"newsletter@seacoastonline.com"
EXETER- - The Exeter UFO Festival will mark its third anniversary Labor Day weekend with a new sponsor, new and returning speakers, and a celebration of New Hampshire's most famous alien sighting.
Dean Merchant, the festival's organizer, said businesses and nonprofits will combine their talents for a day of out-of-this-world fun Saturday, Sept. 3, in downtown Exeter.
September 2011 is the 50th anniversary of the alleged abduction by aliens of the late Betty and Barney Hill of Portsmouth. The Hills were returning from a Canadian vacation and were driving through the White Mountains when they reportedly saw an alien craft and were taken on board. The experience gained them national fame, and they were the subjects of books and at least one movie. To her dying day Betty Hill continued to report UFO sightings, some of them in Exeter.
This year, Merchant said, the Hills will be inducted posthumously into the Exeter UFO Festival Hall of Fame.
The event has a three-fold purpose, according to Merchant. It gets people into downtown Exeter, benefiting the local businesses, and helps them find something to do on Labor Day weekend.
The Exeter Kiwanis Club will sponsor this year's festival.
Pamela Gjettum, Kiwanis past president and current secretary, is a longtime Exeter booster. "We like the fact," she said, "that the festival brings loads of people to downtown Exeter."
The Kiwanis were involved from the start, setting up their food stand and making money for local charities, she said, and the festival gives them a good platform.
"We needed a big downtown festival," Gjettum said, and the UFO event fills the need. The events have drawn 1,000 people to downtown Exeter, she said.
And it's fun, Gjettum said. The event serves two groups: the "true believers," who cluster around the Town Hall and the nationally known speakers, and the second group, people who come to Exeter to "have a good time and spend their money."
Full story:
http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20110705-NEWS-107050321
0 comments:
Post a Comment