Contact in the Desert 2025: The Best CITD Ever!
By Lisa Puzo Strickland, PhD
The largest assemblage of the world’s leading UAP Researchers and Experts in history flanked hot panels and big moments during this year’s just concluded 11th Annual Contact in the Desert. Held in steamy Indian Wells, California at the beautiful Renaissance Esmeralda Resort and Spa, this year’s conference, aptly themed Event Horizon, did its job educating 2,000+ attendees of the latest UAP and Disclosure developments, all with an appropriate dash of D.C. dialogue and entertainment industry influence.
This was only my second time attending CITD, but I agreed with many of my fellow attendees who told me that, having been to numerous previous conferences, this year’s CITD was the best yet.
In my opinion, there were three primary reasons for this:
The first was timing: The prominent focus of Contact 2025 was undeniably on Disclosure and the hopeful passing of the UAP Disclosure Act currently making its way through Congress. New Paradigm Institute’s Danny Sheehan, a renowned Washington, D.C. attorney and one of the key activists leading the charge for Disclosure, regularly encouraged those attending his various panels and lectures to call their local representatives sooner than later and push for the bill’s approval.
Many other speakers concurred with this push for Disclosure, but with some caveats. Author and researcher Richard Dolan warned of buyoffs and briberies that might be related to the U.S. military’s reverse engineering of ET technology that could be “worth trillions” to the private sector. And Nick Pope, History Channel’s Ancient Aliens contributor and former member of the UK Ministry of Defence, described how “warfare is changing” via technology, citing recent pager and drone attacks. Both of these are issues that will reflect in the US government’s move toward ending the nearly 80-year long Truth Embargo.
But perhaps Disclosure’s most supportive advocate is the beloved Linda Moulton Howe, who proclaimed, “We’re at a crossroads right now” between the continuance of denial and the benefits of the truth. Linda spoke of the secret underground military installations that she has been made aware of, as well as extraterrestrial beings living under the surface of the Earth. Linda feels that conversations about these topics could easily be used by the media to incite public fear. To this, however, Nick Pope encouraged the audience to “choose your own fear.” And filmmaker James Fox responded, “I think if ‘they’ were going to hurt us, they would have done that already.” He added, humorously, that if one thinks humans are too insignificant to hold our own ground, “try spending a night with a mosquito!”
In my opinion, none of us really knows for sure what Capital “D” Disclosure will end up looking like, but Captain Ron Janix, Owner/Producer of CITD, certainly made a strong statement by presenting CITD’s 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award to Stephen Bassett, Founder of the Paradigm Research Group. A nearly 30-year-long Washington, D.C.-based lobbyist and activist for Disclosure, Steve strongly believes that ‘the Big D’ will occur during President Trump’s current administration.
One thing is for sure, however, we’re ready.
(Seen in the Above Photo, Left to right: Richard Dolan, Paul Hynek, Tracey Garbutt Dolan, Lisa Puzo Strickland, at CITD 2025)
Since CITD is such a massive conference, with lectures, panels, workshops, podcasts, films and intensives all being spread out at different locations, and all happening at the same time, it wasn’t possible for me to catch every one of the 75+ researchers, filmmakers, podcasters, experiencers, scientists and authors who made presentations this year. But for those remarkable voices I did get to hear, it was well worth the extra steps and occasional jog between the main hotel and the annex building, especially when it was to attend a presentation by any one of the dozens of famous UFO experts who were invited to speak. All of them added to the UAP conversation.
This brings me to the second reason why 2025 Contact was phenomenal: The Stars!
In his keynote lecture, the star of the Discovery Channel TV series Expedition Unknown, Josh Gates, described his “deep curiosity for the unknown” and quickly bonded with the CITD audience by saying, “We’re kind of wired for it.” This sentiment was also shared by Hollywood actor, director, and producer Thomas Jane who graciously recounted his personal experiences and recent findings. Thomas, by the way, remained barefoot the entire conference – this has become his trademark. Talk about keeping it real.
Another fun “star” who not only attended this year’s CITD but also reported on it for CNN was Donie O’Sullivan. Donie interviewed numerous VIPs of UAP research, as well as many of the conference’s enthusiastic attendees. The PR team behind CITD even dubbed him, “An Honorary UFOlogist!”
