Medha Sarin
Roswell Tribune
msarin@elritomedia.com

Benjamin Fernando strolled through shelves lined with thousands of books in Roswell’s International UFO Museum on 114 N. Main Street.  

His mother, Jade Dasco, 47, and father, Lambert Fernando, 54, trailed behind him, occasionally sliding stories off the shelves and flipping through the pages.  

The family of New Yorkers took a special interest in extraterrestrial phenomena, spurred by theories and discussion online. 

“I see a lot of stuff on social media about aliens and conspiracy theories, so that’s pretty cool,” Benjamin Fernando, 16, said.   

The museum, known officially as the International UFO Museum and Research Center and Gift Shop, opened to visitors in 1992 to educate the public about the Roswell Incident, a highly publicized alleged alien sighting from 1947, and the concept of unidentified flying objects.

The museum contains exhibitions on UFO phenomena, a gift shop and a research library: a lesser known yet deeply intriguing collection of scientific research, witness reports and other archival material.  

“The weird side of life is going to be in here,” said Snow Oropesa, 25, a staff member who has worked primarily in the library since she started in March 2023. “Alien abductions. Crop circles. As morbid as it sounds, cow mutilations.” 

The library has more than 7,000 donated books and more than 30,000 magazines, periodicals and pamphlets about the extraterrestrial. The bookshelves also contain over 1,500 DVDs, including recordings from witnesses of alleged alien sightings.  

“I’m very impressed by the wealth of literature and research materials in here,” visitor Jade Dasco, 47, said. 

A second room of the library stretches floor to ceiling with government documents, scientific journals and magazines. The stacks include the prominent journal MUFON, described as “the leading authority for reporting and investigating sightings, abductions and other unexplained phenomena,” according to its website. 

The research haven of Main Street harkens back to an alleged crash landing at an unsuspecting ranch in Corona, New Mexico, 79 years ago.

The Roswell Incident 

The “Roswell Incident,” marked its 79^th anniversary this year.  

In 1947, rancher W.W. Brazel and other locals discovered unusual debris resembling tinfoil and what they claimed were alien bodies on Brazel’s ranch near Corona, about 75 miles north of Roswell. 

The city’s military base, Roswell Army AirField, reported the debris came from a “flying disc.” The U.S. military countered that it was a weather balloon. Brazel disputed the U.S. Army’s claim, leading to an onslaught of conspiracy theories and hoaxes in the decades since the event. 

In 1994, the U.S. Air Force acknowledged that the weather balloon claim was false. Rather, an American spy balloon containing parachute crash-test dummies produced the debris, according to that report. Alien believers argue this correction is simply part of a cover-up to hide an otherworldly truth.  

‘They have to live with that.’  

The mission of the museum and research center is solely to educate, not convince, Oropesa said.  

“The museum itself isn’t to persuade anybody to believe in it,” Oropesa said. “We’re here to just give you the information that we have, and then you can make up your own mind.” 

Clear displays interspersed between bookshelves showcase toys and movie memorabilia from the likes of Star Wars as an easy entryway for reluctant attendees.  

“People are a little bit confused about that. They’re like, ‘Well, I thought this was the actual research,’” Oropesa said, referring to some visitors’ reactions to the research library. “We’re trying to close that gap between sci-fi and actual research. That’s how a lot of people are interested in the alien world, because of movies.” 

More than just a vast archive, Oropesa said people can meet with library staff and share personal reports of suspected alien encounters from their past. Attendees can fill out a form with details of where and when the encounter took place. 

“There’s a lot of people who see something and don’t say it, and then they just regret it because they have to live with that,” Oropesa said.  

Oropesa said she’s seen a sense of relief fall on some visitors’ faces as they finally recite an unexplained occurrence they experienced.  

“You see almost a relief on certain people, from people my age to people who are almost 80,” she said. “People who have held onto just that one story that they were able to finally tell somebody.” 

‘Somebody to listen’

Oropesa stressed the museum itself doesn’t investigate witness accounts. Alien enthusiasts seeking an investigation process can file reports on MUFON’s website, mufon.com, she said.  

The library’s reports go into files stored in an office. The research center only displays complete boxes of documents in various categories, so the witness accounts may not make it out for public viewing, Oropesa said. 

“If there’s not enough to make one box, we have to keep it (in the office,)” Oropesa said.  

Oropesa said she’s received a wealth of stories as a library staffer, including kids reciting movie plotlines or potentially made-up stories from people mocking the concept of aliens.  

“There’s always those one or two few that poke fun at the topic, which you still have to kind of be professional about,” she said.  

She said she still loved working in the library. 

“Regardless, it’s really cool to work here and hear the stories and talk to people because essentially, that’s what everybody wants,” she said. “They just want somebody to listen.” 

Reporting Intern Medha Sarin can be followed on Instagram @medsar_.

Kaezee Service always wanted to work in her grandfather’s restaurant.

She would update Nick Maryol, owner of Tia Sophia’s in Santa Fe on her status at annual family gatherings as Service got closer in age to work at “Pappou’s” popular Mexican eatery. “Pappou” is Greek for ”grandfather.”

