By Tim Binnall
An exhibit celebrating the life and career of legendary UFO researcher Stanton Friedman is set to open later this month at a museum in Canada. According to a local media report, the extensive display honoring the iconic ufologist, who passed away in May of 2019, will be located at the Fredericton Region Museum in the province of New Brunswick. Titled 'Stanton Friedman is out of this World,' the exhibit will showcase a vast array of artifacts from the UFO researcher's five-decade-long quest for answers regarding the phenomenon.
Although Friedman was not born in Fredericton, the city became his adopted home when he moved there in the early 1980s and the community now recognizes him as one of their own. "How many people from Fredericton had their obituary in the New York Times? How many people from Fredericton became characters in a Betty and Veronica comic book? Not too darn many," marveled museum director Melynda Jarratt, "he's a cultural icon and he's from Fredericton."
The concept for the exhibit has its roots in a 2017 conversation Jarratt had with Friedman in which he expressed the desire to create a UFO museum in Fredericton. While that idea proved to be a bit too ambitious due to the enormous amount of material he had acquired over the years, the museum director recalled the exchange upon hearing of the ufologist's passing and decided that the site should develop a display to honor him. A personal friend of Friedman, Jarratt mused that "he deserves to be treated with respect for the awesome and most extraordinary work he did in researching the UFO experience."
Work on the project began back in early 2020 and the display features a variety of one-of-a-kind pieces from Friedman's prodigious career as a UFO researcher. In a video preview of the exhibit, seen here, the museum's vice president, Hal Skaarup, declared that it is meant to "honor Stanton in every way possible." The Fredericton Region Museum's display exploring the UFO researcher's life and career will open to the public on June 26th. Fortunately for Americans unable to enter Canada due to remaining Covid restrictions, the exhibit is expected to remain in place for at least the next two years and, one imagines, considering Friedman's enduring popularity among UFO enthusiasts, could wind up becoming a permanent fixture at the site.