My Dulce, New Mexico story.
I've been looking for a place to dump my story.
My grandpa and I went on a road trip 2 years ago that was originally intended to be a trip to all of the alien hotspots (Rachel, Roswell, Dulce, etc)
but turned out being a regular old road trip.
A week into the trip, we were in Dulce. We stayed at the Best Western Jicarilla Inn (sp) for one night, named after the Indian reservation that the
town resides upon. I spent the whole of the day probing people about the base and Archuletta Mesa. Seemingly, the entire population is lower-class
Native American people, but you'd have to check a Wikipedia page for exact numbers, and we have never felt more unwelcome anywhere else we had been
in our entire lives. Everyone looked at us like we had screwed their wives. We assumed this was brought on by the color of our skin, but it may have
been because we were outsiders. We did not blend in.
I talked to clerks in a convenience store, city workers, a lady at a liquor store next to the hotel, and a teenager at the desk of the Best
Western.
With the exception of the hotel guy, every single one of them gave us the run around.
The gas station people acted like they didn't know anything about an "Archuletta Mesa", when it's actually the very top of one of the gigantic
mountains that basically IS their town (basically, their story stunk). The liquor store lady didn't really say anything at all, but that may have
been from a lack of English. The city road worker told us that Archuletta Mesa is on some sort of "tribal land", and that you have to be in the
presence of a Tribal Elder to go up there. It felt like everyone we asked was trying to steer us from our goals.
Finally, the hotel desk boy was open with us. He said that there are people in the town that could tell us stories about huge craft going in and out
of the top of the mountains, and a military presence, and the rumors of the base itself, but that he was merely familiar with all of it, and didn't
invest in the stories.
Even with this kindness, we were getting nowhere. So the desk clerk literally pointed his finger in the direction of the mesa for us and we drove that
way in our Trail Blazer. There is a huge network of rural mountain roads that are all recreational and well-traveled at the start, mostly roads that
lead to favorite party/hunting locations. We kept our directional heading in mind and drove toward it, guessing on our road selection and which
direction they would take us. Oddly enough, we began seeing signs warning us of the city road worker's aforementioned 'tribal elder' rules, and
that if there wasn't one present we should turn around. Naturally, we kept going. The roads got crappier and crappier, and one hour and many ruts in
the road later, we reached what seemed to be the top of the range.
Keep in mind that the whole area is giant hills and mountains. There is no clear mountain upon which Archuletta Mesa is, they all run together.
There was nothing there. Just grass, trees, typical wilderness areas. I began to wonder what I had hoped to find in the first place. Were we really
going to drive to the top of a hill and find a large metal hatch leading deep into the hills below and into the belly of the mankind's greatest
secret? No.
I have my reservations about this next part...
From the top of this mountain, we had a wonderful view of the skyline, and the HUGE random black storm clouds that were rolling in. I don't know if
flash-thunderstorms are common in this area, but we sure experienced one then... how convenient... For fear of getting our rig stuck in the muddy
roads to the town, we raced back into the town below, went grocery shopping, and retired to our room for the night. I was a little crestfallen, but
like I said before, I didn't really know what expected to begin with.
Basically, it seems a little obvious that there's something weird happening in Dulce, but there's nothing on it's sleeves.
Hoped you enjoyed my tale