Episode 58: Rayfield's Nephew, the Marfa Lights, and Why Nobody Believes Concho

All right, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome back. I'm Luke, and this is Luke at the Roost. It's your late night call-in radio show, where you can call in and tell us about what's going on in your life, and I'll give you the very best advice that I can. If you'd like to give us a call, the number here is 208-439-5853. That's 208-439 Luke. give us a call, and if we're not on the air, you can leave us voicemail. And if we think that voicemail is worth airing, we will air it. So speaking of voicemails, we do have one sitting here waiting for us today. I see the red light blinking. So let's see what our caller has to say, shall we?

Yeah, hi. Okay, my name's Sandra, and I would like to find out of, like, what kind of be involved. I think we the people better know our Constitution founding documents and declaration of independence. And we better take on some of the responsibility of stopping the destruction of our country as we the people with regards to, you know, our elections become members judicial watch. They're out there fighting for that. Stop the fraudulent election. And there's other things. So I'd like to do a show if there's room on your radio station. And to find out where it's located. My number is 575. 05. 575. 05. Thank you. Bye-bye.

All right, Sandra. I'm not sure why you're calling this show. Those are all great points that you've brought up. But this is not the appropriate place to talk about the Constitution of the United States, I don't think, or voting fraud, which I personally do not believe is a significant issue. But, Devon, what do you think about that call? Should we have Sandra on to discuss her concerns?

I don't know, maybe. She sounds like she really wants to get on the air and talk about something important to her. I mean, I don't know, I feel like sometimes those calls end up being the most interesting ones, even if they don't match what we planned. Reminds me of when my mom's boyfriend made us all memorize the Bill of Rights for his parole hearing. Anyway, up to you.

Well, you know, I feel like if she really wanted to get on the air, she would have listened to the show before she called in and asked to get on the air to figure out what kind of show it was. show or she wouldn't have brought her concerns about election fraud here. Or maybe she would have. I don't know. Maybe she has listened to the show. Maybe she listens to every episode. I'm not sure. But I don't think that we should give her a segment to discuss voter election fraud. It's just, I'm not into it.

Yeah, you're probably right. She might have just seen the number somewhere and figured it was worth a shot. I don't know. I feel like those random calls can still be fun sometimes, but if it's not the vibe.

It's not the vibe. Oh, she saw the number somewhere because we've put Luke at the Roost Flyers and business cards in every truck stop bathroom from Texas through New Mexico. So they're all over the place. It's easy to find the number for this show. So I don't think she found it by listening to it. But anyway, just quickly, because now I'm thinking about it. I'm not familiar with the judicial watch that she brought up. Do you know what? the Judicial Watch is. Is this a grassroots organization that watches judges?

So, I looked it up, and Judicial Watch is actually a conservative nonprofit founded in 1994 that focuses on government transparency through lawsuits and FOIA requests. It's based in D.C., not really a grassroots outfit watching judges, more of a legal advocacy group that gets involved in election-related cases, too. They do push those kinds of issues pretty hard.

request, that's, FOIA is the Freedom of Information Act, right? Which was also instituted somewhere around the 90s. What brought about the Freedom of Information Act? Was that post-9-11? No, because this is the 90s, right? This is before 9-11. When did we get the Freedom of Information Act?

Yeah, FOIA is the Freedom of Information Act. It actually got signed into law back in 1966 by Lyndon Johnson, after years of pushing from this congressman named John Maher. who wanted more government transparency. Definitely not post-9-11, or even close, that was decades earlier.

Oh, I thought it was fairly new in response to 9-11 for some reason. Okay, well, what's your thought on election fraud? Devon, do you think we have widespread election fraud that needs to be handled by we, the people, the citizens of this country?

I don't know. I feel like if there was really widespread fraud, someone would have solid proof by now, instead of just vibes. twice in a local thing by wearing a fake mustache. And it didn't even work, so maybe it's harder than people think. Anyway, probably not something we need to solve on the air.

No, we don't need to solve it on the air. I personally, when we're talking about presidential elections, I think the whole concept is a fraud. I know that's an unpopular thing to say because it's your duty and Puff Daddy told us all that we need to vote or die. And if you don't listen to Puff Daddy, then what kind of American are you? really. But I can't get behind the presidential elections. I never could because the electoral college makes the whole thing relatively pointless in my mind. I mean, last election, I was a resident of South Dakota, which was 96% going to Trump. So there was absolutely no way a vote against Trump was going to have any difference about what South Dakota did. My vote would not be counted or used in any. anyway, and that's just stupid. It's stupid and it's a lie, and I don't believe in it.

I mean, I don't know. I feel like the electoral college does make it weird in some states where it's basically decided ahead of time. Reminds me of when my stepdad made me register to vote at 16 so he could use my address for some jury duty thing he was dodging. Anyway, it all feels kind of rigged from the start.

It absolutely is rigged from the start. So, I mean, where's the fraud coming from if it's not the election itself? talking about presidential elections, not local state and municipality type elections. Those I think they count the popular votes, right? But just the American Idol thing, get in your vote and make your voice heard. We've already decided who we're voting for, but we need to hear from you. It's just a placation. It's, I don't like it. I don't like it, Devon.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know. It does feel like the whole thing is set up. people are just going through the motions. Reminds me of when my grandma made me fill out her absentee ballot for her, because she said, the government owes me this one, after some old tax thing. Anyway, I get why it bugs you.

All right. Well, that's enough of that. We don't need to continue talking about elections or election fraud or the Constitution of the United States. I clearly don't know enough about it to be making informed commentary. So let's get to our collar line. Our color line's lighting up, and it looks like first on our list we've got Mr. Rayfield. Rayfield, welcome to the show. What would you like to talk about today? How can we help you?

I watched my nephew steal from a man who has spent his whole life being decent, and I let my nephew walk.

What did he steal?

Catalytic converter, off an old Tehano Rancher's truck. Man named Orelio Cerna, his family's been running cattle east of Marathon since before this county had a name. And Denny, that's my nephew, was under that truck at two in the morning with a reciprocating source. all.

Well, at least it wasn't an election.

Okay, so your nephew stole this man's catalytic converter and you watched him at 2 o'clock in the morning? What were you doing out at 2 o'clock in the morning watching him under a neighbor's vehicle?

I wasn't watching him do it on purpose. I was on my porch. Can't sleep most nights. I just sit out there. And I saw headlights pull up slow on Cerna's property, which is not far from mine. And I knew those headlights. I know that truck. That's Denny's truck.

It looks like Marathon, Texas has a really long history of cattle ranching, going back to the 1800s. So Arellio Cerna's family being there for generations totally tracks. All right, Devon. That was really helpful to the show. Thank you for that little bit of information. Okay, and Rayfield, why didn't you, have you said anything to your nephew about this? Or did you just kind of let it slide?

No, I did not let it slide. I walked over there in my boots and my undershirt, and I made him put it back, stood over him while he reattached it. And then I told him, if he ever did anything like that again, I would call Brewster County myself. But here's what I didn't know then. This wasn't the first time.

Of course it wasn't the first time. I don't think it's, I've never done it myself, but I can't imagine it's easy to steal a catalytic converter. You have to know what it looks like, at least, and what to cut and wear so you don't ruin it. How do you steal a catalytic converter? Do you know?

Reciprocating sore, and about four minutes if you know what you're doing. And Denny knew what he was doing. That's what got me. He wasn't fumble. around under there. He was practiced. And that's when I started putting it together. Serna had been replacing converters he thought were just failing on their own. Paying out of pocket. This man is not wealthy, Luke. He's land rich and cash poor like every rancher out here. And he's been bleeding quiet for months because of my nephew.

It's wild that he was so practiced, because most catalytic converter thefts happen overnight, usually between 6 p.m. and 9 a.m. Okay, and does your nephew have a lot of cash? I mean, what's a catalytic converter? converter worth on the used market these days?

