Why the 37th parallel is the weirdest part of America

[C C]

http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-ide...44c72a6b00

EXCERPT: [...] “I started to realise the cattle mutilations, UFO sightings and major events like Area 51 all lined up,” [Chuck] Zukowski said, referring to the 37th degree of latitude, which forms the borders between Utah and Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico, and Kansas and Oklahoma.

[...] Zukowski, who works as a microchip designer, sharpened his investigative skills while working for the local Sheriff’s Department, earning him the nickname “Mulder of El Paso” after the X-Files character Fox Mulder. But eight years later, he was booted from the squad for his paranormal leanings.

“They thought it hurt the integrity of the department and were embarrassed,” he said.

Not so for writer Ben Mezrich, whose book *The Accidental Billionaires* was adapted into the movie *The Social Network*.

When Mezrich caught wind of Zukowski’s quest “to find the truth,” he flew to Colorado to meet the subject of his forthcoming book The 37th Parallel: The Secret Truth Behind America’s UFO Highway, which comes out on Friday (Sept 9).

The movie rights have already been snapped up by New Line Cinema. [...] Lots of people ridicule UFO researchers, but Mezrich was infatuated with Zukowski’s commitment to finding aliens.

For the following six months, Mezrich dived headfirst into Zukowski’s theory. “Over the course of my research, I’ve determined it’s incredibly likely that we have been visited by aliens at least once,” he said....

[elte]

If we have been visited at least once by aliens then that gives me the questions of what did they do here and how did they travel to get here.

[Yazata]

“I started to realise the cattle mutilations, UFO sightings and major events like Area 51 all lined up,” [Chuck] Zukowski said, referring to the 37th degree of latitude

It starts out promisingly enough, in decidedly odd Santa Cruz. Then it passes through Madera, not exactly weird in my opinion, more middle America (though that's weird in the California context) through Kings Canyon National Park (why is it weird?), Death Valley and into Nevada where it passes north of Las Vegas (very weird) through the Nellis Range south of Area 51 (pegs the weirdness meter). Then the 37th parallel forms the border between Arizona and Utah, Colorado and New Mexico, then Oklahoma and Kansas. None of that is especially weird, unless you think that Indian reservations are weird. (They can be.)

I think that the Great Plains are weird, but that's just me...

(Like being out on the ocean. No hills, no trees, just... endlessness. When they say "big sky", they aren't kidding. I feel like an ant on a pool table.)

The 37th Parallel: The Secret Truth Behind America’s UFO Highway[/url][/b], which comes out on Friday (Sept 9).

Except that there isn't any highway that follows the 37th parallel. Old route 66 (certifiably weird) used to run parallel to it, to the south. Famous for its weird 1950's desert eccentrics, probably most of them WWII veterans with what today would be pathologized as 'post traumatic stress'. US 66 wasn't an interstate, you could pull off and there were all kinds of weird attractions, like strange little single room museums showing off two headed snakes and things like that. Yes, "flying saucers" were definitely in the air. (Mulder and Sculley hadn't been invented yet, but they would have loved it. It's where their whole mythos originated.) Roswell was well to the south of route 66. As a child, I remember me and my dad checking out Arizona's Meteor Crater for an added extraterrestrial touch.

[Image: Meteor_Crater_Panorama_near_Winslow,_Ari..._07_11.jpg]

The legendary 'Burma-shave' signs were cool too, each billboard a single line of poetry, one after another, with the last sign saying 'Burma Shave! (They went away in 1963.)

Now Route 66 is Interstate 40, more or less, with a very different feel. Higher efficiency, lower weirdness readings.

[C C]

If we have been visited at least once by aliens then that gives me the questions of what did they do here and how did they travel to get here.

If there was truly extraordinary stuff transpiring, I suppose there could be difficult to ignore reasons for why Zukowski wants to conceive space aliens as being the cause. But it could also just be the usual lack of wider speculative ingenuity or a remaining caught in the momentum of pop-culture's hermeneutical preference in regard to these affairs.

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It starts out promisingly enough, in decidedly odd Santa Cruz. Then it passes through Madera, not exactly weird in my opinion, more middle America (though that's weird in the California context) through Kings Canyon National Park (why is it weird?), Death Valley and into Nevada where it passes north of Las Vegas (very weird) through the Nellis Range south of Area 51 (pegs the weirdness meter). Then the 37th parallel forms the border between Arizona and Utah, Colorado and New Mexico, then Oklahoma and Kansas. None of that is especially weird, unless you think that Indian reservations are weird. (They can be.) I think that the Great Plains are weird, but that's just me...

The "weirdness" is not attributed to the cartographical features and any conventional sites of interest along that stretch, but the supposed "more than 1000 paranormal incidents over 30 years" that Zukowski investigated either around or on it. Why he interprets most of them as being the work of space aliens is apparently left to Ben Mezrich to clarify in better detail in his book.

During a BBC news interview, Mezrich stated that he originally intended to do a biographical account of Zukowski that narrowly focused on the latter's Fox Mulder type pursuits, without any concern on Mezrich's part about either discrediting or supporting the stuff (leaving that to opinions from other individuals he could have documented / included). But in the course of following Zukowski around on his detective travels and looking over all the "evidence" he had accumulated, Mezrich became convinced that the other was onto something and expanded the nature of the book he was writing.

Mezrich commented that in the past he tended to be a proponent of science, skepticism, etc whenever he crossed paths with such affairs. But aside from his becoming captivated close-up by Zukowski's work and adventures, the potential movie deal could (possibly) have had influence in altering the scope and theme of the publication. Depending on when or how early it first reared its head, if at all before the writing process was complete.

The 37th Parallel: The Secret Truth Behind America’s UFO Highway, which comes out on Friday (Sept 9).

Except that there isn't any highway that follows the 37th parallel.

Referring to the 37th parallel like it's a major roadway is intended figuratively by Zukowski.... “It’s America’s paranormal highway,” the self-described “UFO nut” proclaimed.

[Magical Realist]

I'm still planning a road trip as near the 37th parallel as I can get. I'll head down I5 to Cali and then cut east over to Bakersfield. From there I'll drive across the desert over to Flagstaff AZ to stay at the haunted Montavilla hotel. From there I keep heading east, to swing by Taos to listen to the hum. That's as far as I've gotten. New Mexico's full of lots of fortean tomfoolery. I might swing down to Santa Fe, veer near Los Alamos, and worship at the altar of Roswell. One has to comport oneself credibly towards these things to get them to happen. A sort of prerequisite penance to the gods of the anomalous. Driving out into the middle of nowhere may just be enough.