Oklahoma State Police Traffic Stop Is A Close Encounter With A Flying Saucer

It’s not hard to find strange, homemade cars on American roads, but they’re not always there legally. Two motorists recently found that out when an Oklahoma State Police officer pulled them over in their “flying saucer” car, which features a pop-up cockpit dome and shiny body panels.

Built on a 1991 Geo Metro, the car really does look like a flying saucer on the road, but although its builder, Dennis Bellows, studied the rules while building it, he couldn’t take into account all the traffic laws. The driver, Steve Anderson, committed a traffic violation, which earned him a warning from the officer, who was the fourth cop to stop the saucer on the way from Indianapolis to the Roswell UFO Festival in New Mexico. Anderson said he’s been into aliens since he was 8 years old, which is what inspired him to pay Bellows to build the strange creation.

Two people in the cockpit saluted the officer, with Anderson raising his hand in the Vulcan salute from “Star Trek.” While the car encountered a lot of law enforcement attention on its way to the festival, it was met by Roswell officers who were aware of its arrival.

It took Bellows eight months of nighttime work to complete the car. Its bubble-shaped roof had to be hand-formed, with Bellows heating pieces of plexiglass to create the dome. The interior features custom toggle switches and standard automotive elements like turn signal stalks, but it’s unclear whether the car has air conditioning to deal with what’s likely a large amount of heat coming from the plexiglass. While it does have a horn, the original sound has been replaced with a laser one.

Anderson had attended the festival before, but this was the first time he had taken the UFO with him. His run-ins with the police gave him a certain sense of humor about the car, as he said he sometimes handed over a fake driver’s license under his “Al Ien” identity and told the cops that his home planet was Krypton.