Cerro Uritorco — Capilla del Monte

OVERVIEW

Cerro Uritorco rises to 1,949 m next to the Calabalumba River, 3 km from the centre of Capilla del Monte in the northwest of Córdoba province; it is the highest peak of the Sierras Chicas. It is known for esoteric practice and, in past decades, for UFO sightings reported by locals and tourists, and it has become a centre of spiritual and New Age tourism.

HISTORY

In January 1986 the local government circulated photographs and articles about an area of Cerro El Pajarillo where vegetation had been burned, saying a UFO had caused it. Since 1983 the myth of Erks, an underground alien city beneath the mountain, created by Ángel Acoglanis of Rosario, has drawn searchers, and in the 1980s the sensationalist news programme Nuevediario and other media fed the extraterrestrial mythology. On 21 December 2012 the mountain was closed because a mass suicide had been proposed on Facebook for the 'end of the world' date.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

Lights on the mountain have been explained by some as effects of piezoelectric, quartz-rich ground under tectonic stress — the 'tectonic strain' theory of J. S. Derr and M. Persinger, put forward informally in the 1990s as the answer to the Uritorco lights. Visitors come for meditation and ritual, including at a purpose-built 'Pyramid of Uritorco'.

VISITING

The mountain is privately administered and open to the public for a fee; the usual path, from the southwest, is a medium-difficulty climb of about three hours.