What it takes to be a UFO Field Investigator (Mark Easter, MUFON director of public relations): this is the first lecture I had the opportunity to attend when I got into Roswell, and it was fascinating! For those of you who don't know, MUFON stands for Mutual UFO Network. They are an organization committed to studying the UFO phenomenon scientifically. Mark Easter gave us a great history of sightings and speculated as to why this famous crash occurred in Roswell in 1947. Did you know that a great majority of sightings tend to center around war activities? (look up the Foo Fighters in World War II....no, not the band). New Mexico was the only place in the WORLD in 1947 in which nuclear bombs were being assembled and tested. Since then, many UFO sightings have occurred near major weapons manufacturing centers and nuclear power plants. Mr. Easter told us of a case that he is currently investigating in which a man sees UFO activity over his house regularly. He lives near a chemical weapons manufacturing facility. During testing and reduction of chemical weapons (by means of burning them off), activity increases. When nothing is going on at the plant, it stops.
Anyway, MUFON is a pretty darn credible organization. They don't make any wild or sensational claims and share all of their information. I highly recommend checking out their youtube channel and website. They also freely admit that 90-95% of sightings reported turn out to be explainable, but they are committed to finding answers about the remainder of the sightings. Turns out that becoming an investigator is a fairly involved process, and you have to be certified and train with an investigator who has some experience. Anybody can do it, though. Am I going to do it? Probably. I'm already looking into it, but apparently the test involves quite a bit of science and knowledge of aircraft, so it may take me awhile. In a few months though, if you report a sighting to MUFON and live in my area I might be the person conducting your interview!
Witness to Roswell (Tom Carey and Don Schmitt): after this lecture I'm 100% convinced that there was in fact a coverup, and that what was recovered at Roswell was at the very least not identifiable and perceived as a threat to national security. The two gentlemen presenting have spent something like 30 years interviewing people who were present for the initial recovery of materials, the events at the hospital in the following days, etc. The lecture was too long to go into detail here but there is a good summary on Wikipedia, believe it or not. I was planning to go on a guided walking tour of the old air base Monday morning, but had to pack up the tent early due to lightning.
Captured: the Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience (Kathleen Marden, niece of the Hills): this was a very compelling presentation about the first documented case of UFO abduction. Normally I'd tend to dismiss people who say they were abducted as nuts, but the physical evidence present in this case was pretty darn convincing. Kathleen Marden, by the way, is not easily dismissible as a nutcase. She worked for years in social work, then got a degree in education and worked as a teacher and in educational services. She is well-educated and quite well spoken. Betty and Barney Hill were also not easily dismissible as nuts and were in fact very active in their local community, Church, and organizations such as the NAACP. The details heard in the 90 minute lecture are too long to post here, but it's definitely worth it to check out Kathleen Marden's website. Again, the physical evidence present was very compelling.
Fire in the Sky (Travis Walton): the Travis Walton case is another very well-documented abduction case, and in this case there were also six witnesses. If you haven't seen the movie Fire in the Sky, go check it out. The whole thing is available on youtube. Mr. Walton told us that Hollywood did take quite a few liberties with the story, but it's pretty darn close. Again, it was difficult to dismiss him. He's as close to normal as you can get, and unlike a lot of other people at these kinds of things, was obviously not out to sell his book or get attention. He was almost shy, to be honest, and seems genuinely to just want to be believed. Among the interesting physical evidence that came to light is the condition of the trees in the clearing in which he was taken. From 1975 (when he was taken) until a couple of months ago (forest fires), core samples from the trees in the clearing show that they are producing wood fiber at 36 times the rate they were previously. This did not occur in other trees in the forest. There was also a lot of radiation present at the site during the five days that he was missing.
UFO's, Nuclear Weapons and Cover-ups (Robert Salas): this guy was the most convincing at the whole festival. He graduated from the Air Force Academy, got a masters in aerospace engineering, and spent years as a nuclear missile commander. He was the man with his finger on the button that could have destroyed life as we know it during the Cold War. Specifically, he was in charge of ten nuclear missiles in Montana and spent the better part of each night in an underground bunker. One night, his guards came in freaking out over these big orbs of light hovering near the perimeter fence-and then all of the missiles simultaneously went down. That is the gist of the story, and it's happened multiple times at multiple missile facilities all over the world, as recently as 2010. Mr. Salas now has a master's in education and teaches high school math. Again, exceptionally normal guy, and exceptionally credible. More information can be found at his website.
I have to admit that when I started going to this festival it was just for the costume contest and to hang with the weirdos. I passed it off as an anthropological thing: I'll infiltrate this little cross section of society and see what they're all about, and then laugh about it later. As often happens with anthropologists, I've basically assimilated. Most of these people are very normal. Sure, there are plenty of genuine weirdos and authors selling their romantic science fiction books, but there's a continuum of nuts in every group. I can't really laugh at these people anymore. Sure, I've always had an interest in this stuff but I've never been thoroughly convinced. I am now!
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