Nestled in a valley that is the only oasis for 75 to 100 miles in the desert prairie of New Mexico, Roswell is a bustling community of about 50,000 people. During the famed UFO Festival it grows to about 60,000 to 70,000. Its main street, appropriately named "Main Street," becomes U.S. Highway 285 heading north and south. Its second main street (named what else? "Second Street") becomes U.S. Highway 70, leading east and west. The two highways intersect smack-dab in the middle of town so you can truly "get there from here." According to the UFO experts, you can touch down at Roswell, even if you are from a little further out, say Alpha Centauri for instance.
The stars shine like diamond s in our beautiful night skies. In the Southwest, we are used to prairie dogs and coyotes on our sagebrush covered plains, but in Roswell, we also host other creatures.
In the 1940s, Roswell was a sleepy little village dependant upon local farmers and the Roswell Air Field for its livelihood. In 1947, a stir about a "flying saucer" crashing in a nearby field attracted some attention, but interest quickly died down as people returned to the task of making a living. This was right after the Second World War, and the community’s interest was more in welcoming home their soldiers returning from the war and trying to rebuild families than it was in "little green men." So the locals didn’t speak much about it after the hype wore off. I grew up here and don’t remember hearing anything at all about "The Incident" until the late 1970s when the "Cover Up" conspiracy theory became world news.
{ 0 comments }
