The Disney UFO Conference That Time Forgot

ByMark Rawson

In 1995, The Walt Disney Company quietly invited some of the world’s best-known UFO researchers to Orlando for a little-publicized conference promoting its new ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter attraction. Despite featuring speakers such as George Knapp, Budd Hopkins, Kevin Randle, and Don Ecker, the event drew surprisingly small audiences and has almost vanished from public memory.

Event Was Not a Secret

The Disney UFO Conference of 1995 reminds me of one of the most famous UFO events of all time: the Roswell incident, which occurred in 1947. This event is so famous that it has become synonymous with UFOs. But many modern UFO enthusiasts are surprised to learn that the incident was widely reported at the time and then largely forgotten for decades. This is also true of the Disney UFO conference.

There is something about long-forgotten historical UFO events that fascinates me. Maybe that is why I was so interested to discover recently that The Walt Disney Company hosted a UFO conference in 1995 in Orlando, Florida. The event occurred over a roughly two-week period. It is unclear where the conference was held, but it appears to have been held in various locations around Orlando.

This Disney UFO conference was not a secret. Yet, the event was not widely reported at the time and has been largely forgotten. According to those who were there, there were few people in attendance, aside from the participants and a few spectators.

Unlike other UFO conferences, very few photos of this event can be found online. An online search yielded very little information and many of the links I found were dead, especially links to photos of the event. While this adds to the mystery, it does not necessarily mean that the event was a secret or that there was any kind of cover-up.

Why was the Disney UFO conference held?

Apparently, the event was conceived as a way to promote Disney’s new ride, the ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter attraction in Tomorrowland. As part of that marketing campaign, Disney quietly invited many of the best-known UFO researchers of the era to Orlando.

Speakers reportedly included:

  • George Knapp
  • Budd Hopkins
  • Zecharia Sitchin
  • Clifford Stone
  • Kevin Randle
  • Don Ecker
  • Yvonne Smith
  • Russ Estes
  • and others.

What makes this event so unusual is that Disney barely advertised it. According to organizer Don Ecker, Disney provided the venue and flew in speakers. The auditorium could hold hundreds. Yet attendance at the sessions was often only 10–12 people because virtually no promotion was done. This has led to decades of speculation among UFO researchers about why Disney spent the money to organize such an event if it apparently didn’t want the public to know about this Disney UFO conference.

Disney Mystery

The Disney UFO Conference has become a mystery not because it was hidden, but because it was forgotten. Like Roswell before its rediscovery, the conference slipped into obscurity despite involving some of the most recognizable figures in UFO research. Today, its scarcity of photographs, limited documentation, and unusual connection to one of the world’s most famous entertainment companies have transformed it into a fascinating piece of modern UFO folklore.

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