Kecksburg UFO Festival returns to Earth following pandemic complications

After a two-year absence, the annual Kecksburg UFO Festival is set to return July 22 to 24 to the volunteer fire department grounds.

Ronnie Struble, president and chairman of the festival, said this year’s event will have the same amount of activities as previous years — plus more.

“It’s a family festival, and that’s the way we’ve kept it,” said Struble of Kecksburg. “We have people coming from all over the state to the festival.”

The Kecksburg UFO incident more than 50 years ago drew national attention to the community, and the annual Kecksburg VFD’s UFO Festival has kept the intrigue and mystery surrounding the acorn-shaped object alive for 17 years.

On Dec. 9, 1965, Westmoreland County residents noticed a fiery object streaking across the sky in the late afternoon.

Allegedly seen in four states, the object ended up landing in a wooded area in Kecksburg, near Mt. Pleasant.

Eyewitnesses claimed the object was large, metallic and acorn-shaped, with hieroglyphic markings. It was partially buried in the ground before military personnel arrived on the scene.

The military prohibited everyone access to the scene, and, even after a military flatbed trailer truck was seen rushing out of the area carrying a tarp-covered object, to this day, the official story from the government is that nothing was found.

What crashed was a meteorite, the government claims. However, organizers and some attendees of the annual Kecksburg UFO Festival believe there’s more information to uncover — even after more than 5 decades.

“(The festival) started in the basement of a house with our shirts,” said Struble, who’s been involved with the festival for all 17 years. A different shirt is designed each year for the festival, and they’re sold in the UFO store through the Kecksburg VFD.

Struble said the festival saw over 2,000 attendees in 2019, and he said he’s expecting about the same this year.

Within the social hall, visitors will find arts and crafts vendors, as well as UFO, Bigfoot and paranormal researchers with display tables. All of the Sunday UFO-Bigfoot-Paranormal Conference speakers will have tables inside, as well.

There will be food vendors, various booths featuring subjects such as wood carving and blacksmithing and games on the festival grounds.

Stan Gordon, a UFO-bigfoot investigator and author who will speak at the conference, said he was 16 when the UFO incident happened, and he’s been investigating it and similar instances for 63 years.

“There’s a very big local support for this case,” said Gordon of Greensburg.

Struble said the UFO incident and festival mean a lot to the Kecksburg community and VFD.

“If it wasn’t for the people in the community, we wouldn’t have this festival,” Struble said.

All of the proceeds go to the local fire department, Struble said.

The questions of where the acorn-shaped object is kept today and what exactly it was remain, Gordon said.

“Hopefully, someday, we’ll know the truth,” Gordon said. “We still don’t know for sure.”