This year's UFO Expo West played out a few weekends ago at the Wyndham Hotel near the always lovely LAX airport. My favorite radio talk show host Don Ecker was there with his wife, UFO Magazine editor Vickie Cooper Ecker. I stocked up on back issues then proceeded to the International Ballroom to hear KLAS reporter and anchorman George Knapp vent for 40 minutes about the mudslinging, in-fighting, back-stabbing and unscientific research being performed in the name of the "emerging science" of UFOlogy. Next up was Ukrainian UFO researcher and liaison to threatened researchers in Russia Paul Stonehill, and Jess Fritch, a northern California MUFON member who claimed to have the inside dope on a bevy of black budget aircraft and "electrogravitics."
The walk down the dealer's room began promisingly enough, with the aforementioned UFO Magazine table and UFO Central's stacks of tempting documentaries, but as I wound around, things began to get curiouser and curiouser. Bootleg Schwa-heads were everywhere, on T-shirts, buttons, hats, stickers. Crystals hung from skeletal banzai trees. Aura photography, tantric massage, abductee therapy and green algae were packed shoulder-to-shoulder with the usual collection of xeroxed packets about "MJ-12," "Krill," "Area 51," etc. It was just what you'd expect, which is a part silly, part serious potpourri of anything and everything relating (however remotely) to UFOs. Ah, well.
Lurking in the shadow of special guest Whitley Strieber were a few legitimate researchers with an actual story to tell. George Knapp recently returned from Russia where he found a number of enthusiastic researchers despite crushing poverty and continent-wide social and political confusion. I was so impressed by his lecture (see above) that I paid $25 bucks to go to his "workshop" where he told his story and showed excerpts from the documentary series he produced for KLAS news in Las Vegas. Though I took notes, I could never do him justed by trying to summarize it here. I'm going to attempt to interview him, so check this site for a future piece on Mr. Knapp.
MUFON member and self-avowed former NASA employee, Jess Fritch alleges that the air force already has a fully-operational flying disk powered by "electrogravitics" systems originally developed by Thomas Townsend Brown. I must confess to a shaky understanding of the math behind this notion, but for $2.00 you can buy a little booklet that explains it all (I did, anyway). Fritch also provided STS-48 footage, hypothesizing that the objects are being tested against rail gun weaponry. Is this the real Star Wars? Fritch alleges that the "electrogravitic disk" has a cruising speed of 40,000 miles per hour with literally its own gravity (no G-forces for pilots to battle). Here's to hoping that if Fritch is right, the military's little secret doesn't stay secret for long (but I'm not gonna hold my breath waiting.)
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