BOWMAN — The famed UFO Welcome Center in Bowman, one of South Carolina's oddest tourist attractions, has burned to the ground.
A fire took down the hulking structure in the early morning of May 9. Crews from several area departments battled to save the center, but to no avail. All that was left were smoldering ruins of wood and metal.
Jody Pendarvis, who built the UFO Welcome Center in his backyard, said he doesn't know what started the fire, and he's not hopeful officials will figure out how it started. It's a total loss, he said, including the trailer he lives in.
"Maybe another UFO came by and set the fire," Pendarvis told The Post and Courier four hours after the blaze, as he ate breakfast at a nearby diner.
A fire burned down the UFO Welcome Center in Bowman the morning of May 9, 2024.
The fire began at 6:30 a.m., Pendarvis said. He doesn't suspect foul play but marveled at the ferocity of the blaze.
"I can't believe it went up so quick," he said of the "huge fire."
Bowman residents stopped their vehicles on the streets and at a nearby parking lot to gawk at the still smoking ruins.
“It was amazing to see how he built it,” said Odis Harrison, a Bowman resident. “A lot of tourists will miss it.”
Johnna Hansen, a Summerville resident who has visited the site multiple times to take photos, recalled when Pendarvis would charge visitors 25 cents for a “tour” of the center, during which he would drop a makeshift ramp leading into the building.
“It was hilarious,” Hansen recalled. “It was a wonderful little roadside attraction and oddity. I’m really sad that it’s gone.”
Photos: A look back at South Carolina's UFO Welcome Center
The famed UFO Welcome Center in Bowman, one of South Carolina's oddest tourist attractions, has burned to the ground, according to the owner and builder of the place.
Bowman resident Jody Pendarvis at his UFO Welcome Center in 2006.
What is the UFO Welcome Center?
A once-thriving dairy community in Orangeburg County, Bowman now has just under 1,000 residents. The UFO Welcome Center, built by Pendarvis over the past 25 years to greet aliens, brought people from across the nation to this tiny outpost about an hour from Charleston.
A sign near the outside entrance of the welcome center read, “Space People Only. Enter at Own Risk, Danger.”
As you walked in the narrow hallway entrance, a visitors' registry was presented next to a few American flags, a television remote control and a toilet. The book asked you to write down your name and what planet you're from.
The UFO Welcome Center in Bowman was one of South Carolina’s oddest tourist stops.
The ceiling boards were covered in exposed wires and cables that were intertwined throughout the center. Staircases took you to a dome-shaped room at the top, where dozens of pie plates were used as porthole windows. From there, you could look out for signs of UFOs in the sky or see Jody sitting in front of the TV flipping through to a channel playing old episodes of "Star Trek."
Wires, cables and lights hang throughout the inside of the many layered UFO Welcome Center. Andrew J. Whitaker/Staff
The welcome center began in 1994 as an office space outside of Pendarvis' trailer. It sprung up without a diagram or any plans, just a place where he could work. He used plywood and material he found from his grandparents’ property or that was discarded around town.
"I walked into town hall and applied for a building permit and got an application to run for mayor," he told The Post and Courier in 2019. "I got 41 votes."
Over time, the structure morphed into the 16-foot-tall, 46-foot-wide welcome center.
