Close encounter with the Milky Way: Incredible image of natural phenomenon in skies above Devil's Tower recalls sci-fi classic




A beautiful cluster of stars and multi-coloured light gather in the skies above Devil's Tower.

In what could be a scene from the 1977 movie Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, this incredible image captures not a UFO hovering above the Wyoming landmark, but the Milky Way.

Amateur photographer Eric Hines, 20, took this picture of the galaxy's band of light on Monday.

Crystal clear night: Amateur photographer Eric Hines' incredible image captures the Milky Way in all its glory above the haloed Devil's Tower landmark in Wyoming

The crystal-clear result shows the Milky Way's galactic plane, which is made up of billions of stars and planets.

Mr Hines, who has only been taking photographs for 18 months, was so desperate to capture a clear photo of the natural phenomenon that he travelled 1,400 miles west from his home in Indiana to be at Devil's Tower in Niobrara County, Wyoming.

The journey was certainly worth the effort.

Mr Hines said: 'The Milky Way has been something that I've wanted to photograph since I first started shooting.

'I was very happy when I saw the photos show up on my camera, and even more so when I was able to get them home and open them up on my computer.

'The results are something I'm definitely proud of.'

Iconic image: Mr Hines' photograph is reminiscent of the finale to Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (left), which stars Richard Dreyfuss (right) as a man who heads to Wyoming after being driven by visions of the Devil's Tower



Steven Spielberg's 1977 film Close Encounters Of The Third Kind is one of the most celebrated science-fiction movies of all time.

Driven by visions of the Tower, ordinary people from all over America converge on Wyoming where, along with hundreds of scientists and military personnel, they make contact with an alien civilisation.

Perhaps the most famous moment from the film is when the alien 'mothership' rises from behind, and then travels over, Devil's Tower.

Since 1977, the number of visitors to Devil's Tower, America's oldest national park, has increased by 75 per cent.

This is mostly because of the fact that it was used as the alien rendezvous in Spielberg's film.

Worth the effort: Mr Hines, who travelled 1,400 miles from his Indiana home to Wyoming, also took this amazing picture

Devils Tower was the first declared a national park in 1906, by then-President Theodore Roosevelt and encompasses an area of 1,347acres.

The oldest rocks visible in the monolith were placed in a shallow sea some 225 to 195 million years ago. The rock itself was formed around 65million years ago by the intrusion of igneous material.



The landscape surrounding the Tower is mostly made up of sedimentary rocks.



The Milky Way is the galaxy in which Earth and the solar system are located.

It is about 100,000 light-years across and about 10,000 light-years thick, with each light year representing around six trillion miles.

There are more than 200billion stars within the Milky Way and around 50billion planets.