While the rest of America celebrates the 4th of July with fireworks and shows, in Roswell, New Mexico, July 2-5 is a time for rehashing one of the biggest shows in the town’s history.

In July 1947, a mysterious flying object crashed on a ranch 30 miles north of Roswell. The Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF) issued a statement claiming to have recovered a crashed ‘flying disk,’ but promptly changed their statement the next day, and said it was a weather balloon.

Ever since that day, Roswell has been the epicenter of UFO conspiracy theories and speculation.

The town has now gone so far into cuckooland that they now have an annual Roswell UFO Festival in early July, to keep the incident alive. The tourist attractions in Roswell include the International UFO Museum and Research Center, and of course, the UFO Festival.

July 2-5 is the perfect time to enjoy vacations in Roswell, especially if you’re fond of shows and movies like the X-Files, ET, Independence Day, Star Wars, Transformers, etc. There’s a UFO parade, Alien Costume contest and plenty of symposiums, speakers, experts on alien life and extra-terrestrials.

If you want to drop in on a last minute impluse, most of the official UFO festival hotels are already jammed full of folks wearing aluminium tin-foil hats, but you should be able to find a place to stay at one of these Roswell motels.

More details about the Roswell UFO Festival here - www.roswellufofestival.com/.

Roswell Daily Record snapshot by Thomas Roche via flickr (creative commons). Roswell UFO Parade photo credit - Roswell UFO Festival/Guy Malone/Alien Resistance HQ.

Posted on July 3rd, 2009 by Thomas
Filed under: Festivals