By Bonnie and Bill Neely
My hobby is to watch Ancient Aliens TV series and Project Blue Book! I love to imagine the “What ifs?” of space explorers, satellites, human and otherwise. In Roswell, New Mexico, locals claimed that in 1947 a spaceship crashed on a nearby rancher’s property and five space beings were found, one of them alive. After the first rash of newspaper headlines everywhere declaring a UFO had crashed on earth, the US government rushed in and declared the “spaceship” was a weather balloon and the stories were wild myths. For decades the top secrets were carefully guarded on threat of death if any eye-witnesses told what they actually saw.
I was fascinated by the little UFO museum we found back years ago in Roswell, and on three trips we visited it again. What happened there that July night in 1947 were not debunked by people around the world who reported hundreds of sightings of UFO’s. Convincing personal accounts were on the walls of this little, small town, amateurish UFO Museum. On our trip west in 2021 again we made our route through Roswell and were delighted at the newly rebuilt and renamed International UFO Museum!
Now the same little museum is a modern, large museum with interactive displays throughout, including videos of personal testimonies. There is a wall of sworn Affidavits of locals who were there in 1947 and Air Force personnel who were formerly forbidden to talk, and many others. The two I found most convincing were once in hand-written paper on the wall of the old museum. One was the account given by the mortician about being contacted after the crash to bring five child-sized caskets to a local ranch. There he saw the crashed flying saucer and four of the beings, each about four feet tall with slanted, almond-shaped eyes and silvery-gray “skin,” which had died upon impact with the earth. An autopsy was performed, and this is depicted at the museum as a life-sized diorama, faithfully rendered to the exact size and description of the small beings, including four digits on hands and feet. One more of these beings was severely injured and was taken to a then undisclosed location for surveillance. The other eye-witness account that seemed true was written by the nurse who attended the autopsy.
In the museum center is a fun exhibit of a saucer-shaped spaceship with life-sized silver creatures nearby. Anyone who wishes can turn a hand-crank and the entire scene comes to life with movement, noises, lights, smoke, and everyone in the museum laughs and claps at the surprise performance.
The UFO Museum is divided into sections which include named metallic photographs of Air Force personnel, scientists, eye-witnesses, Army Colonels, local citizens, and others with reliable and convincing statements of what they knew to be true but were for decades forbidden to mention. There is a section where Unidentified Flying Objects have been seen around the world. A large display presents accounts of archeological findings all over the world, as described and investigated on the TV series Ancient Aliens. One of the most profound in this display is the large panel of carved wood from Mayan culture 400-600 AD, depicting a humanoid figure, “The Palenque Astronaut,” driving a spaceship. This wood panel was found to be covering the remains of the being depicted.
Another section explains the classifications of Encounters with UFO’s. A Close Encounter of the First Kind is seeing an object or mysterious light in the sky within less than 500 feet and appearing to have no interaction with the witness. The Second Kind is watching an object in the sky which has a measurable physical effect on either animate or inanimate matter on earth. A The Third Kind is when a witness sees a human-like being, but usually no direct contact is made. A Close Encounter of the Fourth Kind is when the occupants of a UFO make direct contact with the person, either communicating with him or her or taking the person for examination before returning him or her to the original location. There were accounts made by people who have had each of these Close Encounters, including the frightening Fourth Kind ones by Betty and Barney Hill, Derrell Sims, Travis Walton, and others, who were captured temporarily.
The museum contains movie posters and TV images of iconic films which have delighted and scared audiences for decades, when no government personal was allowed to discuss the Top Secret Investigations taking place through CIA, Air Force, and other branches of the USA government. However, the museum has a wall of world leaders who believe UFO’s are real and have seen them: Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and various Astronauts and US pilots.
A must-see is the Roswell UFO Spacewalk and Gallery; also, Space Sport Roswell, a Virtual Reality attraction with very realistic space travel experiences for UFO enthusiasts. The first week of each July UFOlogists and fans from all over the world gather in Roswell for the annual AlienFest, a UFO festival for families and scientists and anyone interested in learning the fascinating stories of UFO Encounters. Mark your calendars for next year!
IF YOU GO: https://www.roswellufomuseum.com/, https://seeroswell.com/, https://www.history.com/news/first-alien-abduction-account-barney-betty-hill, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travis_Walton_UFO_incident
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