0
SPEAKER_04
I m David Farrier, a New Zealander accidentally marooned in America, and I want to figure out what makes this country tick.
0
SPEAKER_04
Now it s hard to get across how much a single TV show affected me when I was growing up.
0
SPEAKER_04
Hearing that theme song, that whistle, today it transports me straight back to being a teenager in New Zealand, marvelling at how big the universe was, and how mysterious and strange things could get.
0
SPEAKER_04
If you were a kid in the 90s, the X-Files was everything.
0
SPEAKER_04
It was a phenomenon.
0
SPEAKER_04
When it first aired in 1993, 10 million Americans tuned in.
0
SPEAKER_04
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.
0
SPEAKER_04
By 1997, 20 million people were sitting down to watch.
0
SPEAKER_04
To watch two of the best TV characters ever written, Moeller and Scully.
0
SPEAKER_04
You could cut the sexual tension with a knife.
0
SPEAKER_04
And like Monica, they d also visit Georgia from time to time.
0
SPEAKER_04
One a skeptic, the other a believer.
0
SPEAKER_04
I m raving here, but my point is, this show is so big, it colored the way I saw America.
0
SPEAKER_04
For a big part of my childhood, I wanted nothing more than to be an FBI agent.
0
SPEAKER_04
I got fascinated by conspiracies, cryptids, and of course, UFOs.
0
SPEAKER_04
And one American town in particular took on a huge significance.
0
SPEAKER_04
Roswell, New Mexico.
0
SPEAKER_01
Is this why we came out here, Mulder?
0
SPEAKER_01
To look for UFOs?
0
SPEAKER_04
Roswell s on the map because something crashed there in July of 1947.
0
SPEAKER_04
It was a UFO, sure.
0
SPEAKER_04
But was it a weather balloon?
0
SPEAKER_04
A secret American aircraft?
0
SPEAKER_04
Or, the obvious one, aliens?
0
SPEAKER_04
Are we truly alone?
0
SPEAKER_04
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.
0
SPEAKER_04
Now, all these years later, I find myself in America.
0
SPEAKER_04
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.
0
SPEAKER_04
And finally, that kid who grew up fantasizing about the small American town, well, he finally got to go there.
0
SPEAKER_04
So, decide whether you re a skeptical scully or a mumbly old moulder, because this is the Roswell episode.
0
SPEAKER_04
Monica, one question for you.
0
SPEAKER_04
Are you a skeptical scully in life or a mumbly old molder?
0
SPEAKER_00
You re gonna hate this.
0
SPEAKER_00
I ve never seen X-Files.
0
SPEAKER_00
I know.
0
SPEAKER_00
I know.
0
SPEAKER_00
I m sorry.
0
SPEAKER_00
I m so sorry.
0
SPEAKER_00
Or Roswell.
0
SPEAKER_04
Oh my God.
0
SPEAKER_04
This is incredible.
0
SPEAKER_04
We had such different childhoods.
0
SPEAKER_00
I know.
0
SPEAKER_00
Except the center of our Venn diagram is friends and Ross.
0
SPEAKER_04
We had friends and Ross.
0
SPEAKER_04
What do you imagine the X-Files to be?
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SPEAKER_04
And I ll tell you whether you re accurate or way, way off.
0
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
0
SPEAKER_00
I imagine it to be sci-fi.
0
SPEAKER_00
Mm-hmm.
0
SPEAKER_00
and sexual.
0
SPEAKER_04
Sexual.
0
SPEAKER_04
Good.
0
SPEAKER_04
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_04
True.
0
SPEAKER_00
Like they have sex tench and it s very dark.
0
SPEAKER_00
The coloring is very blue and black.
0
SPEAKER_04
All these are very on point.
0
SPEAKER_04
And I guess that shows how much the X-Files split out into the culture, right?
0
SPEAKER_04
You ve never watched a single episode and you absolutely get the vibe.
0
SPEAKER_00
Back to your original question, I m both.
0
SPEAKER_00
I am skeptical in life, but I also think there s joy in belief.
0
SPEAKER_00
So I m kind of both.
0
SPEAKER_00
I would say on the aliens  spectrum, I believe that there s life on other planets.
0
SPEAKER_00
I do not believe they ve ever come here, and I pretty much believe they never will.
0
SPEAKER_04
Okay, you know, I think we align here really closely.
0
SPEAKER_04
I think the idea that aliens would come and visit us and they d be so sloppy as to buzz around and be seen.
0
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
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SPEAKER_04
And crash here.
0
SPEAKER_04
I find that all a bit ridiculous.
0
SPEAKER_04
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,
0
SPEAKER_04
Oh, I saw this and you know, here s video of this thing.
0
SPEAKER_04
And so it s a particularly interesting time to be talking about this.
0
SPEAKER_04
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.
0
SPEAKER_04
It s all X files kind of stuff.
0
SPEAKER_04
But in the last couple of years, there is this feeling of, Oh my God, have aliens been visiting us this whole time?
0
SPEAKER_04
And now government s been lying to us, you know?
0
SPEAKER_00
Yes, there has been a real resurgence.
0
SPEAKER_00
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.
0
SPEAKER_04
Yeah, 100%.
0
SPEAKER_00
We had a really cool alien guy on Armchair.
0
SPEAKER_00
We had Adam Frank, I think our last episode of the year last year, and it was really interesting.
0
SPEAKER_00
And I feel like he d be up your alley.
0
SPEAKER_04
I a hundred percent, I need to listen to this.
0
SPEAKER_04
Cause yeah, I grew up wanting to believe in all this stuff.
0
SPEAKER_04
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.
0
SPEAKER_04
So like UFOs, yeah, they re definitely real, but they re not aliens because aliens in the religion I was in complicated things a lot.
0
SPEAKER_00
Of course.
0
SPEAKER_04
They were just the devil, so for a while I was like, oh yeah, okay, so the devil zooms around a little spaceship.
0
SPEAKER_00
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.
0
SPEAKER_04
Lucky.
0
SPEAKER_00
If God created everything, God created the devil.
0
SPEAKER_04
It s funny, I m so fuzzy on details of Christianity, even though I was in it for so long.
0
SPEAKER_04
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.
0
SPEAKER_04
And so Satan is like a fallen angel, so a rebel.
0
SPEAKER_00
But if God is all-knowing and can control everything, why would the God have allowed that?
0
SPEAKER_04
Yeah, because of free will.
0
SPEAKER_04
So back when Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden, God was like, don t eat that apple.
0
SPEAKER_04
They ate the apple because Eve was like, I want to eat that apple.
0
SPEAKER_04
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.
0
SPEAKER_04
Suddenly everyone had free will.
0
SPEAKER_04
And then so one of the angels is like, I m bored of this, all this good shit.
0
SPEAKER_04
I m going to rebel.
0
SPEAKER_04
I want to be like more powerful than God.
0
SPEAKER_04
And God was like, screw that.
0
SPEAKER_04
I m sending you down to hell.
0
SPEAKER_04
And then that all sort of, we saw how that went, you know, spun off.
0
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
0
SPEAKER_00
But then if God gave free will, then why do people thank God?
