UFO Fest attendees showed up in style.
From tin-foil-clad attendees to cosmic speakers to bands full of believers, the second annual UFO Fest achieved a certain otherworldly effect.
Mayor JW Foster kicked off the festivities on Friday with a short speech. When he spoke, however, not many people had arrived at the event, so there was just minimal applause — but Foster took it in stride.
“Thank you for that nearly deafening applause,” Foster joked. “I’m going to let it die down a little bit — can you hear me now?”
With jokes aside, Foster jumped right into the purpose of his speech.
“I really do appreciate the fact that so many people worked hard to bring something new and exciting and fun to Yelm,” Foster said. “I don’t know who is going to show up, but I just want to take a quick poll. Let’s start with an easy (question): Who here is from Earth?”
He continued the poll, asking those in attendance if they were from some of the other planets in the solar system.
The Earthling vendors, as Foster would want to know, had a strong showing this year, starting with those that served food, and continuing onto the vendors who sold merchandise. All-in-all, the vendors covered nearly a third of the field with their tents and trucks.
The food vendors, which included The Cattlemen, a few snow-cone makers and an ice-cream truck, among other establishments, had much selection, with plenty of offerings that could help a person stay cool during the hot weather.
The other vendors were stacked with women’s merchandise, jewelry, apparel and other items.
Leonard Henderson sold collectible items including inflatable aliens and the like.
“I heard from a friend that last year (UFO Fest) was really good, so I figured we would come out here and sell some inflatables, drink a little beer and have some fun,“ Henderson said.
In addition, the event featured more than two dozen musical acts, and more that a dozen Cosmic Symposium speakers, that claim to be authorities on UFOs and the like.
Musician Steven Knopp of the group Altai, said he has seen UFOs with his own eyes.
“I’ve had several major sightings, starting from when I was in high school …” Knopp said. “I went to an art museum with a friend, and on the way back home, driving through rural Florida, … I looked off to the right and saw this huge orange glow.”
He said he knew the area very well, and knew that there should not have been any orange lights in the sky. So he told his friend to slow the truck down and the two observed this orange light. Knopp even asked his friend if he saw it too, of which his friend said yes.
“Then it raised up in the air, took off and was going parallel to the highway,” Knopp said. “So we took off and I mean, literally, we were chasing it going 70, 80 miles an hour.”
He said the orange light sped just above tree level, still parallel to the highway, for quite some time.
“It was very, very bright,” Knopp said. “This was not a man-made light. It was not an aircraft of our Earthly creation. It was moving quite fast and then raised up even higher.”
That’s when it blinked out of sight.
Knopp’s claims were accepted and celebrated at UFO Fest, just as the event welcomed non-believers as well.
