Make 'contact' with alien experts at Joshua Tree event

Giant Rock Convention, Landers, 1966. (Courtesy Morongo Basin Historical Society)

Denise Goolsby
The Desert

MORONGO BASIN — Tim Gaul had an extraterrestrial experience — in sales.

Gaul, an artist who graduated from Indio High School, found out how mainstream the fascination with other possible life has become when he rolled out his newest necklace creation earlier this week at a festival: porcelain alien faces — featuring those familiar almond-shaped eyes.

He sold dozens within a few days.

Although Gaul doesn't think a bunch of E.T.s are walking the Earth, he doesn't rule out the idea that other beings exist.

"I believe there's life on other planets," he said. "Maybe there's a race of other people on other planets."

And if there are, they aren't evil.

"Or they would have taken us out already," he said.

Extraterrestrials, ancient aliens, crop circles, contact experiences and UFO sightings are among the many out-of-this-world topics that will be explored during the "Contact in the Desert" four-day conference beginning Aug. 8 in Joshua Tree.

The second such conference, it features scientists, researchers, archeologists, best-selling authors and experts featured on History Channel shows such as "Ancient Aliens" and "Hangar 1."

It's in "stark contrast to UFO conventions famous for attracting fanatics in foil hats," according to organizers.

The event coincides with the Perseid meteor shower — one of the brightest meteor showers of the year — which occurs every August, peaking this year between Aug. 10 and Aug. 13.

The location of the conference is significant.

"Joshua Tree has a long history of sightings," co-organizer Paul Andrews said. "We think that, scientifically, there's something about the area that is attractive to this phenomena."

Just as us earthlings are drawn to Joshua Tree — its other-worldly beauty amplified by a sense of spiritual serenity — visitors from other worlds might also be lured by the charm of this secluded, sprawling high desert sanctuary.

George Noory, host of the nationally syndicated radio talk show, "Coast to Coast AM;" Giorgio A. Tsoukalos, host of "Ancient Aliens;" and Erich von Däniken, author of "Chariots of the Gods," are among the headliners of the event, which features a lineup of nearly 40 speakers, including local historian Barbara Harris, who has studied the Morongo Basin communities, specifically Morongo Valley, Landers and Joshua Tree for the past 30 years.

Harris said the history of the area's connection to UFOs dates back to at least 1947 when George Van Tassel — an aircraft mechanic and flight inspector who worked for Douglas Aircraft, Hughes Aircraft and Lockheed — left Southern California's aerospace industry and moved his family to Landers, site of the mysterious Giant Rock, a massive, freestanding boulder standing seven stories tall.

The 25,000-ton behemoth, purported to be the largest freestanding boulder in the world, covers 5,800 square feet — the size of an estate-size home in the Coachella Valley.

"That's where all of the UFO stuff began," she said. "Van Tassel started having visions or connections with space beings from Venus."

During one of these encounters, he received some advice.

"They told him, 'You human beings are coming along OK as a species. However, when you finally get to the place where you 'get it' you die.' They gave him some information on how to build the integratron — a time machine or rejuvenation device to help extend human life."

The one-of-a-kind, all-wood parabolic dome-shaped structure was built on a powerful geomagnetic vortex. Construction began in 1954 and he worked on it until his sudden death in 1978.

The structure, which still stands today, is open to the public.

Van Tassel put on open-air conferences called the Interplanetary Spacecraft conventions, which began April 4, 1953.

"In the 50s and 60s, as many as 10,000 people found themselves driving to the middle of nowhere in the middle of the desert to listen to George Van Tassel speak, to listen to contactees," Harris said.

Harris believes UFO activity — and sightings — are related to specific times in history.

The upheaval of World War II and the development and use of nuclear weapons may have drawn intelligent life closer to Earth, she said.

"Certain people believe the UFOs and the E.T.s come here as a support system to the human race. They're here, basically, to help us grow as a species. They were showing up so we wouldn't destroy ourselves."

"During this time period, people were just starting to come out of their shells and talk about UFOs, talk about X-Files and talk about government conspiracies. At the same time, things were happening in Roswell," she said.

Harris said people living in the high desert at the time had such an interest in UFOs that a newsletter was published — known as The Smoke Signal — that reported specifically on UFO sightings.

Interest in aliens ebbed in the 70s, 80s and 90s.

"There are times when the subject has its peaks and its lows, depending on media coverage," said Nick Redfern, an author and lecturer who writes about a wide range of unsolved mysteries including Bigfoot, UFOs, the Lochness Monster, alien encounters and government conspiracies.

