Fear and Loathing at MUFON PA

Reflections on My First UFO Conference, Western Pennsylvania MUFON 2024

My first UFO conference did not go as smoothly as anticipated. Spurred on by a veteran researcher who advised me to start going to meetings of paranormal groups in order to gain a better understanding of the milieu, I decided I would attend the 16^th Annual Pittsburgh MUFON conference—the closest regional gathering to my home. While I may come across as a UFO/paranormal junkie of sorts, I really don’t engage with the subject much outside of my research (where I try to be more of a curious observer) and in conversations with a select group of friends. I am naturally a bit of an introvert, but the conference experience was not something I had avoided, more being something I did not actively seek out. There is also the fact that while I do not consider myself to be much of a debunker, many of the people at this conference would certainly view me as such if by some wild chance they had read my work. I approached the event with the intention of being a fly on the wall but not avoiding conversation should it arise.

In the months prior, I ordered tickets for the speakers online. Realizing that the evening dinner Q&A with the speakers was a separate ticket, I emailed asking if I needed to pay for the combined ticket or order a dinner ticket separately. I was told—in rather short responses without much elaboration—that I could buy tickets for the dinner on the day of the event itself, in cash. Waking up on a Saturday morning, earlier than my 9-to-5-adjusted body liked, I began the 45-minute trek to Westmoreland Community College in Youngwood, PA. I had no issues with my online ticket and was all set for entry to the nearly 7 hours of lectures advertised. I was told, however, by the person at the ticket table that “John” had informed them that there were no dinner tickets left. Not the greatest start, to be disappointed within minutes of arriving, but—I thought—it was going to be a full rich day regardless. No dinner buffet with a Q&A was no big deal.

The John that had informed the personnel at the entry that I would receive no meal ticket was John Ventre, former State Director of MUFON for Pennsylvania—former being the operative word here. Ventre received nationwide coverage in 2018 when a particularly racist Facebook post prompted a sizeable exodus from the UFO research organization, one in which he decried Netflix airing a show “that promotes white genocide.”¹ He included racist modes of thinking in his post that I was previously unfamiliar with, imploring readers to: “Google serotonin by race, IQ by race and violent crime by race and then compare that to the F’ing (sic) message the media portrays.”² As my late friend Jimmy Falun Gong would say, Ventre is damn near to the point of “busting out the calipers” when it comes to his nonsensical racism. Despite this history, John Ventre remains the main player and organizer for this MUFON chapter’s annual conference—much to the bafflement of some on Twitter. I have heard through the grapevine that he gives the organization too much money to be phased out completely, even though he was responsible for “a wave of researchers (…) distancing themselves” from MUFON.³ He was brimming with energy throughout the conference, the event clearly meaning much to him. He appeared to be the individual in complete control of the proceedings, letting speakers know when to go on and serving as an emcee of sorts. While it was a strange world that I had walked into—even for me!—I took my seat and told myself to be optimistic.

The first talk, given at 9:15 in the morning, was like a shot of schizophrenic adrenaline. The speaker, James Krug, covered a broad swath of topics under the sensational banner “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”—only partially related to the movie of the same name. Beginning with a strange direct comparison between mind-controlling parasitic insects and the opioid crisis, it soon became a grab bag of conspiratorial delirium. At a basic level, it was about various hypothetical humanoid races who have a vested interest in hiding amongst humanity while using them for their own devices. Krug revealed during his presentation that he had worked as a MUFON field investigator under John Ventre and wrote a chapter in one of Ventre’s books. An Altoona, PA high school astronomy teacher by day, his presentation style bore all the hallmarks of this occupation. He delivered his lecture professionally and accessibly but was stretched for time when the conference got rolling 15 minutes late. This would not have been an issue, were it not for the whiplash-inducing bevy of topics and his not always crystal-clear conclusions. For an indication of the wavelength this speech operated on, I jotted down Krug’s references to: Reptilian tunnels in Los Angeles, a collection of classic shape-shifter YouTube videos, Aleister Crowley & LAM, globalist eugenics, the Georgia Guidestones, alien abduction, indigo children like Bariska, Donald Marshall, MKULTRA, the Vril Society, black eyed children, and the black eye club. Of particular interest to me was his invocation of abduction researcher David Jacobs who in recent years has been criticized for asking leading questions during hypnosis sessions and having dubious conduct with abductees. One patient in particular, Emma Woods, was instructed to wear a chastity belt and give Jacobs her used underwear, ostensibly for evidence of ET abduction.⁴ He even tried to hypnotically suggest to Woods that she “had Multiple Personality Disorder during an ill conceived, convoluted and rather unbelievable plan to deceive the (extraterrestrial/human) hybrids” who were supposedly abducting and stalking her.⁵ Krug mentioned Jack Brewer’s important book, The Greys Have Been Framed, as an attack piece on Jacobs without mentioning any of instances of Jacobs’ serious transgressions. Not a great tone to start the day with, ignoring the bad behavior of an abduction researcher to maintain the sanctity of a sprawling tinfoil hypothesis.

