SDCC: HISTORY’s Project Blue Book activation connected attendees with UFOs

At HISTORY’s #ProjectBlueBook activation, fans documented their own UFO sightings and sent messages to outer space!

Off-sites and activations have become just as popular (if not more popular) than the convention floor itself at San Diego Comic-Con over the past several years, and it’s easy to see why. Activations put fans right in the center of their favorite shows, providing hands-on experiences that often utilize technology and unique situations from the show’s universe to craft an individualized interaction with the series.

One of the biggest trends we saw at activations this year was the use of improv actors and activation staff that stayed in character throughout the experience, something that made off-sites and activation experiences even more immersive.

HISTORY’s new drama series, Project Blue Book, invited SDCC-goers to its activation in The Experience at Comic-Con to discover actual UFO accounts and to document their own. Project Blue book is based on the “true, top-secret investigations into Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) and related phenomena conducted by the United States Air Force from 1952 to 1969,” and at San Diego Comic-Con, attendees stepped back in time to have a personalized interaction with the series.

More from Comic Con

• The Winchesters stars Meg Donnelly and Drake Rodger tease John and Mary’s relationship: ‘Good TV means good conflict’
• Every confirmed NYCC TV and movie panel (so far) – New York Comic Con 2022
• According to Bill Nye, which TV shows get the science right?
• How to watch the Motherland: Fort Salem Comic-Con 2021 panel
• The Right Stuff: What we learned from Comic-Con@Home

Documenting your own story for Project Blue Book

When you stepped into the activation at SDCC, you were handed an All-Access clearance credential that you were instructed to keep visible at all times while inside. You then sat down with a government official who conducted an interview to document your own memories of a UFO sighting. The agents even wrote on the original questionnaire forms used in the 1950s!

Questions about UFO size, flight speed, lights, and location were asked, among other UFO-related inquiries, and notes were then passed along to professional sketch artists who drew your story and gave it to you as a souvenir. We went in the afternoon, and the wait at this time for the final sketch was about an hour, but we explored other sites at The Experience during this time and came back to pick it up later.

Transmitting messages to outer space

Once you contributed your own account, you were escorted by government officials into a large black box screening room, where images and recordings of actual stories from Project Blue Book played on three different screens, giving you a peak into some of the accounts that the HISTORY series will explore this season.

Attendees were then moved into a top secret communications room where each guest was able to send a personalized message to outer space. Seriously.

Shortly after typing my message, I was sent an email with a copy of my out-of-this-world message in a social media-friendly graphic. I also received confirmation that my message was transmitted 92,303,988,000 miles from Earth at a velocity of 299,792,485 m/s!

After communicating with a potential UFO, it was time to leave the activation and head back into The Experience at Comic-Con, but while passing through a hallway full of case files marked as “Confidential,” everyone was handed an exclusive Project Blue Book comic book that told the story of Case #I972.

Project Blue Book hasn’t revealed a premiere date, but the series will be coming soon to HISTORY. Follow @HistoryBlueBook on Twitter to learn more news about the show, and check back with @HiddenRemote for updates! Have you ever encountered a UFO? Let us know!