CONVENTION CRASHING: INTERNATIONAL UFO CONGRESS

Saturday, March 3, 2007 | 7:07 a.m.

It's because of the vortex that Cynthia T. Crawford sculpts clay aliens. That and the portal.

See, the vortex comes down into her Arizona house near the Superstition Mountains, and the beings, including the Ant People, come out of it. Sometimes a portal opens up and she goes and visits them and then comes back in a rush of blue light. Freaks the dogs out.

The beings found her through her spiritual frequency, she says, and they told her that one of her missions on this planet is to make people comfortable with the beings so that we're not afraid, when the time comes. So she sculpts clay busts of almond-noggined beings (the ones with the pipe-cleaner antennae are the Ant People) and little silver baby beings.

"But I cannot take credit for these. My beings make them through me, they use my hands, my eyes," Crawford says. "They make me tell people that so no one thinks I'm some great sculptor."

Crawford is cagey on price, saying she'll sell only to people who feel a "true resonance."

That's why she was in the sales pavilion Thursday at the 16th annual International UFO Congress Convention and Film Festival at the Aquarius Hotel in Laughlin. Also there was a numerologist who says she's bad at math, a self-proclaimed "Alien Hunter," tarot card readers, crystal hawkers, pyramid petters, booksellers and DVD vendors. Oh, the DVDs. Films about aliens, of course, but also the 9/11 conspiracies, the Illuminati, international banking, how the moon landings were faked, chupacabras, unknown powers ("You Have Them, Too") and dolphins ("Healers of the Sea").

And of course, Lloyd Pye, who has a deformed skull (not his, but one he has). He calls it Starchild, because the simplest, most plausible explanation for a swollen, flattened skull is that it's an alien-human hybrid. Pye used to be a Bigfoot researcher and is author of a book that claims the Earth has no crust under its oceans. He considers himself the most serious scientific guy at the convention.

Anyhow, back to Starchild. Pye says he'll have DNA tests done on it, if he can just raise the money through book and DVD sales (he asked if the Sun would like to buy a DVD), though he's really hoping for a financial angel.

"Maybe one of the movie stars will step forward," he says.

Like maybe Martin Sheen. Why not? He did a movie about Roswell. He's the narrator on a DVD for sale at the convention about government weather-control death rays. But before you make some joke about nutty actors, remember this is Martin Sheen. He used to be our fake president. He knows things.

We also picked up a handy pamphlet entitled "Alien Abduction Resistance" by Maurice Osborn. The first thing you have to do is figure out if you're being abducted, which is harder than you would think. Important signs are if you have "feelings of not being socially ordinary" or, if you're a woman, yeast infections.

Once you know they're coming for you, you can be ready for them. Good news: They disappear if you wave or shoot a gun at them.