0
SPEAKER_00
And why do people say like, well, this is what God wanted when something horrible happened.
0
SPEAKER_00
if there s also free will, but also God controls everything?
0
SPEAKER_04
These are sort of questions I began asking quite late in life.
0
SPEAKER_00
Answer my questions!
0
SPEAKER_04
Bad things happen because it s part of the master plan.
0
SPEAKER_04
So a bad thing will happen, like your best friend will get a horrific illness and die, and you have to kind of go,
0
SPEAKER_04
I was part of God s plan.
0
SPEAKER_04
It s taught me something.
0
SPEAKER_04
That s taught me how to deal with someone who s dying.
0
SPEAKER_04
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.
0
SPEAKER_04
And then getting cancer and dying, God was like, oh yeah, that s how we get rid of that mass killer.
0
SPEAKER_04
It s all like a greater plan.
0
SPEAKER_00
but God has a master plan and there s free will, this is where it s not matching up to me.
0
SPEAKER_00
If God has a master plan, then how do we have free will?
0
SPEAKER_00
Look, we really, I m sorry.
0
SPEAKER_04
No, I agree with you on all these things.
0
SPEAKER_04
God can see the future, but the future can change depending on what humans do with their free will.
0
SPEAKER_00
This is a catch 22.
0
SPEAKER_04
It s a catch 22.
0
SPEAKER_04
But all these questions are kind of part of the reason I sort of moved away from all this stuff.
0
SPEAKER_00
I know.
0
SPEAKER_00
And then you brought in aliens.
0
SPEAKER_04
Yeah, aliens in the mix.
0
SPEAKER_04
It s very important in the Christian narrative I was raised with that humans are the best creations of God.
0
SPEAKER_04
And an alien, sort of like a little man, would sort of throw that into disrepute.
0
SPEAKER_04
Because you re like, oh God, what did they get?
0
SPEAKER_04
Are they got the same narrative we got?
0
SPEAKER_04
Are they talking about Adam and Eve?
0
SPEAKER_04
Was there a little alien Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden?
0
SPEAKER_04
Or is that a whole different thing?
0
SPEAKER_04
And it sort of freaks everyone out.
0
SPEAKER_04
Just like dinosaurs were distractions, like the fossils are distractions that God put here to distract us from
1
SPEAKER_03
It was a test.
1
SPEAKER_03
Anyway, it s all normal.
1
SPEAKER_03
It s all totally normal stuff.
1
SPEAKER_03
It s all good.
1
SPEAKER_04
But this is fun.
1
SPEAKER_04
So you got to do a full circle moment.
1
SPEAKER_04
You got to go to Roswell.
1
SPEAKER_04
This is a dream come true.
1
SPEAKER_03
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.
1
SPEAKER_03
This felt really special.
1
SPEAKER_03
And you know, it s not an easy place to get to.
1
SPEAKER_03
You ve really got to make an effort to get to Roswell.
1
SPEAKER_03
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.
1
SPEAKER_03
So she s making art there for like a year.
1
SPEAKER_03
And she said, I ve got a spare like room on this little artist estate we re on, just come and stay.
1
SPEAKER_03
And so I was like, of course I ll go to Roswell.
1
SPEAKER_03
This is amazing.
1
SPEAKER_03
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?
1
SPEAKER_04
Oh, I love this.
1
SPEAKER_04
I m so excited to learn.
1
SPEAKER_03
How does this town in the middle of nowhere, hours from Albuquerque, how does it survive?
1
SPEAKER_03
What are people doing there?
1
SPEAKER_03
What s the deal?
1
SPEAKER_03
These are the questions I wanted to find out.
1
SPEAKER_04
I m excited.
1
SPEAKER_03
I think part of what had 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.
1
SPEAKER_03
It wasn t on the road to any other flightless borough location or an easy day trip.
1
SPEAKER_03
To get to Roswell, you really had to plan to get to Roswell.
1
SPEAKER_03
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.
1
SPEAKER_03
Roswell s a pretty spread out desert town that s basically a three hour drive from anywhere else.
1
SPEAKER_03
Places like El Paso and Albuquerque.
1
SPEAKER_03
Getting off the relatively small plane onto the tarmac, a humble sign greets me telling me I was at 3600 feet.
1
SPEAKER_03
The reason my lips would dry out over the next few days.
1
SPEAKER_03
In the terminal, the first hint at the thing that s helped keep this town alive.
1
SPEAKER_03
A bench you can sit on with a big headed alien at the end.
1
SPEAKER_03
Roswell s first photo op.
1
SPEAKER_03
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.
1
SPEAKER_03
The McDonald s is shaped like a flying saucer, and Dunkin  has a giant, slightly muscular and sort of sexy alien outside.
1
SPEAKER_03
And then my first major destination, Roswell s International UFO Museum and Research Centre, which opened way back in 1992.
1
SPEAKER_03
I m visiting from New Zealand.
1
SPEAKER_02
New Zealand?
1
SPEAKER_02
Okay, cool.
1
SPEAKER_03
I buy my ticket from Ella, who reminds me a lot of my grand Monica.
1
SPEAKER_03
She s tiny, with a full head of jet white hair and a beaming smile.
1
SPEAKER_03
How long have you worked here for?
1
SPEAKER_06
12 years.
1
SPEAKER_03
What s your favourite thing about Roswell?
1
SPEAKER_07
The museum!
1
SPEAKER_03
The museum itself is sort of what I expected.
1
SPEAKER_03
It s firmly stuck in the 90s.
1
SPEAKER_03
A lot of effort s gone into all the displays, so they re dated, yet charming.
1
SPEAKER_03
There s a life-sized diorama of a hovering UFO, with a group of those classic-looking, big-headed grey aliens standing beneath.
1
SPEAKER_03
There s another display showing the alien autopsy that apparently happened to one of the aliens who crash-landed here.
1
SPEAKER_03
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.
1
SPEAKER_03
That one sighting in America kicked off hundreds, then thousands of other sightings all across the states.
1
SPEAKER_03
A month into that craze, in July of 1947, a rancher found something silver crash on his land.
1
SPEAKER_03
He didn t even live in Roswell.
1
SPEAKER_03
He was 75 miles away in the town of Corona.
1
SPEAKER_03
But he threw the weird material into the back of his truck and drove it to Roswell.
1
SPEAKER_03
And the Roswell Army Airfield got involved.
1
SPEAKER_00
Headline edition, July 8, 1947.
1
SPEAKER_00
The Army Air Forces has announced that a flying disc has been found and is now in the possession of the Army.
1
SPEAKER_03
Reports like that one happened because the Army put out a press release saying they d found a crashed flying disc.
1
SPEAKER_00
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.
1
SPEAKER_03
This was pretty exciting news, a crashed UFO, in the middle of America s flying saucer obsession.
1
SPEAKER_03
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.
1
SPEAKER_03
How suspicious is that?
1
SPEAKER_03
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.
1
SPEAKER_03
What do you put in tiny coffins?
1
SPEAKER_03
Tiny alien bodies.
1
SPEAKER_03
On top of this, the mortician says a nurse told him at the time there d been an alien autopsy.
