Roswell.

Dateline: Saturday 1 July 2006
Place: Roswell, New Mexico
Subject: Government LIES and Extraterrestrial Experiences

Beth:
Where to begin? This town was WEIRD. Roswell’s claim to fame was the 1947 “incident” in which many claim a UFO crashed on a ranch outside of the town. Since then, Roswell has embraced this idea and built a touristy town out of it. Their main street is lined with UFO themed stores, alien blowup dolls, and all things Sci-Fi. We were lucky enough to visit Roswell during the annual UFO Festival, which means the place was wired with an even wider variety of freaky people. Needing a little refreshment, we headed to a coffee shop with a clever name that I can’t seem to recall (Out of this World or Heavenly something?). Apparently it is run by mentally challenged twelve-year old Christians. They did have a nice bathroom and comfy couches, so I won’t hold that against them. Next we strolled down Main Street which was partially closed off to traffic due to the festival. We perused the t-shirt stands (sorry Vadim, but none of them were worthy), gawked at the people, and then decided to head into the International UFO Museum and Research Center. We had only made our way through the first section when we realized we better grab a seat in the auditorium because the show was about to begin! There was standing room only with the exception of two seats squeezed in between an older gentleman with a white beard and a middle aged creepy guy with an alien t-shirt. Middle-aged creepy guys wearing alien t-shirts, or (with apologies to about 10% of our readers) Star Trek paraphernalia, were quite common amongst the crowd.

We were then treated to an update of the “investigation” from two inconspicuous zealots from Ohio and Pennsylvania claiming to be “soldiers reporting from the front line”. They were insurance salesmen by day, but their true purpose in life was to uncover the Truth. Luckily, they’d chugged their Mountain Dew before stepping up to the podium, and we were treated to a tour de force of scandal and intrigue. We learned that the number one priority of the investigation was to obtain physical evidence. The “Holy Grail”, as they put it, was to acquire a piece of the spaceship that had crashed there 60 years ago. This “substance”, which they referred to as “memory metal”, apparently was unlike any material found on Earth. According to witnesses, it was malleable in your hand, but ran like water if placed on a surface. Past leads did not “bear fruit”, but they were really positive about a new lead. They were pleased to let us know that they had an anonymous source claiming that they knew someone who had a piece of this “memory metal” sitting on the top of her television set. What we wanted to know was if it ran like water when placed on a surface, how did it sit atop a TV set?

But this is just our take… perhaps we should let the gentlemen speak for themselves… (for best impact, please follow each quote by pounding your fist on the table):
“This is not a belief, but a CONVICTION!”
“Why have they spent 20 years trying to prove the weather balloon?”
“We will find the truth wherever it takes us.”
“Their (the government) agenda? To deceive.”
“It’s a master chess match.”
“The game started under zero terms.”
“They insult witnesses and YOU.” (point finger)
“We chose not to use the word “aliens”, but “bodies”.
“At some point you can’t turn John Wayne into Wayne Newton” (How long do you think it took him to come up with that one? I just know he has been waiting all year to say this!).

After about an hour they let the audience ask questions. Perfect!

Unfortunately, we were not amongst the first few chosen to ask a question and left before the question/answer segment concluded in order to catch the Alien Costume Contest (evidentially hosted by Dabney Coleman). We caught the contest, but had to get going before they announced the winners. On our way out of the festivities we stopped by a carnival-like game booth in which participants are required to throw a plastic ring around a ducks head. If they succeed they are rewarded with a “dirty stuffed animal”. Kelly stepped right up! A carnie was offended by Beth’s suggestion that paying $1 for ‘the chance to win a dirty stuffed animal’ maybe wasn’t such a great deal. We did win a small brown talking animal head of some sort and then decided it was high time to blow town. So we high-tailed it out of Roswell and headed south for Carlsbad Caverns.


And now we leave you with a brief rant by Kelly:

Now, as Beth was writing this, she said that she felt a little bad, a little mean. Because we do both agree that something extraordinary, perhaps even “otherworldly” did occur at Roswell. We don’t think it was a weather balloon either. These guys may be right – the government is probably covering something up. Could be aliens (or ‘beings’ or whatever), may be some sort of secret defense program craft or missile thing – who knows. At this point, though, nothing is going to satisfy these guys short of a full government confession accompanied by alien corpses and mystery metal samples. And that’s just never going to happen, not in their lifetimes, at least. They’re pouring so much energy and time away from their families and likely a small fortune into proving something that can probably never be proven. What if a flying saucer full of little green triangle headed men did land in the desert 60 years ago? The government can’t say so without unleashing a massive public panic. We live in a nation in which small public libraries in the middle of Indiana are afraid of being targeted by al-Quaida and Toby Keith is feeding beer to his horses in order to gird them against the insidious threat of gay marriage. This guy would have us add the threat of alien colonization to the pot? Not bloody likely.

Watch... if you can handle the truth.