PINE BUSH – This is getting serious now. On Saturday, May 21, Pine Bush hosts its sixth festival to celebrate the odd phenomena that we think of as UFOs, or unidentified flying objects. The community has "enjoyed" a reputation for such objects since, well, things got particularly interesting in the 1970s.

But didn't everything get a bit interesting back then?

The first few Pine Bush UFO festivals were primarily light-hearted affairs, with a parade and costumes and efforts to bring attention to local small businesses. A committee ran things, where now the town's involved.

Now things have grown quite a bit in other ways as well. While there will still be a parade and street fair, with vendors packed into the Crawford Commons area and on Main Street — and zillions of green and purple inflated aliens on display — there will also be four hours of serious stuff in the evening at the high school auditorium.

Due to the growing awareness of both UFOs and the Pine Bush festival, many speakers with heavyweight reputations in the UFO field are lining up to address various aspects of what is, in fact, a complicated issue.

If you accept that there are strange objects, lights, what-have-yous whizzing through our atmosphere and possibly landing on terra firma, then there are many questions to ask about this. Many. And alien life forms are just one aspect of things.

During the day there will be speakers in the Speaker Tent, and this year there will be a Paranormal Center, too. Hans Holzer's daughter Alexandra will be presenting there (if you're a paranormal buff, you know Hans Holzer as the inspiration for the Ghostbuster movies). The Bronxville Paranormal Society will be attending, as will Tom Quackenbush.

Discussing UFO issues will be Bill Wiand, the Walker Valley-based mainstay of the local UFO Society, and Linda Zimmerman, author of "Hudson Valley UFOs" as well as a ghost investigator.

For family fun, there will be an Escape Room this year: a puzzle space in a tent, as well as a game in which participants open up clues that lead to other clues. This year the idea will be to come up with a way to help a baby alien escape and find its way home. The Escape Room will be found over in the young person's section among the bounce houses.

For the truly serious and dedicated UFO skywatchers, there will be actual skywatching sessions starting around 10:30 p.m. down in the old UFO watching zone on Ward Avenue, off County Route 17 (not 17K). Do not try to access via the Searsville Road since the bridge is out at that end of Ward Avenue. A parking area has been created on the right side near the junction.

Ah, UFOs. They're intractably mysterious, a puzzle without an answer... a big "who knows?" But a great many people all over the world have seen things — like the twelve employees at O'Hare Airport in Chicago on November 7, 2006 — that do not fit with our normal, explainable daily lives. And ah, that UFO parade... there's little better, or more fun.