Roswell UFO's Everywhere!

If only Harry had stuck around to see all this, I was thinking. UFO's swirling everywhere and alien faces in all colors, peering from store windows, even surrounding the bus bench in front of the Roswell WalMart, which has its own kitchy green alien faces on its front wall. Roswell, New Mexico, home to the UFO Museum and Research Center, and the entire town has joined in with their own alien insignias above coffee houses, gas stations and convenience stores. If you don't believe me, you can check out the coke machine on the downtown corner near the Museum. Witness the larger than life green alien face greeting your dollar bill deposit.

In the early 90's, Harry, my writing partner of 13 years and a true believer, took a trip to Roswell with John Fielding, then producer of Ted Koppel's "Nightline", to visit with his long time buddy UFO author Clifford Stone and UFO investigator Walter Haut. Harry was writing a book called "Broken Silence" that was nearing publication with Broadway Books. The book, like so many of the articles that he and I wrote about, dealt with UFO events and conspiracy theories, and like many UFO books and articles that came before, made mention of the alleged UFO crash in Roswell in July 1947, that occurred on a ranch now open to tourism.

Harry, much like Clifford and Walter Haut, had his own early UFO experiences to talk about and the meeting in New Mexico, would explore that. In addition there was a buzz about laying the groundwork for museum in Roswell to commemorate its odd history. This concept for a museum had never been tried before,anywhere, and there, at Walter Haut's home during that visit, the seeds were sown. This May, when I spoke to Julia, Walter Haut's daughter and curator of the Museum, she recalled that serendipitous meeting and told me that in the beginning, no one could have imagined that it would all come to this. Harry, unfortunately never lived to see the birth of the UFO Museum because he died of a heart attack in late 1995. I don't think that he could have imagined in his wildest dreams that this town and the Museum would become a UFO investigator's haven.

Harry's manuscript,"Broken Silence", can be read at the Museum's library, along with lots of other magazine articles we wrote, including our bilingual bookazine "Ovni, La Entera Verdad", from Editorial Televisa's World Almanaque, compiled and written back in 1994. The library has compiled UFO material from hundreds of credible writers and artists the world over. I donated my cartons of writings and artwork when the Museum was in its infancy, and was delighted to see Harry's and my name on the brass plaque of donors at the library's entrance.Julie says the Museum is growing and, in fact, an 18 million dollar expansion is underway to move the UFO Museum from its downtown location, to a larger building uptown.

Sometimes, I think about Harry when I'm in Roswell and, occasionally, I find myself talking to him, since he has passed on to the spiritual world. A couple of years ago, I was in a field looking for Pecos Diamonds, the beautiful pink stone of Roswell, and I proceded to tell Harry(who I was certain was watching me) about the Museum and its profound influence on the town. I told him he would be proud to see all our writings there for everyone to study. I don't know whether Harry heard me for sure, but as I searched the ground, a pink arrowhead suddenly peeked up from the sand, and then when I got back to the Jeep, I saw that my jacket pocket, had a green hanky in it with "4 H's" in all four directions. It looked to be a hanky from the 4 H Club, but I had never seen it before. A slight chill ran through and that night I told my adopted Navajo Dad about this. He told me that often arrowheads bring us messages from the other world.

I take this to mean that Harry pretty much knows what has happened in Roswell because he once told me that he lived in other dimensions as much as in this one. He used to say that he was OF this world but not really IN this world. I never really understood what he was saying but I knew that he never had any fear of death and firmly believed there was something else out there. When I visited the Museum, one of the librarians mentioned that they often thought that there were ghosts right there in the archives. If this is so, then maybe Harry is there watching over the place in some way, making sure we never forget about that Roswell crash or the ones that followed. It could almost make a believer out of anyone.