In 1973, when Palacios Mayor W. C. Jackson invited extraterrestrials to visit Texas ("No one has ever made those fellas welcome," he told reporters), his hospitality came almost a century too late. Long before anyone had heard of Roswell, flying saucers were first spotted in Texas in 1878, according to local legend, and first touched down here in 1897. In fact, Texas can boast of having some of the most compelling evidence ever uncovered of alien visitors--such as Aurora's crash site, Lubbock's mysterious lights, or Dayton's close encounters. Texas has also bred its share of peculiar UFO devotees, such as Heaven's Gate leader Marshall Applewhite, who was born in Spur and had his first spiritual vision while walking along a Galveston beach, as well as some members of the Republic of Texas, who reportedly believe that the Marfa Lights are proof of a subterranean energy grid that the Pentagon is trying to tap into with alien technology. MUFON, the world's largest UFO investigation organization, is based in Texas, as is NASA, which oversees an intergalactic radio signal monitoring program called SETI, or the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.