Cape Girardeau to host Midwest Conference on the Unknown

From Aug. 5 to 7, Cape Girardeau will host a Midwest Conference on the Unknown at the Drury Conference Center.

Local UFO expert Michael Huntington, a 45-year veteran of unexplained phenomena, said he hopes the conference will be the first of what will become an annual event.

The unusual gathering will come on the heels of a U.S. House Intelligence Committee hearing on "unidentified aerial phenomena" occurring this week. The unorthodox subject matter behind congressional hearings has encouraged a more serious appraisal of what has often been the domain of science fiction. It is the first such public hearing in more than half a century, the first of its kind to be livestreamed.

Since he was a child, Huntington has hoped for this type of legitimization. He explained how the current hearings "give local connection to a national news event."

However, he was also clear the congressional hearings did not solely precipitate the Cape Girardeau conference.

"But there's some touchstones there between the two," he added. "The topic is definitely going to be in the news this week. That gives a national connection to our local event. When something hits national news, it certainly expands people's interest."

Speakers scheduled to appear at the local conference are faces made familiar by popular television documentaries.

"Some of the speakers, like Micah Hanks and Ryan Sprague, have been on 'Ancient Aliens' and shows like that. These are high-caliber speakers coming to the Drury Conference Center in August," Huntington said. "Cape Girardeau actually has a pretty long and interesting history with the subject, going back to the 1941 UFO crash story, which put Cape Girardeau on the map, so to speak, in terms of folklore and urban legend. It predated Roswell, it was a very similar 'crashed-UFO' account."

Cape Girardeau's history with unidentified aerial phenomena doesn't end there. The late Harley Rutledge, former head of astronomy and physics at Southeast Missouri State University, conducted a multiyear field study of UFOs in his native Missouri. Rutledge's work is often considered the first scientific study of UFOs at the university level.

An area between Cape Girardeau and Chaffee, Missouri, (near Lost Hill) is where some UFO researchers contend an unidentified flying object crashed in 1941.Courtesy of Mike Huntington

In 1973, Southeast Missourian archives document the case of Eddie Webb, a trucker who claimed he was temporarily blinded by a UFO on Interstate 55 near Cape Girardeau.

Folklore and urban legend made for good stories, but didn't do much to help legitimize the subject of UFO research. Rather, it took the type of rigorous study pioneered by Rutledge to help move UFO-studies further into the domain of acceptability.

Huntington doesn't frame UFO-sightings as the stuff of myth. A SEMO graduate himself, Huntington studied philosophy and science -- he bases his own books and blogs on the rigor of scientific method.

"I promote the legitimization of the subject," Huntington explained. "Aside from all the cultural trappings and the sci-fi stuff that we see, a legitimate phenomenon underlies much of this. Things are observed that are unusual. Sometimes, the observer has a really impressive background. Sometimes they are really professional military people. When a mystery exists, it calls upon us to explain it with good science."

Huntington was quick to point out consideration of alien life isn't restricted to the rantings of social outcasts. The subject has been recognized, in the U.S. and elsewhere, as a legitimate concern and field of inquiry.

"[The Pentagon] formed a UAP [Unidentified Aerial Phenomena] task force within the Department of Defense, which Congress mandated. So, looking into this subject is now a very real thing. It's codified in law. This is a security concern. This is an air safety concern. At its base, though, these encounters are scientific mysteries," Huntington said.

Huntington added that the upcoming conference in Cape Girardeau will grapple with all manner of unexplained events, not just UFOs.

"It's gonna be an interesting week and an interesting summer. We're looking forward to this conference taking off," he added.