Giant Rock
This is Giant Rock in the Mojave desert, California, which is (wait for it)… the largest free-standing rock in the world.
Er, right.
But wait, there’s more! George Van Tassel (the dude that built the Integratron) carved a small room into the bottom of the rock, where he carried out weekly meditation sessions to communicate with space people.
Okaaay.
I wonder if the hole in it had anything to do with the rock splitting into two pieces in February 2000? You can see the gleaming white interior of the piece that fell off of it in our thumbnail, and here are before and after shots.
This must be something to do with aliens of course, because in the postcard it’s basking in a strange purple light. Case closed.
Thanks to Jeff Alu and Kirk Hayhurst.
P.S. This very strange page has this fantastic paragraph about Van Tassel which I just can’t resist quoting 
He was awoken by a man in a one-piece blue suit standing beside his bed who said “My name is Sylvanon, I’d be pleased to show you my craft”. He tried to wake his wife but was unable to do so. The ship was standing about a hundred yards away, and on being taken aboard found it was very like the one in the film The Day the Earth Stood Still
psst… weekly “meditation” sessions, “February” 2000, and technically, here “are” before and after shots.
Zzimbo kandalish vvwwakundas kalumba” duderkandus falimbesigaruzzz hoask lamimba kandutalglas
Brakulamba
Mr. Alien
Whoops, thanks SepdAgnel…
The rock and story of the rock is weird, but what is even crazier is the town to the southwest. They have SOO many streets and hardly any homes. And even a Broadway?
Who gave that George fella the right to go around taking huges lumps out of the ‘worlds largest free standing rock’?
I’m sure if i turned up at Ayres Rock (or Oolawoora or whatever its called) and wanted to put a hot dog stand in a big hole in the side some one would have something to say about it!
http://www.rivastro.org/ras_landers.html looks like the town is near the GMARS or the Goat Mountain Astronomical Research Station. The town seems to be Landers, CA which is a Ghost town that used to be support by the Los Padres Mine http://forums.ghosttowns.com/showthread.php?t=2968
seems to be a bit of a mystery as to whether the mine was a gold or silver mine.. can’t find much more info..
Can someone explain what that ‘town’ is all about? They just seem to be randomly placed houses surrounded by an arbitrarily selected bit of scrubland, scattered all over the place with no centre or infrastructure!
Is this common in these parts?
Ghost towns while usually smaller in size are not too uncommon in Death Valley..here’s another story on landers http://www.death-valley.us/article469.html
What is this?
Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth
A school.
Ayer’s Rock is not really a free standing rock. Uluru (Ayers Rock) is one of Australia’s most famous landmarks and is the country’s most visited site. The mysterious red monolith is the weathered peak of a buried mountain range and rises some 430 metres from the desert and has a perimeter of about 9km (5.5 miles). The red colour of Uluru is due to iron minerals in the surface rocks oxidising with the air.
Your information on Giant Rock is incredibly erroneous. George Van Tassel did not build the house - which was UNDER the rock, not carved out of it (I’ve been in it, though the BLM filled it in after George’s death in the mid-1970s). A man name Frank Critzer, a prospector of German origins (but an American), built it, and lived out there until WW II, when he was suspected of being a German spy because he had - a radio! Never mind that the radio was a gift from his friends who did the Amos and Andy show, and it could only receive - that was cause enough for one good citizen to drag out the Riverside County Sheriff’s Dept. (wrong county). Critzer was suspected of stealing dynamite in connection to his vile terroristic plans (of which there is no evidence), but when the deputies began questioning him, Critzer pointed out that they were in the wrong county, and he went back down into the house.
Well, cops being cops, that ticked them off no end, so while the “cop version,” states that Critzer had a bomb and blew himself up, those who knew him knew that it was much more likely that the tear gas grenade the cops fired into his house landed in the box of blasting caps and dynamite that Critzer had under his kitchen table. In any event, Critzer got himself blown up.
Van Tassel had known Critzer and had visited Giant Rock while he was living there. A few years after the explosive incident, Van Tassel took his family to live under the rock. His wife made apple pies that were good enough for the Hollywood set to fly out to the dry lake bed for, and George fixed planes that needed help.
Then came the Venutians, with the technological revelations necessary for George to build his Integratron, a structure designed to rejuvinate cellular structure to keep you young forever. Unfortunately, the Venutians provided no venture capital, and Van Tassel died of old age (or was assassinated by the government) before it was completed (though it stands today and is used for sound baths and tours, etc.).
Van Tassel used to host UFO conventions on the dry lake bed next to Giant Rock that drew upwards of 15,000 people. I met him in 1972, and he died shortly thereafter.
Landers, by the way, was started by a doctor and his buddies who all got 5-acre plots of land and made a landing strip for their planes there, using the place as a getaway from the city. Goat Mountain is home to several mines, none of which look particularly safe to go down into to explore.
Landers is not an incorporated town, it is really just an area, but hardly a ghost town. It is a growing area (the housing boom in Southern California is hitting this area hard). One of the reasons you see scattered homes and cabins about is that the BLM was raffling off 5-acre “jackrabbit” homesteads back in the 1950s and 60s. For $100 you got the land, but you had to build a 400 square foot cabin on it to keep it. Many cabins still stand today.
Oh, the Los Padres Mine is too far north to have anything to do with Landers (which didn’t exist until the 1950s anyway). But we’ve got lots of mining activity in the area.
shanghahi brown is correct.i had the honor of meeting george when i was a kid, and the place was amazing. i was crushed when i found out what people have done to the place after george died. what a waste.
I Lived near the Dome for all of my high school years, I also went to school with George’s grandchildren, Shanghahi Brown pretty much hit the story right on the nose. I work for Mrs. Landers, and knew the Lynn Twinns, as well as many others that were instrumental to the history there. I was fascinated with it. It does sadden me when I see all that has happend anfter thier deaths.
ye know dan boon was marryed to sandra my cousin they lived at the rock during my child hood ,I was there for the conventions in the 50’s I would like to know where I could get the footage from those conventions seeing that I am in some of it history channel has some footage of me but can not find it do not remember the name of the show ,does any one know where I can get this on DVD please post a reply if you know thank you !!!!!!
rollingrock could you e-mail me you might help me find some of my kin
carpydawg@yahoo.com thank you
the cousin
rollingrock would you have lived at the ranch across from the dome ??????
would you be Donna?????
Back in my day, rocks were bigger.
His room was UNDER the rock. The Feds filled it in or blew it up - the vandals!
I visited the empty room after Van Tassel no longer lived there. It was about 14 steps down. You can still see where the walkway to the door leads - it has become a fireplace for campers. This is on the opposite side of the rock where the break happened. That was caused by campers building fires under the overhang for many years.