Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - Flightless Bird: Roswell

Episode Date: February 20, 2024

This week on Flightless Bird, David Farrier sets out to the town of Roswell, New Mexico - home of the 1947 UFO crash that ignited the imagination of the entire planet. After visiting the Roswell UFO Museum, Farrier sets out to see what makes Roswell, well, Roswell. He meets up with artist Michael Beitz who runs the Meow Cat Sanctuary, before getting some Mexican food with local cowboy “Spider Dailey”, who fills Farrier in on the local military academy… and how to be an anarchist. He also goes to see Nancy Fleming who runs the Miniatures & Curious Collections Museum, and stops by Roswell’s UFO-themed McDonalds where he meets a man who’s had a close encounter of his own. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm David Farrier, a New Zealander accidentally marooned in America, and I want to figure out what makes this country tick. Now, it's hard to get across how much a single TV show affected me when I was growing up. Hearing that theme song, that whistle, today it transports me straight back to being a teenager in New Zealand, marveling at how big the universe was and how mysterious and strange things could get. If you were a kid in the 90s, The X-Files was everything. It was a phenomenon. When it first aired in 1993, 10 million Americans tuned in. They didn't stream it over the week.

They sat down at a specific time on a specific night on a specific channel, and they watched it together in sync with ads. By 1997, 20 million people were sitting down to watch. To watch two of the best TV characters ever written, Mulder and Scully. You could cut the sexual tension with a knife. And like Monica, they'd also visit Georgia from time to time. One a skeptic, the other a believer. I'm raving here, but my point is this show is so big, it colored the way I saw America. For a big part of my childhood, I wanted nothing more than to be an FBI agent. I got fascinated by conspiracies, cryptids, and of course, UFOs.

And one American town in particular took on a huge significance. Roswell, New Mexico. Is this why we came out here, Mulder? To look for UFOs? Roswell's on the map because something crashed there in July of 1947. It was a UFO, sure. But was it a weather balloon, a secret American aircraft, or the obvious one, aliens? Are we truly alone? Of course, Roswell was also put on the map by the very horny TV show,

Roswell, which was sort of a cross between the X-Files and Dawson's Creek, with the theme, Care of Dido. Now, all these years later, I find myself in America. And the whole time I've been here, I've wanted nothing more than to go and visit the town of Roswell, the alien epicenter of the USA. And finally, that kid who grew up fantasizing about the small American town, well, he finally got to go there. So, decide whether you're a skeptical Scully or a mumbly old Mulder, because this is the Roswell episode. Monica, one question for you.

Are you a skeptical Scully in life or a mumbly old Mulder? You're going to hate this. I've never seen X-Files. I know. I know. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Or Roswell. I know. I know. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Or Roswell.

Oh, my God. This is incredible. We had such different childhoods. I know, except the center of our Venn diagram is friends and Ross. We had friends and Ross. What do you imagine the X-Files to be? And I'll tell you whether you're accurate or way, way off. Okay.

I imagine it to be sci-fi and sexual. Sexual. Good. Yeah. True. Like they have sex tension. Oh, yeah. And it's very dark.

The coloring is very blue and black. All these are very on point. And I guess that shows how much the X-Files bled out into the culture, right? You've never watched a single episode and you absolutely get the vibe. Back to your original question, I'm both.

I am skeptical in life, but I also think there's joy in belief. So I'm kind of both. I would say on the aliens spectrum, I believe that there's life on other planets. I do not believe they've ever come here. And I pretty much believe they never will. Okay. Yeah. No, I think we align here really closely. I think the idea that the aliens would come and visit us and they'd be so sloppy as to buzz around and be seen and crash here, I find that all a bit ridiculous. The last couple of years, we're living in a really bonkers time because obviously there's

been all these disclosures and all these officials coming forward and really credible people saying, oh, I saw this and here's a video of this thing. And so it's a particularly interesting time to be talking about this. And I think part of the joy of going to Roswell is if I was doing this episode 10 years ago, people would sort of go, oh, this is all kind of just the same old bullshit. It's all X-Files kind of stuff. But in the last couple of years, there is this feeling of, oh, my God, have aliens been visiting us this whole time and

now government's been lying to us, you know? Yes, there has been a real resurgence. And I do think a lot of people who would have said, that's crazy, are more likely to believe it now based on some of this quote evidence. Yeah, 100%. We had a really cool alien guy on Armchair. We had Adam Frank, I think our last episode of the year, last year. And it was really interesting. And I feel like he'd be up your alley. I 100%. I need to listen to this.

Because yeah, I grew up wanting to believe in all this stuff. And I had a slightly funny thing in my upbringing where I used to go to church. And my church that I went to, they told us all that UFOs are Satan, which was an interesting spin on the genre. So UFOs, yeah, they're definitely real, but they're not aliens because aliens in the religion I was in complicated things a lot. Of course. They were just the devil. So for a while I was like, oh yeah, okay. So the devil's a little, zooms around a little spaceship.

Oh, yeah, okay. So the devil zooms around a little spaceship. I have a question. And this is so very ignorant of me, but my religion teacher was so hot, I didn't learn a lot. So I have to ask you. Lucky. If God created everything, God created the devil. It's funny.

I'm so fuzzy on details of Christianity, even though I was in it for so long. But no, essentially, he was like an angel who was a rebel. And he was like, screw this, I'm going to do what I want to do. And so, Satan is like a fallen angel, so a rebel. But if God is all-knowing and can control everything, why would God have allowed that? Yeah, because of free will. So, back when Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden, God was like, don't eat that apple. They ate the apple because Eve was like, I want to eat that apple. And once they had the apple, they got free will and they could actually choose what they wanted to do, which I think somehow translated to all the angels and everything as well. Suddenly everyone had free will. One of the angels is like, I'm on board with all this good shit. I'm going to rebel. I want to be more powerful than God. And God was like, screw that.

