New Space for Alien Exhibit
The Fredericton Region Museum has made new additions to the Stanton Friedman is Out of This World exhibit over the summer vacation. These additions include a new room containing new figures, pictures, posters, videos and artefacts that can be seen in throughout the old and the new section.
An alien exhibit in a Region Museum may sound unusual to some but to others it would be a very interesting walkthrough. The museum contains other exhibits that give the history of the province and the city. The Coleman Frog, the most popular exhibit, shows a life-size remake of a 42-pound frog that lived in the Killarney Lake. The Wabanaki Way shows a history of the First Nations people in Fredericton. Black Heritage of York & Sunbury Counties gives an insight into the contribution of the Black community in the city.
When considering the other options at the museum, an exhibit about extra-terrestrials does seem out of place. Connor Fraser, a museum staff member, encourages everyone to come and see the exhibition since it is so different from the other displays.
“Our Stanton Friedman exhibit is super cool. So much fun lots of aliens lots of cool space things.”
Friedman was a well-renowned Ufologist and Stanton Friedman Day is celebrated on August 27. Members of the museum board had a great relationship with him and they believed that it would be a good idea to showcase the exhibition in Fredericton. Friedman, an American, also spent many years of his life in Fredericton, adding to the reasons why the exhibition is in the museum.
“We have it in this museum and people ask how come it’s here because he’s American but he spent the last 20 years of his life in Fredericton with his wife and he was really good friends with our director of the museum and all our board members and he really wanted his memory to be conserved,” Fraser added.
The new section has been given a dedicated room. This room contains a board where patrons can draw or write on a piece of paper and then stick their paper onto the board. The drawing and writings are about the existence of extra-terrestrials and is stuck under a sign that reads “I Believe”. The board contained many drawing from the generic, alien drawings, reptilian creatures, and small anecdotes about why people believe that aliens exist.
The room also houses many small artefacts from persons giving accounts of their encounters with aliens. The staff has been working on new statues to be placed all around the exhibit. Fraser says that those were the last additions that were made.
“It was really fun making them. We made some more this summer too for the exhibit. We did papier-mache, we painted. We had to get a real person and wrap them up in duct tape so we could get the mould first and then we did the papier-mache. It’s one of the funner parts of working here, it’s all of the odd jobs you get to do.”
The new figures have a very life-like appearance and are comparable in size to the average person. The new wing also has new videos and posters showing Friedman’s work. His voice can be heard throughout the entire wing as the videos are constantly playing. There are also dioramas of human and alien interaction such as a doctor inspecting an alien on an operating table.
The Stanton Freidman exhibit is available to the public for viewing during the opening hours of the museum. It is a spectacle to behold and it would be a good idea to take a tour before the aliens head back to storage-space.
