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By JULIA BENNETT

It was the question they’d all come for.

The question they love to ask — and to answer.

“How many of you in this audience think that you may have had some sort of UFO experience, lights in the sky or something like that?” Daniel Nims asked the audience at the joint Mutual UFO Network meeting in Spokane Valley last week. “Can I see a raise of hands?”

Nine out of 10 audience members put their hands up, eager to hear more about our (possible) extraterrestrial neighbors.

The Washington Mutual UFO Network and the National UFO Reporting Center hosted their first joint meeting at the Spokane Valley Library, 12004 E. Main Ave.

Washington State MUFON Director Maurene Morgan addressed the media and military’s attitude changes toward UFOs. She has been the Washington State director since 2017.

“There has [been] a complete sea change in how the mainstream and elite media regards the whole UFO issue,” Morgan said.

Nims, MUFON’s chief investigator and the director for Eastern Washington, discussed UFO reporting statistics and offered what he said was proof of vast government coverup, a central theme among the extraterrestrial faithful. Nims, who’s led MUFON’s investigations since 2018, served in the U.S. Air Force for 20 years. He was a combat fighter pilot in Southeast Asia.

The organization’s database of reported UFO cases, which it created in 1980, comprises 102,545 reports. An estimated 40,000 to 50,000 UFO sightings occur each year, though only one person in 250 actually reports what they think they saw. According to the National UFO Center, Idaho residents reported 42 UFO sightings in 2018. About 50 sightings have been reported so far this year, including two in Coeur d’Alene and one in Sandpoint. Worldwide, some 7,606 sightings were reported last year, the Mutual UFO Network said.

Every case reported to MUFON is investigated by one of its 800 field investigators, Nims said.

“Hopefully, I’ve made my case that if you think UFO cases are rare you appreciate that they are not,” Nims said. “If you have seen a UFO, don’t feel like you are alone. I have proved the statistic that one in six Americans have had a UFO case.”

Peter Davenport, director of the National UFO Reporting Center, explored past reported UFO cases and discussed his insights on the phenomenon. He has been the reporting center director since 1994 and reports UFO cases on the Internet and late-night talk radio programs like “Coast to Coast A.M.”

Davenport, who once ran for Congress — though not on the extraterrestrial ticket — said he saw his first UFO in 1953, when he was 6 years old. He was with his parents and older brother, attending a drive-in movie near the St. Louis airport.

“It was so bright it was painful to look at,” Davenport said. “I knew, even as a youngster, immediately that it was not anything from this planet.”

Davenport showed a small model representation of a system he has been working on that will detect UFOs. He is hoping his technology will be more efficient than a hotline and give better proof of UFOs than a what he waves off as “fuzzy photographs.” Davenport said he received a call from a senior CIA official after an article was published through MUFON where he described his UFO detecting technology in 2004.

“The same day it was published on the MUFON website I got a call from an office and I’ll never forget his closing remarks to me, he said ‘Mr. Davenport if you create the technology that you have described in your article, you will answer the question of whether UFOs are real or not,” Davenport said. “He very studiously did not say you will detect UFOs.”

MUFON, a nonprofit staffed by volunteers, was organized on May 31, 1969 — before we landed on the moon — by Walt Andrus, a member of the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization. The group celebrated its 50-year anniversary in May. It has more than 4,000 members worldwide, a monthly journal and an online television network.

Jo Dusbuskey is one of the people who didn’t report her UFO sighting. She attended a large group event and saw a UFO in plain sight. Dusbuskey said she called called Spokane’s Crime Check, which told her to call the Air Force. The Air Force directed her to MUFON, which she said she never called because she didn’t want to be on “the list of crazies.”

“They haven’t talked about the media and the decision to ridicule,” Dusbuskey said. It says “‘Oh, we’re going to tell you what you saw — and laugh at you. Who wants that? Nobody wants that.”

MUFON has three different levels of membership: The cheapest start at about $6 per month and includes the group’s e-journal. For $10 a month, members get access to MUFON TV. To join, visit mufon.com/join-mufon

Morgan and Nims say they’d like to host more meetings in the Eastern Washington area.

“I need to get an invite to come over to Coeur d’Alene,” Morgan said.