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Hometown 1
SpotiisJg]
An alien carrying an
American flag walks slowly clown Main
Street in Roswell, NM. (pop. 45,293), trailed
by a glowing spaceship, a green alien on a
motor scooter and Star Wars characters twirl
ing light sabers.
It's a familiar site for residents and thou
sands of visitors who line the streets to watch
the Cfose Encounters Night Parade, part of
the annual Roswell UFO Festival each July.
Nancy Fleming helps daughter Sienna
prepare for the alien costume contest.
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f Photos by Frederic Moras
this World!
“This is how we let our creative side just
have fun and not be serious," says Shirley
Leif, a supervisor at Roswell’s East
ern New Mexico Medical Center. Leif
and dozens of other hospital employees
spent two months working on their
trophy-winning Star Wars float.
Tlie festival, scheduled July 1-4, cel
ebrates tlie town's most famous event —the
"Roswell Incident. "
Sometime in July 1947, something
crashed in the eastern New Mexico desert 40
miles outside of Roswell. Tlie first report said
that a "flying saucer” had been recovered, but
the U.S. military later identified the crashed
object as a “weather balloon.”
"I never saw any of the bodies, but I knew
people who dkl," says resident Glenn Dennis,
81. "And people at Walker Air Force Base
called the funeral home where I worked to
ask about small coffins."
The incident made such an impression
on Dennis and resident Walter Haut—who
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Alien-attired attendees roam the streets during the annual Roswell (N.M.) UFO Festival.
wrote the first newspaper article about a
"flying saucer” a few days after the crash—
that they created die International UFO
Museum and Research Center in 1991.
The museum, housed in a 194()5-era
movie theater, is a popular spot for people
who want to learn more about Uniden
tified Flying Objects, or UFOs. Inside
visitors can see a collection of photographs
and newspaper stories from the time of
the crash, as well as props used in vari
ous space alien movies. There's even a
giant world map showing the location
of UFO sightings.
“UFOs are a relatively new phenom
ena, and people come here wanting to be
convinced one way or another," says Julie
Shuster, director of the museum and festi
val co-chairperson.
For serious UFO buffs, the festival
includes panel discussions and dozens of
authors who give lectures and sign books
on the subject. For others, die festival is
purely entertainment, with music concerts,
appearances by science fiction celebrities
and an alien costume contest.
As for the latter, Sienna Fleming, 9,
has donned an alien costume each year
since site was bom. “It's one of the most
visual parts of the festival," says Nancy
Fleming, who helps make her daughter's
costume. “We like to do our part to make
it worth aiming to see. I think it’s fun to
have crowds once in a while in a quiet little
town like Roswell."
Norma McQuaid and her husband,
Richard, retired five years ago and moved
to Roswell. They both volunteer at the
museum. “I’m a greeter, and I always wear
my headband with the alien eyes on the
antennae,” she says. “The local piper called
me the Alien Ambassador.
“Some people would prefer Roswell be
known as a dairy town," she adds. "One
day at the museum, I met someone
from Siberia. Now, 1 wouldn't come
from the other side of the world to see
cows, would you?”
“Everybody knows Roswell, and it’s all
because of tlie aliens,” says Barbara Pruett,
who runs a local RV park. "We get people
from all over. I bet I hand out 100 bro
chures a week for tlie UFO Museum.”
Many local merchants make use erf the
alien theme for businesses as varied as bike
shops, printers and carpet stores. Even the
local Wal-Mart has a flying saucer painted
on the front of its building.
Richard Hesse owns Statchild, one of
the first gift shops in Roswell to adept an
alien theme. “When we moved here in
1991, people in town were just beginning
to see the possibilities in using the alien
idea to advertise the town.”
But does he really think that it was
a flying saucer that crashed in die desert
outside of town 58 years ago?
“I’m not sure what to believe," Hesse
says. “All I can say is, it’s a blast. I meet
people from all over tlie world, right here
in Roswell."
Lyn Kidder is a freelance writer in
Rnidoso. N.M.
For more information, call the
Roswell Chamber of Commerce
at (505) 623-5695 or log on to
www.roswellnm.org.
The UFO Museum attracts assorted “aliens.”
X' H^M
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