Cognitive Dissonance

I am not sure what the author is trying to convey in his article. The author states that cognitive dissonance is a motivating state. In one example of dissonance that the author uses is about a group of college students waiting for a flying saucer to arrive and pick them up. The group patiently waited but, the flying saucer never picked them up. They were motivated by the anticipation that a flying saucer was coming for them, therefore it made it easy for them to sit and wait for it. In the other experiment, money was a motivating factor. The more money that was paid for the experiment, the experimentees enjoyed the experiment. The money was the dissonance.