We left the Trinity site with a new mission – to find all the Little Green Men in Roswell I have always heard about. We didn’t need to look far.
First, we crossed over the Valley of Fire again. We saw this in 2021 on a different road to Kanab, Arizona.
It was alive with blooming Dasylirion wheeleri as far as the eye could see. Situated in the lava flows, it made for a spectacular sight!
As we continued eastward that morning, it got hot. Really hot. By the time we reached Roswell, it was 107F outside. The trailer tires reached 113F. We got there and tried to beat the heat. Not much fun walking Jake in that heat with little shade to be found in the New Mexico desert.
Roswell
The story goes something like this: In 1947, an alien spaceship explodes north of Roswell. A bunch of people see it. A fewer number of people find the wreckage of the flying saucer. Four aliens were dead, but one survived. They examined him. They covered it up because – WFT – a flying saucer? We thought World War II was bad wait for this! Or something like that 😉.
Years later, people started talking. Military people. Townspeople. A cover-up had occurred. The gig was up. They eventually built this museum and laid the whole thing out for the world to see. They host conventions and have regular speakers. They have a research library containing all their reference materials.
We believe.
There were a lot of people who ended up saying they knew about it. Probably more surprising was the cohesiveness or the individual stories taken as a whole. Many were deathbed confessions! How dramatic is that? Everyone’s 15 minutes of fame? Hard to know.
The second part of the museum had artifacts, including some very cool re-enactments of the alien autopsy—another group of exhibits talked about other sightings, some from antiquity. Intriguing stuff.
The museum was fun and about what I expected. They make a compelling case with all of this evidence. I personally do not believe it – the physics just make it all too unlikely.
I have no doubt that there are – or have been over time – many solar systems that support life. Life is too tenacious and found at all extremes on Earth. Essential ingredients are floating around in interstellar space. I am sure that intelligent civilizations like ours have existed.
The Universe, however, is really big, and physics – especially the speed of light/information – is limiting. 13 billion years old is a long time, and 48.5 billion lightyears wide is a long time to receive and transmit. How weak would the signal be so far away? Space, after all, is not empty.
Or maybe they are just fucking with us 👽. I do believe that another independently evolved species would not necessarily be like those that evolved on Earth—too many variables.
Roswell itself was bigger than I expected. The cashier at the museum told me the primary industry is dairy farming. They grow grass in the fields to feed the dairy cattle.
The town does have a grand history of cattle ranching. The statue of John Chisum across from City Hall is a testimony to that. He was a real-life Cattle Barron with over 100,000 head of a longhorn steer at one point in the late 1800s.
Starting in the 1930s, Robert Goddard set up a secret lab nearby and conducted dozens of launches to test rocket engine designs. During and after WWII, Walker Airforce Base became a crucial player in nuclear deterrence. It was eventually closed.
I was surprised that the whole alien thing was not overdone. Roswell is a bigger city than I expected – the fifth largest in New Mexico. The Mcdonalds’ seems to be the biggest alien attraction other than the museum. They light it up at night!
To my great surprise, it rained that afternoon. This was the first solid rain we had experienced on the whole trip. And it happens when it’s 107F outside! I am surprised it didn’t boil on the gravel as it splashed down! It cooled it off a bit – it was a mere 100F an hour later!
The next stop is our last in New Mexico, Carlsbad. We are staying at a big family-oriented park north of town. I made reservations to see the caverns early Friday morning. It’s supposed to be 107F today and then cool off a couple of degrees for the weekend 🥵. I plan on visiting Guadalupe National Park on Saturday.
From there, we start our journey home.