1
SPEAKER_03
Glenn Davis was the mortician telling those stories.
1
SPEAKER_03
And two years later, he founded the UFO museum I m in right now.
1
SPEAKER_03
A museum that today has me and about 15 other people in it, including Nick.
1
SPEAKER_01
I did a book report in elementary school about Roswell.
1
SPEAKER_01
I was the weird kid in elementary school just obsessed with aliens.
1
SPEAKER_01
So I m very happy to be here.
1
SPEAKER_01
Also visiting from out of town, Carla.
1
SPEAKER_06
Well, we re from Texas.
1
SPEAKER_03
Give me a hold out.
1
SPEAKER_03
Who in true polite Texas style offers to hold my microphone, which I politely decline.
1
SPEAKER_03
Gives me something to do.
1
SPEAKER_06
Yeah, but we re from Texas.
1
SPEAKER_06
We re just traveling to Rio Dosa and stop through.
1
SPEAKER_06
The aliens are the only thing we ve explored so far.
1
SPEAKER_06
Other than the scenery, we come from Texas where it s very flat and we love the mountains.
1
SPEAKER_03
Are you a believer in UFOs yourself?
1
SPEAKER_06
No, I m still on the fence.
1
SPEAKER_06
How about you?
1
SPEAKER_03
I m on the fence as well.
1
SPEAKER_03
I find Cindy sniffing around in the gift shop.
1
SPEAKER_03
She s especially taken with a pair of alien socks.
1
SPEAKER_03
You know, what would be the weirdest thing I ve seen in my life?
1
SPEAKER_03
Oh, I ve seen a lot of weird shit.
1
SPEAKER_03
Nolan and Carrie wanted to come here for the same reason I had.
1
SPEAKER_03
The X-Files.
1
SPEAKER_07
We re from Georgia.
1
SPEAKER_03
Did you come here for the museum or for something else?
1
SPEAKER_07
We came here for New Mexico sites, but we re like, when in New Mexico, you have to see Roswell.
1
SPEAKER_02
And I would say you should ask Carrie about being an X-Files fan.
1
SPEAKER_02
So as a lifelong TV fan of X-Files, this was like a destination she had to be at.
1
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, no, I grew up on the X-Files.
1
SPEAKER_07
As did I. I had to come in and harken my middle and high school days.
1
SPEAKER_03
I feel like, yeah, Roswell was such of that time, right?
1
SPEAKER_03
It was like our main worry on planet Earth back then in the 90s was alien life.
1
SPEAKER_03
And now it s kind of happening, and we don t even care about it, right?
1
SPEAKER_07
No, right?
1
SPEAKER_07
Exactly.
1
SPEAKER_03
The highlight of the museum is actually the most subtle, and I fear a lot of people might miss it.
1
SPEAKER_03
It s a corridor off to the right before you enter the museum.
1
SPEAKER_03
It leads into the library, and it s stacked with books on UFOs and other mysteries.
1
SPEAKER_03
You can t take the books out, but you can sit in comfy chairs at comfy tables and read to your heart s content.
1
SPEAKER_05
My name is Snow and I am the librarian here.
1
SPEAKER_05
So the library has a lot of obviously alien related stuff like the alien crop circles, Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster, spiritual stuff, New World Order, everything.
1
SPEAKER_03
And what drew you to this museum?
1
SPEAKER_03
Are you a believer yourself or is this just a day job?
1
SPEAKER_05
So at first, I was skeptical.
1
SPEAKER_05
Being born and raised here, you kind of get numb to everything.
1
SPEAKER_05
At first, I was like, the universe is way too big for us to not have anything else out there.
1
SPEAKER_03
What s it like growing up in Roswell?
1
SPEAKER_03
Because I m from New Zealand, so I know this place from pop culture.
1
SPEAKER_03
And of course, all I think is aliens.
1
SPEAKER_03
But Roswell s obviously so much more than that.
1
SPEAKER_03
What does Roswell represent to you as someone that s lived here for most of your life?
1
SPEAKER_05
That s kind of a tough one because it is a touristy place.
1
SPEAKER_05
So you kind of lose that feeling as somebody who is a local.
1
SPEAKER_05
But I do enjoy people like, oh, are you an alien?
1
SPEAKER_05
Like, are your parents an alien type thing?
1
SPEAKER_05
It does get a little laugh here and there in a couple of conversations that you do have.
1
SPEAKER_05
So I do like to be a part of that as well.
1
SPEAKER_03
Some days you just get sick of the alien stuff.
1
SPEAKER_03
You just like, I wish all this alien stuff in Roswell would just go away and it was just like a normal town.
1
SPEAKER_05
I don t ever think that because I feel like it just wouldn t be Roswell.
1
SPEAKER_05
It just wouldn t be home if it wasn t.
1
SPEAKER_03
What s the weirdest thing you ve ever seen in Roswell?
1
SPEAKER_03
And it doesn t have to be alien related.
1
SPEAKER_05
Um, I would say it s alien related because it s Roswell.
1
SPEAKER_05
We saw like these lights in the sky lifting up at a very specific angle and they were like slowly fading out.
1
SPEAKER_05
So that tripped me out and I was terrified.
1
SPEAKER_03
Stories like this would litter my time in Roswell.
1
SPEAKER_03
Seems like everyone has one.
1
SPEAKER_03
Comes with the territory.
1
SPEAKER_03
They were sort of remarkable in how unremarkable they were.
1
SPEAKER_03
Just unprovable, strange experiences that had lodged in people s minds.
1
SPEAKER_03
Over the last few years of Pentagon reports, Air Force videos and intense testimonies in Congress, these old school stories of lights and
2
SPEAKER_00
the sky felt like a nice, warm bath, like I was back in the 90s.
2
SPEAKER_00
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.
2
SPEAKER_00
In a fancy font, it says The Parable of Roswell.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s a list, and it goes like this and it sums up the story.
2
SPEAKER_00
The aliens came, they explored, and they crashed.
2
SPEAKER_00
The rancher went, he found it, and he reported it.
2
SPEAKER_00
The Air Force went, investigated, and took it.
2
SPEAKER_00
The government came, confiscated, and denies it.
2
SPEAKER_00
The Men in Black came and threatened.
2
SPEAKER_00
Now no one knows anything about any of it.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s the story of Roswell, distilled.
2
SPEAKER_00
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.
2
SPEAKER_00
I think this is probably the only place a lot of these clippings exist.
2
SPEAKER_00
There was no one else in the room except me reading them.
2
SPEAKER_00
As someone who s often immersed in the online world, it was refreshing flicking through clippings and handwritten notes.
2
SPEAKER_00
I felt like Mulder in the X-Files.
2
SPEAKER_00
As I left to carry on with my day, I bumped into an older guy, Cal, checking out the museum.
2
SPEAKER_00
He grew up in Roswell, then moved to California, but now he s back living here.
2
SPEAKER_00
Today, he s showing his two grandkids around.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s their first time here.
2
SPEAKER_00
I was curious how this town s changed over his lifetime.
2
SPEAKER_02
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.
2
SPEAKER_02
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.
