36 TH ANNUAL MUFON SYMPOSIUM … ANOTHER SUCCESS!

Symposium M.C., Tracy Austin-Powers, MUFON International Director, John Schuessler, and Symposium Orginizer, Lin Simpson on stage during the award ceremonies.

By Barry Roth, COMUFON News Co-Editor

The 2005 Mutual UFO Network symposium successfully supported its continuing theme from last year, “The Body of Technological Evidence.” The symposium, which was held in Denver from July 22 – 24 th, featured a variety of speakers presenting evidence concerning UFO crashes, alien implants, remote viewing, government cover-ups, lab analysis and an international perspective.

The evening started off with a reception for the benefactors followed by dinner. Afterwards, there was a panel discussion featuring, Stanton Friedman (nuclear physicist), Richard Dolan (historian) and John Schuessler (MUFON International Director). The discussion was moderated by Ken Storch (UFO investigator and Aurora, CO police officer). The thought provoking discussion set the stage for the upcoming array of speakers over the next two days.

The first speaker to kick-off the symposium was Scott Ramsey:

Scott Ramsey has focused the past 18 years tracking and documenting piece by piece the facts about the authenticity of the Aztec UFO Crash/Landing of 1948. Scott’s journey has taken him to travel 29 states interviewing sixty first and second hand witnesses. In addition, Scott has archived over 2279 Atomic Energy Commission and U.S. Air Force Documents including uncovering three secret radar bases. He has spent hundreds of hours at the alleged crash site on Hart Canyon Road comparing data collected from witnesses to physical evidence. Scott was astounded that this story was almost overlooked for more than 50 years. Thus, his journey to uncover the truth began.

Next was Phyllis Budinger:

A life long interest in the mystery of the UFO phenomenon was the impetus for Phyllis to establish a small laboratory dedicated to the study of physical traces related to UFO events. Frontier Analysis, Ltd. was launched in March 2000. Since then, the laboratory has examined numerous UFO trace samples from all over the world. These include samples from abductions, cattle mutilations, crop circles, UFO deposits, and angel hair. Some highly visible cases for which analyses have been provided include: soil traces from the Delphos Kansas landing event; bedding material from a 2002 alleged abduction case in Brazil; the dress Betty Hill wore the night of her abduction; and assorted samples from Stan Romanek’s unusual experience.

Tracie Austin-Peters spoke at lunch:

Tracie’s interest in UFOs first began in London, when she witnessed a UFO, an event that would later change her life. Her second daylight sighting occurred in Staffordshire in May of 1996. A profound sighting of a black, boomerang object that changes shape, was observed by other witnesses, and made a second appearance that day over her house. It was in June of 1996, that she hosted her first UFO conference, which became a m ajor success. Radio appearances followed, as well as articles in local newspapers and invitations to speak on the subject at various organizations. A second conference followed in 1998.

Research into the UFO phenomena has been an on-going process since her first sighting in 1987, and she has investigated some highly strange UFO activity. Personal sightings of UFOs continue to date.

After lunch Dr. Roger Leir presented information on implant removals:

As a challenge to prove the subject of Alien Implants was just fantasy, Dr. Leir volunteered to perform a surgery free of charge for the removal of two objects from the toe of a female who had a history of alien abduction. He was amazed when the biological and metallurgical findings proved these objects were possibly not from this earth. Since then, he and his surgical team have performed eleven surgeries and have submitted twelve objects for scientific analysis. He has written several books on the subject. He also appeared in the prime time NBC television documentary Confirmation in 1999 where he performed a surgery on camera and then submitted the recovered object to laboratories for analysis.

Dr. Leir believes there is an active campaign by non-terrestrials that abduct humans for some purpose not fully understood by most researchers. He wants to bring our theories into the laboratory and either prove or disprove their validity.

For an international perspective, Esen Sekerkarar presented UFO evidence from Turkey:

Esen Sekerkarar was born in Izmir, Turkey. She graduated from Istanbul University. Apart from her childhood interest, she got involved in the UFO field in 1998 with the opening of Sirius UFO Space Sciences Research Center (SUSSRC). She held the position of vice president in Sirius. SUSSRC is Turkey’s first center collecting all kinds of data on the subject throughout the country and conducting intense research on them. Esen presented first-hand pilot reports, police footage and computer analysis of UFO research and data from case studies.

Esen has translated UFO information into Turkish for the people of Turkey. She is also one of the three founders of the International UFO Museum, which opened in January 2002 in Istanbul.

Next up was UFO historian, Richard Dolan:

In 2000, Richard Dolan published a 500-page study, UFOs and the National Security State. This is the first volume of a two-part historical narrative of the national security dimensions of the UFO phenomenon from 1941 to the present. Included are the records of more than fifty military bases relating to innumerable violations of sensitive airspace by unknown objects, demonstrating that the U.S. military has taken the topic of UFOs very seriously indeed.