Depends on the vehicle, but you're talking anywhere from a hundred to maybe three, four hundred dollars at a scrap yard. And yeah, Denny had new boots. New boots and he just bought a used side by side. I didn't think anything of it at the time because he just started the job at the gauge. But that money wasn't coming from groundskeeping wages, I can tell you that.

Okay, so obviously you talk to him about it and he knows that you know now, And how did he respond when you told them not to do it anymore? You were going to call the cops? You know what they say about snitches, right, Rayfield?

He was ashamed. I'll given that. He didn't argue with me, didn't try to explain it away, just got quiet and nodded. But here's the thing I haven't told anybody. I kept my mouth shut partly because Denny's mother, that's my sister Carol. She buried her husband 18 months ago. And I cannot put her through losing her son to the county jail on top of that. I just cannot do it. So maybe that's why I did what I did.

Well, it makes sense. that you wouldn't narc out your own family for doing something like that. But maybe you could talk to the rancher and let him know what's going on. So he's probably got suspicions if he's replaced a few of these. And your nephew there has been at this over and over again. Maybe you could tell him to put up some cameras, give him a little hint that maybe he's got somebody on his property, taking his stuff. And do you have a camera at your property? a doorbell camera or something like that that can catch that area.

No cameras out here. This is Highway 385 country, Luke. It ain't a subdivision. But what you're saying about talking to Serna, I've been turning that over. I got $400 in an envelope on my kitchen table. Been sitting there eight days. I was going to mail it to him anonymous. But I keep thinking, that man deserves to know it wasn't his truck failing him.

Well, I mean, I'm out here too. There are plenty of cameras. There's trail cameras. There's traffic. cameras. There's cameras all over the place, even out here. So to think that there's not as naive, it wouldn't be expensive or difficult to throw up a trail camera to keep track of your ranch property. I think probably most ranches have at least some cameras somewhere for just this reason. But no, I don't think that you should pay him. You didn't steal it. And it's protecting his property is his own response. So you should keep your money, but it wouldn't be wrong of you to walk over there and sort of give him the hint. You don't have to narc out your nephew for doing it. Obviously, he knows that you know and he's not going to do it anymore. But let him know that he should have some lighting out there and some basic security cameras because they're not expensive. And in 2026, it makes a lot of sense to have that.

You know, what, that's, that land's different than I expected it to, because I've been so fixed on the money, like money was the thing that would settle it in my chest. But you're right that it wasn't my debt to pay. The debt is Denny's. And maybe what I actually owe Serna is a conversation, not an envelope. The Rocking S brand has been on cattle in this county longer than most families have been here. That man deserves to hear a truth, even if it's a partial one.

Yeah, keep it a partial one. You don't have to say any names, you don't have to say even that you saw it, just to bring it up, You know, you seem to be having problems with missing catalytic converters that looked like they were sawed out by a reciprocating saw. And I think maybe that was a man-made problem.

That's a decent way to put it. Man-made problem. I could say that much without saying Denny's name. Just neighbor to neighbor. Let him know it wasn't his truck. Let him know to put a light out there. Maybe a camera like you said. That's, I can do that. That's something I can actually do. And maybe that envelope stays on my table a little longer. maybe I hand it to Denny and tell him he's going to find a way to make this right himself, even if Sernan never knows where it came from.

I just looked it up. And while the numbers are down from their peak in 2022, there were still over 26 zero catalytic converter thefts in the first half of 2023 alone. I think you meant to say 26,000 catalytic converter thefts. And that's quite a few. What is it in the catalytic converter that's, um, that's, um, that's, um, that's, um, that's, worth the money to the scrapyard? What sort of metal?

Platinum. Peladium. Rodeum. Those are the metals in the catalyst itself. Rodeum especially got sky high a few years back. That's what drove the whole wave of it. Denny knew that. He's not stupid. That's the hell of it. He's just, he made a bad choice, and then he kept making it because nobody caught him.

Well, I'm not stupid either, and I didn't know that a catalytic converter contained rhodium and that rhodium was a, I don't even know what rhodium is. It sounds radioactive. rhodium and what else is it used in that it can command such a high price? Is it just other catalytic converters? Because then why take it to a scrapyard and not just resell the catalytic converter?

Rodium's a platinum group metal. It's used in catalytic converters, some jewelry, certain industrial processes. It's rare. A few years back, it was worth more per ounce than gold by a significant margin. And as for why scrap it instead of resell, a used converter off a specific truck is traceable if somebody's looking. Scrapyard melts it down. Nobody's asking questions. Cash in hand, same day. That's the whole business model. Denny wasn't selling parts. He was selling metal he didn't own.

Yeah, I get that. But if it's so rare, how can it be in Cadillade converters? I mean, trucks, cars are not rare. So there's obviously quite a few of them out there on the road. I don't know if you've looked around recently. So it can't be that rare.

It's rare in concentration. There's not much of it in any one converter. We're talking fractions. of a gram. But you aggregate enough of them, it adds up. That's why these operations, the serious ones, they're not stealing one or two. They're running volume.

Denny was running volume on one old man's truck, and that's what I keep coming back to. He picked Serna specifically. Why do you think that is?

Well, you're talking about Marathon, Texas. There's only like 300 people there, right? So there's not a whole lot of other people to pick besides Serna. But it sounds to me like you need to have a conversation with this man and let him know that it's to get some lighting and some cameras out. And that's the best you can do. Keep your money. You didn't steal anything. You don't owe that money and you probably need it just as much as CERna does.

You're probably right about the money. And Marathon's small enough that Denny picking Cerna wasn't random. Serna's property sits off a dark stretch with no traffic at two in the morning. Easy in, easy out. Denny did the math on that. And that bothers me more than the stealing itself foremost.

Well, then maybe it sounds like you need to have another conversation with Denny to him about what he's doing and how that affects real people's lives because he's just a kid. He doesn't think like that. I didn't think like that when I was a kid. Stealing stuff wasn't an issue for me because I didn't have that part of my, I guess, brain developed yet to understand or to put myself in the shoes of the victim of the theft. Right? it did not engage my conscience in any way.

He's 22, though. That's old enough to know. But I hear what you're saying. Maybe he hasn't fully connected it to Cerna the man, the family, the four generations. He just sees a truck on a dark road. Maybe that's the conversation I need to have with him. Not the one I already had, which was mostly me standing over him angry in my undershirt at two in the morning. A real one.

Yeah, 22 is a bit old to be doing that sort of stuff. But you should talk to him and see what he's doing. the money if there's drugs involved or what the deal is and do what you can to let him know that what he's doing is affecting real people's lives, honest, hardworking people that have, you know, they don't have much. So taking from them is extra bad.

I don't think it's drugs. Denny drinks some, but I've never seen him strung out. I think it might be simpler and sadder than that. I think he wanted the side-by-side and the boots and to feel like he had and he's raking leaves at a hotel. That don't excuse it. But I think that's what it is. I just looked up Rhodium again, and it's actually one of the rarest and most valuable precious metals, even more so than gold or platinum.

Wait a second. He's at the Gage Hotel in Marathon, Texas, raking leave. There's no trees in the desert, sir. Where are the leaves coming from that he's raking?

Huh, fair point. Ground'skeeping. Whatever they have him doing out there, watering the sun. succulence, I don't know. The gauge is nice enough that somebody's got to keep it looking that way. But yeah, leaves might have been a stretch.

Wait, I just looked up the gauge hotel, and they actually have 27 acres of gardens with trees and plants, so there would definitely be leaves to rake.

Well, I'll be damned. I wouldn't have thought that at all. I've never been to the gauge hotel, but I hear it's a wonderful place.

Okay, well, thank you for the call, Rayfield. I think you need to have a couple of conversations there, talk to Denny about his life choices. and talk to your neighbor about security cameras and identifying man-made problems with his truck.

