Call Of The Desert: Mojave Phone Booth

Until 2000, if you ventured into the Mojave Desert of California, into the middle of nowhere, you have have been lucky enough to discover a rather surreal sight. Eight miles from the nearest paved road, fifteen from the nearest numbered highway, sat a phone booth. A pay phone. Sat alone, in the middle of the desert.

The phone booth was originally set up in 1948 at the request of the owner of a local mining company, Emerson Ray, to serve his workers and others who lived in the area at the time as well as to comply with an initiative by the Californian government to deliver communications to isolated communities.

The original phone was a hand-cranked telephone magneto which was replaced with a rotary payphone in the 1960s, which was again later replaced with a touch-tone phone in the 1970s.

The Mojave Phone Booth first came to prominence in 1997 when the surreality of its existence turned it into an early Internet sensation, with several websites becoming devoted to the phone. Fans of the phone would ring it as well as trekking out to answer such calls. Many recordings of such calls have been made. In 1999 the Los Angeles Times writer John Glionna reported that one his own pilgrimage to the phone booth he had met a man who claimed he was called their by the Holy Spirit to answer calls. The man had camped out their for over a month and had answered more than 500 phone calls.

The new-found fame of the Mojave Phone Booth and it becoming a tourist attraction eventually lead to its demise. In the May of 2000 it was removed by the National Park Service due to the environmental impact pilgrims were making to the local area. With its removal, the phone number was also retired. A victim of its own notoriety.

Fortunately, in 2013, the phone number of the Mojave Phone Booth was purchased by the radio personality and telecommunications expert Jered Morgan, with the intention of once again allowing strangers to communicate with each other via the number.

The phone number is (760) 733-9969.

Endless Fire: The Door To Hell

The Door To Hell, an ominous name. It conjures images of a a pit descending into the earth, aflame with dark, foreboding menace. A mythical place. Surely no such place could truly exist in the real world?

Turkmenistan. Ahal Province. Derwese Village.

One of the largest natural gas deposits in the world. 1971. Soviet scientists start drilling operations in Derswese in order to assess the quality of the gas reserve at the site. While the Soviets were overly pleased with what they had uncovered, and after starting a large scale operation to store the gas they had uncovered, disaster struck. The ground had become unstable and the area around the drilling rig collapsed into an overly large crater. No lives were lost but a large amount of methane gas was suddenly released from the deposit, posing a risk to those who lived in the surrounding area. Fearing the release of further gas, a decision was made. Burn off the gas. Extraction would have been overly expensive and possibly would have worsened the situation. The only logical thing was to burn it away. The Soviets assessed that it would only take a couple of days. They couldn't have been more wrong.

It would only take a couple of days, they said.

Over four decades later the crater is still burning. The smell of sulphur filling the air for miles around.

In 2010 the President of Turkmenistan, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, visited the site and ordered that the crater be closed and the fire put out in order to limit its affect on other gas deposits in the area. The economy of Turkmenistan is highly reliant on the trade of natural gas, with Berdimuhamedow hoping to increase the state's production and export drastically in the next twenty years. 

As of 2014 the fire is still burning. The Door To Hell has become an international tourist destination.