Roswell embraces past and turns a buck

Aliens everywhere
"We're beginning to wonder," says Brian Lewis of Paso Robles, Calif., passing through Roswell recently with his family, "if the real conspiracy is to draw in all the tourists."

In Roswell, there are aliens everywhere. They're on T-shirts, postcards, refrigerator magnets, socks and keychains. They play drums and guitars — a band, The Pleiadeans — in a music store window display.

There are T-shirt shops, gift boutiques and even an Army-themed restaurant, a former Denny's called the Cover-Up Cafe ("Where all the recipes are secret").

Painted on the wall outside the Roswell Alien Corner store: "Indian Jewelry, Mexican Imports, Alien Gifts."

Armstrong, one of the would-be developers of Earth Station Roswell, recently opened Planet Roswell, an outlet store for "Roswell Gear" jeans, jackets and other apparel. The target audience, Armstrong says, is "anybody who likes UFOs, Star Trek and the Sci-Fi Channel."

"Our demographic represents a cross-section of America," he says, moments after hoisting and securing a large planet Earth display 20 feet above a sidewalk.

On one downtown sidewalk, green, two-toed footprints meander a half-block from Main Street to the Roswell Space Center, Larry and Sharon Welz's souvenir shop.

Larry Welz is an artist (he once dabbled in pornographic comic books). His space-themed artwork is scattered on signs and buildings around town, including a magnificent 110-foot mural on a building near McDonald's.

Their shop features a "space walk" — Larry's look at the Roswell Incident, a tunnel of painted scenes colorfully glowing under black light. Tourists drop $2 in a plastic tube and step into the portal.

"People come from halfway around the world to see something in Roswell, but they're not sure what they want. This is my attempt to show them," he explains.

The Welzes lament that Roswell hasn't done even more to embrace the UFO phenomenon.

"The signs coming into town say, 'Welcome to Roswell, Dairy Capital of the Southwest,'" Sharon Welz says. "Are you kidding? You should exploit the UFO thing. It's a commodity. When you say Roswell, everyone thinks about aliens."

They confess to being UFO commandos. One night in the summer of 1998, the Welzes loaded a ladder into a convertible and drove down Main Street, painting black alien eyes on street lamps.

"They didn't give us permission," Larry says, "but they didn't really blame us for doing it, either."

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