EP 63: UFO Town
What could aliens and flying saucers mean to a community and its government? Like, for real. Whether you believe we've actually been visited by interplanetary travelers or whether simple, Earthly explanations cover the sightings and stories, no community has a stronger association with extra terrestrials and UFOs than Roswell, New Mexico. On this episode, we look at what that means from a community and economic-development angle. We're joined by a ufologist and one of the world's foremost experts on what's called "the Roswell Incident" and from a spokesperson of the local government itself. Ultimately it's about embracing your community's story and taking it to intergalatic levels. City of Roswell, N.M. https://roswell-nm.gov Blog of Dr. Kevin Randle http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com Randle's latest book on Roswell, "Roswell in the 21st Century" "Report of Air Force Research Regarding the 'Roswell Incident'" (July 1994) https://www.nsa.gov/Portals/70/documents/news-features/declassified-documents/ufo/report_af_roswell.pdf "The Roswell Report: Case Closed" https://archive.org/stream/AFD-101027-030/AFD-101027-030_djvu.txt Roswell tourism video https://roswell-nm.gov/656/Tourism-Video
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Transcript
On this episode of Municipal Equation. And Roswell, New Mexico, for decades,
ignored the fact that aliens had landed there. It was like a million dollar brand that fell out of the sky. This is our unique identity. It's spread through the culture, so practically everyone has some idea of what the Roswell incident was all about or what happened at Roswell. If you've heard of Roswell, New Mexico, something very specific might come to mind.
What being associated with aliens and flying saucers means for a community and its government. My name is Ben Brown, and this is Municipal Equation, a podcast about cities and towns adapting in the face of change from the North Carolina League of Municipalities. Episode 63. So why do you think this particular incident is so captivating?
Because it has everything you need to prove alien visitation. If what crashed was an alien spacecraft, then you have the debris, which would suggest a a technology far superior to ours. You would have the bodies of the, flight crew, which would suggest alien visitors. And everything you need to prove that we have been visited would be there if we could get our hands on it. And I think that's one of the driving things behind the interest in the Roswell case.
We're gonna get back to this gentleman, who by the way is highly regarded in his field in just a minute. I wanna talk about how this episode came to mind. It goes back this past May at the City Vision Annual Conference. This is the conference of the League of Municipalities that brings all kinds of local government officials and collaborators together to talk about today's issues. And I wandered into a session being led by a futurist named Matt Thornhill on how municipalities can be engaging. And he began to talk about local branding and identity. And if you think about it,
winning brands know and tell their story very well. Winning cities know and tell their story. Anyone familiar with Austin, Texas? And what do they say about Austin, Texas? What's their their identity, if you will?
Keep Austin weird.
Keep Austin weird. Okay. How about Portland, Oregon? Anyone know what the the theme is in Portland, Oregon? Keep Portland weird. Guess who's suing each other? But think about it. Big cities do develop, you know, municipalities or brands. We all know what Las Vegas stands for. Right? You know, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Stays in
Vegas. Yeah. How about Nashville, Music City?
That was kind of bestowed on them back, like, seventy years ago when some radio guy talked about Nashville being Music City, but they fully embraced it. But but small towns can do it too. I had the pleasure of speaking at the New Mexico Municipal League in a little town in the middle of New Mexico I've never been to, but I'd heard of Roswell, New Mexico. And Roswell, New Mexico for decades ignored the fact that aliens had landed there. And then about fifteen years ago, a mayor said, why are we running from this? We need to run to this. This is our unique identity. That's the welcome sign now. It's a flying saucer that's crashed into the welcome sign. And I I I was flabbergasted. I got into the town, I thought I I had not really studied Roswell. I knew that it was the alien place, but I didn't know how much they had embraced it. Look at the traffic I mean, their lights. They have fully embraced it. It's crazy. But guess what? That twenty eighteen UFO festival, 45,000 people showed up from all over the planet and maybe other galaxies. We're not sure. But it worked. It worked. It's made a huge difference. So what's your municipality's story?
