Way Too Close Encounters

We thought we were prepared for Roswell, NM. It has been 63 years since a UFO had crash landed in the small town, and no aliens had been spotted since then. But just in case, we donned tin foil hats before we entered the city limits.

You can never be too prepared when alien mind reading is a possibility. Jacob and Andrew understood the risk and dutifully wore their hats, but Andrew refused to keep his on. We decided to head into town with Andrew unprotected since the only thing on his mind usually is what to put in his mouth next. Not much information there-- yet.

The whole town had commercialized on the alien landing, luring unsuspecting tourists into its downtown. There were blow up aliens outside of shops, aliens painted on store windows and rubber aliens hanging from signs. Even the McDonald’s had a UFO themed playground, but we couldn’t be distracted. We had our sights on the UFO Museum.

But it was disappointing-- for the boys anyway. It had way too much information to read and not nearly enough aliens. Chris tried to point out interesting photos, and Benjy seemed relatively interested. Jacob just wanted to get back to his Nintendo DS. Mainly what we learned was that there definitely had been an alien landing in 1947, but the U.S. Government has been trying to keep it covered up since then. According to the Air Force, all supposed UFO sightings can be attributed to weather balloons. The people of Roswell are not convinced. They believe it went down more like this.

Either way, we were getting the heck out of Roswell.

On the way back to our car, we popped into one last touristy shop to have a look around. Might as well get a souvenir for our efforts, we thought. Little did we know, we were about to get much more than a souvenir.

The store clerk was friendly enough. His dad owned the store, and he was keeping shop while the old man was away. He told us that in peak season, Roswell is crawling with alien enthusiasts and that they had Area 51 set up in the back of the store, you know, to entertain the tourists. Admission was usually $5 per person, but we could check it out for free today.

As I followed Chris down the corridor to the dimly lit backroom, an eery feeling came over me. Isn’t this exactly the scenario from all the horror movies? Naïve tourists wander into a dark room in the back of a store, where no one can hear their screams, and they are hacked to death by a mad man with an ax. And at the end of the film you find out that the whole town is in on the collusion because their all blood thirsty vampires or something like that.

Despite my anxiety, I followed Chris anyway. I followed him right into the alien trap!

The first thing the aliens did was confiscate our tin foil hats. Then they loaded us into their spaceship and transported us to a galaxy far, far away.

Through the tinted windows of the spaceship, I could just make out the beautiful lights of their city. Fortunately, they had forgotten all about our camera. Or maybe they hadn’t. Maybe they wanted the people of Earth to know that there really is life in other universes. Maybe they hoped that the world would learn of their existence through this very blog, and they had abducted our family for that very reason. Maybe we are all alien celebrities.

At first the aliens’ intentions seemed friendly enough. They offered me a cozy spot on the couch to take a nap while the alien nanny tended to Andrew. Without my tin foil hat, I was unable to resist their mind rays, and I fell to sleep quickly and deeply.

Chris, Jacob and Benjy were invited to drink a beer at the bar. They tried to resist the beer, but the alien Jedi mind tricks were too much for them.

There must have been sedating, stick to the ceiling juice in those bottles, for when I woke up, I discovered this.

The aliens were about to feast on a Benjy snack while Chris and Jacob watched, immobilized on the ceiling.

They had other plans for Jacob. The bartender had confessed to Chris that their leader had read our blog and was particularly intrigued by Earthling first-graders who apparently know everything. Jacob was forced to go head to head in Super Mario Bros. video game competitions against an alien believed to be his contemporary. Oh, the torture.

When the alien nanny discovered that Andrew wore a diaper, he began to experiment with potty training techniques. Poor Andrew was made to watch alien after alien go to the outhouse. (Okay, so I secretly wish this experiment had worked).

But all this was nothing compared to what they did to my darling husband. Words just can’t describe. It was simply unthinkable.

And that’s the last thing any of us remember. We woke from some sort of trance to find ourselves loaded in our car and cruising down the two-lane highway towards Albuquerque. We were all unharmed, and all we had to prove our fantastic story were these photos.

I don’t think any of us will go looking for aliens again. An out of this world experience like this one happens once in a lifetime—at least, Chris hopes so.