#ParadigmSymposium: Scottish Egyptians and the most vapid UFO story ever

notsayingaliens

Have you ever had one of those nightmares where you show up for class, and the professor starts lecturing incomprehensibly about a subject you don’t understand, but everyone else in the class is nodding happily and taking notes, and then you look down and notice you forgot to put on pants this morning? Neither have I, but I’ve lived it. Except for the pants part.

I arrived late at the conference — my wife is shopping for our trip to Korea, and so I got to play the part of the disconsolate husband sitting around in the Mall of America for a few hours. I’m not complaining, it was more fun than watching people make excuses for the paranormal. My plan had been to get there and get my double-dose of ufology that afternoon. It didn’t work out that way, because as usual, everything at the conference was running late. I was off by about an hour. So instead, I got to listen to Laird Scranton. Look him up on youtube — really, he’s hilarious, even though he doesn’t know it.

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UFOs coming right up

lego-guardian

I spent my morning at the Mall of America.

Don’t judge me. We’ve made this a kind of Big City Weekend Holiday, and my wife and I are hanging out here with a couple of responsibilities: I have to monitor the weirdness at the Paradigm Symposium, and Mary is shopping for the stuff she needs to be presentable at the wedding of her son in South Korea next week. Who knew there was preparation involved? I just put on clean pants and I’m good to go.

Anyway, I’m done soaking in unrepentant loud capitalism now, and have to head out to listen to an afternoon of UFOlogy. First up is Peter Robbins, a pal of the notorious Bud Hopkins. I expect to hear the latest poop on anal probings.

After that, it’s Travis Waltonthe Travis Walton, who was the subject of a hollywood movie, who wrote a book called The Walton Experience, and who has a new movie out called Travis: The True Story of Travis Walton. I guess he’s fearfully terrified that you might forget his name. I expect to hear all about his dubious claims of being kidnapped by the saucer people. It should be entertaining, but not entertaining enough to make me want to hang around for the Travis Walton movie screening afterwards.

I’ve got to be back to the hotel early to write up my experiences with the UFO people.