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Apache Ski Resort
ROSWELL 380
Bottomless Lakes State Park
Red Bull Stratos
HAGERMAN 285
White Sands
Felix River
LINCOLN FOREST
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CARLSBAD
Roswell: A thriving city with a population of around 50,000 humans (and countless aliens).
PHOTOGRAPHY: SVEN HOFFMANN, DDP, PREDRAG VUCKOVIC/RED BULL STRATOS. ILLUSTRATION: ANDREAS POSSELT
White Sands National Monument: Until 150 years ago this was Mescalero Apache territory.
typewritten placards telling stories of what happened or perhaps didn’t. Always vague enough not to make themselves look completely ridiculous, but still putting the pieces of the puzzle together powerfully enough not to disappoint those who want to believe that aliens made it to Earth. What had Mac Brazel really found? Says Jonathan Clark, medical director of Red Bull Stratos, “Part of a balloon, quite similar to the one we use for our Red Bull Stratos.” And the alleged aliens? Clark laughs. “Instrument-equipped dummies, like those used by the automobile industry for crash tests. In the 1940s such dummies were new, so how could the rural folk of New Mexico of all people have had any idea of what they were?” Roswell thrives on the UFO hubbub: The city has found its USP, it lives well from it, it grows, and you would be as hard
Baumgartner will take flight over Roswell— where he lands is anybody’s guess.
pressed to find a local who doesn’t believe in the existence of aliens as you would be to find an agnostic in the Vatican. What would Roswell be, what would New Mexico be, without aliens? Truth is, it’d probably still be a pretty exciting place. We take Highway 380 toward the east. Not even an hour from the Roswell city center is the Bottomless Lakes State Park. The sun beats down mercilessly; signs warn visitors to bring enough drinking water. The sparse vegetation that grows here is tough, grey, and leathery. These plants have adapted to survive with little moisture, just as all of the specialists here have evolved for these unique conditions: At the Bottomless Lakes, the most northerly stretch of the Chihuahuan Desert meets the prairie, and this yields gypsum deposits. Water dissolves the gypsum and leaves so-called sinkholes—craters in the earth that fill with water. These are the Bottomless Lakes. The turquoise color of the water gave cowboys the idea that they were unfathomable (actually, they are maximum 88.5 feet deep). Over a square mile one can find both fresh and saltwater, flowing and 67