Flying Saucer McDonald's

Roswell, New Mexico

This is the world's only McDonald's shaped like a flying saucer. Its aerodynamic qualities have been compromised by its need to enclose a Playland, but there's no mistaking its distinctive saucer shape, enhanced during daylight by its metal skin and at night by its judicious used of neon piping around its window frames and ridge lines.

The large wall of an adjacent building has been filled with a mural by resident Roswell guerilla artist Larry Welz. Ronald McDonald and Birdie the Early Bird fly space contraptions around what appears to be a planet-size brain. Is McDonald's -- which commissioned the art -- suggesting that it serves brain food? The mural gives people waiting at the drive-thru something to ponder, and provides a handy photo-op for Roswell's alien-minded fast-food-chomping visitors.