Reflections on a 1991 UFO Conference
Recollections of the 6th International UFO Congress Proceedings in 1991
Imagine, if you can, a time way back in the annals of UFO investigation when the research was more important than the researcher, when you could be assured that the UFO footage that you were looking at had not been computer generated, and when the Roswell Incident was more of a memory than an industry.
Such was the way of the world in August 1991 when I attended my first UFO conference in Sheffield, England.
Titled The 6th International UFO Congress Proceedings: UFOs: The Global View this three-day event featured some of the biggest names in research at that time; as well as some lesser-known figures As I recall, none of them proved to be anything less than utterly fascinating and totally professional in their presentation.
It is now some twenty-six years later and Phillip Mantle has republished the original ‘show notes’ from that event – and a terrific read it is too, for it not only informs but also highlights and exposes most of what is wrong in today’s world of UFO and alien research.
Does this document have any relevance today? Well, rather surprising perhaps for some, it does!
OK, so military black budgets, animal mutilations, Blue Avians and the rest were not a feature of the UFO landscape back in 1991…thankfully. To my mind these ‘commercialised’ aspects of extraterrestrial research which appear with tedious regularity on today’s conference circuit, have taken too many researchers off into a popularised world of YouTube ‘likes’ and blog clickbait.
As a refreshing antidote to all this, this publication acts as a powerful reminder that before the media spotlight turned on the personality and away from the message, the onus used to be upon the delegate to inform rather than entertain: for them to stimulate the minds of their audience rather than confirm ideologies.
1991 was not a perfect time in UFO research but it certainly was a genuinely exciting one, and the organisers that weekend created an event that encouraged me to get out there and find my own path through the deep and dark maze that is UFOlogy.
For that I remain eternally grateful.
A List of Delegates
The names of all those who presented at the event – along with their topics are as follows;
- Bertil Kuhlemann (Sweden): The UFO phenomenon and its meaning
- Cynthia Hind (Africa): To believe or not to believe
- Kathryn Howard (USA): On the edge of Earth
- Jenny Randles (UK): Crop circles – the search for an answer
- Paul Norman (Australia): UFO update from down under
- Thomas A Coote (Australia): The Jamestown incident
- Walter H Andrus Jr (USA): The Gulf Breeze sightings
- Thomas E Bullard (USA): Does folklore explain UFO abductions?
- Stephen J Gamble (UK): Computerising UFO data
- Odd-Gunnar Roed (Norway): Project Hessdalen
- Ken Phillips (UK): The anamnesis report
- Budd Hopkins (USA): What they’re doing to us
- Paul Vanbrabant (Belgium): The Belgian UFO wave
- A Close Encounter of the musical kind: Scottish rock band CEIV in concert
The 6th International UFO Congress Proceedings is a recommended document which all researchers working in the field today – as well as to those who seek a little authenticity in the subject, will find completely engrossing. It is available to purchase form Amazon.
