Just a paranormal weekend in Ocean Shores

UFOs, Sasquatch will be the talk of conference

By Scott D. Johnston For The GH Newspaper Group • February 20, 2017 10:00 pm
Derrel Sims, a former military police officer and CIA operative now known as “The Alien Hunter,” has researched alien abductions for more than 30 years and enjoyed dozens of TV appearances. He will be among the speakers this weekend in Ocean Shores.
Derrel Sims, a former military police officer and CIA operative now known as “The Alien Hunter,” has researched alien abductions for more than 30 years and enjoyed dozens of TV appearances. He will be among the speakers this weekend in Ocean Shores.

By Scott D. Johnston

From strange sightings in the sky to eerie, enigmatic experiences, there are plenty of popular topics on tap at this weekend’s UFO/Paranormal Summit, Thursday through Saturday at the Quinault Beach Resort & Casino.

Billed as a “research conference,” the event opens at 1 p.m. Thursday with a set of limited-seating workshops featuring a trio of UFO/paranormal luminaries. Friday’s program begins at 6 p.m. and includes one of the most popular elements of the conference, “Witness Testimony.” The final day starts at 9 a.m. and runs all day Saturday, with seven separate speakers and a concluding panel presentation.

Tickets for the Thursday workshops are $100 and space is limited to 45. Those tickets include admission to all three days of the event and some souvenir merchandise. Tickets good for Friday and Saturday only are $35.

Last year’s inaugural event drew around 500 enthusiasts, a pleasant surprise for conference producer Johnny Manson, who lives “out in the woods” a few miles from Ocean Shores. He is known to many as the host of “Morning Madness,” broadcast weekdays on KJET 105.7 FM in Aberdeen, as well the “Strange Harbor” show that airs Sundays at 4 p.m. on KBKW 1450 AM and 100.5 FM. Manson also produces the popular “Sasquatch Summit” event in the fall at the resort.

“My mom has always had an interest and connection with things not of this world,” Manson explained. Following several successful years with his “Sasquatch Summit” he launched the UFO/Paranormal conference last year.

Manson is personally immersed in the subject matter, but he is also proud of the claim that more than half of event attendees come from outside of Grays Harbor and buy meals, lodging and more when they visit the North Coast area for his event.

He is also very enthusiastic about the workshops he has set up for Thursday because they feature small group, face-to-face, how-to discussions with three experts.

• Derrel Sims, a former military police officer and CIA operative now known as “The Alien Hunter,” has researched alien abductions for more than 30 years and enjoyed dozens of TV appearances.

• James Clarkson is the Washington State Director of the UFO research group, the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON). An investigator with more than 30 years of experience, he has authored two books with Grays Harbor connections, “Tell My Story: June Crain, The Air Force & UFOs,” and “The Westport UFO Crash Retrieval Event.”

• Howard Batie is the author of “The ETs Speak: Who We Are & Why We’re Here,” and is a retired Naval officer, retired satellite communications program manager and certified hypnotherapist specializing in spiritual hypnotism.

Additional Saturday speakers include:

• Peter Davenport, director of the National UFO Reporting Center since 1994 and former director of investigations for the Washington Chapter of MUFON.

• Maureen Morgan, a Washington State MUFON Section Director and Certified Field Investigator, who also facilitates the Olympic UFO Meet-up, a monthly gathering in Port Townsend, and a separate group for people who believe they have experienced anomalous events.

• Dr. Matthew A. Johnson, a psychologist and author who has worked in the mental health field since 1982 in a variety of treatment settings, and had a “Class A” Bigfoot encounter with his family while hiking on a mountain above the Oregon Caves National Monument Park in 2000.

• Thom Powell, a veteran science teacher from Portland, Ore., with 25 years of study of the Sasquatch phenomenon and author of three books, including “Edges of Science,” which offers a wider interpretation of Bigfoot that embraces other, seemingly unrelated, paranormal phenomena.

• Aleta DeBee, assistant director of MUFON in Washington and co-leader of the Washington State Experiencer Group in Vancouver.

• Joanne Clarkson, a psychic and registered nurse who holds two master’s degrees. Her non-fiction book about personal and hospice experiences, “There’s Always a Miracle: True Stories of Life Before and After Death,” was published in 2016.

More information is available online at www.ufosummit.com.