"Fortunately today, there's a great deal of media coverage and attention given to the subject. History Channel, Nat Geo, Discovery. The more attention it gets, the more people listen to it."

Redfern, who is a featured speaker at the conference, will present a lecture on "The Pyramids and the Pentagon" and a workshop, "The Real Men in Black."

In the past, the media would laugh at the subject, poke fun and make jokes about "little green men," he said.

"The stereotype is a 40-year-old UFO researcher living in mom and dad's basement," he said. "The reality is, most people, we have normal lives, but we just happen to be interested in unusual subjects. It's not like it's an obsession. It's a fascination which I've made into a job."

If you go

Contact in the Desert

Joshua Tree Retreat Center, 59700 Twentynine Palms Highway, Joshua Tree

Date: Aug. 8 - Aug. 11

Cost of four-day pass: Single: $250; Couple: $475

All lectures and panels are included. Workshops, intensives, tours and meal plans sold separately.

To order tickets, call (760) 365-8371 or visit contactinthedesert.com

High desert sightings: Something is out there

Barbara Harris, who is giving guided tours and a lecture Friday at Giant Rock as part of the Contact in the Desert conference, says local residents placed a 1947 Crosley car on the top of the huge boulder by nailing spikes into the rock and lifting it up with rope, block and tackle. This photo appeared on the cover of Life Magazine in 1951.

Bruce Fessier
Desert Sun

Full disclosure: I saw a UFO one afternoon in the summer of 1981.

I was driving through the curvy section of Highway 62 between Morongo Valley and Desert Hot Springs when a winged vessel, the likes of which I had never seen, flew between —not over —the hills, sandwiching the road. It paused and hovered for a moment, like a helicopter, and then accelerated faster than a Lear jet. By the time I got down the hill a minute later, it was gone. Without a trace.

I told a grocer in Morongo Valley about it and he wasn’t fazed. He said lots of people saw UFOs there. He attributed it to the Marine base in Twenty­nine Palms trying out experimental vessels.

I accepted that and just waited for that flying vehicle to be publicly unveiled. Three decades later, I’m still waiting.

That’s why I don’t think of the people attending this weekend’s Contact in the Desert convention at the Joshua Tree Retreat Center a bunch of kooks. I actually felt more sane after interviewing one of the speakers, Barbara Harris, chairwoman of the Morongo Basin Historical Society, who will give a lecture and tour of Giant Rock near Landers on Friday morning.

“Where you said you saw that, I have documentation,” she said. “Probably in the ’70s, there was a list where they had watchers who were calling in —a constant flow of sightings in that particular area. In their little town newspaper, people were writing what they were seeing and all these people were talking about the UFOs in that area. So that particular space, it’s very common for sightings.”

I lived in Joshua Tree in 1981 and have made regular trips to Joshua Tree National Park ever since. I attended the Joshua Tree Retreat Center when it was the Institute of Mentalphysics and I heard the story of how its founder, Edwin Dingle, was guided to that spot by a guru in China and how Frank Lloyd Wright and his son, Lloyd, designed the complex on what has been called an energy vortex.

I had heard Joshua Tree has the highest rate of UFOs in the nation, but never knew who measured those things. Harris, 56, said what drew Dingle to Joshua Tree also inspired Cabot Yerxa to build his pueblo in Desert Hot Springs, George Van Tassel to build his Integratron near Giant Rock and hold UFO conventions there in the 1950s, and actor Ted Markland to take celebrities to his hill in west Joshua Tree National Park to hear the voice of an ethereal being.

“The high desert has a special, unique, you might say ‘attraction’ within the world,” Harris explained. “There is a special ley line called the 33rd parallel. It’s used in astronomy to arrange where you mark your sightings to the North Star. The 33rd parallel is really an auspicious type of parallel line in the world and for some reason it’s very provocative and has a lot of synchronicities. The area up here in the high desert, we sit on the 33rd parallel and it’s noted for the most UFO sightings in the world. It sits on the same parallel as Roswell (New Mexico). It’s also the same parallel where the Japanese bomb went off. It also sits on the same parallel as the Bermuda Triangle. It’s also on the same parallel line where the Phoenix lights have happened.”

I noted Joshua Tree also is a popular place to take hallucinogenics such as magic mushrooms and peyote. The late Markland hosted Timothy Leary’s wedding at his Yucca Valley home with massive doses of LSD. I asked if that might be partially why the high desert leads the nation in UFO sightings.

Harris, like my Morongo Valley grocer, thinks it has more to do with the area’s proximity to the Marine base. But she won’t rule out Van Tassel’s assertion that he received the technology to build his Integratron from Venus.

Based on science?

