Zone of Silence in Mexico

There is much about our world that we still do not understand. Scientists tell us that natural mysteries abound in every corner of the Earth, from the lifeless desert of Chile to the bottomless depths of the Pacific, there are things we simply do not comprehend.
Perhaps this is the best way to describe a place in northern Mexico in the middle of the hot, searing, punishing Chihuahuan desert, a place commonly called the "Zone of Silence" by the few locals, scientists, students and visitors that wander there from time to time in search of answers. It is a strange place to experience, one of those mysterious natural wonders that beg our attention and muddle our senses. It is sometimes difficult to tell what is truth and what is not; to recognize what you see as real or not.
Drive 400 hundred miles west of El Paso and you enter into an unforgiving section of foreboding semiarid desert landscape that begs for mercy but offers none. The nearest settlement is Ceballos, a ragtag community that holds on precariously to its existence some 25 miles across the barren plain from the heart of "The Zone". Here life is challenging, and there is a constant, delicate balance between death and survival.
The region has remained all but undiscovered by the outside world. There are no fancy hotels in the Zone, no beaches or pools, no life except for the most hardy of insects, reptiles and small mammals that suffer its tormenting weather.
But in 1970 a faulty American Athena missile fired from the White Sands Missile Base in nearby New Mexico went off course inexplicably and crashed into the mysterious desert region and made the world aware of the unique and apparently unusual properties of the area. Subsequently a team of U.S. Air Force investigators, with Mexican government approval, journeyed to the crash site and made an unexpected discovery. Within an unspecified and sometimes shifting area within the Zone, radio signals fail to travel through the air, creating a type of dark zone. No television, radio, short wave, microwave, or satellite signals seem to penetrate this zone. The name, Zone of Silence, was quickly adopted, and researchers began flocking to the remote location shortly thereafter.
The Mexican government has since constructed a research complex in "the Zone", a place the scientists assigned there call the biosphere. The primary purpose of the research facility is to study the plant and animal life of the unusual region. But rumors have it that a lot more research is going on there than meets the eye - if there were any eyes in this remote part of the world to see it.
It turns out there may be some natural anomaly associated with the region. High levels of magnetite have been discovered there, and scientist have also found that the area is a hot bed for meteorite activity, raising speculation that there may be some unusual magnetic properties associated with the minerals in the chalky soil. Researchers have been trying to determine whether magnetic ore is naturally occurring or is the product of contamination from thousands or millions of years of meteorite bombardment. And if the high-magnetic properties are a result of natural causes, could this be the reason that so many iron-rich objects from space find their way to this remote spot on Earth?
Theorists are quick to point out that the Zone is geographically located just north of the Tropic of Cancer and shares the same latitude south of the 30th parallel as the Bermuda Triangle, a fact scientist point out is probably a simple coincidence. In fact, scientists at the Mexican research center have dubbed the region, the Mar de Tetys, or The Sea of Thetys, because at one time, millions of years ago, the area lay at the bottom of an ocean.
In defense of the theorists, there have been a number of unusual tales that have come out of the Zone. Strange lights, floating orbs, burning bushes, flying saucers, and alien encounters have all been reported with a degree of abundance considering the sparse population of the region. Ranchers of the area report the night sky is often filled with mysterious lights, and they have reported "floating aircraft" that allegedly landed vertically in the desert, often causing brush to ignite and catch fire.
And there have been reports of encounters with strange humanoid creatures. One ranch family claims they are regularly visited by a trio of blonde, long haired humanoids, two males and a female, that speak perfect Spanish. As the story goes, the visitors only ask for water, never for food or other provision. And when asked once by the rancher where they came from, they reportedly answered "from above".
Then there's the story of the visiting researcher at the "Biosphere" who became lost in the desert. He reports he was directed back to the research center by a similar trio of blonde "strange looking people." Another story has it that a TV news investigation crew was aided by strange beings in the desert after being stuck in the road after an unusual cloud burst. These "beings" reportedly wore long raincoats and ball caps, something, admittedly, you don't often see in the desert wilderness.
How much about the unusual region in northern Mexico is true and how much is the product of human imagination, how much fact and how much fiction, no one can say for sure. But there is little question that there does exist some natural phenomena that appears to evade logical explanation. What the cause and effect may be (science, miracle or magic) remains to be seen. But isolationists and serious researchers of the unusual will find the region of great interest if you're in the mood for a dirty day in the desert.
Just don't plan on watching any TV in Ceballos. There isn't any.

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Kongamato

Some 65 million years ago, starting in the Jurassic and lasting into the Cretaceous, there existed a powerful flying reptile known as the Pterosaurs. The majority of fossils found have been in marine deposits, which means they probably were fish eaters and spent most of their time over coastal waters. These Pterosaurs apparently managed to fly with no feathers, their main aerodynamic feature where wings of membrane supported by an enormously elongated fourth finger. They had hollow limb bones and a large keeled breastbone attached to strong wing muscles which where needed for true flight, not just gliding.

The large expenditure of energy required to remain in flight for long periods of time, and the resulting loss of heat caused by the surface of their wings exposed to moving air, means that they must have had some method of regulating body heat, although it is doubtful they were truly warm blooded as mammals are. The majority of the Pterosaurs species where anywhere from the size of a sparrow to the size of an eagle, however some larger species have been discovered. The Pteranodon with a wingspan of 27 ft. and the colossal Quetzalcoatlus, with a wingspan of 50 ft, possibly 60 ft. are two examples of these larger species. Some pterosaurs even had fur, although they are in now way related to mammals. It would seem impossible that these creatures could have survived to the present day. After all, if they existed surely people would see them flying about as they hunted for food. How could a flying population of reptiles remain hidden? There are reports that people have been seeing flying creatures that match the description of pterosaurs for a hundreds of years. People have even been reportedly killed by these ancient flying creatures.

