‘It’s never been cooler to be an alien contactee’: ET ‘experiencers’ are coming out as 3I/ATLAS phenomenon takes hold

It’s nearly 7 p.m. on the second Tuesday of the month, and Catherine Chapey is sitting at home in Holtsville, Long Island, making preparations for a social highlight of her week — a virtual meeting with a group of people who claim to have experienced close encounters with extraterrestrial life.

Chapey, a former electrician and an ordained “interspiritual minister,” found herself in the role of den mother to the eclectic and growing gathering after having her own brush with the otherworldly — subsequently reaching out to find out if there were more like her.

Starting with a small, in-person gathering at her local public library, she now has a mailing list of thousands — some beaming in from as far as Japan and New Zealand.

One by one, Chapey’s fellow “Experiencers” pop into the Zoom meeting, billed as a safe space for attendees to recount their abductions, telepathic visions from beyond and other celestial come-to-Jesus moments. What the average observer might find hard to believe, Chapey likes to think of as “spiritually transformative experiences.”

Today’s hot topic — 3I/Atlas, the interstellar object that’s streaking through our atmosphere, igniting speculation that it could be extraterrestrial and propelling the conversation around aliens more into the mainstream than it’s been in decades.

There’s Kevin, 71, a Realtor in Florida and a “lifelong contactee” whose cosmic rendezvous began at 8, he said, when he was visited by two unknown beings while in the bathroom. At 14, the beings introduced him to their council of eight — with whom he works closely to this day. He thinks that 3I/Atlas is a rock that’s “being programmed with consciousness.”