Exploring Fear (and Aliens) at Great Sand Dunes National Park

Deep in the San Luis Valley of southern Colorado, the dried-up remains of an ancient lake feed a surreal landscape of ever-shifting sand known today as Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve. Formed over an uncertain period, perhaps millions of years ago, these soft and sturdy peaks are the highest dunes in North America and are horseshoed by the craggy peaks of the Sangre de Cristo and San Juan Mountains.

Even in my well-researched anticipation, I wasn’t prepared for its vast oddness. I also wasn’t prepared for the breath-sucking trek of hiking even the lowest of mounds here at 8,200 feet above sea level. In the distant haze of mid-afternoon light, the scale of the dunes becomes impossible to measure. As I approach it I tell myself they will be easy to climb, that once I get inside the three-dimensionality of the massive granular drifts they will somehow be reduced to an approachable stroll.

Instead, it’s about as far from easy as anything could be. The slog through the sinking grains fills your shoes instantly, and in a matter of steps you’re weighted down with the feeling of someone pulling on your feet from beneath.

From a campsite perched on a grassy slope to the east, I watch as the wind tears through a flat pocket of land between the parking lot and the dune field that ripples and swells for 30-square miles. I see people, silhouette slivers in the distance, as they cover their faces from the blustery surge that seems to rush in each evening.

I start to search “sand goggles” on my phone, daydreaming that an Amazon drone could deliver them in some sort of 30-minute miracle window here in this bare and spotty cell service territory. But there are more things than gritty eyes to deter a solitary and hesitant newbie explorer. Posted notices warn campers of recent mountain lion activity in the area, cautioning against hiking alone. Then there are the aliens.

On a sprawling and equally arid plot to the west, a half-dozen or so slender figures with black orbed eyes point to a UFO Watchtower that sits quietly outside the edge of the park. These creatures are cut from cardboard and are painted in bright green, but locals say real extraterrestrials are lurking here too. 

Judy Messoline built the curious dome structure and the 365-degree viewing platform in 2000 after struggling to raise cattle on the gravelly farmland. To date, there have been 223 documented sightings from the Watchtower, the occurrences recorded in a thick binder stuffed with personal notes and photographs. In one of them, a bright blue geometric sphere hovers against a pale sky. Its size is difficult to gauge, but its surface appears shiny, and the flat sections of its sides resemble the topography of a soccer ball. 

There’s virtually no light pollution here—Great Sand Dunes was officially designated an International Dark Sky Park in 2019—perfect for stargazing or spotting what locals call "mystery lights" hovering over Mount Blanca, long known to be sacred to the Navajo.

A few years after opening, psychics began visiting the property and reported the existence of two vortexes, portals to a parallel universe, on the property. What started as a simple rock garden to outline the vortexes is now filled with mounds of trinkets left behind by thousands of visitors. Clusters of ordinary, everyday objects—sunglasses, sneakers, hats, and pens, lots and lots of pens—bake in the sun on the east side of the Watchtower now named the Healing Garden.

In a 2013 Interview with VICE, Messoline says the geothermal water running underneath the San Luis Valley might be a factor. Others attribute the activity to the spiritual history of the land.

Whatever the source, the Watchtower has evolved into more than a destination to catch a glimpse. It has become a destination for travelers to share what they’ve seen. And Judy doesn’t take her role in their confidence lightly. Visitors frequently report being ridiculed after sharing their encounters.

When I ask her about recent experiences in the valley, she relays an account from a couple who own land in San Luis, 60 miles to the southeast near the New Mexico border. "They saw a ship land on their farm. A bright light came out of the top and so did the aliens. There were tall whites and short grays. They stayed in the house and watched out the windows. Really scared them.”

A mere six miles away is another curiosity that is equally as strange. "Gators in Colorado?" A low-profile billboard along rural State Highway 17 echoes the question locals and tourists have been asking for over three decades. Known for infesting the freshwater wetlands of the southeastern US, these animals are not what you expect to find in this landlocked, high desert swath of Colorado. But as shallow aquifers and springs run underneath the valley, they’ve come to thrive here. 

Open to the public since 1990, Colorado Gators Reptile Park is a sanctuary for unwanted and confiscated exotic pets. In 1987 the owners purchased 100 baby alligators to dispose of the filleted carcasses leftover from their budding fishery. These gators grew and reproduced in the natural pools on the property, and after increasing interest from the community, the owners opened the farm for self-guided tours. 

Dark slits blink from the dark water as you wander through an indoor/outdoor maze of gator ponds and aquaculture tanks teeming with Tilapia and Catfish. Pythons and boas slither against the glass of microhabitat enclosures. Huge tortoises trace after your steps. Lizards warm their spiny backs under silver belled heating lamps. An albino alligator with rosy white scales and pale eyes emerges from a grass and mud bog.

And if scanning the sky for UFOs atop millennia-old dunes isn’t topping the bucket list meter, for $100 per person visitors can learn and play the role of wildlife trapper, wrangling an eight-foot gator with a bare-handed grip.

I’ll save my dollars for a return trip to the dunes itself. Because, for me, one night hasn’t been enough. Sipping Chardonnay from a plastic cup and questioning if a machete would be enough in defending against a mountain lion—there have been three attacks across Colorado in 2019—I watch as a handful of hikers cross the grassy trail away from our campground. As dusk darkens the dune field into a mute grey wall of sand, the glow from their headlamps become bright orbs that seem to float in the distance as they climb to the summit. 

Mountain lion, alien, rogue gator, alone or not, I’ll make my own way to the top. Because travel is not just about going places. It’s also about conquering fears. And, for me, there are plenty of both left to explore.

Published November 12, 2019 on Travels and Curiosities.