In 1923 a traveler by the name of Frank H. Melland worked for a time in Zambia. He gathered native reports of ferocious flying reptiles. The natives called this creature Kongamato which translated into “overwhelmer of boats". The Kongamato was said to have lived in the Jiundu swamps in the Mwinilunga District of western Zambia, near the border of Congo and Angola. It was described as having no feathers, smooth black or red skin, a wingspan between 4 ft. and 7 ft., and possessing a beak full of teeth.

It had a reputation for capsizing canoes and causing death to anyone who merely looked at it. When showed drawings of pterosaurs the native people present immediately and unhesitatingly picked it out and identified it as a Kongamato. Among the natives who did so was a rather wild and quite unsophisticated headman from the Jiundu country, where the Kongamato is supposed to be most active.

In 1925, a distinguished English newspaper correspondent, G. Ward Price, was with the future Duke of Windsor on an official visit to Rhodesia. He reported a story that a civil servant told them of the wounding of a man who entered a feared swamp in Rhodesia known to be the home of demons. The brave native entered the swamp, determined to explore it in spite of the dangers. When he returned he was on the verge of death from a great wound in his chest. He recounted how a strange huge bird with a long beak attacked him. When the civil servant showed the man a picture of a pterosaur, from a book of prehistoric animals, the man screamed in terror and fled from the servant's home.

In 1942 Colonel C. R. S. Pitman reported stories the natives told him of a large bat - bird like creature that lived the dense swampy regions of Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia. Tracks of the creatures were seen, with evidence of a large tail dragging the ground. These reports were not limited to Zambia, but also came from other locations in Africa such as Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya.

Skeptics suggest that these fantastic sounding tales derived from the fanciful imaginations of natives who were hired to work on archeological digs where fossilized pterosaurs were uncovered in Tendagaru, Tanzania, in the years prior to World War I. These digs, however, took place over 900 miles from Zambia. Why did no reports of living pterosaurs come from Tanzania, where these imaginative natives lived?

Perhaps the most striking report of living pterosaurs comes not from natives, but from white explorers in the employment of the British Museum. In 1932 through 1933 the Percy Sladen Expedition ventured deep into West Africa. In charge of the team was Ivan T. Sanderson, a well-known zoologist and writer. While in the Assumbo Mountains in the Cameroons, they made camp in a wooded valley near a steep banked river. They were out hunting near the river when Sanderson shot a large fruit-eating bat. Upon being shot the creature fell into the swift moving river below, as Sanderson was carefully making his way in the fast moving current, he lost his balance and fell in. He had just regained his balance when his companion suddenly shouted "Look out!"

"And I looked. Then I let out a shout also and instantly bobbed down under the water, because, coming straight at me only a few feet above the water was a black thing the size of an eagle. I had only a glimpse of its face, yet that was quite sufficient, for its lower jaw hung open and bore a semicircle of pointed white teeth set about their own width apart from each other. When I emerged, it was gone. George was facing the other way blazing off his second barrel.

I arrived dripping on my rock and we looked at each other. "Will it come back?" we chorused. And just before it became too dark to see, it came again, hurtling back down the river, its teeth chattering, the air "shss-shssing" as it was cleft by the great, black, dracula-like wings. We were both off-guard, my gun was unloaded, and the brute made straight for George. He ducked. The animal soared over him and was at once swallowed up in the night."

When Sanderson and George returned to camp they asked the natives about the creature. Sanderson asked them, spreading his arms, what kind of bat is this large and is all black? "Olitiau!" was the response. The natives asked Sanderson where they had seen this creature, to which Sanderson pointed back at the river. The natives fled in terror in the opposite direction, taking only their guns and leaving their valuables behind.

While it may be suggested that the creature that attacked Sanderson and George was merely the mate of the bat they had shot, it is somewhat unlikely. Fruit bats are not known for attacking humans, and Sanderson, a highly knowledgeable and internationally respected zoologist, clearly indicated that he did not recognize the creature. Fruit bats are a brownish or yellowish color. Sanderson described the creature as all black. He, however, did describe it as a bat and pterosaurs are bat-like.

In 1956 in Zambia along the Luapula River, engineer J.P.F. Brown was driving back to Salisbury from a visit to Kasenga in Zaire. He stopped at a location called Fort Rosebery, just to the west of Lake Bangweulu, for a break. It was about 6:00 p.m. when he saw two creatures flying slowly and silently directly overhead. Bewildered he observed that these creatures looked prehistoric.

He estimated a wingspan of about 3-3 1/2 feet, a long thin tail, and a narrow head, which he likened to an elongated snout of a dog. One of them opened its mouth in which he saw a large number of pointed teeth. He gave the beak to tail length at about 4 1/2 feet. After this report came out, a couple by the name of Mr. and Mrs. D. Gregor reported that they had seen a pair of 2 and a 1/2 ft. long flying lizards in Southern Rhodesia, and a Dr. J. Blake-Thompson reported that natives of the Awemba tribe had told of huge flying creatures resembling rats that would attack humans. They lived in caves in cliffs near the source of the great Zambezi River.

