The high desert landscape of the American Southwest has long been home to beings of all shapes, sizes and species. New Mexicans share a rich, regularly contested, yet enduring layering of cultural, social, economic and sacred systems that contribute to creative and scientific inquiry on grand scales. From the birthing of earliest indigenous cosmology systems, to the pursuit of mythological cities of gold and the development of the atomic corridor, peoples of this land are inspired by place – land, light and open skies - like few other places on this planet. A casual, lighthearted but also serious, embracing of the possibility of extraterrestrials is prevalent here.

In 2003, the New Mexico State Legislature passed a memorial declaring every second Tuesday in the month of February as “Extraterrestrial Culture Day”, the first ever intergalactic cultural policy in the United States! 

The text of the memorial reads as follows: 

A MEMORIAL 

DESIGNATING EVERY SECOND TUESDAY IN FEBRUARY AS "EXTRATERRESTRIAL CULTURE DAY". 

WHEREAS, New Mexico has a unique and dynamic mosaic of cultural anomalies; and 

WHEREAS, extraterrestrials have contributed to the worldwide recognition of  

New Mexico through their many and ongoing visitations, sightings, unexplained mysteries, attributed technological advances, experimentations, expeditions, explorations, intrigues, provision of story lines for Hollywood epics and other accomplishments of alien beings throughout the universe; 

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO that the second Tuesday in February be designated "Extraterrestrial Culture Day" in New Mexico to celebrate and honor all past, present and future extraterrestrial visitors in ways to enhance relationships among all citizens of the cosmos, known and unknown; and 

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a copy of this memorial be transmitted into space with the intent that it be received as a token of peace and friendship