“The desert is seen as a place of secrets, where the customary restraints of law and habit are suspended…the desert is also seen as an appropriate place for fantasies. Not only the fantasies of a Bessie Johnson or a Curtis Howe Springer, but the fantasies of dune buggy maniacs and lone hikers, the seekers after legendary gold mines, the exploders of the first atomic devices, the proponents of advanced missile systems and the diggers of gigantic earth sculptures. Never forget that it was in the Mojave that the first claimed UFO sightings took place, and the pioneer conversations with little green men from Venus. In a landscape where nothing officially exists (otherwise it would not be “desert”), absolutely anything becomes thinkable and may consequently happen.”

— Reyner Banham, Scenes in America Deserta