It was billed as an event devoted to ‘extraterrestrial life, space exploration and the future’. But Halifax’s local what’s-on guide, The Coast, wasn’t far wrong when it concisely described the New Frontiers Symposium as a place where “all kinds of crazy shit” would be placed under the microscope for scrutiny.

While back in Britain in the late summer of 2006, I had been contacted by a Canadian friend, Paul Kimball of Red Star Films, with whom I had worked on a number of television projects. He was planning to hold an autumn conference on all things weird in his hometown of Halifax, and asked if I would be interested in giving a presentation.