Out of this world: New exhibit honours late Fredericton UFOlogist Stanton Friedman

UFO expert's work on display Few things capture our attention like UFOs and an exhibit displays the work of the late Stanton Friedman. Alyson Samson reports.

FREDERICTON — Nobody knew the subject of UFOs like the late Stanton Friedman of Fredericton, and now, there's an exhibit based on his life's work that is out of this world.

Located in the Fredericton Regional Museum, the exhibit tells the story of Friedman "who was the world's most famous UFOlogist," said Melynda Jarratt, Executive Director of the museum.

"We were able to pull together this exhibit over a period of two years and let me tell you, COVID in a way was an impediment, but, on the other hand, COVID gave us the time to think about what we wanted to do here and to put everything into its proper place,” Jarratt said.

The author and scientist lived in Fredericton for 40 years, until his death in 2019, and has a lot of fans in New Brunswick.

"Stan Friedman was a nice guy. He did me a few favours and this is to honour him," said Ron Rinehart, who donated an alien item to exhibit.

Friedman had a degree in nuclear physics but was renowned worldwide for his expertise in UFOs.

He was also the original civilian investigator of the famous Roswell UFO incident in New Mexico.

"This is valid, this has some truthfulness to it, that he was doing it from the facts, not from some guesswork. This was important for anybody who was talking to him, they wanted this validation they wanted the person who knows what he's doing and knows what he's talking about," said Harold Skaarup, who volunteered with the exhibit.

This exhibit was a dream of Stanton's who was involved with creating the Roswell Museum.

"In 2017 he contacted me and he said ‘Melynda I want to establish a UFO museum in Fredericton, I've had a little bit of health troubles and I'm getting old and I've got all this stuff, what can I do with it?'," said Jarratt.

"I said 'Stanton, oh my God, do you know how much work that's going to be to establish a museum?'"

The Fredericton Region Museum plans to keep the exhibit going until at least the summer of 2023.

According to Jarratt, it's one of the most popular exhibits the museum has curated.

"I'm a historian and the reality is this is a cultural phenomenon. People believe in this, he existed, he was real and he was a nice guy,” she said.

In 2007, Fredericton even named August 27 Stanton Friedman Day and the Fredericton Region Museum says they'll be holding something special at the museum on that day this year.