During a driving vacation, curiosity pulled me into the International UFO Museum and Research Center in downtown Roswell, New Mexico. I didn’t find any aliens. Instead, I discovered the emotional blueprint for Trump’s proposed presidential library in Miami.
You’ve probably heard about the world’s most famous potential UFO crash—in 1947 near Roswell. I am open-minded about this stuff. Not wacky, “I hear UFO signals in my brain” open, but I find the math convincing. Astronomers estimate the universe has septillion planets—that’s comparable to all the grains of sand on Earth. Given that staggering number, intelligent life must exist elsewhere too.
Upon entering the museum, I walked past human-sized gray alien figures with enormous violet-colored crystal eyes and paid my $7 admission fee. The cashier encouraged me to watch the movie first.
The movie felt like being trapped in someone’s 1960s basement while they played grainy home videos. The man in the video said, in a slow monotone voice, something like, “My mom was there. She was in the kitchen and heard sounds. My mom had good hearing. I trust everything she ever told me. She saw a flash too. I’m sure she was wearing her glasses because she was in the kitchen.” I never knew aliens could be so boring.
My attitude of “I want to believe” was dissolving as the video continued. The interviewees sounded like cult members.
I decided to give the museum exhibits a chance. It became clear why the cashier encouraged me to start with the movie. The first exhibit gallery was even more boring—lots of text, both exaggerated and far too detailed at the same time. The next gallery was slightly better, consisting of an old movie set with more human-sized gray aliens who had large violet eyes. I wasn’t quite sure what the set from a science fiction movie proved, but I was learning that the distinction between fact and fiction really didn’t matter much. They were all presented as proof.
Then, the most interesting thing in the museum appeared: not an exhibit, but another visitor. He bent over to study each word in an exhibit but made sure not to bump his cone-shaped hat, covered in tinfoil. His design seemed inspired by the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz.
I claim to be a man of fact and science, so my last hope was the museum’s research center. Upon entering, I found the area impressive—several large rooms filled with hundreds of shelves and thousands of books. The plastic Star Trek and Star Wars characters raised a bit of doubt given their display in a research library, but I held out hope for the books.
I pulled a random book off the shelf—a three-ring binder with a neatly typed title on its spine. It contained page after page of scotch-taped, faded-yellow newspaper articles with titles like “Saucer Sightin’ Scares Em.” I felt this strong obsessive-compulsive vibe and envisioned someone assembling these binders week after week, year after year, in a secret basement. My last hope was dashed.
After leaving the museum, I read online that the U.S. Army had covered up the crash because the debris contained top-secret equipment to monitor Soviet nuclear weapons.
Ironically, the museum strained so hard, with such fervent, unchecked passion, to prove the alien encounter that I left convinced no alien had ever appeared. I didn’t need the U.S. Army explanation to convince me.
When I returned home to Miami, Trump had released a video of his presidential library. It will stand just one mile from my neighborhood.
I felt trapped watching someone’s home movies again. Instead of delusions of aliens, the video showed delusions of grandeur—the tallest of soaring skyscrapers, the most opulent of ballrooms and lobbies, and Trump’s name leaping gilded from facades and sparkling upon marquees (14 times in 82 seconds). A White House spokesman told NPR that it is “one of the most magnificent buildings in the world and a living testament to the indelible impact President Trump has made on America and its people.”
Instead of visitors with Tin Man hats, the video showed me that true believers will be wealthy guests wearing gowns and tuxedos in a grand ballroom, presumably because they followed the website’s directions, “If you want to donate more than $10,000, click here.”
The same fervent, unchecked passion seemed to brush aside regulations and rumors of graft. The prototype library is a glistening building that soars above any other tower in Miami, far past the 1,049-foot threshold set by the Federal Aviation Administration for flight safety. The lobby holds several aircraft, including the 747 Air Force One jetliner that Qatar gifted to the president.
Trump told the media, “I don’t believe in building libraries or museums.” Perhaps visitors will be spared super-detailed text displayed on a wall. But the video shows that, as a visitor, I should brace myself for recordings of Trump’s speeches, possibly ones like his most recent State of the Union address, which ran one hour and 48 minutes, breaking his own previous record for the longest address ever. I guess presidents can be even more boring than aliens.
Visitors to the Trump library may walk away with the same feeling I had at the UFO Museum—anyone straining so hard to prove something is probably untethered from the truth.
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