Van Tassel worked on the Integratron from 1954 until his death in 1978 —two weeks before it was scheduled to open. He built it, partially upon the research of engineers Nikola Tesla and Georges Lakhovsky, as a “nonferromagnetic” structure to study the rejuvenation of people’s cells, anti-gravity and time travel. Howard Hughes reportedly invested in his experiments.

Harris doesn’t lecture on Van Tassel because she says he pulled some fraudulent stunts to attract business to further his research. But the Integratron is an engineering marvel and many visitors say its sound baths have therapeutic value. Harris notes the technology for his research didn’t exist before Van Tassel claimed to have had contact with someone from Venus.

Harris, who co-owns Adset Graphics in Yucca Valley, prefers to talk about Giant Rock, the seven-story, 5,800 square-foot free-standing boulder. Nomadic Indians used it as a site to contact the dead, Harris said. Legend has it that a Hopi shaman predicted before 1920 that man’s destiny in the 21st century would be foretold by the way Giant Rock would split. If it split in half it would mean the Earth Mother would not accept prayers for mankind. But if it split on the side, then man’s prayers would be answered and a new era would be revealed.

On Feb. 23, 2000, the Hi-Desert Star reported that a slice of the boulder split off at 8:20 a.m. on Feb. 21 after a group led by spiritual leader Shri Naath Devi spent two days praying and meditating at Giant Rock. Devi then declared “a great shift” was at hand.

Harris has interviewed a woman at that prayer session. She doubts they fulfilled the legend.

“To me, it was some people capitalizing on the moment,” she says. “This rock is millions of years old, 25,000 tons, seven stories high. It defied millions of years of wear and tear. Why did it pick Feb. (21), 2000 to split?”

She’ll explore that and her own 30-year study of UFOs in the high desert at Contact in the Desert. She’ll help kick off a three-day event featuring some of the biggest names in science and metaphysics to explore ancient legends. Harris says 500 people are expected.

Space lineage

Giorgio A. Tsoukalos, the star and consulting producer of the TV show “Ancient Aliens,” who is leading a workshop at 3:30 p.m. Saturday, says he’s never seen a conference quite like this one.

“This is a really, really great conference to attend if you’re interested in talking in person to the people that have appeared on ‘Ancient Aliens,’ ”said Tsoukalos, an associate of “Chariots of the Gods” author Erich von Daniken. “I am always incredibly grateful to be not only invited to speak at these things, but also to go to them and meet people interested in these topics because, back in the early ’90s, the average age of conferences like this was in the 80s. Now there are young people coming and that to me clearly indicates a craving for knowledge —knowledge that clearly exists.”

Tsoukalos believes von Daniken’s theory that ancient aliens have been seeding mankind for centuries. He says their visitations are the reason there are missing links in the evolution of species and paradigm leaps in civilizations. He also believes aliens are still visiting our planet.

“According to the Ancient Astronaut theory I subscribe to, we are essentially their offspring,” said Tsoukalos. “We’re all hybrid beings —half human, half extraterrestrial. This will one day be determined (by) geneticists. So, if you’re a parent and you have kids, you’re interested in what they’re doing for the rest of your life. So, I think that is the reason they’re still here —to keep an eye on our progress or to simply see how did the ‘experiment’ work out?”

Tsoukalos doesn’t necessarily believe we’ve had contact from Venus. He doesn’t want to know where the aliens are from because, he said, “That to me adds another level of speculation that actually turns off the general public to our ideas. I think it is better to approach the general public with just the idea that we’ve been visited.”

He’s excited about the gathering of such other experts in their fields as Jason Martell, George Noury, Michael Cremo and Graham Hancock. There are 31 speakers giving lectures and workshops and Michael C. Luckman, founder of the Cosmic Majority, will do a live stream. The event also coincides with the Perseid Meteor Shows, which are always spectacular in the high desert.

So, I can agree with Tsoukalos when he says, “It’s definitely going to be a star-studded event.”

Water rates raised for county desert customers

By Courtney Vaughn
Hi-Desert Star

SAN BERNARDINO — Water-rate increases for San Bernardino County Special Districts customers were approved Tuesday by the Board of Supervisors.

Rates for County Service Areas in Landers, Pioneertown and Morongo Valley will rise July 18.

The rate hikes will ensure that user fees pay for district operations, according to Jeff Rigney, director of the Special Districts Water and Sanitation Department.

The county received letters of protest from each of the local districts, but none of the areas yielded enough letters to stop the increases, county staff reported.

Notices of the proposed increases were mailed to property owners, but many tenants, who pay the water bills for a property, did not receive notice.

