Today is day one of the Roswell UFO Festival in New Mexico.

Roswell, of course, bills itself as the UFO Capital of the World, all down to that moment in July 1947 when the local Army Air Field said it had recovered a crashed flying disk, only to change its statement afterward.

Whatever happened there, that incident put Roswell on the map, and other towns that have their own UFO stories have been increasingly playing up those stories, including through historic markers.

Last week the community of Pascagoula, Mississippi dedicated a new sign that tells the story of two men who say they were brought on board a craft in 1973, examined for about a half hour and then sent back on their way.

In Lincoln, New Hampshire, there’s a historic marker telling the UFO abduction story of Barney and Betty Hill, from 1961, as well as a UFO-themed mural and information area at a local gas station.

And at a cemetery in Aurora, Texas, there’s a grave marker telling the story of a man who, it’s said, died while chasing a UFO in 1897.

That grave marker has been stolen several times.

By who? We can only speculate…

Something else you might do this weekend: take a trip to Sheboygan, Wisconsin.

This Sunday they’re hosting a family festival in which they will race thousands of rubber ducks down the Sheboygan River.

It’s known as the Ducktona 500…

Roswell UFO Festival

Historical marker commemorates reported alien abduction (Tuscaloosa News)

Betty And Barney Hill UFO Abduction Story Commemorated On Official N.H. Highway Plaque (Huffington Post)

Reward offered for return of stolen UFO alien grave marker in Texas (Fort Worth Star-Telegram)

Ducktona 500

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Photo by Jimmy Emerson, DVM via Flickr/Creative Commons