I'm sending you down to hell. And then that all sort of, well, we saw how that went. I see. You know, it spun off. Okay. But then if God gave free will, then why do people thank God? And why do people say like, well, this is what God wanted when something horrible happened? If there's also free will, but also God controls everything? These are the questions I began answering quite late in life.

Answer my questions! Bad things happen because it's part of the master plan. So a bad thing will happen, like your best friend will get a horrific illness and die and you have to kind of go, best friend will get a horrific illness and die. And you have to kind of go, I was part of God's plan. It's taught me something. That's taught me how to deal with someone who's dying. Or maybe in God's master plan, your friend was going to go on to be a mass killer and you just didn't know that. And them getting cancer and dying, God was like, oh yeah, that's how we get rid of that mass killer. It's all like a greater plan. But God has a master plan and there's free will. This is where it's not matching up to me.

If God has a master plan, then how do we have free will? Look, we really, I'm sorry. No, I agree with you on all these things. God can see the future, but the future can change depending on what humans do with their free will. This is a catch-22. It's a catch-22. But all these questions are kind of part of the reason I sort of moved away from all this stuff. I know.

And then you brought in aliens. Yeah, aliens in the mix. It's very important in the Christian narrative I was raised with that humans are the best creations of God. And an alien, sort of like a little man, would sort of throw that into disrepute. Oh God, what did they get? Are they got the same narrative we got? Are they talking about Adam and Eve? Was there a little alien Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden? Or is that a whole different thing? And it sort of freaks everyone out. Just like dinosaurs were distractions. The fossils are distractions that God put here to distract us from the truth.

It was a test. Cool test. Anyway, it's all normal. It's all totally normal stuff. It's all good. But this is fun. So you got to do a full circle moment. You got to go to Roswell.

This is a dream come true. I mean, this was a bit like when I visited Florida. I was so obsessed with the idea of Florida man and the craziness of Florida. This felt really special. And you know, it's not an easy place to get to, you've really got to make an effort to get to Roswell. And so this isn't in the documentary. But the backstory is I have a New Zealand friend who's doing an artist in residency program in Roswell. So she's making art there for like a year. And she said, I've got a spare room on this little artist estate we're on. Just come and stay.

And so I was like, of course I'll go to Roswell. This is amazing. I get to see my friend and I get to explore this town that I'm obsessed with that culturally means so much to me because it's where this UFO crash landed and set off this whole narrative around are we alone or not? Oh, I love this. I'm so excited to learn. How does this town in the middle of nowhere,

hours from Albuquerque, how does it survive? What are people doing there? What's the deal? These are the questions I wanted to find out. I'm excited. I think part of what has stopped me from going to Roswell for so long was that it's not the easiest place to get to, at least not from where I live in Los Angeles.

It wasn't on the road to any other flightless bird location or an easy day trip. To get to Roswell, you really had to plan to get to Roswell. So I took the three-hour flight to Dallas, then I took another connecting flight to get into the sleepy town of 48,000 people. Roswell's a pretty spread out desert town that's basically a three hour drive from anywhere else, places like El Paso and Albuquerque. Getting off the relatively small plane onto the tarmac, a humble sign greets me telling me I was at 3600 feet, the reason my lips would dry out over the next few days. In the terminal, the first hint at the thing that's helped keep this town

alive, a bench you can sit on with a big headed alien at the end. Roswell's first photo op. A 15 minute drive later and I'm on the main drag. Driving past very American things like McDonald's and Dunkin Donuts. But each of them with a UFO twist. The McDonald's is shaped like a flying saucer. And Duncan has a giant, slightly muscular and sort of sexy alien outside. And then my first major destination, Roswell's International UFO Museum and Research Centre, which opened way back in 1992. I'm visiting from New Zealand. New Zealand? Okay, cool.

I buy my ticket from Ella, who reminds me a lot of my grandmonica. She's tiny, with a full head of jet white hair and a beaming smile. How long have you worked here for? Twelve years. What's your favorite thing about Roswell? The museum! The museum itself is sort of what I expected. It's firmly stuck in the 90s.

A lot of effort's gone into all the displays, so they're dated, yet charming. There's a life-size diorama of a hovering UFO, with a group of those classic-looking, big-headed grey aliens standing beneath. There's another display showing the alien autopsy that apparently happened to one of the aliens who crash-landed here. Back in 1947, there was a flying saucer craze in America, kicked off by Kenneth Arnold, a pilot who saw what he described as a fast-moving flying saucer. That one sighting in America kicked off hundreds, then thousands of other sightings all across the states. A month into that craze, in July of 1947, a rancher found something silver crash on his land.

He didn't even live in Roswell. He was 75 miles away in the town of Corona. But he threw the weird material into the back of his truck and drove it to Roswell. And the Roswell Army Airfields got involved. Headline edition, July 8, 1947. The Army Air Forces has announced that a flying disc has been found and is now in the possession of the Army. Reports like that one happened because the Army put out a press release saying they'd

found a crashed flying disc. Army officers say the missile, found sometime last week, has been inspected at Roswell, New Mexico and sent to Wright Field, Ohio for further inspection. This was pretty exciting news. A crashed UFO. In the middle of America's flying saucer obsession. But what sent things into overdrive? What kicked off the whole conspiracy? And why people are still talking about it today?

