I recently returned from almost a month-long trip traveling around the Hawaiian Islands. As I sit here and write, I still feel tremendously jet lagged and in utter shock from stepping right out into cold, gray, snowy New York. As you might imagine, I wish I never had to leave.

The first 19 days of the trip were for an anthropology class through my school. The main goal of the class was to examine traditional Hawaiian culture and how it has been affected over time by the forces of both colonialism and the tourist industry. I learned an insane amount and we packed everything imaginable into those 19 days traversing Oahu, Maui and the Big Island.

We did everything from visiting National and State Parks and historic Heiau’s (Hawaiian temples), to museums and planetariums and sampling traditional food and drinks. We saw our fair share of gorgeous beaches and fascinating animals like sea turtles, monk seals, whales, rare birds and more chameleons and geckos than imaginable. We visited sacred places like Waipio Valley and volcanoes such as Haleakala and Mauna Kea. We toured coffee and cocoa farms and farmers markets to see all sorts of tropical fruits and vegetables. We learned about the process of how things so familiar to us come to be. We also did a good amount of service by working at traditional tarot patches, an archeological site and an ethnobotanical garden.

My anthropological experience in Hawaii is one that I will never forget and I will carry the memories and knowledge close for the rest of my life. But what I’ve decided to write about, for now, is a place visited during the five extra days that my girlfriend and I stayed to visit my uncle in the jungles of the Big Island. It is much more of a niche, but it is something that I find incredibly intriguing and exciting and wanted to share more about.

The Hawaii Star Visitor Sanctuary wasn’t even what my uncle and cousin intended to show us when we walked along the half-mile trail across a lava field in the area of Kalapana on the Puna coast of the Big Island. They had intended on showing us a really beautiful black sand beach that was further out – a small place mostly frequented by locals. But when we began to walk right by the sign and the tremendous landing pad, I had to stop and ask them what the hell it was all about. They didn’t seem to really know much so I decided to do some research when I got back to the car.

I learned that on May 28, 2014, official representatives of the reinstated Kingdom of Hawaii released a declaration creating a sanctuary for extraterrestrial visitors to Earth. The “Declaration for Creating Hawaii Star Visitor Sanctuary” made it possible for extraterrestrials to land on property set aside exclusively for hosting “star visitors”. The Sanctuary is only the second piece of land ever that has been officially dedicated for the purpose of inviting extraterrestrial visitors to land and promoting peaceful relations with them. On June 3, 1967, the city of St Paul in the Canadian province of Alberta created the world’s first landing pad for UFOs.

Drawing on the history of international neutrality that was practiced by the Kingdom of Hawaii prior to its annexation by the United States, the reinstated Kingdom aims to establish formal diplomatic relations with Star-Visitors. The preamble to the Declaration points out that according to Hawaiian legend, the Na Huihui o Makali’i (the constellation of Pleiades/Seven Sisters) is the place from which the first Hawaiian people came to Earth.

The Declaration contains four substantive points. The first point invites extraterrestrials “to fly over and land” at the “Hawaii Star Visitor Sanctuary.” The next invites the Star Visitors to “formally establish diplomatic relations” with representatives of the Kingdom of Hawaii. In point three, Star Visitors are subsequently “invited to meet with private citizens interested in establishing cultural, educational, and scientific relations with the Visitors.” The final point affirms that “Star Visitor technologies can be safely demonstrated, understood and developed for the benefit of all humanity, marine and animal life, and planet Earth.”

At this point, you may be asking what the reinstated Kingdom of Hawaii is that I keep mentioning. It’s a good question. Especially in regard to any concerns about the legitimacy of the Sanctuary.

The Kingdom of Hawaii gains its authority from international law that never formally recognized the illegal annexation of the Kingdom by the U.S. government, and which has long recognized that the native Hawaiians right to self-determination was violated. This was belatedly recognized by the US Federal Government on November 23, 1993, by a joint resolution of Congress signed by President Bill Clinton that apologized for the illegal annexation of the Kingdom of Hawaii. The right of the Native Hawaiians to self-determination was also recognized by the Legislature of the State of Hawaii that passed a bill signed by Governor Bill Abercrombie on July 6, 2011.

In recognition of the illegality of US annexation of the Hawaiian Islands and the inherent right to self-determination of native Hawaiians under international law, on March 13, 1999, representatives of the Hawaiian people reinstated the provisional offices of their former Kingdom with the purpose of holding elections to appoint a new Hawaiian government. The provisional government held a plebiscite (a direct vote by eligible voters to decide an important public question) on November 9, 1999, which resulted in the election of representatives to a bicameral system of government. The newly elected parliament passed a revised version of the last Kingdom of Hawaii Constitution on March 29, 2000, that enshrined the rights and powers of the lawful Hawaiian Government over the territories of the Hawaiian Islands.

Five appointed representatives of the reinstated Hawaiian government have signed the “Declaration for Creating Hawaii Star Visitor Sanctuary” thereby giving it full legitimacy and protection under the laws of the Reinstated Kingdom of Hawaii. The goal of this action is to help the general public prepare for extraterrestrial contact, which ideally will be achieved by the Sanctuary.

There have so far been no known landings or sightings at the Sanctuary, but if extraterrestrials do choose to visit us, and I’m sure they will sooner or later, there’s little doubt in my mind that they’ll choose Hawaii over Canada any day.