In 1957, at a hospital at Fort Rosebery, the same location J. P. F. Brown had reported seeing strange flying creatures the year before, a patient came in with a severe wound in his chest. The doctor asked him what had happened and the native claimed that a great bird had attacked him in the Bangweulu Swamps. When asked to sketch the bird, the native drew a picture of a creature that resembled a pterosaur.

Soon afterwards the Zambezi valley was flooded as a result of the Kariba Dam Hydroelectric Project. Daily Telegraph correspondent Ian Colvin was at the scene, when he took a controversial photograph of what might be a pterosaur, however, it has recently been discovered that the photo was a hoax.

Reports of prehistoric looking flying creatures are not just limited to dense swampy regions; there are also reports of giant flying lizards from the deserts of Namibia. In 1988 Professor Roy Mackal led an expedition to Namibia where reports of a creature with a wingspan of up to 30 ft were collected. The avian cryptid usually glided through the air, but also was capable of true flight. It was usually seen at dusk, gliding between crevices between two hills about a mile apart. Although the expedition was not successful in getting solid evidence, one team member, James Kosi, reportedly saw the creature from about 1000 ft. away. He described it as a giant glider shape, black with white markings.

But could ancient prehistoric flying reptiles thought to have died out 65 million years ago still be roaming the dense swampy areas and hot desert mountain regions of Africa, or could there be a simpler explanation for these sightings. There are two species of birds that live in the swampy areas of Zambia that could possibly be mistaken for some kind of prehistoric apparition, especially under low light conditions or at nighttime. The shoebill stork is a dark colored bird with an 8 ft. wingspan and a decidedly prehistoric appearance. They have become rare, and can only be found in the deep recesses of swamps in Zambia and neighboring countries. However, there is no evidence of the shoebill behaving aggressively towards humans, and in fact they try to avoid humans as much as possible.

They have large bills, but they are not pointed, and they do not have teeth, in fact no known bird living today has real teeth. Another odd-looking bird that lives in the area is the saddle billed stork. These rather beautiful birds have a wingspan of up to 8½ feet, a long bright red bill with a horizontal black stripe ¾ up from the tip and with a yellow blaze from the eyes down and into the stripe, with additional orange stripes on the sides of the head. Their overall coloration is black and white with a black head, featherless red feet, and a beak that is long and pointed. Although it would be difficult to confuse this bird with a featherless, monotone colored pterosaur, its beak is similar.

It also is not beyond the realm of possibility that perhaps a deranged, sick, threatened, or confused saddle-billed stork could attack a human and plunge its beak into a man's chest. Both of these candidates are rather poor substitutes for pterosaurs, although they probably do account for some of the reports. Many of the natives are very superstitious, and fervently believe in the stories of monsters in the swamps waiting to attack intruders. It is not difficult to imagine that a quick flyby of one of these large birds in the dark could send one running back to camp with a story of a near miss by a flying demon.

Whether the reports are of actual sightings of pterosaur related creatures, or if it they represent some unknown huge sort of bat or bird, perhaps time will tell. Of all the remote, inaccessible locations in the world where unknown creatures could still exist, probably the best candidates would have to be the deep enormous swamps in Africa. These swamps are so overgrown with vines and undergrowth that human travel is next to impossible. In addition, the ground is often so soft that humans could not even stand without sinking, and the many rivers and waterlogged areas block many avenues of penetration. Vicious insects and other critters that can cause sickness from disease or death from venom accompany the hostile terrain.

The area is racked with political instability, patrolled by guerillas and armed bandits with little respect for non-native intruders, which provides a powerful disincentive to would-be explorers. Over flights by aircraft are ineffective since the treetops are so thick in the deep swamps that little or nothing can been seen underneath. Africa is hiding its secrets well. If there are living dinosaurs alive today, these dense over grown swampy areas of Africa are a prime candidate for harboring them.

The Evidence

Despite many sightings by credible eye witnesses the Kongamato has left behind no physical evidence to prove that it actually exists. Natives, close to death after a run in with the creature, do not prove anything other than an attack of some kind did happen. As with the majority of crypid it will take a body, alive or dead, to prove to the world that the Kongamato exists in reality not in just myth and legend.

The Sightings

In 1923 a traveler by the name of Frank H. Melland worked for a time in Zambia. He gathered native reports of ferocious flying reptiles.

In 1925, a distinguished English newspaper correspondent, G. Ward Price, was with the future Duke of Windsor on an official visit to Rhodesia. He reported a story that a civil servant told them of the wounding of a man who entered a feared swamp in Rhodesia known to be the home of demons. The brave native entered the swamp, determined to explore it in spite of the dangers. When he returned he was on the verge of death from a great wound in his chest. He recounted how a strange huge bird with a long beak attacked him. When the civil servant showed the man a picture of a pterosaur, from a book of prehistoric animals, the man screamed in terror and fled from the servant's home.

In 1942 Colonel C. R. S. Pitman reported stories the natives told him of a large bat - bird like creature that lived the dense swampy regions of Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia.

In 1932 through 1933 the Percy Sladen Expedition ventured deep into West Africa. In charge of the team was Ivan T. Sanderson, a well-known zoologist and writer. After shooting a large bat by the river they set camp by, Sanderson was attached by a large unknown bat like bird.

In 1956 in Zambia along the Luapula River, engineer J.P.F. Brown was driving back to Salisbury from a visit to Kasenga in Zaire. He stopped at a location called Fort Rosebery, just to the west of Lake Bangweulu, for a break. It was about 6:00 p.m. when he saw two creatures flying slowly and silently directly overhead. Bewildered he observed that these creatures looked prehistoric. He estimated a wingspan of about 3-3 1/2 feet, a long thin tail, and a narrow head, which he likened to an elongated snout of a dog. One of them opened its mouth in which he saw a large number of pointed teeth. He gave the beak to tail length at about 4 1/2 feet.

