That night I had trouble sleeping. The events of the day had simply overwhelmed my pitiful little psyche. (Not too bad, I guess: Bill had reverted to sucking on his thumb!) I had traveled through Rod Serling's Twilight Zone, thundered past the exit for One Step Beyond, and had landed headlong in The Outer Limits. When sleep did finally come it was bombasted with odd dreams and semi-nightmares - and in the background of every bit of restless sleep were the General's words: "Why is the government really planning to close the Ward Valley off? And what is the real driving force behind the so-called Desert Protection Act?" [Note: as of this writing plans to turn the Ward Valley into a nuclear waste dump have been canned.] My fragmented and distorted dreams were many, but several revolved around real events that had transpired on the Mojave over the years. Now is as good a time as ever to address those events... The fact is that we've seen a lot of strange things up on the Mojave over the years - before and after we became acquainted with Smith and The General. But the word 'strange' has different meanings to different people. I'll let you be the judge. The Twentynine Palms Marine Corps Station is a few valleys east of our normal stomping grounds. [Far beyond Twentynine Palms, in the same direction, is Los Angeles.] Surrounding the main base are hundreds of square miles of 'restricted' desert land used for training purposes. Let me tell you about three events regarding the Marine base that tend to stick in my mind like Post-Its from Hell: 'The Big Desert Shindig At Twentynine Palms' A few years ago, during an international desert war games event, the air space over Twentynine Palms Marine Corps Base was buttoned up to commercial traffic. I don't know precisely what time they hung out the 'no-fly' warning - Bill and I had been sitting at camp for the best part of the morning watching the sky to the East - but, eventually, along comes this jumbo jet like a bat out of hell from the direction of Phoenix - or maybe Las Vegas - and he was heading straight into the heart of Uncle Sam's Desert Shindig. I can't remember who spotted the jet first or who made the first intelligible comment - but pretty soon we had the binoculars out. The jet's colors had Continental Airlines written all over it. We waited to see if the Marines would tag it with a missile (We DID make a small wager, but money was not involved!) To our surprise, just when it looked like the jet could not get any closer to breaking Uncle Sam's airspace, it began making - what appeared to be - a slow and leisurely CLOCKWISE turn. "Oh yes!" we said, "He's gonna swing round and skirt Twentynine Palms to the north, over Barstow." But the jet remained in it's turn. "No!" we shouted, "He's going back to Phoenix. Or maybe Las Vegas!" By now the jet had done a full one-hundred-eighty. Still - the jet remained in it's turn. Finally the jet's course leveled out and it became apparent that he was going to avoid Twentynine Palms by taking a southern route. It had pivoted about two-hundred-seventy degrees in a period of time from four to five minutes. Other jets followed, but each and every one gave the Twentynine Palms air space a wide berth. 'Watch The Skies! Keep Watching The Skies!!' Another round of war games - much scaled down in size and scope from the above - but this one was more typical of what can be seen on a regular basis - sort of. As I recall it was a Saturday night and deep into the winter months. From our vantage point you can usually hear the interesting things at Twentynine Palms start happening before any treats impact the retina. This was the case that particular Saturday night. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! We could hear the Marines opening up with 105mm howitzer rounds. THOCK! THOCK! THOCK! THOCK! Came the impressive vibrations of automatic cannon fire from an A2. As Bill and I reveled to the audio-only beat of mock warfare, we kept our eyes peeled in the direction the sound was coming from (a method not always reliable, given the way sound echoes down the valley, but what choice do you have?). After a few minutes lume rounds began popping up above the hills: bright green supernovas that explode into short life high in the sky and then lazily fall back to earth under the drag of a parachute. One - two - three lume rounds visible all at once. One and then a another drifts behind the hills and out of site , but then three or four more take their places. All the while sound from the 105's and automatic cannons continue to thunder down our valley. [ I guess the next best thing in the universe would have to be actually being there with the troops - watching it all first hand. ] Maybe. One lume round was disobeying the laws of physics. It