American Eagle to fly nonstop from LAX to Roswell (yes, the ‘UFO’ Roswell in New Mexico)

Earlier this week, we learned that American Airlines affiliate American Eagle soon will be launching nonstop services from Los Angeles (LAX) to Roswell International Air Center (ROS). Yes, that’s southeastern New Mexico’s Roswell: population of around 50,000, home to the state’s oldest orchestra, and — oh, yes — a whole lot of commotion about the alien kind.

It all started in 1947 with the “Roswell Incident,” the crème de la crème of conspiracy-theory fodder. A mysterious crash of a flying object occurs in the desert during a thunderstorm. There are witnesses, military investigations, possible cover-ups, and enough unanswered questions to keep the world pondering for decades.

In Roswell today, sure, there are free art museums, fine restaurants and outdoors offerings. But if you go out of your way to visit, you’ve certainly got extraterrestrial interests. There’s the International UFO Museum and Research Center and the annual UFO Festival, which will take place July 2-5, 2009. Some go for fun and others to chew seriously on matters of the unknown.

Unfortunately the new nonstop flights won’t be underway by festival time. The service — on 44-seat Embraer ERJ-140 regional jets — will begin Aug. 25, 2009. Flights will depart LAX at 2:55 p.m. on Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday, and depart Roswell at 7 a.m. on Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Now, the real mystery: Who will be filling these Roswell-bound flights? The Cranky Flier supposes it will be otherworldly celebrities. A commenter on the post, “Tom Cruise, Other Aliens Targeted by American’s New Roswell - LA Flights,” reckons it’ll be Roswell-resident extraterrestrials needing Rodeo Drive shopping breaks.

More grist for the mystery mill.

— Susan Derby, Special to the Los Angeles Times

[Photo: An alien abduction at the Roswell museum. Credit: International UFO Museum and Research Center]

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 20, 2009 at 12:00 pm by Susan Derby and is filed under Airline travel, California, Los Angeles, New Mexico, News, Tips & Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.