- LINCOLNTON -- For 12 years, UFO investigator George Fawcett tried to raise
$5 million for a saucer-shaped museum in his home state, North Carolina
-- a repository for his half-century of UFO collecting.
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- But with only about $100 in the pot,
it was clearly time for another plan.
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- So his 20,000-item Sauceriana Collection
has gone to the International UFO Museum & Research Center in Roswell,
N.M. -- deep in the historical heart of UFO country.
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- "It's a mixed bag of emotions for
me," says Fawcett, 68, a retired YMCA director, textile employee,
weekly newspaper manager and sandwich shop operator. "But the good
outweighs the bad. The Roswell museum is no fly-by-night thing. I'm happy
to find a home for my collection. It's like a dream come true."
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- Fawcett was into UFOs way back in 1944
as a kid in Mount Airy, where he says he played basketball with Andy Griffith.
He read a newspaper account of "mysterious balls of fire" that
American pilots encountered in night flights over Germany during World
War II.
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- "That was a curiosity sparker for
me," Fawcett says. "It's been my magnificent obsession. I've
had a passion for everything I've ever done."
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