2
SPEAKER_02
Now it s built back up to about 50,000.
2
SPEAKER_02
So I ve seen a lot of changes, but everything is really still the same.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I never get tired of hearing the stories about the aliens and the crash and etc.
2
SPEAKER_02
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, you re a little strange people come from there.
2
SPEAKER_02
Where were you on in what, 1947?
2
SPEAKER_00
What were you doing?
2
SPEAKER_02
1946 is when I was born.
2
SPEAKER_02
I was six months old when it allegedly crashed.
2
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, you missed it.
2
SPEAKER_02
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.
2
SPEAKER_00
Walking down the main drag, I realize how special it is that Roswell still exists.
2
SPEAKER_00
So many small American towns have turned into ghost towns, but somehow, this one s persisted.
2
SPEAKER_00
When the Air Force base closed in 1967, the town rebranded as a good place to retire.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then, during the 90s, as talk of aliens surged, alien tourism came to town.
2
SPEAKER_00
And Roswell got a new lease on life.
2
SPEAKER_00
People leave, and people die, but people still move here.
2
SPEAKER_00
As I step into a coffee shop, a guy approaches me wanting to talk.
2
SPEAKER_00
I find that happens a lot to me in America when you walk around with a mic.
2
SPEAKER_00
In New Zealand, people run.
2
SPEAKER_00
In America, a microphone is an invitation.
2
SPEAKER_00
Jeff tells me he has a screenplay he wants me to read.
2
SPEAKER_00
It feels like I m back in LA.
2
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, it s my drug story, redemption story.
2
SPEAKER_03
I almost killed myself in LSD when I was 20.
2
SPEAKER_03
It s kind of that experience.
2
SPEAKER_03
And I live to tell about it, let s just say that.
2
SPEAKER_00
You must have had a lot of LSD.
2
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, I did.
2
SPEAKER_03
That s exactly what I was taking.
2
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, it was LSD.
2
SPEAKER_03
Those days are over though.
2
SPEAKER_03
I haven t touched that since I was 20.
2
SPEAKER_00
Can you read that synopsis again?
2
SPEAKER_00
I want to record this.
2
SPEAKER_03
Okay.
2
SPEAKER_03
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.
2
SPEAKER_03
Soon enough, though, the sniper discovers a child trafficking operation that he must destroy, despite the consequences.
2
SPEAKER_03
This is a screenplay you ve written?
2
SPEAKER_03
A screenplay, 118 pages, I just wrote.
2
SPEAKER_03
Four months about it, I ve been working on it.
2
SPEAKER_00
I tell him that the story sounds very current, but that I work in podcasts, not making movies about Marine Scout snipers.
2
SPEAKER_00
But I admire his passion and hope he finds a way to tell his story.
2
SPEAKER_03
I live here, yeah, I m in here.
2
SPEAKER_03
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.
2
SPEAKER_03
What s your favorite thing about Roswell?
2
SPEAKER_03
Well, first of all, I m kind of fifth gear paced, and so the town itself just kind of helps me relax.
2
SPEAKER_03
I m from Boston originally, so I m from a very fast pace, which stresses me out enough.
2
SPEAKER_03
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.
2
SPEAKER_00
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.
2
SPEAKER_00
Maybe that s why aliens crash near here.
2
SPEAKER_00
They just wanted some peace and quiet as well.
2
SPEAKER_00
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.
2
SPEAKER_00
I feel like a lot of people go there maybe to get away from something and they just sort of end up staying.
2
SPEAKER_00
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.
2
SPEAKER_00
But then a lot of people are just there living their lives, writing their screenplays, doing their stuff.
2
SPEAKER_00
And they just like the quietness of it all.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it is just a sleepy little town.
2
SPEAKER_01
I do think America is so amazing in its ability to commodify everything.
2
SPEAKER_01
Every airport in this country, as soon as you step off the plane, you know what they re trying to push.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
I mean, look, this isn t a desk.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s the best.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s the best thing.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I think Roswell in particular, I mean, I find it so funny that this mortician and Roswell came out and suddenly he s talking about how he heard that there was a.
2
SPEAKER_00
alien autopsy and the Air Force requested tiny coffins for these tiny little alien bodies.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then what do you know, a couple of years later, he s opened a UFO museum.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s such a smart thing to do.
2
SPEAKER_00
He just seeds these ideas and seizes on it.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then the town, obviously the mayor saw the joy of it at the time, and they just went all in.
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, those town meetings must ve been amazing, deciding, okay, this town, we ve got to keep it on the map.
2
SPEAKER_00
So we re going to be known for this thing.
2
SPEAKER_01
I mean, it makes sense.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s a good way to increase your tourism.
2
SPEAKER_00
I assume people would sort of be annoyed that it was so focused on the crash and aliens, but they re all into it.
2
SPEAKER_00
We love it.
2
SPEAKER_00
This is fine.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s like part of this place and we re into it.
2
SPEAKER_00
I thought that was kind of magical as well.
2
SPEAKER_00
Every restaurant, every store had an alien twist.
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, the McDonald s.
2
SPEAKER_00
was amazing i mean half of it is shaped like a flying saucer you go into like where the child 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
2
SPEAKER_00
I got you a poster.
2
SPEAKER_00
It was their last one.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I did.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
I got your poster.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s so nice.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m so excited.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s pretty cool.
2
SPEAKER_00
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.
2
SPEAKER_00
Don t you worry.
2
SPEAKER_00
Do you have any questions about the town of Roswell so far before we get back into the dock?
2
SPEAKER_01
Did you feel eerie there?
2
SPEAKER_01
Did you sort of get wrapped up in it?
2
SPEAKER_00
No, the eeriness is very low, I gotta say.
2
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s the least eerie place I ve ever been in America.
2
SPEAKER_00
LA is more eerie.
2
SPEAKER_01
Really?
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh God.
2
SPEAKER_00
I think just it s so on the nose.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s so bright.
2
SPEAKER_00
Seems like the sun is so strong and so intense.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then at nighttime you walk around and it s just big, open, beautiful skies.
2
SPEAKER_00
It feels so on the nose, the zero eeriness.
2
SPEAKER_01
Right.
2
SPEAKER_01
Do you wish there were aliens that have come here?
2
SPEAKER_01
Whether you believe it or not.
2
SPEAKER_00
All I want is an alien sighting.
2
SPEAKER_00
All I want is to see something amazing and to sort of go, Oh, holy shit.
2
SPEAKER_00
My whole worldview has changed.
2
SPEAKER_00
And to walk around with that and everyone I meet, I get to rave about this thing I ve seen, but it never happens.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m always looking up at the sky.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m always exploring.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m always looking for something exciting, but I ve never seen anything unknown apart from the ghost that wakes me up.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that s pretty big.
2
SPEAKER_00
Annoying, but I want to see something and I ve never done that.
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, you smelt the cum trees and that changed your world view a little bit.
2
SPEAKER_00
It did, it changed my view on a few things actually, including my view on Rob, who had never smelled the cum tree, which I m still sort of blown away by.
2
SPEAKER_01
I have weird thoughts about that, Rob.