If one more than half a district’s property owners protest fee increases, the additional fees cannot be levied.

Property owners from around the county lamented the county’s water rate structure Tuesday during the Board of Supervisors meeting.

Judy Corl-Lorono, a director of Bighorn-Desert View Water Agency and a Landers resident, spoke to the board as a resident Tuesday.

“I’m here to speak for the seniors, unemployed, those who are on food stamps,” Corl-Lorono said. “We have to trust you to do your due diligence …. It appears that your rate increases are on auto pilot, giving rate payers a 50 percent increase over the next three years.”

Corl-Lorono said she often talks to seniors in the county’s outlying areas who say they must choose between bathing or providing water for pets.

“It’s a disadvantaged community and this is a really big rate increase for a community,” Marina West, general manager of Bighorn-Desert View and a special districts customer, said Friday.

West doesn’t believe county water ratepayers have been given sufficient explanation of why the rate increases are needed. She said many customers have had trouble getting pertinent budget information from the county’s special districts department.

“I don’t think they have much accountability. In the grand scheme of county operations, special district areas out here could be just a rounding error,” West said.

Within the Morongo Basin’s four county water districts, the monthly fee to maintain service on a 3/4-inch meter ranges from $29.36 to $58.78. Increases on monthly fees and water consumption rates range from 19 percent on monthly fees in Landers and Pioneertown, to 51 percent on consumption rates for higher water users in Morongo Valley.

Most county water districts have raised fees each year, but this year marks a bigger jump for some districts than in previous years.

The higher fees will sustain district operations and allow the department of water and sanitation to establish reserve accounts and contingency funds in each of its special districts. The fees will not be used to improve water quality, Rigney said.

He explained by phone Friday that the county’s water districts typically have large areas of infrastructure to maintain, but a very small base of rate payers to cover the costs.

“It essentially comes down to economies of scale,” Rigney said. “We’re just trying to get the districts to where they need to be to sustain the infrastructure.” Rigney anticipates that eventually, rates will be more stable once the district has sufficient funding. He said the special districts department has reduced its operational and internal costs, in addition to reviewing water rates.

Most Powerful Quake in 40 Years Hits California

Robert Reinhold
New York Times



Fault trace from the 1992 Landers earthquake is revealed in damaged roadway.


The most powerful earthquake to hit California in 40 years rumbled out of the high desert east of Los Angeles early this this morning, a jolt so powerful that it sloshed swimming pools as far north as Idaho and rocked houseboats on Lake Union in Seattle.

The quake, which measured 7.4 on the Richter Scale of ground movement and killed one person, was followed three hours and seven minutes later by another strong quake 19 miles away. The second quake cut off roads to the mountain resort of Big Bear Lake and touched off huge landslides that sent dramatic plumes of dust rising over the San Bernardino Mountains.

The jolts shattered windows, emptied store shelves, set fires, opened huge fissures in mountain roads and knocked down houses and shops here in the Yucca Valley about 125 miles east of Los Angeles. The Hi Desert Hospital in Joshua Tree reported treating 70 people for injuries that included cuts, fractures and suspected heart attacks, admitting 10. There was one fatality, Joseph R. Bishop, a 3 1/2-year-old child who was crushed by a falling chimney as he slept in Yucca Valley.

Power Impresses Californians

Residents all over Southern California said the first jolt, a prolonged rumbling that shook houses violently at 4:58 A.M., was the most powerful and frightening temblor they had ever experienced.

"It was something that I never felt in my life before," said Iona Bong, 61 years old, whose house is near the epicenter in the town of Landers, about 10 miles north of here. "It was a sinking that would not quit. Everything I own is on the floor."

Terrifying aftershocks continued to rock the area all day. The Governor's Office of Emergency Services declared a state earthquake alert after scientists at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena warned that there was a chance of better than 50 percent of aftershocks measuring 6.0 or greater within 24 hours.

The state urged people to stay indoors and curtail normal activities, including travel on freeways. But the Dodger baseball game in Los Angeles and other events took place anyway. At 5 P.M. the authorities rescinded the warning and said it was safe to travel to work on Monday, although they continued to urge residents to remain alert to the possibility of more aftershocks.

The damage and injuries would certainly have been far greater had the quake hit during daylight hours or closer to the densely populated Los Angeles Basin than this dusty windy desert valley north of Palm Springs.

Late in the afternoon, Kerry Sieh, a seismologist from Cal Tech, who was inspecting the area from a helicopter, found that the ground had moved 18 feet in one place on the fault 43 miles north of Landers. Experts say that if such movement occurred in a city, damage would be extensive.

