photos and story by Seth Chapin

A Texas license depicting none other than a Mr. James Brown, a package of unopened Big League Chew, a business card from the Mekong Bank of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, a Pinnacle 3 golf ball, a one dollar Jamaican coin, a Soft-Dri travel size deodorant stick, and a multitude of hubcaps ranging from ancient to Audi are only a few of the things that I notice in Judy Messoline’s garden. I feel like I’m browsing at a tag sale. This is not your run-of-the-mill tomato and basil garden. Instead, I am standing amidst the organized clutter of The Healing Garden; a garden that grows steadily, yet the harvest is never reaped - at least not for a salad plate.

As you exit the back door of the dome-shaped, adobe gift shop of the UFO Watchtower, directly ahead of you, outlined by carefully placed rocks, are not one but two openings to a parallel universe. It has been confirmed by over a dozen psychics that the two vortexes, as they are known to the “dimensional clairvoyant,” exist in the spots pointed out to me by Judy. The bell-shaped garden is outlined by rocks, cacti, and cottonwood limbs and as I listen intently, Judy explains that the array of pocket - sized items that litter the space are a form of energy that people leave behind after they visit the garden. The garden acts as a give and take mechanism, as anyone who gives something to the garden is entitled to request something in return. Judy showed consistency with her straightforward demeanor, proceeding to explain that “entitled to request” is a key concept when dealing with the garden. Many of the things she has requested have not come true. Essentially, the garden will produce or provide for some, yet not for others. Judy ticks off stories of people who have been healed by the garden, including a woman who claims that the garden rid her body of cancer. I feel unsure, yet intrigued by this place.


Pulling the e-brake as I roll to a standstill, I realize my Jeep has gone astray from the alien-flanked driveway that leads to the official parking area. I also realize that my off-road venture could be entirely justified as the deserted campground was covered in a blanket of snow and the handful of tracks that were visible crisscrossed the entire lot. I conclude that winter is off-season for UFOs.

I am at the UFO Watchtower and Campground on the property of Judy Messoline, a 620-acre ranch in Hooper, Colorado. Judy is unquestionably the biggest icon of this small town located in a big valley. The San Luis Valley is the largest alpine valley in the world - a sprawling expanse of approximately 8,000 square miles at an altitude of around 8,000 feet. Judy explains to me that she and her companion, Stan Becker, moved to Hooper to raise cattle in 1995, relocating from outside of Denver. After not more than a week in town, Judy’s friend from Denver, Babette, called:

“Have you seen any?”

“Any what?”

“Well...UFOs.”

“Yeah right...”

The organized clutter of The Healing Garden.

Judy was understandably skeptical. With her ranch as the primary concern, she thought little of flashy saucers and long, slender-fingered space invaders. Unfortunately, after four or five years, it became evident that Judy’s herd of cattle could no longer be sustained by the overworked soil of the valley. Her options: starve the cattle or sell the cattle. Judy opted for the latter (the animal and financially-friendly option), left pondering, “What do you do with the land?” The most logical solution for an ex-cattle rancher is not to open up a pilgrimage site for extra-terrestrial aficionados. And on a whim and a suggestion from a resident of town, that is exactly what Judy did.

The UFO Watchtower and Campground was initially intended to be a low-key investment of around $15,000, a “mom and pop type” business endeavor, as Judy described it. However, her plans somehow made it onto the AP wire and she was bogged down with a demanding schedule of interviews before the watchtower even opened. As a result of her knew-found recognition, Judy’s decision to invest significantly more left her temporarily impoverished. She knew the interest was out there, but wasn’t quite sure on the aliens yet. Since the grand opening on Memorial Day of 2000, Judy has requested a $2 entrance fee to the tower, as a donation. Although the “donation-fee” is a contradiction in itself, it is also a means for Judy to express her hospitality that compels a steady flow of visitors to return.

