‘Something’s going on’: Ogden store owner puts focus on UFOs
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- Victor Camacho poses outside his UFO- and extraterrestrial-themed store, Alien Legacy, on July 13, 2023. The store is at 2446 Washington Blvd. in Ogden.
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- The entryway to Victor Camacho’s UFO- and extraterrestrial-themed store, Alien Legacy, on July 13, 2023. The store is at 2446 Washington Blvd. in Ogden.
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- Victor Camacho poses inside his UFO- and extraterrestrial-themed store, Alien Legacy, on July 13, 2023. The store is at 2446 Washington Blvd. in Ogden.
OGDEN — Victor Camacho suspects there’s life in the cosmos, out beyond the confines of Earth.
He doesn’t get wild-eyed about it, though.
“Something’s going on,” he said. “This is the real thing. Something is really happening.”
His interest in UFOs and extraterrestrials started by happenstance in the mid-1990s when he was working as a radio talk show host and a listener wrote him a letter on the subject. The topic subsequently became the focus of his radio program, and 25-plus years later, it spurred him and wife Gladiz Camacho to open Alien Legacy in the heart of Ogden at 2446 Washington Blvd.
The store is a half-block north of 25th Street on Washington Boulevard and the entryway stands out, featuring, among other things, a human-sized alien mannequin with green eyes wearing a silver space suit. Inside, the store offers souvenirs and knick-knacks related to UFOs and extraterrestrials, crystals, varied figurines, incense, pendants and more. There are also many, many alien figures with oversized eyes.
“A lot of people try to find souvenirs,” Victor Camacho said. But outside places like Roswell, New Mexico — site of a purported UFO crash in 1947 and a burgeoning industry catering to UFO believers — extraterrestrial-themed pickings can be slim, which spurred the decision to open Alien Legacy in 2021.
He operated a similar store in Los Angeles before he and his wife came to Ogden in 2019 to be near family. The couple also operates another locale in West Valley City, where business is a bit more brisk compared to Ogden.
‘THE TELEPHONES STARTED RINGING’
Camacho was working as a Spanish-language radio show host touching on almost every subject except UFOs when he received a curious letter, sometime in 1996. A listener wrote in about his supposed abduction by aliens and his trip around the world with them in their spaceship.
“Before it was daylight, they took him home,” Camacho said.
He had never given the topic much thought, though he watched “The X-Files,” the television series that focused on science fiction, the unexplained, the paranormal and more. But since the regular topics of his program — politics, immigration, family, religion — weren’t generating much traction, he read the listener’s letter on his program.
The response was quick. “The telephones started ringing and the people started calling,” he said.
He was onto something and, after doing his own investigation into the topic of UFOs, the possibility of life outside of Earth and the paranormal became the focus of his radio show, broadcast for some 25 years around the United States. “They need a place where they can talk and share the experiences they have,” Camacho said.
Though he no longer has his radio show, he still produces YouTube videos and podcasts on the topic under the program name Los Desvelados. Moreover, the Ogden store — apart from retail goods — displays artifacts from Mexico that Camacho maintains may have come from a contingent of extraterrestrials who called Earth home “in ancient times.”
Camacho seems to acknowledge that the subject can cause raised eyebrows among some and, as such, doesn’t try to force it on others. He takes a softer approach.
“We don’t want to convince anybody about this stuff. We just want them to come over, take a look, ask questions. Let people start thinking about this,” he said.