Roswell 50th vs. Alien Trespass

Here was my forked path: write a scathing review of the terrible Alien Trespass or recall an article from the vault that chronicles the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Roswell UFO crash from 1997.
Alien Trespass was directed without an ounce of suspense or recognition of parody. Basically it's a color version of 50s sci-fi melodrama, mainly It Came From Outer Space (1953, and originally in 3-D) with a touch of Invasion of the Saucer Men and a dash of The Blob. It Came From Outer Space had a great sense of timing, and that great speech by the sheriff about how people react according to the temperature. Alien Trespass has no sense or feel for satire, which is how this affair would work. The entire experience was like seeing something that should be on the Sci-Fi Channel (for those in the know, no longer known by that moniker) late at night.
So enough of that 50s retro tomfoolery. If I want to see horror or sci-fi homage done in style I'll stick to Joe Dante or Sam Raimi. Here is an article that recounts the 1997 July 4 celebration in Roswell, New Mexico.
Last year the July 4th holiday was invaded by movie aliens, the blockbuster Independence Day. This year's July 4 will mark the ghost of aliens' past when a keystone of the UFO fascination, the Roswell UFO crash, unfolds as a week long festival marking the 50th anniversary of the event.
All UFO-roads seem to spring from Roswell. You have your debris, crashed spaceship, dead aliens, government cover-ups with a cast of characters big enough to stock two Shakespeare plays, maybe even a top secret explanation. One thing is fact: There's a party going on in Roswell, New Mexico, starting Tuesday, July 1, and running until Sunday, July 7. It's likely this sleepy town of just under 50,000 will burst at the seams as thousands of UFO-crazed truth-seekers converge along its antiquated streets.
The quickest way to get to Roswell from Public News World Headquarters in Houston is to fly to Midland/Odessa, or Lubbock, or El Paso, or if you want a bit of distance, Albuquerque -- and then proceed by charter or vehicle to Roswell, nestled in southeastern New Mexico at the crossroads of state highways 285 and 380. Or, hop on your bike and head towards the sun on Interstate 10; just remember to take a Roscoe at 285 in Fort Stockton.
For those of you from another planet and unfamiliar with cultural meta-myth, in 1947, in a month chock full of UFO sightings, on July 3 (The cover story in this week's Time places this event in mid-June.) ranch foreman Mac Brazel found metallic debris in his pasture. Nearby, the 509th Bomb Group held down the only atomic weapons then in our country's arsenal at a base near Roswell. Within days the military had confiscated the material, and possibly located another site with a crashed spacecraft and dead or injured diminuitive gray aliens.
Three decades went by before people regained their collective memory about the event, whereupon the Roswell incident became the stuff of legend. It also became Roswell's primary industrial base (along with the manufacture of mozarella cheese). In fact, recent elections in Roswell voted in a mayor favorable to exploiting the UFO-tourist connection.
With two museums dedicated to the crash, the UFO Enigma Museum (located at the closed Walker Air Base, 505-347-2275) and the International UFO Museum and Research Center (505-625-9495), along with a symphony, park, and zoo, one doesn't have travel any further than the next state of mind to pray to the aliens.
Tours to the debris and crash sites are also available, though an article in the July '96 Forbes suggests that at least one of the crash sites is bogus, set up by the museum on U.S. Forest Service land.
Of course, we're talking something that happened so long ago that most of the people who were present at the time are dead. For those who like to talk about something a little more recent, try the UFO crash in Varginha, Brazil (January 20, 1996) and the upcoming First World UFO Forum, to be held in amphitheaters of the Legiao da Boa Vontade in Brasilia.
Roswell puts on its UFO celebration like a passion play, forever enshrining whatever the truth was in a veil of hype. The denizens of the Roswell even put on a community production of Ezekiel's Wheel (shades of Waiting for Guffman), an original one act play, starting July 2.
Event '97: The 50th Anniversary of the Roswell Incident segues into the UFO Conference on July 3, featuring a speaker line-up that's a who's-who of the unexplained and abducted. Holy chariots of fire, when the speeches are given by Erich von Daniken, Whitley Strieber, and Stanton Friendman, just three of 12 lecturers, it might be time to listen up.