In ancient times “Giant Rock” was held sacred by the Native peoples of the Joshua Tree, California area. So sacred in fact that only the chief was allowed to go near it. Everyone else had to wait nearly a mile away while the Chief communed with the spirits of the “Rock People” who had prophesied “the day when the Mother would split open and a new era would be revealed.”
Most other traditions have pointed to this time in our history as the awakening of the Divine Feminine, to a world based upon compassion and peace. Now that Giant Rock has split, many people believe that the prophecy has been fulfilled.
George Van Tassel began conducting weekly meditation sessions in 1953 in the rooms underneath Giant Rock which, he claimed, led to UFO contacts and finally to an actual encounter with extra-terrestrials when, in August of that year, a saucer landed from the plant Venus, woke Van Tassel up and invited him onto the ship. There the aliens gave him the technique for rejuvenating living cell tissues. In 1954 he and his family began building a structure they called The Integratron to perform the rejuvenation.
Deuce of Clubs has an interesting perspective of the whole thing.