Regardless of how charismatic Judy is, the five-star location of the watchtower has indisputably led to an influx of visitors. The San Luis Valley is one of the most prolific spots in the U.S. for UFO sightings. Reading through passages of Mysterious Valley and Enter the Valley, I am impressed by the breadth of knowledge that Christopher O’Brien has displayed with regard to the valley. O’Brien is, without a doubt, the San Luis Valley’s most renowned expert on all things paranormal. He has researched occurrences in the valley for over a decade, and has made quite a project of it. In addition to his two books, O’Brien publishes a bi-monthly newsletter of baffling accounts sent in from locals.

The valley’s documented history of unexplained occurrences began in the early 1950s when green fireballs in the sky were seen and reported by thousands throughout northern New Mexico and southern Colorado. In the 1960s, an Episcopal minister from Alamosa, Robert Whitting, claimed to have telepathic encounters with the occupants of a craft that followed his car on U.S. 160 late one night. During a notable string of sightings in the late 60s, cars would actually line up on the side of the road, as if watching a fireworks display dancing about in the sky over the Great Sand Dunes. Sightings that served up grand displays of lights, action, and noise were apparently not appealing enough to go mainstream, but with the addition of hard evidence, the San Luis Valley was ready to go global.

Snippy the Horse (actually name Lily - a blunder on the part of the press) was found dead on September 8, 1967 on the King Ranch, at the base of Blanca Massif. Nellie Lewis’ appaloosa was missing all of her tissue from the tip of her nose to her shoulders. The heart and brain were also missing from the carcass, and a formaldehyde-like odor was emitted from the animal for several days after discovery. The bones of Snippy’s neck and skull were a stark-white discoloration, as if they had been bleached. Reportedly, there were no visible signs of blood on the body or ground. It just so happened that the Condon Commission UFO study was in full swing at the University of Colorado. Dr. Robert Adams, a pathologist with the commission, agreed to do an autopsy. He concluded that Snippy had a severe leg infection at her time of death and someone must have slit her throat to put the animal out of misery. Once the throat was cut, birds could have easily stripped away the rest of the flesh. The horse’s owner was convinced otherwise. “Flying saucers killed my horse!” Nellie explained to the press. Her commitment to this theory never faltered. According to close friends, she became increasingly more obsessed with UFOs and the occult as time from the incident lagged on. Increasingly distraught, Nellie committed suicide on the day of her mother’s burial. Then, in 1979, former FBI agent Kenneth Rommel, Jr. was investigating Snippy’s death as director of Operation Animal Mutation, and discovered that the horse’s corpse had been donated to science. The doctor’s work preparing the specimen for teaching purposes revealed two bullet holes in the horse’s pelvis. The intrigue surrounding Snippy’s death may not be as formidable a force as it originally was, but one cannot dispute that there have been hundreds of UAD (unusual animal death) cases reported in the San Luis Valley since Snippy’s - adding up to an elaborate hoax or an inexplicable pattern.

After several priming sessions in the lore of the San Luis Valley before I visit the watchtower, I am ready to read some first-hand accounts. I ask Judy if there is a logbook where sightings and encounters are recorded. She promptly hands me a six-volume manuscript entitled Familiar Voices that is a compilation of countless tape-recorded interviews that she conducted.

They seek Judy out because they know she will listen. No matter how bizarre, anyone who went through the trouble of opening a UFO watchtower would certainly be willing to listen to a story. I am sure that a solid majority of the people who seek Judy out have turned to their friends and family with their story, only to have it compared to an X-Files episode. Granted, Judy was a little skeptical and startled when the first person came into the gift shop claiming they were part alien. Judy describes the one abnormality that she could distinguish, “The blue of his eyes stretched from corner to corner.” The pigmented tissue of his irises covered the entire eyeball. The man apparently asked, “Got a space for us to sign in?” Judy pointed to the guestbook, “Yup, you can sign in right over there.” “No, no I mean us,” the self-described Plutonian responded. Since the watchtower’s opening, nine different individuals have approached her and claimed to be some sort of extraterrestrial. Judy’s encounter with the man with the blue eyeballs (eyes would be an understatement) “was something that pretty much convinced [her]” of their existence.