Is that the Air Force retracted their PR statement. Changing their story. Saying it wasn't a flying saucer. It was simply a crashed weather balloon. How suspicious is that? Stories came and went since then, but in 1989, a retired mortician from Roswell came forward claiming that back in 47, he'd gotten some phone calls from the Air Force inquiring about getting some tiny coffins. What do you put in tiny coffins? Tiny alien bodies. about getting some tiny coffins.

What do you put in tiny coffins? Tiny alien bodies. On top of this, the mortician says a nurse told him at the time there'd been an alien autopsy. Glenn Davis was the mortician telling those stories. And two years later, he founded the UFO museum I'm in right now. A museum that today has me and about 15 other people in it, including Nick.

I did a book report in elementary school about Roswell. I was the weird kid in elementary school just obsessed with aliens. So I'm very happy to be here. Also visiting from out of town, Carla. Well, we're from Texas. Give me a hold out. Who in true polite Texas style offers to hold my microphone, which I politely decline. Gives me something to do.

We're from Texas. We're just traveling to Ria Dosa and stopped through. The aliens are the only thing we've explored so far. Other than the scenery, we come from Texas where it's very flat and we love the mountains. Are you a believer in UFOs yourself? No, I'm still on the fence. How about you? I'm on the fence as well.

I find Cindy sniffing around in the gift shop. She's especially taken with a pair of alien socks. You know, what would be the weirdest thing I've seen in my life? Oh, I've seen a lot of weird shit. Nolan and Carrie wanted to come here for the same reason I had. The X-Files. We're from Georgia. Did you come here for the museum or for something else?

We came here for New Mexico sites, but we're like, when in New Mexico, you have to see Roswell. And I would say you should ask Carrie about being an X-Files fan. So as a lifelong TV fan of X-Files, this was like a destination she had to be at. Yeah, no, I grew up on the X-Files. As did I. I had to come in and harken my middle and high school days. Well, I feel like, yeah, Roswell was such of that time, right? It was like our main worry on planet Earth back then in the 90s was alien life.

And now it's kind of happening and we don't even care about it, right? No, right, exactly. The highlight of the museum is actually the most subtle, and I fear a lot of people might miss it. It's a corridor off to the right before you enter the museum. It leads into the library, and it's stacked with books on UFOs and other mysteries. You can't take the books out, but you can sit in comfy chairs at comfy tables and read to your heart's content. My name is Snow, and I am the librarian here.

So the library, it has a lot of obviously alien related stuff like the alien crop circles, Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster, spiritual stuff, New World Order, everything. And what drew you to this museum? Are you a believer yourself or is this just a day job? So at first I was skeptical being born and raised here. You kind of get numb to everything. At first I was like, the universe is way too big for us to not have anything else out there.

What's it like growing up in Roswell? Because I'm from New Zealand, so I know this place from pop culture. And of course, all I think is aliens. But Roswell's obviously so much more than that what does Roswell represent to you as someone that's lived here for most of your life that's kind of a tough one because it is a touristy place so you kind of lose that feeling as somebody who is a local but I do enjoy people like oh are you an alien like are your parents an alien type thing?

It does get a little laugh here and there in a couple of conversations that you do have. So I do like to be a part of that as well. Some days you just get sick of the alien stuff. Are you just like, I wish all this alien stuff in Roswell would just go away and it was just like a normal town? I don't ever think that because I feel like it just wouldn't be Roswell. It just wouldn't be home if it wasn't. What's the weirdest thing you've ever seen in Roswell? And it doesn't have to be alien related.

I would say it's alien related because it's Roswell. We saw like these lights in the sky lifting up at a very specific angle and they were like slowly fading out. So that tripped me out and I was terrified. Stories like this would litter my time in Roswell. Seems like everyone has one. Comes with the territory. They were sort of remarkable in how unremarkable they were. Just unprovable, strange experiences that had lodged in people's minds.

Over the last few years of Pentagon reports, Air Force videos, and intense testimonies in Congress, these old school stories of lights in the sky felt like a nice, warm bath, like I was back in the 90s. I leave Snow to go and do some cataloguing, or whatever it is librarians tend to do, and looked at a frame on the wall. In a fancy font, it says the Parable of Roswell. It's a list, and it goes like this, and it sums up the story. The aliens came, they explored, and they crashed. The rancher went, he found it, and he reported it. The Air Force went, investigated, and took it. The government came,

The Air Force went, investigated, and took it. The government came, confiscated, and denies it. The men in black came and threatened. Now, no one knows anything about any of it. That's the story of Roswell, distilled. Now, off that main reading room, I discover another room, full of meticulously catalogued newspaper clippings, magazines, and UFO sightings that go back to the 40s.

I think this is probably the only place a lot of these clippings exist. There was no one else in the room except me reading them. As someone who's often immersed in the online world, it was refreshing flicking through clippings and handwritten notes. I felt like Mulder in the X-Files. As I left to carry on with my day, I bumped into an older guy, Cal, checking out the museum. He grew up in Roswell, then moved to California,

but now he's back living here. Today, he's showing his two grandkids around. It's their first time here. I was curious how this town's changed over his lifetime. I'm 75 now, but when I was a teenager and going to school here and everything, the city was about 68,000 people. And it was the second largest city in New Mexico, but they had a large Air Force base here. When it closed down overnight, 20,000 people left that were service people.

And the town dropped back all the way down to about 25,000 people. Now it's built back up to about 50,000. So I've seen a lot of changes, but everything is really still the same. And I never get tired of hearing the stories about the aliens in the crash and et cetera. It's actually hilarious because living in California, if you mentioned to anyone that you were from Roswell, they would give you the weirdest looks and like, you know, little strange people come from there. Where were you on in 1947? What were you doing?

