Well now, where was I? Oh yes, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. (That’s a nod to the recently deceased British author Alan Sillitoe.) Sunday morning’s commute was a lot longer than I wanted it to be, because not only does Metro run its trains at very lengthy intervals on Sunday, which left me standing in a cold wind on the platform in Silver Spring for almost half an hour, but it is doing admittedly-needed track repair on weekends, which meant slowed trains and single-tracking between Rhode Island Avenue and Union Station. If this is too much detail for anyone, try and stop me.
As a result, I did not arrive at the National Press Club until about ten minutes to 9, when Peter Robbins’s presentation was scheduled to begin. Peter was subbing for the originally-scheduled Jim Nichols, who was ill, and he spoke about the carefully orchestrated campaign of ridicule that has been imposed on the subject of UFOs by the media since the outset, or at least since shortly after the Roswell incident in 1947. I only caught bits of his talk because I was minding the door and doing other things.
Next up was the estimable George Knapp, longtime TV reporter in Las Vegas and quite excellent substitute host of Coast to Coast AM on the radio. He gave an informative and entertaining talk about his involvement with the UFO subject since about 1989, when he first interviewed Bob Lazar of Area 51 fame. He also devoted a nice bit of time to his coverage of the Skinwalker Ranch in Utah, before, during, and after Bob Bigelow’s National Institute for Discovery Science took it over as a sort of experimental station. I’m frankly fascinated by the stories of the appearance at the ranch of a Dire Wolf—which has been extinct for some 10,000 years—and other animal life forms that aren’t supposed to be hanging around in the 21st century, and which seem to walk off into some kind of dimensional portal and disappear.
Then came the luncheon presentation of George Noory, who looks like he has lost some weight over the past year (but still has the black shoe polish hair dye job). He told some halfway decent jokes, and actually gave a fair amount of time to acknowledge (i.e., calling up to the podium) two other speakers who were important to the success of Coast to Coast: George Knapp and Linda Howe. Because Sunday was Mothers Day, Noory made sure to wish a happy day to all the mothers in the audience; and Knapp said, “and happy Mothers Day to all the ‘mofos’ in the audience.” I thought that was a pretty good line, although I had consumed a glass of wine at that point, because I actually got to eat at the luncheon. I’m not going to criticize further a presentation where I got to have a good meal.
More than once during the day, during his remarks before and after speakers, Steve Bassett acknowledged that having the X-Conference on Mothers Day weekend was not such a great idea, and it would not happen again, although it would be held early in May as a nod to the original 2001 Disclosure Project press event. That afternoon, I got to chat with Peter Robbins, co-author (with Larry Warren) of Left at East Gate, the most authoritative book so far on the Rendlesham Forest incident of late 1980. I found out that he now lives just outside Ithaca, NY, near where I grew up, because his sister and her family live nearby and it’s a lot cheaper than Manhattan. Very nice guy and a good speaker.
There were two more presentations left to go: Linda Moulton Howe and Gary Heseltine. Linda has been doing a lot of work on the Rendlesham/Bentwaters/Woodbridge incident, and brought with her John Burroughs, who was one of the airmen who figured greatly in those events. Burroughs only recovered his full memories of the Rendlesham Forest incident after hypnosis in 1988, a video recording of which was shown, and it was very sobering stuff. It was interesting when Linda called Burroughs up to the stage, because she’s only about five-foot-two and, even though she was wearing heels, Burroughs towered over her; he’s at least six-foot-five and perhaps more. He comes across as a very honest, straightforward kind of guy.
The last presentation of the day was that of Gary Heseltine, who was and still is a serving police officer—a detective—in England. He has a great Yorkshire accent. Gary had a sighting of his own when he was 15, and has pursued the subject of UFOs ever since; and he’s also contributed to the Rendlesham research, because he himself was an RAF military police officer at a similar base in the early 1980s. In 2002 he set up a database of police UFO sightings/incidents that he calls PRUFOS, and he’s hoping to expand its scope beyond the UK to become a reference for all police reports around the world.
That was about it for the conference, and in his closing remarks Steve Bassett called the volunteers who were still present up to the stage to be acknowledged, which was nice. On Monday morning, I again made my way downtown to the NPC for the press conference at 10 am. Mainstream media coverage was slim to none, owing at least partially to the fact that President Obama was announcing his nomination of Elena Kagan as a Supreme Court Justice at the White House at the same time. But there was plenty of coverage by the mostly-internet-based media that focus on UFOs and similar subjects, and Steve Bassett reiterated his announcement of the Contact 2010 conference to be held at the NPCD in October. That will be very interesting when it occurs.
I met a lot of very nice people during the weekend, many of whom have decidedly nonstandard outlooks on conventional reality, and who have a great range of political opinions—from the libertarian right to the far left. And, even though Rich Dolan said that his co-author on A.D. had written a UFO-disclosure song called “Need to Know,” which has been recorded by Cherish Alexander and is available on iTunes, I’m feeling inspired to work on a UFO-themed song of my own. But it’s not done yet, so don’t hold your breath.
Until next year—or maybe October.
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