On a recent business trip to Las Vegas, I managed to escape the confines of corporate protocols and explore Valley of Fire State Park, some 60 miles northeast of the Strip, in the stunning Nevada desert. I was already aware of the famous red Aztec sandstone Beehive formations, deposited during the Jurassic period, and they were every bit as extraordinary as promised. But what truly took me by surprise was how the landscape seemed alive with suggestion: geological formations that looked suspiciously animal-like, while others gave the unmistakable impression of human faces frozen in stone.
Standing among those ancient formations, it was hard not to wonder whether nature is merely sculpting at random or preserving echoes of worlds long forgotten. I’m afraid all we can really agree upon is that our true past is but a blur, shaped by countless resets, lost epochs, and civilisations swallowed by time. Are humans merely the latest creature to inhabit the firmament-enclosed snow globe we call Earth?
Striking a pose in a Aztec red sandstone Beehive cave
A strangely creature-like sandstone formation
One of several human looking silhouettes in the Valley of Fire State Park
A curious looking Human-esque balancing stone
