They Boldly Set Forth, But Abruptly Retrenched
April 26, 2011
Blaming weak ticket sales, the Johnson City, Tenn., nonprofit group drastically scaled back its third national gathering, the UFO, Crop Circle and Alien Contact Expo. And even then, the feature guests failed to hover or land. ``We had a very good program lined up, and I'm really disappointed things didn't work out,'' says Stacia Delgado, founder and national director of the 2 1/2-year-old center. Mr. Delgado, a customer-service representative for a local moving company, had hoped to sell about 500 tickets at $35 each. That would have generated enough money to fly several celebrity stargazers in for the event, including Mickey Ireland, author of ``The Alien Abduction Survival Guide.'' Perhaps the news that NASA scientists had found possible traces of life on Mars came too late to help. When ticket sales fell far short, Mr. Delgado gave up on the celebrities and moved the event from a large site in the mountains outside Gatlinburg to Roan Mountain, a smaller venue closer to home. It's another popular place for extraterrestrial sightings, he says. About 100 people attended, Mr. Delgado says. Among other things, ``we had a midnight pizza party and a UFO pep rally,'' where you ``raise people's spirits in hopes of making a sighting.'' But that, too, was a disappointment. With no abductions or sightings, he says, participants had to settle for ``a few lights that traveled across the sky in bizarre patterns.'' --Christinia Weis
