by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

Local journalist Bram Eisenthal, 47, has developed an international, award-winning reputation for reporting on UFOs, but the chances he'll ever track down his biological parents are probably no greater than him getting face to face with the green men from Mars.

His quest to solve his "ultimate mystery" is not a knock against his now-deceased adoptive parents. "They loved me to death," he says. "I was never looking for parents. I was looking for an identity, that infamous final piece of the puzzle."

Most other provinces have passed or are passing laws empowering adopted children to learn the identities and perhaps meet their biological parents, and indeed Ontario is introducing legislation to do so this year. But Quebec has no specific timetable to introduce changes, according to Ministry of Health and Social Services spokesperson Hélène Gingras. She says that while discussions are under way, there are no current plans to change the laws, which make it almost impossible for many adoptees to find their biological parents.

Eisenthal says he's tried everything, including bribery, to find out what's written in a sealed file in Quebec City. No luck. Nor did other leads pan out. He was shown his file as handled by the Jewish Family Services of the Baron de Hirsch Institute, a local community group, but alas, it was empty. An Internet hook-up with what seemed to possibly be his mother turned out to be a false lead, and government promises to loosen up adoption records, later abandoned, have all added to Eisenthal's dejection.

He's left idly speculating that his resemblance to his adoptive father isn't evidence that he was the product of his adoptive father with a surrogate mother. "My adoptive parents told me that they rescued me in an accident," he says. "It's a fable that many adoptive parents tell their children."

Adoption experts confirm Eisenthal's dim view of Quebec's attitude towards curious adoptees. "Quebec has had highly irregular situations with regards to adoption in the past - we're talking phony names, stolen and hidden files and altered information," says Monica Byrne, registrar of Parent Finders National Capital Region. She says the bureaucratic mess is complicated by the province's many agencies that once handled adoptions, and that francophones looking for their parents are more organized than their anglo-Quebec counterparts.

Quebec parent-hunters are getting impatient, she says. "These adoptees are noticing that we've got gay people getting married and divorced and all this other social reform happening, but this adoption thing is still hanging around. We'll have to make huge changes in attitude to ever access the files in Quebec."

Eisenthal agrees that there's an advanced level of ire among others stymied by bureaucrats in their search for relatives. He can never meet his birth mother if she doesn't give the green light to do so, but chances are that the province hasn't been able to find her. He says nobody will update him on the details of the search.

After musing idly about his potential lineage, Eisenthal remembers that his personal questions might never be answered. "It's not right, it's immoral," he says. "It's a hot button topic. I could see violence erupting around this. People are so pissed off about their rights being denied."