2
SPEAKER_01
Like you know the smell too well that it doesn t even register.
2
SPEAKER_01
Maybe, I don t think we have any of those trees on our block though.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m just saying, there s no way.
2
SPEAKER_01
I just, I stand by there s no way you grew up in this country and haven t come across one.
3
SPEAKER_01
cum across one.
3
SPEAKER_03
I might know the smell.
3
SPEAKER_03
I just don t associate it with cum.
3
SPEAKER_01
Right.
3
SPEAKER_01
We re going to have to do it.
3
SPEAKER_04
Maybe your jizz smells different.
3
SPEAKER_04
Yeah, maybe.
3
SPEAKER_04
Most people s jizz.
3
SPEAKER_01
Maybe we should ask Natalie.
3
SPEAKER_01
We should ask Natalie if she smells the tree and if she can recognize.
3
Right.
3
SPEAKER_04
Let s come back to the cum tree.
3
SPEAKER_04
There were no cum trees in Roswell.
3
SPEAKER_04
Stay tuned for more Flightless Bird.
3
SPEAKER_04
We ll be right back after a word from our sponsors.
3
SPEAKER_04
This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.
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All right.
3
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So let s continue on, on my journey into the sleepy town of beautiful Roswell, New Mexico.
3
SPEAKER_04
I d love to know your name and what it is that you do in Roswell.
3
SPEAKER_00
So my name is Sean.
3
SPEAKER_00
I came here about three and a half years ago.
3
SPEAKER_04
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.
3
SPEAKER_04
They seem to come with the territory.
3
SPEAKER_00
We sell gems and minerals, mostly.
3
SPEAKER_00
We also have books, tarot cards, herbs, oils, all sorts of stuff.
3
SPEAKER_04
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.
3
SPEAKER_03
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.
3
SPEAKER_03
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.
3
SPEAKER_04
We re about a two hour drive from where that weather balloon originally went down.
3
SPEAKER_04
It s just because the rancher brought the debris to Roswell that Roswell became what it became.
3
SPEAKER_05
And in Roswell, you re just small enough town that you can just do anything.
3
SPEAKER_04
Tell me your name and what it is that you do here.
3
SPEAKER_05
My name is Nancy Fleming, and I am the co-founder of the Miniatures and Curious Collections Museum in Roswell, New Mexico.
3
SPEAKER_04
I was curious to find out what else was going on in this town, besides the aliens.
3
SPEAKER_04
And it turns out, quite a lot.
3
SPEAKER_04
There s art galleries like the Anderson Museum, and Roswell also has a long-running artists in residency program, here since the late 60s.
3
SPEAKER_04
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.
3
SPEAKER_04
As I arrive, she feeds a roll of paper into a self-playing piano and sets it off.
3
SPEAKER_05
Now the paper rolls, they re piano rolls.
3
SPEAKER_05
Some of them are just too old to play.
3
SPEAKER_05
They re kind of ripped up.
3
SPEAKER_05
The paper is frayed at the edges, but they made them all the way up into the 80s.
3
SPEAKER_05
So this is obviously one that s made in the 80s.
3
SPEAKER_05
You re going to love this.
3
SPEAKER_04
She tells me that when she moved to Roswell in the early 90s, alien tourism was just kicking off.
3
SPEAKER_04
That mortician I talked about earlier had just started telling her stories and opened the museum.
3
SPEAKER_04
But it was tiny.
3
SPEAKER_04
She saw things evolve and grow here in Roswell.
3
SPEAKER_05
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.
3
SPEAKER_05
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.
3
SPEAKER_05
We are in the middle of nowhere.
3
SPEAKER_05
We are 200 miles from an interstate, which means there needs to be a town here because there s people.
3
SPEAKER_05
We re just under 50,000, so we get enough of the chains.
3
SPEAKER_05
There s a hub.
3
SPEAKER_05
There s the Walmart.
3
SPEAKER_05
People can come from the farm to get the things that they need.
3
SPEAKER_05
And the school district here is one of the biggest employers.
3
SPEAKER_05
We used to have a few factories here.
3
SPEAKER_05
Not anymore.
3
SPEAKER_04
What keeps people staying?
3
SPEAKER_04
Because certain things have shut down.
3
SPEAKER_05
So what keeps people here is a lot of them just don t have anywhere else to go.
3
SPEAKER_05
Their family is here, and they re traditional families and traditional kids.
3
SPEAKER_05
I taught many, many kids who d never been to Santa Fe.
3
SPEAKER_05
But we are missing the demographic of pretty much 18 to 35, like my daughter.
3
SPEAKER_05
She was raised here, went off to college, never came back.
3
SPEAKER_05
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.
3
SPEAKER_05
And we do get a few people who their car breaks down and they decide to stay.
3
SPEAKER_05
Truthfully, it s weird.
3
SPEAKER_04
I love that.
3
SPEAKER_04
It s kind of how I got stuck in America.
3
SPEAKER_04
I kind of came here and then I couldn t get back home.
3
SPEAKER_04
So I got stuck here and just stayed.
3
SPEAKER_05
Exactly.
3
SPEAKER_05
But Roswell is what you make it.
3
SPEAKER_05
We have this revolving door of doctors and professional class.
3
SPEAKER_05
But if you re adventurous, you pretty much can do anything that you want to do here without a lot of competition.
3
SPEAKER_04
I leave Nancy and head just down the road for lunch.
3
SPEAKER_04
It s a Mexican place, and I end up talking to a rancher who s wearing a giant cowboy hat.
3
SPEAKER_04
He s quite skinny and has such long limbs, it s no surprise when he tells me his name is Spider.
3
SPEAKER_04
He s dressed immaculately, his town clothes.
3
SPEAKER_04
He runs a ranch a few hours away, but comes to Roswell to get supplies and see friends.
3
SPEAKER_02
But if it s a cold, windy day or something, I don t just need to have to, you know, have to do anything.
3
SPEAKER_02
Cows are all bushed up.
3
SPEAKER_02
Hell, I m gonna bush up.
3
SPEAKER_04
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.
3
SPEAKER_04
Do you get sick of tourists like me coming to town for the aliens?
3
SPEAKER_02
I ll be honest, I haven t spent enough time in town, really.
3
SPEAKER_02
I come in town, for me it s a lot, but you know, three, four times a month.
3
SPEAKER_02
And usually I get along with them just fine.
3
SPEAKER_04
Spider tells me that growing up, he attended the military school here in Roswell.
3
SPEAKER_04
Opened in 1891, the school roll sits at just under a thousand, and is the only state-supported military college in the Western USA.
3
SPEAKER_04
It s one of the other main drawcards to Roswell, helping to keep this town functioning.
3
SPEAKER_04
Spider tells me that for him, the military institute made him who he is today.
3
SPEAKER_04
And probably not in the way the school intended.
3
SPEAKER_04
You attended the military school in Roswell.
3
SPEAKER_04
What was that like?
3
SPEAKER_02
You know, far enough now, in the past now, that I don t feel like
4
SPEAKER_01
bombing the place, but I did for a long time.
4
SPEAKER_03
You didn t love it?
4
SPEAKER_01
No.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s what made me an anarchist.
