USA TODAY US Edition

EXTRATERRE­STIAL GROUND ZERO?

ARGENTINA HOSTS TENS OF THOUSANDS OF EARTHLINGS WHO LOVE ALIENS

- Kamilia Lahrichi

CAPILLA DEL MONTE, ARGENTINA Residents in this town are positive intelligen­t aliens from another galaxy are living among them.

So positive, the town of 16,000 holds an annual Alien Festival that draws tens of thousands of visitors — from Earth, that is. This year’s event kicked off Friday and runs through Valentine’s Day, for those in love with extraterre­strials.

There is an alien costume contest, a parade of Star Wars characters, a laser contest and special effects simulating aliens’ arrival on Earth. There are workshops with regional speakers renowned in the UFO community on how aliens contact humankind, among other topics.

“I came all the way from France to see the intraterre­strial city of ERKS, which is buried under this town,” said Monique Rasset, a yoga professor who has traveled to Capilla del Monte for 10 years.

According to local lore, ERKS is an undergroun­d city built by “intelligen­t lights” from another dimension who can communicat­e with humans.

Some tourists who make their way to the town, about 500 miles northwest of the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires, come mainly for the spectacle, with or without real aliens.

“I loved the Star Wars show and costumes last year so we decided to come back to the festival this year,” said Gabriela Amorosi, who traveled 18 hours by bus from her southern Argentine city of Bahia Blanca.

Many of the estimated 30,000 visitors — mostly from Latin America, the USA, France, Germany and Japan — will scale the 6,500-foot-high Uritorco hill on the outskirts of town in search of energy fields and doors to other dimensions.

“The historical reason why people are curious about UFOs in Capilla del Monte dates back to 1986, when a giant circular footprint of burned grass was found at the slope of (the Uritorco) hill,” explained Alejandro Barbosa, the town’s tourism secretary.

Local researcher­s collected testimonie­s from residents who claimed they had seen a spaceship with fluorescen­t lights that left a long trail.

The town’s resident alien scholar said she believes UFOs are lured here. “UFO existence may be the result of electromag­netic conditions and telluric forces at the epicenter of the (Uritorco) hill,” said Luz Mary López Espitia, a Colombian who is director of the Capilla del Monte Center on UFO investigat­ion.

Espita has studied the topic for 20 years and organizes internatio­nal conference­s on aliens.

Espitia said she has seen UFOs often: “lights that behave in an intelligen­t way.”

These are “lights of different sizes, shapes and colors, at different times of the day and night, and at different times of the year,” she said.

The Argentine government took the alleged sightings seriously enough to fund a Commission for the Study of Aerospace Phenomena under the air force in 2011. It conducted a scientific investigat­ion of reported UFO sightings, collecting informatio­n from engineers, IT experts, radar technician­s and meteorolog­ists. In December, it released a 12page report that analyzed 10 UFO sightings from November 2014 through November 2015. Its conclusion: The alleged UFOs could be stars, satellites or planets.

That finding has not shaken alien researcher Espitia’s conviction that other-worldly life is among us.

“We are just observers. … They know much more about us,” she said.

 ?? PHOTOS BY KAMILIA LAHRICHI FOR USA TODAY ?? Opponents of the Alien Festival say it contribute­s to denigratin­g the topic with alien dolls and costumes.
PHOTOS BY KAMILIA LAHRICHI FOR USA TODAY Opponents of the Alien Festival say it contribute­s to denigratin­g the topic with alien dolls and costumes.
 ??  ?? Luz Mary Lpez Espitia, director of the Center on UFO Investigat­ion in Capilla del Monte, explains to a group of tourists why the town is a magnet for aliens.
Luz Mary Lpez Espitia, director of the Center on UFO Investigat­ion in Capilla del Monte, explains to a group of tourists why the town is a magnet for aliens.

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