UFO researchers: Bryce Zabel, Chris Rutkowski, Jennifer Stein, Ryan Sprague and Chris Styles will be presenting.
Special Guests will include: Martin Willis, Darcy Weir and Eric Tessier.
Speakers and Their Bios
Bryce Zabel
An award-winning screenwriter and journalist, Bryce Zabel is a recognized subject matter expert on the issue of UFO/UAP reality.
Bryce currently co-hosts Need to Know, the popular podcast and video series. To date, the show has charted nearly 10-million aggregate podcast downloads and YouTube views and was winner of the Roswell Film Festival’s “Best Podcast” award. Because of his relationships, last year the first on-camera interview with whistleblower David Grusch was recorded at Bryce’s home two months before Grusch testified under oath in front of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Bryce began his career as an on-air correspondent at CNN, and was an award-winning investigative reporter at the PBS series Newsbeat. Just days before 9/11, he became the first writer elected Chairman/CEO of the Television Academy since Rod Serling. Currently, his WWII film based on a New York Times bestseller, The Last Battle, will shoot in Europe this year with Harald Zwart directing from Bryce’s screenplay.
Bryce is now writing an initial order of seven episodes of Undeniable, a scripted podcast set in a post-disclosure world, to be produced with Jeff Sagansky, the former president of CBS and Sony. His two UFO-themed drama pilots, UAP (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena) and Lost Honeymoon (the Betty and Barney Hill abduction), are both before buyers in the broadcast and streaming marketplace.
Bryce is also busy writing his next book, Strange Visitors: Close Encounters of the Hollywood Kind, about the relationship between Hollywood and the UFO topic, illustrated by his own experiences with people like Steven Spielberg, Stan Lee, Carl Sagan, Dan Aykroyd and Buzz Aldrin, among others. This new non-fiction book includes the true story of his being approached by real Men in Black during the production of the NBC/Sony series Dark Skies. He created that landmark alien invasion sci-fi drama, now a cult-favorite because of its blend of 1960s events with UFO history, and it won an Emmy award for its main titles and was nominated for a Writers Guild of America award for screenwriting.
Bryce is also the winner of that same prestigious WGA award along with his wife, Jackie, for their prescient Pandemic limited series that predicted Covid before it happened. Bryce has created and produced a total of five primetime television series (i.e. M.A.N.T.I.S., The Crow), and worked on a dozen TV writing staffs (i.e. Lois & Clark, L.A. Law, Taken). He has received feature writing credits on both Atlantis: The Lost Empire and Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.
His interest in the UFO/UAP issue first took off when he wrote and produced Syfy’s first original film, Official Denial, about a UFO crash retrieval and the discovery that aliens were future humans. He is the co-author of the groundbreaking non-fiction book, A.D. After Disclosure: When the Government Finally Reveals the Truth about Alien Contact, and currently has books about Roswell (Witness to Roswell), Majestic-12 (Top Secret/Majic), and the alien abduction phenomenon (Captured!) under option for film and/or TV projects. His two novels, Once There Was a Way: What if The Beatles Stayed Together? and Surrounded by Enemies: What if Kennedy Survived Dallas?, both won the coveted Sidewise Award for Alternate History.
Bryce has a BA in Broadcast Journalism from the University of Oregon. He has taught graduate level screenwriting at USC. His production company, Stellar Productions, has operated out of Los Angeles since 1984.
Presentation Title: “Strange Visitors: Close Encounters of the Hollywood Kind”
Chris Rutkowski
Chris Rutkowski is a Canadian science writer and educator with degrees in astronomy and education. Since the mid-1970s, he’s been studying reports of UAP, writing about his investigations and research.
He has ten published books on UFOs and related issues, including Unnatural History (1993), Abductions and Aliens (1999), A World of UFOs (2008), the children’s book I Saw It Too! (2009), The Big Book of UFOs (2010) and is co-author of When They Appeared (2017), written with Stan Michalak. His most recent book Canada’s UFOs: Declassified (2021) details some of the most remarkable UFO cases investigated by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Royal Canadian Air Force, and the National Research Council of Canada.
Rutkowski has taught space and astronomy courses and is past-president of the Winnipeg Centre of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada.
He is on social media platforms as @ufologyresearch and blogs about UFOs and related issues, and publishes an annual study of UAP reports in Canada.
Presentation Title: “Free Falling: Why Do UFOs Keep Falling Onto Canada?”
Jennifer Stein
Jennifer W Stein holds a Bachelor of Science from the University of Arizona. She is best known for her award-winning documentary film “Travis” about the very famous true story of Travis Walton’s UFO abduction experience in 1975. Additional award winning documentary titles include: the 2011 film “It could happen Tomorrow,” predicting UFO disclosure, and most recently “Accidental Truth,” detailing the recent UFO disclosure and the resulting congressional hearings.
