“MIBBB Fest,” the annual celebration commemorating the historic appearance of UFOs off Maury Island, and the world’s first encounter with the iconic Men in Black in 1947, returns with a weekend of events anchored by its signature, cosplay Men in Black Birthday Bash at Quarterdeck in Des Moines on June 21, 2025.

At the Bash, 200 attendees in black-and-white cosplay will immerse in the history and mythology of the infamous Maury Island Incident, which occurred on June 21, 1947, when a Tacoma man named Harold Dahl reported six flying saucers off the shores of Maury Island. The next morning, Dahl alleged he was visited by the first “Man in Black.” Dahl’s remarkable story helped launch 1947’s “Summer of the Saucers,” when thousands of UFO incidents were reported worldwide.

LAST MIBBB FEST – EVER?

Festival co-founder Steve Edmiston expressed concerns over the festival’s future.

“This festival celebrates the men – and women – in black that have served this community and this planet since 1947. Even though our mission statement as men and women in black is literally ‘saving humanity, one warning at a time,’ we’re worried that when the current wave of government budget cuts and firings are completed, our usually invisible-to-radar organization will be up next. Because we’re an off-book agency, the problem is that our existence is denied, so by definition we don’t have a budget to cut and we certainly don’t have five things that we can say we do. So, we are preparing to be forced into a new level of non-existence.”

Edmiston believes MIBBB has been targeted because it’s in the way of other’s agendas.

“It’s also not lost on us that another powerful and mysterious organization decided to schedule next year’s so-called ‘FIFA World Cup 2026’ in Seattle on the anniversary of the Maury Island Incident and MIBBB Fest, in effect cancelling MIBBB Fest. There can’t be two events of such magnitude that overlap. The Northwest doesn’t have the capacity. No one asked us, but the message is clear. So, as realists, this might be our last MIBBB Fest, and if so, we want to go out with a really, really big bang. Secretly and quietly, of course, it should be a really, really tremendous big bang that no one can actually hear or is even aware of, because as the MIB, that’s how we have to roll.”

ABOUT “THE BASH”

While event organizers generally refuse to comment on Bash event details, attendee accounts from from past years reveal the Bash to be a hybrid birthday party, variety show, and performance art, loosely structured as the annual meeting of a decades-old secret organization purporting to represent the “Men and Women in Black Worldwide” (the “MAW-IBW Chapter 1947”). The event has sold out in each of its first three years.

The Bash experience begins well before the event. After purchasing tickets, attendees receive multiple “mission briefs” that explain the history and mythology of the Maury Island Incident, the Bash event, and important logistics. Arriving attendees become card-carrying “agents.” Each receive “mission boxes” with curated swag and event-related “tech,” including a new pair of MIBBB branded sunglasses and the now highly valued collectible custom lapel pin (a year-one pin was offered for sale last year at $200).

During the Bash, music performance is interspersed with live reports to attendees, quirky traditions and surprises. Examples include an annual discussion of grievances with Roswell’s “UFO-industrial complex;” last year’s flashmob of women-in-black Irish dancing to Golden Earring’s MIB-themed “Twilight Zone;” trays of chocolate covered donuts served en masse to toast the FBI’s actual 1947 description of the Maury Island UFOs; dispensing “MIBBBY Style Awards” for the cosplay, including best “Traditional,” “Experimental,” and “Best in Show;” dancing to a live performance of Johnny Rivers’ “Secret Agent Man,” the official song of the MAW-IBW; lifetime achievement awards (including the first to Dan Akroyd, who did not attend and has yet to pick up his trophy); and a finale – an annual prediction of precisely “how long to the invasion.”

Attendees have learned it’s best to show up on time because the MIBBB program launches at exactly 6:22 p.m. (corresponding with the 6/22 date the first MIB appeared to Harold Dahl) with a ceremonial “Great Synchronization.”

MIBBB FEST INSPIRES: ALIENVITATIONS

MIBBB Fest was created to celebrate this forgotten local UFO and MIB history, which also inspired the locally produced, award-winning film “The Maury Island Incident.”

Regional tourism bureau Explore Seattle Southside (ESS) has supported MIBBB Fest from the beginning, and last year took its support to the next level. At last year’s MIBBB Fest, ESS launched a new and award-winning national advertising campaign, “Alienvitations,” providing branded “bait cows” for abduction, tagged with an invite for the Aliens to return to our “curiously wonderful” region.