1946 is when I was born. I was six months old when it allegedly crashed. Yeah, you missed it. Oh yeah, and I joke around with people all the time that I actually came down on the alien spaceship, you missed it. Oh yeah, and I joke around with people all the time that I actually came down on the alien spaceship, you know, and that type of thing. Walking down the main drag, I realize how special it is that Roswell still exists. So many small American towns have turned

into ghost towns, but somehow this one's persisted. When the Air Force Base closed in 1967, the town rebranded as a good place to retire. And then, during the 90s, as talk of aliens surged, alien tourism came to town. And Roswell got a new lease on life. People leave and people die, but people still move here. As I step into a coffee shop, a guy approaches me wanting to talk. I find that happens a lot to me in America. When you walk around with a mic in New Zealand, people run. In America, a microphone is an invitation. Jeff tells me he has a screenplay he wants me to read. It feels like I'm back in LA. Yeah, it's my drug story, redemption story. I almost killed myself in LSD when I was 20. It's kind of that experience.

And I live to tell about it. Let's just say that. You must have had a lot of LSD. Yeah, I did. That's exactly what I was taking. Yeah, it was LSD. Those days are over though. I haven't touched that since I was 20. Can you read that synopsis again? I want to record this. Okay. When a retired Marine scout sniper and his family face homelessness, a Mexican kingpin hires him to smuggle drugs across the border and train the young cartel crews. Soon enough, though, the sniper discovers a child trafficking operation that he must destroy despite the consequences.

This is a screenplay you're bringing? A screenplay, 118 pages. I just wrote four months about it and working on it. I tell him that the story sounds very current, but that I work in podcasts, not making movies about Marine Scout snipers. But I admire his passion and hope he finds a way to tell his story.

I live here. Yeah, I'm in here. I've been writing my screenplays in here for the last three years straight. And I'm very ADHD, so I'm very, very hyper-focused when I get into it. But I love the ambience and the atmosphere. What's your favorite thing about Roswell? Well, first of all, I'm kind of fifth gear, paced,

and so the town itself just kind of helps me relax. I'm from Boston originally, so I'm from a very fast pace, which stresses me out enough. I've been here 20 years, been married 20 years, have three kids, but yeah, there's just something about it that no highways to deal with, no traffic. While I'd come to Roswell for UFOs, along with plenty of other people, those like Jeff come to Roswell because it's quiet, off the grid. Maybe that's why aliens crash near here.

They just wanted some peace and quiet as well. So yeah, I think my main observation about Roswell that sort of surprised me is that it's just full of people from other places that just kind of ended up there. I feel like a lot of people go there maybe to get away from something and they just sort of end up staying. Yeah. And so you've got the tourists coming in like me to go and look at the alien museum and all the little alien sites.

But then a lot of people are just there living their lives, writing their screenplays, doing their stuff. And they just like the quietness of it all. And it is just a sleepy little town. I do think America is so amazing in its ability to commodify everything. Every airport in this country, as soon as you step off the plane, you know what they're trying to push. Yeah.

I mean, look, this isn't a diss. It's the best. It's the best thing. And I think Roswell in particular, I mean, I find it so funny that this mortician in Roswell came out and suddenly he's talking about how he heard that there was an alien autopsy and the Air Force requested tiny coffins for these tiny little alien bodies. And then what do you know, a couple of years later, he's opened a UFO museum. It's such a smart thing to do.

He just seeds these ideas and seizes on it. And then the town, obviously, the mayor saw the joy of it at the time, and they just went all in. I mean, those town meetings must have been amazing, deciding, okay, this town, we've got to keep it on the map, so we're going to be known for this thing. I mean, it makes sense. It's a good way to increase your tourism. I assume people would sort of be annoyed that it was so focused on the crash and aliens, but they're all into it. We love it. This is fine. It's like part of this place and we're into it. I thought that was kind of magical as well. Every restaurant, every store had an alien twist. I mean, the McDonald's was amazing. I mean, half of it is shaped like

a flying saucer. You go into like where the's playground is and Grimace is in a spaceship and someone else is in a little spacesuit. So they go all in. And it's the only McDonald's I've seen that sells merchandise. And it's all sort of alien related, which is pretty cool. Did you get any? I got you a poster. It was their last one.

Yeah, I did. Yeah, I got you a poster. Oh my gosh, that's so nice. I'm so excited. Yeah, I did. Yeah, yeah. I got your poster. Oh my gosh, that's so nice. I'm so excited. Yeah, it's pretty cool. I'm in New Zealand now as we record this, finishing up my little holiday, but I'll bring it back to America when I'm with you. Don't you worry.

Do you have any questions about the town of Roswell so far before we get back into the dock? Did you feel eerie there? Did you sort of get wrapped up in it? No, the eeriness is very low. I got to say. Okay. It's the least eerie place I've ever been in America. LA is more eerie. Really? Oh God. I think because it's so on the nose. It's so bright. It seems like the sun is so strong and so intense. And then at nighttime you walk around and it's just big, open, beautiful skies. It feels so on the nose, the zero airiness.

Do you wish there were aliens that have come here? Whether you believe it or not. All I want is an alien sighting. All I want is to see something amazing and to sort of go, oh, holy shit, my whole worldview has changed. And to walk around with that. And everyone I meet, I get to rave about this thing I've seen. But it never happens. I'm always looking up at the sky.

