I could tell Roswell was close—not just because the mileage signs spelled it out, but because little green men and flying saucers started popping up in yards, storefronts, and even mailbox stands—long before I hit the city limits.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Roswell story, I’ll make it brief: In the summer of 1947, a strange object fell from the sky into the New Mexico desert near the city. What followed was a tangle of conflicting reports, military secrecy, and the birth of America’s most enduring UFO legend.

Less Alien Crash Site, More Civic Pride

Coming in from the east on Highway 380, I expected to see a town built on tinfoil dreams—including some patchouli-scented head shop energy or a few desert mystics hawking crystal skulls. But Roswell surprised me. The city unfolded in methodical blocks, as grounded as anywhere else. Many of the buildings were a warm, dusty sandstone which reflected the late-morning light. Shade trees lined the sidewalks, and public art dotted the medians and pocket parks. It was less a city frozen in an alien crash site than one built on civic pride—like someone who’d made peace with the family secret and now kept it framed on the mantel.

The road keeps teaching me: the story you think you’ll find is rarely the one waiting for you.

A Proper Chile Relleno with Mexican Coke

I parked my bike right out front of La Gran Victoria, a cheerful eatery I’d found thanks to a little pre-trip reconnaissance. I was one of the first lunch patrons through the door, and the place greeted me with yellow and turquoise walls, Mexican blankets for blinds, and a vibe that promised comfort. My waitress had just started her shift—pep in her step, restaurant T-shirt tucked into bedazzled jeans.

I didn’t need to open the menu. A place with this décor was obviously going to serve a proper chile relleno. When I asked, she nodded enthusiastically, pencil poised.

“What to drink?” she asked.

“Are you a Coke or Pepsi shop?”

That’s when she broke into a full smile. “Which one do you want?”

“Coke.”

She tucked her pencil behind her ear so she could gesture with both hands, spacing them apart to mimic the long glass bottle. “You want the bottled Coke?”

“Mexican Coke? With real sugar?”

She grinned. “Medio litro.”

I nearly fell out of my chair with delight.

The folks at the table next to me chuckled—clearly drinking soda from the gun, so what did they know?

My waitress left me with a roll of silverware and disappeared to place the order. The relleno was, indeed, fantastic, and she even let me substitute half an avocado for the usual guacamole without a fuss or an upcharge.

By the time I was halfway through, the place was filled with locals—sheriff’s deputies, a politician and his entourage, uniformed staff from the nearby military academy, and a couple of real estate agents.

Friends, if you find a place where the locals eat, you’re gonna love it. Check out the vehicles in the parking lot: if the plates are local, so are the people. Trust them with your taste buds.

For my column in the BMW Riders Association magazine, On the Level, I wanted to get a picture of me wearing my riding boots and jacket with the little green alien just outside the restaurant’s front door. A beefy sheriff’s deputy in a ten-gallon hat pulled up in a shiny Lariat truck. I met my mark.

“Officer, may I ask you to do something off duty?”

He tipped his hat back but restrained himself from saying, “What can I do ya for, little lady?” Instead he just said, “Sure thing.”

I texted the pictures to my editor, who approved, then thanked the deputy.

“Where you headed next?”

“The museum, of course!”

The persistent winds had taken a break so I decided to explore the area on foot to see if things took a turn from civic pride to full-on fringe as I got closer to the city’s main attraction.

Chariots of the Gods?

The International UFO Museum and Research Center was several pleasant blocks away. En route I saw some college-aged kids headed in that direction and watched them take selfies with the window art along the main drag; they seemed to be there for entertainment, not seeking enlightenment—same as me.

The museum lives inside a retrofitted movie theater—8,000 square feet of UFO history, pop culture, and a surprising amount of science. It didn’t feel kitschy or self-important. Rather, it felt grounded in the mission to present photos, interviews, and timelines without proselytizing. The research center brimmed with books and archives, lending the place unexpected gravitas.

I was eager to come to my own conclusion about what had happened in 1947, so I took my time in the exhibits that explored the many options, reading testimonies and official analyses. The official record says it was a high-altitude balloon from a classified project. The unofficial record—still hotly defended—insists the wreckage was otherworldly. I have staked out a middle ground: willing to believe there was more to the incident than what the government revealed, but not that the debris came from an alien spacecraft that deposited its crew to walk among us. In fairness, the exhibits didn’t make the latter claim, but good old American marketers knew how to take the ball and run with it.

There were some interesting stories of other UFO sightings and encounters, as well as exhibits on aliens in entertainment and pop culture—from the 1994 movie Roswell to 1951’s black-and-white sci-fi film, The Day The Earth Stood Still, and an actual set from the 2011 reality TV show, Making Monsters, on Travel Channel.

That mix of fact, fantasy, and spin wasn’t new to me. I’d seen it before, in the 1970s, when Erich von Däniken’s book Chariots of the Gods? blew minds across the country—my adolescent one included. The book (and later the movie of the same title) suggested that ancient aliens may have tutored our ancestors in engineering and spirituality, with their spaceships mistaken for chariots and their knowledge preserved as divine revelation.