William J. “Bill” Birnes, co-author of the contentious UFO classic, The Day After Roswell, gave an equally mind-bending lecture on the Hill abduction, Colonel Philip J. Corso’s wild claims of captured extraterrestrial technology, as well as the assassinations of JFK and Marilyn Monroe. Birnes is another former teacher and had no slideshow presentation prepared, spinning out a long and complex tale with an entertaining candor by memory alone—nearly all of it unprovable. Robert Skvarla heard a similar story from Birnes at a Bucks County paranormal conference, with some details that did not make it to the Pittsburgh version: Birnes claimed that “America won its independence thanks to extraterrestrial intervention,” elaborating that “at Valley Forge, Washington spoke with an alien in white, flowing robes which laid out his battle plan for him.”⁶ The tale at my conference was (slightly) more grounded, involving a meth-addicted JFK who was murdered for telling Marilyn the truth about a back-engineered flying saucer from Roswell. While told with gusto, Birnes’ story has been doubted by many since The Day After Roswell was released in 1997. Corso, his co-author, had previously worked as an American liaison for Nazi ratlines⁷ and disseminated disinformation “linking Oswald and Ruby to Communists” in the aftermath of the JFK assassination. Peter Dale Scott writes that Corso “was (…) a foe of the CIA from the right” and a member of “a secret right-wing group, the ‘Shickshinny' Knights of Malta’” based out of Pennsylvania.⁸ The Knights “provided a home to dissident retired military officers dissatisfied with the CIA’s internationalism” and they used their “connections inside the official intelligence world” to stir up anti-communist fervor.⁹ But Corso’s claims are rarely viewed with his hard-right bent in mind, especially by Bill Birnes, and these ufological connections to right-wing secret orders appear to remain strong into the present. Birnes was the big draw for this conference, indicative of the fact the ufology has gained shockingly little ground in over two decades—more likely even longer.

William J. Birnes awes the crowd at the 16th Annual Pittsburgh UFO Conference with a story covering crashed saucers, alien abductions, and political assassinations. (I am not a photographer, forgive me.)

Event organizer John Ventre, armed with Templar robes, a mock Spear of Destiny, and a red “Make Ufology Great Again” hat, gave a presentation titled “The Possession of Hitler”—certainly a worrying title given the credibility he lends to the neo-Nazi white genocide myth.¹⁰ In a thick east coast accent, Ventre spoke on Hitler being demonically possessed due to his engagement with the occult throughout his life. He touched on the Ahnenerbe and various other secret societies—the Vril myth included—before eventually winding to the conclusion that most alien abductions, cattle mutilations, and even present UFO sightings are military in nature. Like other speakers at the event, everything else to do with ET/humanoid phenomena was considered demonic or satanic. An early version of the presentation with seemingly little alteration can be found on his YouTube channel, so it’s good to know I got my 29 dollars’ worth. More concerningly, Ventre’s presentation, much of which I have heard from other sources, was marred by political ranting. He claimed early on that he was tired of Christians turning the other cheek, instead wanting them to adopt a “Christian warrior” persona. He decried the dirty tricks played by the Pennsylvania political establishment that prevented him from effectively running for office as a “more Trump than Trump” Republican. He has previously made several unsuccessful political bids using the phrase “Never Socialist” as his slogan. He even “fund(ed) a billboard along Route 119 with the moniker (…) for more than a year to show his support of” Donald Trump after he lost the 2020 election.¹¹ You must excuse my reticence to accept the message of a person with this platform who remarks during his MUFON presentation that Europe is being overrun by migrants while also proudly displaying crusader armor.¹² The association between modern-day crusader lovers and neo-Nazis is not exactly hidden.¹³ Somewhat heartening, many of the younger members of the audience couldn’t help but chortle when he claimed that “today’s kids don’t work,” that there is no evidence for evolution, and that the modern-day progressive movement has pagan characteristics—whatever that means. I am unsure if Ventre heard the laughter or knew the reasons for it. The presentation wound up being quite unfocused, to the extent that it feels difficult to write about. More egregiously, sometime in the first three quarters of the talk, I wrote “is this even about UFOs?” in my notes.

