The truth is out there…in Alabama

Note: This post originally was published in 2017. It has been updated to include this year's festival.

On Feb. 11-12, 1989, more than 50 people, including the chief of police, reported seeing odd objects flying over the small community of Fyffe in northeastern Alabama. The rash of UFO sightings, and the thousands of people who arrived looking for UFOs, resulted in the town being named the UFO Capital of the World. Not to be outdone, the state later proclaimed it the UFO Capital of Alabama.

On Saturday, Aug. 24, 2019, the annual Fyffe UFO Day Festival will kick into gear. Visitors may not spot little green men flying around in saucers — or maybe they will! —but there will definitely be hot air balloons, arts and crafts, children’s games, 5K run, antique car and tractor show and food vendors.  

Photos courtesy

DeKalb Tourism

Headlining this year's event is David Ball, whose hit records stretch from the late 80s to 2004. Also scheduled to perform are The Sharps, Steel City Revival and Willie Underwood and Family.

Gates open at 9 a.m. Saturday at the Fyffe Town Park on Graves Street, but the hot air balloons take flight around 6 a.m. Tethered rides are offered for the public around 6 p.m. and hot air balloon rides across the Sand Mountain will be available, weather permitting. For information, visit www.ballooningal.com.

Registration for the 5K begins at 7 a.m. with the race beginning at 8 a.m. at Fyffe First Baptist Church. For more information, click here.

Parking and admission are free and visitors are encouraged to bring lawn chairs and picnic blankets. For more information on UFO Day Festival, call DeKalb Tourism at (888) 805-4740 or visit www.VisitLookoutMountain.com.

Want to know more about that rash of UFO sightings in 1989 and a few Alabama UFO reports preceding Fyffe’s encounters? Click here.

Here’s something fun (or maybe weird), a commercial aimed at keeping teenagers from driving and drinking using Fyffe and its UFO reputation as a backdrop.

Cheré Coen is a food and travel writer who loves weird and unusual things. 

Sip+Dip at Audubon Cool Zoo

It’s hot in the Deep South and sometimes you have to kick the kids out of the pool.

The Audubon Zoo in New Orleans is doing just that on Saturday, July 27, 2019, allowing adults-only after-hours access to its Cool Zoo, which includes the attraction’s splash pad and Gator Run lazy river. The Sip+Dip, which cost $30 per person, involves outdoor games, live entertainment and three complimentary drinks along with two light bite options. Additional drinks and a limited menu will be available for purchase. Tickets are available online.

“Audubon Cool Zoo is known as the hot spot to cool off for children and families during the summer in New Orleans,” said Audubon Nature Institute Vice President of Marketing Katie Smith in a press release. “New this summer, for one night only, we’re transforming it into the perfect oasis for adults to take a dip, sip a cocktail, and enjoy Cool Zoo after hours, opening-up a world of unique experiences for the kid in all of us.”

Cool Zoo splash park includes jumping waterspouts, an alligator water slide, spider monkey soakers and water-spitting snakes. The Gator Run 750-foot, three-feet-deep lazy river rolls by two sand beaches, lounge chairs, four water cannons, two water curtains and jumping jets. It takes approximately seven minutes to make a round trip.

Cool Zoo and Gator Run are located beside the Gottesman Family Endangered Species Carousel inside Audubon Zoo. This after-hours event is exclusively for adults ages 21 and over. 

Watch the Sip + Dip video here.

Take 5: Unique aspects about the Mississippi Gulf Coast

1. Barq’s Root Beer was invented in Biloxi by Edward Charles Edmond Barq Sr. He bottled his first root beer in 1872, according to the company's website.

2. Space travel begins in Mississippi. NASA’s John C. Stennis Space Center in Waveland is NASA's largest rocket engine test facility. 

3. The Biloxi Lighthouse is the only U.S. lighthouse located in the middle of a two-lane highway.

  

4. The Pascagoula River is the largest free-flowing river in the lower 48 states.

  

5. Jimmy Buffett was born in Pascagoula and you can view his first home and the bridge that’s now dedicated to him. 

Weird, Wacky and Wild South is written by travel and food writer Chere Dastugue Coen, who loves the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

Banksy mural finds home at New Orleans International House

British street artist Banksy helped himself to several outdoor canvases after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005. One of the 16 buildings he “embellished” with his street art in August 2008 (Katrina’s third anniversary) was a warehouse co-owned by hotelier Sean Cummings and actor-author HillHarper. 

The 10-foot by 10-foot artwork known as “Looters,” features two men stealing electronics and pushing the objects through a window from a  grocery shopping cart.

Cummings and Harper hoped to turn the warehouse near the Mississippi River into lofts and restaurants but the city denied their plans. Instead, the duo sold the property but saved the mural which has now found a home at the boutique hotel, the International House, located at 221 Camp Street in New Orleans' Central Business District. 

“Looters” has been restored after a five-year, $50,000 restoration to remove graffiti and paint and installed in the hotel adjacent to a room that celebrates the artist with Banksy quotes, photographs, storytelling and local lore, according to the hotel’s press release.

Only three of the original 17 Banksy murals still exist in New Orleans today.