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Free To The Public...On March 21st, 2026 at 5:00 PM, Stewart will deliver a keynote at the lecture in Fulton Library 120 at Utah Valley University Folklore Symposium. My presentation will be titled "UFOs, Aliens, and Utah. Oh My!" This presentation focuses exclusively on Utah ufology and Utah based alien encounters, marking the first time in nearly twenty years that Stewart has publicly addressed these topics as a central focus of his work. Drawing from historical cases, contemporary reports, and specific Utah locations, the talk explores how UFOs, UAPs or Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, and alien encounters function as folklore, belief, and lived narrative within the state of Utah.
Danny B. Stewart is a Utah based folklorist, public scholar, and storyteller known for his extensive fieldwork into Utah’s living traditions, legends, and contemporary belief narratives. With over two decades of academic experience and hundreds of original folklore accounts collected across the state, Stewart has presented at universities, libraries, museums, schools, and conferences throughout Utah and beyond. His work examines how people experience, narrate, and give meaning to the strange, including ghost stories, legends, supernatural encounters, and modern belief systems. He is the creator of The Original Provo Ghost Tour and a frequent contributor to regional folklore and history publications.
For much of his career, Stewart intentionally avoided the topic of UFOs after learning that discussing faeries and ghosts was often taken more seriously than addressing extraterrestrial encounters. UFO narratives were frequently dismissed regardless of witnesses or consistency, leading him to set the subject aside despite its continued presence in his Utah fieldwork. That changed following the publication of his UFO article in Utah Stories, which demonstrated that Utah UFO and alien accounts could be examined with rigor and care. This keynote represents a long awaited return to a subject that has quietly shaped Utah folklore for decades and invites audiences to engage seriously with the strange as it appears in Utah alone.
On Saturdays, UVU campus has free parking in the yellow permit zones, the closest to the library building are a short walk to the west, next to the Clarke building.
Full Conference Schedule Below...
Things may change a little, but I will the the Final Speaker at 5PM-ish
Folklore Symposium Presenters
Utah Valley University's Fulton Library 120 - March 21st 2026
9 am to 11am Starting Block:
Zachary Wright (Brigham Young University) 40 mins
Shadows, Thieves, and a Wild Nature:
The Very Real Threat Behind Skinwalker Legends
Emily Kovacic (Utah State University) 20 mins
A More-Than-More-Than-Human Approach to Vernacular Place-Based Folklore Studies
Anne Schill (Utah State University) 20 mins
The Comic Form & Indigenous Storytelling
Alyssa Willis (Utah State University) 20 mins
Canon and Fanon in Fanfics: A Folklore Exploration of Conservatism and Dynamism
11 am
Andrew Kosorok (Utah Valley University) 45 mins
Serpents of Sky, Stone, and Deep: Shared Symbols of the Three-World Cosmology
12 pm
Paulee Shakespear, Emma Hall, Abigail Bates Bury, Ainsley Farmer 45 mins
(Brigham Young University)
Connection in the Archives: Engaging the Community in Folklore through Outreach Events
1 pm
Lunch Break
2 pm
Joel Bradford (Utah Valley University) 45 mins
The Syncretic Folklore and Mythology of the Tarahumara Indians of Chihuahua, Mexico
3 pm
Brian Higgins (Independent) 45 mins
Don’t Muck with the Faefolk (Fairies/Faeries): Folklore, Fate, and Modern Encounters with the Otherworld.
4 pm
John Olsen (Independent) 45 mins
Paranormal Patterns: Unique Patterns in Paranormal Encounters
5 pm
Danny B Stewart (Independent) 45 mins
UFOs, Aliens, and Utah... Oh My!
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Utah Valley University, ChargePoint, Orem, UT 84058, United States
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups - all the happenings, one place.
