VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — As people have been saying all week, Something in the Water is about more than just the music.
It’s also about… Aliens?
A group of UFO researchers is hosting a happy hour at the Oceanfront Friday and Saturday afternoon.
This might seem like it’s a random part of the festival, but if you think about it, it’s really not.
There’s outer space and alien imaging all over Something in the Water and when we see Pharrell Williams in Norfolk, he's typically wearing his puffy NASA jacket. Pharrell invited the group Enigma Labs to come to launch their new app "Enigma."
They want to know if you have seen a UFO.
When Richard Warren was just 8 years old, he said he saw something he couldn’t explain.
"When I was outside at night, I was looking up in the sky, stargazing, and I saw a traveling light," he said Friday.
He said from where he was, a plane or military jet just didn’t make sense.
"I definitely believe there’s other life out there. We can’t be the only people in the universe," said Warren.
He’s not alone in that belief.
Alejandro Rojas and Ben Hansen have been studying UFOs for decades. If you’re a fan of the Discovery or Travel Channel, you may have seen some of their work.
"I think we know so little about the universe, we’re living in very exciting times," said Hansen. "I’ve always believed that there’s life on other worlds. To me, that was not really a question."
Warren said he was able to submit his story to the "Enigma" database Friday.
"A lot of times people see something and don’t know where to share that information," said Rojas.
Their goal is to compile sightings all over the world in one place to help researchers gather data on UAPs, or Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.
"Typically about 90% of the cases turn out to be something that is misidentified, nothing unusual. But, of those, you know, 10% do end up being pretty strange," Rojas said.
"There’s a lot of reports of black triangles, a lot of orbs, bright lights that are seen out over the ocean, and then, of course, we have these famous Navy videos," Hansen said.
They both say Virginia Beach has been a hotspot for UAP sightings, including a pretty famous case spanning 2014 and 2015. Navy pilots on USS Theodore Roosevelt reported seeing multiple unexplained flying objects.
In 2020, The Pentagon declassified three previously leaked top-secret U.S. Navy videos that show UAPs.
"The aerial phenomena observed in the videos remain characterized as 'unidentified,'" the spokesperson for the Pentagon said at the time.
The videos, previously acknowledged by the Navy as being real, captured what Navy fighter pilots saw on their video sensors during training flights.
The videos, previously acknowledged by the Navy as being real, captured what Navy fighter pilots saw on their video sensors during training flights.
"The Navy has said that encouraged them to kind of redo their kind of UAP sighting reporting protocols to say, 'Look, it’s okay to report, we’re taking this seriously,'" said Rojas.
Last year, Deputy Director for Naval Intelligence Scott Bray said they were investigating approximately 400 reports of UAPs.
"There’s anything possible going on out there, we just need a lot more data," said Rojas.
"Help us solve the mystery," echoed Hansen.
If you missed them Friday afternoon at Abbey Road Pub, they’ll be at Harvest Saturday afternoon from 3:00 to 6:00 with a free drink for people who stop by.