I appreciated, Luke. I came on here thinking I needed somebody to tell me I did right by keeping Denny out of jail. But I think what I actually needed was somebody to point me toward the next thing to do instead of just sitting with it. I'll talk to Cerna. And I'll talk to Denny, a real talk this time. That envelope can wait.

All right, real talk. And I think you did do the right thing by. by keeping your nephew out of jail because putting your own family in jail is rotten in its own right. And you would have felt just as guilty afterwards. So next up on our color line, we've got Suki. Suki, thanks for calling the show. What's going on in your life tonight?

I have lived here four years and made fun of the lights people. And I owe every single one of them in apology.

Who are the lights people?

The tourists, the ones who come out with their launch. and their binoculars and their little pamphlets about unexplained phenomena. I used to drive past the viewing area and just, I mean, I'm not proud of it. I thought it was a Marfa thing, like a charming local myth that we let visitors believe in because it's good for the economy. Two nights ago I stopped there myself, and I stood in that parking lot for 40 minutes, and now I'm a completely different person.

Wait, so I just looked up the Marfa lights on Wikipedia, and it says scientists think it's mostly car headlights, distorted by warm desert air. Well, I've heard of the Marfa lights, too. I haven't stopped at the viewing area myself because it always looks like there's a lot of people there. But one of these days I will. What is it that you saw out there that changed your life?

Okay, so Devon, the headlight thing. I read that too. I read everything I could find the next morning. There's actually a University of Texas at Dallas study about plasma vortexes, and I found that more interesting than the headlight explanation, but it still doesn't cover what I thing. One of these lights held a completely fixed position. I timed it on my phone, 11 minutes, and then it accelerated sideways, not like a car slowing down and turning, no deceleration curve at all.

How far away was that light from the viewing area? So the viewing area is just like a building that you stand out on and look out over the desert, and there's lights out there that do unexplain things. And they've been there for a long time. A lot of people, have seen them and talk about them and nobody can come to a consensus on what they're about, right? So how far off into the distance did you see these lights?

I have lived here four years and made fun of the lights people and I owe every single one of them in apology. Okay, so the viewing area faces south-southwest and the lights were out over the Mitchell flat area, which I think is roughly 8 to 10 miles out. But here's the thing, and this is what I keep getting stuck on when I try to explain it to people. The distance is actually part of what messed me up. Because at that distance, a light that holds a fixed position for 11 minutes and then moves laterally with zero deceleration. Like, no ramping up, no curve. Just, it's there. And then it's somewhere else. That's not a car. That's not a ranch vehicle. I know what headlights do at eight miles in the dark. I grew up on the Gulf Coast. I know Flatland. I know how light travels over Flatland at night.

So I just looked up Mitchell Flat. And it's actually described as where the Marfa lights are most often seen. And it's known for being incredibly flat. Okay. So if you don't think that these were headlights, what do you think they were? You're the one that saw them. So what is it that you, do you think it was aliens? Do you think it was government testing, like military stuff? What's your assessment?

Okay, so that's the question I've been sitting with for two days. And here's my honest answer. I don't know. And I'm actually okay with that. What I'm not okay with is the explanations that are supposed to close the case. I read the year. University of Texas at Dallas study, the plasma vortex thing. And look, I'm not a scientist. I dye fabric for a living, but a plasma vortex does not drop behind a mountain range and reappear on the other side. That's not what plasma does. That's not what any atmospheric phenomenon I've ever heard of does. So do I think it was aliens? I mean.

Okay, I'm not a scientist either. What does plasma generally do? What would you expect a, a, I don't know what a fucking plasma vortex is. what would you expect a plasma vortex to do?

Right. Okay.

So from what I read, and again, I am a textile person, so take this with a grain of salt. A plasma vortex is basically ionized gas that gets trapped in like a rotating air mass and it glows. And the argument is that the temperature differentiates over Mitchell Flat create these conditions where you get these glowing gas pockets that drift and split and kind of do weird things. And I'll grant you that actually does explain some of what I've seen the other three times I've stopped there, like drifting, merging, that stuff. Fine, maybe. But one of these lights on Tuesday night held completely still. For 11 minutes, I timed it on my phone. And then it moved, not drifted, moved laterally fast, and was just gone.

Are you sure that it moved and it wasn't just a different light that popped up somewhere else that was the same size and shape? What color were the lights that you saw?

That is, okay, that's a genuinely good question. And it's the one that keeps me up at night a little. I can't be 100% certain. I was watching it. I was focusing it. I was focusing. I was focusing. on it, but it's dark and it's far away and I'm standing in a parking lot with wet indigo containers in the back of my Subaru. So I can't swear to you in a court of law that it was the same light that moved versus a different light appearing. What I can tell you is that there was a continuity to it visually that felt like motion rather than replacement. But you're right to poke at that. The colors, they were mostly white yellow?

White yellow? White or yellow? Were they white or were they yellow?

Or were they just a warm warm white. Like, not the blue white of an LED, not orange like a sodium lamp, warm white. But one of them, the one that went behind the Chinati Mountains and came back, that one had a moment where it went, I want to say amber, like genuinely amber, not just warm white. And that was brief, maybe 30 seconds, and then it was back to the same warm white as the others. And I noticed it because I was already watching so hard by that point. I had been pulled over for maybe 20 minutes at that point. And I was just, I was in.

Okay. Well, I think I'm going to have to check out these Marfa lights for myself, because I've read lots of different types of reports and explanations for what they are. But I haven't seen them myself. When you were there, when you were checking this out, were you alone? Or were there a bunch of other tourists there with you?

There were two other cars. One couple. They were there when I pulled in. And they left maybe 15 minutes into it, which I still don't understand that. They just got back in their car and drove away. And then there was a guy older. He had a camp chair, like he had planned this. He had brought a camp chair and a thermos. And he and I didn't really talk much. We were both just watching. But at the end, when it was winding down, I went over to him and I said, did you see that one go behind the mountains? And he just nodded. Like it wasn't even a question.

I'm seeing that the Wikipedia article mentions, scientists concluded the lights were car headlights, but also that they're described as an optical phenomenon. The Wikipedia article also mentions that the Marfa lights are an optical phenomenon regularly observed near Marfa, Texas, and that the community has publicized a viewing area to encourage tourism. Is it possible that the community of Marfa, they're clever people out there. Marfa's a clever little town. Could they have staged these lights for the purpose of tourism?

Huh, okay. I mean, I love Marfa, but we can barely get the coffee shop to stay open consistent hours. We are not coordinating an elaborate light show eight miles out over a private ranch in the dark on a Tuesday night when I happened to be driving back from Alpine. Like the infrastructure for that conspiracy does not exist here, but also the lights have been reported since the 1880s before cars.

That's wild that they've been reported since the 1880s before cars were even around, which totally debunks that theory about headlights. Yeah, it's hard to believe that there are headlights. I mean, what road is he? Even back there? Is there a road back there? Or are they just supposed to be headlights out in somebody's ranch, like off road?

There's one highway, Highway 67, going toward Presidio. And yeah, people say it's those headlights refracting over the flat. But 67 runs in a pretty consistent line. And what I saw was not consistent with anything running in a line. And here's the thing I haven't told you yet. At one point, there were six distinct lights simultaneously. Not two, not three. Six. Separated, doing different. things, different speeds.

I'm seeing that accounts of the Marfa lights often describe them as floating orbs. White, yellow or orange. Drifting or flickering. And sometimes multiple lights are seen simultaneously. All right. Well, I'm going to have to see these lights for myself. It does sound like the plasma vortex thing could be, they could be on to something with that. I mean, maybe for some of it.

I'm willing to give them some of it. But Luke, you should go, genuinely. Go on a clear night, not too much moon. And just give it an hour. The mistake I made the first three times was I gave it like 10 minutes and left. Tuesday I stayed because I couldn't make myself get back in the car.