In 1957, at a hospital at Fort Rosebery, the same location J. P. F. Brown had reported seeing strange flying creatures the year before, a patient came in with a severe wound in his chest. The doctor asked him what had happened and the native claimed that a great bird had attacked him in the Bangweulu Swamps. When asked to sketch the bird, the native drew a picture of a creature that resembled a pterosaur.

In 1988 Professor Roy Mackal led an expedition to Namibia where reports of a creature with a wingspan of up to 30 ft were collected. The avian cryptid usually glided through the air, but also was capable of true flight. It was usually seen at dusk, gliding between crevices between two hills about a mile apart. Although the expedition was not successful in getting solid evidence, one team member, James Kosi, reportedly saw the creature from about 1000 ft. away. He described it as a giant glider shape, black with white markings.

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The Murphysboro Mud Monster

The Strange Beast that Prowled a Southern Illinois town...

The vast reaches of forest and open fields of southern Illinois, combined with the sparse population in some areas, seem to invite weirdness that might not occur in cities and more crowded locales. In the most southern portions of the region, the Shawnee National Forest covers miles and miles of territory. The acres of forest seem almost untouched by man and some believe that strange things occasionally pass through here, unseen by human eyes.

In the summer of 1973, the town of Murphysboro in southwestern Illinois was the site of a bizarre series of monster sightings. The enigmatic creature, now recalled as the “Murphysboro Mud Monster” appeared without warning and then suddenly disappeared just two weeks later, seemingly without a trace. In its wake, the monster left a number of confused and frightened witnesses, baffled law enforcement officials and of course, an enduring legend.

The monster was first seen around midnight on June 25, 1973. A young couple, Randy Needham and Judy Johnson, were parked near a boat ramp into the Big Muddy River near Murphysboro when they heard a strange, roaring cry that shattered the stillness of the night. It came from the nearby woods and both of them looked up to see a huge shape lumbering toward them. Whatever it was, it continue to make the horrible sound and they later described the noise as "something not human".

According to their account, the monster was about seven feet tall and covered with a matted, whitish hair. The "fur" was streaked liberally with mud from the river. By the time the creature approached to within 20 feet of them, they quickly left the scene. They went directly to the Murphysboro police station.

A short time later, Officers Meryl Lindsay and Jimmie Nash returned to the area and surveyed the scene. Although skeptical, they were surprised to find that a number of footprints had been left in the mud. The footprints were "approximately 10-12 inches long and approximately three inches wide". At 2:00 AM, Nash, Lindsay, another officer named Bob Scott, and Randy Needham returned to the scene again. This time, they discovered more tracks and Lindsay left to go and get a camera. The others followed the new footprints, tracing their path along the river.

Suddenly, from the woods about 100 yards away, came the creature's terrifying scream. They didn't wait to see if they could spot the monster and instead, made a quick retreat for the patrol car. After waiting in the darkness for a little while, they got back out again and spent the rest of the night trying to track down a splashing sound they heard in the distance. Things quieted down after daylight, but the next night, the creature was back!

The first to see the monster this time was a four-year old boy named Christian Baril, who told his parents that he saw a "big white ghost in the yard". They didn't believe him, but when Randy Creath and Cheryl Ray saw an identical monster in a neighboring yard just ten minutes later, Christian's parents, and the police, quickly reconsidered the little boy's statement.

Randy and Cheryl spotted the monster at about 10:30 PM, while sitting on the back porch of the Ray house. They heard the sound of something moving in the woods near the river and then spotted the muddy, white creature staring at them with glowing pink eyes. Cheryl would insist that the eyes were actually glowing and were not reflecting light from some other source. They estimated that it weighed at least 350 pounds, stood seven feet tall, had a roundish head and long, ape-like arms. Cheryl turned on the porch light and Randy went for a closer look. The creature seemed unconcerned and finally ambled off into the woods. Investigators would later find a trail of broken tree branches and crushed undergrowth, along with a number of large footprints. They also noticed a strong odor left in the monster's wake, but it didn't last for very long.

The officers who arrived on the scene, Jimmie Nash and Ronald Manwaring, quickly summoned a local man named Jerry Nellis, who had a trained German Shepherd that was often used by the police department as an attack dog and to search buildings and track suspects. The dog immediately was sent in pursuit of the monster. He managed to track the creature through the woods and down a hill to a small pond. Eventually, the trees and undergrowth became too thick for the dog to continue and it was pulled off the track just moments after almost pulling its handler down a steep embankment. The officers began searching the area with flashlights and the dog began sniffing near the trees, hoping to pick up the scent again. He then set off toward an abandoned barn, but refused to go inside. In fact, the animal began shaking with fear and barking.

Nellis called the two officers over and they opened the barn and went inside. After a few moments, they realized that it was empty. The three men were puzzled. The dog had been trained to search buildings and Nellis could not explain why it had refused to enter the barn. A short time later, the search was called off for the night.

The Mud Monster was reported two more times that summer. On the night of July 4, traveling carnival workers stated that they spotted the creature looking at some Shetland ponies that were being used for the holiday celebration. Then, on July 7, Mrs. Nedra Green heard a screaming sound coming from a shed on her rural farm. She did not go out to investigate.

So what was the Murphysboro Mud Monster? Local authorities admitted that they didn't know. "A lot of things in life are unexplained," Police Chief Toby Berger admitted at the time, "and this is another one. We don't know what the creature is, but we do believe what these people saw was real."

