{"id":6233,"date":"2019-03-12T08:04:17","date_gmt":"2019-03-12T13:04:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/?p=6233"},"modified":"2019-03-12T16:06:44","modified_gmt":"2019-03-12T21:06:44","slug":"search-for-truth-ufo-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/2019\/03\/12\/search-for-truth-ufo-conference\/","title":{"rendered":"Search for Truth: UFO Conference"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

UFO Conference\u2019s Search for Truth<\/h1>\n

by Joshua Heston<\/strong><\/p>\n

Eureka Springs, Arkansas. A cool April night. Across the valley, the outstretched arms of the \u201cmilk-jug\u201d Jesus reaches my way from East Mountain. The castle hotel balcony upon which I am sitting is known for a lady in white who dissolves in green mist as she plummets from the third floor.<\/p>\n

Westward, countless stars dance above southern pines whose top clusters appear cloud-like in the yellow light of the Crescent Hotel. The tree trunks are all but invisible and the black-green needles seem to float high above, detached in the darkness. Separate. Weird. Alien. What mysteries lurk in the stars? I wonder.<\/p>\n

Eureka Springs \u2014 eccentric, diverse, eclectic, you pick the adjectives from there \u2014 is a tiny Victorian community precariously nested between two mountains. This place has long been a strange mix of uproarious hillbillies, rich redneck tourists, hippie artists and LGBT activists. Eureka Springs has also been home to one of the nation\u2019s most popular UFO conferences, begun here in 1987 by the late Lucius O. Farish.<\/p>\n

Farish was a \u201cmetaphysical author, researcher and pioneer in hypnosis and past-life regression.\u201d The conference is a \u201cgathering place for top experts and investigators in the field of UFOs, extraterrestrials, lost civilizations, crop circles and otherworldly phenomenon.\u201d After Farish\u2019s death in 2012, Dolores Cannon and daughter Julia run the event.[\/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”6275″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]\u201cWould you like to try the orgone generator?\u201d says the short, heavy man with a Chicago accent. It is the next morning and I am making my way through the convention\u2019s crowded vendor floor. The \u201corgone-generator\u201d booth is wedged between the guy with a large copper plate plugged into a wall outlet \u2014 \u201cto help you ground your energy\u201d \u2014 and a vast, makeshift bookstore of Wicca how-to, alternative medicine and tarot card readings. I turn back to the man with the Chicago accent. He hands me a resin pyramid with shiny things inside. \u201cThese larger ones are cloud busters,\u201d he continues, \u201cand they keep away the grays, the drakes and the whites.\u201d<\/p>\n

I blink. \u201cThey keep away what?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAliens,\u201d he says as though it\u2019s manifestly obvious. \u201cThe grays, drakes and whites don\u2019t like orgone energy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clearly, I need to catch up.<\/p>\n

Broadly speaking, the UFO community is made up of two schools of thought: either aliens are real and are here to help us, or aliens are real and mean us great harm.<\/p>\n

\u201cI prefer to stay positive,\u201d explains Race Hobbs, founder of KGRA, an internet-based talk radio network. \u201cJulia Cannon and her mother Dolores work hard to keep things as positive as they can. There is a faction who believe these [aliens] are terribly evil. Julia is ever-mindful of the power of positive thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hobbs is a friendly bear of a man who grew up in Fort Smith, Arkansas. An on-air radio personality since 1985, he has a UFO story of his own.[\/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”6276″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]\u201cIt was 1990 and I was on the radio. A listener called me, said he was on a highway 10 miles from the studio, and there was an object over his car. He said the object looked like a black submarine with a blinding light in the front of it. I put the caller on hold, ran outside \u2014 the studio had a panoramic view of the valley \u2014 and I saw a sparking-bright, shimmering light about 30 degrees off my horizon, floating from right to left. The light looked like a welders\u2019 arc.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter that I started a little research investigation group and [also] joined the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON).\u201d<\/p>\n

Later that day, the positive thinking took a leap upwards during author Whitley Strieber\u2019s lecture. The darkened room was packed as I settled into a back row.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are coming slowly along, struggling with our gravity,\u201d Strieber was saying. \u201cLook at them! What they hell they must think we look like?\u201d In the grainy video, tall white aliens with bulging heads walk gangly-legged into view. The crowd inhales as one and begins murmuring to one another. Whitley continues, \u201cIsn\u2019t it amazing? And quite wonderful.\u201d There is soft laughter. Heads nod in affirmation. I feel as though I\u2019m watching a surreal nature show. The poofy-headed aliens gander off as I try to rein in my skepticism.<\/p>\n

