There are hundreds of thousands of Americans that believe, yes truly and earnestly feel, that our government is hiding aliens and spaceships out in the desert.
Under the sand, under the cacti, may lurk other life forms with big heads, eyes like black almonds, three fingers, and four-foot bodies. And some even, may have been yelling, “The plane, the PLANE!” on Fantasy Island for twenty years. In any event, these buggers are rumored to have crashed their spaceship near Roswell, New Mexico back in 1947.
Since 1947, strange bodies with no ears and waxy skin have turned up all over the Southwest and the alien-conspiracy people are convinced that the military is hiding them at Area 51 in Nevada because We, the People would, er, freak, if we found out that aliens really existed.
There are a lot of things that the government could admit to that would make me “freak.” I might freak if another bimbo falls out of Bill Clinton’s closet. If the government releases pictures of Newt in a bikini, I’ll freak. If the budget gets balanced, if the Pentagon cuts costs, if politicians make a pledge to shut up, then I will most definitely freak. I doubt I could handle startling revelations like those. But aliens? If Mork from Ork comes shooting down to Red Level and hollers “Naa-new, naa-new, y’all” I’ll take him out for a barbecue.
But I doubt any life form that has traveled 10,000 light years will go to Red Level. Which also brings up the question, why would aliens have gone to Roswell? Silly me, but I don’t remember there being anything remotely interesting in all of New Mexico except some big hole in the ground.
Maybe Egypt. Maybe Stonehenge. Maybe the Great Wall of China. Dang, maybe even Andalusia. But Roswell? All that’s in Roswell is an Air Force Base.
Hmmmm.
Unidentified Flying Objects–Air Force Base. Bum-bum-BUM! Could it be that all these UFO sightings were just weather balloons test dummies? Could it be that the New Mexicans that spotted all these aliens had no idea what they were looking at?
The year was 1947. People still took trains back then. My grandfather had just seen his first jet airplane a few years earlier. Werner Von Braun was tinkering around in Huntsville trying to come up with a American UFO. And lo, some yahoo ranch foreman named W. W. Brazel walked out into his backyard near Roswell and found (horrors!) “strange, shiny material.”
Let’s remember now, aluminum foil was “strange, shiny material” back in 1947. Nonetheless, over 100,000 UFO believers are headed to Roswell for the crash’s 50 year anniversary. All those tourists with fists full of cash to buy alien bumper stickers, refrigerator magnets, and clothing that says, “I crashed in Roswell and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.” Twenty years later, W. W. is charging $15 a person to show them his backyard. And there isn’t even any shiny metal left. Now that’s a conspiracy.
—Morgan Murphy