Dolan argues that the lies necessary to maintain UFO secrecy have more to do with the development and maintenance of privately held power than with public policy, and the ruling elite are very much interested in maintaining its monopoly of the exploitation of exotic technologies derived from the classified study of UFOs.

A documentary film and analysis of the Phoenix Lights was presented by Dr. Lynne Kitei:

Lynne Kitei, M.D. is an internationally acclaimed physician and health educator who recently pushed aside her successful medical career to pursue The Phoenix Lights book and Documentary project. In 1995, Dr. Lynne witnessed and photographed unexplained phenomena just yards from her home. She is considered the key witness to the still unexplained mass UFO sighting that took place throughout Arizona on March 13, 1997, where thousands of witnesses across the state reported a low flying, silent mile wide, V shaped formation of lights gliding over their heads. After seven years of investigative work, Dr. Lynne has come forward with startling photographic evidence and a documentary and book relating to the Phoenix Lights event and more.

To complete the first evening of speakers was one of the most recognized names in ufology, Stanton Friedman:

Stan takes a clear-cut unambiguous stand that some UFOs are alien spacecraft, that the subject of flying saucers represents a Cosmic Watergate, that none of the anti-UFO arguments made by a variety of noisy negativists stand up to careful scrutiny, and that we are dealing with the biggest story of the past millennium; visits to Planet Earth by alien spacecraft and successful cover-up by governments of the best data; alien wreckage and bodies recovered in New Mexico.

Stan indicated that the list of government agencies involved in the cover-up include the FBI, the NSA, the United States Air Force and many others. The press and certain other academic and scientific groups such as SETI have often blindly accepted information without any effort to get to the truth.

Sunday’s first speaker was Dr. Claude Swanson:

Speaker Claude Swanson at the Colorado MUFON table, manned by Assistant State Director Ed Burke, and the Colorado State Director, Leslie Varnicle. He lives locally and signed up as a Colorado Member

For the last fifteen years, interspersed with his conventional professional career in applied physics, Dr. Swanson has pursued investigations into “unconventional physics.” His principal interest has been unified field theory, the so-called “Theory of Everything” which could explain the universe at the deepest possible level. This has led him to investigate many aspects of the paranormal such as ESP, psycho kinesis (PK) and remote viewing. These forces behave unlike anything known to science. They do not weaken with distance, they penetrate all barriers, and they can move forward and backward through time. Measurements have been made demonstrating the external reality of the “astral body” during OBE and remote viewing experiments.

We moved straight on to our next presenter, Dr. Leo Sprinkle, Professor Emeritus from the Univ. of Wyoming:

Dr. Sprinkle spoke about the “Pros” and “Cons” of the ET presence. The “Cons” are the “confidence” people who try to con us into discounting or denying ET while the “Pros” are the professional ones who profess the reality of the ET presence. Has ET been with us throughout human history? Leo raised the question: are we former ET souls who have accepted the human challenge?

Following lunch, Elain Douglas, Utah’s co-state Director for MUFON, spoke about the UFO invisibility factor:

Elaine Douglass, M.S., has been a UFO researcher for 19 years. She presented sighting reports, witness testimony and a video suggesting that alien crafts have the capability to become invisible. Elaine presented data from WWII to the present illustrating invisibility to radar, optical invisibility and directional invisibility according to the angle of observation. She presented the 1989 Durea video which portrays a craft transitioning into and out of an optically invisible state. She proposed the bending of light in a gravitational field as a technical mechanism to account for UFO invisibility.

And last but not least, our final speaker was Paola Harris:

Paola Leopizzi Harris is an Italo American Journalist/researcher in the field of UFO research on paranormal phenomena. Her book, “Connecting the Dots”…making sense of the UFO phenomenon” demonstrates that everything in the universe is interconnected and that we are “not, nor have ever been alone” in the cosmos. Paola explained the importance of networking information worldwide to prepare humanity for disclosure. She reviewed notable cases such as her visit with Colonel Philip Corso, who was, according to Colonel Corso, closely involved with the Roswell debris recovery and distribution for R&D purposes. She also reported on the disclosure efforts of Monsignore Corrado Balducci and this year’s Italian TV coverage of the Travis Walton story.

Our next MUFON symposium will be in July of 2006. I imagine the theme will be a continuation of “The Best Technological Evidence” to be presented. Now if we could only get the U.S. government to give an honest presentation….

More Pictures....

Volunteers Joe Fex and Nick Rapp stand in front of some of the many great UFO pictures in Joe’s collection

Leo Sprinkle hugs COMUFON's Carolyn Lawrence

Symposium speakers Paola Harris and Lynne Kitei

Stan Romaneck talks with last year's speaker Stephen Basset and UFO reporter Rob Simone

Bob and Terry White with Lin Simpson and her dog Snoopy. Lin was in charge of organizing the Symposium, and the Whites managed the magnificent A/V.