Post by Joanna on Jun 27, 2015 20:47:25 GMT -5
World UFO Festival in Memphis: July 2
MEMPHIS, Tenn. – The most significant contribution to UFO culture by Memphis, to date, is probably “Flyin’ Saucers Rock & Roll,” the classic 1957 Sun rockabilly novelty single recorded by Billy Lee Riley and “His Little Green Men,” as the studio band was dubbed for the occasion. As that jokey designation suggests, “ufology” – the study of Unidentified Flying Objects, to use the term coined by the Air Force in 1952 – was, in its early years, primarily the stuff of comic books, drive-in movies (Earth vs. the Flying Saucers arrived in 1956) and pulp science fiction. Is it still?
The members of the Tennessee chapter of MUFON – the nonprofit Mutual UFO Network – don’t think so and they’ll be out in force Thursday, July 2, to make their case when they host the first public World UFO Day Festival in Memphis. “We think this is going to be by far the largest UFO conference in the history of Tennessee,” said Eddie Middleton, 71, state director of MUFON and a sometime “field investigator” of local reports of mysterious phenomena. A Midtown resident, Middleton is the rare state MUFON director based in Memphis; most of his predecessors lived in East Tennessee.
Set to run from 7 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. at the Pine Hill Park and Community Center at 973 Alice, the festival is aimed not only at those intrigued by the possibility of earthly visits by extraterrestrials, but also at families looking for unusual entertainment. Activities will include scientific and philosophical discussions; first-person testimonials about sightings and “entity encounters”; and – to demonstrate that UFO true believers have a sense of humor concerning their passion – a “Galactic Parade,” a “moonwalking” contest and an “Alien Pet Costume Contest.” (“Humans aren’t the only Earthlings who deserve to have fun,” explains a MUFON press release.)
Memphis is something of a Klaatu-come-lately on the E.T. event circuit. Organized by MUFON and other “ufology” groups, World UFO Day has been observed since 2001, with the largest celebration taking place in Roswell, New Mexico, where many believe a “flying saucer” crashed July 2, 1947, in an incident that was covered up by the government. At the Memphis event, “You’ll have some people who have had some heavy-duty experiences,” said James Renford Powell, author of books on UFOs and “applied metaphysics,” who says he had his own UFO encounter in Hong Kong not long after he had finished work on a Church of Christ mission program during the Vietnam War. “If anybody has had any unusual experience and they’d like to talk to somebody about it, this festival would be an ideal time to do so.”
“We want to let people know if you see something, don’t automatically think ‘I’m going crazy,’” said MUFON member Bridgett Sanders of Southaven, event coordinator of the Memphis World UFO Day Festival. “There is an organization you can reach out to and talk to about anything you’ve seen, or if you’ve been abducted, or anything of that nature. Just like if you have a crime problem, you call the police, if you have a problem with an unidentified object, call MUFON.”
Founded in 1969 and self-identified as “the leading civilian UFO investigating body operating in the United States,” the Newport Beach, California-based MUFON functions as a sort of “Close Encounters” clearing house. People who have experienced an encounter with a possible alien, intergalactic craft or secret terrestrial military flying object are invited to make a report on the MUFON website. In response, the national office will reach out to the state office and a local “field investigator” will be assigned to look into the case.
According to the national MUFON website, thousands of UFO sightings are reported every year, with a record 7,775 cases occurring in 2012. That’s good news for cable TV’s H2 (short for History 2), an A&E Television network that has raised MUFON’s international profile tremendously with its ongoing series Hangar 1: The UFO Files, which bases its episodes on cases investigated by MUFON. (Sample episode titles to date include “Underwater UFOs,” “Cops vs. UFOs” and “Presidential Encounters.”)
Tennessee gets its fair share of sightings. Middleton, a philosophy professor who teaches at area colleges, said he has received about 40 reports of UFOs or “entities” so far this year. “You’ll hear people comment that 90 percent are explainable as natural phenomena – optical illusions, meteorological events, helicopters, satellites or people trying to perpetrate a hoax. My experience has been that for cases we get, the majority are unexplainable; we put them in the category of ‘unknowns.’”
Although astronomers and astrophysicists believe the vastness of space and the possibility of other dimensions or “multiverses” suggests life on other planets is inevitable (the Milky Way alone may contain 100 billion stars), scientists are less likely to be convinced that aliens have made any type contact with Earth, much less visited here by spacecraft. In his famous “Life in the Universe” lecture, Stephen Hawking acknowledged that while there likely are many planets with life, “I discount suggestions that UFOs contain beings from outer space. I think any visits by aliens would be much more obvious and probably also much more unpleasant.”
Such skepticism, however, doesn’t dissuade those who cite their own eyewitness experience as evidence of alien life or, at least, proof of some sort of secret government military projects. “I’m still a believer,” said World UFO Day Festival speaker Lamar Todd, 67, a retired Memphis Police Department captain and former TACT squad officer whose widely reported 1977 encounter remains the city’s most famous UFO event. Todd said he and his partner were on patrol about 3 a.m. when they tracked a strange object in the sky that hovered over the power lines near the Norris Road exit of Interstate 240 in South Memphis. The object was triangular and long as a football field, with three lights on it. “There was no propulsion sound, no wind, no nothing.” The men watched it for close to four minutes, Todd said. Despite its size, once it moved, the triangle was gone over the horizon in an instant. “Whatever universe we’re in, we’re not the only ones here,” Todd said. “You can either believe it or not. All I can tell you is what I saw.”
World UFO Day Festival: 7 a.m.-11:30 p.m. Thursday, July 2, Pine Hill Park, 973 Alice. Free general admission; day pass guest speaker access, $10; balloon for environmentally friendly balloon release, $5; wristband for midway carnival rides, $10; golf tournament, $45. For additional information, call 731-599-2701, e-mail info@worldufodaymemphis.org , or go to worldufodaymemphis.org.
Source: John Beifuss, The Commercial Appeal, June 26, 2015.
