One down. . . two to go.

Watching the Pendragons' magic act put me in mind of the world's three best kept secrets. For centuries, magicians maintained the mystery by pledging never to reveal how their tricks were done, but when the movies and television waved some money around, that tradition bit the dust. There are now only two carefully guarded secrets left in the world: the factory invoice and space travel.

Auto dealers have not been around as long as magic, but somehow they always induce buyers to pay exactly the amount the salesmen want, no matter how much negotiation appears to be happening. A tool they are shamelessly using is the "factory invoice." In my last new car negotiation, I specifically told the salesman not to show it to me, but he brazenly did anyway. I bought the car, because resistance is futile.

The "factory invoice" is a document that appears to say that a car which will cost you $30,000 cost the dealership $29,900 from the manufacturer. As you sit in a large, attractive showroom, surrounded by several attentive employees, you are supposed to believe that the owner became rich and the employees are well paid, despite the fact that each car sold nets only $100 profit.

How stupid do they think we are? Would anyone go into business selling high-priced items for a few pennies of profit on the dollar? Obviously cars are sold for several thousand dollars profit, the factory invoice is fiction, but the audacious sellers have maintained an illusion to the contrary, better than the magicians could.

Finally, I ask you to ponder the "escape velocity." This is the speed an object must attain to leave the Earth's gravitational pull. Scientists estimate it at more than 24,000 miles per hour. At that speed, a battleship going by in front of your house would be, at best, a brief blur to your eyes.

We routinely see rockets take off, and we follow their progress until they are the number of miles away when our eyes can no longer detect them. At no time do we see them achieve escape velocity. We are supposed to believe that sometime after they are out of sight, and with diminshed fuel supplies, they reach 24,000 miles per hour, and dash off to the moon and Mars.

Rocket scientists find lucrative jobs with universities or NASA, or get grants of various kinds, so it is to their benefit to keep the illusion alive. They regale us with films of a quality similar to those produced at Industrial Light & Magic. It's a cushy job, contemplating the possibility of alien life. Hell, everybody loves the weaselly Ferengi and fears the Klingons.