According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper, the Mud Monster emerged again as a possible culprit to an attack that allegedly occurred at the Rend Lake campground near Benton in August 1989. During the attack, gaping holes were left in a tent and animal blood was left behind at the scene. The attack was later determined to have been from dogs, but that didn’t stop local residents from speculating about the Murphysboro Mud Monster again!

In the 1989 newspaper reports, Jerry Nellis, the dog handler in the original case stated his own theories on the famous case, which left he and the other witnesses to the events as “hunted” as the Mud Monster itself. Reporters and “monster hunters” came from everywhere asking questions about the case but Nellis maintained that "in my opinion ... we were tracking a bear."

But for the rest of Southern Illinois (the news story continued) and for every outdoorsman who has, as Nellis suggests, "seen something we can't make out just beyond the headlights," that original vision reported to police on June 25, 1973, is all we need to imagine.

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The Lost Dutchman Gold Mine

What strange secrets lie hidden near Superstition Mountain in Arizona? Did a lone miner really discover a fortune in lost gold here? And what strange force has caused a number of adventurers to die brutal deaths and vanish without a trace in this rugged region?

Located just east of Phoenix, Arizona is a rough, mountainous region where people sometimes go... only to never be seen again. It is a place of mystery, of legend and lore and it is called Superstition Mountain. According to history, both hidden and recorded, there exists a fantastic gold mine here like no other that has ever been seen. It has been dubbed the “Lost Dutchman Mine” over the years and thanks to its mysterious location, it has been the quest of many an adventurer... and a place of doom to luckless others.

What strange energy lingers here? What has caused dozens of people who seek the mine to vanish without a trace? Is the answer really as the Apache Indians say? Does the “Thunder God” protect this mine... bringing death to those who attempt to pillage it? Or can the deaths be linked to other causes? Are they caused, as some have claimed, by the spirits of those who have died seeking the mine before?

Let’s explore all of these questions and journey back into the haunted history of the Lost Dutchman Mine... and uncover the numerous deaths and the violence that surrounds it.

• Superstition Mountain

Superstition Mountain is actually a collection of rough terrain that has gained the name of a single mountain. The contour of the region takes in thousands of cliffs, peaks, plateaus and mesas and even today, much of it remains largely unexplored. Despite the tendency by many to call this a range of mountains, it is in reality, only one. It is certainly not the highest mountain in the region, but it has the reputation of being the deadliest. Over the course of several centuries, it has taken the lives of many men and women and has perhaps caused a madness in them that has encouraged them to kill each other.

The Apache Indians were probably the first to set eyes on the mountain, followed by the Spanish conquistadors, the first of which was Francisco Vasquez de Coronado. He came north from Mexico in 1540 seeking the legendary “Seven Golden Cities of Cibola”. When he reached the region, the local Indians told him that the mountain held much gold, although they refused to help the Spaniard explore it. They were in too much fear of the “Thunder God”, who was said to dwell there, and who would destroy them if they dared to trespass upon his sacred ground.

When the Spaniards tried to explore the mountain on their own, they discovered that men began to vanish mysteriously. It was said that if one of them strayed more than a few feet from his companions, he was never seen alive again. The bodies of the men who were found were discovered to be mutilated and with their heads cut off. The terrified survivors refused to return to the mountain and so Coronado dubbed the collection of peaks, Monte Superstition, which explains the origin of the infamous name.

The mountain became a legendary spot to the Spanish explorers who followed.... and was regarded as an evil place.

• The Spanish Mine

The first man to discover the gold of the Indians on Superstition Mountain was Don Miguel Peralta, a member of a prominent family who owned a ranch near Sonora, Mexico. He discovered a vein of rich gold here in 1845 while searching for the treasure described to Coronado.

Before he returned to Mexico for men and supplies with which to excavate the gold, he memorized the surrounding territory. He described the mountain’s most outstanding landmark as looking like a “sombrero”; thus he named the mine the “Sombrero Mine”.

To others, the peak, or spire, looking more like a finger pointing upwards and it has also been referred to as the “Finger of God”... except to early white explorer Pauline Weaver. He used the rock as a place to etch his name with a knife and subsequent prospectors discovered the etching and dubbed the landmark “Weaver’s Needle”. The name stuck and nearly every reference to the lost mine uses the Needle as a point of origin.

Peralta returned to Mexico and gathered men and material to work the mine. Soon, he was shipping millions of pesos in pure gold back to Sonora. It was obvious that this was a gold strike like no other.

Meanwhile, the Apache were angry over the Spanish presence on the mountain and in 1848, raised a large force to drive Peralta and his men from the area. Peralta soon got word of the impending fight and withdrew his men from the mine. They would pack up all of the available burros and wagons with the already mined ore and return home. Because he planned to return someday, Peralta took elaborate precautions to conceal the entrance to the mine and to wipe out any trace that they had ever worked there.

Early the next day, he assembled his men and prepared to move out.... but they never had a chance. Taken by surprise, the Apache warriors attacked and massacred the entire company of Spaniards. The pack mules were scattered in all directions, spilling the gold and taking it with them as they plunged over cliffs and into ravines. For years after, prospectors and soldiers discovered the remains of the burros and the rotted leather packs that were still brimming with raw gold.

The area, dubbed “Gold Field” became a favorite place for outlaws and get-rich-quick schemers, who spent days and months searching for the lost gold. The last case of anyone finding the bones of a Peralta mule was in 1914. A man named C.H. Silverlocke showed up in Phoenix one day with a few piece of badly decayed leather, some pieces of Spanish saddle silver and about $18,000 in gold concentrate.

