By Toby Martinez
Roswell Daily Record
UFO XPO, the Roswell Daily Record, Main Street Roswell, and Galacticon have teamed up for the festivities taking place in Roswell March 10-12. Talks, films, music, cosplay, food and more will take over downtown Roswell for the weekend.
UFO XPO founder Thom Reed welcomed the collaboration, “Having such a tight alliance with Main Street Roswell, the Roswell Daily Record, and Galacticon makes a huge difference. With that, we’re grateful and thankful for the trust they have shown in our company as it was our goal from the start to help bring back Main Street Roswell. That’s the truth that’s all we really wanted to do was help revitalize the festivals that Roswell was known for.”
“The Roswell Daily Record is honored to partner with UFO XPO,” newspaper General Manager and Co-owner SaraLei Fajardo said. “We look forward to being involved in this event that we think will bring some entertainment and tourism to our community.”
“This is a town that has something unique and it needs to be brought to the attention of many, more than just once a year,” Reed said. “We wanted to pay something forward by offering 50% off tickets for all with a Roswell ZIP code or for those who reside in the city of Roswell as this event is for them you know, it really is for them.”
Barbara Gomez of Main Street Roswell said, “I went on his (Thom’s) website and sent him a message, luckily for me he replied right away. He definitely wanted to include us and the merchants and Main Street in what he was doing.”
Gomez said, “We will have things going all the way to the convention center and all the way down to the end of our corridor, which ends at Alameda if any of those businesses want to be involved. We will be at the convention center on Friday night, we will have a table there, we will be talking about what’s going on on Main St. We will be encouraging people to come out to the merchants that will be involved.”
“We welcome the UFO XPO. We hope to have a few food trucks out there as well. We will be set up on the courthouse lawn Saturday, ” she continued.
Elaine Mayfield of Galacticon said Reed asked for help running the cosplay portion of the event. “Galacticon was asked by UFO XPO to help with the cosplay, which is a costume contest in a sense, cosplay is a lot more involved. The persons actually develop a persona and really get into it, a lot more than just putting on a costume.”
“We have been helping with the cosplay in July with Main Street for many years and we are glad to help and work with that and other areas. We always want to work together to bring more UFO, Sci-Fi type events to Roswell so it’s not just one time a year,” Mayfield said.
The event will feature conversations with well-known personalities of Ufology, including a former military police officer and CIA operative Derrel Sims. “Come hear amazing stories of UFO/UAP/alien contact. Watch and see the video clips of these tales. Fasten your seat belts… it’s going to be a bumpy ride!” Sims said.
TV host and investigator Ben Hansen said, “With so much happening in D.C. and efforts from Congress to pressure the government to be more transparent about their involvement in UFO investigations, I’ll be talking about the major challenges that still lie ahead. We’ve especially seen an explosion in UFO reports from military and civilian pilots, but the stigma and consequences of UAP reporting are still very real. I’ll be talking about some of the most interesting recent pilot cases that have been reported and what is being done by government agencies to work with private organizations to solve the mystery.”
“Our UFO skywatch event was so popular last year that I’m excited to return and introduce an even larger crowd too many techniques and tips for determining what may be anomalous or explainable in the night sky. Using the latest in military night vision technology, we utilize a large screen to project live images from our scopes. The crowd can either view from the comfort of their lawn chair or blanket, or they can come up and spend a few minutes trying one of the handheld scopes on their own.“
Astronomer and TV personality Marc D’Antonio will be giving a talk on space and extraterrestrial life. “We are bound to this tiny blue world as all young civilizations are in their early development in the Universe,” D’Antonio stated. “But how many civilizations might there be out there? Can they have made the long difficult journey to Earth?”
“If so, why would they come here? What is it that they could see from thousands of light years away that might suggest there is burgeoning life here? This talk will answer those questions and many others at the UFOXPO in March! Join us!”
Roswell residents, veterans, and first responders can visit ufoxpo.com to get information on receiving 50% off the price of tickets.