4
SPEAKER_01
I learned everything I need to know just about how much one person should be in charge of another person.
4
SPEAKER_01
Just exactly how much competence matters in hierarchical institutions.
4
SPEAKER_03
Not a fan of hierarchies, or institutions.
4
SPEAKER_03
Spider sort of marches to the beat of his own drum.
4
SPEAKER_03
In his spare time, he hand-makes these really elaborate, beautiful cowboy boots, something he s been doing for years.
4
SPEAKER_03
He s got a website for them, grumpybastardboots.com.
4
SPEAKER_03
He s not your typical New Mexico cowboy.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I mean, most people are not loony lefties.
4
SPEAKER_01
Most cowboys are not.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I am.
4
SPEAKER_01
Both of them.
4
SPEAKER_03
A loony and a lefty.
4
SPEAKER_01
I ll tell you what, as an illustration of things.
4
SPEAKER_01
My neighbor kids were showing some animals at the county fair.
4
SPEAKER_01
And while they were on break or something, all the fat old middle-aged guys in cowboy hats were all up in arms about this Barbie movie.
4
SPEAKER_01
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.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I looked at him and I said, did you ever think maybe it ain t about you?
4
SPEAKER_01
And he goes, well, you know, this thing s made for little girls.
4
SPEAKER_01
I says, the whole world ain t made for fat-ass middle-aged white guys.
4
SPEAKER_01
And he looked at me, he says, I don t think I ve met you.
4
SPEAKER_01
And my buddy says, that spider, he s like this.
4
SPEAKER_03
I feel like everything in Roswell is a bit surprising.
4
SPEAKER_03
Nothing s quite what you expect.
4
SPEAKER_03
I m sad my time here is coming to an end.
4
SPEAKER_03
Just a few hours left before I m due at the airport.
4
SPEAKER_03
After packing my bags, I make a quick stop to meet one final local I ve heard about.
4
SPEAKER_03
Sort of a jack-of-all-trades in town.
4
SPEAKER_03
When I meet him, he s reupholstering an old lady s fancy chair.
4
SPEAKER_03
When he s not doing that, he s working on his own art, or looking after Roswell s stray cats.
4
SPEAKER_00
My name is Michael Beetz and I am the servant of the stray cats in Roswell.
4
SPEAKER_03
How many strays would you say you re looking after at any given time?
4
SPEAKER_03
I think between 40 and 60.
4
SPEAKER_03
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.
4
SPEAKER_00
Cat is like a character and they make me happy.
4
SPEAKER_00
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.
4
SPEAKER_00
and doing their things and I don t get too involved in it.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m happy I get to interact with them on some level and it s just cool that they re around.
4
SPEAKER_03
The cats have indoor and outdoor areas and the heaters get cranky in winter because Roswell gets so cold.
4
SPEAKER_03
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.
4
SPEAKER_03
There s just a fuckton of cats in Roswell.
4
SPEAKER_03
The amount of cats here.
4
SPEAKER_03
People think it s about aliens.
4
SPEAKER_03
It s about the fucking cats.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s a serious thing.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I don t know what it is.
4
SPEAKER_03
Before I go, Michael gifts me one of his artworks.
4
SPEAKER_03
A painting of a cat.
4
SPEAKER_03
I say my goodbyes because it s coming to the end of my time here.
4
SPEAKER_03
As I head to the airport, I pass back by that big landmark I drove by when I first arrived.
4
SPEAKER_03
The most American thing in town.
4
SPEAKER_03
McDonald s.
4
SPEAKER_03
I can t help myself.
4
SPEAKER_03
I pull in.
4
SPEAKER_03
So I ve come to the Roswell at McDonald s, and of course, it is shaped like a UFO.
4
SPEAKER_03
What else would I expect here?
4
SPEAKER_03
At various places outside, including by the drive-through, there s a bunch of life-size alien figurines.
4
SPEAKER_03
I m used to seeing aliens everywhere in this town by now.
4
SPEAKER_03
I open the door and head in.
4
SPEAKER_03
I m hungry.
4
SPEAKER_03
They ve got official McDonald s UFO shirts, which is kind of amazing.
4
SPEAKER_03
You don t often get merchandise at McDonald s.
4
SPEAKER_03
You can get the Nebula black hoodie for $30.
4
SPEAKER_03
You can get alien mini plushies here at this McDonalds.
4
SPEAKER_03
A UFO McDonalds poster?
4
SPEAKER_03
Incredible.
4
SPEAKER_03
I get a poster, which shows the UFO shaped McDonalds I m in right now, and there s another UFO hovering over it.
4
SPEAKER_03
As I sit down to eat my two cheeseburgers, fries and coke, a man approaches.
4
SPEAKER_03
He s seen the microphone and zeroed in on me.
4
SPEAKER_03
He s in a t-shirt with a backpack slung over one shoulder.
4
SPEAKER_03
A man on the move.
4
SPEAKER_03
He s got tightly cropped hair and gives me the intense vibe of a man who s served in the army at some point.
4
SPEAKER_03
He looks to be in his late 50s and tells me his name is David.
4
SPEAKER_03
What are the chances?
4
SPEAKER_03
Two Davids, both in Roswell, both in McDonald s.
4
SPEAKER_03
Have you been to this McDonald s before?
4
SPEAKER_02
No, but I have been on the radio many times.
4
SPEAKER_03
What have you been on the radio for?
4
SPEAKER_02
Well, for a while, but mostly because I was trying to break news about those things.
4
SPEAKER_03
He gestures through the window to one of those alien sculptures outside.
4
SPEAKER_03
He points directly at it.
4
SPEAKER_02
He says his experience started when he was in his car, looking out at the ocean.
4
SPEAKER_03
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.
4
SPEAKER_02
It was at night, it was the evening, you know?
4
SPEAKER_02
Summertime, from what I remember.
4
SPEAKER_02
I felt it splash.
4
SPEAKER_02
I felt it go down in the Gulf of Mexico.
4
SPEAKER_02
I just felt it.
4
SPEAKER_02
I didn t see it, but I felt it.
4
SPEAKER_02
I m US Coast Guard, by the way.
4
SPEAKER_02
Turned Army.
4
SPEAKER_02
And so I was on ships most of my life or near the water.
4
SPEAKER_02
Next thing I know, it s two in the morning.
4
SPEAKER_03
So the craft crashed.
4
SPEAKER_03
And next thing he knows, he s not in his car.
4
SPEAKER_03
He s at home in bed.
4
SPEAKER_03
He s experienced missing time.
4
SPEAKER_02
But this is important.
4
SPEAKER_02
I ve never been able to tell this officially to anybody.
4
SPEAKER_02
other than the Air Force and they believe me.
4
SPEAKER_03
David leans in towards me, looking deadly serious.
4
SPEAKER_03
I put my burger down.
4
SPEAKER_02
I wake up at 2.10 in the morning and I look at the foot of my bed because something has touched me.
4
SPEAKER_03
David gestures to his face and just next to his nose there s this little mark.
4
SPEAKER_03
To me it looks like either a birthmark or some kind of scar.