I'm always exploring. I'm always looking for something exciting. But I've never seen anything unknown apart from the ghost that wakes me up. Yeah, that's pretty big. That's annoying. But I want to see something. And I've never done that. Well, you smelt the cum trees, and that changed your worldview a little bit.

It did. It changed my view on a few things, actually, including my view on Rob, who had never smelt the cum tree. Which I'm still sort of blown away by. I have weird thoughts about that, Rob. Like, you know the smell too well that it doesn't even register. Maybe. I don't think we have any of those trees on our block though. I'm just saying. There's no way.

I just, I stand by there's no way you grew up in this country and haven't come across one. Come across one. I might know the smell. I just don't associate it with cum. Right. We're going't associate it with cum. Right. We're going to have to do it. Maybe your jizz smells different to most people's jizz. Maybe we should ask Natalie.

We should ask Natalie if she smells the tree and if she can recognize. Right. Let's come back to the cum tree. There were no cum trees in Roswell. Stay tuned for more Flightless Bird. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Now, one of the relationships I'm most proud of in my life

is with my oldest friend, Hayden Donnell. But surprise, surprise, those long relationships in your life, they're not always easy and you need to put in the work to make it work. Because a common misconception about relationships is that they have to be easy to be right. But really the best one happens when both people put in work. Now therapy can be a great place to work through the challenges you face in all of your relationships, whether they're with your friends, your colleagues, or your significant other. Something I have been learning about in therapy recently is the way we all talk to ourselves in our own brains. And again, it's a New Zealand thing, but we love to constantly be critical of ourselves. And I'm learning in therapy, how to sort of change the way I internally think about myself and be conscious of what my brain is doing, which might sound really simple, but for some of us, it's a bit of a revelation.

If you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online. It's designed to be convenient and fixable. You fill in a brief questionnaire to get matched with a therapist, and you can switch therapists anytime for no charge. Become your own soulmate, whether you're looking for one or not. Visit betterhelp.com slash bird today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash bird. Flightless Bird is brought to you by Helix Sleep. Now, when I first came to America, I was sleeping on a really cruddy mattress because I needed to get stuff in my apartment immediately. I was very happy to get that replaced with a Helix mattress, which I've been on for about two years now, and I really, really love it. The Helix lineup offers

about 20 unique mattresses, including their award-winning Luxe collection and the newly released Helix Elite collection. They've even got a mattress that's designed just for kids. You jump on their website, you take the Helix quiz, answer a've even got a mattress that's designed just for kids. You jump on their website, you take the Helix quiz, answer a few questions, and you get matched with a perfect mattress for you in under two minutes. That's then shipped straight to your door free of charge. They've got models with memory foam layers to provide optimal pressure relief if you sleep on your side, and they also have enhanced cooling features to keep you from overheating at night. I took the Helix Sleep Quiz a couple of years ago now and I got matched with the

Midnight Mattress because I wanted a mattress that had a medium feel and I tend to sleep on my side. Plus, Helix mattresses all come with a 10 to 15 year warranty depending on the model. Helix is offering 20% off all mattress orders and two free pillows for our listeners. Go to helixsleep.com slash bird and use code HELIXPARTNER20. This is their best offer yet, and it won't last long. With Helix, better sleep starts now.

All right, so let's continue on, on my journey into the sleepy town of beautiful Roswell, New Mexico. I'd love to know your name and what it is that you do in Roswell. So my name is Sean. I came here about three and a half years ago. I think it's worth mentioning that as well as a lot of quirky alien stores, there's also a lot of rock and gem shops in Roswell. They seem to come with the territory. We sell gems and minerals, mostly. We also have books, tarot cards, herbs, oils, all sorts of stuff. Talking to Alex in one of the gem and mineral stores, I'm reminded how funny it is to

think that the alleged alien craft didn't even crash here in Roswell. I feel like this alien crash was the best thing that ever happened to Roswell, where I think that in a lot of ways that, you know, that's what separates it from, which is funny, the actual alien crash site, which is in Corona. But because Roswell has that name recognition, I feel like it's really grown and expanded for there to be more things than just the alien crash site. We're about a two-hour drive from where that weather balloon originally went down. It's just because the rancher brought the debris to Roswell that Roswell became what it became.

And in Roswell, you're just small enough town that you can just do anything. Tell me your name and what it is that you do here. My name is Nancy Fleming, and I am the co-founder of the Miniatures and Curious Collections Museum in Roswell, New Mexico. I was curious to find out what else was going on in this town besides the aliens. And it turns out, quite a lot. There's art galleries like the Anderson Museum. And Roswell also has a long-running artists in residency program

here since the late 60s. Nancy's husband used to run that residency and now she's in charge of a small but impressive museum that houses, well, miniature houses, as well as what she calls curious collections. As I arrive, she feeds a roll of paper into a self-playing piano and sets it off. Now the paper rolls, they're piano rolls, some of them are just too old to play. They're kind of ripped up, the paper is frayed at the edges, but they made them all the way up into the 80s, so this is obviously one that's made in the 80s. You're gonna love this. She tells me that when she moved to Roswell in the early 90s,

alien tourism was just kicking off. That mortician I talked about earlier had just started telling her stories and opened the museum. But it was tiny. She saw things evolve and grow here in Roswell. When we first moved here in the early 90s, there was a little, very kitschy UFO museum out near the base, and it was fun. And then in 1996, this is right before the 50th anniversary of the crash, the mayor at the time, Tom Jennings,

decides, let's put Roswell on the map with this UFO thing. We are in the middle of nowhere. We are 200 miles from an interstate, which means there needs to be a town here because there's people. We're just under 50,000, so we get enough of the chains. There's a hub. There's the Walmart. People can come from the farm to get the things that they need. And the school district here is one of the biggest employers. We used to have a few factories here. Not anymore. the things that they need. And the school district here is one of the biggest employers.

