Fire destroys UFO center, residence

Thursday morning’s blaze also destroyed the home of Jody Pendarvis, who built the center and lives next to it. Both were located at 4004 Homestead Road.

“Everything’s gone,” Pendarvis said. “The UFO. My home. My clothes.”

The UFO Welcome Center was mostly made of wood and sheets of metal, taking on a life of its own over the years.

A bit of a hobby-turned-tourist attraction for Pendarvis, it generally measured at least 42 feet tall and 48 feet wide, he said. It was saucer-shaped with a dome-shaped viewing area at its top.

Pendarvis said he got a phone call sometime after 6 a.m. Thursday, but he didn’t answer.

“I kept hearing cracking outside,” he said.

“So, I took a little peek out and I saw a lot of red – like fire truck lights, right? Of course there’s no fire trucks. Then I looked around the corner and I saw the fire at the UFO,” he said.

Pendarvis said his first thoughts were, “Oh my! Let me put my pants on and my shoes and get the heck out of here!”

He thought the fire didn’t look too bad initially, but it didn’t take long for it to destroy the site.

Orangeburg County Fire District Director Teddy Wolfe said, “The cause of the fire is unknown and no foul play is expected at this time.”

Firefighters were dispatched to the scene at 6:58 a.m. They arrived at 7:04 a.m.

They reported seeing heavy smoke upon arrival, Wolfe said.

“This structure was not built to any fire code standard, which likely contributed to the quick flame-spread throughout the structure and subsequently the mobile home,” Wolfe said.

Wolfe said the origin of the fire was within the UFO structure.

Firefighters had a difficult time quickly accessing all portions of the property due to overgrown areas, he said.

Firefighters from the following departments helped put out the blaze: Bowman, Cattle Creek, Branchville and Orangeburg County.

The last fire truck left the scene at 10:43 a.m.

Bowman Mayor Patsy Rhett said a resident texted her just after 7:15 a.m. Thursday saying, “Did you know the UFO was on fire?”

“It was shocking,” Rhett said. “It was shocking because that was a staple for visitors who came in. If they were traveling (Interstates) 26, 95, they would always come by and say, ‘Let’s see the UFO.’”

“Up until, I think, about two weeks ago, I saw some people out there still taking pictures. So, we’re going to miss that. We’re going to miss that because it did draw visitors and that’s what we want,” she said.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do now, but it served its purpose. It did serve its purpose and I hate to see it destroyed that way, but we were glad to have it,” Rhett said.

Lifelong Bowman resident John Smith has memories of the UFO center from when he was a child.

“I grew up going to the UFO. I used to pay a dollar and fifty cents to go in the UFO and look around,” he said.

“It’s sad it happened,” Smith said of the fire.

Smith spotted the fire as he was taking his regular morning ride through Bowman. He initially thought Pendarvis was burning trash.

“When I got home, everybody was calling me. They said the UFO burned down. It makes me feel sad a little bit,” he added.

Pendarvis said building the UFO Welcome Center wasn’t the original plan.

In 1994, he walked into the Bowman administrative building and said, “I need two things. The first thing is a building permit for whatever I’m building outside and the other one is an application to become mayor.”

“I took the application, filled it out and I think that time I got 41 votes,” Pendarvis said.

The building application was for the construction of a Christmas float, he added.

“I had my wagon and I pulled it up and I put some bricks beside it and I started building,” Pendarvis said.

“I figured I could drive it down the street one day as a Christmas float and there it was, popping up, the UFO. Boop! Who knew it was going to be a UFO? I didn’t,” he said.

“But yeah, Boop! There it is!” Pendarvis said.

He likened it to the movie “Field of Dreams,” saying ‘If you build it, they will come.”

“People came,” he said.

Pendarvis said he started work on the center after his grandfather’s house burned down about a mile away. He used materials from his grandfather’s shop, which was torn down so a gas station could be built.

“It’s kind of funny that fire started (the) building of the UFO and now fire takes down the UFO,” he said.

Pendarvis noted during the UFO Welcome Center’s early times, someone from the fire department checked it out and didn’t like it.

“They said, ‘It ain’t got no good footing, you got electrical wires all over the place, you got paint cans laying around the ground, you’ve got holes in the floor that people could fall through,’” he said.

Pendarvis told the fire inspector, “You don’t have to go over there.”

“Just little rigamarole things,” he said.

“The mayor wouldn’t give me a business license from then on,” he added.

“They didn’t want anybody getting hurt in there and be sued – them suing me and the town of Bowman,” he said.

“So now, Bowman ain’t got nothing,” he added.

Pendarvis said one of the most popular questions he’s been asked is: “Have there been any UFO sightings there?”

He saw one, maybe two, UFOs near Orangeburg back in 1996 when he was leaving his work shift at 3 a.m.

“I can officially tell you about that one night. I can’t tell you about any other visitors or landings, but that’s it. It’s between me and the aliens – even the government can’t get me to talk,” he said.

And they have tried, Pendarvis claims.

“They’ve already been down here twice. I call them ‘the men in black.’ They were actually U.S. Marshals and the last one that was here was a man and a woman. I said, ‘So, are you Scully?’ She said, ‘No, but you can act like I am,’” he said, referencing one of the main characters from the TV show “The X-Files.”

Pendarvis claims the last time he was visited by U.S. Marshals was about 20 years ago.

Pendarvis will gladly tell of the “earthlings” who have visited the UFO Welcome Center.

“I kept a (guest) register for a while and that’s about the only register that’s got names in it. It’s now in the Bowman museum. It’s probably got 3,000 or more that they’ve put their names and maybe where they’re from and how they know how to get there and all,” he said.

He said he’s had many guests visit from other countries, such as China and Belgium.

Along with travelers from the two local interstates, other visitors just happened to drive by and say, “Hey, there’s a UFO down there. Let’s go see it.”

Pendarvis said he used to take visitors all the way up to the top, which was just over 40 feet up.

“They’d tell other people, and before I knew it …” Pendarvis said, interrupting himself, recalling a gift a visitor gave him, “Oh, that’s right, that little alien got burned up in that, too, that somebody gave me. OK, it wasn’t alive.”

Pendarvis said his favorite moments were when visitors said, “This is remarkable, incredible. Thank you for building it!”

Pendarvis and the UFO Welcome Center have had numerous brushes with local news media over the years.

Their first exposure on national television was on Comedy Central’s Daily Show.

They were featured on that show numerous times.

He also appeared on the Roseanne Barr talk show.

“I really liked her,” he said. “Plus, I was hoping one day she’d come back and do a second interview, however, now that it’s gone, that’s impossible.”

Pendarvis has appeared on other talk shows, too.

He said a Japanese news show, based in New York City, also visited and interviewed him.

He said that story was sent all over the world.

As a result, he heard from people in Greece and Plymouth, England.

On Thursday afternoon, Pendarvis said the future looks dim for the creation of a new UFO Welcome Center.

“I’m going to leave it up to the ‘space people,’” he said.

Pendarvis said he has some land about a mile from the site where he may rebuild the UFO Welcome Center and he will consider whether he may put it on its same site.

“Bowman doesn’t really want a UFO – even though it made them popular,” Pendarvis said.

Funding the rebuilding of the UFO Welcome Center is still a bit of a mystery.

“I believe some ‘space people’ are going to send some money through the mail,” he said.

“Bowman didn’t vote for me (in the most recent election) at all for being mayor or town councilman, so I was going to move it anyway,” he said.

“Undoubtedly, somebody ‘upstairs’ wanted me to move it quicker,” he said.

“To start all over again at 73 years old is not going to be easy,” he added.