Greetings from Joshua Tree, California. I’ve never spent much time in the desert. Baking my brain amidst shrubs and clever rock formations just isn’t my thing. But I’ve come to like this desolate slice of earth because I’ve discovered that it’s highly weird. Energy vortexes and UFOs. The confluence of underground rivers and sacred seven-story rocks. Joshua Tree might be best known for its national park, but its coordinates in the cosmos makes it a highly trafficked intergalactic flop house for bug eyed space types and their earth-bound fan club.

Case in point: The Integratron. In 1947 George Van Tassel, an ex test-pilot who worked alongside Howard Hughes at Hughes Aviation, retired from an exemplary career in aeronautics to make a home in the Mojave Desert in what is now Landers, CA. In ‘53 he was visited by a spaceship from Venus. Of course the Venusians, being the consummate hosts, took him on a joy ride and gave him the blueprints for a machine that would rejuvenate living cell tissues. Why? Word is the Venusians wanted to speed up human evolution because the behavior here on earth was giving the rest of the Universe a real headache.

George spent eighteen years building The Rejuvinator, after which it became a host for UFOs groupies until the late ’60s when the advent of acid made it unnecessary for fans to tap space exploration for enlightenment.

I think people in the high desert have a more intimate relationship with the heavens because they see each other on a daily basis. Since I hail from the perpetually cloudy Northwest, my relationship with the above is estranged, much like it is with the relatives I only see during the holidays. But on this moonlit night in Joshua Tree, amongst the smooth desert shapes, I can see as much of forever as my tiny mind can handle. Up there through the clusters, past the blinking lights streaming for Vegas and space junk sniffing for terrorism, I wonder what the Venusians are thinking about our evolution now. Maybe they’re still watching, waiting for us to come around. But maybe they’ve just grown bored worrying about the short term renters with the bad credit living in the blue house.

From somewhere out there,
Gabe