We used to have a few factories here, not anymore. What keeps people staying? Because certain things have shut down. So what keeps people here is a lot of them just don't have anywhere else to go. Their family is here and they're traditional families and traditional kids. I taught many, many kids who'd never been to Santa Fe, but we are missing the demographic of pretty much 18 to 35, like my daughter. She was raised here, went off to college, never came back. But there's some that do migrate back, either when they have families or they decide, OK, I've had enough of wherever else I've lived, and I want to be around my family. And we do get a few people who their car breaks down, and they decide to stay.

Truthfully, it's weird. I love that. It's kind of how I got stuck in America. I kind of came here, and then I couldn't get back home. So I got stuck here and just stayed. Exactly. But Roswell is what you make it. We have this revolving door of doctors and

professional class. But if you're adventurous, you pretty much can do anything that you want to do here without a lot of competition. I leave Nancy and head just down the road for lunch. It's a Mexican place, and I end up talking to a rancher who's wearing a giant cowboy hat. He's quite skinny and has such long limbs, it's no surprise when he tells me his name is Spider. He's dressed immaculately, his town clothes. He runs a ranch a few hours away, but comes to Roswell to get supplies and see friends. But if it's a cold, windy day or something, I don't just need to have to, you know, have to do anything.

Cows are all bushed up. Hell, I'm going to bush up. As I talk to Spider, I find myself thinking it was probably a rancher like him who found that crashed UFO almost 77 years ago. Do you get sick of tourists like me coming to town for the aliens? I'll be honest, I haven't spent enough time in town, really. I come in town, for me it's a lot, but you know, three, four times a month. And usually I get along with them just fine. Spider tells me that growing up, he attended the military school here in Roswell. Opened in 1891, the school roll sits at just under a thousand

and is the only state-supported military college in the western USA. It's one of the other main drawcards to Roswell, helping to keep this town functioning. Spider tells me that for him, the military institute made him who he is today, and probably not in the way the school intended. You attended the military school in Roswell. What was that like?

You know, far enough now, in the past now, that I don't feel like bombing the place, but I did for a long time. You didn't love it? No. That's what made me an anarchist. I learned everything I need to know just about how much one person should be in charge of another person, just exactly how much competence matters in hierarchical institutions. Not a fan of hierarchies or institutions. Spider sort of marches to the beat of his own drum. In his spare time, he hand makes these really elaborate, beautiful cowboy boots, something he's been doing for years. He's got a website for them, grumpybastardboots.com. He's not your typical New Mexico cowboy. Yeah, I mean, most people are not loony lefties. Most cowboys are

not. And I am, both of them. A loony and a lefty. I'll tell you what, as an illustration of things, my neighbor kids were showing some animals at the county fair, and while they were at a break or something, that was all the fat old middle-aged guys in cowboy hats were all up in arms about this Barbie movie, and there's a guy sitting there, and he was the guy judging the deal, and he come over and was talking to my buddy, and he was talking about this travesty of how awful this Barbie movie was,

or whatever, and this and that and the other. And I looked at him, and I said, did you ever think maybe it ain't about you? And he goes, well, you know, this thing's made for little girls. I said, the whole world ain't made for fat-ass middle-aged white guys. And he looked at me and says, I don't think I've met you. And my buddy says, that spider, he's like this. I feel like everything in Roswell is a bit surprising.

Nothing's quite what you expect. I'm sad my time here is coming to an end. Just a few hours left before I'm due at the airport. After packing my bags, I make a quick stop to meet one final local I've heard about. Sort of a jack of all trades in town. When I meet him, he's reupholstering an old lady's fancy chair. When he's not doing that, he's working on his own art or looking after Roswell's stray cats. My name is Michael Beetz and I am the servant of the stray cats in Roswell.

How many strays would you say you're looking after at any given time? I think between 40 and 60. Michael shows me around the shelter he runs on an oily rag, trying to give Roswell's cats a decent life and keep them out of other people's hair. Cat is like a character, and they make me happy. I see them, we acknowledge each other, they tell me that they want food.

I feed them and then we go our separate ways. But they're living their lives and doing their things. And I don't get too involved in it. I'm happy I get to interact with them on some level. And it's just cool that they're around. The cats have indoor and outdoor areas. And the heaters get cranky in winter because Roswell gets so cold. Today I spot three black cats, a few white ones, a tabby,

and a deeply suspicious mess of a cat that looks about 95 years old. There's just a fuckton of cats in Roswell. A mountain of cats here. People think it's about aliens, it's about the fucking cats. It's a serious thing, and I don't know what it is. Before I go, Michael gifts me one of his artworks, a painting of a cat. I say my goodbyes because it's coming to the end of my time here.

As I head to the airport, I pass back by that big landmark I drove by when I first arrived, the most American thing in town, McDonald's. I can't help myself. I pull in. So I've come to the Ros town. McDonald's. I can't help myself. I pull in. So I've come to the Roswell at McDonald's, and of course it is shaped like a UFO.

What else would I expect here? At various places outside, including by the drive-thru, there's a bunch of life-size alien figurines. I'm used to seeing aliens everywhere in this town by now. I open the door and head in. I'm used to seeing aliens everywhere in this town by now. I open the door and head in. I'm hungry. They've got official McDonald's UFO shirts, which is kind of amazing. You don't often get merchandise at McDonald's. You can get the nebula black hoodie for $30. You can get alien mini plushies here at this McDonald's. A UFO McDonald's poster. Incredible.

