Terror at the observatory
A moderately exaggerated tale of my brush with death at the Otto Struve Telescope
McDonald Observatory in west Texas is celebrating the 85th birthday of the Otto Struve Telescope this year, and this is the perfect occasion for me to tell you about the frightening experience I once had there.
For some of the years I worked as a research scientist at the University of Texas - Austin, I was officially classified as an employee of McDonald Observatory. Which was a little odd, since I didn’t often need to use the observatory for my research. My work was mostly based on archival data, or data I ordered from a staff-operated telescope, meaning someone else did all the work of observing at a telescope and I personally didn’t need to go out to a cold, lonely mountain in the dark of night. I nevertheless did occasionally go out to a cold, lonely mountain in the dark of night, because it was one of my favorite things to do.
Lemme tell you a bit about McDonald before I get to my story. First, don’t call it “McDonald’s” Observatory — I cringe every time I hear someone say that. This place has nothing to do with hamburgers. McDonald (no ‘s) Observatory is named after the late Texas banker, William Johnson McDonald, who in the 1920s left most of his fortune to build the facility. The observatory now consists of the world-class 10-meter Hobby-Eberly Telescope, which is operated by staff astronomers, two large telescopes operated by visiting astronomers — the 2.7-meter Harlan J. Smith Telescope and the 2.1-meter “birthday boy” Otto Struve Telescope — and a smattering of smaller telescopes. The observatory is spread over the tops of two mountains in the Davis range of west Texas — Mt. Locke and Mt. Fowlkes.
I’ve been to McDonald a number of times over the years, sometimes as an observer and others as a visitor. The few times I made my own observations, I used the 2.7-meter Harlan J. Smith Telescope, which was built in the 1960s and has a sort of mid-century Apollo-era vibe to it. The 2.1-meter Otto Struve Telescope, on the other hand, was built in the late 1930s, and has a decided pre-war feel to it. This was the telescope I visited in 2002, to assist a fellow graduate student — my good friend, who I’ll call Finnegan. His project involved looking for extrasolar planets around dim stars, and required enormous amounts of observing time. The observations were usually a two-person job, so one time when his research partner was unable to join him, I tagged along instead.
Everything on Mt. Locke is exceptionally dark at night. It’s located in far west Texas, one of the darkest places in the world. The observatory and its surroundings are built for utter darkness. Even the local towns a few miles from the mountain have designed their lighting to minimize interference with the observatory.
Finnegan and I stayed at the Astronomer’s Lodge, which at that time was charmingly 1970s retro in its style with its wood paneled walls and decades old furniture. It felt like staying at summer camp when I was a kid. The Lodge had blackout shades and curtains in every room, and we were always careful not to open them at night.
When you leave the Lodge to go to work, you walk across the main observatory road and up one of the designated paths, flashlight pointed down, to whichever telescope you’re using. When you reach the telescope, you open a ground-level door, and enter the building in near total darkness. No lights are on outside or inside the telescope buildings, save for dimly lit emergency exit signs.
To get up to the dome on the Otto Struve Telescope, you walk through the main entrance, which takes you through the observatory's library. During the day, the library is a delightful time-warp with its pre-war scientific ambience that includes the intoxicating smell of old furniture, wood shelving, and books. But at night, the library transforms into a chilling place rife with the feeling of imminent human demise by unknown forces of darkness. Every astronomer I’ve talked to has had the same experience walking through the McDonald Observatory library at night. Once you make your way through that portal of doom, you either walk up the stairs or take the elevator up to the dome floor.
This observing run took place more than twenty years ago, and even back then the telescope felt very old. Out in the dome, it smelled like 1930s machinery, all metal and grease, what I imagine submarines back then probably smelled like. The control room just off the dome floor was updated with computers and more advanced controls, but it was still mostly 1930s primitive aesthetic. At night, when you were inside the actual dome where the telescope was housed, it was unbelievably dark. You were absolutely enveloped in darkness.
