ALIEN ENCOUNTERS…AND CIVIL RIGHTS?

10:30 am - 11:15 am
| Location of Session: Hawn Holt Family Auditorium
Adult Sessions

Start of Signing: 11:30 am
| Signing Location: Festival Marketplace

My Schedule

About the Event

In the mid-1960s, Betty and Barney Hill became famous as the first Americans to claim that aliens had taken them aboard a spacecraft against their will. Historian Matthew Bowman examines the Hills’ story in The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill: Alien Encounters, Civil Rights, and the New Age in America, chronicling the promise and fallout of the idealistic reforms of the 1960s and how the myth of political consensus has given way to the cynicism and conspiracies in American life today.

About the Author

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Matthew Bowman

Matthew Bowman

Matthew Bowman is associate professor of religion and history and Howard W. Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University. He writes and teaches about new religious movements in the United States, Mormon history, evangelical history, and the paranormal. His work has appeared in Slate, Washington Post, New Republic, and many other venues. He lives in Claremont, California, with his wife, daughter, and lots of houseplants. His latest book is The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill: Alien Encounters, Civil Rights, and the New Age in America.

Moderator

Ed Conroy

Ed Conroy is the author of Report on ‘Communion’, an independent investigation of and commentary on Whitley Strieber’s ‘Communion’ (William Morrow, 1989; Avon Books, 1990). He served as editorial consultant to Inner Traditions International in the research and writing of Steven Hassan’s Combatting Cult Mind Control The #1 Best-selling Guide to Protection, Rescue, and Recovery from Destructive Cults (Park Street Press, 1987 and many other editions). He has also written in Spanish about the UFO phenomenon, crop circle controversies and related matters for the magazine Mas Allá de la Ciencia of Barcelona, Spain, and oversaw the translation of his book into Spanish as Informe Comunión (Reediciones anomalas, 2020). Formerly an arts writer and columnist for the San Antonio Express-News, for the past three decades he has served as the director of development/advancement for the Carver Cultural Center, the Guadalupe Cultural Center, the San Antonio Symphony and Southwest School of Art. He currently serves as Special Assistant for Development Initiatives for UTSA.