Roswell is one of “those” places that is a perfect stopover on a roadtrip.
It’s a place that makes little sense to visit as a standalone destination– just a little too far from most major city centers in New Mexico, it’s stuck in the middle of a bone dry patch of dirt that lacks ANY nearby landmarks within wide expanses.
I don’t know why I expected that Roswell would be a thriving tourist town– perhaps because it was so famous, I imagined a brisk amount of tourists and a more polished racket. But that wasn’t the case– Roswell was the epitome of a once-popular roadside attraction that had been reduced to a husk of itself.
When I say it was in the middle of nothing, I meant it. I stayed at a Hipcamp outside of town, learning quickly en route that Roswell is the home of a huge amount of walnut growers. My host provided me a 1-pound bag of delicious raw walnuts that I proceeded to eat over the next several months. They were better-tasting than any walnut I’d had from a store: not dry, not salty, not the one-note flavor I was used to from disappointing packaged walnuts. These were the real deal.
One of the best parts of traveling in the van is finding out about what grows in America, and where. There was improbability in the dry, blowing dirt of Roswell giving way to groves and groves of walnut trees around town. (Which reminded me of the improbability of 70% of our greens being grown in the hot-and-dusty climate of Yuma.) Sometimes, these walnut groves consisted of a few neatly-planted behind single-family homes– a truly local crop.
But now, onto the alien stuff. That’s why you’re here, and that’s why I was there, too.
The crown jewel of Roswell is The International UFO Museum (“and Research Center”?)– in the center of the small downtown strip. This ‘museum’ is small– it only takes about an hour to go through the exhibits, which were all about the 1947 Roswell incidents– a series of UFO sightings in July of that summer that captivated the world, and put Roswell fully on the map.
It’s helpful context to know that the country was experiencing a bit of ‘UFO Fever’ at this moment. Earlier the same year, a pilot named Kenneth Arnold had claimed to see 9– NINE!– flying saucers above Mount Rainier in Washington State. The whole country was taken by the story– his descriptions leading the press to coin the term “Flying Saucer” (which had not been used prior).
And his ‘sighting’ launched a thousand copycats, as the uptick in reported UFOs was immediate.
Roswell’s summer of 1947 was full of unexplained ordinance falling from the sky– which, in retrospect, might not have been so odd, given the proximity of Roswell to one of the largest military missile testing ranges in the country (2 hours by car). But never mind that coincidence…
Roswell’s story emerged when W.W. “Mac” Brazel found some mysterious objects on his ranch that summer of 1947– consisting of tin foil, wood, and tape, the silvery billowing material was reminiscent (in his view) of a flying saucer. As Mr. Brazel escalated the find up the military chain, the media caught wind of it and ran stories about this unexplained find.
But it wasn’t TRULY ‘unexplained’ at all. Just a few days after the find, Mr. Brazel was informed by the military and government that the object was an experimental weather balloon they were designing and testing not far from the area. They confirmed as much to him and the press.
Mr. Brazel took this explanation as genuine, and everyone pretty much dropped it until the 70s.
At which point, a couple of dudes decided to tell some ‘fish tales’ of the “I was there” nature– claiming to have either handled extraterrestrial items or “seen” extraterrestrial bodies at the Roswell site as the military was conducting its initial investigation. I would cite their names and stories here, but they aren’t based on a single thing– just total hearsay– a couple of guys, who casually waited 30 years after an incident, saying they saw something they perceived as alien.
Which directly led to all THIS:
After seeing the “evidence” at the museum, I was really feeling sheepish, standing steps away from a thousand gift shops hawking alien wares. It just seemed as bunk as could be– a couple of men making vague claims officially started (and perpetuated) the Roswell myth, and the conspiracy theory that emerged from it, persisting today.
The ‘accounts’ were not exactly compelling. For an example, read the account of Travis Walton, pictured above– reading the testimonies like this one, I tried to challenge my own skepticism by attempting to view them as accurate. But I also am a realist, and the disappearance of a loved one for a week, who was eventually found speaking incoherently, sounded much closer to a psychotic slip, drug use, heat stroke, or mental illness than an alien abduction. And it was hard to separate that back then, mental illness in a family was considered odd, shameful, and something worth hiding or covering up.
Polygraphs, science’s new ‘truth’ machines (later also found to be based on bunk science) were often used to confirm these accounts as “true.” These polygraph results– and some serious “himpathy” (defined by researcher Kate Manne as the tendency dudes have to empathize with other dudes)– were perhaps the only reason these alien-sighting accounts were taken seriously.
Why do I say “himpathy” was in action? I just couldn’t stop thinking about the headline below:
Back then, as today, our culture is more likely to “believe man”.
And some conspiracy theorists seem to be happily ensconced in Roswell. This “Christian Supply” store in town had a posted notice on the door that seemed to sum up the general vibe of the conspiracy-theory rabbit hole, and how far down it one can go. There’s a lot of great social science about how conspiracies work and propagate, and boy– there’s a lot of them on this gentleman’s website.
I came to Roswell an unbeliever, but was willing to hear the point-of-view of the alien believers to see what evidence or foundation might be behind the curtain. Leaving Roswell, I don’t believe much of any of these incidents were supernatural in nature. And while part of me can appreciate, or even admire, true believers of any kind– that belief can often too-easily spill over into something more sinister.
My favorite part of Roswell was actually something I experienced on my way out of town– Caliche’s Frozen Custard– it was absolutely delicious.
Posted by Sun
