The small seaside village of Cardwell (the very same town that Cyclone Yasi obliterated in 2011), held their annual UFO Festival in August this year. It was the first one I had been to, but had been meaning to go for the last few years. What a pleasant surprise! The good citizens of Cardwell - all 1039 of ‘em, really throw themselves into the spirit of the event!
In 2013 a father & son were out & about one evening in Summer when they spotted & video recorded 2 white lights loop-the-looping & generally flying in a tandem but controlled way over the Coral Sea just off Cardwell. Their video made news headlines across Australia & hence, The Cardwell UFO Festival was born.
Like I said, the entire community throw themselves into the spirit of things there - shops are decked out in all sorts of displays relating to Aliens & UFOs, the townspeople dress up, the kids have a Lantern Parade along Cardwell Jetty, food stalls & live bands are playing. But, the best thing about this little soirée was The C Files. C being for Cardwell & Files taking a page out of the X Files TV series, one can only assume!
The C Files are a Forum of sorts where guest speakers from around Australia, are invited to speak & share of their work in the UFO/Paramormal/Cryptozoology realms. This year there were Ben Hurle from Victorian UFO research group VUFOA & Cryptozooligist Rex Gilroy. Very interesting morning session listening to these 2 gents. Both had slideshows, photographs & Yowie foot casts on display & anyone from the public was also invited up to the mic to share their own UFO/Yowie experiences at the end of the session.
I was impressed with how this small community has rallied back after the devastation of Yasi to have a festival of this caliber - the ONLY UFO Festival in Australia, mind you. Good on ‘em & I’ll definitely be back there next year!
cardwellufofestival.com.au
not sure how to right that folks, sorry!
