THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE...

With the US launching investigations into alleged UFO activity, many who believe in aliens are hoping that their claims will finally be taken seriously. But a visit to Europe's largest UFO expo reveals that what's going on here on Earth is a lot stranger than anything that could possibly be happening in our skies

- GUY KELLY

THE woman with the cornflower-blue highlights and crocheted shawl didn’t look as if she might have had an alien implant stuck inside her since 2007. But then, I suppose that’s exactly what the aliens would want us to believe. And as I will be told more than once during my weekend at the Awakening UFO & Conscious Life Expo – to outmanoeuvre the aliens, we need to think like the aliens.

Derrel W Sims understands this well, so he responds to the woman’s claim by simply flicking the rim of his cowboy hat, fixing her with a cold, hard stare – the kind of cold, hard stare he fixed an alien with when he was first abducted by one in Texas, aged four – and unholstering his handheld infrared camera.

“Well, ma’am, I guess we’d better find out,” he says. 

Derrel, who’s 75, has an outfit, moustache and general bearing that collectively mean he’s identifiable as Texan from several furlongs away. He’s a professional alien hunter, as well as a hypnotist, private detective, karate black-belt, handwriting analyst, former CIA agent, and – something has to pay the bills – occasional estate agent.

“Need Someone to Handle a Tough Situation?” his business card reads, over a decades-old photograph of him pinning a tiger to some lawn.

The possible implant is in the woman’s hand, so Derrel asks her to remove her jewellery to run a few tests. A small crowd around us look on expectantly. She stands stock still, offering her wrist.