Believers turn to the heavens at UFO conference | Rotorua News | Local News in Rotorua

A CONFERENCE in Rotorua aims to demistify people's perceptions about "little green men" and "close encounters" of the extraterrestrial kind.

Tauranga woman Suzanne Hansen, co-ordinator of UFOCUS NZ, an organisation devoted to UFO research and investigation, and organiser of this weekend's conference, is keen to give the sceptics some food for thought.

She says sceptics don't bother to examine the evidence and generally write off believers as "nutters".

"We are definitely not saying that every report that comes to us is some kind of alien craft.

"There is an overwhelming amount of credible evidence now. You have top politicians in countries like Canada who say they know this exists, top physicists saying people's experiences of alien technology cannot be made up."

She said her own experiences had been very real.

"I know what I have seen and have got my feet firmly on the ground."

In 1962, aged 8, she experienced her first close encounter with "an orange cigar-shaped object that hung in the sky for an hour-and-a-half".

The object was seen by her family, neighbours and hundreds of others in the skies above the Bombay Hills before it flew off toward the South Waikato. It was even reported by the media.

"For an 8-year-old it was pretty amazing, I have had an interest in this sort of thing since then."

Among the speakers at this weekend's conference is former nurse, midwife, health educator Mary Rodwell, a former UFO sceptic herself. She now believes a human genetic engineering programme is being carried out by extraterrestrial species which is part of an "upgrading" of homosapiens.

"We are not being changed into some kind of robotic or biological fodder. Most logical thinking people realise that in this vast universe that we can't possibly be the only intelligent life out there.

"The most sceptical of the most sceptical are usually the viewers themselves - because they want to prove to themselves they are not crazy and so they are constantly questioning their reality," Mrs Rodwell said.

"I want to be sure I'm not misleading people and coming from a place of integrity as well."

This weekend's two-day Future Perspectives conference is being held at the Rotorua Convention Centre. Sceptics are welcome and can register online at www.ufocusnz.org.nz.