Continuing the trend of the demonic explanation for UFO/ET encounters was Joe Jordan, co-founder of the CE4 Research Group. Jordan professed to going from an “agnostic humanist” to a New Age practitioner before settling on approaching the UFO topic from a Christian angle. Through his research, he has apparently found that alien abductions can be prevented by calling out in Jesus Christ’s name. Jordan’s presentation seemed heartfelt, despite my own reservations on treating abduction phenomena spiritually, but his approach is neither scientific nor truly investigatory—he only requests experiencer stories from those who prove his thesis. Regardless, Jordan’s Christian-tinged sermon differed from Ventre’s in important ways: There were no moments of irrelevant political ravings, there was an emphasis on experiencers and the findings of past researchers, and the topic of the presentation was actually UFOs. I bought a copy of Jordan’s book, Piercing the Cosmic Veil, on the promise of oodles of experiencer testimony. Do I think his reading is correct—that alien abductions are cases of demonic possession? No. However, Jordan’s supposed success at preventing abductions via invocation of Jesus Christ might be further indicative of a spiritual want in American life.

Fellow researcher Robert Skvarla wrote a piece in Contingent Magazine about his experiences at a remarkably similar conference, the inaugural Bucks County Para-Con. Sharing many of the same speakers with the MUFON PA conference, such as James Krug and Bill Birnes, Skvarla’s conclusions in many ways mirror my own. “The event, ostensibly a survey of all things spooky (…), was in fact a glimpse into the cosmic rites of paranormal America,” he writes. “America is rapidly changing into a country where we worship strange gods.”¹⁴ Indeed, I was surprised by the amount of proselytizing I was subjected to, expecting the genuine investigation that one might find in the MUFON handbook. More along these lines of inquiry were the two presentations I enjoyed the most—those of Teri Lynge-Kehl and Dr. Raymond A. Keller (aka Cosmic Ray).

Lynge-Kehl gave a relatively straightforward account of her spontaneous healing by a feathery-scaled reptilian being who applied a two-pronged instrument that looked like an octopus tentacle to her abdomen. This bizarro technology alleviated pain in her stomach that had been present since a major surgery. While she believed her experience to be spiritually relevant, her speech seemed more clearly focused on the details of the encounter and the subsequent investigation—a mode of inquiry that I find more fruitful and accessible. Now, whether I trust a MUFON-run lab to accurately tell me whether or not a swab from her encounter had giant tegu lizard DNA on it… That’s another matter altogether.

Cosmic Ray was a blast from the contactee past, giving a lecture on the life of contactee Howard Menger and his connections to Valiant Thor, the Venusian from Frank E. Stranges’ Stranger at the Pentagon. Keller, like Bill Birnes, is a former professor and had a lively presentation containing impressive source material such as letters and inscribed photographs from numerous individuals in the contactee scene. Archival material was quite sorely lacking in other lectures. While I would not consider myself a believer in benevolent Venusian beings interacting with people on Earth, Dr. Keller makes for one hell of an emissary. I chatted with him in the lobby briefly and he has a wealth of knowledge on the more obscure contactees of the 50s and 60s. We spoke about his new article on the Mitchell sisters, St. Louis siblings with extraterrestrial boyfriends from Venus and Mars, and he showed me he had a physical tape of a George Adamski speech. Cosmic Ray was a soft-spoken but immensely kind individual and gave me the best conversation I had throughout the entire conference.