Plenty of things in the ’70s sparked outrage and fear, but extraterrestrials never did. LSD on postage stamps? A menace. Suggestive lyrics on the radio? Practically the devil’s work. But alien engineers guiding early civilizations? That slipped under the radar—maybe because it didn’t threaten earthly authority, only asked us to look skyward.

The ’70s came rushing back as I toured the museum: Nazca lines, Mayan glyphs, and the question that had hooked me decades ago—what if we’re not the architects of our own brilliance?

I rounded a corner and there it was: a replica of the lid of Pakal’s tomb, just like the Chariots of the Gods? promos that once blared across ABC, CBS, and NBC. I remembered it distinctly—a reclining figure ringed by glyphs and carvings. Archaeologists say it shows a Mayan king descending into the underworld, but in the ’70s I saw what von Däniken saw: a man at the controls of a spaceship, jet flames beneath him, head tilted back for liftoff.

I never went to the film or read the book, but honestly, I’m still open to the possibility that beings from another galaxy helped the Egyptians raise the pyramids. If God created everything, what’s the heresy in that?

I’d always assumed von Däniken had faded into fringe status—until years later, on a motorcycle tour through the Alps, when my guide pointed out his reserved seat on the terrace of a hotel near Interlaken, Switzerland. Suddenly, he was back in orbit—this time around my own memory.

Eventually, I left the UFOs behind and wandered into the museum gift shop—because of course I did. I always buy a refrigerator magnet and a postcard from places like this. It’s a silly ritual, a way of pinning the ephemeral to something I can carry in my panniers.

Roswell offered the usual kitsch—aliens in cowboy hats, glow-in-the-dark keychains—but I settled on a simple magnet: the stylized sun from New Mexico’s flag, with a green alien head at its center. I also picked up a postcard for my friend John, who runs the parts and accessories department at my motorcycle dealership—and was born in Roswell. Oh, and I smashed a penny. I have a whole collection of those flattened copper souvenirs, each one a small, silly artifact of where I’ve been and don’t want to forget.

I had a few designs to choose from at the penny press—each a different nod to Roswell’s lore. I picked the classic: three ships orbiting the stars with “1947” stamped above. That year, that puzzle, that story.

From the gift shop, I stepped out into the bright sun—(and isn’t that a metaphor?)—the magnet and postcard tucked in my purse, the smashed penny between thumb and forefinger like a talisman. I slipped it into my jacket pocket and retraced my steps toward the bike, still warmed by sun and memory. The displays hadn’t demanded belief so much as they laid out competing stories—reminding me that faith takes many forms. Roswell’s stories weren’t so different from the ones I grew up with—competing accounts, each with its own set of believers.

My thoughts drifted—past flying saucers and childhood myths, toward something older and deeper. Where does belief come from? What does it ask of us?

Mine came from two directions at once.

Two American Geographies of Belief

On my mother’s side, religion meant coal-camp theology—order-driven, fear-based. The coal operators didn’t just own the land and housing—they owned the pulpits, too. Preachers were permitted so long as their sermons didn’t disrupt the social order.

Mom was born a couple generations removed from the worst of that unholy alliance between commerce and religion, but its grip endured. No wonder she was drawn, later in life, to the Catholic image of a merciful Jesus.

My dad’s roots were Midwestern Protestant—more cultural than devotional—but they may have traced back to Mennonite ancestors a few generations earlier. His older sister recalls their elders as plain and very stern—faith expressed through restraint, not joy. When his family moved to the Mojave Desert, Catholic missions and adobe sanctuaries dotted the horizon, but those traditions never touched his upbringing.

Like many parents, Mom and Dad felt the need to raise their brood as believers. Generically speaking, as Christians, but we got a broad sampling of the many belief systems that term encompasses. By the time I was grown I’d seen it all: the carefully choreographed sit-stand-kneel of liturgy, the fire and spectacle of revival tents, and church camps where modesty was policed with measuring sticks.

I noticed early that women were only vessels, temptresses, helpmeets—never the ones mentioned at the pulpit unless it was to birth someone more significant. That contradiction left its mark, and I’ve flinched from religious hierarchy ever since.

It took years before I found a spiritual framework that felt consistent with both intellect and experience. In my thirties, I came to appreciate the Baha’i teaching that science without religion descends into superstition, and religion without science into materialism. The two are meant to work in harmony, like wings of the same bird—lifting us toward truth.

Walking back to my bike, it struck me that Roswell’s museum hadn’t asked me to choose between fact or fantasy, only to sit with both. My own faith journey has been the same: not certainty, but coexistence.

I took a short spin through town before pointing the bike toward my evening stop in Ruidoso. Roswell was utterly normal. Surprisingly neutral. And that was exactly what I needed—not another mystery to solve, but a reminder that even the strangest stories can find equilibrium.

Roswell had found its balance, and maybe I was finding mine.

Writers, here are craft tips and memoir writing prompts based on this dispatch.

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