Roswell Festival 2026

 

For those interested, I was at the Roswell Festival over the July 4^th weekend. I look at this as an opportunity to connect with other UFO researchers and those who had UFO experiences. This year, among those there were Don Schmitt, Travis Walton, Kathleen Marden, Ben Hansen, Thom Reed, Frank Kimbler, Marc D’Antonio and Dennis Balthaser. Along with the individual presentations, there were panel discussions on the Roswell case and alien abductions.

The International UFO Museum and Research Center in Roswell.

Ironically, I sat in on the Abduction Panel with Travis and Kathleen. I was there to talk about the Hickson/Parker abduction from Pascagoula in 1973. What had impressed me about this case was there were witnesses to the abduction, four of them named in an Air Force document dated the next day. That underscored the validity of the report.

Kathleen mentioned that there were similar revelations about the Barney and Betty Hill case, meaning additional witnesses, not to mention the radar tracking from Pease AFB and an Air Force investigation that was less then reliable. She didn’t supply the names of the witnesses and I didn’t ask, which I should have.

She also mentioned there had been some updated work on the Marjorie Fish star map model that had been described by Betty Hill. Fish gathered astronomical data about the stars around our sun out to about fifty light years. It was Fish who discovered that the Zeta Reticuli star system might be the home world of some of the alien visitors.

Kathleen Marden

In the past, I had been critical of Fish’s work. It was an exceptional job, but the data she used was now out of date. Star system distances have been updated with some moving in and others moving out of her designed range. She also left out red dwarf stars because there are so many within fifty light years of Earth. Her thinking was there would be no reason to visit those systems, but our latest data suggests some of red dwarf systems are worthy of attention. I mention this here but it didn’t come up during the panel discussion.

One of the things about the festival is that you get to meet many people who have had UFO experiences. Of those, a man of about thirty-five or forty told me about seeing an object come out of the sea, hesitate for several seconds and then climb away at high speed. He was close enough to get a good look at it. He said the UFO was rounded, maybe more egg-shaped than circular and had a blue haze surrounding it.

I also talked with a guy who had seen a triangular-shaped UFO that hovered overhead for four to five minutes, before drifting to the west. As it began to move, an Air Force fighter appeared in the east. I’m not sure if that was coincidence or deliberate, but the presence of the fighter appeared to have caused the rapid acceleration of the UFO.

And I talked to a few people who had multiple sightings. In the Project Blue Book days, they would have been labeled as repeaters and their reports would be automatically rejected. One of the men talked of seeing glowing balls of light in the distance, somewhat reminiscent of the World War II Foo Fighters.

I always thought of the repeaters as being lucky. There was a man, not at the festival, who, according to the Guinness Book of World Records had been struck by lightning five times. The very definition of a repeater who proved that some people were in the right place (or in his case the wrong place) to make multiple sightings.

The point here is that it is never proper technique to dismiss a witness or evidence because of a personal bias. Some people have the luck and some don’t. I’ve said that my only possible sighting was a point of light in a polar orbit seen in early 1967. Given the timing, I don’t believe it was one of ours, meaning Earth based, but then it was just a point of light flying from north to south at a steady speed.

There was a panel discussion about the Roswell case but it didn’t dwell on the well-known aspects of it. There was a question about the destruction of classified material during that panel and a fact that was discovered by the search for documents. There is also the question about why documents of historical significance would be destroyed. Although there is talk of a nefarious purpose, I noted that as an intelligence officer, I had destroyed many documents. Most were irrelevant to my mission and others were out of date, requiring destruction.

I did note that those communications and documents created at the highest levels would have been preserved but without a proper name we might never find them. I mentioned a FOIA request I had submitted for a document. I had the name of the document, the name of the author, the name of the organization for which it was created and the date on the document. My request was refused because they wanted more specific information. It was an excuse to refuse releasing the material by fulfilling the requirements of the FOIA law without providing the requested information.

Maria Tellier, the MUFON New Mexico director gave a presentation on the 1964 Holloman UFO landing. The case was the alleged communication between one of the alien races visiting Earth and several high-ranking humans stationed at Holloman AFB. According to information published in UFO’s Past, Present and Future by Robert Emenegger in 1974, “The [base] commander and two officers, along two base Air Force scientists arrive [at the UFO landing site] and wait apprehensively. A panel slides open on the side of the craft.

“Stepping forward, there are one, then a second and a third – what appear to be men dressed in tight-fitting jump suits. Perhaps short by our standards, with an odd gray-green complexion, eyes set wide apart. A large, pronounced nose. They wear headpieces that resemble rows of a rope-like design.”

I mention all this for those who might not be aware of the rumored landing of a craft at Holloman Air Force Base. According to Emenegger, there is film of the landing. While I find the tale wild even by UFO standards, Tellier provided an interesting take on the story.

There were a wide range of other activities, most of which I didn’t attend. The festival has expanded beyond the research aspects of the Roswell case to become a celebration of alien visitation. Many of the businesses have an alien theme and one of the McDonald’s restaurants has a definite flying saucer aspect to it.

The Roswell Flying Saucer McDonal's Restaurant.

There were a costume contest, a 5K race and a parade. Main Street in front of the museum was closed off for vendors who provided a variety of food and other souvenirs. Of course, it was hot out in the street, so I stayed in the museum where there was air conditioning.

Main Street closed and filled with the vendors.

Finally, one comment. During Travis’s presentation, two young men who had a video camera and an agenda, interrupted the show to ask pointed questions. It was clear that they were looking for clicks and while it was Travis’s job to answer those questions, they should have waited until the presentation was over. The audience had no interest in their opinions. Sometimes those playing journalist seem to believe they are owed answers. In reality, they should have been interested in the truth rather than creating a video for clicks.

I had a very good time in Roswell. The staff of the museum was courteous and worked to make sure everything ran smoothly. The one unscripted presentation came when one of the speakers didn’t arrive. Don was asked to fill in, and I suggested we do something together. It had been a long time since we had been on stage together, but it worked well. As Don said later, “Just like old times.”

We have already talked about doing that next year.

And as a commercial message, I have a new UFO book to be published on August 25, called UFO Sightings and Alien Visitation. It is a book that follows my chasing footnotes, providing some solutions to UFO cases and underscoring the reality of others.