“Show me the alien.’’

John Ventre, a longtime writer on the supernatural from Hempfield, and his associates are offering a $30,000-plus reward for a “medically proven irrefutable Grey or Reptilian extraterrestrial, dead or alive.’’ 

He’s not kidding, though he doesn’t expect to have to pay up. He believes aliens to be interdimensional, not physical. So, if you have one lying around, this is your chance to not only show up the coordinator of the Pennsylvania UFO Conferences but to get the down payment on a house.

I drove out to Mr. Ventre’s home Friday afternoon, just hours after he emailed a announcement to various media that could be read as a dare.

“Statistically, there should be life in space. NASA claims there are 8.8 billion earthlike planets in our galaxy alone. Our government spent $22 million from 2007 to 2012 to search for aliens. ... Author and researcher John Ventre believes the alien abduction ET question is spiritual and a malevolent interdimensional shape-shifter and not from space, and that ancient sites were built by/for ancient deities and not ancient aliens.’’

So there.

I confess I didn’t double-check any of his stats but I immediately liked his style. When I reached his garage at the end of a cul de sac, a “Beware of Zombie Dog’’ sign was on his backyard fence. Once inside, Mr. Ventre, 61, who still has the New York accent of his youth, took me into his Egyptian-themed living room which is beside his Japanese-themed dining room and above his horror/sci-fi basement.

“Every room in the house is themed,” he said.

I told him I was wary of the legitimacy of his offer because a decade and a half ago I did a column on an engineer in Shaler who was offering five grand to anyone offering “scientific proof positive” that the Earth orbits the sun. He had another five grand ready for anyone who proved the Earth rotates on its axis.

It was something of a rigged game, though. He was a disbeliever, harder to convince than the O.J. jury. I don’t believe he ever paid off because he got to decide what proof was.

Mr. Ventre assured me he would accept medical and scientific certification of any alien life form, but please don’t waste his time with pieces of a ship made from “unobtainium.”

“I want to meet the extraterrestrials. I want to meet the pilots.”

Not that he expects such a meeting. 

“There are probably eight or nine different explanations for UFOs. The most popular is the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis — ETH — and that says they come from space, in physical craft, that flies here. And I’ve concluded after my 20 years that it is more of the interdimensional hypothesis.”

“It’s more spiritual. ... I think they have the ability to materialize energy because it does show up on radar, sonar. People see something flying. I believe something is flying around. But I think it goes back into a dimension. It almost de-materializes or runs out of energy and has to go back into its dimension. It can’t say here for long periods.”

He’s a retired security director for UPS who began writing 22 years ago and has self-published seven books, including sci-fi novels, “UFOs over Pennsylvania,” “Case for UFOs” and “An Alternative History of Mankind.’’ He appeared on Anderson Cooper’s show in April 2012. (Though a video clip showed Mr. Cooper to be dubious the government was capable of keeping alien sightings — or anything else — secret for long.)

“Something is flying around but it always seems to blink out,” Mr. Ventre said. After UFO sightings over Washington, D.C., in July 1952, the U.S. Air Force sent up jet fighters from its base in New Castle, Del. But the objects vanished from radar while the jets were up and returned when they were gone.

“I don’t know the mechanism but, if you believe in angels, wherever they come from and however they show up, and then leave, it’s probably similar. ... They either run out of energy or just willingly leave. I don’t know.”

The idea that aliens fly trillions of miles to stay hidden and abduct women to create hybrid aliens? No. That theory is too far out for him, and he’s putting his money where his mouth is. Of the $30,000 reward, $20,000 is from his pocket and the rest is from an anonymous source.

Pledges and alleged evidence photos can be emailed to Mr. Ventre at jventre1@gmail.com 

Given that Allegheny County leads the state in UFO and Bigfoot sightings, somebody must have something. And if any ET reading this has a selfie, I’d like to see that, too.

Brian O’Neill: boneill@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1947 or Twitter @brotheroneill

First Published: July 30, 2018, 4:00 a.m.