I get a poster which shows the UFO shaped McDonald's I'm in right now. And there's another UFO hovering over it. As I sit down to eat my two cheeseburgers, fries and coke, a man approaches. He's seen the microphone and zeroed in on me. He's in a t-shirt with a backpack slung over one shoulder. A man on the move. He's got tightly cropped hair and gives me the intense vibe of a man who's served in the army at some point. He looks to be in his late 50s and tells me his name is David. What are the chances? Two Davids, both in Roswell, both in McDonald's. Have you been to this McDonald's before? No,

but I have been on the radio many times. What have you been on the radio for? Well, for a while, but mostly because I was trying to break news about those things. He gestures through the window to one of those alien sculptures outside. He points directly at it. What things?

The little grey men? They're not little. The one I saw was seven feet tall at least. Get out of town. So you've actually seen a little grey man? 2004. He says his experience started when he was in his car looking out at the ocean. Some kind of craft passed overhead while he was on the phone to his dad, and it crashed into the water in front of him. I felt it go down in the front of him. So the craft crashed, and next thing he knows he's not in his car, he's at home in bed. He's experienced missing time. But this is important.

I've never been able to tell this on officially to anybody other than the Air Force and they believe me. David leans in towards me looking deadly serious. I put my burger down. I wake up at 2.10 in the morning and I look at the foot of my bed because something has touched me. David gestures to his face and just next to his nose there's this little mark. To me it looks like either a birthmark or some kind of scar. I can see a mark on your face.

Thank you. It wasn't there before. And then you see that thing? That little scar? Yeah, I can see a mark on your chin there. And so I wake up because something has disturbed me. And I simply roll over and I look this thing in the eye. That thing is a seven foot tall alien. But the alien isn't alone. And listen, there was a man with it. And the best way I can describe it is look up Van Morrison, the hat, the coat.

That's the only way i can describe i don't know why he was there but somebody like him was there i looked at this thing any eye it looks at me you're saying you were looking at a giant extraterrestrial being in your room with a man that looked like van morrison yeah well i went back to sleep. David woke up to daylight in an empty room. No big alien, no little man accompanying him. Were you thinking at that point it could have been a dream or something, or did you know it was definitely there? I'm in a U.S. Coast Guard.

When I wake up, I've got to either go get something or make something happen. I wake up with clarity. People hate me because I'm a morning person. Then you see this mark by your nose and there's something on your neck. Yeah, and so I set the phone down and I'm like what is this and I'm looking at the mirror and I squeeze this thing and something like an ingrown hair pops out but it's coiled and I take the tweezers and I pull it out. Right then the phone rings. I know it was Secret Service because they called me many times and I trained them before and it always came up zero zero zero zero

zero zero zero zero zero zero and it's called the Washington ID desk well I'm thinking this bonehead guy with the fedora the small fedora might be from the Air Force Base so for clarity he's telling me the voice on the end of the phone belonged to the little guy who looked a lot like Van Morrison from the night before the guy who was accompanying the seven-foot alien. And he's called just as David is removing something from his neck. It's, I guess, that dude because he says, hey, stop doing that. Leave your implant alone. Yeah, he knew that I popped that out and pulled it out. Looked like an antenna. How long ago did this happen? 2004. They clocked me, dude. Looked like an antenna.

How long ago did this happen? 2004. They clocked me, dude. To be honest, despite all this talk of either ingrown hairs or alien implants, I'm actually getting hungry for my cheeseburger. And I want to wrap things up. Thank you for sharing your story. So in short, aliens are real and they're here amongst us.

The only one I've ever seen was that one. Thank you, David. I appreciate you sharing. I'm going to go and eat my cheeseburgers. It's a compelling story, and I appreciate you sharing it. And I hope you enjoyed your, what did you have at your McDonald's today? I tried to order the bacon, egg, and cheese because Tucumcari only has bacon, egg, and cheese, but I don't order it at the McDonald's.

I order it at this other place. Thank you, David. I had sausage, egg, and cheese, and a coffee. It seemed like a fitting way to end my time in Roswell. A sausage, egg and cheese, one coffee, and a story of a seven-foot-tall alien at the end of one man's bed, accompanied by one small man wearing a fedora who looked a lot like Van Morrison. If I could clunkily sum Roswell up, it surprised me. It was full of the stories I expected, but also full of tangents and oddities. As I sit at the tiny airport, waiting for my flight back to Dallas, I realise this airport used to be the Walker Air Force Base during the Cold War. I'm sitting in the very same place that crashed UFO ended up nearly eight decades ago.

And if you're a believer or not, it's kind of cool. And that was my trip into the depths of Roswell, New Mexico. I recommend it to anyone who wants a little trip. Oh, wow. That was such an adventure you took us on. And you met some people. or miniatures or their love of certain things. And they just want to share with you. And I love listening to people just telling me these stories. I mean, my namesake, David, he wanted to talk a lot more. He had a lot of talking to do.

And I sort of gently said, we need to finish our burgers and get on with the day. But yeah, everyone has a story. And honestly, I think it's made me want to explore more because there's these little towns all over America. And I feel like aliens or not, they've all got really interesting people in them. Are you watching this current season of Fargo? No, I'm not watching. I hear the new season's really good.

It's incredibly good. I finished. I started and finished in a few days. There's a character that at first Spider reminded me of, but then it took a turn. You mean Jon Hamm's character? Yeah, at first he was Jon Hamm, but then he took a turn that I liked. It was very mixed messages.