That got me curious about Roswell's local government, who we're going to hear from. But first, let's look at the case.
Hello?
Doctor Randall. Yes. This is Doctor Kevin Randall, a prominent ufologist, someone who studies the UFO topic. And he's the voice you heard closer to the beginning of this episode. And his reputation is that he's one of the foremost experts on the reported crash of alien spacecraft outside of Roswell in July 1947. He's written a lot of books about it. He believes there's a whole lot more for the public to know about this case. And so just for some quick background, I mean, you know, you've written entire books about this. Something touches down on a ranch outside of Roswell, 1947. Just what's the short kind of Cliff's Notes version of this?
Well, first of all, it crashed. Didn't touch down, it crashed. Scattering debris all over it.
They collected the debris, took it back to Roswell, collected some of the debris, took it back to Roswell. So whether you're a believer or you just think there's a totally earthly and much less remarkable explanation for everything we know about what's called the Roswell incident. I want you to hear it from doctor Randall to reflect the level of interest in this case. From a UFO perspective, he says it's the amount of evidence that sets this one apart. That leads us to the extraterrestrial. That takes us directly there. These other sightings, while very interesting
and and very, very well documented,
do not take us directly to the extraterrestrial. I think that's the difference. So the story is something crashed on a ranch in the desert outside of Roswell. The rancher calls authorities about it and military types respond. They put out a press release that they discovered a flying disc, which was the terminology being used in the press release. A flying disc recovered out there on this ranch outside of Roswell. And then the local newspaper comes out with a front page headline saying the military has confirmed it's a flying saucer. The story under the headline doesn't provide any specific description or details or anything, but does interview a couple people who claimed in pretty loose terms to have witnessed a glowing craft in the sky shortly before the crash. And then the next day, the newspaper prints different wording that the material they recovered from the ranch was really just from a weather balloon, and the rancher who initially reported it was reportedly embarrassed about it all. That's the general summary. But maybe it surprises you to learn that this story didn't endure, not initially. It was kind of a flash in the pan that really nobody was talking about in the years that followed. The adjusted news account, the the one about the weather balloon, really seemed to settle things as far as the public was concerned. Pretty much all talk in relation to Roswell about a flying saucer and aliens from another planet and so on ceased. That was it. For decades, the story was
dead.
Matter of fact, it wasn't until the late nineteen seventies when the story reemerged and began to spread into the sensational narrative we have today. That's the result of UFO researchers like the late Stanton Friedman, who began interviewing people who were involved or claimed to have been involved with the Roswell incident or said they knew people who were, bringing up weird new details. The military guy holding up the crash material on the front page of the local newspaper, his name was Major Jesse Marcel of the Roswell Army Airfield. Even he's apparently quoted as saying the material they found wasn't of this earth. So Friedman and others made FOIA requests for government documents and so on and built a narrative that the government was covering up what really happened, that at least one alien spacecraft did crash outside of Prozwell. And not only that, but that the military recovered alien bodies too. Like, that's in the narrative. So welcome to a rabbit hole that goes and goes and goes and captures so much interest around the planet for what it might all mean.
Don Schmidt and I got involved in it in 1989 when it was discovered there were a number of witnesses that had not been interviewed. There was a great deal of research that needed to go on, and we began our investigation where they culminated in first the book The UFO Crash at Roswell, then The Truth About the UFO Crash at Roswell. And, from from that point, everybody was talking about Roswell and doing books about Roswell.
Yeah. That's that's a good point. I mean, you know, whether you believe in anything extraterrestrial happening here or not, you know, we can all agree that the Roswell incident eventually had this huge point of interest and and really a cultural impact, you know, on on the way we think about this planet, on pop culture. I mean, there there was a TV drama called Roswell. But doctor Randall, you would agree, right, that what we refer to as the Roswell incident has had a huge impact on our culture.
