Medha Sarin
Roswell Tribune
msarin@elritomedia.com
Benjamin Fernando strolled through shelves lined with thousands of books in Roswell’s International UFO Museum on 114 N. Main Street.
His mother, Jade Dasco, 47, and father, Lambert Fernando, 54, trailed behind him, occasionally sliding stories off the shelves and flipping through the pages.
The family of New Yorkers took a special interest in extraterrestrial phenomena, spurred by theories and discussion online.
“I see a lot of stuff on social media about aliens and conspiracy theories, so that’s pretty cool,” Benjamin Fernando, 16, said.
The museum, known officially as the International UFO Museum and Research Center and Gift Shop, opened to visitors in 1992 to educate the public about the Roswell Incident, a highly publicized alleged alien sighting from 1947, and the concept of unidentified flying objects.
The museum contains exhibitions on UFO phenomena, a gift shop and a research library: a lesser known yet deeply intriguing collection of scientific research, witness reports and other archival material.
“The weird side of life is going to be in here,” said Snow Oropesa, 25, a staff member who has worked primarily in the library since she started in March 2023. “Alien abductions. Crop circles. As morbid as it sounds, cow mutilations.”
The library has more than 7,000 donated books and more than 30,000 magazines, periodicals and pamphlets about the extraterrestrial. The bookshelves also contain over 1,500 DVDs, including recordings from witnesses of alleged alien sightings.
“I’m very impressed by the wealth of literature and research materials in here,” visitor Jade Dasco, 47, said.
A second room of the library stretches floor to ceiling with government documents, scientific journals and magazines. The stacks include the prominent journal MUFON, described as “the leading authority for reporting and investigating sightings, abductions and other unexplained phenomena,” according to its website.
The research haven of Main Street harkens back to an alleged crash landing at an unsuspecting ranch in Corona, New Mexico, 79 years ago.
The Roswell Incident
The “Roswell Incident,” marked its 79th anniversary this year.
In 1947, rancher W.W. Brazel and other locals discovered unusual debris resembling tinfoil and what they claimed were alien bodies on Brazel’s ranch near Corona, about 75 miles north of Roswell.
The city’s military base, Roswell Army AirField, reported the debris came from a “flying disc.” The U.S. military countered that it was a weather balloon. Brazel disputed the U.S. Army’s claim, leading to an onslaught of conspiracy theories and hoaxes in the decades since the event.
In 1994, the U.S. Air Force acknowledged that the weather balloon claim was false. Rather, an American spy balloon containing parachute crash-test dummies produced the debris, according to that report. Alien believers argue this correction is simply part of a cover-up to hide an otherworldly truth.
‘They have to live with that.’
The mission of the museum and research center is solely to educate, not convince, Oropesa said.
“The museum itself isn’t to persuade anybody to believe in it,” Oropesa said. “We’re here to just give you the information that we have, and then you can make up your own mind.”
Clear displays interspersed between bookshelves showcase toys and movie memorabilia from the likes of Star Wars as an easy entryway for reluctant attendees.
“People are a little bit confused about that. They’re like, ‘Well, I thought this was the actual research,’” Oropesa said, referring to some visitors’ reactions to the research library. “We’re trying to close that gap between sci-fi and actual research. That’s how a lot of people are interested in the alien world, because of movies.”
More than just a vast archive, Oropesa said people can meet with library staff and share personal reports of suspected alien encounters from their past. Attendees can fill out a form with details of where and when the encounter took place.
“There’s a lot of people who see something and don’t say it, and then they just regret it because they have to live with that,” Oropesa said.
Oropesa said she’s seen a sense of relief fall on some visitors’ faces as they finally recite an unexplained occurrence they experienced.
“You see almost a relief on certain people, from people my age to people who are almost 80,” she said. “People who have held onto just that one story that they were able to finally tell somebody.”
‘Somebody to listen’
Oropesa stressed the museum itself doesn’t investigate witness accounts. Alien enthusiasts seeking an investigation process can file reports on MUFON’s website, mufon.com, she said.
The library’s reports go into files stored in an office. The research center only displays complete boxes of documents in various categories, so the witness accounts may not make it out for public viewing, Oropesa said.
“If there’s not enough to make one box, we have to keep it (in the office,)” Oropesa said.
Oropesa said she’s received a wealth of stories as a library staffer, including kids reciting movie plotlines or potentially made-up stories from people mocking the concept of aliens.
“There’s always those one or two few that poke fun at the topic, which you still have to kind of be professional about,” she said.
She said she still loved working in the library.
“Regardless, it’s really cool to work here and hear the stories and talk to people because essentially, that’s what everybody wants,” she said. “They just want somebody to listen.”
Reporting Intern Medha Sarin can be followed on Instagram @medsar_.