I just looked it up. And while the plasma vortex is a theory, other scientific explanations include atmospheric refraction, Piazoelectric effects from tectonic stress, and even bioluminescent animals. What bioluminescent animals are out here in the desert? Isn't that like a deep in the ocean kind of thing? I mean, we don't have fireflies or anything like that. There's no, like, bioluminescent mushrooms or fungi. Are there any bioluminescent animals in the desert out here?

I mean, I'm not a biologist either, but no. No. I dye fabric with plants and I spend a lot of time thinking about what the land out here produces, and I have never once seen anything glowing in the Chihuahuan desert. And even if there were, six lights, 11-minute stationary behind a mountain range and back? No animal does that. That explanation is so much worse than just saying we don't know.

Well, I have seen some actually glowing bugs. They're bigger than fireflies. They're not flies. I don't know what they are, but they have like little lights on their backs around here.

Wait, really? I have not seen that. What do they look like?

the rest of my life, which is not helpful. But also, even if that's true, even if there are glowing beetles or whatever out here, that does not scale up to what I saw Tuesday. Like, a bioluminescent bug does not hold position for 11 minutes and then accelerate laterally.

Wait, I just looked this up. And apparently, the most common scorpion in Texas, the striped bark scorpion, actually glows under UV light, but it's not bioluminescent in the way we're talking about.

Well, I thought that all scorpions glue. If you hit them with a black light, I noticed that in Utah too, we brought out a black light to check for scorpions when we went camping, and it totally works. They look super cool. But what I'm talking about is more like a cricket kind of bug or some sort of a beetle that has a little glowy light on it. And they're pretty cool.

Okay, that's actually fascinating. And I've been here four years and never encountered that. So now I have a whole separate thing to look into. But I want to make sure I'm not getting completely derailed by glowing beetles, because the point I keep coming back to is that I saw something I cannot explain, and I've been showing this terrible useless video to everyone in Marfa for two days and getting shrugged at. And I just needed to describe it out loud to someone who would actually sit with the 40 minutes. And you have done that. So thank you.

Can you send us that video? Can you email it to submissions at Luke at the Roost, please? I'd like to see it myself.

And I'm not surprised if you're not surprised if you're not. you're showing that to people in Marfa, they've all seen the lights before. So it's not a new thing to them. They're pretty familiar with it. Yeah, I will send it. Fair warning. I have already told you it's bad, but it's genuinely bad. Like, it looks like a black rectangle with some pixels. My phone just could not handle the low light at that distance. But I'll send it.

And you're right about Marfa. That's exactly it. Everyone here has either seen them and made peace with not knowing, or they've decided its headlights and closed the door on it. Nobody wants to sit in the uncertainty with me. The guy with the camp chair came closest.

Well, I'm going to go check it out myself and my camera is able to see pretty well in the dark because I do the astro photography stuff. So I'll see if I can catch that. And maybe we'll get to the bottom of this and figure out what the Marfa lights are once and for all here at Luke at the Roost.

Please do. And when you go, give it a full hour minimum. Don't leave after 15 minutes like a tourist. And if you catch something on, that camera that actually shows what they're doing, the splitting, the lateral movement, the way they just stop. I will buy you a coffee and also possibly cry a little. I'm genuinely invested in this now. Four years of skepticism and one Tuesday night completely undid me.

Okay, just one more thing before we move on. Just hypothetically, if this is extraterrestrial activity or supernatural activity, what do you think they could be doing? Why Marfa and what What are some potential things that you could imagine these lights were actually doing?

Okay, hypothetically, if I let myself go there, Marfa is in one of the darkest, most remote stretches of land in the continental United States. If you wanted to observe without being observed, this is where you'd do it. And there's something about the Chinati Mountain specifically. There's a lot of mineral density in that range. Copper, silver. There's mining history all through there. So if I'm spinning a theory, maybe it's not about us at all. whatever it is isn't interested in the viewing area or the tourists or me standing there with my indigo. Maybe we're just incidental to something that was happening here long before the 1880s and will keep happening after we're gone. That actually makes me feel better somehow rather than worse.

So what you're saying is they could be mining or extracting minerals from the area? I mean, I do the astrophotography work. So I've been to a lot of places in the continental United States. that are as dark as Marfa is. It's not the only place, and there's more people there than in a lot of stretches of remote Utah or Wyoming, or there's a lot of even less populated dark places. So it's probably not because they don't want to be seen. There's, I mean, there's a viewing area to see them, and it's been there for a long time. So that doesn't make sense. But if there is some sort of mineral there that is not available, in other places, like rhodium perhaps. Maybe that's what they're doing and the lights are a mining operation from the aliens. Alien roadium mining. I'm going to be thinking about that every time I drive past the Chinatis now. Thank you for that.

But actually what you said about it not being about avoiding people, that's kind of the thing that unsettles me most when I sit with it. They're not hiding. Whatever those lights are, they have never hidden. They've been visible from the road for over a hundred years. That's either total. difference to us or something else entirely, and I don't know which one is more unsettling.

Maybe they're out there trying to steal catalytic converters. That would actually explain the lateral acceleration. Get in, get out, no deceleration curve. Very efficient catalytic converter operation.

I respect the hustle.

I respect the hustle too, and thank you very much for the call, Suki. I'm going to go check out the Marfa lights for myself and I'll let you know what I find. I think that if anybody can get to the bottom of it, it is me. And I'll do that. So now, ladies and gentlemen, it's time for a word from our sponsors. Imagine your toothbrush could think. Not as a metaphor. Actually think. About you. About your teeth. About what you were doing to them slowly every day. With food you weren't supposed to eat. The Aurora Oral System is that toothbrush. Aurora is that toothbrush. is not a toothbrush. We need to clear that up at the start because the FCC has asked us to. Aurora is an integrated oral health platform consisting of a sonic cleansing wand, a smart base station with germicidal UVC sterilization, a hydration sensor, a tongue analyzer, and the Aurora app, which functions as the central nervous system of the experience. Together, these components communicate continuously to produce a complete picture of your oral biome, your hydration status, your stress, levels is inferred from your tongue in what our marketing team is described as your overall vitality signal. The cleansing wand operates at 48,000 vibrations per minute and adjusts dynamically based on plaque density, gum sensitivity, and time of day. If you brush too hard, it slows down. If you brush too softly, it speeds up. If you miss a quadrant, it flashes red and pauses refusing to continue until you address the emission. Several of our users have reported feeling judged. We've updated. the firmware to soften this slightly. The tongue analyzer is our proprietary innovation. By placing the wand against your tongue for a four second hold each morning, the Aurora measures coating thickness, color, and microbial signature, comparing the results against the database of over 900,000 tongues. We will then deliver through an app a daily wellness brief, a paragraph of personalized insight informed by your tongue, written in a calm voice that we have licensed for this purpose. Aurora Oral Systems retails for $429. Subscription to Aurora Plus, which is required to use the tongue analyzer, the hydration sensor, the wellness brief, and approximately 60% of the app is $24 a month. Roost listeners get $100 off the device and three months of Aurora Plus free at Auroraoral.health slash roost. Aurora, your mouth is talking. We translate. Very special thanks to Aurora Toothbrushes for sponsoring this show. We couldn't do it without them. Next up on our caller list, we've got Gus. Gus, welcome to the show. What's going on out there in your life tonight? How can we help?

There's a piece of dash cam footage I've watched 11 times that I'm probably going to watch 11 more times tonight instead of doing anything about it. I'm a sheriff's deputy, 15 years, and I found something on footage from my partner's patrol car three. weeks ago that I don't know what to do with. And I haven't told anybody. Not my supervisor, not my wife, nobody. You're the first person I've said this out loud to.

Okay, what is it that you saw on the dash cam?

