BELLEVILLE, Wis. — Belleville will once again look to the skies — and lean into one of its most unusual pieces of local history — when UFO Days returns Oct. 30 through Nov. 1 for its 40th annual celebration.

The three-day event lands on Halloween weekend this year, with a schedule that mixes the long-running UFO theme with live music, family activities, a parade, a color run, haunted attractions, a marketplace and costume events. For New Glarus-area residents, the festival is a short trip north and one of the region’s more distinctive fall traditions.

UFO Days traces its roots to a series of unexplained sightings around Belleville in 1987. A Belleville police officer reported seeing unusual red, white and blue lights in the sky west of the village on the night of Jan. 15-16. Other law enforcement officers and residents later reported seeing unusual lights or objects, and additional sightings followed in the area that winter and spring.