The Inner Monologue

There are many arguments for the existence of intelligent design, but most of them are terribly serious and involve things like eyes, DNA, and the suspicious efficiency of hummingbirds.

The strongest evidence is much simpler.

Drive across the Four Corners states.

Anyone who has travelled through Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado eventually notices something peculiar: the geology often appears to change at the state line. Not gradually, as one would expect from ordinary natural processes, but with the abrupt confidence of a theme park changing from “Frontier Adventure” to “Volcano Country.”

This can mean only one thing.

Earth was built at Magrathea.

For those unfamiliar with Magrathea, it is the legendary planet-manufacturing world described in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Its engineers built custom planets for wealthy clients who wanted oceans, fjords, mountains, or perhaps an especially tasteful selection of inland seas.

Apparently, the Earth contract included a special provision for the American Southwest.

The designers were instructed to create four adjoining regions, each visually distinct enough to be marketed separately, but similar enough that no one would immediately suspect subcontracting.

Arizona received deserts, giant mesas, red cliffs, and enough cinematic scenery to support a century of Westerns.

Utah was given the premium sandstone package: arches, slot canyons, natural bridges, hoodoos, and formations that look as if they were designed by someone who had recently discovered the “extrude” function.

Colorado received mountains. Not just ordinary mountains, but excessively dramatic mountains—snow-covered, jagged, and positioned so that nearly every small town could advertise itself as “the gateway to the Rockies.”

New Mexico appears to have been assigned to the experimental division.

“Give it volcanoes,” someone at Magrathea must have said.

“And lava fields.”

“And giant empty basins.”

“And some mesas.”

“Should we include forests?”

“Yes, but put them on top of mountains in the middle of the desert. That will confuse everyone.”

The most suspicious evidence appears along Interstate 40.

Drive east from Arizona into New Mexico and the landscape changes with remarkable speed. Arizona presents its broad plateaus and painted desert scenery. Then, shortly after crossing the state line, New Mexico begins deploying buttes, mesas, volcanic remnants, and enormous open spaces arranged with theatrical precision.

It is difficult to believe this happened by accident.

The state boundary is simply a line of longitude. Geology should not care about longitude. Rock formations are not required to stop at customs. Volcanoes do not consult highway maps.

Yet the landscape appears to know perfectly well when it has entered New Mexico.

The same thing happens when travelling south from Colorado over Raton Pass. Colorado offers forests, mountain slopes, and alpine scenery. Then the road descends into New Mexico, where extinct volcanoes begin appearing on the horizon.

This is exactly what one would expect if the Magrathean construction crew had installed the Colorado mountain module first and then switched to the New Mexico volcanic expansion pack.

The transitions between Utah and Arizona are equally suspicious.

Southern Utah is filled with enormous walls of brightly coloured sandstone. Northern Arizona also contains dramatic rock formations, but they somehow look different—as though each state had hired a separate design consultant.

Utah’s consultant favoured vertical cliffs, arches, and twisting canyons.

Arizona’s consultant preferred broad mesas, deep chasms, and landscapes where one expects John Wayne to appear at any moment.

The border between eastern Utah and western Colorado is less abrupt, but the change is still noticeable. Utah’s red-rock country gradually gives way to Colorado’s greener valleys and rising mountain ranges.

This may indicate that the Magrathean workers became tired near the end of the project and did not complete the transition properly.

“Just blend those two sections,” the supervisor probably said. “Nobody will notice.”

We noticed.

Of course, conventional geologists insist that the region was shaped by hundreds of millions of years of sedimentation, uplift, volcanism, faulting, and erosion.

That is exactly what Magrathean public relations would want us to believe.

It is far easier to say “tectonic uplift” than to admit that a highly advanced planetary design company accidentally aligned several dramatic landscape changes with political borders that would not exist until millions of years later.

There is also the question of the Four Corners Monument itself.

Four states meet at a single point.

This is supposedly the result of surveying decisions made in the nineteenth century.

But perhaps it is actually a maintenance access panel.

The bronze disk may conceal a control switch beneath the desert floor. Turning it could activate the regional landscape settings:

Arizona: Desert Epic
Utah: Sandstone Spectacular
Colorado: Alpine Grandeur
New Mexico: Volcanoes and Mystery

This would explain why tourists are encouraged to place one hand or foot in each state. The position may be necessary for biometric authorization.

No one has yet successfully opened the panel, possibly because visitors keep taking photographs instead of entering the correct sequence.

The Magrathean theory also explains why the American Southwest is so disproportionately scenic. Most of the planet consists of respectable but repetitive landscapes: plains, forests, hills, farmland, and suburbs.

Then one reaches the Four Corners and discovers that someone has placed the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, Arches, Canyonlands, Mesa Verde, the Rocky Mountains, volcanic fields, petrified forests, and dozens of national monuments within driving distance of one another.

That is not random geology.

That is a sales portfolio.

The region was likely constructed as a demonstration model for prospective planetary clients.

“Here,” the Magrathean salesperson would say, “you can see our Canyon Package, Mountain Package, Desert Package, and Volcanic Package, all installed in one convenient location.”

The client would nod thoughtfully.

“Can the canyon be larger?”

“Certainly.”

“Can the rocks be redder?”

“Of course.”

“And could you add a road so inhabitants can drive through it while arguing about where to eat lunch?”

“That comes standard.”

The greatest triumph of the Four Corners design is that each state feels like itself. Even without signs, travellers often sense that they have crossed from one region into another.

The light changes. The vegetation changes. The colour of the rock changes. The horizon changes.

The border may be invisible, but the scenery seems to recognize it.

Perhaps Magrathea’s engineers were not merely skilled planet builders. Perhaps they also knew the future. They may have installed the landscapes first and then quietly influenced American surveyors centuries later.

“Put the line there,” a mysterious stranger might have whispered.

“Why?”

“Trust me. That’s where the volcanic package begins.”

This theory is no less plausible than many others currently circulating on the internet, and it has the advantage of making road trips considerably more entertaining.

The next time you cross from Arizona into New Mexico and the landscape suddenly fills with buttes and volcanic shapes, do not assume it is merely geology.

Look carefully at the horizon.

Somewhere beneath the desert may be a small metal plate stamped:

CUSTOM PLANETARY CONSTRUCTION
MAG-RATHEA INDUSTRIAL DIVISION
SOUTHWESTERN NORTH AMERICA DEMONSTRATION UNIT
WARRANTY EXPIRED