Roswell, New Mexico

A small town in New Mexico that is famous for supposedly having a flying saucer crash nearby. The local police and military actually issued a Press Release which stated they had recovered a crashed saucer.

The government soon changed their story, claiming it to be a weather balloon. Since then, rumors have flown about what actually happened, and the government had changed their story at least once.

A medium sized town in southwest New Mexico most famous because of a supposed UFO crash in 1947. Because Roswell is surrounded by small towns and provides shopping and recreation for the whole area, you get the impression that it is a much larger town. Roswell has approximately 50,000 citizens. There are two Colleges in Roswell; Eastern New Mexico University Roswell (ENMUR) and New Mexico Millitary Institute (NMMI). For visitors and tourists Roswell has the Roswell Museum and Art Center and of course the Roswell UFO Museum and Research Center. There is also dozens of gift shops and coffie shops with the UFO theme.

Wanna know a secret? There is a big coverup going on over the UFO crash at Roswell. Pull up a chair, and I'll tell you...

Long years ago, sometime in the 1980s, I was a student at Hobbs, New Mexico, which is located about 100 miles to the southeast of Roswell. I lived there for about ten years. Our family watched the TV stations that broadcast out of Roswell. Every once in a while, we read the Roswell newspaper. In all those years living so close to Roswell, we heard very little talk about a UFO crash in Roswell in 1947. We heard a little -- we knew that folks hollered about a UFO crashing there, and that it turned out not to be a UFO, and that the military's Cold War paranoia turned a silly incident into something bigger than it deserved, but nobody really believed a flying saucer had crashed near Roswell.

But then, in the late 1980s, the oil and gas industry experienced a severe crash. In eastern New Mexico, oil was big business -- lots of families made their livings working in the oilfields. Lots of people lost their jobs. Lots of companies closed their offices. Lots of people moved away. Lots of communities had big financial trouble.

...and not long afterwards, people started talking about the Roswell UFO Crash. The Roswell Chamber of Commerce and newspaper started talking about the crash a lot. Books were written. Movies were made. TV shows about UFO-chasing FBI agents were created. Roswell started their annual UFO Festival. Tourists poured into town to visit the site of the crash and visit the UFO museums and eat at the restaurants and stay at the motels...

Nowadays, Roswell and the UFO that might have crashed there have become part of our popular culture. Tourism has become big business in Roswell. Nobody remembers that the UFO crash was dismissed and forgotten by everyone for over 40 years. Nobody remembers how convenient the current UFO craze was for the cash-strapped City of Roswell. Nobody remembers, and there are a lot of people who want to make certain that nobody remembers. That's the coverup, kids. The Roswell UFO Crash has been a conspiracy to separate tourists from their money...