Certainly had a huge impact on the town of Roswell. Mhmm. And back in the early nineteen nineties, I was talking to a friend of mine, Russ Estes, and, we were deep into our research. And he said, you know, if you ask 10 people in the street what what is Roswell, they'd have no idea. Now in today's environment, you see questions on Jeopardy about Roswell Right. And what happened there. So it's it's spread through the culture. So practically everyone has some idea of what the Roswell incident was all about or what happened at Roswell, that sort of thing. So I guess in that respect, it it had a a a an impact on the entertainment culture, the documentary culture, and certainly, the UFO
community. And and that that's all led to this enduring fascination with the city of Roswell itself. Even though the crash happened well outside of city limits, what do you think the Roswell incident means to this day for the community of Roswell itself? I mean, it's it's kinda become like a mecca, hasn't it?
I would hesitate to say that it revitalized the town, but it it certainly had a major influence on the town. And when we first went there in 1989, you could take a look at what the motels were and what the buildings were like and and what the businesses were and that sort of thing. I just came back from there less than a month ago. The number of high end hotels is amazing for a town the size of Roswell. You get into the downtown area and everybody everything has something to do with aliens. It has some kind of alien connection, whether it's in the name or or what they're selling. Even the McDonald's has a sort of a flying saucer motif. I think it was a Dunkin' Donuts has a big huge alien holding up the holding up the sign. So you can see that it's just had a major influence and brought a lot of money in the into the town. I was amazed that, some of these hotels came into it because I know the way they structure those, where they want to go, suggest they're looking for places that are gonna need a lot of hotels, and they're looking at universities and military bases, that sort of thing. Yeah. Roswell has really nothing like that, but has the mil the New Mexico Military Institute, which is a I think it's a a high school and a two year college, I think is what it is. But it's not a huge university type setting that you would expect, and yet you've got all kinds of high end hotels from Holiday Inn Holiday Inn Express to, Marriott to Hampton Inns, all in in the town, and it's all been built since, since the, late nineteen nineties. And that's roughly festival started earlier than that. The big one was 1997, of course, because it was the, fiftieth anniversary.
Roswell hosts the annual UFO festival every July. People come from all over the world to Roswell, absorbing the actual community that it is. Here's Juanita Jennings, the director of public affairs for the city of Roswell, the local government.
Oh, there's a lot to see. You would see the downtown Main Street is all blocked off, for about seven or eight blocks. So you're gonna have music entertainment, but you're also gonna have some sci fi stuff happening. So for example, this year, we it was a new, little attraction and entertainment piece where we had the MIB, agents, and they it was like a mob squad. They would come out, and people were very surprised there was this big alarm that went off. People didn't know what was happening. All of a sudden, you see these agents getting out of this black SUV, chasing an alien dressed dressed in a costume trying to capture it. They have laser guns and, toy, like, lay you know, tasers and things like that. So that's, like, one thing. Then you're gonna see these people that are gigantic robots that are dressed with lights, that walk the streets at night. You're gonna see visitors that just dress up because they come for the alien costume contest. And let me tell you, those costumes, these people work on for quite a while. Fittingly, there's also a planetarium,
which just got remodeled.
Last year, $1,300,000 went into this facility, and it's just absolutely beautiful. Mhmm. Takes you through space and talks really about, the evolution of of mankind and extraterrestrial life and things like that, and it changes. And then you could go to a show about a teleco or Led Zeppelin, like a laser light show. There's also a zoo that, during the festival, goes alien. Just specific to the festival where it's extraterrestrial alien like type, toys and activities for the animals there at our zoo, which is a rescue zoo. And, of course, there's the food. You're gonna have, like, nebular nachos and, an alien tonic or different things like that. There's also lectures with acclaimed speakers and attractions at the museum. This brings tons of people into the city. And if it's an anniversary year, like the seventieth anniversary of the crash, attendance is out of this world. There's, like, 50,000 people that come, and I said, well, that's about the size of our city. So you're telling me we we multiply or duplicate it? And they said, yeah. On an anniversary, yes, we do. Wow. So I got to see, the seventieth, and I will say that definitely the anniversary years have a lot more. They're gearing up for their seventy fifth anniversary even though it's a couple years out. The planning for that has already started even though we're working on next year's festival,
because usually on the anniversary, we we do something really big and spectacular. And so Wow. So so from all countries? I mean, are are people coming from abroad to celebrate? Yes.
