Aliens are not Green, Navajo don’t belong in New Mexico!

Aliens are not Green, Navajo don’t belong in New Mexico!

A 200-mile drive today proves easy since it’s straight down US285 which is mostly a divided highway and could have been built by the Romans (almost no curves!)

It takes us through several New Mexico counties including Lincoln County, at the border of which are two 20 feet high cowboys watching each other threateningly.  I get out to investigate but there’s nothing written on them but the artist’s signature.  We’ll find out later that they were completed recently in memory of two brothers who were not the best of friends!  However, the placing is appropriate since Lincoln County was the site of famous wars in the 19^th Century, of which more later.


Our destination is Bottomless Lakes State Park, New Mexico’s oldest State Park.  We’re pleasantly surprised not only with the location but the fact that we have a full hookup for the RV and the cost is no more than we’d pay for a basic site in most other states!  The lakes are not actually bottomless, but were named that by soldiers who were unable to find the bottom.  They’re sink holes!  Our camp site is very close to a lake, giving us excellent sunset views and a great swim, and we almost have the park to ourselves for most of our stay.


We’re 17 miles outside of Roswell, where a young farmer claimed that an alien spaceship landed on his property in the late 1940’s.  The town trades on this, with “aliens” everywhere including in the Visitor Center, and several stores selling alien paraphernalia.  Most of it is rather kitschy, to be honest, but we spend an entertaining couple of hours at the International UFO Museum, which tells the story of the Roswell landing and other alien encounters.  The aliens were small and hairless with large heads, but they were not green.


The exhibits are very persuasive and point to a cover up by the US government.  The farmer originally reported a crashed ship with 5 aliens, one of whom was still alive.  He retrieved a piece of very strong but pliable metal from the ship (there’s a sample in the museum) which six like nothing seen on earth at that time.  By the time the farmer was interviewed by the local radio station he had been visited by the military and refused to confirm the story.  There are sworn affidavits from people at the radio station alleging that they were told by the State Department and the New Mexico senior senator that if they continued to talk about this, they would lose their license “within 3 days”.

In fact, the story was kept secret for many years, and it was only when local residents started to compare stories told late in life by eye witnesses who had no connection with each other that it became clear that something had happened back in the 1940’s and the government didn’t want anyone to know about it.  That much appears to be true, but whether there really was an alien ship that crashed and the “cover up” was because, as one official stated, :we don’t want people to think there’s something we don’t know how to handle” or whether it was simply some secret government test (this was during the Cold War) is still a mystery since the data is still classified.


Leaving the museum, we find a shop with home made ice cream in interesting flavors like violet and (for me) raspberry habanero.  After a shipping expedition we have an early dinner – great steak with a sumptuous salad bar – at the Cattle Baron, the local outpost of a New Mexico chain.

We enjoy a quiet day at the park, and then use the car to retrace part of our journey to visit Fort Sumter.  This is famous for two reasons.  It’s the place where Billy the Kid was shot dead by Pat Garrett (who was not a US Marshall at the time, we learn).  The town has an interesting Museum where we learn the life story of W. Henry McCarty, the New York City boy who came west with his mother and stepfather and who became the famous outlaw.  As we continue to travel Southern New Mexico we’ll learn more about the Kid, and visit other places where he lived.  This wasn’t part of our plan, but as with Lewis and Clark last summer, it seems we’re following his trail.  One thing is clear.  The Kid was certainly a vicious killer, but he was educated, well read, handsome and charming and was well liked by many who met him, including the local Indians who he championed.


While there might be two sides to the story of Billy, there is only one side to Fort Sumter, which is the reason we came.  We know from our time in Arizona that in the 19^th Century the Navajo were forced to leave their traditional lands and walk over 200 miles to the “Bosque Redondo Reservation “.  Fort Sumter (or rather the area around it) is the site of that reservation.  While the soldiers and their families enjoyed (relative) comfort in the fort buildings, the Navajo were forced to pitch their tents in an area where nothing would grow.  As we found, summer temperatures can top 90 degrees, and we heard that winter brought biting winds and snow.

Many Navajo perished on the walk, and during the 2 years they spent at Fort Sumter.  This was an “experiment” conducted by one General James Cameron and his willing assistant Colonel Kit Carson.  The general was eventually replaced and the Navajo were “allowed” to go home.  Many more died on the walk home.  To make matters worse, the Mescalero Apache from western New Mexico were also forced onto the same reservation.  These people, form two totally different cultures, were forced to live together.  The Apache actually escaped one night and made it back to their homeland.


We learn all this from the excellent exhibits in the Visitor Center.  It’s not a part od American History to be proud of, but it IS a part of history to learn from.


We return to the campsite, stopping for another ice cream, and prepare for our short journey to the mountains tomorrow.