Essays

Moseying: Locations of Interest

Roswell, New Mexico
February 26, 2003

Do you believe that an alien spacecraft crashlanded on the evening of July 4th, 1947 northwest of Roswell, New Mexico?

Rancher Mac Brazel heard a loud noise, different from the thunder occurring at the same time. In the morning he went to perform routine ranch work and found a debris field “three football fields wide and three-quarter of a mile long.” He stopped and picked up a towsack full of the debris. On the 6th Brazell brought his sack to the sheriff in Roswell, who contacted Air Force Intelligence Officer Jesse Marcell at Roswell Army Airfield, who went with Brazel to the ranch. They collect more material and bring it back from town. The local funeral home received a call about how many child-sized caskets are in stock, and was asked how to preserve bodies that have been exposed to the elements.

The funeral home director, Glenn Dennis, then went to the airbase, expecting to receive the bodies, but a nurse on duty told him to leave immediately. A day later the nurse met Dennis, who told him she saw big-eyed aliens on the examining table. The next day the nurse disappeared, and was never been seen again.

On the same day of Dennis’ experiences, the commander of the airbase ordered a press release about the crash. The local newspaper related the story (and since then the newspaper has sold over 50,000 copies of the page with the story.) Marcell flew to Fort Worth with some of the debris and spread it out in front of General Ramey, and was told to step out of the room. When he returned, the debris had been replaced with debris from a weather balloon, a photograph is taken, and on July 9th many newspapers printed the picture of the weather balloon material, along with a story that informed the world that no flying saucer was found at Roswell.

Four hundred people a day visit the UFO Museum and Research Center. The morning that Deborah and I visited, cars with license plates from Wisconsin, Massachusets, Chihuahua, Quebec, Washington State, South Dakota, Missouri, Illinois and several other states filled the parking lot. Ninety thousand tourists visit Roswell each year, increasing city hotel tax revenues by thirty five percent in the last four years. Alien seeking tourists have pumped more than five million dollars a year into the local economy.

This July 4th and 5th, the city will hold its UFO Festival. The town of fifty thousand will swell to seventy-five thousand. Every motel and campground will be filled. Speakers will pontificate, musicians will fill stages, sci-fi movies will thrill audiences, a parade of lights will sparkle, kids will present an alien fashion show, and dozens of vendors will hock an amazing collection of schlock. Last year, representatives of the Raelians (who supposedly recently cloned a human) visited. Promoters of dozens of conspiracy theories, alien abductions, sci-fi cults and other extremes of human imagination will hold forth in grandiose fashion if given half a chance.

Roswell has three alien museums. The UFO Museum and Research Center is the largest, housed in an old theatre downtown. Along with equipment and clothing of the 1940’s, ample reading material is displayed – dozens of the affidavits of the eyewitnesses, plus copies of various newspaper stories written at the time. The displays attempt to make the case for government coercion, cover-ups, and lies. Photographs of purported UFOs' fill another wall. A dummy of an alien used in a TV movie is the most photographed object in the museum.

The other two museums are not as well funded. Near the Airport is the UFO Enigma Museum, featuring a recreation of the purported crash site. South of town is the Midway Sighting UFO Museum, where a visitor can watch videos of alien UFO’s filmed by the owners. Criticssay the UFO’s are insects.

Across the street from the UFO Museum and Research Center is the Alien Resistance Headquarters, funded by local churches. The proprietor, Guy Malone, is a Christian who has seen aliens. He believes they are fallen angels. His mission is to prevent folks from joining cults that are based on contacts with aliens, such as the Raelians. Those cults say aliens are here to help us, while Malone says the fallen angels mated with human women and created a hybrid race that has brought us the incredible modern day high-technological world that will soon bring the downfall of human society.

Malone’s contorted logic is paralleled by that of the UFO enthusiasts across the street. Both places offer rhetoric filled with scientific terms, philosophical questions, and self-righteous witnessing. Both places provide eye-opening experiences to the possibilities that people consider to be Truth (with a capital T). All a person has to do is ask one question, and UFO theorists will unleash a torrent of verbiage. At the UFO Museum, Deborah and I were entertained by a volunteer, a tattooed, lanky ex-biker with intense eyes that shared his sightings of UFO’s. Deborah reciprocated, having witnessed strange lights and shiny flying objects in El Paso as a child and two more sightings of curious phenomena in California.

Visitors can go to a purported crash site as well (at least three different places have supporters claiming it is the correct site.) Not far from town (and close enough so bus tours are offered during the UFO Festival) Landowner Hub Corn will lead the tour for fifteen dollars a person, and will even allow camping for ninety-eight dollars a night. No artifacts are there – it is just a lonesome piece of prairie where a person can give free rein to their imagination.

There are other reasons to visit Roswell. Bottomless Lakes State Park is an amazing series of water-filled sinkholes thirteen miles east of town, offering camping, fishing, swimming, and hiking. At the Bitterlakes National Wildlife Refuge, eleven miles east of town, a visitor can observe thousands of snow geese and sandhill cranes in the winter in the saline lakes of the refuge. Both sites offer bizarre landscapes in counterpoint to the bizarre UFO industry in town.

During the growing season a person can look for and learn about the ninety species of dragonflies found in the refuge (the most diverse dragonfly community anywhere in the world.) On August 22nd and 23rd of this year, the Friends of the Bitterlakes will hold their Dragonfly Festival, with speakers, artwork, craft shows and tours of the refuge. Deborah and I plan to go – after all, it is fair – she drug me to the alien museum, so she will reciprocate by joining me in a different off-the-wall and unusual daytrip.