Strieber\u2019s book Communion<\/em> was his \u201ctrue story\u201d of an \u201celaborate personal encounter with intelligent nonhuman beings.\u201d Stacks of his best-selling books are available for sale. \u201cOld thinking says there are aliens from this planet or that,\u201d he furthers. \u201cNew thinking is the human mind winking back from the dark. This is real power. Trust it.\u201d<\/p>\n

I resist the urge to snicker.[\/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”6277″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]Nick Pope, freelance British journalist and former British Government\u2019s Ministry of Defense (MoD) employee explains, \u201cIt is a bizarre mix. There are fantastically intelligent, insightful people asking hard questions. There are true believers with their minds made up. Sometimes they are fearful. On the other side are those with a New Age approach \u2014 our galactic brothers and sisters making crop circles and reaching out to us in a happy-clappy way.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people think I\u2019m the bad guy. Many think governments around the world know the truth about UFOs. Hand on my heart, the British government does not know and we don\u2019t have a spaceship hidden away. But the MoD investigated about 12,000 sightings and had around 60,000 pages on the subject. Why are our own pilots seeing these things? Why can we track them on radar? I\u2019m not saying they are alien but this is more than weather balloons and swamp gas.\u201d<\/p>\n

For John Burroughs, former US Air Force, the questions are more personal. Burroughs was stationed at RAF Woodbridge in Suffolk, England on December 26, 1980. Strange lights were seen in the nearby Rendlesham Forest. Burroughs and others were sent to investigate. \u201cDifferent people saw different things,\u201d he says. \u201cI saw a red oval object with blue, orange and white lights within it. Another saw an oval object that exploded into a triangle object.\u201d Burroughs was later diagnosed with heart failure as a result of UAP radiation exposure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a stigma to [those] who attend UFO conferences,\u201d explains Micah Hanks, author and personality of The Gralien Report and Mysterious Universe. A Dr. Who aficionado and bluegrass guitarist, Hanks\u2019 North Carolina accent is evident as he speaks. \u201cYou\u2019ll hear people laughing about tinfoil hats but the people I interacted with during the conference included a present government employee and a chemist.[\/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”975″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]\u201cAnd then there are hard-core UFO researchers like David Marler who say, \u2018Let\u2019s focus on what we have observed. On that, the consensus is there appears to be a phenomenon that is at times dismissed by science.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marler was also presenting so I settled into the back row again, this time for a lecture on \u201cThe UFO Invasion of 1950: Farmington, New Mexico.\u201d As Marler began sharing his research, a few New-Agey attendees looked bored.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the third day, flying saucers were reported over Farmington. Fully half of the population saw anywhere from \u2018several\u2019 to \u2018more than 500\u2019 UFOs. Some [UFOs] appeared to play tag. Some were seen streaking away at high speeds. Some were estimated to be \u2018twice the size of a B-29.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Marlo Webb, a 91-year old former Navy pilot, told Marler, \u201cThese things were clustered, pretty much in formation, with 15 to 20 in one cluster. They looked like saucers. I looked northwest and they were flying east to west [against the wind]. There was no noise, no contrails. They made course changes abruptly. I thought they were under intelligent control.\u201d<\/p>\n

Official explanations would include a burst Skyhook balloon or floating desert milkweed blossoms.<\/p>\n

