All Along The (UFO) Watchtower
This refreshingly non-giggly article by Colorado Spings Gazette writer Jessica Sidman tells the story of rancher Judy Messoline’s UFO-watching platform in the San Luis Valley of Colorado.
Messoline was not having much luck with ranching, so she and her partner Stan Becker built a unexpected monument to the weirdness in the area, which has been compellingly documented in Chris O’Brien’s Mysterious Valley books. The couple invite people to camp in the area and use the tower for a nominal fee. They even hold a UFO small convention each July.
An interesting sidelight to this story is that in the early 1950s, the U.S. Air Force actually proposed building a network of UFO spotting stations in northern New Mexico, just south across the state line from the San Luis Valley due to the high incidence of weird lights seen flitting around the region. Attention was originally drawn to the area by the “green fireball” phenomenon, which had the authorities silently wringing their hands in the late 1940s.
This snippet about one of the Watchtower visitors made me smile:
Denise Stecher says she has seen “strange things” before but she wouldn’t necessarily say that little green men are behind them. “I believe in people who believe,” she says. “I like to see people who are passionate about different things, including aliens.”
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Aug 21 2007 
August 21st, 2007 at 5:49 pm
I must admit to having seen two green fireballs so far. Both were in southern California. I have never known what to make of them. Beautiful, though.
August 21st, 2007 at 6:17 pm
Allogenes,
Welcome, new member of the Ufomystic guild of distinguished commenters!
Funny, I saw a couple of them fireballs too–right in the middle of Los Angeles, both times in the late afternoon. This was about 8 years ago. They looked almost, but not quite like fireworks–bright green and heading straight earthward. They were perhaps 500 feet up. How did yours look?
August 22nd, 2007 at 8:14 am
Hi Greg,
Since you mentioned Chris O’Brien,I was just wondering about the
two interviews you have up on the radio
Mysterioso site.Is it my imagination or
are the two interviews the same(cool interview by the way,as usual).I would find out myself,just a bit low on download at the moment.
Cheer’s Kristian
August 22nd, 2007 at 11:34 am
Kristian,
The ones available at the download page are a bit confusing, as I was still learning how to upload at the time. The one that begins the title with “blood rituals” is in 2 parts. The other (near the bottom of the list) was recorded on another date. Essentially, there is one two-parter listed under 2 segments on the main page.
I hope that makes sense, and thanks for the compliment!
September 8th, 2007 at 1:03 am
The wave of huge green fireballs seen during the early 50s in NM and SoCO has never been explained. Tens of thousands of witnesses saw them including an entire stadium near Santa Fe. At the time, the military spent a considerable amount of time and resources attempting to study the elusive events, but finally gave up publicly and professed no further official interest.
I have personally have seen one of these events — Jan 1991. It was at least full-moon sized and featured what appeared to be a short trailing tail. It was a glittering light green color and it raced along the Sangre de Cristo Mountains—from S to N just above the tops of the peaks and disappeared over the northern part of the valley near Poncha Pass. The weather at the time was well below zero, it was crystal clear and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I remember hearing a static-like sound in my head during the event. During my time in the valley I had dozens of sightings of weird objects and this fireball was by far the largest anomalous object I hvave ever witnessed.
’sup Greg? Ray’s coming to town in early November to give a presentation, wanna come?
September 9th, 2007 at 10:53 am
Chris,
How ya been? It depends on work, but I’d really like to come out for whatever it is that Ray’s speaking on/ for.
Your fireball episode sounds like a pretty spectacular sighting. For a few months in the mid-1990s, I and others saw green, streaking fireballs with tails heading earthwards right in the middle of Los Angeles. Both times that I saw them, I was in the car, and heard nothing.
September 9th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
Here is that particular account as I have documented in my new book Secrets of the Mysterious Valley page 79 and elsewhere]
“The Green Fireball
January 1991, 3:30 a.m., Road T, Saguache County:
My new band, Expedition, had just ended a weekend in Salida at the venerable Lamplighter Lounge…
…I remember that bitterly-cold moonless night and the ride home vividly. I was proceeding east toward Crestone on Road T, just before the first S-turn, my ears still ringing from that night’s performance, when I noticed a crackling, static sound in my ears. The strange sound reminded me of white noise between AM radio stations. I slowed the truck. Movement over the Sangre de Cristo Mountains near the Great Sand Dunes drew my attention and from the southeast, I beheld a huge, brilliant-green, full-moon-sized glittering ball of light gliding up the range!
Behind it streamed a short tail. It remained at a constant altitude parallel to the mountain tops and the distance it traveled, from the moment I first spotted it, until it disappeared from view to the north, must have been seventy-five to eighty miles. It covered the distance in less than five seconds!
As the object sailed north toward Salida, the high-frequency crackling sound in my ears faded. I was so tired from playing, and driving the eighty-miles home, that the sighting didn’t really register fully until the following day, when I mentioned the experience to a couple of friends.”
Check your email about Ray’s trip… if you can make it, you are invited.