• The Blind-folded Doctor

The next discoverer of the Peralta mine was a man named Dr. Abraham Thorne. He was born in East St. Louis, Illinois and all of his life, longed to be a doctor to the Indians in the western states. Early in his life, he was befriended by the frontier legend, Kit Carson, and when Fort McDowell was founded in Arizona in 1865, he arranged for Thorne to become an army doctor with an officer’s rank.

At this time, fighting between the whites and the Apache was often fierce. The Indians were being besieged by the Army but it would not be long before cooler heads would prevail and President Abraham Lincoln would create a compromise in the area. He proposed a reservation along the Verde River, near Fort McDowell, which could serve as a sanctuary for the Apache. It was here, in an area known unofficially as the “Strip”, where Thorne came to live and work amongst the Indians. He soon made many friends and earned respect from the tribal leaders, caring for the sick and injured, delivering babies and teaching hygiene and waste disposal.

In 1870, a strange incident would take place in Dr. Thorne’s career. Several of the elders in the tribe came to him with a proposal. Because he was considered a good man and a friend of the Apache, they would take him to a place where he could find gold. The only condition would be that he was to be blindfolded during the journey of roughly 20 miles.

Dr. Thorne agreed and the Indians placed a cloth around his head and over his eyes. They led him away on horseback and at the end of the journey, the cloth was removed and he found himself in an unknown canyon. He would later write that he saw a sharp pinnacle of rock about a mile to the south of him. Treasure hunters believe this was most likely Weaver’s Needle. There was no sign of a mine, but piled near the base of the canyon wall (as if placed there for him) was a stack of almost pure gold nuggets. He picked up as much of it as he could carry and returned home. He later sold the ore for $6,000 and became another strange link in the mystery of the mine’s location.

• The Dutchman

First of all, I guess we should clear up one popular misconception about Jacob Walz (or Waltz depending on the story you hear) and it’s that he was not a “Dutchman”. He was actually from Germany and born there in the early 1800’s. He came to America in 1845 and soon heard about the riches and adventure that were waiting in the frontier beyond New York. His first gold seeking took him to a strike in North Carolina and from there he traveled to Mississippi, California and Nevada... always looking for his elusive fortune.

Walz worked the gold field of the Sierra Nevada foothills for more than ten years, never getting rich, but turning up enough gold to get along. By 1868, he was in his fifties and wondering if he was ever going to find his proverbial “mother lode”. The Indians had nick-named him “Snowbeard” because of his long, white whiskers and it isn’t hard to picture him as one of those grizzled old prospectors who were so common in western films.

That same year, Walz began homesteading in the Rio Satillo Valley, which is on the northern side of Superstition Mountain. Soon after he arrived, he began to hear stories from the local Indians about supernatural doings around the mountain, about a fierce god... and about vast deposits of gold.

Most stories about Jacob Walz say that he spent the next 20 years of so prospecting for gold around the Arizona Territory. He often worked for wages in other men’s mines while he searched from his own fortune. It was during one of these jobs that he met Jacob Weiser, most likely while he was working at the Vulture Mine in 1870.

One version of the legend claims that Walz was fired from the mine for stealing gold and soon, the two “Dutchman” struck out on their own and vanished into the land around Superstition Mountain. Not long after, they were seen in Phoenix paying for drinks and supplies with gold nuggets. Some claimed this gold was the stolen loot from the Vulture Mine, while others said that it was of much higher quality and had to have come from somewhere else. Regardless of where it came from, the two men would spend the gold around town for the next two decades.

There have been a number of stories about how the men found the “lost” mine. According to some, they stumbled upon it by accident. Others say that killed two Mexican miners, who they mistook for Indians, and then realized the men were mining gold.... but the most accepted version of the story is that they were given a map to the mine by a Mexican don whose life they saved.

The man was said to have been Don Miguel Peralta, the son of a rich landowner in Sonora, Mexico and a descendant of the original discoverer of the mine. The Dutchmen saved Peralta from certain death in a knife fight and as a reward, he gave them a look at the map to the mine. He was later said to have been bought out of the mine by Walz and Weiser.
At some point in the years that followed, Jacob Weiser disappeared without a trace. Some say that the Apaches killed him, while others maintain that Walz actually did him in. (As you can see, there is a lot of speculation to the legend).

But Walz was always around, at least part of the time. Long periods would go by when no one would see him and then he would show up in Phoenix again, buying drinks with gold nuggets. It was said that Walz had the richest gold ore that anyone had ever seen and for the rest of his life, he vanished back and forth to his secret mine, always bringing back saddlebags filled with gold. Whenever anyone tried to get information out of him, he would always give contradictory directions to where the mine was located. On many occasions, men tried to follow him when he left town, but Walz would always shake his pursuers in the rugged region around the mountain.

By the winter of 1891, an old Mexican widow named Julia Elena Thomas, who owned a small bakery in Phoenix, befriended the aged miner. Apparently, they became romantically involved and Walz promised to take her to his secret mine “in the spring”.... but she never saw it. The Dutchman died on October 25, 1891 with a sack of rich gold ore beneath his deathbed.

Immediately after word reached town about Jacob Walz’s death, a number of men who had heard the Dutchman speak of the mine over the years rode out for the mountain in search of the mystery. They never found it... and in fact, two of the prospectors, Sims Ely and Jim Bark, spent the next 25 years searching in vain for what they called “The Lost Dutchman Mine”.

