Death Valley Racetrack Mystery Revealed!

[BrianShaw]

No, that was real. How do you think I got here?

Ya... I keep thinking about that day. There I was, sitting in the galaxy's hippest cybercafe getting an energy-boosting infusion, having the time of my life chatting with another alien about how my digital Nikon imagator is better than his extremely rare but archaic imported film-based Canon imagator. All of the sudden a big brute threw me to the ground using all three of his arms, covered my two heads with a bag, and "gave me a ride to the edge of the solar system". Little did I know that it was a one-way ride and despite their periodic visits from them to make sure that I'm OK, they have no intentions of taking me back home.

[BrianShaw]

Ya... I keep thinking about that day. There I was, sitting in the galaxy's hippest cybercafe getting an energy-boosting infusion, having the time of my life chatting with another alien about how my digital Nikon imagator is better than his extremely rare but archaic imported film-based Canon imagator. All of the sudden a big brute threw me to the ground using all three of his arms, covered my two heads with a bag, and "gave me a ride to the edge of the solar system". Little did I know that it was a one-way ride and despite their periodic visits from them to make sure that I'm OK, they have no intentions of taking me back home.

... and all there was left for me was wondering how those rocks move. Now my life is over. OVER.

[Erik Larsen]

... and all there was left for me was wondering how those rocks move. Now my life is over. OVER.

+1
Some things are best left a mystery. I'm gonna assume the video was a fake!

[Bruce Watson]

Now we know!

http://www.grindtv.com/outdoor/natur...valley-solved/

Excellent! A little modern technology, but mostly just good ol' human curiosity. We humans can be pretty cool at times. Nicely done answer to a long standing question.

[Drew Wiley]

Obviously, if they had cross-sectioned the rocks to begin with and had spotted the baked teflon layer on the bottom, they would have realized that only aliens had
the technology way back then to make rocks like that. It's all a cryptographic code that moves about from time to time. Once you decipher it, you'll understand
what Minor White really meant by the Zone System. He was connected to them all along.

[BrianShaw]

Teflon??? We use a proprietary leviatation method. Mere mortal humans cannot detect this. The teflon is a ruse. But you must not be a mere mortal human since you, like Minor White, know about the CryptoCode. Shhh... or they will banish you to an even more remote place than this blue planet... someplace many many zones away.

[Michael Mutmansky]

Pretty cool. I always thought that the wind theory was bullshit.

Except that wind is fundamental to the mechanism of movement presented in the solution?

[Drew Wiley]

From the tracks it would appear so. But in those relatively dry conditions needle ice can also form and behave differently. Too involved a subject to go into the details here. It's far easier just to blame aliens.

[Dan Fromm]

No, that was real. How do you think I got here?

Interesting. I thought you'd crawled out from under a cabbage leaf.

[Drew Wiley]

Basic theory: you watch one of those stupid TV reality shows and they tell you how you can get water in a desert by heating a rock up and letting moisture condense on it during the nite. Hope I never have to test that idea, while dying of thirst next to the TV cameraman holding the sixpack. The black volcanic rock on
the Racetrack sitting on bright reflective clay obviously absorbs a lot of heat during the day. Water vapor condenses on the underside and forms needle ice (frost on steroids) on the underside. This slightly "levitates" the rock (for those of you insisting on UFO influences), but probably turns to water ice under recompression, if enough water vapor is there to begin with. Something also has to happen to the clay involving the presence of water, but I suppose it's best to read the current scientific paper on that. Significant cold inversions do happen. The same geography that makes much of that area a heat sink can also make it a cold sink. I've even seen Salt Creek frozen. The last time I was trying to figure out the Racetrack I spent most of the day trying get to a friend unstuck climbing up exactly the wrong section of Ubehebe Crater. 4-wheelers had ruined almost all the potential shots of the rock tracks. Wish they had been beamed up.