“Every summer we’d get together, and it would be, ‘Pappou, I’m going to work at your restaurant,’” recalled Service’s grandmother, Vanessa Maryol, 55. ”’Pappou, I’ve got five more years. Pappou, I’ve got four more years.’” 

In 2025, Service was 14 when she was finally allowed to work at the business. She spent two weeks of her summer that year in the restaurant, learning the ropes and experiencing a legacy now stretching 51 years. This summer, Service is working at the newlyopened Roswell location while on break from high school.

The Roswell location of the restaurant, its second, opened April 2 at 401 Richardson Ave. Vanessa Maryol helms the new location, respecting the family’s legacy while serving a new customer base almost 200 miles south.

“I liked getting to spend time with my family and getting work experience,” Service said. “It’s just been such an amazing place for so long, and I’m hoping it’ll stay like that for as long as it can.”

Red, green or Christmas? 

Tia Sophia’s bears a storied history. Jim Maryol, whose parents immigrated from Greece, and his wife Ann opened the Santa Fe restaurant in 1975 after moving to New Mexico from Colorado. They acclimated to the region’s rich Mexican culture, crafting recipes for chile sauce, burritos, sopapillas and other New Mexican staples. 

“It is a family of Greek immigrants that own a northern New Mexican restaurant,” Vanessa Maryol said. “And it is the best thing ever.” 

Jim Maryol passed away at 76 in July 2019, leaving behind a penchant for innovation as the restaurant became the first to offer breakfast burritos the year it opened.

“We’ve known that breakfast burritos were made in the home for a very, very long time,” Vanessa Maryol stressed. “We never claimed that we invented them. We’re the first to put them on a menu.”  

An early waitress of the restaurant also coined the phrase, “Red, green or Christmas?,” she said, referring to either red or green chile on a dish or a combination of the two colors. A resolution passed by the New Mexico Legislature in 1996 made “Red or Green?” the state’s official question.  

The Maryols’ son, Nick Maryol, 55, took over the restaurant around 2004 with a strong desire of keeping the eatery’s traditions alive while adapting to a more competitive, modern business environment and dining scene.

“Nick bought something that was a well-oiled machine from his mom and dad,” Maryol said. “This was (his) my mom and dad, so what can (he) contribute as part of that family tree and that family legacy?” 

‘I guess we’re going to Roswell.’ 

Family, new and old, form the story of Tia Sophia’s. Nick and Vanessa Maryol married in 2016 and continued building his food service career at the family restaurant while she worked her way up from schoolteacher in Santa Fe Public Schools to assistant principal of a local charter school.

At that point, the responsibilities of her job grew overly demanding, she said.  

“I wore so many hats,” she said. “Every aspect of discipline that happened in that school also fell to me, and I couldn’t do it anymore. I’m not a quitter, so that told me I was really done with education. When I left, it was really hard.”  

Vanessa Maryol said the couple always thought she would join the restaurant after finishing her career in education. An early retirement in 2024 brought that goal even closer, leading her to join the restaurant.  

But the vision for the Roswell location had already begun to form two years earlier when Maryol’s daughter Courtenay Worthen, 32, moved from Santa Fe to Roswell in 2022 so her husband Brian Worthen, 32, could take a job with oilfield company Kinder Morgan.

Worthen brought her three children with her, now a more-than-three-hour drive from their grandmother.

Vanessa Maryol said she instantly missed her daughter’s family and began visiting “a few times a month.”

“I missed the kids,” she said. “I have been a part of those kids’ lives since the day they were born.” 

On one trip, featuring their usual brunch date at The Ivory Brunch House after Sunday church service, Nick Maryol sprang a life-changing question on his wife.

“’How would you feel about opening a second restaurant here in Roswell?’” she recalled him asking. 

“I was like, ‘Don’t threaten me with a good time,’” Maryol said. “You throw something out into the universe, weirdly, and you never know how it manifests or what’s going to happen.”

‘This is a family restaurant.’ 

The stars seemed to align for the family’s investment, as Mexican restaurant La Gran Victoria closed in September 2025. The space on Richardson Avenue which the Maryols purchased in February 2026 contained a larger kitchen and seating area compared to their rental location in Santa Fe. 

“We’d be really stupid to not seriously look at this, to not try and pursue this if this is what we want to do,” Vanessa Maryol said.  

The downtown location offers a different customer base compared to Santa Fe’s influx of tourists, along with a popularity spike during the yearly UFO Festival, she said. The customer patterns allowed them to expand their Roswell hours, offering a dinner menu three times a week. 

And she said she opts for less heat in Roswell’s chile sauce compared to the Santa Fe version.  

“The chile in Santa Fe, the guys go for heat,” she said. “There’s a happy balance. It can have some spice on it, but you want that flavor.” 

Challenges plagued the restaurant about a month into its opening. Tia Sophia’s faced plumbing issues, even needing to install new septic, sewer and grease trap lines. 

And despite those setbacks, the Maryols remained dedicated to serving their new home with a focus on family.

“We tell people that come in with babies and with kids, ‘Don’t be embarrassed because of how noisy they get,’” Maryol said. “This is a family restaurant.” 

Reporting Intern Medha Sarin can be followed on Instagram @medsar_.