The truth is in southwest IL. Believers, skeptics alike can celebrate at first Alien-Fest
Seasoned UFO-spotters and curious skeptics alike are welcome to explore Lebanon’s first Alien-Fest, taking place Friday and Saturday.
Tony Price, who lives in Atlanta, but has strong family ties to southwest Illinois, decided to host the event with his cousin, Leslie Crump, to raise awareness about unidentified flying objects and extraterrestrials while providing a fun, family friendly atmosphere.
Alien-Fest will run from 3 to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday at Horner Park in Lebanon.
“We are not alone in this universe, there are extraterrestrials. It doesn’t mean that they’re malevolent or harmful, maybe they’re curious,” Price said. “We want to show people to be open-minded. Whether they believe it or not, just be open-minded, and then just join the people like us who actually are believers to try to believe.”
Southwest Illinois is no stranger to residents reporting UFO sightings. In Highland in 2000, Melvern Noll and police officers from Lebanon, Millstadt, Shiloh and Dupo said they saw an unidentified object flying through the sky.
“It was two different floors. It had big windows — three on the lower deck and three on the top deck. Way up on top, there was like a penthouse with a dim light in it. Underneath, it had red lights in a diamond shape,” Noll said in a July 2017 interview.
Police officers contacted Scott Air Force Base about the sighting that night, but officials said they didn’t know anything about it.
“It’s been two documented sightings here in Lebanon, in the city, and more than that that are undocumented,” Price, the festival organizer, said Thursday.
Price said he hasn’t seen a UFO, but his son sent him a video of a blue orb flying in Koreatown in Los Angeles a few years ago. He said about 50 other people locally said they had seen it, but they were told it was a weather balloon. (Price said it did not look like a weather balloon.)
“I honestly believe that we can’t be alone in this universe. It’s crazy to even think that. It’s also ludicrous to think that we’re that important,” Price said. “You know, we live on a tiny blue marble.”
While Price believes aliens are out there, there’s a lot he doesn’t know. He encourages people to attend Alien-Fest regardless of whether they’re believers.
“Just to be really, really sensitive to people that believe, just like we’re sensitive to people that don’t,” Price said. “We should all just respect each others’ belief systems and then just be friends.”
Alien-Fest will have about a dozen carnival rides, three food trucks, a photo booth, an alien costume contest and movie showings. There is no entry fee, but there is a charge for ride tickets, food and the photo booth.
Painted alien cartoons created by Price will also be available for purchase.
The National UFO Reporting Center has received more than 4,000 reports of strange sightings in Illinois dating back to 1999 and earlier through June 2022. At least 35 sightings have been recorded in the database so far this year.
“The National UFO Reporting Center makes no claims as to the validity of the information in any of these reports. Obvious hoaxes have been omitted, however most reports have been posted exactly as received in the author’s own words,” the organization’s website says.
You can search The National UFO Reporting Center for sightings by state, event date or shape of UFO.
Price hopes to make Lebanon’s Alien-Fest an annual event.
“The point is, why not other beings? Why not?” Price said.
This story was originally published August 26, 2022 at 11:44 AM.