The search has since fueled more than a century of speculation. Theories as to the mine’s location have filled dozens of books and pamphlets. Literally hundreds of would-be prospectors have searched the Superstition Mountain region and most have come home with little more than sunburns......

But there are also many who have not come home at all.

• Death and Mystery

There is no way to guess just how many people have died in pursuit of the Lost Dutchman Mine. Some who have disappeared may have just quietly slipped away, unwilling to admit that they failed to find the treasure.... while others may have gone in secretly and never came out, their names recorded as a missing persons case somewhere.

The death toll of the legendary Peralta Massacre varies between 100 to 400, plus there are the murders attributed to the Dutchman, Jacob Walz himself. He is alleged to have killed at least two men who found his treasure trove and is blamed for the death of his partner, Jacob Weiser, and others.

There are also a number of people who were slain by the Apaches after they were found searching the mountain for the mine. These deaths, like the victims of the massacre and those killed by the Dutchman, are easy to document and understand.

But there are others.... which are not so easy to explain.

In the summer of 1880, two young soldiers appeared in the town of Pinal. They had recently been discharged from Fort McDowell and were looking for work at the Silver King Mine, operated by Aaron Mason. They also asked him to take a look at some gold ore they had found while crossing Superstition Mountain. Mason was stunned to see a bag of extremely rich gold ore. Where had they found it?

The soldiers explained that they had been on the mountain and had flushed a deer into one of the canyons. On their way out, they found the remains of an old a tunnel and mine. This small bag of gold was only a little of what could be found there.

Mason asked them if they could find the place again and they believed they could, having been scouts for the Army and very conscious of the details of the landscape. They remembered the mine being in the northerly direction of a sharp peak (which Mason was sure was Weaver’s Needle) and in very rough country. A narrow trail had led from the peak and into the valley where they found the mine.

The soldiers admitted however, they knew little about mining. Would Mason go into partnership with them? He agreed and purchased the ore they brought with them for $700, then helped them get outfitted for their return to the mine. They left Pinal the next day... and never returned.

Mason waited two weeks and then sent out a search party. The nude body of one of the soldiers was found beside a trail leading to the mountain. He had been shot in the head. The other man was found the next day and had been killed in the same manner. Apaches? No one would ever find out...

A year later, a prospector named Joe Dearing showed up in Pinal and worked as a part-time bartender. After hearing about the death of the two soldiers, he began to make searches of the Superstition, looking for the mysterious mine. He was more successful in his search than most, although I don’t think I would go as far as to say his luck was any better.

According to Dearing, he had discovered the mine and that it “was kind of a pit, shaped like a funnel and with a large opening at the top”. He said that the pit had been partially filled in by debris and there was a tunnel that had been walled over with rocks. Dearing planned to work as a bartender until he could make enough money to excavate his find.

He later went to work at the Silver King Mine, still intent on saving his earnings.... until a cave-in killed him a week later.

Another prospector connected to the Lost Dutchman Mine and its mysterious deaths was Elisha Reavis, better known as the “Madman of the Superstitions”. From 1872 until his death in 1896, he resided in a remote area on the mountain and raised vegetables. The local Apaches never bothered him because they were afraid of him. The Indians held those who were mad in superstitious awe and Reavis certainly seemed to fit the bill. It was said that he ran naked through the canyons at night and fired his pistol at the stars.

In April of 1896, a friend of Reavis realized that he was overdue for his periodic trip into town and went in search of him. His badly decomposed body was found near his home. Coyotes had eaten him and his head had been severed from his body (much like the Spanish conquistadors). It was found lying several feet away.

The same year that Reavis was found murdered, two Easterners went looking for the mine. They were never seen again.

Around 1900, two prospectors, remembered only as Silverlock and Malm, began an excavation on the northern edge of the Superstition. They found some of the gold remaining from the Peralta Massacre, but little else. For some reason though, they remained working the area for years after, sinking dozens of shafts and finding nothing.

Then, in 1910, Malm appeared at the Mormon cooperative in Mesa. He was babbling incoherently that Silverlock had tried to kill him. Deputies brought the man in and he was judged insane and committed to the territorial asylum. Malm was later sent to the county poor farm, none too steady himself, and both men died within two years.
What was it about the Superstition that unbalanced these men?

Also in 1910, the skeleton of a woman was found in a cave, high up on Superstition Mountain. Several gold nuggets were found with the remains. The coroner judged the death to be of recent date although no further information about her was ever found. And the gold nuggets were never explained.

In 1927, a New Jersey man and his sons were hiking on the mountain when someone began rolling rocks down on them from the cliffs above. A boulder ended up crushing the legs of one of the boys. The following year, a person rolling huge rocks down on them also drove two deer hunters off the mountain.

In June of 1931, a government employee named Adolph Ruth from Washington, D.C. left for the Superstition foothills with what he claimed was an old Peralta map to the mine. When a search party went to look for him a few days later, his campsite was found to be intact, but Ruth was missing. That December, his skull was found on Black Top Mountain with two holes in it. The rest of his skeleton was found a month later, about three-quarters of a mile away. In his clothing was a cryptic note that read “About 200 feet across from cave” and “Veni, Vidi, Vici” (I came, I saw, I conquered). There was no trace of the treasure map. Law enforcement officials attributed his death to sunstroke or suicide....

In December 1936, Roman O’Hal, a broker’s clerk from New York City died from a fall while searching for the mine. It was believed to have been an accident.

