Kecksburg UFO Festival returns with out-of-this-world activities

Many Pennsylvania towns have summer festivals that serve as a community gathering and homecoming for native sons and daughters. None of them is quite like Kecksburg’s.

The tiny Mt. Pleasant Township village will have its 18th annual celebration — the Kecksburg UFO Festival — Friday, Saturday and Sunday. There will be food, entertainment, speakers, crafters, a parade, paranormal researchers, UFO literature and fireworks.

“It’s better than you can ever imagine,” said Ron Struble, a firefighter for the Kecksburg Volunteer Fire Department, which organizes the festivities.

“It is more of a community gathering, and the UFO is just part of it,” said Struble, who has been a community firefighter for 48 years. “It keeps on getting bigger every year.”

The festival is built around the Dec. 9, 1965, crash of what might have been a meteor, part of a Russian satellite or, maybe, an unidentified flying object from somewhere in outer space.

Locals claim a large, metallic acorn-shaped object streaked through the region’s skies before plummeting into a patch of woods near the village.

Witnesses said military and police officials restricted access to the woods, where the crash is believed to have occurred, left the scene with the suspected object in tow on a flatbed trailer and subsequently denied finding anything, creating a mystery that has lasted decades.

Struble, 81, recalled seeing a bright light moving across the sky from his home in Greensburg,

“We heard it on TV and saw a streak in the sky,” then drove to the area near where he believed it crashed but was blocked from getting close by firefighters, who stopped traffic.

“When I got there, the military was already there,” Struble said.

The community will mark the event with a festival that begins at 6 p.m. Friday with half-price food at the Kecksburg fire department grounds at 5128 Water St.

Crowds will be entertained from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday by the Corn Liquor Saints Entertainment.

A cornhole tournament is slated for 7 p.m. Friday, carrying a $10 entry fee. Winners will be awarded prize money.

Some 75 vendors and crafters are expected inside the fire department social hall Friday night, then again from noon to 9 p.m. Saturday and noon to 5 p. m. Sunday.

The festival resumes at noon Saturday, with a parade highlighted by participants in UFO themes.

A hospital bed race of about 40 yards is scheduled for 4 p.m. Four people push the bed down Water Street, with a “patient” on top, Struble said.

“It’s the only place in Westmoreland County that you can see a hospital bed race,” Struble said.

Fireworks are scheduled for 10 p.m.

On Sunday, there will be a hot dog eating contest at 12:30 p.m.

A hay bale toss is set for 2 p.m.

Keeping with the theme, the annual Kecksburg UFO Festival Conference will feature speakers from 1 to 5 p.m. in the Emergency Medical Services building across from the fire department social hall. UFO investigators, hunters and those deemed experts, as well as a UFO and Bigfoot researcher are featured.

Stan Gordon of Greensburg, author of “Silent Invasion: The Pennsylvania UFO-Bigfoot Casebook” and “Creepy Cryptids and Strange UFO Encounters of Pennsylvania,” will be one of the speakers at the festival.

Gordon has gained a reputation as the primary investigator of the December 1965 UFO crash and recovery of the unknown object in a wooded area near Kecksburg.

Joining Gordon will be Nick Markowitz Jr., who will discuss whether AM radio waves and electromagnetic interference enhances paranormal activities with Bigfoot and UFOs.

Ron Lanham, a co-founder of Wild & Weird West Virginia, will entertain guests with a discussion on the possible presence of alien life on Earth.

Jimmy and Dee Trick of Pittsburgh, founders of the Goosebumps Paranormal Society, which investigates haunted houses, cemeteries and battlefields, will present, “Sights and Sounds of the Paranormal,” featuring some audio and video of their investigations.

All proceeds from the festival benefit the fire department.