True UFO believers commune at San Jose conference

NOTHING WEIRD ABOUT PARANORMAL AT EXPO

By Barbara Feder Ostrov
Mercury News
San Jose Mercury News
Article Launched:08/26/2007 01:47:40 AM PDT

Say what you like about the people who believe in little green men - at least they have a sense of humor.

Consider, for example, the "What happens in Roswell, stays in Roswell" T-shirt worn by Tom Vance of Hollister while attending a UFO conference at a San Jose airport hotel Saturday.

Or the fact that conference co-producer and alien abductee Robert Perala says he's jokingly referred to as the "intergalactic Tony Robbins."

Or the (unattended) campaign table for presidential candidate Ron Paul, who appears to be seeking the E.T. vote.

Or, perhaps, the Official Tinfoil Hats - only $20! - for sale in the exhibit hall.

Roughly 1,200 seekers of all things extraterrestrial converged this weekend for the 9th annual Bay Area UFO Expo and the very latest in ufology, conspiracy theories, Tesla science, pranic healing, Sasquatch sightings and reptoids (reptilian aliens, and why not?). The two-day event ends this evening.

"The people who come here are very devoted to the science," said Perala, a Scotts Valley real estate investor who said his 1977 alien abduction set him on a lifelong course of extraterrestrial study and writing about his beliefs in benevolent "Pleiadians" who exist unseen among us. "This is a safe place to report the extraordinary things that happen to people.

"And for those who aren't believers," Perala added, "as long as they are asking deeper questions about the nature of mortality and the fact that they may not be alone, that's all right, too."

Inside the incense-scented exhibit hall, there were sequined velvet robes just perfect for Hogwarts and more healing crystals than you could shake a wand at. A wall of DVDs promised deeper knowledge of the coverups at Roswell, N.M., and the link between smallpox vaccinations and the mark of the Beast. Young men tossed LED-lit Frisbees that might look like unidentified flying objects - after a few beers.

In a corner, a man wanted to help people improve their life-force energy flow. At another booth, a hopeful entrepreneur stirred a cup of water with a special plastic wand, telling a small crowd that it would "break apart the ions" and make each sip healthier. "It's based on Nobel Prize-winning chemistry," he said. "Don't you want to be more hydrated?"

A highlight for Ramon Lechuga, a 27-year-old civil engineer from Bakersfield, was a speech by Dr. Stephen Greer, self-proclaimed alien abductee and founder of the Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence.

"He was awesome," Lechuga said. "I've always thought that aliens were real. But if they were intelligent, they'd have to be peaceful, otherwise they would have destroyed themselves with their advanced technology."

Brenda Denzler, an independent religious studies scholar from North Carolina, said many people who attend these types of conferences are on some type of personal quest.

"Sometimes they frame it in scientific pursuits, and sometimes they frame it in personal growth or a more religious type of framework," explained Denzler, author of "The Lure of the Edge: Scientific Passions, Religious Beliefs, and the Pursuit of UFOs."

For these people, space aliens are a 21st century alternative to what Denzler calls a "populated cosmos" that once was filled with the angels and demons and saints so integral to Western religions. "When science emptied that cosmos," Denzler said, "we began to seem very alone."

Tom Vance, he of the amusing Roswell T-shirt, can relate. He became interested in UFOs after seeing flying lights in Seattle and Pocatello, Idaho, in the 1960s.

"I push paper all day," said Vance, a 52-year-old clerk for PG&E. "To just sit here alone on this planet for 50 years to work and eat and die isn't much of a thrill to me. I sure hope we're not the only ones out there."