The Watchtower
She lifted a cigarette to her mouth, snapped a spark from a lighter and took a long dry sip. The smoke vanished in the grey summer air.
Judy Messoline, a gentle woman with grandmotherly disposition listens to stories, strange stories, when nobody else will. “People trust me,” she said.
Just yesterday, someone came in and told me they saw a green figure, about four feet tall walking through just over there, she said as she waved her hand in a general and somewhat non-precise way.
More or less she was pointing north at dusty and dry patch of alpine desert. It’s vastness apparent as the wind scraped by and the mountains, some of them over 14,000 feet tall, rose in the distance.
It was the height of summer and she had already recorded 30 UFO sightings from her own property in July alone. Summer is a particularly busy time for UFO’s, it just happens to be her busiest time of year.
Judy built the peculiar roadside UFO watchtower and small campground in 2004. It is situated in the vast, often dark, San Luis Valley, about four hours southwest of Denver. The watchtower itself is more like a raised deck than a tower. Beneath it is a small dome shaped adobe visitor center. The idea to build the tower came after she found little success cattle ranching in the unforgiving alpine desert and experiencing strange encounters of her own. Since opening she has hosted over 30,000 earthly visitors and learned more of the significant paranormal activity in the area.
“I’ve had psychics come here over the years, drawn to the energy fields right here,” she said pointing to her feet. She sat in the doorway of the visitor center in an old metal chair as she does for most of every day.
There she waits and sits thoughtfully as people from all over pull off the “cosmic highway” and down her gravel driveway. Visitors recount strange sightings in the night sky, paranormal encounters and communications with alternate dimensions they have experience all over the world. Many of them, as it turns out, happen to be from the nearby valleys of central Colorado.
If any of the encounters were from her own property, which they often were, she would pull out a big tired binder and carefully document the known details like the time, location and a description of what was seen, heard or felt. She turned page after page to reach the latest entry where she would add the recent sighting of the little green man.
Judy’s UFO watchtower is the only one in the world. It is near the 37th parallel north, a latitudinal distinction that crosses the United States and is used as the boundary between Colorado and New Mexico.
Known to some as the paranormal highway, many unusual sightings have been documented near the parallel around the globe. The reasons for the frequency of the sightings remains a mystery.
One couple milled around the on the evening I was there. Talismans of every sort litter property. Jewelery, lighters, dolls, photos, stones and chrystals are placed around the property with little forming organically between the spiritual clutter.
When the couple left Judy rose from her chair. “Come over here,” she said. She looked north into the valley and then down at the ground where she had placed a rock. Right here, she pointed to the rock and pulled out a compass. We looked north but the compass needle spun frantically in circles. By taking one step in any direction, the compass needle snapped to again show magnetic north. Standing over the rock, the compass swirled in confusion. She moved the rock to show nothing by the dry ground below. “No gimmick,” she said, this spot is real.