hung shining in the night sky, unmoving. As we watched, Bill hit me with one of his Prozak-induced explanations. "It's falling normally," he said nervously. "But a strong wind is blowing our way .. giving it no apparent radial velocity!" Bill had read one too many Fred Hoyle novels. Five minutes later the lume round was still glowing bright in its frozen position in the sky. All other rounds in its area continued to behave normally: burst into short life, drift downwards, disappear behind the hills. "How long does the typical lume round burn?" I asked Bill. It had been ten minutes and our friend will still glowing and stationary. Bill said nothing recognizable. At about the same time the howitzers and A2s stopped talking. All other lume rounds fell away below the horizon - except for the one. Bill gave it another shot. "It's a light fixed to a balloon," he muttered. Shortly afterwards the light vanished. It had glowed steadily for close to fifteen minutes and its death seemed to mark the end of the war games. 'Same Desert, Different Shindig' Another weekend of war games. Lume rounds far away in a direction where there is no military property. A view through binoculars shows the running lights of fast-moving aircraft in and around the area. Perhaps - on occasion - war games can extend by a significant degree into public lands. It sounds reasonable to me. Bill, on the other hand, says no. Something was wrong with the whole picture. Okay! In and of themselves, these events are sort of lame and pitiful. They are not as breathtaking or eye popping as a good cattle mutilation tale but each is far more interesting than any made-for-TV-movie you could possibly name. More oddities: 'The Cloud That Would Not Die'. I was not in on this one. I think I had to work that particular weekend. Bill swears that there was an odd cloud poised in the sky, clearly visible from camp, that refused to go away. Other clouds in the same direction moved through the sky normally. No: I didn't ask him about its radial velocity. He tells me that three other campers saw the same cloud. After a time boredom sat in, I suppose, and everybody set about to fixing dinner. An hour or two went by and, as it began to get dark, Bill tells me that the cloud was still in the same position. Unchanged. Still later, while no one was watching, the cloud made off to parts unknown. Bill was the first to note its absence. As it was now getting late - several campers were already snoring - he made no point in announcing its disappearance and turned in for the night. At 4:30 AM Bill was awakened by a bladder that screamed for immediate adjustment. Upon relieving himself in some nearby bushes, he was startled to see that the cloud was back - its size, shape and position was exactly as it was before. 'The B52'. I missed this one too! Somebody just happened to look up from whatever they were doing in time to see a B52 skimming the valley floor on what must have been a mere cushion of air. The maximum distance the plane could have been from camp was six miles. No more. Any farther away and it would have been flying inside some rather massive mountains which are a known six miles away. I am told that the plane was not totally silent. Once they took notice of the plane, a faint thrum of massive engines was detected. After a moment or two, the B52 changed course and angled its way up into another valley and was not seen again. 'The Funny Little Man With A Mustache' When we are camping I always get a little paranoid. Let's face it: there are hordes of strange people loose in this world - and especially in the Golden State - that might be better off behind bars or, at least, under the influence of some powerful prescription medication. Also: given that fact that the nearest probable cop is at least thirty miles away on Highway 40 - busy doling out speeding tickets for folk who are hot to hit Las Wages - well ... you get the idea. I like to maintain some modicum of 'protection' near at hand. For these reasons, on those rare occasions when an unknown vehicle passes by - and stops - I sit well back and out of the way and let Bill and/or whomever is deeply interested approach the vehicle to see what's up. One fine morning we all get an earful of a sound that is (nearly) utterly alien to us: the rumble of a strange vehicle approaching camp. Like puppies presented with a rawhide chew toy, Bill and several others - salivating - leaped from their respective lawn chairs when a white Montero lugging a little ATV pulled up and stopped about thirty feet away. A split second later they were all gathered around the Montero and chatting with the driver. Their tails were wagging. I stayed where I was and watched. The driver was a short little guy, about thirty years old, dressed in cut-off