A year ago, around Christmas, the author of these lines had the lucky opportunity to visit one of the most remarkable places on the globe. This place has long earned itself the fame of "a treasury of all kinds of secrets, mysteries, delusions and insights."
We are talking about the Mojave Desert, located in southeastern California. It is not easy to believe that this ultra-modern and close to technical perfection state has a corner that has long been considered the most disastrous place on the planet. It is adjacent to the world famous Death Valley, by the way, named so by a misunderstanding, because the probability of dying in the Mojave is much higher. Some 15 years ago, when there were no cell phones yet, a car breakdown in the Mojave reduced your chances of returning alive to civilization to zero.
I was driven into this terrible desert by the curiosity of a traveler, who had heard and read a lot about its mysterious features. It was here that the "professor" of ufology, George Adamski, met his alien brother Orton of Venice. It is here, near the ghost town of Joshua Tree, sung by rock musicians, that the Institute of Mental Physics, which has now ceased its activity and destroyed by vandals, is located. It is here that space and time tend to lose their usual outlines and forms and are felt in a completely different way.
The feeling of detachment from the usual reality arises immediately, as soon as you enter the Mojave and find yourself among its rocky hills, hot by the sun and shrouded in a sultry haze. But the loss of connection with the world of people and technology is felt especially acutely twenty kilometers north-west of Joshua Three, near the famous Giant Stone and in its immediate vicinity, where annual congresses of enthusiasts of interplanetary contacts were held for more than two decades. Thousands and thousands of people gathered here, who, with bated breath, listened to the speeches of the members of the Cosmic Brotherhood. Eyewitnesses say that venerable ufologists desperately argued, scolded and expressed polar opposite judgments, which somehow magically complemented and reinforced each other.
The Giant Stone is something completely incomprehensible and amazing. At the height of a seven-story building, this boulder is considered the largest boulder in the world. A strange spirit hovers around him. Or it just seemed to me that, and the reason for this is the eerie cosmic silence, occasionally broken by artillery cannonade at a nearby military base, the giant Stone is considered here something like a source or storage of cosmic energy, but it surely dominates the "plateau of contactees" kilometers north of the tiny town of Yucca Valley.
It is a huge block of granite, which is probably the largest on Earth even after a weighty piece fell off on February 21 last year, accounting for about 15 percent of the volume of the stone. Apparently, the boulder cracked for quite natural reasons: water froze in the pores of its weathered surface, and two hours before a large part of it fell off the giant, an earthquake of 4.4 points was recorded nearby. But some of the few local residents believe that the Giant Stone has lost a considerable amount of its mass and volume under completely different circumstances associated with alien intervention.
For a long time, my American friends assured me, a person who is not very susceptible to mystical moods, that there is a place in the Mojave Desert in which time either flows or can flow backwards. However, these assurances were very florid and very vague. But here's what's surprising: it turns out that anyone can check whether this is true or not.
The place in question is located just a few kilometers from the Giant Stone. Probably the most striking feature of this "abode of reverse time" is that it is not at all some mysterious natural formation and not a gift of aliens, but a man-made structure.
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It is called the Integratron and is a snow-white dome, dazzlingly sparkling in the rays of the unmerciful South California sun even in November. It rises on the edge of a farm once owned by Georg van Tassel, the famous ufologist, through whose efforts the Mojave has become a traditional gathering place for interplanetary contact enthusiasts.
The road to this imposing structure goes along a gentle slope of a hill, from the top of which a mesmerizing view of the dome itself opens - a silent and majestic monument to its creator. Once it was noisy and crowded here, along the road there were thousands of cars and dozens of private planes, and around Intefatron not only gathered, but also lived in communes for a long time, catchers of flying saucers, who bravely endured the sweltering heat. Now it is hard to believe in it: the surroundings of the dome have become depopulated and acquired a dull appearance.
As we approach the Integratron, the present century recedes somewhere, and you are transported into the not distant past, at the time when Georg van Tassel, having collected 42 thousand dollars of donations by subscription, began to build his temple. The dome is about thirteen meters high and seventeen meters across.
There is not a single metal part, not a single nail or screw in it. It is intended, according to the creator, to rejuvenate people. The dome grew in the middle of the rocky desert in 1959, but literally a few months later strange visions and unknown creatures began to appear in it, and television programs from the past and the future began to be projected onto the interior. Then van Tassel realized with delight and trepidation that the Integratron, among other things, is also a kind of time machine.
Following the instructions received through the cosmic channels, the ufologist carefully calculated the geometry of the dome and oriented it to the cardinal points. Van Tassel took into account the location of the Giant Stone and the Great Pyramid at Giza in compiling his sophisticated geometric calculations. Thus, he succeeded (in any case, he was sacredly convinced of this) to create a certain magnetic vortex with a radius of several tens, if not hundreds, of kilometers.
Van Tassel argued that over time, his Integratron would be able to rejuvenate up to ten thousand people a day, and the appearance of these people would not undergo any changes, but their body cells would seem to be recharged like a car battery, unfortunately (and maybe fortunately), on the day when we went to inspect this wonderful building, it was closed to visitors, but from the announcement at the door I learned that on the first, second and third Sunday of each month for only five dollars you will be taken around the building, introduced to it history, will show you some of the "dome" technologies in action, and, who knows, maybe along the way you will lose a dozen extra years without changing in appearance.
I was told that the centerpiece of the rejuvenation program here is "quantum-mental baths", which "act on the body in the same way as massage, only at the atomic and molecular levels, creating waves of relaxation and rest." I will not be cunning: I didn’t get much from these explanations, but I learned that “baths” are available to everyone once a month in spring and autumn, a total of six times a year. At the same time, seminars are held at which "listeners learn about the healing properties of the Earth's energy and learn to use this energy to heal themselves and our planet."
I don't really believe in healing and mysticism, but I conjure you: if the opportunity arises, be sure to visit the mysterious and unexplored Mojave Desert, which is only four hours away from Los Angeles. Of course, I cannot guarantee that you will certainly meet Orton or rejuvenate in a dome built by a selfless devotee. But such a wondrous, wild and unbridled beauty, as in the Mojave, you will not see anywhere else.
Andrey SHAROV