In March 1966, hundreds of Michigan residents saw colorful, strange lights across the sky.

Others reported seeing floating discs. Some even reported the sight of an object touching down.

Fifty years later, “UFOlogists” are taking a look back at the strange sightings, as part of a Saturday conference in Ann Arbor. The event, called the “Swamp Gas UFO Conference,” invites anyone to learn about what might be the strangest UFO sightings in the state’s history.

“This wasn’t just one or two people seeing something in the middle of nowhere,” said William Konkolesky, the state director for the Michigan chapter of the Mutual UFO Network. He also noted: “When you look at the amount of info from this particular event, I can’t think of anybody who would reasonably be able to shrug it off and say that nothing’s going on.”

The forum consists of a series of talks by experts well-versed in “UFOlogy.” The talks have titles like “Michigan UFO Archives” and “Little Green Men and the New York Times: The Origins of the UFO Ridicule Factor.”

But rather than discuss aliens or conspiracy theories, or promise answers, the conference is mainly just to commemorate and revisit the bizarre historical facts behind the sightings. Konkolesky notes that when he gives talks at senior centers, a remarkable number of elderly residents recall the events and look back on them with awe and bafflement.

“There are a lot of people who really don’t have a sense of the importance of this event,” Konkolesky said. “Before the event fades away into history, we want to say, ‘This was a big deal.’ ”

Just how many people claimed to have seen something strange? For example, starting on March 14, 1966, there was a cascade of sightings from Ann Arbor to Hillsdale and the surrounding areas. There was a couple who thought they saw a UFO land in a marsh area at the edge of their backyard. Dozens of students in a dormitory reported seeing a UFO landing next to a softball field at Hillsdale College.

There was even one sighting that appeared so real that at least five police cars raced after a UFO in an attempt to stop it, Konkolesky said.

Still, an Air Force investigation later concluded that the sightings were just “marsh gas,” which was later dubbed “swamp gas.”

Future U.S. President Gerald Ford, then a U.S. Congressman from Michigan, even wrote a letter to a Congressional committee expressing his concern about all the recent local reports.

“We’re no closer to understanding it now than we were 50 years ago,” Konkolesky noted.

And while the sightings from that era were remarkable, the number of sightings has not exactly ceased, Konkolesky says. Last year, his chapter and its half-dozen investigators received 331 reports of UFO sightings, most of which turned out to be explainable as an aircraft, sky lanterns or more recently, drones. But some defy explanation.

“We either figure it out or we stop at the water’s edge and say, this is unexplainable,” he said.

The conference takes place March 19, from 9:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Wyndham Garden in Ann Arbor, located at 2900 Jackson Ave. The cost is $30. More information is available online at: swampgasufo.com.

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