Humans
PUBLISHED
1
If this rock could talk, it would have some wild stories. It awkwardly sits in California’s Mojave Desert, where it’s been for millions and millions of years, but its life really kicked up a gear in the past century.
The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.This charismatic ball of geology is aptly known as Giant Rock. Covering square meters (5,800 square feet) of ground and standing seven stories high, it is purported to be the largest free-standing boulder in the world (although there are, apparently, some contenders in Western Mongolia and South Africa).
Scientists believe the giant granite emerged in the desert after it was freed by a giant earthquake and rolled down from the rocky outcropping next to it.
It remained in relative obscurity until 1931, when it caught the eye of Frank Critzer, an eccentric prospector with a vision. Enamored with the rock's natural insulation, Critzer used dynamite to blast out a small living space beneath its base.
Inspired by desert tortoises that burrow into the sand to escape the heat, Critzer’s subterranean home worked remarkably well, keeping him cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Once this project was finished, he went on to clear a rudimentary landing strip on the nearby ancient lakebed, founding the Giant Rock Airport.
Unfortunately, Critzer’s plan to build a desert empire took a dark turn. His German ancestry, high-powered radio antenna, and stockpile of dynamite made him a target of wartime paranoia. In July 1942, three sheriff's deputies arrived at the rock to question him about his "suspicious" activities. Somehow, Critzer and the three lawmen were killed in a dynamic explosion.
The next chapter of Giant Rock’s story gets even stranger – yes, even stranger.
In 1947, public interest in extraterrestrials had been turbocharged by the Roswell incident. That same year, the site was taken over by a new owner, George Van Tassel, a former aviation mechanic who had been bitten by the "UFO bug."
Van Tassel transformed the rock into a spiritual headquarters. He invited people for weekly meditation sessions beneath the boulder, where he claimed to communicate telepathically with extraterrestrials and channeled the messages through his own vocal cords. As the '50s rolled in, Giant Rock was a major gathering point for UFO believers.
.jpg "An artwork called \"What Happens At Giant Rock Doesn't Stay At Giant Rock\" by Jim Weaver, Artist in Residence, Fall 2023.")
The Los Angeles Times reported in 1955: “Joining [Van Tassel] as sponsors were a number of men and women who have written books about spaceships or are going to do so as quickly as possible. They nearly all sounded some dire warnings for earthlings, but threw in a little hope, too, if we wake up and listen to what friendly space beings are telling us to do.”
“One man who was going around with a Geiger counter said that even the air around Giant Rock was jumping with cosmic rays of leftover clouds from the Nevada atom blast, or backwash from space ships. Anyway, everybody was on the lookout for a spacecraft to come in and land.”
One night, Van Tassel claimed that the intergalactic beings had instructed him to build a research laboratory at the site. According to the New York Times, he claimed he was ushered onto a spacecraft by a 700-year-old being from Venus called Solganda.
The visitor warned that Earth’s reliance on metal building materials interfered with interplanetary “thought transfers.” To solve this problem, Solganda allegedly provided Van Tassel with blueprints for a machine capable of suspending gravity, extending human life, and enabling high-speed time travel. Naturally, Van Tassel set to work constructing the device, which he called the Integratron.
Sadly, Van Tassel died in 1978 with the structure unfinished. The beautiful building still stands today, although it's more of a wooden meditation space than a high-tech interdimensional communication node.
The latest chapter of Giant Rock is much quieter, if not a little sad. Reporters from SFGate visited the boulder in 2022 and found that the surrounding area was empty, except for a “shirtless, leather-skinned, excessively hairy old man” who had been camping out of his car. They also found lots of graffiti on the surrounding rocks: alien faces, political slogans, dick drawings, a Star Wars Resistance logo, and someone’s Twitter handle, all scrawled across the ancient stone.
However, if the past hundred years are any indication, drama will inevitably return to Giant Rock.
