Reykjavík Grapevine - 14.03.2014, Síða 26

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26The Reykjavík Grapevine Issue 3 — 2014
They Are Coming
Lemúrinn is an Icelandic web magazine (Icelandic for the native primate of Madagascar). A winner of the 2012
Icelandic Web Awards, Lemurinn.is covers all things strange and interesting! Go check it out at www.lemurinn.is.
A series of lectures were held af-
ter the screening and many people
“came out of the closet” with their be-
liefs in alien life forms and UFOs. One
man, for instance, said he had seen a
spaceship and little green men while
picking blueberries. “I thought maybe
they had a flat tire,” the man said.
The highlight of the confer-
ence, however, was unexpected
and catapulted this minor event to
the front pages of Icelandic news-
papers. A conference guest an-
nounced that telepathic people all
around the world had a direct con-
nection to beings on other plan-
ets, and that through these human
representatives, these beings had
now announced that they would
be landing on top of Snæfellsjökull,
Iceland’s emblematic sub-glacial
volcano. The aliens even furnished
a precise time for their arrival: No-
vember 5, 1993, at 21:07. The news-
paper headlines read “Aliens in
Iceland in November.”
Most people were, not surpris-
ingly, sceptical about this upcom-
ing galactic event. It wasn’t hard to
read irony between the lines in the
media coverage. But of course, at
this time, in late 1993, UFOs were
trending. That September the first
season of the “The X-Files” was
aired in the United States and nu-
merous films were being made on
the subject. So while the public
was dubious, it was nevertheless
open to the possibility of this curi-
ous alien encounter.
And on the big day, November
5, hundreds of people travelled
to Snæfellsnes. An advertisement
from Hotel Búðir, which sits on a
lava field close to the glacier, re-
flected a common sentiment: “If
they are coming… it would be aw-
ful to miss them. If they are not
coming… your stay won’t be any
worse because you were not one
of those who really believed they
were coming. Whatever happens,
everybody is welcome to enjoy
the weekend here, earthlings and
aliens.”
On the day before “the arrival,”
the newspaper DV ran an informal
survey: “An American woman liv-
ing in Norway said, ‘there was a
51% chance that the aliens would
visit,’ and added that people would
feel them, even if they are invisible.
Not everybody is excited about the
upcoming alien visit. A woman in
Grundarfjörður, a nearby village,
said: ‘I do not want to meet the be-
ings if they come. There is a real
danger of abduction. I am scared.’”
In the end there was no need for
worrying: more than 500 earthlings
from different countries, among
them international alien special-
ists, waited on a cold winter night,
but no aliens were seen. The whole
thing ended in a big party and fire-
works were shot off as a token of
friendship. There were no hard
feelings among most of the mem-
bers of this informal galactic “wel-
coming committee,” although sev-
eral hardliners thought that there
had been too much exposure, that
the media frenzy and extravagant
pyrotechnics had scared the arriv-
ing spacemen away.
Words
Helgi Hrafn Guðmundsson
In August 1993 an international conference on alien life and UFOs was held in Reykjavík.
Newspaper articles from the time do not agree on whether the event was “full of people”
or if the cinema, where the conference was held, was half empty. That perhaps depends
on one’s perspective. At any rate, the event was somehow connected to the screening
of the Hollywood film “Fire in the Sky” which was based on an alleged alien encounter
in Arizona in 1975.
Aliens in Iceland in 1993
“If they are coming… it
would be awful to miss
them.”
The majestic Snæfellsjökull, which Jules Verne made famous
with his Journey to the Center of the Earth, was the scene of a much
publicised alien encounter. Photo by siggimus @flickr. Modified by the
Grapevine.