Roswell Welcome Sign: Saucer and Cows

Roswell, New Mexico

For years Roswell officially refused to acknowledge the obvious: that tourists flocked to the town because a flying saucer crashed nearby in 1947. That willful neglect finally ended when Roswell paid a design company $120k to erect three saucer-themed Welcome signs on the three main approaches to town.

Completed in May 2017 to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the crash, the signs are all slightly different: one depicts a hovering saucer, one a crashed saucer, and one -- our favorite -- a saucer in the act of sucking onboard an unfortunate Roswell cow. Each sign is solar-powered to illuminate its saucer in colorful, blinking LEDs after dark.

After the signs were completed, and Roswell's long-overlooked UFO fans were finally pleased, a number of town residents complained that the signs cost too much.

The same company that built these signs later went on to create the Route 66 Rising sculpture in Tusla, Oklahoma.