Out of this World

The 1947 UFO Crash

After an awesome breakfast at The Red Onion, we set out to explore Roswell, New Mexico, in the daylight. (We got there too late and too tired and too hungry to do much exploring the night before. However, we did encounter an extra terrestrial missionary shouting out "Earthlings, Jesus loves you!" over a loudspeaker.)

The town is obsessed with UFOs and aliens -- or, more accurately, the town seems obsessed with getting people obsessed with UFOs and aliens in order to encourage them visit and spend money in Roswell.

The Roswell connection to UFOs and space aliens goes back to a UFO crash near Roswell in 1947. The US Air Force claims it was a weather balloon. Some prefer to believe it was something from another world. Conspiracy theories abound.

We wandered around downtown Roswell and its many shops selling everything alien -- but mostly t-shirts. Aliens visiting Roswell must like t-shirts. Or maybe the locals in Roswell just want to clothe the poor naked aliens who visit their town. The aliens are naked in most of the depictions I saw in Roswell.

Sophia poses with a naked alien

After having our fill of alien gift shops and alien book shops and alien art galleries, we visited the International UFO Museum and Research Center.





The museum primarily consists of photos and stories of UFOs. Due to a special event, the place was also filled with authors peddling books about their UFO research and personal close encounters. In speaking to a couple of these people, I found myself utterly ignorant of their world -- a world in which one is expected to know the stories and the processes for identifying and classifying UFOs and all the associated vocabulary. I quickly and unintentionally outed myself as one not in their community -- an alien.

Operating on an alien crash victim

An naked alien team standing around trying to decide where to go for lunch

I found the whole thing to be a bit cheesy -- a bit of cheesy fun.  After all, I have heard that Roswell is home to one of the largest Mozzarella factories on the planet. Perhaps extra terrestrials go there in search of cheese; not t-shirts.

Until someone convinces me otherwise, I'm going to believe that it was a weather balloon that crashed in New Mexico in 1947. Although, the writers of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine do offer an interesting theory...

Having had enough of Roswell, we got back in the car and headed east towards Texas.

Just outside of Roswell, we picked up a couple hitchhikers.