Incidentally Roswell

by A. Dale Triplett

Author In Front of the International UFO Museum, Roswell, NM.

Roswell, New Mexico embodies everything I love and hate about ufology, all at once.  In this slightly oversized Mayberry of the Southwest, kitsch and sensibility combine into a cobbled confection of arguable truths and abject wonder, wrapped up in a package of garish spectacle.  It’s wacky, weird and undeniably wonderful, depending on who you ask.  The Dairy Capital of New Mexico is everything right - and everything wrong - about ufology.  Seriously, where else can you buy a giant, lime-green, inflatable alien for your backyard pool, munch on a chupacabra burrito, then sit down and have a cup of coffee with the likes of Travis Walton, Nick Pope and Stanton Friedman? 

I made the nine-hour trek from Phoenix for the 69th anniversary of the Roswell Incident with my lifelong buddy, Eddie Kaddi.  We were on a mission to record some interviews with some of ufology’s most recognizable faces, and even though I’d been through the town before while trucking, it would be my first opportunity to get more than a cursory glimpse of this spot on the map that’s firmly ensconced in UFO lore.   Eddie had never been and was as equally stoked as I was.  Let’s face it, Roswell is undoubtedly a Mecca-like destination for those of us who dance along the periphery of the so-called fringe. The UFO ball arguably started quickly rolling here in 1947, and has been a runaway avalanche of wonder, intrigue and ridicule ever since.

Our first stop en route was the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array a couple hours west of Roswell in Socorro County.  I really wanted to see Jodie Foster come flying across the desert between the massive radio telescopes while shouting into her walkie-talkie, but we only encountered some agitated fire ants and a distant hum from one of the massive antenna’s inner workings.  I couldn’t help but think this was how ufology was supposed to be.  Look to the heavens, record the data, leave opinions by the wayside and let science sort out the known from the unknown.  That poignant thought would stay with me throughout the weekend. Those 27 massive dishes devoted to nothing but astronomical science made me momentarily proud of my government - not something I feel too often in these tumultous days.

We rolled on into Roswell and awaited our hosts from The Roswell Daily Record at a private club called The Liberty, where the Roswell Incident forum hosted by the iconic newspaper would be held, half a block away from Main street and all the kitschy vendors, face-painting, live music and food trucks.  We washed away the trail dust with a cold Stella and quiet conversation with my friend John Burroughs of Rendlesham Forest fame, musing over the weekends coming events and our subsequent roles in the upcoming circus.  John had driven in from Illinois via Arkansas, picking up KGRA radio guru Race Hobbs and his wife Robin.  John is generally an unwilling attendee at these events, telling me repeatedly over the years that the “Universe should’ve picked somebody else” to witness what he encountered with his fellow airmen in the English forest in 1980.  He wasn’t on the schedule, just there to help Race, but ended up filling in for one of the guests too ill to present the following night.  

Barbara Beck, Publisher of The Roswell Daily Record arrived with a veritable who’s-who entourage of UFO A-listers in tow, many of them presenting at the Roswell Incident forum, or at the UFO museum a couple blocks away.  Colonel Charles Halt from the Rendlesham Forest Incident; Colonel John Alexander from the US Army’s foray into telekinesis, psychic warfare and remote viewing; Lee Speigel, chronicler of all things UFO for the Huffington Post and presenter of ufology to the United Nations in 1978; Nick Pope, who ran the UK’s UFO desk for the Ministry of Defense; Ben Hansen, former FBI agent and host of TV’s ‘Fact or Faked,’ and Alejandro Rojas, UFO researcher and long-time face of Open Minds Productions.   

Lots of people get star-struck over Hollywood actors or rock and roll legends. I get giddy around the UFO elite. I’ll admit it proudly:  I’m a shameless UFO groupie.  Familiarity with a lot of the movers and shakers over the years has dulled my excitement a tad bit, and I’m more apt these days to point out the charlatans in the field than seek out selfies with the famous; but I must admit I enjoy hobnobbing with those seeking viable answers to the most perplexing questions of our time.  None of them disappointed in the weekends festivities.

Barbara finished her tour of the facilities for the speakers and made her way to the table where John, Eddie and I sat sipping our drinks.  She introduced herself, welcomed us, then posed a rather bizarre question. “Colonel Halt wants to know who you are and why you’re here. Would you mind going over and introducing yourself?”  John flashed me a mischievous grin. I had been a Corporal in the Marine Corps, and a Senior Airman in the Air Force.  Full bird Colonels don’t generally pay too much attention to us enlisted types unless we’re doing something wrong or very right, and Halt’s curiosity more than likely stemmed from me hanging out with one of his former troops, and had little or nothing to do with me giving off some kind of intriguing or mysterious vibe.  

I was actually thrilled at the prospect and had to tone down my anxiousness a few hundred notches instead of running over like a star-struck teenager meeting Elvis or the Beatles. Colonel Halt was one of the primary reasons I’d come to Roswell, and had shamelessly dropped his name while on my knees begging my wife to let me go for the weekend. I’ve met many of the key players of the Rendlesham Forest Incident over the years, (where I’ve devoted the lion’s share of my scholarly pursuit the last 25 years or so), but had never had the chance to meet or interview the Colonel face to face.  Halt is an extremely healthy, 76-years young, but none of us know how long we’ll get to stay on this earth, and I didn’t want to postpone any opportunity to tap into his knowledge and experience.  The time I spent with him that evening and over the next few days proved insightful and very rewarding.

Eddie and I were given VIP passes for the event, and were asked to film all of the presentations for The Roswell Daily Record,  a tasking we graciously but warily accepted.  It gave us unprecedented access to the speakers, two really awesome dinners at local restaurants, and depending on how well we flesh out the recordings over the next few weeks - a standing invitation to come back and do the same for next year’s milestone 70th anniversary celebration.  Basically, we hit the UFO-junkie jackpot.  But there is a bittersweet taint to my Roswell-induced euphoria.

Mainstream media likes to spout off a question at UFO-related gatherings and events that makes my blood boil.  Invariably some twenty-something “journalist” fresh out of college and/or plastic surgeon’s office wields a microphone in front of the most bizarre character they can find attending a conference and asks, “Do you believe in UFO’s?”  That question is the most asinine query ever formulated, and it is meant solely to undermine any legitimacy to truth, and proves to be a perpetual road-block in giving ufology any scientific credibility whatsoever.  Even the famous X-Files poster with the headline “I Believe” puts UFO’s in the realm of fiction and fantasy, right next to Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny.  

The UFO phenomenon is very real and doesn’t hinge upon anyones belief or disbelief.  And that’s where I think Roswell kind of screws it up.  ‘UFO’ does not equal aliens, people. UFO means Unidentified Flying Object.  It means we don’t know.  95% or more of UFO’s can be explained by natural phenomena. It’s the 5% or less of occurrences we can’t explain that warrant further scrutiny.  The Roswell Incident of 1947, Rendlesham Forest in 1980, Christopher Bledsoe in North Carolina in 2007, and thousands of other events that defy rational explanation.  Many sightings are undoubtedly classified or black military projects, that is no leap of the imagination.  And guess what?  Maybe E.T. actually is to blame for some of these sightings and experiences.  We won’t know unless we devote time, money and study to these events, just like those antennae scattered across the desert in Socorro. 

Put Roswell as somewhere you’ve got to be next July.  Eat some of the flying saucer-shaped funnel cake.  Paint your kids faces with alien eyes, shake your booty to the sounds of the E.T.-inspired reggae band and buy the inflatable green alien for the pool.   Then sit down with me and I’ll buy you a cup of alien-roasted java and we’ll talk about what’s really important about Roswell.