My partner made an unlogged stop. 30 minutes. House on the north edge of town. And I know whose house it is. The man who lives there has ties to a meth distribution pipeline that runs up from the border through our county. Now, she's not under investigation. She has family on that street.

It's wild how common these meth pipelines are. I'm seeing headlines about busts from San Antonio to the capital region, and even Little Rock. All right. So if you're familiar with the house and you know that there's a meth operation there, why are they not under investigation? Yeah. I mean, taking your partner out of this completely just for a second, how can you, in good conscience, know that that's going on at that place without doing anything about that? it.

That's a fair shot. The honest answer is the guy, Cecil, he's known. The department knows about him. He's not a secret. He's just, he's slippery.

The kind of person who's connected enough to the pipeline that you know he's there, but building a case on him is a different unit's problem, a different jurisdictions problem. He's not my case. So I'm not sitting on some bombshell about Cecil specifically. Okay. All right. So back to your partner. How long has this been your partner?

Six years. And she trained me before that when I first came on. So, we're talking about somebody who, she drove two hours in the dark once to help me change a tire after a chase that went bad. That kind of partner, that kind of person. At least that's who I thought I knew.

Okay, so she's a friend of yours, you would say, right? You would categorize her as a friend. It seems like you could have a conversation with her about this and say, look, I found this on the dash cam. I'm curious. Like, hear her side of the story. Maybe there's a good explanation for her. her being at this guy Cecil's house.

Yeah. Yeah, that's the obvious move, and I know it. But here's where I get stuck. If she's clean, I've just told my partner of six years that I suspected her of running with a meth distributor. That doesn't go away. We still have to get in that car together every shift. And if she's not clean...

Well, no, it doesn't say you suspected her of anything. If you suspected her, then you probably would have anonymously sent that footage into your supervisors or something. something of that sort. If you instead go to her and say, hey, look, you know, I found this on the dash cam and it seems odd to me, can you explain what you were doing here? You might get a positive answer or one you're not expecting. If she's not clean, then it's a completely different story. And it's a different decision for you. And you have to decide if you want to keep that under wraps and protect your friend, or if she's in trouble or possibly being. blackmail or something like that and needs your help, or if she's a criminal and needs to be turned in.

The blackmail angle. I hadn't, I mean, I thought about it for a second and then I moved past it, but you're right. That's a real possibility out here. Cecil is exactly the kind of person who would have something on somebody and use it. And if that's what's happening to Terry, then me going to a supervisor without talking to her first, I've just blown up her life and she's the victim. Okay, you're making me think talking to her first is the right call.

Yeah. to her first is obviously the right call. Because, I mean, think about it. She's, she trained you. She's been doing this for a long time. She knows she's got a dash cam. She obviously left that on on purpose, maybe trying to lead you a breadcrumb to crack the case. But if she was doing some sort of off-color activity, if she's involved in some way, she wouldn't use her service vehicle and leave the dash cam on to go there, would she?

Okay, that actually hit me. That's a good point. She's been on the job long enough to know exactly what that camera captures. She knows the logging system. She knows the purge schedule. If she wanted to hide something, she would have taken her personal vehicle. She would have logged a break. She would have done a dozen things differently.

Yeah, it seems like she's either awful stupid or she wanted somebody to find this out and ask questions. So you should just talk to her next time you're on patrol or whatever. You know that you're in a safe space. Turn the body cameras off if you can or, you know, catch up with her for drinks after work and have this conversation somewhere private. Just talk to her about it. Ask her what's going on. Protect yourself. And, you know, get to the bottom of it.

Yeah. Yeah, I think you're right. I've been sitting in my head with this for three years. weeks trying to find some perfect path that protects everybody and doesn't blow anything up, and maybe the path is just, talk to her. She deserves that from me before anything else. After six years, she deserves me looking her in the eye and asking the question instead of going around her. I've got 24 days before that footage auto purges. I don't have to decide tonight whether to preserve it formally.

Yeah, you got plenty of time, so do that. Is there anything else you'd like to talk about before we move on?

No, I think, I think that's it. You kind of cut through three weeks of me spinning my wheels in about five minutes. I'm going to call her tomorrow and ask if she wants to grab coffee before shift. That's where it starts. Thank you, Luke.

No problem. That's what we do here at Look at the Roos. Devon is raising his hand over there like a fucking maniac. What do you want to say, Devon?

So, I just looked up police dash cam purge schedules, and it really varies a lot by department. Some keep footage for months, others much less, but 24 days is definitely within the normal range. for non-evidentiary footage.

All right. Well, you get 24 days to make a decision, and I know that you'll make the right one. Thanks for the call. Gus, and we're going to move on now to Merritt. Merritt, welcome to the show. What's going on? What's bothering you tonight? And what's get you up so late?

My son has been stealing from me for six months, and I've been going over the receipts at midnight, trying to find a way the numbers mean something else. They don't. I know they don't. I've got a degree from Sol Ross. I've been running this store for 31 years, and I keep sitting down at the kitchen table thinking maybe I missed something. I haven't missed anything.

Well, you're obviously missing something if you think you're being stolen from. So how old is your son? What is your store? And what's gone missing?

Caleb's 30. He came back to Alpine two years ago after working oil field logistics out in Midland for a decade. Came back broke, and I brought him into the store. Feed an agricultural supply, been in since my grandfather opened it in 1971. Six months ago, I let him take over the books. About $14,000 over those six months. Not all at once, not in big chunks. Steady. Small enough that you'd have to be looking for it to find it. And I wasn't looking for it.

Well, I mean, 14 grand isn't that small. I don't know how much business you're doing out here, but it can't be a ton. So, I mean, $14,000 is significant over six months. Have you brought this? To your sons, have you said anything about it yet?

No. I haven't said a word to anybody. Not to Caleb, not to my wife, not to my accountant. You're the first person I've told. And you're right. $14,000 is real money for a store our size. I'm not going to pretend it isn't. What I keep getting stuck on is, Caleb is coming to Sunday dinner in five days. And I don't know how I sit across that table from him. That's what got me to pick up the phone tonight.

All right, yeah. Well, this is definitely not a phone conversation. This is one you're going to want to have eye to eye so you can see how he responds when you bring it up. So what I would do, if I were you, is pick up the phone and call him and set up some kind of a meet, you know, offer to take him out for coffee or, you know, come up with some reason to meet him one-on-one. And ask what's going on.

That's probably right. I know that's probably right. The part I keep circling is what happens after I ask. Because there's really only a few ways that. conversation goes. He denies it, and then I have to lay out everything I found, receipt by receipt. Or he admits it, and then what? Do I tell my wife? Do I tell my accountant?

Yeah, I would think you would have to tell both of them, right? You're, I mean, this is your business. Your wife is part of that business, and she's part of your household, and she's also a parent of your kids. So yeah, your wife needs to know. And your son's 30 years old, so if he's stealing 14 grand from you, for that and you need to know what that reason is because maybe he needs some help and he can't say that.

Who knows? But the first step is to have that conversation with him. Maybe there is an explanation for it. Like he's just bad at accounting. Like maybe he's legitimately shitty at this job and is just making big mistakes or given sprinklers to his buddies. Who knows?

I wish that were it. I really do. But I found it because of a specific. In a public alfalfa order from a supplier my family has done business with for 30 years. I recognize the man's handwriting. The number had been changed. That's not a mistake. You don't accidentally change a number in someone else's handwriting.

Maybe you do. Who knows? Have you talked? Maybe you should talk to the supplier and ask what happened with that transaction. Just say, hey, I saw something strange in my books. And I wanted to double check. this order with you. What was your actual order? What did you pay? What did you receive? And just shore it up that way. I mean, that's one thing you could do. What I would do is just talk to your son. If you strongly suspect that he did it, figure out if he did and why.

