Ask any abductee and they'll tell you that summertime, with its clear skies and warm nights, is the best time for spaceship spotting. The UFO Friendship Convention, taking place this weekend, will be the first in a series of gatherings through the summer where alien enthusiasts and skeptics will watch the skies and ponder the science of UFO-logy. Thanks to a slew of Hollywood alien flicks, event planners are expecting quite a crowd.
"There's more interest in UFOs every day," explains Walter H. Andrus, international director of the Mutual UFO Network, the world's largest UFO organization, with more than 5,000 subscribers. "The media knows that a film about UFOs is going to be a bestseller, and that's helping to bring more attention to the UFO phenomenon."
The UFO Friendship Convention, sited at the Little A'Le'Inn on the edge of Area 51 in Nevada, will host anywhere from 50 to 200 people. Activities will include hikes to the top of Area 51, alien-watching excursions, and seminars by UFO experts, including a former Air Force pilot who documented UFOs, the author of Alien Magic, someone with "CIA UFO connections," and a handful of abductees.
Pat Travis, the coordinator of the five-year-old convention who says she has regular encounters with aliens, explains that the event brings back the same people every year. One couple even met and married through the conference. "It's a collective time, the energy runs high and people have a chance to learn one on one," she says. "'Friendship' is because of the friendships that are made here every year."
Jim Greenen, a UFO enthusiast who sells MUFON paraphernalia, says the same people often attend multiple UFO conventions during the summer. After the UFO Friendship Conference, for example, he plans to drive to the Abductee Convention, at the University of Wyoming, the MUFON conference in Grand Rapids, and the Roswell Encounter '97 Celebration.
The theme of this year's conferences is the 50th anniversary of the Roswell incident, when, UFO enthusiasts say, a spaceship crashed in New Mexico and was appropriated by the US government. An extravaganza is planned for 1-7 July, featuring lectures from UFO notables such as author/abductee Whitley Strieber, archaeologist Erich von Daniken, and Roswell investigator Don Schmitt. Then there are the activities: a nonmotorized spaceship-building contest, an alien costume contest, crash-site tours, and the Alien Chase 5k-10k run.
According to a recent study by Purdue University professor Glenn Sparks, more than one third of all Americans believe in UFOs, and noncritical UFO features on TV shows like 48 Hours are likely to increase the number of conference-goers. Shows like The X-Files and Unsolved Mysteries, which pull in huge audiences every weekend, and movies like Independence Day, Mars Attacks, and the upcoming Men in Black, also help increase the number of aficionados, if not necessarily believers. In fact, UFOs have gotten popular enough that Ticketmaster will be selling tickets to the Roswell Encounter '97. Advance hotel reservations are recommended. Despite the growing popularity of UFOs, alien enthusiasts like Travis are still concerned about public perception of those from outer space. Travis explains, "Every time you see a movie it's always a bad alien. But they are not bad. I know the ones that are with us, and they are good and friendly."
