On my way out of the Quinault Beach Resort and Casino after day 1 of the 2018 UFO/Paranormal summit, a young casino employee jokingly warned me to be careful. “Don’t get abducted on the way to the car,” he said with a snicker and a wink at his coworker.

I didn’t take the mockery personally, because I was there as a tourist of the UFO/Paranormal world, not a true member. It was a taste, however, of what “experiencers” (the name used to designate those that have directly experienced UFO contact) and general paranormal enthusiasts alike have to put up. And you know what? It’s a bunch of crap. Those UFO/Paranormal “nutters” are some of the best people you’ll ever meet.

The truth of the matter is that I went to the summit hoping to see a bunch of weird, eccentric people. The truth is also that this article would be sure to get more “likes” and “claps” and shares if I pretended that was the case and exaggerated the people I met and made fun of them. I’m not going to write that, though, not only because it’s not true but also because, after hearing what they had to say, I’m one of them, damn it.

The people I met at the UFO/Paranormal summit were some of the friendliest, most curious, down-to-Earth (pun intended) people I’ve ever met. It was a pleasure to share the conference room with them.

I didn’t meet any fanatics. Really, considering the current political climate, where formerly rational people fly off the handle at anyone who slightly disagrees with them, these people were refreshingly open-minded and moderate in their views.

They also were unafraid to laugh at themselves. Stuffed aliens, a big cardboard cutout where you could put your face in the face of an alien in a disco suit, and funny images such as the one seen to the left were all over the conference room. These people know damn well how they’re perceived by the outside world, and they accept it. In fact, I’d say most of them seemed proud to have the courage to explore outside the mainstream. That’s the kind of folks I met.

The lectures and presentations were fun and fascinating. Wildlife biologist Joe Hauser, who also runs the Montana House of Mystery, was my personal favorite presenter. He discussed energy vortexes and the possible connection they may have to paranormal phenomenon, of which UFOs are now widely considered to be another part of. It’s a view that was also supported by Portland, Oregon science teacher and bigfoot researcher Thom Powell.

This is complex stuff that is too complicated to go into at length here, but I strongly recommend that anyone interested check out the fellows mentioned above, as well as physicist Jacques Vallee. The general idea they all play with is that there are porous spaces in the fabric of reality in certain places around the world, and the things we call “paranormal” come through these porous spaces occasionally.

If that hypothesis is right, then UFOs, Bigfoot, ghosts, fairies, and all the myriad of other things we call “paranormal” are all actually part of the same phenomenon.

Some of the other presenters stuck with subjects that were more nuts-and-bolts types of things–the kind of simple “grey biological beings in metal spaceship” stuff you see in the X-Files.

Maureen Morgan, Washington state’s MUFON director, presented a very well-researched case to challenge the legitimacy of the recent government UFO disclosures. Morgan was passionately erudite in her presentation, slinging out referenced facts and biographies at breakneck speed. She practically had to be dragged off the stage, so caught up was she with this urgent need to get out what she had to get out.

Watching her, I decided that (1) she did indeed present some compelling information, and (2) she was the kind of person I wanted to hang out with, no matter if he ideas were right. She had real, earnest passion for her subject. How often nowadays do you find somebody like that? It was inspiring, to say the least.

So, I’m not going to give an extensive recap of the whole event here as it would take a few thousand words to do so. What I will say is that I had a great time at the UFO/Paranormal Summit, and I really look forward to hanging out with that crowd again.

In the meantime, I’ve got some research to catch up on. There be Bigfoot in them there hills, and the Northwest Nomad intends to find them.