Books will do, but really the best mysteries are the real life conundrums, the people and places and events that don’t always add up, aren’t always what they seem and definitely don’t come wrapped up with a nice big bow of resolution.
I think about the mystery behind Denver’s International Airport (DIA) every time I fly in or out of America’s largest airport.
The dirt alone hauled away from the site (110 million cubic yards) during construction almost twenty years ago, much more than was deemed necessary, seemed to support a bunker theory. The fact a single construction company was not used to manage a project of this size and scope, but rather different contractors hired for different parts of the job, fueled speculation that it was a strategy used to keep the full scope of the project out of the public eye. The plot thickens!
And then there was the 5300 miles of fiber optics used for communications in comparison to the 3,000 miles running coast to coast across the US. Add to that the fueling system that can pump 1000 gallons of jet fuel per minute, an absurd amount by industry standards, and questions began piling up like planes waiting to take off. I'm out of here, fortunately on the next plane!
Some would suggest, chief among them Phil Schneider, an ex-governmental geologist who turned whistle blower, that given the magnitude and scope of this structure it could support huge numbers of people and vehicles as in a military base in the event of a cataclysmic
planetary event or as a civilian concentration camp. And we're supposed to trust the government?
Usually my litmus test for airports, aesthetics aside, rests with the turnaround time for retrieving my baggage. DIA is up there with the best of them. Anything beneath the surface of that shiny metal of motion is usually a moot point. I really don’t care if little green aliens are responsible for my bags coming back to me in a timely fashion as long as they don’t rifle through the contents of said bags or leave green goop on the handle.
Of course, the apocalyptic-looking blue horse with the glowing red eyes at the entrance to DIA sets off my freakometer every time I pass through DIA.
When I discovered the creator of the fiberglass horse, famed New Mexico sculpture Luis Jiménez, died from injuries sustained when a portion of the sculpture came loose and fell on him, I wasn’t surprised to learn some also feel the horse is cursed. Freaky times five!
As if the horse is not enough to get the hair on the back of your neck to stand at attention, take a minute to actually look at the murals next time you’re passing through DIA. I say this because I’ve been through this airport at least two dozen times. I had to search for these murals when I set out to really see them for the first time.
They’re on level 5 of the Main Terminal Building on opposite sides of the walkway spanning the great hall. Two of the original four murals by artist Leo Tanguma remain; two were painted over sometime after completion of the four panels that together were intended to be part of one large piece of art.
Okay, art and art history have never been my strengths as a math major; but I pretty good at adding, and this adds up to freaky! In fact, it was freaky times five squared (for non-math majors, that’s freaky times 25).
If you want to believe the conspiracy theorists, a New World Order is tied to DIA. On the capstone (a time capsule resting on the granite floor at the southeast end of DIA's great hall that's scheduled to be opened in 2094) below the Masonic symbol of an overlapping T-square and compass are the words, “New World Airport Commission,” a group of private funders and local businessmen. It goes without saying for some people New World Airport and New World Order seem to be not-so-distant relatives. And of course we all know the propensity for skeletons in every family closet.
I expect the truth is out there somewhere. Maybe it’s buried beneath the 34,000 acres of land in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains that constitute DIA. Maybe not. And maybe Scully and Mulder can be convinced to take the case.
What I am certain of – Bluecifer has got to go!