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Wednesday, September 22, 2021

Anza-Borrego Desert Lantern Skeleton

 

The Anza-Borrego Desert Lantern Skeleton

By Cole Herrold



When it comes to expeditions in desert environments, there are a lot of things to worry about. From having enough resources to making sure one stays safe are all challenges that can be planned for and worked on with some success. One thing that such pioneers do not anticipate is a colossal skeleton that is seemingly lit up like a macabre living decoration. Yet in the Anza-Borrego Desert of Arizona, that is one such concern those in the area, particularly at night, need to be concerned with.

The story of the Anza-Borrego Desert Lantern Skeleton actually begins with, surprisingly, the mad rush for gold. Throughout the Anza-Borrego desert are several old, abandoned mines and dilapidated shafts that, at one point in American history, people would spend countless hours attempting to find riches beyond their wildest dreams. Now it would appear that during this time, several individuals had managed to lose their lives in the harsh environment of the Anza-Borrego Desert, and it wasn't until after the end of the gold rush that the need and desire to go out into the wilderness and mine practically died out. Searching for the gold, however, to this day is still something some driven individuals choose to do, and it was around this time of resurgence in the search that tales started popping of a bizarre entity roaming the desert and allegedly chasing miners from the area. This phantom seemed to be something entirely different than one would expect to see as an apparition, as one would expect maybe the lost soul of some unfortunate miner as opposed to this nightmarish figure that supposedly roams the mines and sandy terrain.

The First person to witness the bizarre entity was a man by the name of Charley Arizona; he was a desert hand who one night had traveled to the Western edge of the Badlands. He was only four miles from Borrego and had taken several of his donkeys with him as he proceeded in setting up camp. Everything went well that night, and after getting comfortably snug by the fire and making sure his animals were secure in the location, he managed to fall asleep. He remained asleep until the early hours of the morning when he was awoken by a strange sound coming from the distance. The donkeys also woke up after hearing this sound, and they too began behaving antsy as if they could sense that something was extremely wrong. Charley stood up and armed himself, half expecting to find someone enter his camp. He peered around the area, and there out in a certain spot of desert some distance away was a bright glow that seemed to be moving. His initial thought seeing this is that perhaps some man was lost in the mountains and seeing his campfire was working his way over. The shadowy figure did seem to Charley to becoming closer towards his site, and he waited, waving his arms to try to flag down the potentially lost traveler.

As Charley looked, however, he could tell that something didn't seem right; the figure seemed to be very tall, bigger than him at least, and that the light seemed to be much higher up as well and burned with an intensity that he thought could not have been a traditional torch or lantern. The figure continued to move drunkenly around, and as he listened, he could hear a sick metallic thud as the figure stepped and a bizarre sound he could not place as if several pieces of wood were being smacked together. He stopped waving and stared at his soon-to-be visitor, but when the figure got within 200 yards, it was close enough for him to get a good look at the stranger; his blood ran cold. There walking towards him, was a creature that could only be described as a colossal skeleton, its form being over 8ft tall. It was from this skeletal frame that the sound came from the wood sound was really the sound of bones connecting reacting to its environment. This would have been terrifying enough, but as he stared, he realized that the creature did not have a torch or lantern in its hand but there hanging in the creature's chest swinging back and forth was a kind of lantern that appeared to be connected by some manner to the ribcage. The glow of the light illuminated the entire form, including the creature's eyes which shined so brightly they looked like they were on fire. This living Halloween decoration proceeded in walking towards Charley's camp, and all Charley could do was stare in pure terror, unable to move or ready himself for defense. As the creature was only a couple feet from the campsite, it seemed to not notice the man standing watching it. The creature's colossal footsteps continued past the man and past his site, and Charley regaining his mobility, turned his head to watch the creature meander its way beyond the site and eventually completely disappear from behind a row of rocks some distance away.

About two years later, two other would-be prospectors had decided to go out and search for gold in the desert. It was getting late in the day after the two had been traversing the dusty terrain the entire day, and they, much like Charley, had decided to set up camp in a rocky outcropping in the desert. It was getting late, and the two had been enjoying their dinner by the campfire when they noticed a glowing light with a shadowy skeletal shape shimmering in the darkness. One of the witnesses, having heard the rumors of the giant skeleton, had begun getting up, proclaiming to the other that they had to get out of here or the entity might harm them. The other prospector, more levelheaded, simply told his friend to sit down and that all that the light was, was the reflective glow of the fire on nearby rocks. The friend, however, felt that the glow was too high off the ground and that the skeletal frame did not seem to match what his partner proposed but unable to stir him to leave, he settled back down and stayed up the entire night waiting for the entity to return.

A year later, another man out in around the same location and in almost an identical set of circumstances also would claim to of seen the entity traveling back into town; the witness told of the illuminated ghost at Vallecito Station, and their encounter and the legend of the lantern ghost spread like wildfire. Countless would-be monster hunters and curious sightseers traveled to the desert in search of the eerie glow and the phantom that appears with it. On the third night of one such hunt, on one occasion, a group of monster hunters had happened upon seeing a bizarre glowing object seemingly walking in the same awkwardly stumbling manner that the apparition allegedly had been known for. They followed this skeletal figure for about three miles, one man even attempting to take a shot at the entity until they eventually lost sight of the creature once it ended up in a particularly deep valley.

