<p>Paul Howard Andrews, an entrepreneur who helped establish a convention for U.F.O. believers to discuss extraterrestrial encounters and attend related lectures, died on June 30 at his home in Walnut Creek, California. He was 77.</p>
<p>His death was confirmed by his wife, Abigail Lewis, who did not provide a cause.</p>
<p>A longtime believer in the paranormal, Andrews launched Contact in the Desert in 2013 at the Joshua Tree Retreat Center in Southern California, near Palm Springs, an area popular with saucer followers.</p>
<p>The annual event, nicknamed the Woodstock of U.F.O.s, drew thousands seeking fellowship, adventure and affirmation.</p>
<p>“You could share your contact experience and experiences with inter-dimensional beings in a safe environment,” said Alan Steinfeld, a consciousness explorer and author, describing the event’s atmosphere.</p>
<p>For about $250 per ticket, the weekend convention offered multiple programming tracks on contact experiences, crop circles and government cover-ups, with night-vision goggles available to rent for $5.</p>
<p>Speakers included astronauts, scientists and U.F.O. beat reporters such as Art Bell, George Noory and Linda Moulton Howe. Andrews noted the qualifications of speakers in 2016, saying, “We weed out the crazies.”</p>
<p>Contact in the Desert followed Andrews’s earlier work with the Whole Life Expo, a traveling trade show and symposium for the New Age lifestyle in the late 1980s.</p>
<p>The expos featured vendors selling wellness and spiritual products and included talks by notable figures on topics ranging from lucid dreaming to past-life regression.</p>
<p>Andrews spoke publicly about a near-death experience during a car accident, describing a belief in existing as a spiritual entity beyond the physical body.</p>
<p>Whole Life Expo grew rapidly, and Andrews later considered spinning off a conference dedicated to U.F.O. topics as a separate venture.</p>
<p>He co-founded Contact in the Desert with Victoria GeVoian, who managed the Joshua Tree Retreat Center, aiming to provide physical spaces for discussions that might not occur in other communities.</p>
<p>Scholars described how overlapping audiences from the Whole Life and U.F.O. communities positioned Andrews to build businesses serving both groups, with some seeing these events as pilgrimage-like opportunities for attendees.</p>
<p>Andrews was born on November 15, 1948, in Elizabeth, New Jersey. His father was a linoleum company executive and his mother a kindergarten teacher. He recounted early experiences of luminous visitors visiting his sister, suggesting a family pattern of belief in such phenomena.</p>
<p>After studying at Fairleigh Dickinson University, he attended workshops led by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and connected with Robert Monroe, the author of Journeys Out of the Body. He moved to California in 1976, selling a guided meditation machine and other devices, and spoke at health and spirituality events before focusing on the new conference.</p>
<p>Colleagues described him as an innovator who pursued these subjects with genuine interest. He married Abigail Lewis in 2021, and is survived by their daughter and two grandchildren.</p>
<p>Contact in the Desert was sold to new owners in 2023. The most recent event featured lectures on topics such as extraterrestrials, multidimensional reality and nonhuman intelligence, reflecting ongoing interest in the field.</p>
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