From a mining pond in Carbondale to the ice in Wilkes-Barre Twp., the Carbondalien will invade a Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins game this month as the hockey team embraces the Upvalley alien lore.
The Penguins will rebrand themselves as the “Carbondale UFOs” for their game on April 12 at the Mohegan Arena at Casey Plaza, said Nicole Curtis, who co-organized Carbondale’s inaugural Carbondalien Festival in November.
“There will be no sign of the Penguins, except for center ice,” Curtis said.
The Penguins will have commemorative jerseys for sale, and the team store will be “taken over with Carbondale UFO merchandise,” she said, adding that “men in black,” the Carbondalien Festival’s alien and UFO will also be there for the game, among other alien-themed festivities. With a “War of the Worlds” atmosphere, it will be like a UFO crash landed at the arena, she said.
A smoking flying saucer is seen on a flatbed truck at Russell Park in Carbondale during the Carbondalien Festival on Saturday, Nov. 9, 2024.(TIMES-TRIBUNE FILE)
There will also be an art walk showcasing local artists with cosmic-themed 4-foot by 6-foot banners, said Curtis, who is a retired art teacher. The banners will then head to Carbondale for the next Carbondalien Festival in November, she said.
The Carbondale UFOs will celebrate a 50-year-old, out-of-this-world tale of an object crash landing into a mining pond behind Russell Park and glowing underwater. The Roswell-esque tale of the Carbondalien began Nov. 9, 1974, when a group of teenage boys called police about a whirring object flying over Salem Mountain and landing in a silt pond behind Russell Park.
Carbondale police arrived at the pond to find something glowing underwater, with the resulting frenzy drawing onlookers, media, military personnel, law enforcement and UFO researchers from at least 17 states and Canada. Later reports of a flatbed hauling a tarp-covered object out of the scene only fanned the extraterrestrial flames. Less than two days after the reported crash landing, a scuba diver emerged from the murky waters with a faintly glowing railroad lantern, prompting police to immediately dispel the story as a hoax.
Although officials quickly discredited the story, speculation persisted for decades, culminating last year with the Carbondalien Festival on Nov. 9 for the 50th anniversary of the story.
The Penguins contacted her last year after learning of the festival, Curtis said.
“We were just so thrilled to be a part of this,” she said, explaining she and Carbondale Mayor Michele Bannon met with team officials. “This is just such a great opportunity for us.”
Other Penguins’ theme nights included the Old Forge Pizzas and the Pittston Tomatoes, but they deviated from food for the alien theme, Curtis said.
“Our UFO story is just so much fun — too much fun for them to pass up,” she said.
The Carbondalien has taken on a life of its own, and as soon as the Penguins reached out with their idea for a UFO theme, they received an enthusiastic “yes” from the city, Bannon said.
“We love that we can garner attention from the Penguins,” the mayor said. “We’re a pretty sports-oriented community, so when we have our local hockey league changing their name to the Carbondale UFOs, it’s pretty darn exciting.”
The city is still seeing momentum from the Carbondalien Festival months later, Bannon said, lauding the exposure it has garnered for the city.
“I love the fact that we’ve always been working on improving our image of Carbondale,” Bannon said. “The more we can do to project out the fantastic things that we offer, the fantastic things that we do, the better it makes it for everybody — it’s economic, it’s culture, it’s quality of life. It just checks all our boxes for us.”
It’s a rare opportunity to get publicity ...
