International UFO Congress Holds 28th Annual Conference in Downtown Phoenix
Article by Chelsea Hofmann September 8, 2019 (azcentral.com)
• In the first week of September, the International UFO Congress held its 28th annual conference and film festival at the Sheraton Hotel in Phoenix. The Guinness World Records lists it as the largest UFO conference. It contained five days of lectures including two dinner banquets, lunch workshops and a film festival that began the day before the conference.
• The Saturday panel addressed the question: “Mainstream Attitudes Toward UFO’s: Are UFOs now being taken seriously?” Panelist George Knapp said that attitudes have shifted dramatically in the media following the New York Times story in December 2017, making UFOs a more respectable topic to cover. Richard Dolan agreed, saying, “For the New York Times to cover UFOs in a way that’s not snarky, not insulting to our intelligence, which it always has been, that’s a sea change, and I don’t think they’re going to be able to go back to the old days.”
• But still, Dolan warned that these mainstream publications may have an agenda. “My take is that there are a faction of people who are motivated to promote their version of disclosure,” said Dolan during the panel discussion. Panelist Marc D’Antonio echoed Dolan’s concern, “I think that the truth really lies somewhere in the middle. I don’t think that the truth is being entirely told by any one news outlet.”
• Dolan also said that social media has skewed the topics discussed within the UFO community. “I think social media has somewhat ruined our ability to have a civil discourse, not just in ufology but in society in general, and in that kind of environment it’s very difficult to have a reasoned, careful, cautious examination of issues.” Knapp chimed in, “[E]verybody becomes an authority.” “Just because you’ve got a keyboard doesn’t mean you’re a journalist. Just because you file a FOIA request doesn’t mean you’re a journalist.”
• D’Antonio insisted that UFO research is not an actual science. “I think that we’re going to… solve (the UFO issue) with astronomers astrophysicists (and) with the assistance of NASA and the European Space Agency…” to determine “whether there’s life elsewhere.”
• [Editor’s Note] This conference is a good example of the rift occurring between separate factions of the broader UFO community. This Phoenix conference is made up of the more ‘conservative’ UFO researchers who still rely on the government, academic institutions, NASA, and the ESA to bring out the truth about UFOs and the extraterrestrial presence. Others, as represented at last month’s Dimensions of Disclosure conference in Ventura, California, don’t hold any faith in the government or NASA to assist in the disclosure of the truth. In fact, these progressive UFO researchers see the government and NASA as sources of disinformation, stagnating the progress of UFO/ET disclosure as they have done for the past 75 years. The revelations published in the NY Times and Politico, while intriguing, still portray only a limited disclosure which the government is willing to reveal. At this rate, it will take a hundred years for full disclosure to eventually reach the public. And this is the Deep State’s agenda.
The Sheraton Phoenix conference room filled with skeptics and believers alike Saturday, and all attendees were there to discuss the same topic: UFOs.
The International UFO Congress held its 28th annual conference and film festival Wednesday through Sunday in downtown Phoenix, which was named the largest UFO conference by Guinness World Records, according to the International UFO Congress website.
The conference hosts five days of lectures including two dinner banquets, lunch workshops and a film festival that began the day before the conference.
Attendees can participate in “Experience Sessions” hosted by a certified therapist, which provide a welcoming, safe environment for those who wish to share stories, as well as visit tables promoting healing energy, sacred geometry and psychic ability in the vendor room.
UFOs have become more respectable in news media
Experts in the field hosted the Saturday panel “Mainstream Attitudes Toward UFO’s: Are UFOs now being taken seriously?”
Panelist George Knapp said during the panel that attitudes have shifted dramatically in the media following the New York Times story, making UFOs a more respectable topic to cover and allowing other news organizations to go down the same path.
“Everyone seems to want in on it now,” Knapp, the chief investigative reporter for KLAS TV in Las Vegas, said in the panel discussion.
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