Ken's Comments

Roswell, New Mexico

You can't go to Roswell without knowing about the aliens from outer space. The whole town seems to be devoted to the "Roswell UFO Incident." It evolved from the 1947 recovery of weather balloon debris from a ranch near Corona, New Mexico by United States Army Air Forces officers from Roswell Army Air Field. There was a rumor that an alien UFO had been recovered and that the US government was covering it up. The town is know as the “UFO Capital of the World.”

As reported "The Roswell incident did not surface again until the late 1970s, when retired lieutenant colonel Jesse Marcel, in an interview with ufologist Stanton Friedman, said he believed the debris he retrieved was extraterrestrial. Ufologists began promoting a variety of increasingly elaborate conspiracy theories, claiming that one or more alien spacecraft had crash-landed and that the extraterrestrial occupants had been recovered by the military, which then engaged in a cover-up.

In July, 1994, the United States Air Force published a report identifying the crashed object as a nuclear test surveillance balloon from Project Mogul. A second Air Force report, published in 1997, concluded that stories of "aliens bodies" probably stemmed from test dummies being dropped from high altitude.

The city of Roswell, New Mexico has capitalized on the event. The city's official seal now features a little green man while the city contains countless ufology attractions, events, statues and iconography.

As you travel down main street you are very aware the alien beings that are there for tourism throughout the city. The city even has an annual UFO Festival held each July to commemorate the event!