Transcription
Today we're going to be exploring one of the mysteries of the desert, the UA Church of the Sun. A place that nobody seems to know anything about until [Music].
Now, hey everyone, welcome to Sidetrack Adventures. This is Steve. Right now, we're about 20 miles or so west of Calexico, California, in the UA Desert, and we've stopped at a place called Crucifixion Thorn. There's a plant that grows here that's said to look like the crown of thorns that Jesus wore during the crucifixion, so hence the name.
But the reason that we've come out to the UA Desert today is there's a place that quite a few people have emailed me about or messaged me about. It's kind of a mystery on Google Maps. It's called the UA Church of the Sun. And if you look this place up online, there's basically no information on it. Nothing on the history, who built it, what it's for, just various theories, some of them pretty wild. So today, we're out here to try to solve the mystery of the UA Church of the Sun.
So this is the Crucifixion Thorn area. This is supposed to be one of the only places in California where these grow, but I'm not sure from here which plants are the Crucifixion Thorn. There was a sign that said, "Enjoy walking around the area," but there's a barbed wire fence around the whole thing. After driving around the enclosure for a bit, we found one of the Crucifixion Thorns up against the fence, and yeah, I could see how it got its name.
But now we're going to head about a mile east on Highway 98 to see what we came out here for today, the mysterious UA Church of the Sun. The UA Church of the Sun sits atop Sunrise Buttes and has been puzzling drivers on Highway 98 for decades. It's marked on Google Maps, and the first review of it on there just basically says, "Does anyone know what this thing [Music] is?"
And as puzzling as the Church of the Sun is, if you look at it from above, there is other infrastructure here too, such as what looks like a large reservoir for water in the middle of the UA Desert. [Music]
Adding to the mystery is there are no signs on this place at all. Nothing indicating what it is, just an open gate. Everything is built on what is known as Sunrise Buttes. I'll mention later how it got the name Sunrise Buttes, but there was a brief period in the 1940s where the name of the mountain was changed to Wakanda Mountain, spelled differently than the home of Marvel's Black Panther. Someone convinced people that Paja Wakanda was the Indian name for the mountain, meaning "Hill of the Great Spirit." So they changed the name, only to figure out later that it was nonsense, and they changed it back to Sunrise Buttes. I guess it wasn't Wakanda forever.
There is a bit of dark history here, though. An unidentified woman was found dead on the mountain in March 1983. The confession killer, Henry Lee Lucas, later confessed to killing her, saying she was a hitchhiker he picked up near El Centro. I'm not sure if she's ever been identified or if he actually killed her, as he took credit for a lot of killings that ended up not being him, of course.
Since there's no information on this place online, people tend to fill in the gaps. There are lots of theories having to do with cults or it being a failed religious retreat. I've even seen speculation that it might mark the site of a legendary rattlesnake temple that was supposedly seen in the 1800s and hasn't been seen since. I personally think the truth of this place is pretty interesting, but maybe not "rattlesnake temple" interesting.
We're almost at the so-called church, but we'll actually head there last. The view from up there is probably fantastic, as we're already getting a great view of the UA Badlands to the north. Before we head to the top and the church, let's check out this large water reservoir. There has been some recent rain, so I wonder if there's any water in [Music] it.
Just a small puddle. This thing is massive, and definitely looks out of place here. This catchment or reservoir was actually the subject of several lawsuits. It may not look like there's water in the area, but underground there is. And as a matter of fact, north of here in the desert is the UA Well, which was the source of water for indigenous people, as well as the early Spanish explorers who came through here. When the plan was put forth to drill for water here, both the Sierra Club and the town of Agua Caliente, who gets water from this underground aquifer, filed suit to stop it. I'm not sure how the suits ended, but this was built in 2002. And looking through the image history on Google Earth, none of the images show this with water in [Music] it.
It gets so hot here in the summer, I'm not sure what the plan would have been to limit evaporation in an open reservoir like this. Anyway, there are a couple of these tanks for [Music] storage. There was electricity here too, so what was all this water needed for? Well, they applied for an agriculture permit, and there are lots of dead plants, such as palm trees, all over. But I'm not sure this is very fertile ground.
But just over this rise, we should see the other reason that water was needed, and that is a swimming pool. It looks like someone may have camped out here recently. There's a bunch of clothes and trash here, but here's a nice walkway down to the swimming pool. Unfortunately, some more trash here, but looking down here, you could see a lot more of like, kind of the failed agricultural project, a lot of dead palm trees, a lot of places where they did try to plant something that are dead now. It looks like the pool was probably filled via this PVC pipe in front of us.
But here's the swimming pool at the UA Church of the Sun. You could see all the work that was done in landscaping this place, and it really just adds to the mystery, because why would somebody do this here in the middle of nowhere, 20 miles from the nearest town? Here's the bathroom. I'm not going to film inside because that toilet has been [Music] used. Unfortunately, trash [Music] everywhere. A great view from the swimming pool, surrounded by nothing but the UA Desert.
But I think it's time to solve the mystery. If you look at a land use map of the area, you'll see that all of the land surrounding here is owned by the government and administered by the Bureau of Land Management, except this one square. And the reason for that is right up there. It's time to head up and visit the UA Church of the [Music] Sun.
This mountain got the name Sunrise Buttes as it was the site of sunrise Easter services for the town of Calexico in the 1930s and '40s to the 1950s. A cross was erected on the mountain summit, and because of legal issues with crosses on public lands because of the separation of church and state, the land had to remain private. In the 1980s, a man named Rula Estrada bought the property, and he's a real rags-to-riches American Dream story. He was born in Mexico in 1935 and came to Texas at age 16 to work on a farm. Eventually, he officially immigrated to the United States and saved up enough money to start his own farm in Calexico. Estrada rented out a portion of his farm for people to sell goods out of their vehicles, and that eventually morphed into the Los Palos Swap Meet, which became one of the biggest swap meets in California.
Let's head to the top and check out this view. Estrada began buying up property, including this part of Sunrise Buttes, and he replaced the original cross at the top of the hill with this new [Music] one. The view from up here is incredible. You can see for miles in all directions, and there's Highway 98 and Mexico in the distance. Here's the platform. It looks like this thing is solid concrete. Yeah, there are no doors or openings on this thing at all. It's completely solid, or at least it looks completely solid. But there is a survey marker. It looks like it was placed here in the 1970s and was placed at the [Music] cross.
Rula Estrada passed away in 2018, and it would be nice if at some point a marker or tribute to him was placed up here so anyone who visits could learn of the person behind it. But a good desert mystery is always fun too. I guess we'll just have to look elsewhere for the rattlesnake [Music] temple.
So that's our look at Rula Estrada and the UA Church of the Sun. Thank you so much for watching. If you enjoyed the video, please give it a thumbs up. Consider subscribing, and we'll see you next week.