By James Craven, Staff Writer

NEW BRITAIN — There was little chance of seeing a UFO in the basement of the New Britain Public Library Saturday, but that didn’t keep the believers, wanna-be-believers and skeptics away.

It was a full house as Steve Firmani, founder and director of New England Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), displayed a plethora of photographs, reports and alleged first-hand accounts of sightings, abductions and suspicions.

For friends Nicole Paradise and LaToya Keley, it was a split decision. Paradise put herself squarely in the "it could be true" camp, while Keley was just as solidly in the "I’d like to think it’s true" camp.

Neither could have deterred Firmani, however, as he spoke for more than an hour on his investigations on UFOlogy.

Yes, UFOlogy!

Firmani began his UFO career as a MUFON field investigator in the early 1970s and has held the positions of MUFON section director for central Massachusetts and Massachusetts state director, among others.

Speaking in an even voice, Firmani didn’t give the impression of someone prone to being overly excitable. He came across as a "just the facts" type of person. In fact, with a crew cut and a suit and tie he might sound a bit like the Jack Webb character, Sgt. Friday, from the long-running television show, "Dragnet."

For Dyke Spear, however, his delivery was just fine.

"I had an experience with a UFO," Spear, an attorney living in Farmington, said.

Spear described his experience as a one-time event that happened while driving through Pennsylvania in February 1983. He was on Interstate 84 and heading westbound about 9 p.m. when he noticed five or six cars pulled over on the other side of the highway and "something that looked like it came out of a Steven Spielberg movie."

"It was triangular and hovered just off the eastbound lanes without a sound," he said, his eyes looking away as he speaks as if to better capture the vision. "Not a sound."

Not everyone was a convinced as Spear, however. Karen Lindstrom, of Berlin, drove to the library after hearing about the talk but said she wasn’t convinced.

"I’m a skeptic," she said, smiling.

That’s OK with Firmani. During his career he has investigated cases ranging from simple sighting to abductions, but he has yet to prove conclusively that we have been visited.

James Craven can be reached at jcraven@centralctcommunications.com