Photo-of-the-Week #200 Out Of This World, Roswell, New Mexico, December, 2014

Last week's photo was from the macro world. This week we are going out of this world. Roswell, New Mexico seems to be the center of all the lore about some really "illegal aliens." You are looking at the International UFO Museum and Research Center. It sort of looks like an old art deco movie theater, wouldn't you say?

Roswell seems to have made a minor industry out of all the extraterrestrials that have, supposedly, arrived from some distant place in the universe. I call it a minor industry because there really wasn't as much extraterrestrial "stuff" as I had led myself to believe I'd find when I reached Roswell. Basically, this museum is the center of the UFO lore and commerce. Across the street is a tee shirt shop aptly named Alien Invasion. There are a few other shops around the museum with UFO themes. Otherwise, besides the little green men painted on the windows at the Roswell Walmart and a McDonald's built to look somewhat like a flying saucer, I found nothing else.

I was really looking forward to dining that evening at the Crashdown Cafe. I had heard about this place and it sounded like it would be a fun experience even if the food wasn't that good. The menu was reputed to have all kinds of items with "out of this world" names. Unfortunately, and from my understanding, the Crashdown Care had crashed and burned. Well, to be more accurate, apparently, due to poor management, the local eatery had shuttered its "hatches." So, I, unfortunately, settled for typical McDonald's fare at the, sort of, flying saucer shaped McDonald's. The only saving grace was that I met an interesting fellow sitting at the table next to mine. He was a local and filled me in on a lot about Roswell, which, other than the few establishments capitalizing on the supposed UFO landings, is a pretty typical American small city.

Unfortunately, due to some (darn) self-imposed time constraints to get to Clovis, California by Christmas, I didn't have time to really explore all the (limited) UFO and extraterrestrial places. I arrived at the Museum just a few minutes before 5 PM and, of course, they closed at 5 PM. I know I'll be passing through Roswell again in the future. I'll just have to save up my curiosity for what is inside these "out of this world" emporia. And, who knows, maybe the Crashdown Cafe will rise from the ashes like the Phoenix, under new management, possibly aliens?