Maribo seeks to become Denmark’s UFO capital

The town of Maribo is hosting the UFO Maribo conference for the second time as local organisers seek to establish it as Denmark’s UFO capital, Danish broadcaster DR reports. The programme includes talks, lectures and a panel debate about life in space.

Ebbe Frahm came up with the idea after becoming chairman of Maribo’s business association. He wanted to create new projects that would put the town on the map and give residents something to be proud of.

“I saw an article about flying saucers and thought: That’s it,” Frahm said.

Søren Sørensen, a military analyst at the Danish Defence College and a former fighter pilot, is among the speakers. He became interested in UFOs after being invited to assess videos from the US military command centre, the Pentagon, for the DR podcast Flyvende Tallerken.

Sørensen said the videos showed solid objects moving in ways that humans cannot replicate. Having flown F16 aircraft for many years, he said he had seen much of what there was to see in the sky, but believed the objects in the videos were not made by humans.

He also acknowledged that the UFO world contains fabricated evidence and accounts that are difficult to believe. However, he said the Pentagon material had been recorded by military sensors and deserved closer analysis.

Astrophysicist and chief consultant at DTU Space Michael Linden-Vørnle, who is also giving a talk at the conference, is more sceptical. He said people’s experiences were a real phenomenon and that it was useful to have a forum for discussing them, but he did not believe the experiences from the United States were connected to aliens.

“It is about power and politics,” Linden-Vørnle said.

He nevertheless considers the UFO myth an interesting social and psychological phenomenon because it reflects society and events taking place within it. He is a former deputy chairman of Scandinavian UFO Information.

Organisers say interest in UFOs has increased recently, partly because life in space has become a prominent topic in US politics and because Steven Spielberg’s latest science fiction film, Disclosure Day, has generated more interest in UFOs.

They now want to attract more local residents. Stine Pilt Olsen said few people from the area attended last year and that not everyone was a dedicated UFO enthusiast.

The conference has therefore been divided into two parts. One focuses on detailed lectures for enthusiasts, while the other is designed to be more entertaining, relaxed and suitable for families.

“Otherwise it makes no sense for it to be held in Maribo. We could just do it on Teams,” Olsen said.