A small segment from a big road trip.

Driving through the wilds of the empty New Mexico desert early in the morning it was obvious why the aliens chose to land here. Back in 1947 Roswell hit the headlines the world over when an apparent alien spaceship crashed on a ranch nearby and set everyone's imaginations alight. But arriving at Roswell UFO museum (or 'research facility' as the locals prefer) its clear the decorators lacked this imagination.

ET's magic middle finger adorns the side of the building right in the middle of town. A quick look around and there are fake spaceships on buildings and alien eyes on street lamps, like some creepy child's toy. On the contrary, the locals are very serious about the issue, as I found out when I sniggered at possibly the worst alien show in existence (Christmas fairy lights and a smoke machine, really?!) the staff would have killed me if looks could.

Walking inside I felt I could have been back at school, walking into the main hall observing the students weird science projects, shabby, ripped, laminated and stuck down with PritStick. I felt bad for laughing, but I'd seen better displays in my local library.

From all over America, people had written letters of 'personal experiences' and sent in photos of UFO's in the skies across the land. Now, I'm usually open minded and never really skeptical, but one letter from a woman describing her experience was stolen from 'Close encounters of the third kind' and THAT photo of a UFO? So clearly a fake the person holding/throwing the toy UFO may as well be in the picture, smiling, thumbs up. Section upon section dedicated to the alien world, crop circles, Area 51 and even Mayan myths of an alien invasion, it's quite an impressive collection of fiction with 'life sized' alien models in giant test tubes, but it's just not, well, right.

Any small belief i'd had before in other beings and aliens had now been dismissed, shattered into millions of pieces of hilarity. It made me think about our very being, we really must be alone after all, the universe doesn't have a sense of humour quite this good.

Back in the van and hitting the road again I look out the window at Roswell passing by, being waved off by alien tshirts for sale in shop windows and wondering how did I end up here? It wasn't the best part of my journey across the US yet but, heading back into the empty landscape of New Mexico I reflected on the aliens and thought that, maybe if that is all true it wouldn't be so bad. They'd love the fairy lights...