As things were winding down and the event organizers were reading the winners of the 50/50 raffle, the hosts thanked everyone for coming and asked for a show of hands for anyone was attending the speaker Q&A dinner buffet—chicken parmesan, I heard. A decent number of people, maybe 40 or so, raised their hands. “Ah,” I thought. “No wonder I couldn’t get a ticket at the door.” I was then shocked to hear an announcement: There were three dinner tickets left if anyone wanted one. I was fatigued by this point in the day, and certainly did not want to go where I (possibly) was not wanted, so I stayed mum. This easily could have been an organizational error or a miscommunication. However, I remembered what the ticket-taker had said to me, that “John” had said there were no dinner tickets left. I know that I tend to get paranoid, and I don’t want to overstate my reputation, but perhaps Ventre had looked up the names of ticketholders and did not like the company I kept.

The aforementioned Jack Brewer had previously noted that Ventre “was a member of a ‘high-tier’ group of ‘Inner Circle’ MUFON contributors” who had a “tendency to rationalize talking bigotry trash.”¹⁵ Brewer’s research partner at Expanding Frontiers Research, Erica Lukes, also appears in the Newsweek article about Ventre’s “ousting” from Pennsylvania MUFON, recalling her own experiences of sexism within the organization and the lack of response from the higher ups. From Chaz of the Dead’s article in Paranormality Magazine:

(The) top brass did nothing when former MUFON State Director for Utah, Erica Lukes, was the target of sexist rants by fellow members. This inaction led her to leave the group and start her own. Dozens of former MUFON investigators followed in her wake. The man who ignored her was Jan Harzan. Harzan was head and mouthpiece of the program for several years. That was until July of 2020, when Harzan was arrested for attemtping to solict sex from an undercover police officer, whom he believed to be a 13 year-old girl.¹⁶

Before this horrific behavior came to light, Harzan also gave a response (of sorts) to the Ventre affair, trying to play both sides of what seemed like a clear-cut reason for disapproval. Newsweek’s Andrew Whalen wrote: “Instead of condemning Ventre's words, Harzan blamed the controversy on ‘the new social media world we now live in’ and called for an open dialogue, writing, ‘There is no justice in hate, no matter what side of the fence you are on. On that we can all agree.’”¹⁷ The appalling nature of the issues surrounding MUFON, combined with a seeming unwillingness to change, has made the organization prone to all sorts of criticism, both inside and out. While I have never come out with commentary on the problems with MUFON, I have associated with some who have, including the indomitable Lukes and Brewer of Expanding Frontiers Research. Was the embattled event organizer aware of this and assuming I would ask uncomfortable questions at the dinner? Maybe. Of course, deficiencies in the conference’s organization could also explain this. Or, in a community as old as this one tends to be, (I was one of probably 25 people under the age of 50m) it is further possible that they did not want any young blood in their good ol’ boys club.

But there was another broken promise that was more glaring in my opinion: Former intelligence official and To the Stars Academy personality Christopher K. Mellon was listed as a “special guest” on the conference’s website and elsewhere. Mellon is a member of the influential Mellon banking dynasty who lives in the Pittsburgh area near where the conference was held. However, I never once saw Chris Mellon. Not in the auditorium, not in the lobby, and not in the building. Even a fellow attendee I became friendly with seemed befuddled by the no-show, noting how short of a drive Mellon would have had. Maybe he was trying to avoid an embarrassing photo op with a starseed Nazi again and is limiting his conference appearances—but Marina Seren was not even at this event! Perhaps he only attended the dinner buffet.

A Facebook post from John Ventre presents the conference lineup and advertises a special appearance by Christopher Mellon which did not come to fruition.