"Beyond Landers all hell breaks loose," Dr. Sieh said. He added that numerous faults come close to the surface in the area and several had broken it.

The United States Geological Survey's Earthquake Information Office in Golden, Colo., classified today's 7.4 quake as a "major" event, the largest in California since July 20, 1952, when a 7.7 magnitude jolt rocked the Tehachapi-Bakersfield area in Central California, killing 12 people, injuring 18 and causing $60 million in property damage. By comparison the first quake today was nearly three times as powerful as the Loma Prieta earthquake measuring 7.1 that hit the San Francisco area in October 1989, killing 63 people.

Hotel Tower Evacuated

The Geological Survey put today's second jolt, which occurred at 8:05 A.M., at a magnitude of 6.5. It was along an entirely different fault, with an epicenter six miles southeast of Big Bear Lake. The extent of damage and injuries in that area could not be determined by this afternoon, because telephone and road links were cut.

The authorities were particularly concerned about this earthquake because it was very close to the San Andreas fault running most of the length of California, which many experts believe could be the source of a very powerful earthquake. Such concern led President Bush to cancel a golf match and return to the White House from Camp David, Md., for a briefing on the quake. Mr. Bush also called Gov. Pete Wilson of California and said he told Mr. Wilson "the Federal Government would do whatever we possibly can do."

The first earthquake today was felt as far east as Colorado and woke up residents all over the Los Angeles area. In one home in Hollywood, beds started to shake vigorously and the residents, heeding warnings, jumped up and stood under doorframes. The house creaked loudly for about 30 seconds and chandeliers swung. In other parts of the region people ran out of their homes and stood in the open to avoid falling objects. One tower of the the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim was evacuated. But there was little damage in Los Angeles itself.

The same cannot be said for the Yucca Valley, a string of dusty towns along a mountainous road just north of the Joshua Tree National Monument in San Bernardino County.

Shops all along Route 62, the main route that bisects the valley, had their windows broken and merchandise tossed around violently. The worst-hit business was the New Yucca Bowl, a 16-lane bowling alley where the entire east wall fell away, leaving a gaping hole through which girders and air-conditioning ducts could be seen hanging over the littered lanes. In another few hours, the alley would have been crowded with Sunday bowlers.

"I would have been buried by now," said Larry Rochester, who worked at the control desk, standing in windy 106-degree heat outside the wrecked bowling alley. Like most residents, he was at home sleeping at the time. "This is my fifth quake over 6.0, but this is the first one I was really scared," he said. "The longevity was unbelievable." He said he grabbed his wife and daughter and rushed outside into the darkness.

The owner of the alley, an Egyptian immigrant who would identify himself only as Nick, put the damage to the 27-year-old, 20,000-square-foot building at about $1.5 million. He said he did not have earthquake insurance.

Shane R. Cashman, a 24-year-old construction worker in Yucca Valley, was among the injured. "I was in bed and this just amazing shaking started," he said. "At first, I thought I'd just ride it out. But it went on forever, so I just had to run. I couldn't help myself. I ran down the concrete stairs at our apartment building, but the stairs were shaking so hard I couldn't keep my balance." He said he fell down the stairs and suffered leg injuries for which he was treated at Hi Desert Hospital.

'I Was Pinned There'

"It dumped me out of bed and dumped a bureau on top of me," said Emma Drages, a 68-year-old woman who lives in Landers, the town closest to the epicenter. "I was pinned there for a while. I walked into my house and I saw the dishes that belonged to my grandmother that I was saving for my children and they were all gone."

The early quake caused heavy damage to Old Woman Springs Road, a major route north of Yucca Valley to Landers. At one point the road broke, rising three feet on one side. In Landers, a 500,000-gallon water tank burst, leaving most of the 10,000 residents without water for at least three days, and four homes burned to the ground.

Mrs. Bong's brown stucco home shuddered violently, and she said she started to fly off her bed. Her husband, Leonard, a retired ceramic tile maker, grabbed her arm. When the shaking stopped, the Bongs's bedroom was filled with smashed belongings. They carted out a huge garbage can of broken glass from the kitchen. Mrs. Bong said she lost two figurines she had had since she was 16 years old.

The highway patrol sealed off Landers to all but residents, and even they could not get through without four-wheel drive vehicles.

At the San Bernardino County Firehouse in Yucca Valley, Doug Anderson, a firefighter, was recalling his wakeup call. "It seemed like it would never end," he said. "The intensity was incredible."

The authorities said about 100 people sought emergency shelter. Considering the power of the quake and the huge population of Southern California, it could have been a lot worse, and someday almost certainly will be.