“People see so many flying saucers, they’re just not a novelty any more"

January 14, 2015 9:45 AM

For two eccentric Californians, Frank Critzer and George Van Tassel, the immense girth of Giant Rock was not simple geological happenstance but a sign portending mystical significance. A meeting place for flying objects, identified and unidentified. Undated postcard of Giant Rock during the Van Tassel family’s occupancy of the site. The café sign features an image of a UFO. By Sasha Archibald
posted by valkane (8 comments total)

I've been all over the SoCal deserts and I've never heard of this. The desert can do strange things to people - I've seen it in myself even when visiting for academic endeavors. But then again this is just a big ass boulder to this geologist.
posted by BStrummin at 10:10 AM on January 14, 2015

Likewise, I'm surprised I never heard of this. Nice find, valkane!
posted by sidereal at 10:16 AM on January 14, 2015 [1 favorite]

I have been to the Integratron, and even had one of their sound-baths. Highly recommended.
posted by Kafkaesque at 10:45 AM on January 14, 2015

1) The article being titled "Mass Effect" pleases me.

2) I want to believe that the most amazing thing that happened at Giant Rock wasn't just that a huge piece broke off for no particular reason, but that it happened at exactly the time a visiting tourist leaned up against it for a photo, that the crack started exactly at the spot that they rested their hand, and that this unknown person walks the earth from now on suspended between an ineradicable feeling of the innate fragility of all things and a lingering desire to believe in their own vast and ineffable power.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:32 AM on January 14, 2015 [3 favorites]

crazy guy living in the desert under a rock, that's my dream
posted by sidereal at 12:56 PM on January 14, 2015 [1 favorite]

After reading I Rode a Flying Saucer as a kid, I vowed to some day visit Giant Rock and the then-under-construction Integratron. 40 some years later, I did! Pretty awe inspiring
posted by bonefish at 3:41 PM on January 14, 2015

Wow ... that really is a giant rock. As for the boys' craziness (unless I'm mistaken, the word eccentric is reserved for the rich), it just seems to follow the pattern for many people setting up a business venture in a hard place.

Upon this rock I will build my church.
posted by Twang at 4:49 PM on January 14, 2015

If you want to hear a podcast about taking a sound bath at the Integretron, it was an episode of Oh No Ross and Carrie.


(Ross and Carrie previously on the blue.)
posted by benito.strauss at 1:21 PM on January 18, 2015