As the slides conclude, Marler invited Virgil Riggs of Aztec, New Mexico, to the podium. Riggs was in third grade in 1950 and would grow up to become a military and commercial pilot.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a blanket of dots traversing the sky, southwest to northeast, first over Farmington, then Aztec,\u201d said Riggs without fanfare.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe formation was very geometric, like dominos. Shiny, silvery dots, nine or 12 in formation, extra dots floating around. The next day you couldn\u2019t count them all. They were stable and slow-moving and at airline level, 13,000 to 30,000 feet. There were high cirrus clouds the first day. The second day was very clear and they stood out vividly. The third day there were a lot less, probably 30 of these squares. Then we never saw them again. I remember the teacher crying. We [students] were disappointed when they didn\u2019t come back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chillingly, a similar event was recorded on April 14, 1561, over Nuremberg, Germany.[\/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”1328″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]Shaken, I headed downstairs to talk to Larry Cekander, owner of the \u201cMuseum of the Unexplained\u201d in Reeds Spring, Missouri. His booth\u2019s centerpiece is a tapered, aluminum blob called the \u201cRosetta Stone of UFO physical evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cekander is a heavy man in a black biker jacket and airbrushed t-shirt. Behind him, an eight-foot green alien is slowly deflating. \u201cWould you blow that back up?\u201d he asks his granddaughter and then turns his attention to me.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve worked with metal all my life,\u201d he explains, \u201cand the first time I saw the object, I knew it was like nothing I\u2019d ever seen. The scaling effect is only possible if the alloy is molten in a vacuum. The alloy is made of 33 elements. Normal aluminum has nine to 11.\u201d<\/p>\n

He hands me the artifact and it is surprisingly heavy. \u201cIt is radioactive,\u201d says Cekander. I must look startled. He laughs. \u201cBut at safe levels. Otherwise we\u2019d glow in the dark and parts would be falling off. I\u2019m not as dumb as I look!\u201d<\/p>\n

Cekander produces pages of documents showing graphs, charts and metallurgy data from numerous labs, including Los Alamos. His friend Bob White \u2014 a performer who moved to Branson from Kansas City \u2014 was the metal blob\u2019s first owner. White, killed in a car accident in 2009, said he found the metal after an apparent 1985 UFO disaster in Colorado.<\/p>\n

\u201cBob saw a light the size of a three-story building. It took off, connected with two stacked lights, there was an explosion, and this piece came back to where the big light started. That\u2019s his sworn affidavit. He passed four polygraph tests.\u201d[\/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”6278″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]The green alien behind Cekander is going flat again, the thing\u2019s head drooping on the railing. I think of the radiation and gingerly place the metal blob back on display. It\u2019s awe-inspiring to think this lump could be from outer space and crafted by extraterrestrials but I know nothing of metallurgy. There\u2019s no way I can determine the authenticity of the scalloped bit of shiny there on the table. I\u2019m sure there are labs confirming certain bits of data just as I\u2019m sure there are experts decrying this object as a hoax.<\/p>\n

But the experts could be lying, says a voice in my mind. The world becomes darker, less defined. Am I becoming the \u201cother people\u201d I was snickering at a few moments ago?<\/p>\n

\u201cBe careful! If you\u2019re nice to us your friends are gonna laugh,\u201d cautions Chase Kloetzke. Kloetzke is a spunky firebrand and former employee with the Department of Defense. Her husband is active duty Navy. A certified private investigator, she is unapologetic about her work. \u201cI investigate UFOs. People at receptions look at me and go, \u2018You do what?\u2019 It\u2019s politically correct to roll your eyes and not be the guy who believes in aliens. But in private, I\u2019ll be darned how many times I\u2019ve been told of sightings.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a career killer,\u201d explains Hobbs. \u201cPilots won\u2019t come forward. The government made interest in UFOs out to be cooky. They wanted to suppress the information. But a small portion really knew the truth. They had experienced events themselves and chose to believe their own eyes rather than the government. I\u2019ve seen people ridiculed after they are exposed to an encounter. They may be doctors, ditch diggers, teachers, and they are completely derailed. Everything they believed or understood to be reality is gone.\u201d[\/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”6279″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]Perhaps it really is Erich von D\u00e4niken\u2019s fault, I muse. I\u2019m sitting in the conference center\u2019s main room, eating a raspberry pastry. One table over, D\u00e4niken \u2014 best-selling Swiss author and keynote speaker \u2014 is being plied for autographs by three teenage boys. The 80-year old is the biggest celebrity here. His 1968 book Chariots of the Gods was a game-changer for the UFO community. In the book, he postulated the \u201cancient alien hypotheses,\u201d saying aliens visited earth during antiquity, shared technology and impacted numerous cultures.<\/p>\n

\u201cChariots of the Gods was permission to ask questions that couldn\u2019t be asked,\u201d explains Kloetzke before going on to share her own 2010 alien encounter in central Tennessee.<\/p>\n

