Am I going? No! But that doesn't mean you shouldn't! There will be over 20 speakers! There will be a film festival! Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer is the official sponsor! I am not kidding! I would have given anything to have been at that marketing meeting.
Exactly what demographic are they targeting here?
I feel compelled to tell you that Pabst Blue Ribbon is a premium lager brew crafted with a hefty infusion of 6-row barley in its ingredient package, a carefully balanced carbohydrate profile from corn syrup, and a unique combination of Pacific domestic hops blended with an imported Yugoslavian variety. Fermented with a pure culture of yeast and aged at high gravity, PBR is cellared and finished to the smooth, robust likeness of a fine Pilsner. In other words, it's the perfect refreshment after a long day of talking about UFOs. Don't want to wait until February 22nd and have to go all the way to Arizona to get a frosty cold Pabst? Why, just use this handy Store Locator to find out where there's a six-pack available at your coordinates. It's easier than locating a UFO, believe me!
As always, I stray from my point... The conference actually looks really cool, and I wouldn't mind going if I could. Some of the speakers are a pretty big deal, actually. Author Whitley Strieber has written some terrifically unsettling books about his lifetime of UFO encounters, and Travis Walton is one of the most famous, and most credible, UFO abductees in history...(although, interestingly, he now claims, 30-some years later, that he wasn't actually "abducted"... If you went to the IUFOC you would probably find out why!). In fact, Walton will be joined onstage for the first time by one of the men who witnessed the abduction, or whatever we're calling it now.
Even though I can't attend the 2012 IUFOC, I will be there in spirit. This event has inspired me. It has inspired me to figure out if PBR would ever consider becoming the official sponsor of a UFO blog... Heck, I'd settle for Blatz.
