Headlining the event was Donald Schmitt, author of numerous books on the Roswell Incident. Before him, Thomas Wertman, state director of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), set the stage by walking the audience through the work he does investigating reported UFO sightings.
“Since 2008, I have done 896 investigations in the US; 239 in Canada, the United Kingdom, Puerto Rico and other countries out there, and there’s others I did that I didn’t count on the list. But I just got fascinated with the subject out there,” Wertman said.
The former educator described the incident that first inspired him to research UFOs. For him, it was a chance encounter with what he described as a “disc” while a teenager in the 1960s.
“I look up and there in the trees I see this silver disc hovering right there. It was the size of a car, low enough to hit the trees. And as we’re walking its following us,” Wertman explained, describing the incident that occurred in rural South Carolina.
Wertman told a captivated audience that he would go on to dive deep into the subject, including reading books by broadcaster Frank Edwards. Years later, he joined MUFON as an investigator.
With a graph created using data from MUFON, Wertman demonstrated how spikes in UFO reports can sometimes be driven by TV shows. In one case, UFO sightings in Ohio jumped significantly the year Hangar 1: The UFO Files began airing.
According to Wertman, MUFON classifies investigated sightings under several categories ranging from manmade identified flying objects such as planes to hoaxes. Investigations are typically carried out using the most accessible technology available.
“I have tools that investigators fifty years ago would have loved to have,” Wertman stated. “A witness calls a report in I can go on Google Earth, put the address in and review the terrain before I ever go out there.”
Other applications used include Stellarium and LiveATC. Through them, the MUFON state director is able to gather evidence that can at times provide rational explanations to reported sightings.
“I’ve got the ability to pull up flight data. I can go back about two-and-a-half to three years of flight data. I can also import that flight data into Google Earth to get three dimensional perspectives of what I was looking at,” he said.
During his presentation, Wertman shared data collected by MUFON in 2023 that showed California led the nation in the number of UFO cases reported at 729 that year. Florida was second with 504 cases while Ohio was fifth at 299 cases during the same period. According to Wertman, the dominance of the two coastal states is due to their weather, with residents of California and Florida spending more time outdoors.
“I tell people honestly 70, 80, 90 percent I can probably explain. It goes back to something that you can find data behind to support your opinion. But then there’s that 10-20 percent, that’s what I really want to go after.”
Schmitt was given a rockstar welcome before recounting his efforts to investigate the Roswell incident of 1947.
“I’ve actually interviewed over 600 witnesses either directly or indirectly involved with what happened in New Mexico, what started all this back in 1947,” he said to an enamored audience.
Other speakers for the day included author Ben Moss and Mike Bara from the TV show “Ancient Aliens” who attended via Zoom.
For fans of anything extraterrestrial the conference proved to be a veritable buffet of ufology. While there wasn’t much for skeptics, it was a rare occasion where believers in cover-ups and alien abductions could confer in real life.
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