wildly popular science fiction television series. What I'm saying is there are patterns there that we should pay attention to and not ignore. I'm not praying for a spacecraft to come pick me up, I'm just saying there is good, rational, left brain evidence of things out there.

Backed by his computer fortune, Firmage has sought to explore a variety of theories regarding UFOs including one which holds that many recent scientific advances including semiconductors, fiber optics and lasers can be traced back to technology recovered from a purported alien spaceship crash in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947 that was covered up by the government. Outright rejection of the evidence without comprehensive review of the research in print across hundreds of books is close-minded, unscientific, and indeed irresponsible in the extreme, Firmage wrote in one recent essay on the subject, which he believes should be explored further before it is dismissed.

It is also quite understandable, given decades of government disinformation...specifically designed to create a `giggle factor' surrounding the subject. Firmage's credentials as a UFO buff are overshadowed only by his track record as a computer industry entrepreneur. A physics major at the University of Utah, Firmage was 18 when he formed his first company, Serius, which specialized in writing computer operating system codes.

That was sold to Novell in 1993 for $24 million, and Firmage served as Novell's vice president of networking strategy until 1995 when he left to form USWEB. Last month, USWEB completed a merger with CKS Group Inc to form a $2.1 billion powerhouse that employs 1,950 people. Firmage said Saturday that he decided to leave the new company, at which he lost his CEO seat to CKS' Robert Shaw, after concluding that his views on the UFO issue could hurt the company's reputation.

The subject matter that I am indeed writing about is inherently controversial. I do not wish to subject the company to any sort of credibility deficit, Firmage said. Shaw, speaking to Saturday's San Francisco Chronicle, said Firmage's departure was entirely voluntary. Now, Firmage says, he will work full time to expand and popularize his views, which are summed up in a gigantic, 600-page manifesto entitled The Truth now posted on the Internet (www.thewordistruth.org).

(Reuter)