In 1937, an old prospector named Guy “Hematite” Frink came down from the mountain with some rich gold samples. That following November, he was found shot in the stomach on the side of a trail. A small sack of gold ore was discovered beside him. His death was also ruled to be an accident.

In June 1947, a prospector name James A. Cravey made a much-publicized trip into the Superstition canyons by helicopter, searching for the Lost Dutchman Mine. The pilot set him down in La Barge Canyon, close to Weaver’s Needle. When Cravey failed to hike out as planned, a search was started and although his camp was found, Cravey was not. The following February, his headless skeleton was found in a canyon, a good distance from his camp. It was tied in a blanket and his skull was found about thirty feet away. The coroner’s jury ruled that there was “no evidence of foul play.”

In February 1951, Dr. John Burns, a physician from Oregon, was found shot to death on the Superstition. It was said to have been an accidental death.

In early 1952, Joseph Kelley of Dayton, Ohio began his own search for the mine. He was never seen again... until his skeleton was discovered near Weaver’s Needle in May of 1954. He had been shot directly from above and according to the coroner’s jury, “by accident”.

Two California boys hiked onto Superstition Mountain the same year as Kelley. Nothing further was ever seen of them. Some have suggested that they met the same fate as the three Texas boys who had also disappeared a few years before.

In January 1956, a Brooklyn man reported to police that his brother had been missing for several weeks. It was believed that he had gone in search of the mine. His body was found the next month and a bullet hole was discovered above his right temple.

In April of 1958, a deserted campsite was found on the northern edge of the mountain. There was a bloodstained blanket, a Geiger counter, cooking utensils, a gun-cleaning kit, but no gun, and some letters from which the names and addresses had been torn. No trace of the camp’s occupant was ever found.

In October 1960, a group of hikers found a headless skeleton near the foot of a cliff. The skull was found four days later was it was determined that it belonged to an Austrian student named Franz Harrier.

Five days later, another skeleton was found and in November, police identified the body as William Richard Harvey, a painter from San Francisco. His cause of death was unknown.

In January 1961, a family picnicking near the edge of the mountain discovered the body of Hilmer Charles Bohen buried beneath the sand. He was a Utah prospector who had been shot in the back.

Two months later, another prospector, Walter J. Mowry from Denver, was found shot to death in Needle Canyon.

That fall, police began searching for Jay Clapp, a prospector who had been working on the Superstition on and off for about 15 years. He had last been seen in July..... the search was eventually called off. His headless skeleton was finally discovered three years later. He was identified by two cameras with the initials “JC” scratched on them.

And with that, my record of mysterious deaths comes to an end, although the death of Jay Clapp was far from the last. Over the years, there have been many who have sought the gold of the Dutchman and who have never returned.
If you are thinking of trying it for yourself, make sure that you follow the advice of prospector and cowboy Barney Barnard, an expert on the Lost Dutchman Mine (if such a person exists):

1. If you are a citizen of the United States, you have the legal right to search for the mine. 2. Do not buy any maps that claim to show its location. There is no map in existence. 3. Do not go onto the mountain alone. Go in pairs at least and go armed. Shoot only to protect your life. 4. Take plenty of water and carry only light, condensed food. 5. Establish a central camp and work in every direction from it.
As you can guess from the narrative that preceded this list, Barnard never found the Lost Dutchman Mine and has neither has anyone else. It is still out there somewhere in the rugged hills of Arizona, just waiting for someone to return and claim its prize.

But is something else waiting out there too? Something that watches over the mine, or even the mountain itself, waiting for the unsuspecting interloper to dare and trespass on what the Apache believed was sacred ground? Perhaps the prospector named Joe Dearing said it best when he described the mine as “the most God-awful rough place you can imagine... a ghostly place.”

It is certainly a haunted spot. Haunted by an unknown energy that claims the lives of men? Haunted by the ghost of the Dutchman, Jacob Walz? Or haunted by the spirits of the countless men and women whose lives have been taken because of it?

That answer is as mysterious as the location of the Lost Dutchman Mine itself......

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Swiss Watch Found in 400-Year Old Chinese Tomb

While some mysteries are occasionally solved, the majority tend to live on forever without the truth being revealed. One in the latter category concerns the recent discovery of a century-old Swiss watch discovered in an ancient Chinese tomb that has been sealed for more than 400 years.
How did it get there? This is the question haunting the archaeologists who discovered the Swiss watch in an ancient tomb in Shangsi, southern China, they believed had not been opened since its occupant’s funeral, which occurred during the Ming Dynasty (15-16th centuries).

The miniature watch, which is in the shape of a ring, is thought to be barely a century old. The mysterious timepiece was encrusted in mud and rock and had stopped at 10:06 am. On the back of the watch, the word, ‘Swiss’ is engraved.

Its presence raises more questions than answers… like: Where did the watch come from? Could the watch/ring have been planted at the tomb, but if so, why and by whom?

The known facts do not really help in this case.

The Ming Dynasty did have its own unique age of watch making, but that does not explain why the word, ‘Swiss’ on the back of the watch is engraved in English. In Geneva, Switzerland, other languages were more common, namely French and German.

In 1541 in Geneva, there was a ban on flashy jewelry, so the idea of a watch/ ring might make some sense, as a watch was considered practical and essential. Still, there is no record anywhere of ring/watches being popular in Europe until after 1780, which only deepens the mystery.

The archaeologists were filming a documentary with two journalists when they made the puzzling discovery.

The dig has been suspended and researchers are currently awaiting the arrival of some experts from Beijing to help them unravel this most unsettling mystery.

Anyone know what time it is?

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