KC man hopes for UFO connection

For decades, people have been fascinated with the idea of communicating with aliens. If you think only a smattering of people believe in stuff like this, you’d be wrong.

“We wanted to hear the local stories of people who’ve had UFO sightings. Optimistic about the possibility of UFOs visiting Kansas City,” Mark Butler, Shawnee resident, said.

Butler was one of several first-timers that made for four times the usual attendance for this international UFO investigation group called MUFON, Mutual UFO Network.

More than 100 people watched slides with images and arrows and numbers, arguing there’s “much more going on” than the powers that be claimed about what several in the metro saw on June 20th.

The National Weather Service posted a tweet saying that they had no explanation for the floating objects.

Speculation later said it was likely these research balloons launched by a Defense Department agency, an explanation MUFON rejects.

“I don’t know what it is, but I know what it isn’t, and they’re not balloons,” Margie Kay, MUFON, said.

“I think it’s great that people are paying attention to the night sky,” Daniel McIntosh, UMKC Professor of Astronomy and Physics, said.

McIntosh said people have always seen the unexplained. After all, by definition, a UFO is unidentified, but the idea of UFOs being alien spaceships didn’t take hold until humans created the technology for successful space travel.

“MUFON was founded in St Louis in 1969,” Kay said.

That same year, 50 years ago this week, is when the US put the first man on the moon.

Look no further than the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence founded by Carl Segan in 1984 for evidence that exalted astrophysicists see the search as worthwhile.

Professor McIntosh said maybe not every explanation is certain, but all the research so far shows little likelihood for what has gained hold in the imagination.

“That does not mean it was aliens in a flying saucer or spacecraft visiting us,” McIntosh said.

–KCTV5 News