MUFON’s 2026 Annual Symposium runs August 27–30 at the Northern Kentucky Convention Center in Covington, Kentucky — effectively the Cincinnati metro. The Saturday keynote is Alex Dietrich, the female Nimitz pilot whose encounter with the Tic Tac UAP on November 14, 2004 is one of the most formally documented UAP encounters in US military history.
Alex Dietrich — Saturday Keynote
Commander Alex Dietrich (ret.) was flying as the second pilot in the two-aircraft section that intercepted the Tic Tac UAP during the USS Nimitz carrier strike group operations in November 2004. Her wingman was Commander David Fravor. Both pilots observed the white, Tic Tac-shaped object manoeuvring in ways that contradicted known aerodynamic principles. Dietrich has given congressional testimony and spoken publicly about the encounter. Her MUFON 2026 presentation is titled “The Nimitz Encounter: A Pilot’s Case for Evidence-Based UAP Investigation.”
Full Speaker Lineup
- Peter Robbins (Friday keynote): “UFO Revelations and the Individual: A Fast Ride Through My Fifty Years in Ufology” — Rendlesham Forest researcher and 50-year veteran of UAP investigation
- Alex Dietrich (Saturday keynote): “The Nimitz Encounter: A Pilot’s Case for Evidence-Based UAP Investigation”
- Clas Svahn (AFU Sweden): “High strangeness cases from Archives for the Unexplained” — the director of the world’s largest private UFO archive
- Raymond Szymanski: “‘Swamp Gas’ Exposed: After 60 Years, Incredible New Disclosures from Key Eyewitnesses” — re-examination of the 1966 Michigan swamp gas case that Project Blue Book used to dismiss hundreds of sightings
- Marc St-Germain: “The Montreal UFO Incident: Mass Abduction at Place Bonaventure” — Canadian mass encounter case
- Trey Hudson: “The Meadow Project: A Case Study of Extreme High Strangeness in America’s Southland”
- Katie Paige: “Hunt for the Roswell Body: A Denver Mortuary, Masonic, Military, and Judicial Cover-Up”
- Richard W. Beckwith: “The Hidden Mechanisms of UFO Secrecy” — MUFON podcast host, B.S., J.D.
What MUFON Is
MUFON — the Mutual UFO Network — was founded in 1969 and is headquartered in Cincinnati at 4212 Airport Road. It operates the world’s largest civilian UFO investigator network (trained Field Investigators across every US state and multiple countries), the MUFON CMS (Case Management System) database, MUFON TV (600+ ad-free videos), Project Aquarius (digital research library), and the MUFON Observer Network (member social platform). Membership tiers run from $59.88/year (Basic) to $299.88/year (VIP).
Source: mufonsymposium.com. MUFON Symposium 2026 speaker page. mufon.com.