So we had 43 states, that were represented this year and 11 countries just during that three day possible time frame. So we see a lot of countries that come here, obviously, Mexico, Germany, Japan, Canada, are are probably the bigger ones. Europe is is huge. Lots of people from Europe. Japan is another high, performer. Top states are California, Texas, of course. They're our our neighbors. But 43 states and 11 countries overall just during the festival.
So, is there an economic impact study, or is is there or any dollar figure that the town has been able to to put on this?
So this year, was our first year that we actually hired a research company to give us that. We've I had heard it goes up, it goes down. There's no real indicator. You know, we can look at GRT, but we really can't pinpoint that GRT had that significant distinction. However, when you look at, like, the UFO Museum, and it's $5 for that entry fee, and in a three day period, they're gonna have anywhere between ten and twelve thousand visitors that pay $5. That's a little over, like, I don't know, 56,000 in just three days. Right. When you add up the number for the whole year, so they had a little over 250,000 last year. Just in revenue for one business at $5 a head, they're bringing in 1,100,000. Wow. And so you have to think about those visitors when they come here. They're gonna fill up their car with gas. Mhmm. They are probably staying in a hotel. They're probably gonna eat out at least once or twice. Yeah. They may have forgotten maybe flip flops or sunscreen or something and have to go to one of our retail stores, and then they're gonna buy some souvenirs. So the impact is huge for our city, and I think that is where when we were talking about the branding and really honing in on why people come here and why we had to embrace it,
the you just it kind of makes sense. It's also just a big driver for tourism money overall.
Last year, here in Roswell and Travis County, we did $33,600,000 in in tourism dollars,
that the state tourism office did a study on, and that was just here in Travis County. I was thinking back to what Matt Thornhill said at the beginning of the episode about the community itself not always having a warm relationship with the UFO stuff. I asked Juanita Jennings about that.
So I believe I looked, when I took over the position, there were some great files, about the city and branding and and the things that had been done. So Roswell, in addition to art and aliens, we are a town of agriculture. Mhmm. So we're a big, farming and ranching community. There's lots of dairy farms and, lots of ranching that had gone on and still today goes on. And so I think it was a it was a delicate balance of embracing, you know, the roots of all of the people that have lived here for such a long time. You know, when the incident happened, we used to have an air force base, that has since closed. And so at that time, when the air force base closed, the town, most of it just kind of faded away. There wasn't the population, you know, dropped significantly. And it wasn't back until, like, the early nineties, late nineties when the city itself said we kinda need to brand ourselves. They didn't have a brand or an identity. They knew about the incident, and it was in 1996, when they had the very first UFO festival. Okay. And they didn't, it was the fiftieth anniversary, to my knowledge. Again, I wasn't here at the time, but it was magnificent in the magnitude of attention that they got worldwide. And the mayor at the time and and the council, I believe, based on what I've seen, is they took that opportunity. It was like a million dollar brand that fell out of the sky
and landed in their lap that they thought they have to run with it. She said that in the late nineteen nineties, the festival grew in size and gained more media attention. The city later ended up with a seal that incorporated the alien presence. The seal includes space for Robert Hutchings Goddard, a pioneer of rocket science who worked in Roswell. There's a high school name for him there. The seal also includes a cow and a river and over time, the seal added a green alien. So they didn't wanna lose that farming and ranching,
and the rich history that it had. And so they kind of commingled it together
and promoted it both. The city government also worked with residents' own perspectives.
What they want to see us as. And then back in May, we developed and launched a new logo and brand identity and slogan. We have this emblem, which is an r with a spaceship now. Mhmm. We still have our our city pin, that has the New Mexico symbol and the night sky and the rocket and things like that. But it's a little more simplistic where we're really embracing the identity of what
happened in 1947. And you gotta love the town's slogan, We believe. Actually, there are two. We believe and one that just says, believe. And it can be interpreted. It doesn't have to be aliens. You know, some
people don't want to fully embrace the aliens, while others really see the value in it for the exposure and the media that we do get, because we have embraced it.
