Daniel Lauing is the organizer behind the Reykawvik Summit, the first annual UFO conference planned at Liberty Hall, 644 Mass. St. Lauing has invited UFOlogists, experts in the study of UFOs such as nuclear physicist Stanton Friedman and retired Air Force Captain Robert Salas.

For Lawrence resident Daniel Lauing, there is more than enough evidence available to support claims the earth has been visited by extraterrestrial life.

Lauing is funding the Reykawvik Summit, a major conference of unidentified-flying-object experts from around the world. The event will take place March 18-20 at Liberty Hall, 642 Mass.

“Basically,” Lauing says, “this is a group of authors, scientists, and lecturers who have devoted their lives to the research of unidentified aerial phenomena. We’re bringing in UFOlogists, those that study the field of UFOs. We’re bringing them down here to this forum — I believe Lawrence is very open to this type of venue.”

Lauing says the name of the conference is a combination of Reykjavik, Iceland, the location of a famous series of nuclear disarmament talks in 1986, and the Kaw Native American tribe that occupied this area of the country before western expansion.

“Having knowledge that, in 1983, the filming of the movie “The Day After” happened here in Lawrence, I was aware of a small story that occurred because of that. Ronald Reagan viewed his copy of the film, he then gave it to Mikhail Gorbachev to view. The story goes, Gorbachev came back to Reagan with the proposal to do a summit.”

Awareness of the existence of alien visitation to Earth is important to Lauing because he believes the world is reaching a tipping point in regards to atomic weaponry. He thinks alien life has taken notice of this potential danger as well.

Daniel Lauing is the organizer behind the Reykawvik Summit, the first annual UFO conference planned at Liberty Hall, 644 Mass. St. Lauing has invited UFOlogists, experts in the study of UFOs such as nuclear physicist Stanton Friedman and retired Air Force Captain Robert Salas.

“I believe, with all sincerity, that we are approaching a global confrontation with nuclear arms. That is why, I believe, the sightings are happening so much near nuclear weapon depots.”

Retired Air Force Captain Robert Salas agrees with Lauing’s assessment of the situation. He will be a speaker at the Reykawvik Summit.

Salas was stationed at Malmstrom Airforce Base, Montana, in 1967 when, he says, a “huge, pulsating, red-colored object hovered above the front gate” of the facility.

“The guy who called me was obviously very frightened,” Salas says. “The guards all had their weapons out. I told them to not let anything through the front gate, as it could have been some sort of attack. It was a critical situation. I told my commander what was happening, and, as I told him, our missiles started to go into a no-go, disabled condition. All 10 of them. I’ve got the two crews on duty during these incidents, and all of us are saying the same thing.”

Salas says he knows the encounter clearly illustrates that aliens exist and they may be trying to warn humanity away from nuclear disaster.

“I think they could have done a lot more damage than they did. They could have damaged the electronics and they didn’t. There’ve been many other situations where these things flew over sites. In many cases, the objects shown a beam of light over the weapons storage area, where the nukes were kept. To me, that’s a message that says, ‘What are you guys doing with these things? Get rid of them.'”

Stanton Friedman, a nuclear physicist, author and lecturer on UFOs, compares the current climate of popular disbelief of terrestrial alien sightings to that of the Catholic Church’s repressive response to Nicolaus Copernicus when he stated the Earth wasn’t at the center of the universe. Friedman will also be speaking at the upcoming summit.

“Our own picture of ourselves is one big reason we need to understand what’s going on here,” Friedman says. “When are we going to wake up to the fact that we’re wasting resources on things like the military rather than things for the benefit of the people on the planet? Until someone says, ‘The emperor doesn’t have any clothes on,’ we won’t change that.”

Friedman says alien life might see humanity in a very different light than we view ourselves.

“I’m sure, to a visiting society, we’re primatives whose major activity is tribal warfare. We’re raping the planet, we’re conquering the planet. We’re not showing adult behavior. We’ve got too much technology and not enough sociology.”

Friedman says acceptance of UFOs would change human culture instantly, perhaps a reason governments could be covering information about UFOs up.

“The younger generation would immediately push for a new view of ourselves,” he says. “From an alien perspective, we’re all Earthlings. There isn’t a government on this planet that wants its citizens to identify themselves solely as human. Nationalism is the only game in town.”