My day at MUFON was a mixed bag—that was the way I described it to friends who asked. There is something inherently pleasant about attending an event where everyone has an interest in the fringe topics that always rattle around in my head, but the communitas can only go so far. MUFON is an old organization, it has existed since 1969 and the average age of attendees is nothing if not indicative of this. But more concerning is the lack of fresh ideas, with most presentations never veering away from an extraterrestrial or demonic understanding of the phenomena. There was also a reverence for military and intelligence personnel that I constantly express unease toward: The ultra-suspicious Philip J. Corso was treated as a hidden truth-teller in more than one presentation and (the absent) Chris Mellon was a major draw. For an organization that claims to have made “unique and important contributions” to the field of ufology “longer than anyone else,” it has to be noted that these contributions are no longer unique and haven’t been important for decades or more.¹⁸ In an area of study so bombarded by high strangeness and military shenanigans, it is disappointing that most speakers expressed certainty that the phenomena is verifiably real and fits into a straightforward box—either extraterrestrial or demonological, but nearly always within a Christian framework. Add some right wing political rants to that soup and you have a meal that leads to a splitting headache, one that neither a Mellon heir or chicken parmesan could cure.

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1. Whalen, Andrew. “What If Aliens Met Racists? MUFON Resignations Highlight Internal Divisions in UFO Sightings Organization.” Newsweek. 29 April 2018. https://www.newsweek.com/ufo-sightings-mufon-2018-john-ventre-alien-extraterrestrial-905060.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. Brewer, Jack. “The Woods/Jacobs Tapes and the 'Oral History' Falsehood.” The UFO Trail. 8 February 2014. http://ufotrail.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-woodsjacobs-tapes-and-oral-history.html.

5. Ibid.

6. Skvarla, Robert. “A Postcard From The First Annual Bucks County Para-Con.” Contingent Magazine. 5 April 2024. https://contingentmagazine.org/2024/04/05/a-postcard-from-the-first-annual-bucks-county-para-con/.

7. Recluse. “The JFK Assassination: A Strange and Terrible Saga Part VI.” VISUP. 14 December 2013. https://visupview.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-jfk-assassination-strange-and_14.html.

8. Scott, Peter Dale. Deep Politics and the Death of JFK. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Page 214.

9. Ibid., page 214-216.

10. Whalen, Andrew. “What If Aliens Met Racists? MUFON Resignations Highlight Internal Divisions in UFO Sightings Organization.” Newsweek. 29 April 2018. https://www.newsweek.com/ufo-sightings-mufon-2018-john-ventre-alien-extraterrestrial-905060.

11. Pierce, Paul. “Hempfield resident John Ventre announces bid for Pa. governor.” TribLive. 30 June 2021. https://triblive.com/local/westmoreland/hempfield-resident-john-ventre-announces-bid-for-pa-governor/.

12. Republicinsanity. “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day: John Ventre.” Daily Kos. 11 September 2022. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/9/11/2122290/-Fanatical-Republican-Extremist-of-the-Day-John-Ventre.

13. Jones, Dan. “What the Far Right Gets Wrong About the Crusades.” TIME. 10 October 2019. https://time.com/5696546/far-right-history-crusades/.

14. Skvarla, Robert. “A Postcard From The First Annual Bucks County Para-Con.” Contingent Magazine. 5 April 2024. https://contingentmagazine.org/2024/04/05/a-postcard-from-the-first-annual-bucks-county-para-con/.

15. Brewer, Jack. “Sheriff's Office Releases Records on Ramtha Compound.” Expanding Frontiers Research. 28 September 2023. https://www.expandingfrontiersresearch.org/post/sheriff-s-office-releases-records-on-ramtha-compound.

16. Chaz of the Dead. “Is it time to move on from MUFON?” Paranormality Magazine. 10 October 2022. https://paranormalitymag.com/is-it-time-to-move-on-from-mufon/.

17. Whalen, Andrew. “What If Aliens Met Racists? MUFON Resignations Highlight Internal Divisions in UFO Sightings Organization.” Newsweek. 29 April 2018. https://www.newsweek.com/ufo-sightings-mufon-2018-john-ventre-alien-extraterrestrial-905060.

18. Chaz of the Dead. “Is it time to move on from MUFON?” Paranormality Magazine. 10 October 2022. https://paranormalitymag.com/is-it-time-to-move-on-from-mufon/.