I want to start this blog by letting my readers know that I love the quirky, cheesy, goofy stuff across America. This is one of the main reasons I stopped in Roswell, New Mexico.  So let the fun begin:


Roswell's claim to fame is the UFO folklore surrounding the alleged recovery of alien creatures from a crashed object there in 1947.
The Area 51 Museum at the Alien Zone was my first stop.  The front half of the museum is a gift shop and diner.  There are lots of fun things to look at in the gift shop, but the diner was not serving when I was there so I can’t tell you if the food is any good.  The second half of the museum is the Alien Zone.  For a few bucks you get to pose for photos with dummy aliens in about twenty different scenes.  I posed in a bar, a crashed saucer and even an upside down room.  We had the place to ourselves, so we tried to have some fun.  The outhouse proved a personal favorite of mine, but in an effort to maintain dignity and respect I will not post that particular series of pictures.


The next stop on our tour was the International U.F.O. Museum and Research Center.   I was thinking this would be the focal point of the whole crazy visit, but it was just OK.  The exhibits are mostly newspaper clippings and fuzzy photographs from around the world.  The museum covers crop circles, alien abductions, Area 51, alien sightings, and ancient astronauts.  I thought the museum was interesting and did a decent job covering the crash.  They’re raising money to build a new larger museum just down the street. 


The next stop was lunch at McDonald’s - it’s the only MickeyD’s in the world shaped like a flying saucer.  The PlayLand is surrounded by space artifacts and alien oddities and McDonald’s characters can be found in various astronaut situations.






Many of the businesses along Roswell’s Main Street feature cool store fronts related to alien visitation and related merchandise.  It’s not all ‘out there’ in Roswell, there are art galleries and regular stores in the area as well as the Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art, the Roswell Museum and the Spring River Park and Zoo.


But I love that the street lights are alien heads and that there are alien footprints on the sidewalks.  I think the people of Roswell must have a good sense of humor about aliens, they seemed to embrace the notoriety - even Wal-Mart has a “Welcome Aliens” sign.  With the hospitality I found in the city, I’d say human visitors are welcome too.

Click here to see Roswell, New Mexico and AAA Approved accommodations with TripTik Travel Planner.