UFO believers flock to quiet French town looking for encounter

Several thousand self-professed awakening individuals made their way to the Limoges Metropole building

Thousands of believers in extra-terrestrial life form descended on the quiet French town of Limoges on Saturday, hoping to connect with the aliens they are so certain exist.
Several thousand self-professed awakening individuals made their way to the Zenith Limoges Metropole building in a field off one of the main highways.
The silver, saucer-shaped building is a fitting setting for the three-day conference which features a cosmic line-up of galactic speakers who will be discussing mind-bending moments and “encounters with celestials in altered states of consciousness”.
Symposium Exovision is expected to draw 2,200 attendees who have paid between 150 to 190 euros to attend.
The event, organised by a group called Alliances Célestes, or Celestial Alliances, claims to want to prepare and train humanity for the arrival of extraterrestrials or “new-style encounters”.
On the event’s website it says: “The mission of this citizen delegation is to accompany humanity in this process, in order to properly inform and reduce the fear and stress that this type of encounter can generate.”
While many might dismiss the event as a wacky yet harmless convention by a fringe group, French officials say the event is not as benign as it seems,
They claim attendees are there to peddle conspiracy theorists and extremism that will have a detrimental effect on the city.
“I was stunned that such an event took place in Limoges,” Thierry Miguel, vice-president of the Haute-Vienne department council tweeted, describing the conference as a breeding ground for extremism and conspirators.
“Who are these eccentrics who invite themselves to Limoges to put the ideas of charlatans and conspiracy theorists into people’s heads?”
One of the conference invitees has drawn particular attention is Antoine “Q” Cuttitta, who is a known QAnon sympathiser and hosted a YouTube channel that peddled conspiracy theories before it was shut down for breaching the platform’s policies.
According to Conspiracy Watch, the Frenchman promotes the same conspiracy theories developed by QAnon: that a satanic elite rules the world and is behind a massive paedophile ring and that the 2020 American election was rigged.
Though media are banned from the event, two reporters from regional news media Le Populaire succeeded in infiltrating the event on Saturday and documented what they saw.
They said the general director of the group Alliances Célestes, Jean-Michel Raoux, was dressed in a blue and yellow outfit and cap, and introduced himself as being from the planet “Niam”.
Mr Raoux presented a set of grainy black-and-white photos to the crowd as irrefutable proof of alien life.
According to Le Populaire, Mr Raoux said he meets regularly with aliens, that he can draw extraterrestrials to specific places on earth, and that he witnessed UFO landings.
Next, the crowd heard from Anne Givaudan, a “galactic reporter” who said she comes from the land of Shambhala and told attendees that she saw human-animal hybrids in Antarctica.
“That’s why it’s time to get up and say to ourselves, what are we doing? Do we trust beings who have always deceived us in all areas? A new world must emerge,” she told a crowd.
Among the crowd was Simone Coulonges, a former psychiatrist, who had travelled eight hours from Vaucluse to attend the event.
“I communicate with beings from other planets. Usually, I don’t talk about it because people think we’re weird,” she told Le Parisien.
“They are afraid, they laugh. Here, we meet people who, like us, are open in heart and mind.”
Mr Miguel, who said the event risked making Limoges the laughing stock of France, said he plans to organise a public meeting on the role of science and social progress.
“We cannot stand there with our arms crossed in the face of possible charlatans who will come and talk to us about theories from another time,” he told BFMTV.
“When a society is dysfunctional, it takes refuge in values like these. But we must strive to demonstrate the truth from the false by relying on science.”