Jack Bessler’s UFO, Aliens, Ghosts and Zombie Adventuress in Nevada, California and Louisiana

Chapter Three SETI Con II Santa Clara June 22-24 2012

One week after the Sacramento UFO-Paranormal Summit I am heading on Amtrak to Santa Clara in the heart of Silicon Valley and now home of the San Francisco 49ers for SETI Con II a hard science approach to finding extraterrestrials through the use of radio telescopes searching the universe for signs of intelligent life. I am excited because I have been a long time supporter of SETI having the SETI.home screensaver that takes data from computers in Berkeley, CA, which has come from radio telescopes searching outer space and analyzing the signals for possible ET transmissions.

SETI has been portrayed in movies from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Arrival, Independence Day, Contact and Species.

I arrive in early afternoon and walked the ½ mile from Amtrak to the Hyatt Regency where I check in and get a name badge so I can attend the seminars and the vendors. The Hyatt Regency is a lot nicer than most of the hotels I stay at when I travel and has great drinking and dining at the Evolution Café & Bar where a lot of computer scientists, electrical engineers, technology marketing and sales people hang out.

The TusCA Restaurant has excellent food with a Tuscan Italian style.

I first visit the vendors where I purchase two SETI T-shirts and a finger alien like the one Charlie Sheen had when he played a SETI Astronomer in The Arrival.

That evening is the kick off with Astrophysicist Seth Shostak who is the mc. Shostak is a dynamic speaker who warms up the crowd by telling them that we will make contact with ET in the next few years because of the addition of the Allen Array which came from Paul Allen who co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates. Many of the Silicon Valley Tech firms are big supporters of SETI. Shostak gets the audience warmed up talking about the enemies of SETI and a huge picture of the enemy Steven Hawking appears as Seth says “Like this guy here!”

After Seth there are several short speeches by scientists about SETI including Dr. Mae Jamison MD, who was the first black woman in space and also acted in Star Trek Next Generation. She gives an impassioned speech on marketing SETI to the masses to increase support from the public for space exploration.

After the speakers the party starts with The Kepler Mission appearing on stage that I am listening to their song UFO right now which is very Pink Floyd like. There is a great light show that fits their music well. After the concert I am having drinks at the Evolution Café & Bar where on the members of the band chatted with me about ET music and that they appear at the Boardwalk in Orangevale a Sacramento suburb not far from where I live in Citrus Heights. Their music is very spacey and was a good selection for SETI Con II.

Day Two I get up and have a very healthy tasty breakfast at TusCA Restaurant and then venture into the vendor’s room. I meet Marty Halpern who is co-editor of the science fiction anthology Is Anybody Out There? I talk to him and I purchase the paperback, which he autographs. There are all sorts of both science fiction and science books along with souvenirs like my finger puppet alien. I then get to meet Earth Wind and Fire Star, Sheldon Reynolds and his wife both very pleasant people and I buy his CD which has their hit song Shining Star. Sheldon is there to perform at the gala retirement party of Dr. Jill Tarter the astronomer that Carl Sagan based the main character on her and was portrayed in the movie by Jodie Foster.

I meet Kevin Grazier the Physicist who was the scientific advisor for Battlestar Galactica and the TV series Falling Skies and I tell him I am a science fiction writer and he tells me that at 3pm he is holding a workshop and to come on by. I go to the workshop where talks about being a science advisor to science fiction movie and TV episodes and shows a 12 minute he produced about time travel. I was upset that during the question and answer part a younger woman starts attacking him as being sexist because the male character’s girlfriend doesn’t like math.  She took up about half of the Q & A, which I found very annoying.

Pixar’s Chris Ford who has over 20 years experience in computer graphics software puts on the next workshop. He shows scenes from animated movies like Toy Story that he has worked on. Chris is also President of the Mount Diablo Astronomical Society. That evening is very festive in the Evolution Café & Grill as I am talking to an electrical engineer, people from a property management convention held there at the same time, a couple gals from Sacramento, the food servers, and bartenders are interested in ET’s so unlike square Sacramento. The hostess comes up to me and informs me that the hotel is buying a couple top shelf drinks for me so I order shots of Patron Tequila, which I chase with a Corona with lime.

The next day as I get ready to leave I call for a cab to take me to the Amtrak station and an older friendly black women picks me up and we talk about Twilight Zone, Outer Limits and Star Trek during the ride to the train station.