And much to the delight of NewsNation fans, acclaimed UAP journalist Ross Coulthart gave a number of talks, all the while remaining accessible to attendees by roaming the halls and smiling for selfies. Ross himself was later delighted when Captain Ron presented him with the 2025 CITD Excellence in Broadcasting Award for providing a global TV platform for whistleblowers and allowing them to bring their hidden intel out of the shadows and into the public light. But in true journalist form, Ross also took a serious tone when expounding on witness accounts of UFO encounters, the potential dangers of AI, and the feared downward path of humanity. At one point, he surprised the CITD audience by inviting to the stage Lieutenant Colonel Dr. John Blitch, a retired military officer and senior researcher at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, whose interview with Ross made quite a media splash. Dr. Blitch agreed with many of the negative forces behind the ongoing truth embargo, having had his own frightening experiences. But he also uplifted the chat by repeating, “Love is the path to advanced technology… (because) it’s all about love!”
I wouldn’t say that the theme of love was necessarily at the forefront of CITD, but one aspect of love certainly was. Thus, the third reason why, in my opinion, Contact 2025 was the best so far: A Focus on Consciousness.
On the final night of CITD 2025, hundreds watched as Chris Bledsoe, famed UAP experiencer and best-selling author of UFO of God, conducted a close encounter event. He invited a number of beautiful lights in the sky into view with his mere, conscious intent. This kind of activated awareness, now being referred to under the umbrella term of Psionics, is currently widespread throughout UAP research, as we have also recently seen with Jake Barber’s Skywatcher project.
UFOlogist and editor Byron Belitsos related the impact of consciousness this year to a sense of connectedness. When comparing this year’s CITD to another held ten years previous in 2015, Byron remarked, “Back then, we knew less, so there was more mystery. We all had to be bolder in our approach, making all of us at that conference feel more connected. This 2025 CITD feels more like 2015 than any of all the other conferences in between.”
Consciousness and connection are both adjacent to the Psionic experience, which, as many have recently come to know, is deeply ingrained into the UAP/NHI experience.
I was both honored and humbled to be included on the well-attended Psionics panel, which also featured Dr. Diane Hennacy Powell of The Telepathy Tapes and experiencer and Communion author, Whitley Streiber, among others. On it, eight of us discussed the role that consciousness plays in UAP or NHI encounters as well as in paranormal abilities and activities, or psi. When psi is detected or measured by electronic means, we get the word psi-onics. However, recently the word psionics has become a grab-bag term for anything and everything paranormal and consciousness-related, such as telepathy or precognition. But that doesn’t seem to bother any psionic expert, because the point is, consciousness and the paranormal are both finally being discussed more frequently and in wider circles. My fellow panelist Tracey Garbutt Dolan brought it all home to our audience when she declared: “Psionics is bringing a broader, more compassionate audience to the UAP and NHI investigative field.”
After our panel ended, I had the opportunity to speak with Marysol Rezanov, an attendee/exhibitor who agreed with Tracey and believes that a focus on consciousness and more compassionate intentions will help raise the collective consciousness of mankind and thus help humanity better traverse our post-disclosure reality.
This year’s CITD wrapped up with the premiere showing of the new documentary, Inside Hollywood: Aliens, UFOs and the Quest for Disclosure, presented by the Hollywood Disclosure Alliance and its Chairman/Founder, Dan Harary who is a 40-year Hollywood publicist, published author, and 4-time UAP experiencer. What I found quite touching was the doc’s dedication to the late Earl Gray Anderson whose last ever on-camera interview, featured within the film, was taped just a few weeks before his passing. Earl served as MUFON’s State Director of Southern California and was considered one of the UAP community’s most credible and beloved participants. In the doc, Earl, himself a lifelong experiencer with an incredible story, inspired viewers to stride the UFO topic and pending Disclosure with a healthy, balanced perspective. As he would often say, “When discussing the UAP topic, I consider myself a true believer on one hand and a logical skeptic on the other.”
The truth is, no matter when and how Disclosure happens, those of us who attended this year’s CITD were not only immersed in all things UAP/NHI but were also reminded of the importance of love, the necessity of connection, and the impact of consciousness. This, I believe, is all part of what CITD panelist and popular podcaster Jesse Edwards so eloquently described as “living a life well-lived!”
For all of these reasons and more, Contact in the Desert 2025 was truly a remarkable experience for us all. And I’m very much looking forward to CITD 2026, which is currently being planned and has the potential to be even better.
(Seen in Photo Below: Left to Right, Dan Harary, Lisa Puzo Strickland, Stephen Bassett, at CITD 2025)
Lisa Puzo Strickland holds a PhD in Philosophy and Parapsychology. She is a Member of the Board of Directors of the Hollywood Disclosure Alliance.
To Contact Lisa Puzo Strickland:
