Me (25F) and three friends (42F, 42M, 24M) have been in Death Valley for the past couple days. Its our first time exploring the park. Everything was going well. We’ve been to Ubehebe Crater, The Natural Bridge, Badwater Basin, Lake Manley, Artist Pallet, Golden Loop. It was all lovely peaceful energy.
Because its out last night tonight, we decided to stargaze closer to our airbnb (outside of DV, in Beatty, NV). We left around 10:30 p.m. and planned to drive 5 minutes closer to Death Valley but there wasn’t a great place to park along side the road. So we decided to drive to Hell’s Gate, one of the entrances to DV, where you have to buy a ticket for your car and such. We had been driving for about 10 minutes when it felt like it was a bit further than usual and were all like “how far is this place?”. I pulled out my phone and searched the address, finding it. The Gate was 15 minutes out. The entire car agreed “what’s 15 more minutes.” We discussed this later on how it was all very strange we agreed to drive the entire distance when we first were like just 5 minutes, but the entire car was starting to feel a bit uneasy the further we drove in. On our drive there, we saw some headlights that weren’t moving and 42M and 25M made jokes about aliens. Eventually the bright headlights pushed forward – it was a car obviously.
We approach the gate and pulled off. The headlights lit up the bathroom, kiosk and picnic ish area that was there. We got out of the car, grabbed the telescope and set up. 42M and I saw a shooting star and we were super excited and gushed about it. 42M started pointing out all the different stars, talking about mars and jupiter, etc. etc. Me and 42F were adjusting the telescope, but it was very difficult to see. Then we called 42M over to adjust it. It was around 11:00 p.m. We were there for maybe three minutes. and then we saw a flash of light that caught all of our attention.
We looked over and saw a very clear defined light that held for a second before shutting off completely. There is a bathroom there but there is no electricity to the bathroom.
One of my friends saw someone glide off the table and disappear. They called out to them saying “who is there” “hello” “who the f*** is there”. There was no response We were all frozen, waiting, for a few seconds before I said “we need to go”. The entire group moved swiftly back into the car and we drove away.
We immediately started talking about what we saw and it took us getting back to our airbnb 30 minutes away to feel a sense of normal. But even then, things feel off. It feels like something is different but we don’t know what it is. We can’t put a finger on it.