As I thumb through the pages, I find no mention of the Plutonian. Among some of the seemingly truthful, yet frequently vague accounts (vague does not necessarily mean dishonest), I find several tales worth sharing. Names were omitted in the interviews to protect people’s privacy:

SAN LUIS VALLEY, COLORADO, DATE UNKNOWN: A woman is driving along late at night on Highway 17 when quite suddenly “a guy appeared behind her on one of those crotch rocket motorcycles. The only thing is, he was a ball of fire.” The woman started doing 80 to 90 MPH in an attempt to loose the motorcycle, but it kept on her tail, leaving and coming back sporadically as she passed through towns. Eventually, the fireball and its ride disappeared. The woman being interviewed is relaying this story to Judy about an acquaintance of hers. The interviewee makes a vow of honesty, “I truly believe her, because she doesn’t, you know...She doesn’t drink or do hallucinogenic or anything, so that was the story.”

ANCHORAGE, ALASKA, 1990: A man and his girlfriend are working in a group home for developmentally disabled adults. They had just turned the lights off and were going to sleep when a flash “like a lightning strike” occurred right outside their window. The man snooped around outside to inspect the flash, but to no avail. He concluded that it was not lightning or an electrical storm - it was wintertime in Alaska. The couple went to bed without a feasible explanation. The next morning, a woman emerged from her room, rambling, “It was the weirdest thing last night. This little guy came out of my closet. I think it was Elton John; he looked just like Elton John with those big glasses. And he came right out of my closet last night.”

Back to a worldly time and place, I take several minutes to hover around the gift shop. The interior of the dome is dedicated primarily to Judy’s newspaper clippings, photographs, and to the gray alien. The gray alien, I am told, is the typical neon green, almond-eyed type with an elongated head. Gray aliens plaster 95 percent of the merchandise in the gift shop, ranging from John Lennon sunglasses (complete with 3-D hologram) to a peach-colored, shell-shaped candle with a gray positioned at the base of its wick. Then there were the Jesus fish, with the word “Alien” inscribed inside of them - apparently, a number of people believe the Holy Bible has references to our extraterrestrial brethren. Judy has a gray on her blue jean UFO Watchtower jacket, where the left breast pocket would be and her name is inscribed in red, cursive lettering beneath.

Judy takes little time to beat around the bush and one of the first things she tells me, without being provoked, is that she believes there is life elsewhere in our universe, but “whether or not that life is little green aliens, [she] has a hard time dealing with.” She has personally experienced seventeen abnormal sightings over the past three years that the watchtower has been open. There is nothing more appealing than someone who keeps a levelheaded perspective when scanning the night sky - Judy does exactly this, stressing to me that some of the bizarre lights and craft she has spotted must be military, yet there are simply too many sightings for them to all be from the government. One thing that Judy can attest to without an ounce of doubt in her mind is that a host of governmental agencies visit her website on an almost daily basis - the Department of Energy, for example. Judy tells me that the domain nipr.mil hit her site over fifty times one day. I discover that nipr.mil is not a domain, but actually, a stealth web proxy that acts as a means for hundreds of U.S. military domains to hide their identities. It was established in 1999 by the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), calling for “actions to be taken to increase the readiness posture for information warfare.” I am left taken aback by how much scrutiny Judy’s line of business receives - from a government that claims to know nothing.

Things are going well at the watchtower. Judy already has the 3rd annual UFO Summit advertised on her website - it will take place the weekend August 14th and 15th this summer. She is taking strides to establish two visitor guest books, one for humans and one for self-proclaimed Plutonians. Most importantly, she is gearing up to write her first book and her skeptics will most definitely be pleased. It is tentatively entitled “That Crazy Lady Down the Road.”

The UFO Watchtower and Campground is located 4.5 miles north of Hooper, CO on HWY 17. Primitive camping is available. Visit www.ufowatchtower.com or call Judy at (719) 378-2271 for more information.