So from your perspective,
the truth that needs to come out, are you optimistic that it will? Eventually, we eventually, we're gonna learn the truth. I did a book, Roswell in the twenty first century, which came out a couple of years ago, which I looked at the whole thing in a dispassionate way, tried to do it as a cold case. I look at all the evidence and what it what it leads it to without some of the the hyperbole that has been dragged into the case. Mhmm. And at that point, the idea was I mean, my conclusion was, yeah. It's very interesting, but we can't get that last step made at this point. But if it's alien, if it was extraterrestrial, there is something somewhere that if we can figure out where to look, some documentation we can find, or some government source leaks something to us that gives us the lead, then we may be able to get there. Or the government, for whatever reason, decides, well, now it's time to tell the, tell the world, you know, here's what we have. We've we picked up a piece of a flying saucer. Or or the aliens land and say, yeah. We're here. And they well, there's no reason to hide the Roswells because it's more because the you know, that's kind of a moot point. And Right. And and if that were to happen, if they landed tomorrow, people would be, you know, how is this gonna affect us? How is this gonna change our world? See, we've had this information since 1947. And, you know, there there's no big invasion fleet standing off. It's not gonna radically alter alter our society, so there's no reason to panic over it is, I guess, is the point. So, you know, something like that eventually will get us to there, I I think. But, it's just how fast we can get to that point.
I asked Juanita Jennings if the city of Roswell had an official position for whatever reason on what they think happened in 1947, any proclamations or resolutions or anything.
Like, where does the city fall on this? There is no resolution or anything like that that I'm aware of, but I think when the city pours in funding to put resources and staffing and and looking at expanding the tourism industry here, you know, looking for that product development that, you know, we have this museum what's next, bringing in more tourist attractions, that are specific to the 1947 incident. I think that gives you your answer.
Fair enough. So, okay. Where do I fall on this? Like, do I really think we've been visited? Well, I'm a skeptical type always, but the kind who appreciates it when people research their curiosities. And to that end, I'll say the website of Doctor. Kevin Randall, and that's kevinrandall.blogspot.com has thousands of pages of info. You can look through if you're interested in Roswell. I wanna thank Doctor. Randall for taking the time to talk with us and the same, of course, to Juanita Jennings of the City of Roswell online at roswellnm.gov. And if you're wondering what the sort of official consensus story is with the Roswell crash, here it is. And I'm summarizing this from an Air Force report that I got from the website of the National Security Agency. Officials said the wreckage was indeed from a balloon system that was itself part of a top secret project called Project Mogul, which the federal government has since opened up. So the components of Project Mogul sought to detect the signatures of distant nuclear testing. Think The Soviet Union. And these weather balloons were outfitted with technology for that detection. So July 1994 report of Air Force Research says this, quote, comparison of all information developed or obtained indicated that the material recovered near Roswell was consistent with a balloon device, and most likely from one of the mogul balloons that had not been previously recovered. Air Force research efforts did not disclose any records of the recovery of any alien bodies or extraterrestrial materials. End quote. So there it is. Think what you will based on the available evidence. It's a fun topic to dig into, and I'll leave you to it. I'd love to hear from you. Does your community, for example, have its own strange historical event that attracts visitors? Let me know. You can email me. My name is Ben Brown, and my email address is bbrownnclm dot org. NCLM stands for North Carolina League of Municipalities, which makes this podcast possible, online at nclm.0rg. Might also be fun to gather stories of the unexplained from municipal employees, like nighttime police officers or clerks who get calls about odd things happening? Send me your stories or speak your feedback into a voice memo on your phone and send it in so I can just drop it into the show. Again, bbrown@nclm.org. Thanks for listening. We'll talk to you again soon. This is Ben Brown.