Below: Widow of Fossil Remains of Mythical Creatures (1996) by Bob Slaughter

• Professor Bob’s Blieve It or Not! The strange and wonderful world of Professor Bob Slaughter, paleontologist, dreamer and “discoverer” of fairy fossils, demon footprints and leprechaun bones. Really. By Rod Davis – D Magazine June 1993

September 24, 2000

Caller-Times (Corpus Christi, Texas)

Believers gather at national UFO conference

by Cynthia Hodnett

Corpus Christi, Texas – Robert Matthews has believed UFOs exist ever since a trip to Mexico nearly 20 years ago.

“During the day, I saw a very white beam of light over the mountains that would appear on and off,” Matthews said. “I really believe that it had to be something unexplainable.”

Matthews, of Austin, Texas, was one of more than 100 UFO watchers attending the 37th Annual National UFO Conference here this weekend.

“We had conferences in other places, but we wanted to bring it here,” said Doris Upchurch of Corpus Christi, assistant chairwoman of Mutual UFO Network’s South Texas chapter, which sponsored the event.

James Moseley, the author of several books that document sightings as far back as the mid-1950s, said he remains somewhat skeptical about UFOs. “I accept the fact that I have seen them,” Moseley said. “The trouble with the sciences like ‘ufologism’ is interpretation. You have a mystery that is beyond our current understanding, one that can’t be measured more than once.”

Other lecturers presented what they call further evidence of a government cover-up at Roswell, N.M., where some believe two alien ships crashed in 1947, leaving alien corpses behind.

Stanton Friedman, a nuclear physicist, said an Army Air Force general who reportedly met with investigators in New Mexico shortly after the Roswell incident was actually fishing in Port Aransas at the stated time. “There were a great deal of fraudulent documents that were used by the government to confuse researchers,” he said. “And it still continues.”

Pictures of crop circles supposedly found in Corpus Christi were on display, as was a reproduction of an alien’s fossilized remains that were supposedly found in the early 1900s, Upchurch said.

According to Upchurch, the crop circles – a total of seven, ranging in diameter from 20 to 50 feet – were found in a vacant lot.

Other speakers included Jerrnimo Flores Cavazos, a reporter who has investigated UFOs in Mexico for 25 years, and Diana Perla Chapa, a television director who also researches UFOs in Mexico.

Perla Chapa and Flores Cavazos began a group for UFO watchers nine years ago after they met near a mountain where a UFO sighting was reported. Since then, they have done several television reports on UFO sightings throughout Mexico.

“We don’t say we believe in UFOs because it is not a religion,” Perla Chapa said. “We say we know there are UFOs out there. What we do is the investigation to promote UFO sightings to the public. We show them what we have found and we let them make up their own minds.”

Other speakers included Greg Avery, on UFO sightings in the last 30 years, and psychologist Constance Clear, on post-abduction therapy.

Allowing those with similar experiences to meet and remaining unabashed in their beliefs is the goal of the conference, Upchurch said.

“If you ask people whether they have seen a UFO and they are in an earshot of another person, they will probably deny it,” she said. “If you get them by themselves, they will probably say yes. It happens more commonly than we would like to think.”