Author Kyle Lovern figures West Virginia’s rural makeup, devoid of huge metropolitan congestion, makes the state particularly appealing to visitors from other worlds.

Already, folks have come forth from the hills to share with him enough material to fill two books on the subject and jump-start him on a possible third.

His second effort, titled “Appalachian Case Study: UFO Sightings, Alien Encounters and Unexplained Phenomena, Volume 2,” and featuring an artist’s conception of a spaceship hovering about trees on the cover, was published by Woodland Press less than two weeks ago, and already has stirred some erstwhile shy people to step up and talk.

West Virginia is sparsely populated, and its rolling hills with deep recesses inside forests likely are popular with aliens, Lovern estimates, because ample hiding space is provided.

“I think they do like remote areas,” he says. “If you ever fly over and look down, you realize how remote we can be.”

Lovern draws on personal accounts of people living in Kentucky, West Virginia and Virginia. Two people who unraveled personal accounts to him were clergymen, and this, he feels, adds another layer of credibility to an issue that often has been clouded by hoaxes and mistaken sightings.

“The stories continue to keep flowing in,” he said.

Just recently, while he and his wife put in some early Christmas shopping, two people recognized the author and hit him up for a chat. One wanted to relate his own encounter with a UFO. Lovern feels his reputation as not only a writer but a researcher is making more and more people comfortable about coming forth.

“They’re willing to share with me,” he said. “They’re not as inhibited as they were in the past.

“The ones that I talked to seem very sincere. I’m sure there are a couple you get sometimes that you’re a little leery of. But I weed through those and try to get the ones that are real credible. I think most of the ones that contact me are pretty honest, salt of the earth people.”

Until recent years, most observers were reluctant to be identified with a UFO sighting, fearing taunts and scorn from the general public. Now, however, since ex-astronauts Edgar Mitchell and Gordon Cooper have come out, and there have been revelations that both Presidents Reagan and Carter saw strange objects in the sky, the public as a whole is less bothered by what skeptics may say or think of them, Lovern says.

Invariably, the doubters demand hard evidence — a broken antenna or landing wheel from a ship, maybe?

Lovern believes there is some proof, pointing to soil and vegetative samples taken at places UFOs were spotted, or a mystical crop circle.

“Those samples show unusual properties when they are examined by scientists,” he said. “A lot of times, nothing would grow back.”

Given today’s plethora of videocams and cellular phones, Lovern expects to see even more refined photos taken to substantiate the sightings.

Between now and working on a third book — he already has enough for about seven new stories — Lovern might find himself as part of a popular cable television outfit digging into the theory of ancient astronauts and their alleged roles in human history.

“I did get a call from The History Channel,” he said. “They may come and interview me.”

To answer the doubters, Lovern points to the mysterious crop circles left implanted in the earth across the planet, largely in England, but a few in West Virginia.

“I’ve read of cases where people will drive by a field and there’s nothing there,” he said. “Half an hour later, there is this extravagant design. Not just a circle. Anybody could do a circle. They’re such geographical designs. It’s unbelievable. There’s no way a couple of men could have done those, as huge as they are, and to make them as perfect as they are, when you see an aerial photo of them.”

One tale in his second book is about a Cherokee tribe running across a peculiar disc in a meadow.

As the story goes, the Native Americans found more than a spaceship.

“They talked to the ‘little people,’” he says of the account. “So it’s possible an alien encounter occurred here in Appalachia.”

Lovern reasons the government has kept a lid on the truth ever since the 1947 incident in Roswell, fearing a breakdown in society.

“I think it’s because, during that time, it was for sociological and religious reasons,” he said. “They probably thought, if this came out, it would change the whole way people thought about our existence, our creation.”

Over the ensuing six decades, however, the American public has been flooded with sci-fi films, documentaries, books and the like, seemingly to the point of become desensitized.

“I don’t think people today would be scared or panic,” Lovern said. “I think if you took a poll, the majority of people out there believe we’re not alone. There’s something to all these sightings and encounters.”

— E-mail: mannix@register-herald.com