Authors to Speak on Cowboys and Aliens

COSTA MESA, Calif. - June 30, 2015 - PRLog -- Imagine John Wayne riding his trusty steed over a rocky ridge and finding, littered across the desert in front of him, a crashed extraterrestrial spacecraft and the bodies of its non-human occupants. This scenario of the Wild West hosting visitors from outer space may not be as far-fetched as some people think, according to Noe Torres and Ruben Uriarte, who will speak on the topic in Costa Mesa, California, on Wednesday, July 15, 2015 at 7 p.m.  Torres was the author and Uriarte a researcher for the book The Real Cowboys & Aliens: UFO Encounters of the Old West, published in 2011 by RoswellBooks.com.

Sponsored by the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) of Orange County, this special presentation will be held at the Costa Mesa Neighborhood Center, 1845 Park Avenue. General admission is $15 for the general public. Admission is $10 for members of MUFON Orange County and students with ID. For more information, visit http://www.mufonoc.org.

“After the Steven Spielberg movie Cowboys & Aliens was announced in 2010, we thought it would be interesting to look at actual UFO cases from the 1800s,” Torres said. “While the movie is an enjoyable work of fiction, clearly it has little or no basis in reality, and we wanted our book to present actual, documented cases of UFOs in the Old West.”

Torres and Uriarte emphasized that people in the Old West really did see strange flying ships streaking across the sky. Hundreds of UFO sightings were reported throughout North America in the 19th century, as documented in numerous newspaper articles and books of that time period. Farmers, cowboys, ranchers, and others reported seeing strange signs and wonders in the sky, and occasionally, they also claimed to meet beings that were clearly not human.

The book was praised by critics and a review in the Albuquerque Journal proclaimed, “Hey, Hollywood. If you’re going to make a big-budget movie about extraterrestrial contact with Wild West cowpunchers, can’t you at least try to get it right? … Of course spacemen explored our planet in the days of saddle-sore lawmen and swinging saloon doors. But it wasn’t the cartoonish picture of evil planetary invaders, complete with hideous teeth and slimy hands emanating from their reptilian bellies that is portrayed in this Hollywood blockbuster…. The Real Cowboys & Aliens: UFO Encounters of the Old West, sets the record straight, using information gathered from yellowed newspaper clippings from the 1800s to tell of numerous close encounters between farmers and cowboys on the range and mysterious visitors in flight.” (Albuquerque Journal, Aug. 18, 2011, Page A1).

Uriarte, who is the MUFON state director for Northern California, said, “It seems likely that UFOs were quite common in the 1800s, We have found hundreds of newspaper and magazine accounts about people seeing strange objects and lights in the sky. We have also found articles that mention face-to-face encounters with creatures that seemed human but were clearly not.”

Uriarte added, “What is especially interesting about these historic UFO sightings is that they took place before airplanes were invented and before flight of any kind was common. Although hot air balloons had been around since the 1700s, it was closer to 1900 before balloon airships became widely known.”

Torres and Uriarte have written several books about historic UFO cases. They speak frequently at UFO conferences and have appeared separately and together on a number of TV and radio shows on the History Channel, the Discovery Channel, Coast to Coast AM, and more.

In their presentation, Torres and Uriarte will discuss many UFO sightings from 1800s, including the most interesting cases from the book. Torres said, “We’ll be presenting many bizarre stories, such as the one about a being from outer space whose spaceship crashed in North Texas and whose body was buried in a lonely Texas cemetery where it may still remain today. We will also tell the tale of a flying monster shot by two cowboys outside of Tombstone, Arizona. We'll discuss an underwater UFO that came up to the surface and nearly electrocuted two men and much more."

For more information about the July 15 presentation in Costa Mesa, please visit http://www.mufonoc.org.