Part four of our series: San Diego’s roadside relics — dinosaurs, doll heads, and other highway oddities
If you were driving along Interstate 8 near Jacumba a few years ago and spotted a collection of silver flying saucers sitting beside the road, you might have wondered whether you had taken a wrong turn somewhere between San Diego and another planet.
You hadn’t.
You had found Coyote’s Flying Saucer Retrievals and Repairs.
The wonderfully strange roadside attraction sat on In-Ko-Pah Road near the Desert View Tower, where its collection of homemade flying saucers, junk-art creations and assorted desert oddities became an unexpected attraction for motorists traveling through East County.
Today, however, Coyote’s place is gone. Roadside America lists the attraction as “Gone,” while a visitor in November 2024 reported that the site appeared largely abandoned, with only remnants remaining.
But for years, Coyote was there to welcome visitors — and, if the mood struck, take them for a ride.
The saucers weren’t just decorative.
According to Roadside America, Coyote outfitted the saucers with mobile undercarriages so they could actually be piloted along the ground. He also transported them to festivals and fairs, including Burning Man. Visitors who caught him at the right time could climb aboard for a ride along the quiet road leading toward Desert View Tower.
Steven Hromnak was one of those visitors. A photographer, Hromnak stopped at the attraction in 2018 while he was in the area to visit the tower, another East County landmark with a rich history.
Hromnak said he was driving along In-Ko-Pah Road when he saw the unusual collection and stopped to photograph it.
As he walked down the road taking pictures, he heard someone say hello.
It was Coyote, sitting in a chair with his dog, Luna.
“I was quite surprised, but he quickly introduced himself and started to tell me about the place,” Hromnak recalled.
Hromnak ended up spending about an hour talking with him.
“He was a very gracious human that just happened to be in the business of repairing flying saucers,” Hromnak said.
Coyote was out of stickers that day, so instead he gave Hromnak a hand-colored rock decorated with an alien as a souvenir.
Hromnak’s photographs capture what made the place so memorable: homemade saucers, desert artwork and an eccentric roadside collection that seemed to appear almost out of nowhere.
And the flying saucers were only part of the story.
The property also featured Coyote’s Rattlesnake Saloon, an outdoor watering hole cobbled together from corrugated metal and scrap wood. Elsewhere nearby were unusual creations, including scarecrows inspired by Planet of the Apes. Roadside America described the property as a kind of ever-changing desert art installation.
Visitors remembered it as the kind of place that made you stop the car simply because you couldn’t believe what you were seeing.
In 2015, one visitor described finding three or four saucers made from satellite dishes along with other works in progress. Another called the place “funky.” By 2016, Coyote was offering free flying-saucer rides as part of a Jacumba community event.
The attraction eventually faded away.
By November 2024, visitors reported seeing abandoned vehicles, trailers, and debris but no Coyote and only a hint of aliens and flying saucers.
That’s what makes Coyote’s Flying Saucer Retrievals and Repairs such a perfect addition to San Diego County’s collection of lost roadside oddities.
It wasn’t a major tourist attraction. It wasn’t a museum. It wasn’t even really a business in the traditional sense.
It was something much harder to categorize: one man’s homemade desert universe, parked beside the road.
And for motorists who happened to discover it, that was probably the whole point.
Read more history stories here. Do you have a story to tell? Send an email to DebbieSklar@cox.net
Sources:
Roadside America.
Photographs and recollections courtesy of Steven Hromnak.
