Wednesday, December 18, 2019

Glamping in New Mexico: Roswell

A cold and windy day today, high of 50°F (10°C) and sunny but felt much colder due to the wind chill factor.

Got to Roswell mid-morning, after cruising up and down it's main street seeking UFO-related stuff, for which this town has made its tourism goals.  The famous flying saucer crash of 1948 happened near this town and it's been conspiracies and coverups ever since apparently.

A view of Roswell from US380 west of town


It was easy to spot the UFO themed McDonald's fast food burger joint, situated handily next to the Dunkin Donuts shop with it's version of Alien imagery:



The inside of the McDonald's featured more aluminum looking metal paneling but not much else to make it UFO themed.

From there I headed the 1/2 mile to the the UFO Museum on Main Street.  Bottom Line: I shouldn't have bothered, but now its off the bucket list.

The fee is $5 ($3 if you're a Veteran) and I barely got my $3's worth.  Be prepared for a lot of reading and not much in terms of anything else.  They did have a "research library" filled with apparently every book written that had UFOs somewhere in them and a section filled with technical-looking publications but I didn't really take a close look.

Most of the museum space is dedicated to kitschy exhibits, dioramas, old newspaper clippings about the Roswell Crash and for whatever reason, lots of memorabilia about the men who once served in the nearby Air Force Base and the Nuclear Bomber squadron stationed there back in the day.

 If you wait long enough during your visit, smoke comes out from 
underneath the saucer and laser light plus sounds come forth, quite cheesy.
This was created for some film feature.

 Not sure why this is in the museum but there you go.

 Movie "aliens" are exhibited

The Palenque Astronaut was somewhat interesting as I'd seen the imagery of the stone figure in some tv show some time ago.  Lots of guessing and wishful thinking appearing in the notations below I think:


Next to the above poster, there was a wood carving replica of the stone carving:


Did I mention there's a lot of reading involved?  I barely skimmed some of the stuff and soon found myself back outside and done with UFO stuff at Roswell

 Museum front entrance and a side mural

It was a cold windy ride back to the campground, my finger tips got quite numb from the cold and I was glad to get back to the URRV.  Spent the rest of the day mostly inside, warming up and reading books while the wind blew outside.

At least the sunset was OK:



8 comments:

Oz said...

I am putting Roswell on my list now. Looks fun.

redlegsrides said...

Oz, I’m not sure I’d call it fun, weird for sure but for whatever reason, somewhat of a letdown.

Andrew Thomson said...

Lucky to escape without a good ole probing...

redlegsrides said...

Andrew Thompson, hah!

RichardM said...

“ The fee is $5 ($3 if you're a Veteran) and I barely got my $3's worth.”

Thank you for the warning...

SonjaM said...

What you're saying is that there was no UFO incident and no aliens?
But what about the X-Files?

I want to believe ;-)

redlegsrides said...

YW RichardM

redlegsrides said...

I want to believe as well SonjaM but this museum is a bit kitschy