Dark Side of the Moon

 Tonight's destination, an iconic tower of rock made famous by 70s UFO science fiction thriller "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."

Yes! It's Devils Tower, in Wyoming. 

Project Leader : If everything's ready here on the Dark Side of the Moon...

Devils Tower (also known as Bear Lodge Butte) is a butte, possibly laccolithic, composed of igneous rock in the Bear Lodge Ranger District of the Black Hills, near Hulett and Sundance in Crook County, northeastern Wyoming, above the Belle Fourche River. It rises 1,267 feet (386 m) above the Belle Fourche River, standing 867 feet (265 m) from the summit (1,559 m above sea level) to its base. 

Devils Tower was the first United States national monument, established on September 24, 1906, by President Theodore Roosevelt.[9] The monument's boundary encloses an area of 1,347 acres (545 ha).


Spiffing drone footage gets you in close.

In Close Encounters of the Third Kind, this geological oddity takes on special significance -- there are characters in the movie are receiving a psychic call from the mountain, without knowing what or where is. At the end of the movie's final act, Devils Tower becomes a character in its own right,  and while Spielberg does a wonderful job of evoking a sense of awe, it is Devils Tower that makes that awe tangible. The film is well worth seeing, although, these days, the whole UFO movement looks a great deal sadder and more deluded.


Touching short from the movie's location scout.


Route

Take off from Hulett,  look south-west. See a spiky mountain. That's it!



So, that's a big build-up. Now to level out those expectations. The truth is, Devil's Tower is pretty compact. The movie makes it look a lot bigger than it really is. So Bing and Flight Simulator's data just can't produce the intricate and unusual shape. What we get is a spike that looks like a glitch.


Am I a bit disappointed? Yeah, but also not. While Devils Tower didn't live up to my expectations, the landscape of North Wyoming is full of interesting details and unexpected hues. It was a pleasure to fly over, and made for a good reminder that you don't need flashy landmarks to make a flight worthwhile.




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