Missing aircraft, orbs, and portals: Alaska UFO Town Hall lands in Juneau
JUNEAU, Alaska (KTUU) - For one afternoon in the capital city, the usual talk of state politics and cruise ship timetables took a detour into interdimensional portals, glowing orbs and vanishing planes.
Dozens of curious locals joined hundreds of passengers from the inaugural “Missing 411: Alaska Cruise” inside Elizabeth Peratrovich Hall on Sunday for the first-ever Alaska UFO Town Hall. Organized by Tennessee-based Gather Up Events, the shoreside gathering was designed as a lively collision between national paranormal investigators and Alaskans eager to talk about the strange things seen in the northern skies.
“It’s an extension of what we do on the ship, but the extension is about local experiences, which we can’t get on the ship, right?” said Martin Pippin, Gather Up Events partner. “So that was the starting point.”
Pippin noted pulling off a convention-style panel while docked during a seven-day voyage aboard Royal Caribbean’s Voyager of the Seas brings its own brand of unpredictability. Between navigating last-minute berth changes in port and hurrying to set up hundreds of chairs before doors opened, the atmosphere inside remained upbeat and packed with questions.
“The questions have been all over the place, from why are the planes disappearing to why do some people see code when they are on DMT,” Pippin said. “These are people that are, you know, either believers or open to believing, or in some cases experiencers who are happy to share what’s happened with them.”
Headlining the stage was David Paulides, the former California police officer turned investigative author best known for his “Missing 411” book and documentary series. While Paulides has spent years tracking wilderness disappearances across North America, he said Alaska poses a unique mystery when looking upward.
“When you look at aircraft, there’s a special niche for Alaska,” Paulides said. “There’s a lot of big aircraft that have disappeared over land in Alaska that have never been found, and there’s a lot of amphibious aircraft that have disappeared in Alaska over water. No mayday call, no debris, no oil, no gas slick.”
Paulides stressed his investigations focus strictly on documented evidence rather than speculation, citing historical cases like the 1986 Japan Airlines radar tracking over eastern Alaska to encourage people to examine official records for themselves.
“Know that there are people who are high integrity individuals who take this topic seriously, who have accumulated a vast amount of data and are willing to put it in front of you to interpret how you wish,” Paulides said. “Facts are the only important thing in an investigation.”
Also joining the panel was Chris Bledsoe, whose reported 2007 encounter in North Carolina became the subject of his bestselling book, “UFO of God.” Bledsoe, who previously faced intense public skepticism before his accounts drew the attention of federal scientists and intelligence officials, offered an encouraging message to locals stepping up to the microphone.
“I just say not to be afraid, and don’t be too quick to label your experience as some alien or something of that nature,” Bledsoe said. “Study consciousness and understand how it can manifest.”
Bledsoe added public perception has undergone a massive cultural shift over the past two decades.
“It’s like the whole UFO community, including Congress, including the vice president and all, are now saying that this thing could be angels and demons or spiritual. So it’s done about shift from physical to more non-physical.”
Rounding out the panel was Joe Hauser, a longtime researcher at the Montana Vortex, who shared experimental field theories on electromagnetic anomalies and mysterious “plasma energy fields” that researchers believe might link high-strangeness hot spots across the continent.
“I’m sure there’s energy fields inside Alaska that haven’t been discovered yet that could be vortex fields, possibility of portals, stuff like that. Not a lot of people have looked into all of these missing people or the planes and stuff like that,” Hauser said. “Is there some other compelling factor behind them that’s causing these things to happen?”
For organizers and attendees alike, the town hall served as a welcoming platform for residents to openly share stories they might otherwise keep quiet at the dinner table.
With the cruise set to continue its Inside Passage voyage, Pippin said Gather Up Events plans to return to Alaska next year with an expanded itinerary in Anchorage.
RELATED
{ https://www.alaskasnewssource.com/ }