20 AMERICANWAY
JULY 1 2009
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Roswell mayor and history buff Sam
LaGrone recommends visiting the
RoswellMuseumandArtCenter
[1]
. It houses “theRogers andMary
EllenAstonCollection of theAmerican
West, which [has] Indian artifacts—
headbands andbows and arrows that
they usedback then. TheSmithsonian
wanted those, andRogers turned them
down,” LaGrone says.
WhenPeteMayadag, plantmanager
of theRoswell branch of LeprinoFoods
(one of theworld’s largestmozzarella
factories) isn’t sampling cheese, he
makes a beeline for
Martin’sCapitol
Café [2]
for a sopaipilla. “It’ll come out
warm, and then they’ll give you some
honey to put on it,” he says. “With a
regularMexicanmeal and a couple of
beers, it’s the icing on the calorie cake.”
SharonWelz, a local artist and the co-
owner of the
Roswell Spacewalk [3]
(a 3-Dblack-light experience), likes the
coffee shop
Not of ThisWorld [4]
for
a quick sandwich. “The [shop’s] outside
wall has a bigmural of outer space. …
They have computers there, and one
night aweek, they have livemusic,”
she says.
Citymarketingdirector ReneéRoach
is proud to live in the only town that
boasts aUFO-shapedMcDonald’s. But
when it comes to fashion, she heads to
HippieChicks [5]
. “The [store’s] sign
is aVWbug sawed in half! Every girl of
every age loves this boutique— it keeps
upwith all the trends,” she says.
Roswell UFOFestival conference coor-
dinator Peter Robbins suggests a pair
of historical military spots. The
White
SandsMissileRangeMuseum [6]
(163miles fromRoswell) displays doz-
ens of vintagemissiles, and the
Trinity
Site [7]
(145miles away and open
twice a year)marks the spot of the
world’s first nuclear-device test. “These
are two of themost extraordinaryCold
War locations,” Robbins says.
JACK BOULWARE
attended the 50th anniversary of the Roswell crash in 1997 and still isn’t sure
himself if it’s fact or fiction.
TheBackstory
Theworld’smost famousUFO
incident began in July 1947 after a local rancher discovered a peculiar
crash site in a pasture outsideRoswell. News headlines described the
mysterious debris as that of a “flyingdisk,” but the very next day, Unit-
edStatesmilitary quickly confiscated thewreckage and released a
statement saying the crashwasmerely that of aweather balloon. The
casewas ignored formore than30 years, until independent research-
ers began interviewingmorewitnesses. Various stories have since
emerged that describe alien bodies being removed from the crash site
and secretly transported to amilitary base for further study— one of
them still alive!
Did it really happen?According tomost UFO researchers, and to
politicians likeSamLaGrone, Roswell mayor, andBill Richardson, New
Mexico governor, themystery has never been adequately explained
and theU.S. governmentmost likely covered up… something. TheUFO
Festival runs July2 to5.
Roswell,NewMexico:TheTruthIsStillOutThere.
Until the 1990s, theonly touristswho stopped inRoswell, NewMexico,were either lost or asking for directions to
Carlsbad. That’s no longer the case. Today, everyone knows Roswell as the Alien Capital of theWorld. Each July,
this town of 50,000 celebrates its annual UFO Festival, to which thousands
make thepilgrimage tohear notableufologistsargueabout aliensandgovern-
ment subterfuge alongside a circus atmosphere of parades, concerts, and pet
dogs dressed as E.T.
By JackBoulware
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