Her contributions to the UFO field are numerous: She’s the founder of Main Line MUFON, a Pennsylvania chapter of the Mutual UFO Network, where she has served as state section director for 21 years. Jennifer produced 10 years of public programming on anomalous subjects through her public access television network in the Philadelphia suburbs and was instrumental in the organization, funding, and development of MUFON Television. Today she serves as the State Section director Sedona Arizona, handling public outreach and educational programming.
Part of Jennifer’s bucket list was to travel to many of the ancient sites written about by authors like Zecharia Sitchin, Graham Hancock, Eric Von Donegan, and Robert Schoch. The mysterious site of Gobeklie Tepe in southeastern Turkey was one such site she traveled to with Geologist Robert Schoch in 2012.
Presentation Title: “Traveling to Gobekli Tepe with Robert Schoch”
Ryan Sprague
Ryan Sprague is a regular on Ancient Aliens (History Channel) and a lead investigator and co-host of Mysteries Decoded (The CW) and Haunted (Eastlink). He is the author of Somewhere in the Skies: A Human Approach to the UFO Phenomenon which has been implemented into college courses at Webster University and Mercyhurst University. He is also the author of Stories from Somewhere in the Skies. Both books hit #1 on Amazon’s Best-Sellers list. He is the creator and host of the Somewhere in the Skies podcast on the LIONSGATE sound network. Speaking on UFOs, Ryan has been featured on ABC, CBS, NewsNation, and 7News Australia. He has consulted for Amblin Entertainment and Netflix and has been featured in Newsweek, The NY Post, and VICE.
Website: https://somewhereintheskies.com/
Presentation Title: “A Human Approach to the UFO Phenomenon”
Chris Styles
Chris Styles is an active UFO researcher who investigates select classic and current UFO incidents that have occurred in Atlantic Canada. He holds to a “blended” view of the UFO phenomena, that allows room for both the ETH & a significant psychological component. He is best known for his work on the 1967 Shag Harbour Incident and has presented at several MUFON symposia in both Canada and the US.
Chris served as a paid technical advisor with several Canadian UFO feature documentaries such as Ocean Entertainment’s “The Shag Harbour Incident” and “Northern Lights”. He has appeared in several US, UFO specials, such as “Canada’s Roswell” and “UFOs II, Have We Been Visited?” His latest TV feature appearance was in an episode of “Mysteries of the Deep” with Celine & Fabien Cousteau.
Styles is the co author of two UFO books on the Shag Harbour Incident, “Dark Object” (Dell Bantam) with Don Ledger & “Impact To Contact” (Arcadia House) with Graham Simms.
Presentation Title: “Worlds In Collision: Interpreting The Shag Harbour Incident & Shelburne USO Case”
Hosts and Special Guests
Martin Willis
Meet & Greet Host / Conference Master of Ceremonies
The subject of UFOs has fascinated Martin Willis since his youth, yet he was on the fence about the subject. He experienced a personal sighting in 2007 in Carmel Valley, CA, that solidified his beliefs that Unidentifiable Flying Objects really do exist. Since this time, Martin has paid attention to what others have to say about the phenomenon with some skepticism, yet an open mind.
As a UFO enthusiast, Martin created Podcast UFO in November, 2011 with over 500 show interviews. Martin was the Keynote Speaker at the 2022 Pine Bush UFO Conference. Martin is a long time professional antiques and fine art appraiser. Martin is also producer of Podcast UFO and YouTube Channel, ‘Keep your eyes to the sky’
Darcy Weir
Film Presenter: “Transmedium Fastmovers & USOs”
Exploring the Depths of the Unknown: A Documentary Journey into Transmedium UFOs and USOs
Darcy Weir is a documentary filmmaker who over the past two decades has chosen to explore some of the most intriguing topics of discussion today, including UFOs, Cryptids, and even Bitcoin. He has completed over 15 feature-length documentaries on these topics, all of which are available on Amazon Prime and Apple. His goal is to make the world of UFOs more accessible to the general public by shedding light on the subject in new ways.
Eric Tessier
National Director, MUFON Canada
Sky Watch Party Host
All my life I was curious about the sky and space. After passing my test in January 2015 I joined MUFON as a Field Investigator, later as a STAR TEAM member, Director of Investigation, and soon after provincial Director of the province of Quebec and Ontario. I joined the ERT (experiencer research team) and became the National Assistant Director and since spring of 2023, I’m the National Director of MUFON Canada.