jeans and a t-shirt. He had dark hair and a matching mustache. The conversation that ensued was animated, jovial, and lingered for a long while - like a bad case of the flu. I can hereby state that this is absolute fact because I found myself nodding off several times. When all was said and done, the little guy re-mounted his Montero and took off northwards. His wheels spit dust and gravel. "What," I pried of Bill, "Was that all about?" "He's out here looking for WWII artifacts," Bill responded. "He found some fifty caliber rounds on the backside of Deadman's Hill earlier this morning. He asked us if we know of any other good spots to search for relics." As if anybody would divulge that kind of information. Bill went on to explain that the little guy was going to make camp a mile or two to the north. Fine, I thought - though I'd rather the little guy camp about ten miles to the North. Later that afternoon one of the guys - Jimmy - posted a vote to visit the Death's Head mine. "I haven't been there for years," he growled. "It hasn't changed!" I said. It didn't matter. Jimmy's eagerness to revisit the Death's Head Mine was infectious. Thirty minutes later we were saddling up three vehicles. "We'll probably run into that dude who was here a while ago," Bill said. Bill was right. Fifteen minutes later we were rumbling through the area where the little guy said he was going to set up camp. We expected to see his vehicle - or at least a tent or whatever - any second. Instead, all we saw was flat desert landscape. "Maybe he decided to move on a little further," Bill muttered. "Yeah," I spat, "Hopefully on the other side of US 40." But a moment later, Jimmy, who was behind us in his own truck, began leaning on the horn. Through my side view mirror I could see him slam on his brakes and kick up a great gout of dust. Jimmy's grimy hand jutted from the window and pointed into the desert. "He must see a six-pack out there," Bill said. My own eyes followed Jimmy's pointing finger just in time to see the little mustache man hunker down behind a cholla cactus only half his own size. "There he is!" Bill proclaimed. I looked at Bill tiredly and said, "What's his radial velocity?" Jimmy was shouting something incoherent. I threw the Dodge into reverse and backed up the thirty or forty-odd feet that separated our vehicles. Jimmy was yelling that the little guy was playing commando. I looked out into the desert again. Sure enough, Jimmy's interpretation of the situation was right on the nail. The little guy had sprung up from behind the cholla and was now galloping off to the left, zigging and zagging to beat the band, acting like a one-man SWAT team. Clutched in his hands like a rifle was a three foot long stick, tipped with a red plastic flag. He was now wearing camo pants, jump boots, and a grimy brown tank top shirt. Bill was snickering loudly. "He doesn't even see us," he chortled. One thing I discovered years ago was that you could see and hear anything you wanted to see and hear in the desert. The terrain - the sky - everything around you, will lend itself to fooling the eye and tricking the senses. That's when the weather is mild. In inclement weather - hot, wet, or windy - you can feel a bit like Alice after popping some pills. But there was no way little Mr. Mustache could have possibly missed our three lumbering 4-bys - less than seventy feet from the guy - and the fact that Jimmy was (still) leaning on his horn. A moment later it was clear that we had been spotted. The little wannabe-gestapo fell to all fours and scurried behind another cholla that might have been large enough to squeeze into a tin of chile and beef. I could see him frantically digging into an olive drab pouch - never once taking his eyes off us. Then he was on his feet, tossing something - as if it were a grenade -in our direction. He quickly fell to the ground and covered his head with hands and arms. "He threw a stone at us," Bill chuckled as a rock fell to earth fifteen feet short of the truck. I looked up at that silly son-of-a-bitch again just in time to see him leap to his feet and pepper us all with imaginary bullets from the stick he carried. A few seconds ticked by. We watched Adolph and Adolph watched back. Jimmy, always on top of things, ruined the moment... "You need some help, buddy?" he shouted. "You need a straightjacket, Mein Furher?" Bill giggled. Adolph answered with an extended arm and wagging middle finger. A moment later we were on our way to Death's Head Mine. In retrospect, the event could have been far less pleasant if der Furher had possessed a working firearm on top of being violently wacko. I woke up the next morning - late - to the smell of hot Postum and - sigh - Ham and Eggs, Chopped.

NEXT: MORE THINGS WE WERE NOT MEANT TO KNOW