An article in the (UK) Independent newspaper (5 May 2006) – Life on other planets: The house the Venusians built – by Andrew Gumbel reports from Landers, California, on a “Retro UFO Convention”.
Professors and lecturers, some noticeably more learned than others, offered talks on everything from the sorcerer Aleister Crowley and his “Scarlet Women”, who may or may not have created a “tear in the fabric of space and time”, to the theory that a portal in Antarctica leads to a secret world of underground cities populated by reptilian aliens flitting in and out of 15 different dimensions.
Attending the festivities was a hodge-podge of conspiracy-mongers, eccentrics, bemused onlookers treating the whole thing as an elaborate game of dress-up and storytelling, and people genuinely looking for alternative forms of spiritual enlightenment. Tattooed soldiers and their girlfriends from the nearby military base at Twenty-Nine Palms mingled with dreamy New Age fanatics and the sort of ordinary whitebread couples who wouldn’t look out of place at a suburban mall. Read the article online here: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article362146.ece