Badwater Basin
Gift Shop Owner: Where are you staying?
Me: The Amargosa Opera House.
Gift Shop Owner: Oh, you must be into ghosts!
Me: Uhh...Not really. I mean, I’m not against ghosts.
Why, is that hotel haunted?
Gift Shop Owner: (laughs) Oh, absolutely.
That was a conversation I had with an eccentric museum gift shop employee in the town of Shoshone, CA. The last stop before Death Valley. I picked the Amargosa Opera House to save money. Not because it was “absolutely” haunted. He also told me they filmed “Lost Highway” there. This set the tone for the strangest night of my life.
The Goal of this 2 day Trip to Death Valley was simple. To do astrophotography in a dark sky location for the first time.
I had just gotten my Sony A7III “Astro-modified”, which allows your camera see the red in our universe our naked eye can’t see. And “seeing red” was the official color and theme of this trip.
Red can symbolize anger.
Or it can symbolize love, if you want go there.
And I did.
You might find that adorable. Or it might make you cringe. But love eventually conquering during such uneasy times was the narrative of my little story. IN MY UNIVERSE.
If you have a problem with that, then tough shit! Go hang out in your Black and White universe!
I felt like I was in a David Lynch movie immediately on arrival to this ABSOLUTELY haunted hotel. I was given a loooong list of directions on how the plumbing works, including a 15 minute process to take a shower that involved different stages of “dripping”. Ohhhh-k.
I don’t know if you can smell ghosts. But this place smelled like ghosts.
I was supposed to drive to Badwater Basin to scout a location to shoot the Milky Way. But I got sucked into exploring this ABSOLUTELY haunted hotel that that David Lynch fucks with.
Is it haunted? Or is it… lovely?
No, it’s haunted. Definitely haunted.
The unusual smell. The water issues. I spent waaaay too much time googling if ghosts cause plumbing problems. And it didn’t take much googling to realize I was staying in one of the most haunted places in America. Specifically Room 24. The room I was in.
Where Ghost child stays? 😳
It got dark quickly, and I had no time to scout Badwater Basin in the day. The #1 rule in the astrophotgraphy is to scout you location in the day, and I fucked up. Googling ghosts got me stuck at a haunted house. I decided to just find a spot outside the hotel and wait for the Milky Way to rise. I didn’t come here to see ghosts. I came to see a lovely red milky way.
The lights from the hotel were so bright I had to set up my tripod on the road. I couldn’t line up my star tracker with Polaris. My pics sucked and I was unravelling. It was like the signs were telling me I needed to be somewhere else.
Then someone showed up to send me a message. A shadow Man on a Motorcycle pulls right up to me, and just sat there. Like this image I made this in midjourney. This is what I was staring at. FOR 2 MINUTES.
He didn’t move.
He didn’t say anything.
Just sat there with his engine on idle. I was like a frozen rabbit in his headlight.
Please, just say something. Anything. I don’t care if it’s fucked up.
No. Nothing.
After the most uncomfortable 2 minutes of my life, he did a slow U-turn, and drove back in the direction he came from.
WTF??
I was rattled af, and headed back inside.
To my room. Room 24.
Where ghost child stays. And the invisible children who play in the hall way right outside my door.
I should not have googled that.
Motor Ghost.
Ghost Child.
They gave me no choice.
I had to drive to Badwater Basin. Raw dog. Never been there before, but that was the original plan.
50 minutes away with no cell service. Not one car passing by. New moon. PITCH BLACK.
I turned to Mozart to calm my nerves.
Mozart didn’t work.
You cannot prepare yourself for this level of darkness. I turned around multiple times.
To go back to an ABSOLUTELY haunted hotel with a ghost child in my room.
I was in a real pickle on the Lost Highway.
I haven’t seen the film yet, but after 2 hours of driving back and forth I got a really great grasp of the movie poster.
Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky. None of them could get me there.
So I turned to hip hop. The only music genre that is unabashedly ego driven. And I turned to my go to song for feeling invincible.
“I bet no one has ever rolled up to Badwater Basin at 3:00 AM while blasting “Ride Around Shining” by Clipse.”
Saying that to myself added some much needed levity. I played that song over and over, and floated into Badwater Basin at 3:00AM with a little courage.
Sometimes you need Pusha-T to give to you a PUSH…. into the unknown.
A very long walk. Full of nerves. But I made it out there. I found Polaris and my star tracker was aligned. And I was blown away immediately by the “astro-modified” pictures I was seeing. A lovely red Milky Way 😍
I settled down as I did a time lapse. I couldn’t believe I was taking these pictures. I had Badwater Basin to myself. I went from being rattled with fear to feeling peace like I’ve never felt before.
“I think this is the most peaceful I’ve ever felt in my life.”
I said that to myself, then noticed a point of light move a long distance across the sky. Then stop on a dime above me. Huh? I pulled out my iphone to get a better look, and slowly realized it was like, a UFO?! I was previously a hardcore skeptic, but I couldn’t deny what I was seeing above me. Here’s the first video I took if want to BELIEVE. (You can see them better if your eyes are adjusted to the dark)
They hovered above me for about 20 minutes. 2 of them. Sometimes 3. With many others flashing and then disappearing. No sound. Like spinning diamonds. Riding around shining.
I was overwhelmed, but not afraid. I didn’t imagine aliens. I was thinking about very specific things out of nowhere. It was kind of telepathic. Or something. Very strange, but beautiful.
UFO’s. Angels. Whoever they are, I’m glad I overcame fear to experience it.
Thanks Pusha T