Live aliens tonight only at Dartmouth!

Last night, I helped my pal Mike Lord talk about aliens at Dartmouth College. The talk was about an hour long and attended by 25 students. Pizza was also served.

This is the second time I've give this talk about the history of UFOlogy in the twentieth century, but the first time I did so with another speaker. I think we got our main points across well without too many dead spots. I noticed that the students, perhaps ennured to Mike's voice, fell silent when I spoke (loudly). One thing I always make sure to do in public speaking is crank up the volume. There's nothing worse for an audience member than to strain to hear the content of the lecture.

Our format was fairly loose and interactive. We passed out a questionnaire to the audience. The questions were designed to indicate whether the participant had experienced some kind of UFO-related phenomenon. People got a mild chuckle out of it, but I think we could do a better job of selling it next time.

It one point, an audience member asked whether Mike and I believed in aliens. Mike give a very thoughtful answer, which was "yes, I believe in aliens. No, I don't think they've visited recently." My answer was a bit more dramatic. I asked whether the audience believed their mother. I then launched into my mom's UFO experience, which seemed to entertain them. Content is king, and freaky stories are what people came to here.

As a side note, we asked who in the audience believed we landed on the moon. Only one guy indicated that he didn't believe that we had. That was an awkward moment.

We managed to get through all of the slides, but we do need to shorten the lecture part to about 30 minutes, I think. That will leave more remove for questions from the audience.

Thanks to Mike for inviting me up to participate in the talk. The Truth is out there.