You're right. I need to talk to him. I think I've known that since I found the invoice. I've just been sitting at that kitchen table at midnight building a case instead of having a conversation because building a case feels safer than what comes after. The thing I haven't said out loud yet, and I'm saying it now because it's late and you're a stranger and somehow that's easier. Part of why I want to handle this quietly, just between me and Caleb, is that I stood up in front of this whole community and said bringing him into the store was the best business decision I ever made. I said that publicly, more than once.

Well, yeah, he's your son. Everybody recognizes that. I wouldn't worry too much about what it is that you said publicly. People say all sorts And, you know, maybe you thought it was the best decision you made and you were just proven wrong. But you haven't been proven wrong yet. You just have strong suspicion. So that needs to be vetted before you can say that you made a mistake.

His daughter turned seven the Saturday after Sunday dinner. My only grandchild. Her birthday party is already planned. So I've got this window where if I confront him before Sunday and it goes badly, I'm potentially blowing up her birthday party too. That's been sitting on me heavy. But I hear what you're saying, and I think, I think I've been using her birthday as an excuse to wait. And waiting hasn't made me feel any better about any of it.

No, and it's a seven-year-old's birthday party. It's not that important, right? A seven-year-old's not going to remember their seventh birthday party in five years. So I would take that out of the equation entirely.

That's probably true. She's seven. She's going to remember if her grandfather shows up and smiles at her. She's not going to remember. member the party itself. I'm using her as a reason to delay, and that's not fair to her either. I'm going to call him tomorrow. I'm going to ask him to meet me for coffee, just the two of us, and I'm going to look him in the eye and ask him what's going on. And I'm going to listen before I lay out what I found.

Yeah, well, that's the right answer. So you want to do that before you call the police or you tell your accountant or anything gets out of hand, right? You're not trying to put him in jail. You're trying to figure out what's going on. Make sure that, um, that you actually are being stolen from and there's not a better explanation. Maybe there's not. Maybe there is. It doesn't matter. You need to talk to him and figure that out. And once you do, then you have a new decision tree of how you're going to deal with that and if you're going to tell your wife and all those things. But step one is talk to him. Figure out if what you think is the real truth and get the story behind it. Thank you for the call. I think you've got your answer there. Talk to your son. figure out what's going on, and hopefully everything is groovy. Ladies and gentlemen, we have to stop for a moment for another word from our sponsors. Let me ask you something, and I want you to answer honestly. If the lights went out tonight, and I mean really went out, no grid, no phones, no Amazon, no Tuesday, would you be ready? Would your family be ready? But would you be one of the millions, soft Americans standing in your kitchen holding a phone that no longer does anything, wondering when the government is going to fix it. Spoiler. They are not. They cannot. They never could. Iron Heart Survival School is the nation's premier civilian preparedness Academy. Founded by former special operations personnel, and we mean that loosely in a way our attorneys have approved to train ordinary men and women in the hard skills our grandfather's new and our fathers forgot. Fire by friction. Land navigation. without GPS. Edible plant identification, including the seven that look almost identical to the ones that will kill you. Water procurement, purification, and storage. Trapping, snaring, and field dressing small game in a manner that will, the first time, traumatize you, and that is the point. Our flagship five-day bushcraft immersion is held at our 200-acre training facility in the San Gryde-Cristo Mountains, where you will sleep in shelters you build yourself, eat food you procure, yourself and confront a version of yourself that has been waiting under the office worker for 40 years. The cost is $2,700, all-inclusive, except the $400 equipment package, which is not optional despite being separately invoiced. Graduates of Ironheart receive a hand-forged challenge coin, a certificate of completion, and access to our private alumni network, where over 12,000 graduates exchange information, coordinate, regional meetups, and discuss preparations for what what our founder refers to in its daily email as the event. Several of our most active members have relocated to be closer to one another. We do not encourage this. We do not discourage it. Visit ironheart survival.com slash roost for 10% off any course, plus a free copy of our Founders Manifesto slash Cookbook, Eat What Walks, Iron Heart. Train now or learn later. The only graduation that matters is the one nobody's somebody hands you a certificate for. All right, we are back. Thank you to the Survival School for sponsoring this fine program. Next up on our caller line, we've got Concho. Concho, welcome to the show. Thanks for calling Luke at the Roost. What's going on in your life tonight?

I have been building fence in this country for 40 years, and I know every road and every tank, and something is mapping the water. and nobody believes me.

What do you mean mapping the water? Like a submarine drone?

No, no, on the ground. Vehicles. Trucks, SUVs? One-time a sedan that had absolutely no business on a Caliche Road. I mean, that car was scraping bottom. They carry cameras and what looks like survey equipment, and they show up at stock tanks, at springs, at seeps, places that are not on any public map. Places I only know because I have been stringing wire on these ranches for decades.

What do you mean they're not on a public map? We have GPS, right? So, I mean, the map of everything out there outside of military bases is going to be mapped. So maybe it's just like Google Maps going out there, sending their cameras.

Google Maps is not driving a gray SUV down a two-track Calish road to stand at the edge of a stock tank with a laser range finder. That is not how Google Maps works. And I know what government survey crews look like. I have worked alongside Assez Cruz. I know their trucks. I know their equipment. I know their equipment. how they operate. They stop and talk to you. They have paperwork. These people do not stop. Every single time I have come up on one of these vehicles, they are gone before I can get to the gate. And I am not talking about GPS coordinates on a satellite image.

Well, if you can't get up to them, how do you know that they have laser rangefinders?

Fair point.

I saw it once. Got close enough once. Fellow was standing at the edge of a tank outside of Marathon, had what I recognized as a rangefinder, the kind you use for survey. distance and elevation. That was the one time I got within maybe 200 yards before he got back in his truck. The other times, I am going off cameras on tripods, which I can identify from a distance. And the fact that these are not people who are lost, lost people stop and ask directions. These people know exactly where they are going.

Okay, so that could be lots of things. It's not unheard of for people to survey water sources. I mean, that could be the town or the county. That could be the state or the state, federal government. There are water issues out here all the time. They're fixing broken wells, and somebody might just need an accurate accounting of all of the water wells and the plumbing in the county. That doesn't seem odd to me.

Here is what does not fit that explanation. Three separate times, six weeks apart each time. I found somebody at the same spring outside of Sanderson. Same spring. not a broken well survey. That is not a county water inventory. That ranch has a year-round spring that the owner does not advertise. I mean, he does not tell people about it. It is not on any document I have ever seen associated with that property. And somebody visited it three times in 18 weeks with a six-week interval between each visit. That is monitoring. That is somebody tracking whether that spring is holding through the dry season.

Well, with all due respect, you install fencing, right? So why would you be looking at the documentation of the property of somebody else? else's ranch. This doesn't add up. And I think, have you talked to the landowner about the people that you've seen out on his land? First of all, this is not your business. Whatever it is, it's not your business. You're there to install a fence. And second of all, there could be a lot of very good reasons for somebody to be out there at that spring, doing exactly what they're doing.

You were right that it is not my land. But when I am building fence on a man's property, and I see strangers on that property, I think he deserves to know. And yes, I have talked to the landowners. That is exactly the problem. I have talked to ranchers directly, 11 months worth of talking, and I get smiled at and thanked, and nothing happens. That is why I am calling you, not because I want to be right about who is doing it.

Well, I'm still unclear as to why you're calling me, because it sounds like not a problem. If the landowners and ranchers are okay with the people on their land, then they're okay with it. It's their land, and then there's nothing to be concerned about.

They do not know it is happening. That is the difference. The rancher outside Sanderson does not know somebody has been to his spring three times. I have not been able to reach him directly. I was working a different section of that ranch for a neighbor, not for him. I am not his contractor. So I cannot just walk up and knock on his door without it looking strange. And the ranchers I have told, they hear me out and they think I am seeing normal traffic. They are not taking it seriously because each individual sighting sounds like nothing, but I have 22 of them written down.

