Mass UFO Show was not quite what we were expecting

Friend: ... are you for real? you’re really going to a UFO convention?

Me: yeah

Friend: you’re going willingly?

Me: yeah

Friend: with people?

It’s been a secret dream of mine to attend a UFO event. I have long been intrigued by the paranormal. When I was a kid I would spy ghouls in the windows of silent houses on a regular basis. I’d pore through stories of UFO sightings in books and on the internet. I could get lost in the stuff for an entire day. Suffice to say, I was looking forward to the Mass UFO show.

So why did I make a run for the door after 30 minutes on Friday night, feeling like an ass after John Horrigan, the event organizer, was kind enough to get me in? Because it was spectacularly boring. Arriving at Hibernian Hall in Watertown, I walked into a dark room, where a woman was giving a slide show presentation. She was telling us in her crusty monotone about her stay at a young man’s farm house and the weird things that happened to her there. Something like 40 people were sitting around in neat little rows listening to this. Off to the side, there were about 6 or 7 men and women — presenters, most likely — all of them dapper in suits. From where I was sitting, the "exhibits" surrounding the room looked like the sort elementary school science students might craft to adorn the school gymnasium come science fair. The woman continued on about how she and this man went out to the fields one night to take pictures/inspect a crop circle. All of the photos taken of the man, she announced with newfound excitement, came out blurry. Someone gasped at this. I looked down at the program I’d been given at the door on which we were instructed not to talk to any of our fellow attendees during the presentations. Not until the 15 minute or so intermissions, which looked to be scattered around presentations much like this woman's, throughout the program. After the woman finished, a man was readying his own presentation. It was then that I jetted, not wanting to spend my Friday night in such a setting.

I’m not sure what I was expecting — at the very least, I thought I’d be entertained. It was a UFO show for fuck sakes. Where was the hysteria, the color, the fun?!?