4
SPEAKER_02
I can see a mark on your face.
4
SPEAKER_02
Thank you.
4
SPEAKER_02
It wasn t there before.
4
SPEAKER_02
And then you see that thing?
4
SPEAKER_02
That little scar?
4
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I can see a mark on your chin there.
4
SPEAKER_02
And so I wake up because something has disturbed me.
4
SPEAKER_02
And I simply roll over and I look this thing in the eye.
4
SPEAKER_03
That thing is a seven foot tall alien.
4
SPEAKER_03
But the alien isn t alone.
4
SPEAKER_02
And listen, there was a man with it and the best way I can describe it is look up Van Morrison.
4
SPEAKER_02
The hat, the coat.
4
SPEAKER_02
That s the only way I can describe.
4
SPEAKER_02
I don t know why he was there, but somebody like him was there.
4
SPEAKER_02
I looked at this thing in the eye.
4
SPEAKER_02
It looks at me.
4
SPEAKER_03
So you re saying you were looking at a giant extraterrestrial being in your room with a man that looked like Van Morrison?
4
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_02
Well, I went back to sleep.
4
SPEAKER_03
David woke up to daylight in an empty room.
4
SPEAKER_03
No big alien.
4
SPEAKER_03
No little man accompanying him.
4
SPEAKER_02
Were you thinking at that point it could have been a dream or something?
4
SPEAKER_02
Or did you know it was definitely there?
4
SPEAKER_02
I m a U.S.
4
SPEAKER_02
Coast Guard.
4
SPEAKER_02
When I wake up, I got to either go get something or make something happen.
4
SPEAKER_02
I wake up with clarity.
4
SPEAKER_02
People hate me because I m a morning person.
4
SPEAKER_03
Then you see this mark by your nose and there s something on your neck.
4
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_02
And so I set the phone down and I m like, what is this?
4
SPEAKER_02
And I m looking at the mirror and I squeeze this thing and something like an ingrown hair pops out, but it s coiled.
4
SPEAKER_02
And I take the tweezers and I pull it out.
4
SPEAKER_02
Right then the phone rings.
4
SPEAKER_02
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.
4
SPEAKER_02
And it s called the Washington ID desk.
4
SPEAKER_02
I m thinking this bonehead guy with the fedora, the small fedora, might be from the Air Force base.
4
SPEAKER_03
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 7-foot alien.
4
SPEAKER_03
And he s called, just as David is removing something from his neck.
4
SPEAKER_02
It s, I guess, that dude, because he says, hey, stop doing that.
4
SPEAKER_02
Leave your implant alone.
4
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, he knew that I popped that out and pulled it out.
4
SPEAKER_02
Looked like an antenna.
4
SPEAKER_02
How long ago did this happen?
4
2004.
4
SPEAKER_02
They clocked me, dude.
4
SPEAKER_03
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.
4
SPEAKER_03
Thank you for sharing your story.
4
SPEAKER_03
So, in short, aliens are real and they re here amongst us.
4
SPEAKER_03
The only one I ve ever seen was that one.
4
SPEAKER_03
Thank you, David.
4
SPEAKER_03
I appreciate you sharing.
4
SPEAKER_03
I m going to go and eat my cheeseburgers.
4
SPEAKER_03
That s a compelling story, and I appreciate you sharing it.
4
SPEAKER_03
Thank you.
4
SPEAKER_03
And I hope you enjoyed your, what did you have at your McDonald s today?
4
SPEAKER_02
I tried to work and order the bacon, egg, and cheese because Tucumcari only has bacon, egg, and cheese, but I don t order it at the McDonald s.
4
SPEAKER_02
I order it at this other place.
4
SPEAKER_02
Thank you, David.
4
SPEAKER_02
I had sausage, egg, and cheese, and a coffee.
4
SPEAKER_03
It seemed like a fitting way to end my time in Roswell, a sausage egg in
5
SPEAKER_00
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.
5
SPEAKER_00
If I could clunkily sum Roswell up, it surprised me.
5
SPEAKER_00
It was full of the stories I expected, but also full of tangents and oddities.
5
SPEAKER_00
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.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m sitting in the very same place that crashed UFO ended up nearly eight decades ago.
5
SPEAKER_00
And if you re a believer or not, it s kinda cool.
5
SPEAKER_00
And that was my trip into the depths of Roswell, New Mexico.
5
SPEAKER_00
I recommend it to anyone who wants a little trip.
5
SPEAKER_01
Oh, wow.
5
SPEAKER_01
That was such an adventure you took us on.
5
SPEAKER_01
And you met some people.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and that s the thing.
5
SPEAKER_00
I was reminded of these places.
5
SPEAKER_00
Oh, you could do it in New Zealand, but the great thing about America is you just walk up to anyone and everyone has a story.
5
SPEAKER_00
And they might be about cats or aliens or miniatures or their love of certain things.
5
SPEAKER_00
And they just want to share with you.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I love listening to people just telling me these stories.
5
SPEAKER_00
I mean, my namesake, David, he wanted to talk a lot more.
5
SPEAKER_00
He had a lot of talking to do.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I sort of gently said, we need to finish our burgers and get on with the day.
5
SPEAKER_00
But yeah, everyone has a story.
5
SPEAKER_00
And honestly, I think it s made me want to explore more.
5
SPEAKER_00
Because these little towns all over America, and I feel like aliens or not, they ve all got really interesting people in them.
5
SPEAKER_01
Are you watching this current season of Fargo?
5
SPEAKER_00
No, I m not watching.
5
SPEAKER_00
I hear the new season s really good.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s incredibly good.
5
SPEAKER_01
I finished.
5
SPEAKER_01
I started and finished in a few days.
5
SPEAKER_01
There s a character that at first Spider reminded me of, but then it took a turn.
5
SPEAKER_01
You mean Jon Hamm s character?
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
First he was Jon Hamm, but then he took a turn that I liked.
5
SPEAKER_01
It was very mixed messages.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
I mean, it was interesting because Spider was a friend of my friend.
5
SPEAKER_00
They had met Spider in town because he just stands out.
5
SPEAKER_00
He s dressed exquisitely.
5
SPEAKER_00
He hand makes his own boots.
5
SPEAKER_00
He s this tall, wiry cowboy.
5
SPEAKER_00
He speaks in this really slow matter of fact way.
5
SPEAKER_00
But yeah, somewhere along the way, he really listens to a lot of raging at his machine, hates authority.
5
SPEAKER_00
He s like, screw this, I m an anarchist.
5
SPEAKER_00
He s got like an anarchy symbol on his big pickup truck.
5
SPEAKER_00
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...
5
SPEAKER_00
creative and he sort of takes pride that he s not the typical cowboy that you d necessarily someone like me would expect.
5
SPEAKER_01
He s a feminist anarchist.
5
SPEAKER_00
He s a feminist anarchist, which is kind of amazing.
5
SPEAKER_01
What a sentence.
5
SPEAKER_01
What a sentence.
5
SPEAKER_00
But yeah, he was folded into the booth in this Mexican place.
5
SPEAKER_00
He d barely fit because he s just so long.
5
SPEAKER_00
He was like a spider.
