A Common Denominator To One Of Wyoming's Weird Mysteries

Wyoming is a state of firsts.

First National Park
The first state to let women vote
First woman governor
First National Forest
First lit evening football game
First state with a county library system
First ranger station

Another one of Wyoming's firsts is the first National Monument...Devils Tower.

The popular tourist attraction stands out like a sore thumb. Although I've never heard of a theory that Devil's Tower is the thumb of a giant who fell from space, many theories try to explain it.

Aliens built it as a landing pad.

It is a stump of a tree.

Native Americans who called this area home for a long time also have their theory about Devil's Tower. Even though their stories are a little different, one common part of their story is a bear.

Arapahoe, Cheyenne, Crow, Kiowa, and Lakota have stories passed down from generation to generation. Each story features a bear, but the way the bear is featured in the stories is a little different.

The National Park System has a section of its website that is dedicated to those stories.

NPS.gov

Over the years, geologists have reached an agreement on the creation of the monument:

Devil's Tower formed from molten rock forced upwards from deep within the earth. Debate continues, however, as to whether the rock cooled underground or whether Devil's Tower magma reached the surface. Current research supports the conclusion that Devil's Tower was not a volcano, but was injected between sedimentary rock layers and cooled underground.

Devils Tower As Seen From The Mother Ship

If you've see the movie (documentary) Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, then you know what it looked like to see "The Mother Ship" descending down to Devils Tower.

But what did it look like from the Mother Ship's point of view?

We don't have any actual photos from the Mother Ship

So we recreated the scene using Google Earth and one Nasa Photo.

Gallery Credit: Glenn Woods