UFOs in the East Village

by michael rundle / metro new york

JUN 22, 2007

EAST VILLAGE. New evidence has been uncovered that “proves” alien crafts crashed in the Nevada desert in July 1947, and were recovered by the military, a group of “alien abductees” and UFO investigators claimed yesterday.

The group made their case at the launch of “Culture of Contact,” a three-day festival of alien-themed films, talks and music at the Pioneer Theater on East 3rd Street.

“Skeptics, debunkers, get out of the pool. It’s over,” said William Birnes, publisher of UFO magazine. “This is it. Over.”

Birnes read from a newly released affidavit made in 2002 by Lt. Walter Haut, who was at the Walker Field base where the wreckage was allegedly taken 60 years ago. The memo describes a second crash site, 40 miles north of Roswell, where alien bodies and technology were captured by officials.

“Samples of the wreckage were passed around the table,” Birnes said, reading from Haut’s memo. “It was unlike any material I’d seen in my life. Pieces that resembled metal foil were paper thin yet extremely strong, and pieces with unusual markings.”

This new memo is final proof of the conspiracy, Birnes believes.

Festival organizer Jeremy Vaeini hopes the event will keep UFOs on the agenda.

“This event is about listening to different perspectives, and seeing what in all of this makes sense,” he said. “And making it clear that it is OK to talk about it.”

Vaeini was inspired by personal experience.

“In October 2001, I woke up with a spectacular, diffuse white light outside my window,” he said. “To my right appeared three gray beings — and I know this sounds crazy — they were wearing tunics.”

He was frightened.

“I was standing in a dark room, with rows of tables with naked humans laid out. The beings kind of gestured, as if to say, ‘this is what we do,’ and my fear went away,” he said. “I heard a female voice in my mind, and it said, ‘This is because you’ve always wanted to remember what an abduction was like.’”

Vaeini welcomes skeptics to this weekend’s event, but hopes attendees bring an open mind.

“If I was not the guy going through it, I would be making fun of it, too,” he said. “I get the ‘anal-probe’ stuff — it’s funny. But in the end you just have to get the joke and respect individual experience.”