Aliens among us ------- but not at Penney's

                 The startling news for those at the Levittown library to hear Butch Witkowski talk about alien space beings is that the Great Bucks County UFO Flap of 2008 was phony.
                 "A hoax," he said.
                 In the room, believers who say extraterrestrials visit Earth and live among us appeared hurt, as if betrayed.
                The "Bucks County Flap," as it's widely known to ufologists like Witkowski, is a case of mass "mysteria."  Why so many people suddenly began seeing strange things in the night sky has never been fully explained.
                It started with a single UFO sighting over a shuttered Mexican restaurant in Middletown on Jan. 26, 2008.  Soon, hundreds of reports rolled in.
               Strange flying crafts were reported over Sesame Place.  An extraterrestrial was reported trying on clothes in the men's department of JCPenney at the Oxford Valley Mall.
               A thousand people jammed the Gateway Auditorium at Bucks County Community College as the Pennsylvania Mutual UFO Network gathered record accounts of sightings.  Discovery Channel cameras recorded it.  A documentary was made and broadcast.
               Witkowski, at the time a member of MUFON's "star team" investigators, disclosed that most of the reports were deemed false by MUFON's gumshoes.
               "Don't get me wrong," he told the audience,   "There were some good reports in there, but not 300.  Today, some groups still talk about it as, you know, the biggest flap of the century.  Got to remember one thing about a flap.  The definition of a flap is multi-witness, not single-witness."
              Most of the Bucks County flap stories were single-witness, such as the alien "gray" at Penney's.
              Witkowski, who was vague about his line of work (something about working in a "computer center"), told me he believes in extraterrestrials.  He saw six UFOs over Tuscon, Ariz., in 1989.  Today, he is director of the UFO Research Center of Pennsylvania.
              His Econonline van is fesstooned with the gadgetry necessary to investigate flying saucers, Bigfoot, ghosts, and "men in black" ----- government agents who track space aliens living on Earth.
             "One investigation we just finished up was human spontaneous combustion," he said.
             He was asked why "the government" won't come clean about space aliens taking human form.
            "Could you imagine," he said, "if the government disclosed that aliens lived among us?  That this gentleman is an alien, that this lady is an alien?  They're teachers.  They're doctors.   They're lawyers.  They can't do that.  How can they admit that, for 50 years, they've been lying to us?
            "I was at the X-Conference in Washington, D.C., in 2009.  And we're outside, getting a smoke.  And this guy ---- in fact he was a reporter........hooked up with the White House for quite a time.......quite an investigative reporter ----- he walks over to me and he says, 'got a light?'  He says, 'how was dinner?'  Good, I says.
            "He says, 'you believe in men in black?  I says, not really.  He says, 'well there were three of them at your table.'  I went, really?  He says, 'That, and one alien.'  I looked at him and I said, you know, you better quit drinking that wine.
            "He says ------ 'I'm telling you the truth.  That's who's at your table.  Now you figure out who they are'."
            "He didn't tell you who they were?"  a man asked.
            "Evidently, he knew," Witkowski said.
            "Didn't he try to expose them?  the man asked.
            "He said that would be very dangerous, which I agree," said Witkowski.  "Do you know how many UFOlogists have died?  Guys ---- Just like me ---- that have died?  Hit by cars, hit by trucks, fall out of windows, shot, robbed, stabbed, killed.  Hundreds."
            Heads nodded around the room.  Witkowski invited all to see his UFO Mobile Response Unit, parked behind the library.  I asked Witkowski if he really believes in extraterrestrials disguised as humanoids.
            "Oh, yes.  The theory is they are inter-dimensional beings.  Shape shifters.  Hybrids.  They might be kidnapping us, some say, for food.  Some to harvestour organs.  Some believe they guide us.  They could be right here, now, observing us," he said, motioning to the people around the van.
            A white-haired man suddenly looked up at me and winked.  I winked back.  Hopefully, the exchange of winks does not make me a marked earthling.  I like my organs.