Strange things in the desert

[arrow719]

For those of you that have spent a lot of time hiking in the desert I would bet you have seen things that are very odd or out of place. One day I was hiking in an area that was really far out in the middle of nowhere. People seldom go to this area for ANYTHING. And I was at least five miles off the dirt road so you sure wouldn't expect anyone had been there lately. But as I was hiking along I came across a set of fresh footprints. The weird part is that they just appeared out of nowhere. I followed them for a little ways and then they just vanished the same way they appeared. There were no other tire tracks or footprints ANYWHERE, just those few I followed. I'm still scratching my head over that to this day. Maybe it was just too hot that day and my brain was getting fried.......

[Mojave]

ANYONE who has hiked in the desert has seen bizarre things especially when you are alone and it is hot. I swear one time I saw a kangaroo bounding down a wash. One of the oddest places to hike in the west is Saline Valley. It is the valley that separates Owens Valley and Death Valley. It is unbelievably hot and desolate. There are a lots of society's dregs and misfits out there along with a lot of cool indian sites. I was at least 5 miles from any recognizable trail, which is at least 50 miles from the nearest paved road, climbing a very rocky hill and found,....a golf ball. Not much surprises me.
I still have GPS coordinates for a Nevada valley location where I found a Pioneer Spacecraft Parachute recovery system. No, I'm not kidding.

[DesertWalker]

My wife and I were out in the west desert for the day looking around. On our way back, she saw what she described as a house cat. There is not a residence for many miles in any direction out there. We have wild ringtail cats (which is not really a cat) in parts of the west, but I have never seen one. I teased her about taking too much hay fever medicine..lol, but, who knows??

[Mojave]

El Chupacabra...

[arrow719]

Originally Posted by Mojave

ANYONE who has hiked in the desert has seen bizarre things especially when you are alone and it is hot. I swear one time I saw a kangaroo bounding down a wash. One of the oddest places to hike in the west is Saline Valley. It is the valley that separates Owens Valley and Death Valley. It is unbelievably hot and desolate. There are a lots of society's dregs and misfits out there along with a lot of cool indian sites. I was at least 5 miles from any recognizable trail, which is at least 50 miles from the nearest paved road, climbing a very rocky hill and found,....a golf ball. Not much surprises me.
I still have GPS coordinates for a Nevada valley location where I found a Pioneer Spacecraft Parachute recovery system. No, I'm not kidding.

What is a Pioneer Spacecraft Parachute recovery system? I actually found a Army parachute once. It was in sand dunes near Dugway. I thought to myself why would they leave it there? The end where the person would be attached was deeply buried in the sand so I couldn't tell if there was someone still there or not.

[arrow719]

Here's a strange one that happened a few years ago. I was on my way to Las Vegas one day when I noticed a little rock shelter a bit off the highway. I had time so I pulled over and hiked over to it to check it out. When I first looked in I saw what looked like a little person sitting straight up in the back of the shelter. It was getting dark so I couldn't really see in there too good. I did notice there was some other stuff in there too. Not knowing who was in there or their mental health I left right away. When I got back to my moms house later that night I told her about it. She said she had been seeing a wooly bugger on a bicycle on that stretch of highway but hadn't seen him in a few days. Keep in mind this is the absolute middle of nowhere. We came to the conclusion that may of been him I saw in the shelter and maybe he was dead. So the next morning me and my mom and a .357 magnum (just incase, lol) headed back to the shelter to check it out. We cautiously worked our way to the shelter keeping a close eye on our surroundings. When we got there we saw the little person was still there sitting straight up just like the day before. Once we got a closer look we saw that it was an alien doll someone put there. There was also a plate full of assorted polished rocks, a five gallon bottle of water, some bedding and a back pack full of books. We figured someone must of escaped from the mental hospital so we left and never went back.

[Big Ed]

Oh, I just LOVE these threads. Keep this stuff coming!

I have a good friend in the military who was stationed up in Minot (he was a key turner for a bit). You can imagine the heavy security on the base grounds, etc. There are more than a couple of stories about strange lights, alarms going off when they shouldn't and weird ground markings/burns!

I know that isn't desert/arrowhead related, but we all know that we are the offspring of Neanderthals and aliens! I mean someone had to teach us how to flintknap!

[kentlangreder]

five years ago we were driving thru new Mexico going to flagstaff and it was about dark and everything was quiet in the truck we were driving in me ,my wife and my buddy Kevin and our dogs just cruisin down the highway when all of the sudden both dogs jumped up in the back seat and started barking crazy like !!! and not to far after that it was just about to dark to see and off to the right side of the highway there was a strange bright light cruising probably about 30 feet off the ground . and it was getting it if ya know what i mean and then it just vanished very weird but all three of us saw it and couldn't figure out what we had just witnessed. and no drugs or alcohol was involved .

kent langreder

[DesertWalker]

Was out near Nevada looking for points. This cloud formation came up over us. I thought we may have funnel cloud coming on. I stood and stared at it for a long time, looked like something was coming up out of the ground and messing with mother nature. It finally melted away.

[Mojave]

Originally Posted by arrow719

What is a Pioneer Spacecraft Parachute recovery system?

From Wiki (I'm not sure if it's the same and if it is, why it had a parachute but...):
Pioneer 10 (also called Pioneer F) was the first spacecraft to travel through the asteroid belt, which it entered on July 15, 1972, and to make direct observations of Jupiter, which it passed by on December 3, 1973. It was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch Complex 36A on March 3, 1972 at 01:49:00 UTC. Pioneer 10 is heading in the direction of Aldebaran, located in Taurus. By some definitions, Pioneer 10 has become the first artificial object to leave the solar system. It is surely the first human-built object to have been set upon a trajectory leading out of the solar system. However, it still has not passed the heliopause or Oort cloud.

What I found was an aluminum nose cone with lots of nylon ropes and parachute fragments attached. I'm sure it is still out there.