Finnegan and I spent most of our observing time in the moderately-lit control room, slurping down coffee and looking at dots appear on a computer screen, but we had to go out on the dome floor periodically to make sure the dome slit (the opening in the dome that the telescope looks out from) wasn't drifting away from the target and ruining our data. This was the not-fun part of the experience, because it was scary as heck out there in the pitch dark.
When I worked at the 2.7-meter telescope, I could use an astronomer’s flashlight (a dim red light) to make my way to the dome floor controls without ruining my data. But Finnegan’s project involved extremely sensitive measurements, so no light whatsoever could be introduced into the dome. We took turns going out there, inching our way by feel along a metal chain suspended by posts that marked the path to the dome's control panel. Every step we took from the control room to the dome floor control panel was exactly the same. Every step back to the control room retraced the same path, all in total darkness.
About halfway through the night, Finnegan left the control room for his turn to check the dome slit’s position. Step by step, he felt his way along the metal chain until he got to the control panel. He paused for a moment to assess the situation, and, assured that all was well, began retracing his steps back to the control room. He'd taken a few steps when his foot landed on something soft. He stopped. Whatever it was, it hadn't been there a moment ago. With one hand still holding the metal chain, he slowly bent down to feel the thing he'd stepped on. It was a glove. He stood up, his eyes darting around fruitlessly in the dark. His heart beginning to pound, he inched his way back to the control room faster than anyone has ever inched. When he told me what happened, my blood ran cold. We both thought the same thing: serial killer.
Every decades-old workplace has its legends, some of which are true, and some of which are more fantasy. One of the more exciting bits of McDonald lore was about the unhinged observatory worker who, after getting drunk in town, supposedly returned to the mountain with a gun. After threatening a couple of observatory employees, he forced one of them to lower the 2.7-meter telescope and then shot the mirror several times. I wasn’t sure I believed the story until I saw the bullet holes for myself. Turned out the story was 100% true. Okay-then.
Apparently, the observatory had also had its share of random weirdos visiting the mountain throughout the years, apparently concerned that it was hiding government secrets about extra-terrestrials or who knows what else. None of the visitors had been threatening or violent, but maybe it was just a matter of time, I thought.
All of these stories percolated in our minds that night.
To our knowledge, no one had entered or exited the telescope that night except for us. There were always one or two support people working on the mountain at night, and the main support guy, Dave, usually visited us twice during his shift. But he always came through the control room, and he never did anything at night that required gloves. We didn’t know how that glove manifested on the path to the control panel out on the dome floor, but our imaginations invited a few scenarios, mostly involving future headlines about an observatory serial killer who bumped off graduate students in the dark of night.
With visions of gun-wielding disgruntled ex-employees and paranoid weirdos creeping up the mountain to uncover our nefarious deeds, Finnegan and I white-knuckled our way through the rest of the night. I don’t know exactly what went through his mind, but my mind kept wandering to the glove. The killer was putting on gloves to cover his fingerprints. Whoever was hiding in the dome, this sentinel of malevolence silently waiting for his chance to strike, wasn’t so unhinged that he wanted to get caught. No, he was cold and calculated, this one. All the worse.
None of this is to say that the glove ruined our observing run. In fact, it was fun to be, as Anne Shirley put it, “deliciously scared.” And that made it one of the most memorable trips I had to McDonald.
I’ve had other eerie experiences on Mt. Locke, including the sounds and occasionally the fleeting sight of nocturnal creatures along the pathways at night. I can tell you there are few things that make your hair stand on end like the low growl of an unseen mountain lion. And one time in the control room of the 2.7-meter telescope, my observing partner and I kept hearing the footfalls of someone coming up the back stairs, only to find no one there. It happened all through the night, the footsteps of doom that never arrived.
Darkness and isolation play tricks on the senses, and imagination fills the gaps. And honestly that's part of what made being an astronomer on that mountain such a wonderful experience. That, and the fact that I was never murdered by a serial killer or devoured by creatures in the night.
So, Happy 85th to the Otto Struve Telescope. May it live to enlighten and frighten astronomers for years to come.