Feature: Capilla del Monte -- Argentina's capital of alien life

BUENOS AIRES, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Each year thousands of visitors flock to the small Argentinean town of Capilla del Monte, hoping to catch sight of an alien life -- and they don't go away disappointed.

The town's annual Alien Festival, held in mid-February, features an extraterrestrial costume contest, a parade of galactic creatures and other space-related activities.

Located 725 km northwest of the capital city of Buenos Aires, Capilla del Monte, in central Cordoba province, is home to Uritorco Hill, a peak famous for sightings of UFOs and other inexplicable phenomena.

According to travel website Welcome Argentina, "Capilla del Monte became well known in the country and around the world during the last decade due to the mysterious halo covering Uritorco Hill, where UFOs apparently land."

The festival, now in its fourth year, attracts a growing number of space enthusiasts, and has turned the former hamlet into a city of some 9,000 residents, many of whom, it seems, have dedicated in some way to alien promotion.

Streets are lined with shops selling souvenirs of outer space, including flying saucers and ET-like dolls, while tour operators offer the local version of whale or bird watching: UFO watching.

"Capilla del Monte has natural beauty, but it also has the UFO phenomena," said researcher Hugo Daniel Bronn, a member of the Uritorco Research Group (GIU).

The area's fame as "a (UFO) sighting site," coupled with its "energy phenomena, both real things, attract a lot of tourism," said Bronn.

"People return to recharge on the energy, it's something mysterious that (the area) has," he said.

Although tourists here told Xinhua that they didn't see any UFO this time, Bronn still insists that the UFO phenomena is real. "It's not that they talk about it here, it's that you can see it here. There's proof, eyewitness accounts, film footage."

"I'm not saying, and no one can say, 'Go to such and such a place at such and such an hour because that's where you'll see them,' but there are people who take photos, and when you look at them, there they are," he said.

There's more, he added, "they have seen beings, real beings, with proof, white beings two-and-a-half meters tall, walking on Uritorco Hill for seven seconds."

Those photos and video clips are also available on Youtube, but many viewers still doubt that they are not real.