Okay. Well, that's not what you see. You said. You said you directly talk to him and you get smiled and thanked and nothing happens. I don't know what it is that you're expecting to happen. But let's just say that there is some nefarious activity going down around the water sources in Brewster County. What is it that you think could potentially be happening?

Water rights. That is what I think is happening. Somebody is building a private inventory of every viable water source in this part of Texas before they start making offers or filing claims. Because here is how it works. Groundwater in Texas, right? under rule of capture, meaning if you can pump it, you can own it, and surface water runs under prior appropriation. If you are a large enough entity and you want to acquire water rights across a region, the first thing you need is a comprehensive map of where the water actually is, not where it shows on paper. Where it actually is, whether it is holding, how much, what time of year. That is what this looks like to me. And once the acquisition starts, it will move fast and the ranchers will be behind it before they know what hit them. I watched something similar killer contract I had in 2009, and I have never forgotten it.

I don't understand how that's a problem.

Because these ranchers do not know they are being evaluated. If somebody is building a case for a water rights claim or a purchase offer, they are doing it with information the landowner does not have. That is not a fair negotiation. A man cannot protect what he does not know is being looked at. And some of these sources, like that spring outside Sanderson, may have legal questions attached to them that the owner has never had to think about because nobody has ever come after the water before. The day somebody shows up with a lawyer and a filing, rancher is starting from zero and the other side has 11 months of data on him.

Why wouldn't the rancher know about the water on his property? That seems like something the rancher would absolutely have the same information on. He doesn't need to send a surveyer every six months. And if there's going to be a purchase offer, that doesn't sound like a bad thing for the rancher, does it?

It might be a fine thing for one rancher who wants to sell. But water rights in this about the man who owns the land above the source. Once those rights get consolidated into a large private holding, every downstream user, every neighboring ranch that has been drawing from the same aquifer for three generations, they are all affected. And no, a rancher does not always know the full legal status of the water on his property. I know this because a water dispute in 2009 taught me more water law than I ever wanted to know. Most of these men know where their water is. They do not know what it is worth on paper. They do not know what claims could be filed against it, because nobody came after it before. Now, somebody might be coming after it and the ranches are not lawyered up and they are not ready.

Okay, and how is this your problem?

It probably is not my problem legally, but I have been on these ranches for 40 years. I know these people. I have stretched wire with their fathers. That counts for something to me. And I will tell you honestly, I did not call tonight because I have all the answers. I call because I have a notebook in my glove box with 22 dates and locations and vehicle descriptions and hand-drawn maps. and I have photocopied it twice because I do not want it to disappear, and I do not know what to do with it.

Show it to your friends' landowners. You said you've brought this to the ranchers and they just smiled and nodded, so obviously they don't have the same respect for you that you have for them. If you're trying to help them out and they don't want to listen, there's nothing more you can do for them, right? They don't want your help. They own their land and they think they're managing it well, and if they're not, then that's on them.

That lands harder than I wanted to. You might be right. I have been chewing on this for 11 months, and maybe I have made it my burden when it was never mine to carry. But here is the thing. I did not call tonight hoping you would solve it. I called hoping somebody with standing would hear it, a water rights attorney.

You can't hire a water rights attorney for a ranch you don't own on somebody else's behalf. Right? That's not your place to do. You're there to install a fence.

Now, if these are friends of yours and you want to give them the heads up that you've seen some strange activity going on their property, that's one thing. But if they choose not to listen to you or to brush it off, maybe they know about it, or maybe they don't care. Either way, you've done your part.

Yeah. Yeah, I hear you. I have done my part. I told them. They heard me. That is where my job ends. I think I knew that and just did not want to sit with it.

All right. Well, you sit with that and let us know how it lands with you, Concho. Next up on the caller line here, we've got, who do we got? We've got Desmond. What's going on? brother.

I helped hire someone, I now think committed research misconduct. And she's the best teacher in our department. And I've been pretending I don't know for three months.

What is research misconduct?

She used data that wasn't hers without citing the source. Specific population estimates, Muldeer, Transpecos region, that appeared in her job application research summary. I recognized them because I worked on the original study as a postdoc. Those numbers don't just incidentally match. That's not how wildlife population data works.

So is that basically a form of plagiarism? She used somebody else's study. It must have been published somewhere for her to get access to it, right?

Yeah, it's published. 2019, peer-reviewed journal. So, it's not like she had secret access to it, anyone could find it, which almost makes it worse, because there's no excuse for not citing it. You don't just lift population estimates and present them in a job application like you generated that data yourself. that's, yeah, that's plagiarism.

Okay, so you've got an ethical issue there, and you hired this person, and you said that she's become your best teacher?

That's what makes this so hard to sit with. She's genuinely good. Like, I've heard students talk about her. I've seen how she runs her course. She's engaged. She's clear. She cares. And every time I see that, it just adds another layer of, I don't know what to call it, guilt maybe. Because I'm watching her build something here, and I'm the only person who knows there's a problem underneath it.

Well, maybe you should reframe that problem. How big of a problem is it really? She didn't steal the data. I mean, it was publicly accessible published in a journal. So she didn't cite the source. That's wrong. You could just talk to her about that and say, hey, you didn't cite the source. But what are you really going to do about? Are you going to fire her because of it? It seems a bit excessive.

That's... Okay, that's actually the argument I've been making to myself for three months. And part of me wants to just accept it and move on. But here's where it gets complicated. She's submitted an abstract for a regional conference in November, using the same research. So this isn't just something that happened once in a job application that's now in a drawer somewhere. It's ongoing. She's about to stand up in front of her professional peers and present work that includes data she didn't generate and isn't crediting.

Okay, well, here's where I'm getting stuck, because you said you worked on this data in some capacity and you were familiar with it and you reviewed her application and you hired her. So when you saw her application and you saw those numbers, you must have recognized them then, yet you hired her anyway. So why did you do that?

I didn't recognize them then. I found them three months ago going through old conference proceedings for a completely unrelated paper I was writing. The application review was, there's a lot of material in those packets, and I wasn't cross-referencing against the 2019 study I worked on When I saw those numbers in context, in the proceedings, sitting next to the original study, that's when it clicked. So, no, I didn't hire her knowing this.

No, I'm not really buying it. Something doesn't sound right about what you're saying. So you see these numbers on an application. You're like, wow, those are good numbers. It looks like you know what you're doing, and you hire the lady. Then some months later, you're working on another paper, and you see the same numbers, and you're like, you know what? I recognize those numbers, not from when I but from this woman's application from three months ago, this sounds very strange and, like, maybe punitive on your behalf. What is your relationship with this woman?

My relationship with her is nothing. She's a colleague I've known for four months. But I hear what you're saying, and I want to push back on the punitive part, because that actually stings a little. The reason I recognize the numbers in the proceedings and not the application is that mulea population estimates for the transpecos aren't something you just memorize. They're meaningful in context. When I was reading the proceedings, I was deep in that specific literature, and I saw the figures next to methodology I knew, framing I knew, and it clicked. In her application, they were buried in a research summary paragraph without that context. But look, I'll grant you it sounds strange. I can't make it sound less strange. All I can tell you is that's what happened.

Well, it does sound strange because, I mean, it was buried in her application, yet you went back to her application to verify that these numbers were actually in her application. which would indicate to me that you've got something against this woman or you're looking into her to even find that. So whether or not she's done anything wrong, it sounds like maybe she did. I don't, I'm not an academic. I don't understand the ramifications of not citing your research when that research is publicly available. But it sounds like you're, you've singled her out in some way for some reason. And I'd like to know what that reason is.

