Roswell is a city in New Mexico famous for a conspiracy theory dating back to 1947 that the United States military covered up a crash landing of an alien spacecraft. The rumors have persisted over the years turning the story into a cult phenomenon and contributing to the city's tourism.
It has been explored in popular fiction by the likes of Star Trek in a Deep Space Nine episode, the 1996 film Independence Day, it sets up the events of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, was used several times on The X-Files, Futurama, American Dad!, and the 2011 Simon Pegg comedy Paul featuring an alien character voiced by Seth Rogen.
References
- Attempting to escort Gordon, Susan, Gina, Bob, and Mr. Handford to Radio City Music Hall for Elmopalooza, chauffeur Grover (with a trained chicken serving peanuts) takes several wrong turns in his limo. One of the locations they pass through is a desert where a UFO hovers above the vehicle and deposits two Martians in the back seat. Grover translates their misgivings, "Just ten miles from Roswell and their spaceship's radiator overheated."
- A 2014 ad campaign for Muppets Most Wanted featured the Muppets stopping at several locations around the country after appearing in a Toyota commercial during the Super Bowl. Their Day 10 stop saw Dr. Bunsen Honeydew lifted out of a Toyota Highlander's sunroof by a beam of light (seemingly by a UFO) while Beaker looked on in horror.