Museums & Galleries in San Juan Capistrano

The Science of…Aliens exhibit has crash-landed at the San Diego Air & Space Museum, offering thrilling glimpses into humanity's long-held belief in the existence of extraterrestrial life forms. The exhibit is split into four star-gazing sections, each offering different POVs on ETs. "Alien Fiction" celebrates sci-fi classics, with movie props and other items detailing our fascination with silver-screen space-dwellers and its connection to ancient mythology, while "Alien Science" covers alien-looking creatures living on planet Earth, such as deep-sea fish and Lady Gaga. Explore two fictional but scientifically credible alien planets—Aurelia and Blue Moon—in the "Alien Worlds" section of the exhibit, or pen a personal love note or jury summons to residents of neighboring galaxies with "Alien Communication."

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Chula Vista Nature Center provides guests with dozens of ways to encounter the birds, marine life, and other organisms that call the refuge home. Visitors can pet gentle rays or admire preening sea turtles before visiting the underwater discovery center to spy on majestic sea horses, spotted octopi, and exploding ants. Outside, 1.5 miles of walking trails lead out to the shore of San Diego Bay, offering convenient stops at native-plant gardens, Raptor Row, Eagle Mesa (home to majestic bald and golden eagles), and a shorebird aviary. Among the many native water birds and shorebirds housed by the aviary are light-footed clapper rails, one of California's most endangered bird species.

The Museum of Man, voted runner-up in 10news.com’s A-List 2011 Best Museum category, explores and shines a light on the emergence of man with five standing collections and special exhibits, filled with the cultural and physical anthropology artifacts housed and studied within its confines. Mummies are featured in the Ancient Egypt permanent exhibit, grasping the attention of attendees of all ages and complimenting grandparents on their youthful vigor. Tots toddle in the footsteps of archeologists in the Children’s Discovery Center’s interactive learning experience, Discover Egypt. The museum’s 7,000-square-foot west wing bursts at the seams with artifacts from four million years of human evolution, featuring prime pieces of physical anthropological evidence in the Footsteps Through Time exhibit. Photographs collect images of anthropologists in the midst of rapt explorations and discoveries in the temporary Adventures in Photography exhibit, a visual story which spans a hundred years and six continents. Additionally, the Modern Day Mummy and Strange Bones exhibits apply medical know-how to unveil historic secrets of the human body.

Renovated in 2011, the Museum of Making Music showcases a permanent display of hundreds of unusual and vintage instruments charting the progression of song-crafting from 1900 to modern times. Five museum galleries present popular music, innovations in instruments and their manufacture, and marketing and distribution techniques in five eras throughout the 20th century. Racks of gleaming instruments line the cases, as well as more eclectic pieces such as double-neck guitars, the crossbreed GuitarViol, and an ancient, forgotten instrument whose name is always whispered: the "clarinet." The museum is dotted with interactive exhibits, giving visitors the chance to craft their own tunes on the exhibit's drum kits or keytar.