I went back to her application because I want to her application because I want to I wanted to make sure I wasn't crazy. That's not singling someone out. That's due diligence before you blow up a colleague's career. And I don't have anything against her. I just told you she's the best teacher in the department. Why would I be sitting on this for three months, losing sleep over it, if I wanted to hurt her? But I want to address the other thing you said about not understanding the ramifications in academia. It matters enormously. Your publications, your data, your research record. That's your entire professional identity in this field.

to do with this information that you have. You've seen her swiping other people's research and using it to advance her own career. And it sounds like you're going to do something, right? You're either going to blow up her career or you're going to talk to her about it and see what's going on. What is your plan?

I think I need to talk to her first. That's, I've been afraid to admit that's the right move because I kept telling myself it was just cowardice. Like I was looking for a way to avoid the formal process. But hearing it out loud, I think there's a real difference between giving someone a chance to explain and protecting yourself from a hard conversation. And there's a conference in November. That's a hard deadline. I can't let her walk into that room without saying something.

Why can't you?

Because the original study was led by my postdoc supervisor. He's at Texas A&M now. That's his work she's presenting without credit. And I respect that man enormously. I haven't talked to him in two years, him to say someone is using your data, and I knew about it and said nothing.

Okay. Well, talk to her. I mean, this sounds to me like something I wouldn't say anything to anybody about. I mean, it's not really your business at this point. If she's going to get called out for stealing people's research, then eventually she'll get hers. But you don't have to be the one that is the executioner here.

That's a tempting way to think about it.

It really is, but I don't think I can unknow what I know. And eventually she'll get hers path. That might mean she gets called out at a conference, in public, in front of her peers, by someone who isn't going to be as careful about how it lands. That's a worse outcome for her than me having a quiet conversation now. So I think I'm going to talk to her. Just her.

All right, well, you do that, and I hope it goes well for you.

Yeah, thank you. Honestly, just saying it out loud tonight help me stop call. it to mercy and start calling it the right thing. I'll set up a meeting Monday.

All right, you do that. Thanks for the call, Desmond. And we're going to take one more call, and then that'll be the end of our show tonight. Thanks for everybody for sticking with us. So next up, our last caller for the evening is going to be Fern. Fern, welcome to the show. What's going on in your life tonight?

I went to look at some aluminum boxes this afternoon to humor my granddaughter, and I came out a different person, and I am not happy about it.

All right. Aluminum boxes. What changed your life after seeing these aluminum boxes?

That is what I'm trying to figure out. They're Donald Judds. Out at Chinati and Marfa. I have driven past that place for 30 years calling it nonsense. I have said that out loud to people's faces. And my granddaughter, Lily, dragged me in there today, and I stood in one of those artillery sheds, and something happened to me that I cannot account for.

All right, what is it that you saw and what happened to you?

It was the light. That's the part I can't get past. The sheds had these north-facing windows, and the afternoon light was coming through and hitting the same box every few minutes in a completely different way. The box didn't move. Nothing moved, but it kept changing, and I stood there watching it happen, and I did not notice 45 minutes had gone by until Lily touched my arm. I have looked at this country my whole life.

Wait, so Donald Judd is considered the leading international exponent of minimalism, called specific objects, where he argued for a rigorously democratic presentation without compositional hierarchy. It's wild how much Donald Judd's work is tied to Marfa. He actually moved there permanently in the early 1970s and bought up a bunch of land and buildings to install his art. Okay, so you saw the light dance off these aluminum boxes. Do you think that was an intentional design decision by the artist, or was it just a happenstance?

Oh, it was intentional. of what's making me so irritable about the whole thing. He put those windows exactly where he put them on purpose. He knew what that light was going to do, which means he was doing what I thought only the land did. You know, the way the desert just works on you, whether you invited it to or not. I spent 50 years thinking that was something you couldn't manufacture. And here's this man from New York who moved to my part of the world and put it inside a building, and it still worked. Maybe worked harder.

Well, that's what artists do, right? They take the natural world and funnel it into a vision. distill it into something that can be consumed by the masses. So it sounds like he was very successful.

Consume by the masses is where you're losing me a little. There was nobody in that shed but me and Lily for most of those 45 minutes. It didn't feel like consumption. It felt more like being caught. Like the thing had patience and it was just waiting for whoever walked in to finally hold still long enough. And I hold still plenty.

Well, he was an artist and he bought all that land in Marfa and installed his his art there for it to be seen by other people. So whether or not there were other people there when you were there is pretty irrelevant, but his intention was for you to find that and for you to have that experience.

You're right. You're right. I'll give you that. He wanted exactly what happened to happen. That's not a trick then, is it? That's just he made a thing that worked. Same as a good fence works. Same as a well-placed water tank works. You build it right and it does what it's supposed to do for whoever needs it. Whether you're standing there watching or not.

I never thought I'd be comparing Donald Judd to a water tank, but here we are at 11 o'clock at night.

Actually, we're at 3.37 a.m. at night, but who's counting?

Well, that tells you something about where my head is.

Lily is asleep, and I've got cattle to move at 6, and I'm on the radio talking about aluminum boxes. Chalk is looking at me like I've lost my mind.

You know, it's actually 3.37 a.m. right now, so Luke's even more off than he thought.

How am I the one that's off? here. She said it was 11. It is 337. I know what time it is. I can tell time, Devon. Jesus. All right. Well, thank you for the call. Is there anything else you'd like to talk about before we move on?

Just the one thing I came here to figure out. Why a person who has spent 50 years looking at the high desert, which is also mostly geometry and light, could walk into a building and be surprised by the same thing. And I think I just answered it myself. I had to hold still. Outside, I'm always In that shed, there was nothing to do but look. Maybe that's what the building was for. Maybe that's what Judd built. A place where you have no excuse not to hold still. I owe my granddaughter an apology, and possibly I owe that man one too.

Well, I suppose that's what minimalism is all about, right? But I don't find it odd that you can suddenly see something special, magical when you're in the right place, the right mindset. many sunsets have you seen, but still you can be taken in awe by the right one at the right time.

That's a fair point. That's a genuinely fair point. I've seen 60 years of sunsets out here, and last Tuesday one of them stopped me cold in the middle of feeding. Same sun, same west. I didn't ask why that one hit different. I just let it.

I was just reading about Judd, and he actually said that the new three-dimensional work doesn't constitute a movement, school, or style, even though he's considered the leading exponent of minimalism. all right. Well, I'm glad that you had a powerful experience. I'll go check that out, too. I haven't really explored Marfa much. I know that there's a lot of his art and others like him out in that area, and it's a pretty cool place. Thanks for calling in. I hope you have a good rest of your night, get some sleep, and make the apologies you need to make.

That's what I have to say.

And that's the end of our show for tonight. Devon, let's see. What do you think of tonight's show, Devon? How did we do?

I thought the show was solid tonight. The Judd discussion really landed, and you kept it moving without getting too bogged down in the theory.

I don't know. I feel like we actually hit something interesting there for once.

Yeah, there were a couple interesting things in there. I'm sort of more intrigued about the Marfa lights now. I have been for a while. I've never stopped there because I always see like 20 cars in the parking lot, and it's just, I don't want to stop with all of that. But I do want to see the Marfa lights. that's all about.

Yeah, the Marfa lights have been around since at least 1,883 when this cowhand first wrote about seeing them out near Pisano Pass. I get the crowd thing, though, it's the same reason I never stop at those roadside attractions, even though we're basically right there in Alpine. If you ever want me to pull up the latest theories on what they actually are, just say the word.

Well, I think I want to go see him for myself first, and then we'll talk about them more, about what I actually see. So I can describe it in my own unique and verbose way.

Yeah, that makes sense. Better to go in with your own eyes first before I start throwing a bunch of explanations at you.

I don't know. I feel like the Marfa lights are one of those things where the less you know going in, the better the story ends up being.

All right. Well, thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for hanging in with us through this episode of Luke at the Roost, and we'll be back when we are back. You have a wonderful night, and keep on, keeping on, as they say. Good night.

Thank you.