Modern Sightings of this particular phantom are nonexistent, and this could be because of the lack of prospectors and gold miners as opposed to in the past. Without this scourge of would be fortune seekers, the entity has no reason to scare or warn people away from the location anymore. Yet even before the dawn of the 21st-century, sightings of this anatomical apparition seemed to dwindle; maybe it was the effect of such encounters or perhaps it was some mandatory reaction to some natural event we may never know the answer but tales of the colossal skeleton while sightings are no longer reported still exist in a variety of books and media, but it is from this varying sources that may be a bit of either confusion or evidence of the truth behind the case might have been revealed.

When this case hit the books chronicling Fortean studies, two things became very clear, the first being that there was either some confusion when transcribing these accounts or two that these accounts were pure folklore created to keep people out of the desert. One of the elements of confusion or mis-recording is that most sources claim that the entity is from Anza Borrego, Arizona and that the entity frequently haunts the area from the Superstition Mountains to the Seventeen Palms. This version of the legend states that the entity was once a prospector who worked the Phantom Mine and apparently died protecting the site. This version of the tale appears in Reader’s Digest’s American Folklore and Legend, Barton M. Nunnelly’s The Inhumanoids, and Neil Arnold’s Monster! The A-Z of Zooform Phenomena. However, in another area of the West in California, the legend has been reported there as well with the same accounts being used the area that the spirit is said to roam in the Borrego Badlands and that it frequents an area known as Supernatural Hill; this account shows up in Mysterious California By Mike Marinacci. In Mysterious California, the account and identity of the apparition are often interconnected with another local legend known as the lost Pegleg Smith's gold mine. This gold mine was allegedly located somewhere in the Borrego Badlands, and that this entity was one of the prospectors who went searching for it after dying in the desert his body was completely picked clean by the wildlife, and so his spirit took the form of a colossal skeleton as he continues his search for the gold and also to scare away any in the area. Realistically I think that there was just some misinterpretation when it came to chronicling the source; it happens surprisingly frequently, but there's also a more folkloric explanation for this as well.

A less fun take on this is that both areas have the same stories to fit their alternative lost gold mines legends. I say that this is less fun because this spawns off down the trail of folklore and not into a potentially real encounter. There is an Anthropological phenomenon where cultures that are essentially non-connected create stories and archetypes that are almost identical now; this phenomenon grows and changes, especially with the use of technology, so there is the chance that that is what we see here.

With that said, this apparition is very different than typical entities reported, even those of a skeletal nature. The sheer size of the entity alone is far different than one would expect since ghosts, typically at least from what is reported, tend to maintain the size they were when alive another thing is typically ghosts do not have objects inside them unless that was part of the item that killed them. This entity almost seems like it made either the practical or fashionable choice to put the lantern inside itself, something that if this is the case means we would really need to reassess the can and cants of what spirits are able to do.

My final thoughts on this case are much like most paranormal entities. I want it to be a true creature that stalks the deserts scaring people that come too close, yet I wonder why we don't have more constant reports from the area. A search for Spook Lights in the area almost always turns up more UFO-style events over the area and not something like a glowing humanoid form or even an amorphous ball some 4 to 6 feet off the ground. While some could argue that without the drive, there would be no need for the entity to manifest, or perhaps it found the treasure it so longed for putting the apparition at rest, there's no guarantee for this and its mere speculation. Ghost entities are perhaps the most frustrating bunch of paranormal entities out there for most of the time, they're very human in their motives and behaviors, whereas other times they seem to be doing things that are kind of pointless it makes investigations of the phenomenon more accessible as opposed to bigfooting or UFO hunting where you need to be in the right place at the right time. Ghosts are everywhere, and some are supposedly trapped in locations, so the same should be said for this entity; we should have modern reports of something unless this entity is not a ghost but some other bizarre Fortean phenomenon that we don't even have a name for yet. Perhaps there are reports of this entity, and people are unaware of the legend giving them no reason to report or even a frame of reference, or perhaps there are witnesses, but because of the stigma of such sightings, they do not report on them, all of which if true is understandable. Yet, I have a feeling there won't be a follow-up anytime soon for this case even though it is truly fascinating even though it has a lantern; an answer or further details to this mystery will have to for now remain in the dark.

Artwork of Entity from Reader's Digest's American Folklore and Legend


Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Apparition

Location: the Superstition Mountains to the Seventeen Palms, Anza-Borrego Desert, Borrego, Arizona or Borrego Badlands, Borrego Springs, California

Sighted: Unspecified

Works Cited:

American Folklore and Legend By Readers Digest

The Inhumanoids By Barton M. Nunnelly

Monster! The A-Z of Zooform Phenomena By Neil Arnold

Mysterious California: Strange Places and Eerie Phenomena in the Golden State By Mike Marinacci

Pegleg Smith's Gold. Desert USA. https://www.desertusa.com/treasure/lost/pegleg-gold.html. Accessed September 18, 2021.

 

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