LAS VEGAS
22
JANUARY 2013
•
HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
An expectant hush falls over the audience as the panel
discussion begins. There are maybe 200 people seated
in the auditorium at the Smithsonian-affiliated National
Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas, and at least two
of them are wearing tinfoil hats—which may or may not
be an ironic gesture.
The participants in the event, titled “Military UFOs:
Secrets Revealed,” are all serious-looking people. They
include two Air Force colonels from Project Blue Book,
the code name for the government’s now-defunct UFO
investigation program. There’s also a former Army colo-
nel who worked on Project Star Gate, the code name for
a secret study on the intelligence-gathering potential of
“
remote viewers,” or psychics. (There are lots of code
names to learn this evening, apparently.)
It doesn’t take long for some audience members to
start getting a bit twitchy, though. Revelations have
been promised. Secrets of the military variety. Maybe
someone here knows something about Roswell or the
Jimmy Carter UFO sighting. Maybe, once and for all, the
public can learn the truth about alien probes.
At one point in the discussion, an ex–Air Force
colonel says he thinks that UFOs are extraterrestrial
or interdimensional, and that there
has been a systematic cover-up. An
ex-Army colonel disagrees, arguing
that he would have known about any
cover-ups. The former calls the latter
naive, and the moderator steps in
before the interservice rivalry gets
out of hand.
Disappointingly, the big questions
remain unanswered. The audience
does, however, learn of a man who
sent pancakes to Project Blue Book,
claiming that visiting aliens had
given them to him. Subsequent Food
and Drug Administration analysis
concluded that the artifacts were,
in fact, pancakes.
—
NICK POPE
VIVA LAS VENUS
EXPLORING ALIEN VISITATIONS,
GOVERNMENT COVER-UPS AND
PANCAKES IN THE NEVADA DESERT
LOS ANGELES
•
Most soon-to-be nonagenarians would se le
for a cozy sweater or a tin of boiled candy for their birthday,
but in La-La Land they do things differently. This year
the Hollywood sign turns 90, and, in keeping with the
spirit of this town, celebrations include a major face-li .
Originally erected in 1923 as “Hollywoodland,” to promote
a housing development of that name, the sign got its first
major makeover 26 years later, with the removal of “land.”
By 1978, it was in such bad shape that it was in danger of
toppling over. So a handful of celebrities—Alice Cooper and
Hugh Hefner among them—donated tens of thousands
of dollars to rebuild it from scratch.
The sign’s latest overhaul was driven in part by paint
giant Sherwin-Williams, whose CEO, Christopher Connor,
knows good PR when he sees it. Boasting that the paint
used is of only the highest quality, he says, “It will be
decades before the Hollywood sign requires this type of
refurbishment again.”
—
LIZZIE CHAN
A BRUSHWITH FAME
HOLLYWOOD’S BIGGEST STAR GETS AMAKEOVER
NUMBER OF CAMERA FEEDS
OF SIGN VIEWABLE ONLINE:
14
(2
WEBCAMS,
12
SECURITY CAMERAS)
AMOUNT PAID ON
EBAY, IN 2005, FOR
ORIGINAL SIGN:
$450,000
COST OF
ORIGINAL SIGN:
$21,000
NUMBER OF
LIGHT BULBS ON
SIGN IN 1923:
4,000
NUMBER OF
LIGHT BULBS ON
SIGN SINCE 1939:
0
AMOUNT OF
CONCRETE, ENAMEL
AND STEEL USED IN
REBUILDING, IN TONS:
194
MONTHS THAT
ORIGINAL SIGNWAS
MEANT TO LAST:
18
WEIGHT OF REBUILT
SIGN, IN POUNDS:
480,000
HEIGHT OF
REBUILT LETTERS,
IN FEET:
45
HEIGHT OF
ORIGINAL
LETTERS, IN FEET:
50
DISPATCHES
||
GLOBETROTTING
