There’s a lot to be said about the walled-off border of ‘The 51st State,’ but what stands out most to me is just how flat it seems despite, according to maps, being a massive, perfect circle. The credibility of the map is questionable, sure. That’s true of any map that reveals the shape and location of the secret ‘51st State.’ Holding a map like that is a misdemeanor at least. Creating maps- distributing them- is unquestionably felonious and maybe also the sort of thing that gets you thrown into the sort of prisons that don’t show up on maps either. Irony at its most cruel.
They can’t throw you in jail for finding the wall, though. That would be tough. It’s huge, towering hundreds of feet in the air. It reeks of misplaced tax money, the quality with which it’s been built and the care with which it’s maintained. People find this wall all the time, I’m sure, and without knowing the context, they must wonder the same thing we all do: keeping us out or something else in?
‘Rumor has it that official maps of the continental United States disguise the location of ‘The 51st State’ by widening borders and shaving off little latitudinal degrees where the average non-cartographer won’t miss them. Situated as it is, where Midwestern prairies drag on for miles in every direction, it’s the sort of discrepancy that most will overlook without a second thought. The wall itself serves much the same purpose, it being the color of sandstone and curved so subtly as to blend in with landscapes and horizons when viewed from the highway. It is so bland- so unseeable- that certain stretches of interstate have been forced to draw some attention to the wall in order to keep vehicles from colliding with it as drivers pull to the shoulder to relieve themselves.
Of course, once the wall is seen, it can’t be unseen. It is the single largest construction on American soil. Unofficial estimates put ‘The 51st State’ as the tenth largest in the nation but that sort of math is wholly unnecessary when faced with the truth of the thing. It breathes enormity and it has the allure of a dead insect- grotesque and dangerous for all that it’s still.
As for what’s behind it, collecting the ideas about ‘The 51st State’ and its daunting wall has proven a difficult task. There are just so many theories and the people that ask about them just keep disappearing.’
-traveler
