Documents / Official release
This file holds two unclassified internal MSMail messages Thomas S. Marsh sent to four colleagues on August 7 and August 9, 1996. Each one forwards an Associated Press wire story. The first reports on the 1995 disappearance of truck driver Devin Williams in Arizona's Rim country and compares it with Travis Walton's 1975 abduction claim, which a state MUFON director disputes. The second describes Crestone and the Baca Grande in Colorado as a New Age community known for UFO sightings and cattle mutilations.
320B8A II.FIN Page 1 of3
MSMail
DATE-TIME 09 August 96.14:38
FROM Marsh, Thomas S.
CLASSIFICATION UNCLASSIFIED
SUBJECT I wonder what the rents are like .... [UNCLASSIFIED]
TO Alijanil, Leyla
Bakke, Kyle D.
Carter, Michael E.
Hasman, Thom~s M.
CARBON COPY. NO CC's on THIS MESSAGE
TEXT BODY
CRESTONE, Colo. CAP) This'Shangri-la for New Age
spiritualists, carved out of a failed subdivision, is having
trouble with more earthly matters.
One of the directors has been suspended for thiowing chairs at
his colleagues on the Baca Grande Property Owner's Association
board.
The d{spute stems partly from how much governing there should be
at all. Some residents ate pushing for more controls on
development, while some owners would like even fewer controls.
"There will always be trouble in any paradise. I expect all the
normal human behaviors even in a community with spiritual
aspirations," says Saguache County Commissioner Robert Philleo,
who lives in the unincorporated area called the Baca Grande.
Religious groups began moving into the Baca Grande beneath
14,294-foot Crestone Peak in the Sangre de Cristo, or Blood of
Christ Mountains, in the late 1970s when Canadian industrialist
Maurice Strong and his wife, Hanne, began offering them free land
for retreats, hermitages or eco-villages.
The land became available when plans for a huge subdivision fell
through. Even now only about 330 of 5,600 lots are occupied.
Monks and nuns created a Carmelite Catholic Monastery. Zen
Buddhists developed a Zen Center, monastery and retreat. Indian,
Tibetan, Indonesian, Korean and other sects also built centers in
the pinon pines high above Crestone.
The area soon gained a reputation as a holy spot, or power
center, where the spiritual forces of the universe converge.
Reports of UFO sightings and cattle mutilations brought more
attention.
In 1993, a woman claiming to. have talked with aliens by computer
proposed building a 396-foot pink pyramid. Supporters of the
pyramid, called the "Pink,Pyramid People," flocked to the area.
The established religious groups joined with residents of the Official release, from the nara collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 6 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.