\u201cA witness \u2014 a MUFON case \u2014 had reported lights. I felt he was credible. He called me and said, \u2018Things are starting\u2019 so we hurried out there. I step out of car and he\u2019s already pointing up. All of a sudden I see these little points like stars, but they would move into formation, make little independent dances, then shoot off in different directions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe go into a cornfield down the road and he got really excited, saying, \u2018Here it comes!\u2019 This time I saw a brighter white light. Then \u2014 bing, bing \u2014 two more lights show up. I realize it is a huge triangle flying overhead. I\u2019m snapping my camera and nothing is happening. The equipment came back on after the triangle had passed.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of a sudden, I said, \u2018Does anybody feel like we\u2019re being watched?\u2019 I felt this fear \u2014 it\u2019s hard to describe because it was physical, fight-or-flight times a thousand \u2014 in every cell of my body. I turned and started running. The witness and other investigator began running at the exact same time.[\/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”6280″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]\u201cWe\u2019re hauling and suddenly \u2014 bam! \u2014 I hit the witness in front of me. He said, \u2018What the f\u2014k is that?\u2019 His flashlight beam was on a little gray being not six feet from us. He looked between three and three-and-a-half foot tall. His legs were so tiny. The eyes were almond-shaped but they weren\u2019t cute. It didn\u2019t flinch when the light hit it. And then we ran again! It was embarrassing. I was a trained professional but it felt as though there was some kind of hive mind or control happening. We went back and there was not a single footprint in the muddy field except ours.\u201d<\/p>\n

The hair on the back of my neck kept standing up and the life-size alien doll in the corner wasn\u2019t helping. The world had gone topsy-turvy \u2014 but maybe for the better. We are social creatures ever in search of a herd. Society provides safety as long as we conform. Experts, the leaders of society, say extraterrestrial experiences are hoaxes, weather balloons, swamp gas, or overactive imaginations.<\/p>\n

Provable or not, these conference-goers\u2019 experiences have changed them, forcing them from the safety of the herd and making them vulnerable to ridicule and marginalization. And so they gather in Eureka Springs each April to talk, listen, and hope.<\/p>\n

Do I believe? I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

But I do know our world is better because the questions are being asked and because we\u2019re still willing to listen.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Originally published April 2017<\/em>[\/vc_column_text][vc_separator][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

Story Credits:<\/h2>\n

[\/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/4″][vc_single_image image=”1342″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

Race Hobbs<\/strong>
\nKGRA Radio<\/strong><\/p>\n

[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/4″][vc_single_image image=”1345″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

Nick Pope<\/strong>
\nAuthor, Journalist<\/strong><\/p>\n

[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/4″][vc_single_image image=”1346″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

John Burroughs<\/strong>
\nRetired USAF<\/strong><\/p>\n

[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/4″][vc_single_image image=”1347″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

Micah Hanks<\/strong>
\nThe Gralien Report<\/strong><\/p>\n

[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/4″][vc_single_image image=”1349″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

Larry Cekander<\/strong>
\nMuseum of the Unexplained
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/4″][vc_single_image image=”1350″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

Chase Kloetzke<\/strong>
\nUFO Investigator
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/4″][vc_single_image image=”1351″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

David Marler<\/strong>
\nUFO Researcher
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/4″][vc_single_image image=”1352″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

Whitley Strieber<\/strong>
\nAuthor, Lecturer
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] UFO Conference\u2019s Search for Truth by Joshua Heston Eureka Springs, Arkansas. A cool April night. Across the valley, the outstretched arms of the \u201cmilk-jug\u201d Jesus reaches my way from East Mountain. The castle hotel balcony upon which I am sitting is known for a lady in white who dissolves in green mist as she…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6274,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[180,952,582],"tags":[1063,1064,141,1068,1060,1066,1062,1061,1069,1058,1059,1056,1057,1070,1071,1067,1065],"class_list":["post-6233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arcaneozarks","category-eurekaspringstoday","category-sotoarchive","tag-chase-kloetzke","tag-david-marler","tag-eureka-springs","tag-gralien-report","tag-john-burroughs","tag-kgra-radio","tag-larry-cekander","tag-micah-hanks","tag-museum-of-the-unexplained","tag-nick-pope","tag-race-hobbs","tag-ufo","tag-ufo-conference","tag-ufo-investigator","tag-ufo-researcher","tag-usaf","tag-whitley-strieber","category-180","category-952","category-582","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6233"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6282,"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6233\/revisions\/6282"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}