It’s time to celebrate the ‘crash’

events It’s time to celebrate the ‘crash’

25th annual UFO Festival, first MainStreet Roswell AlienFest and UFO Museum UFOlogist Invasion unite Roswell

By Christina Stock Vision Editor

There is a new energy in Roswell, the UFO Festival is back and hundreds of organizers, businesses and volunteers have been working on making the events unforgettable for locals and tourists alike. From July 1 to 4 there will be a multitude of events happening, including a patriotic Independence Day celebration.

The UFO festival draws thousands of visitors from all over the world to Roswell. Last year would have been the 25th anniversary of the festival, but due to the pandemic it had to be postponed.

It is fitting that the UFO Festival is the first city-wide festival and one of the first in New Mexico — after all, Roswell is celebrating the news that we may not be alone, that there was a crash of a “flying saucer” on a stormy day before the Fourth of July weekend in 1947. The pandemic showed everybody that we are not alone — not alone in the U.S. or around the world. Racing towards a solution to end the pandemic, COVID-19 united scientists and countries.

Thinking back on the empty streets of the largest metropolises in the world, nobody would have been surprised if next a UFO had landed on the White House lawn, and just as in 1947, the Roswell Daily Record would have published the information. Back then, a press release came from the intelligence office of the 509th Bombardment group, stationed in Roswell.

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Roswell Daily Record Archive Photo The Roswell Daily Record’s front page on July 8, 1947 features the Army press release about the “flying saucer.”

Roswell Incident and the International UFO Museum and Research Center

When the military press release was published on the front page of the Roswell Daily Record, July 8, 1947 — and rebuffed as being a weather balloon the very next day — it could have been easily forgotten if it weren’t for researchers of the UFO phenomenon. Those include the late Stanton Friedman (the nuclear physicist, author and researcher who died in May 2019) and Donald Schmitt, who will be one of the speakers at the International UFO Museum and Research Center (IUFOMRC).

Out of the interest and research, the IUFOMRC came to be. The museum was the one that started having speakers come

see Crash on page 20

Lisa Dunlap Photo Participants in the UFO Festival Alien Chase 5K in 2019 show off their costumes ahead of the race.