Yeah, I mean, it was interesting because Spider was a friend of my friend. They had met Spider in town because he just stands out. He's dressed exquisitely. He hand makes his own boots. He's this tall, wiryy cowboy he speaks in this really slow matter-of-fact way but yeah somewhere along the way he really listens a lot of raging in his

machine hates authority he's like screw this i'm an anarchist he's got like an anarchy symbol on his big pickup truck and yeah he's a rancher but he just likes coming into town i think and just hanging out with some of the people in Roswell who are a bit more creative. And he sort of takes pride that he's not the typical cowboy that you'd necessarily someone like me would expect. He's a feminist anarchist. He's a feminist anarchist, which is kind of amazing. What a sentence.

What a sentence. But yeah, he was folded into the booth in this Mexican place. He would barely fit because he's just so long. He was like a spider. Yeah, he was very into the booth in this Mexican place. He barely fit because he's just so long. He was like a spider. He was very, very, very cool. Everyone I met was kind of amazing, actually. There were no duds in Roswell. No one I went up to disappointed.

Everyone had a story and they were all sort of amazing. And so many different accents there as well. You got some really good characters. I'm impressed. Two things. One, is Roswell a vortex? My understanding, I'm not a big vortex guy. I don't think it's a vortex.

And when you say vortex, like the center of some different spirit lines and all that kind of thing? Yes. There are areas of the country and world, I guess, that people say are vortexes. Ojai being one of them. Yeah, Casadega, that spiritualist town, that had a few vortexes. Sedona, so vortex. Vortex-free. I heard no talk of vortexes.

I only heard talk of an alien crashed here and it wasn't that crazy. Okay. And then two, I have to do a fact check. Well, sort of a fact check. Last episode on donuts, we talk about Duncan and you were talking about the owner and I was calling him Mr. Duncan. And I said, I imagine him to be like the guy in Home Alone 2 who owns the store. In the movie, that character's name is Mr. Duncan. So it's probably why I associated it. His name is Mr. Duncan. So it's probably why I associated it.

His name's Mr. Duncan? That's incredible. Yeah, but I guess it's not as cool. I didn't just imagine that that's what he was. It's because that was his name. So I have to just come forward. I love that this has been plaguing you. It's been haunting me for a week.

Also, did you go and rewatch Home Alone 2? No, I just looked him up after. I had a suspicion something was up. Kind of like these people in Roswell. They just have suspicions. They have spidey senses. Spider. I like this.

Yeah, I also now want donuts again because it's in New Zealand. Me too. So in New Zealand, it's Saturday, January 20th, as we record this, at 9 a.m. What time is it for you? I can't believe it. we record this at 9 a.m. What time is it for you? I can't believe it. It's Friday at 12 p.m. That is so weird. What happens today?

Tell us what happens today. It's a good day. You'll wake up with like a little bit of a headache because you had too many wines before you went to bed. Oh. So what are you missing? You haven't had any of Saturday yet. I haven't had any Friday.

What happens on Friday? Oh my God. Friday night is a blowout. What happens on Friday? Oh, my God. Friday night is a blowout. You think it's going to be a chill night and then friends start arriving and suddenly you've got the wines. It's going to get money. It gets crazy. Oh, I'm so excited. Just, yeah, it's something to look forward to.

I can't wait for your experience. for your experience. But just do know that on Saturday, you're going to wake up feeling a bit worse aware and think, man, I understand why all my friends are suddenly giving up alcohol and going clean living because the older you get, the worse that shit gets. It's true. And it's poison.

I can't wait for all of this. It is poison. You're having a great night. No regrets. Well, this is fun. I really enjoyed this episode a lot, and it is spooky. I think you've become a bit more of a believer, maybe. A tiny bit.

I think a little bit of you. When you were listening to the story of the little Van Morrison man in a fedora in the 74, I saw I was looking at your face, and you were thinking, hey, maybe this happened. I think you don't know me well enough yet. Well, you don't know how to read faces, which we've already established. Yeah, who are you? Oh, Monica, it's you. This is more evidence.

This is great. I enjoyed this. I think I became more American. Yeah, I think we all did. I think even Rob, I saw him become a little bit more American, which is rare because he's so American. He's so American. Sometimes I look at Rob and I'm almost disgusted by how American he is.

I'm jealous. I'll never get to that level of American. No, Rob, you're a beautiful snowflake and we love you dearly. All right. Love you guys. Yeah, travel home safe. I'm actually, I usually travel in New Zealand. I'm traveling on United.

Oh. I'm becoming more American. That is, wow. You jumped ship. That's incredible. Also, they've got a new route to New Zealand. So it's a lot cheaper. What airline had the door fly off?

Oh God, a door flew off? I missed this. I think it was Alaska. Was it? Okay. Oh, I hate it when the door comes off. So stressful. But no one got hurt, though.

No one got hurt. That's great. But the door did fly off, the emergency door. That's always the fear, isn't it? You see that comically big latch and you think, how easy would it be for it to open? As hypochondriacal as I am, I've never thought that until now this happened. I mean, ugh. I somehow miss this news, and that's terrifying.

And thank you for telling me before I get on a plane tomorrow. Are you sitting by the emergency exit? I think I might be because I always get that. So I've got more leg room. Okay. I'll wear my seatbelt extra tight. Wear the seatbelt. Wear the seatbelt.

And remember to write me a note on your airplane because it might come to fruition that we might need it. Yeah, okay. I'll write a little death note for you. All right. I appreciate it. Okay. Bye, guys. Okay.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.