While weather and natural events can be unpredictable, modern meteorologists have done a good job of predicting storms and natural disasters. But the residents of Miramar Beach, Mexico don't listen to the experts. Why should they? Natural disasters pass them by all the time. And for those who live there there's a simple explanation: the aliens are protecting their base. Nathaniel Janowitz at Vice has more.
Local legend has it that this area in Mexico has been protected from hurricanes and other dangerous storms for over 50 years by extraterrestrials who monitor Earth from an underwater base hidden a few miles off Miramar Beach called Amupac. While the rumors of underwater alien protectors are unproven, what’s certain is that Tropical Storm Karl took a sharp turn away from that part of the shoreline, and connected further south on the Gulf Coast of Mexico, causing floods in some places, and leading to one death.
Extreme weather events continue to miss these cities, feeding the legend and making Madero and Tampico the epicenter of alien culture in Mexico. Around Miramar Beach especially, the legend of Amupac has become an important driver of the economy and a principal reason some of the tourists flock to the area. Restaurants are named after martians and souvenir stands sell alien stuffed toys next to T-shirts with flying saucers and green men boasting of being the Playa Protegida — “Protected Beach.” And maybe it is.
Vice
This reminds me a lot of Area 51 in Nevada and how that area of the US has an entire tourism industry based on aliens. Are they really there? Probably not. But the myths and legends that persist in these towns do something that is certainly real: bring in tourism and money for the local economy. Whether Amupac is really something people will ever get definitive proof of remains to be seen (if ever), I love how people lean into the culture in order to sustain themselves.