Roswell.

Roswell, New Mexico---“No one who grew up here actually believes all of this, but it’s good for business,” a local told me on my last day in Roswell, a town made famous by an alien space ship crash.

Say what? But, I had toured the International UFO Museum and Research Center, read all the documents, looked at mounds and mounds of evidence and affidavits from scores of bystanders and actually was leaning on the slight chance that it was all possible. Now I was back to square one: Who knows.

If someone back in 1947 came up with this as a tourism campaign, they were genius. Not only did it have marketability, it had intrigue and mystery but most importantly as a marketing campaign: it had a theme.
Little green men.  Everywhere. McDonalds, Arby’s, Coca-cola, the local furniture shop, gift shops and yes, even the US Postal Service. In Roswell everything is themed sci-fi and flying saucers.

So let’s clear up the first falsity. IT DID NOT HAPPEN IN ROSWELL.

The UFO crash landing caused by a horrific lightning storm on a June night in 1947 happened in a sheep field 75 miles away from Roswell near a town called Corona.  And the rancher was only after a $3,000 reward offered for evidence of outer space beings and some help to clean up the mess when he drove to the nearest big town with a sheriff. That town: Roswell. But what all happened after he arrived with some wreckage sure doesn’t make a lot of sense. The much loved conspiracy theory by true fans has the remains still hidden away in Area 51, another mysterious sight near Edwards Air Force Base in Nevada.

So Roswell fans are in two groups; those who love the theme and those who want to prove the story is true.

The theme brings a tourist season to Roswell, a meager town whose population is about 50,000, to buy bug-eyed green sunglasses and anything and everything with an alien theme. It brings “Alien Amber Bock Beer” that the bartender explained was regionally brewed and a favorite, as he poured salt on my napkin, another local tradition to keep your glass from sticking.

But all the alien hoopla is separate from the story. The 2001 movie “Roswell: The UFO cover-up” starring Martin Sheen was shown at the museum and had some serious consultants help mold the script. They believe the message of this movie to be the facts. That the site had been checked out by authorities and made world news because the Air Force had sent out a press release saying the space ship was found.  That the government’s highest level feared the public would freak out so they changed the story to a lie and kept the actual crash information a secret. That everyone involved was either paid off or threatened to stay quiet. That many came forward telling the truth later and this could all be found in the Museum for only a $3 entrance fee. 

Every hour an aluminum flying saucer would begin to twirl, lights flashing and fog would spill out over the top of the four green aliens below. This was also included in the entrance fee as well as several other movies.

The video “understanding the conspiracy theory” explained that all this activity happened in the years right after we dropped the atomic bomb. And where did the big one originate? The 509^th Atomic Bomb Group right here in at Roswell Army Air Field also the first Air Force Strategic Air Command Base.  So the aliens were simply checking in on what in the world the earthlings were thinking trying to blow themselves up and more importantly, were they planning to turn that technology on far away planets? Poor things found out we didn’t even have fax machines yet let alone an aluminum type tissue that could not be burned or torn or drilled and would unfold itself to its original form with no creases!  That crash landing in the dessert had to be a real bummer.

So what do you walk away with after a visit to Roswell? You get a kick out of all the silly fanfare from the theme, but seriously the historical records and the timeline show that too many people were saying the same thing from too many different areas to not think something happened in New Mexico. It just didn’t happen in Roswell.