April 2020
UFO sightings and paranormal experiences
Judy Messoline
We've had 226 documented sightings from just the tower since opening in 2000. This year, we're going to have a 20th birthday party over memorial weekend, May 22-24. We'll have food, entertainment and all kinds of stuff going on, so everybody's welcome to come. We haven't had any sightings since November, but nobody's been here since November. I mean, really been here. With the summer coming up, people will be out more so we'll get more sightings.
Stan and I moved to the valley in 1995 to raise cattle and paint horses, but from the time we moved here, all we heard were UFO stories and we'd giggle and say, "We need a UFO watch tower," never thinking we'd ever do it! Well, after struggling with cows for 4.5 years - they don't eat sand real well – we had to sell the herd. I was working at my sister's place in Hooper, and one of the farmers came in and I was telling him about it, and he said, "You need to put up that UFO watchtower, you'd have fun." Well, I've had fun, but never expected to see anything! And so far, I've gotten to see 28 of the 226. So, it's been pretty phenomenal. I can't believe it's been going for 20 years. That's what’s blown my mind. But we get people from all over the world. Last summer we had about 10,000 go through, which I thought was pretty great, so we'll see what this summer does!
M. Marie McVey
My first year here, I bought a house on Fallen Tree and was renovating it so I was staying in my fifth wheel. I woke up around 1:00 AM, sat on the side of the bed looking out the window toward the mountains and saw a big, round, white orb. It was very bright but it was more like neon. It wasn't like sunshine or anything with rays. I watched this thing traveling around the mountains for about an hour. It'd go around behind a peak, come out from there and go around another. It ended up going up over Cottonwood Creek Canyon, stopped, and then went straight down into the canyon and disappeared. The next morning I woke up, not underneath my covers, but across my pillows, and every battery in my house - the battery in my truck, the battery in my van, the battery in my phone, my solar batteries - were all dead. Since then, I've seen a fireball that looks like a shooting star going across straight toward Cottonwood Creek Canyon, come to a stop, and the orb goes straight down in there. I saw it twice. Be interesting to see if anybody else has seen those.
Nick Nevares
Before moving to Crestone, I lived in Navajo Nation with the Diné, where the skies were completely black. My last night there, my friend and I noticed what looked like a star, but it kept moving around in the sky. We recorded video of it. It started with one blinking light, then turned into a line of blinking lights that’re very clear. Then these orbs that look like fire blinked in and out of existence in that same line of lights. When I zoom in and brighten it all the way, it looks like dust is swirling all around them. It's really cool. The next morning, I talked to my host mom on the Rez, who said, "That's the weirdest thing. Last night, I got up and went to the outhouse. Coming back, there was a big foot on the ground." I was like, "A big foot? What are you talking about?" She said, "Well, I looked up and it was attached to a big man." I asked, "A big man? How big of a man?" She responded, "At least 15 or 20 feet." Me: "What’d he look like?" Her: "Like a mountain man." Me: "What does that mean?" Her: "He was wearing skins and moccasins. And he did this to me when he saw me." She made the motion of a fisted hand sprinkling something over her head, saying, "When he did that, I thought it was a dream, so I went back to bed! I wouldn't have remembered it had you not said something right now.” It was a very weird night!
Scott Johnson
As an amateur astronomer, I'm always looking at the sky. I know what's there and can see things that aren’t normal. Living in Crestone, you don't have to go long without seeing things that a) don't belong there, b) would be unidentified. They're easy, frequent and common. My big issue is when people don’t believe others who have seen, not trusting people's testimony. When you have a story to tell, wouldn't you expect people to believe you? So why would we have that disconnect of, "Oh, their testimony can't be trusted. They've got something to gain out of it." More than likely, they have more to lose.
I haven’t had a big in-person encounter, but I have had samples of flesh taken, waking up with a scar that wasn't there yesterday. That's happened a couple times, although I cannot recount the experiences. Nevertheless, there’s evidence of something happening. My sister's had that, too. And she is in no way related to, interested in or had experience with UFOs, nor even inclined to look at the sky to see. So I'm like, "Lisa. Me too." She's like, "Really!?!" So, that's more of my encounter is just that samples of DNA have been taken rather than seeing a face to face experience. So trust your fellow human beings. We're all in this together. And believe me, this universe is more full of life than we can even imagine.
Paki Wright
The most recent paranormal event was a transparent night critter, as I call him. A friend and I were coming back from Salida around 10 PM about three years ago. Near Joyful Journey, out of nowhere, this unbelievable-looking creature ran across the road in front of the car. "Did you see that!?!" I sorta yelled, and my friend said, "Yes!" It was about 4’ tall, a dog-looking critter, with a black outline, but completely transparent. The weirdest thing was it had an eye like a round metal reflector, looking directly at us as it darted across the road. Of course, it was gone in a nanosecond, but it was one of the more bizarre experiences I've had here, though by far not the only one.
One of two memorable UFO sightings was at the Crestone Music Festival, several years ago, with a group of people. It was quite dark and a friend said, "Look up, Paki! Look up!" There was this bright, round light in the sky zigzagging over Challenger, like it wanted to be noticed or something, but maybe it was just digging the music. The Cosmic Highway is not a misnomer. Crestone is a special place for many reasons. People talk about a very thin veil between the dimensions here and occasionally, as Chris O'Brien has reported, some super-odd things slip through. I love this area. San Luis Valley is a transformational place.
Alannah Godwin
I lived up above Marineland in Palos Verdes when I was a kid. This happened in sixth grade, before Star Trek or anything cool like that. My sister and I would go down to the end of our street, sit on this wall and watch the sunset. One night, we saw these little triangles, really pretty, bright colors; yellow, red, blue. My sister and I were amazed to see these 3-4 triangles coming towards us from Santa Catalina Island. We started signaling to them, yelling, "Come here! Come here!" You know, we were real crazy kids – we wanted to have fun! They’d get closer then back off. Then we started dancing with them!
Believe it or not, we’d wave and they would wave, moving up and down and back and forth. Then we’d start dancing side to side and they’d follow us. That was really cool. Then they’d take off. This happened 3 days in a row, dancing with UFO triangles in the sky. We wanted them to get closer, but they didn't. So we had a really good time with them. I don't remember talking to people about it, because we were afraid they might think we were really crazy! I think we talked to my dad about a little because he was a pilot and really into aerospace and stuff like that. But it was really cool, and I felt a connection with these triangles in the sky. They’d fly around real quick and then they’d fly back over Catalina Island and just disappear. So, it was neat - a good feeling!