5
SPEAKER_00
He was very, very, very cool.
5
SPEAKER_00
Everyone I met was kind of amazing, actually.
5
SPEAKER_00
There were no duds in Roswell.
5
SPEAKER_00
No one I went up to disappointed.
5
SPEAKER_00
Everyone had a story and they were all sort of amazing.
5
SPEAKER_00
And so many different accents there as well.
5
SPEAKER_01
You got some really good characters.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m impressed.
5
SPEAKER_01
Two things.
5
SPEAKER_01
One, is Roswell a vortex?
5
SPEAKER_00
My understanding, I m not a big Vortex guy.
5
SPEAKER_00
I don t think it s a Vortex.
5
SPEAKER_00
And when you say Vortex, like the center of some different spirit lines and all that kind of thing?
5
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
5
SPEAKER_01
There are areas of the country and world, I guess, that people say are Vortexes.
5
SPEAKER_01
Ojai being one of them.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, Kasadaga, that spiritualist town, that had a few Vortexes.
5
SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
5
SPEAKER_01
Sedona, so Vortex.
5
SPEAKER_00
Vortex-free.
5
SPEAKER_00
I heard no talk of Vortexes.
5
SPEAKER_00
I only heard talk of an alien crashed here and it wasn t that crazy.
5
SPEAKER_01
Okay, and then two, I have to do a fact check.
5
SPEAKER_01
Well, sort of a fact check.
5
SPEAKER_01
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.
5
SPEAKER_01
In the movie, that character s name is Mr. Duncan, so it s probably why I associated it.
5
SPEAKER_00
His name s Mr. Duncan?
5
SPEAKER_00
That s incredible.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, but I guess it s not as cool.
5
SPEAKER_01
I didn t just imagine that that s what he was.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s because that was his name.
5
SPEAKER_01
So I have to just come forward.
5
SPEAKER_00
I love that this has been plaguing you.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s been haunting me for a week.
5
SPEAKER_00
Also, did you go and rewatch Home Alone 2?
5
SPEAKER_01
No, I just looked him up after.
5
SPEAKER_01
I had a suspicion something was up.
5
SPEAKER_01
Kind of like these people in Roswell.
5
SPEAKER_01
They just have suspicions.
5
SPEAKER_01
They have spidey senses.
5
SPEAKER_01
Spider.
5
SPEAKER_00
I like this.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
I also now want donuts again because it s in New Zealand.
5
SPEAKER_00
So in New Zealand, it s Saturday, January 20th, as we record this at 9am.
5
SPEAKER_00
What time is it for you?
5
SPEAKER_01
I can t believe it.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s Friday at 12pm.
5
SPEAKER_01
That is so weird.
5
SPEAKER_01
What happens today?
5
SPEAKER_01
Tell us what happens today.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s a good day.
5
SPEAKER_00
You ll wake up with like a little bit of a headache because you had too many wines before you went to bed.
5
SPEAKER_00
So what are you missing?
5
SPEAKER_00
You haven t had any of Saturday yet.
5
SPEAKER_01
I haven t had any Friday.
5
SPEAKER_01
What happens on Friday?
5
SPEAKER_00
Oh my God.
5
SPEAKER_00
Friday night is a blowout.
5
SPEAKER_00
You think it s going to be a chill night and then friends start arriving and suddenly you ve got the wine.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s going to get money.
5
SPEAKER_00
It gets crazy.
5
SPEAKER_01
Oh, I m so excited.
5
SPEAKER_00
Just yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s something to look forward to.
5
SPEAKER_00
I can t wait 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.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s true.
5
SPEAKER_00
And it s poison.
5
SPEAKER_01
I can t wait for all of this.
5
SPEAKER_01
It is poison.
5
SPEAKER_00
You re going to have a great night.
5
SPEAKER_01
No regrets.
5
SPEAKER_01
Well, this is fun.
5
SPEAKER_01
I really enjoyed this episode a lot.
5
SPEAKER_01
And it is spooky.
5
SPEAKER_00
I think you ve become a bit more of a believer, maybe.
5
SPEAKER_00
A tiny bit.
5
SPEAKER_00
I think a little bit of you.
5
SPEAKER_00
When you were listening to the story of the little Van Morrison man in the fedora in the 7-4, I saw I was looking at your face and you were thinking, hey, maybe this happened.
5
SPEAKER_01
I think you don t know me well enough yet.
5
SPEAKER_01
Well, you don t know how to read faces, which we ve already established.
5
SPEAKER_01
And this is more evidence.
5
SPEAKER_01
This is great.
5
SPEAKER_01
I enjoyed this.
5
SPEAKER_01
I think I became more American.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I think we all did.
5
SPEAKER_00
I think even Rob, I saw him become a little bit more American, which is rare because he s so American.
5
SPEAKER_01
He s so American.
5
SPEAKER_00
Sometimes I look at Rob and I m almost disgusted by how American he is.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m jealous, I ll never get to that level of American.
5
SPEAKER_00
He s a stereotype.
5
SPEAKER_00
No, Rob, you re a beautiful snowflake and we love you dearly.
5
SPEAKER_00
All right, love you guys.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, travel home safe.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m actually, I usually travel in New Zealand.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m traveling on United.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m becoming more American.
5
SPEAKER_01
That is, wow.
5
SPEAKER_01
You jumped ship.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s incredible.
5
SPEAKER_00
Also, they ve got a new route to New Zealand, so it s a lot cheaper.
5
SPEAKER_01
What airline had the door fly off?
5
SPEAKER_00
Oh God, a door flew off?
5
SPEAKER_00
I missed this.
5
SPEAKER_00
I think it was Alaska.
5
SPEAKER_01
Was it?
5
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
5
SPEAKER_00
Oh, I hate it when the door comes off.
5
SPEAKER_00
So stressful.
5
SPEAKER_00
But no one got hurt though.
5
SPEAKER_01
No one got hurt.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s great.
5
SPEAKER_01
But the door did fly off, the emergency door.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s always the fear, isn t it?
5
SPEAKER_00
You see that comically big latch and you think, how easy would it be for it to open?
5
SPEAKER_01
As hypochondriacal as I am, I ve never thought that until now this happened.
5
SPEAKER_01
I mean, ugh.
5
SPEAKER_00
I somehow missed this news and that s terrifying.
5
SPEAKER_00
And thank you for telling me before I get on a plane tomorrow.
5
SPEAKER_01
Are you sitting by the emergency exit?
5
SPEAKER_00
I think I might be because I always get that.
5
SPEAKER_00
So I ve got more leg room.
5
SPEAKER_01
I wear my seat belt extra tight.
5
SPEAKER_01
Wear the seat belt.
5
SPEAKER_01
And remember to write me a note on your airplane because they might come to fruition that we might need it.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, OK.
5
SPEAKER_00
All right.
5
SPEAKER_00
All right.
5
SPEAKER_00
A little death note for you.
5
SPEAKER_00
All right.
5
SPEAKER_01
I appreciate it.
5
SPEAKER_00
OK, bye, guys.
5
SPEAKER_01
OK, bye.
5
Yeah.