June 1, 2025 • 39 mins
"I don't believe in any nonsense... but I'll keep an open mind. Out here, who knows?"
In July of 1970, an Athena RTV rocket was launched from Green River, Utah. Containing the radioactive element cobalt-57, the rocket was supposed to arc harmlessly down in White Sands, New Mexico. But instead it went rogue, streaking south over the Mexican border to a desolate area near the Durango-Chihuahua state line.
This location, known by many as the "Zone of Silence," has long held a reputation for the unexplained. Dating back to the 1800s, local homesteaders have claimed to witness "hot pebbles" tumbling from the sky. Planes have crashed here, meteorites fall with surprising regularity, and walkie-talkies reportedly malfunction within this sprawling desert. "Mexico's Bermuda Triangle," some have come to call it...
Research by Ira Rai
Writing by Amelia White
Hosting and production by Micheal Whelan
Learn more about this podcast at http://unresolved.me
If you would like to support this podcast, consider heading to https://www.patreon.com/unresolvedpod to become a Patron or Producer
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/unresolved--3266604/support.
In July of 1970, an Athena RTV rocket was launched from Green River, Utah. Containing the radioactive element cobalt-57, the rocket was supposed to arc harmlessly down in White Sands, New Mexico. But instead it went rogue, streaking south over the Mexican border to a desolate area near the Durango-Chihuahua state line.
This location, known by many as the "Zone of Silence," has long held a reputation for the unexplained. Dating back to the 1800s, local homesteaders have claimed to witness "hot pebbles" tumbling from the sky. Planes have crashed here, meteorites fall with surprising regularity, and walkie-talkies reportedly malfunction within this sprawling desert. "Mexico's Bermuda Triangle," some have come to call it...
Research by Ira Rai
Writing by Amelia White
Hosting and production by Micheal Whelan
Learn more about this podcast at http://unresolved.me
If you would like to support this podcast, consider heading to https://www.patreon.com/unresolvedpod to become a Patron or Producer
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/unresolved--3266604/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
This episode contains graphic content that may not be suitable
for all ages. Listener discretion is advised. If you or
someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available,
call or text nine eight eight, or chat with someone
at nine eight eight lifeline dot Org. Those outside of
the US, reach out to someone at your local crisis
(00:24):
center or hotline. Please do not suffer in silence. A clear,
(00:47):
star studded night sky stretched over the Mapimi Desert in
northern Mexico in the early hours of July eleventh, nineteen seventy,
that silence was shattered. Without warning, a US seen a
test rocket launched hundreds of miles away in Utah, streaked
off course, and slammed into the remote desert. Tracking stations
(01:07):
had lost contact with the wayward missile as it vanished
beyond the horizon, leaving officials briefly baffled as to where
it had gone. At daybreak, recovery teams descended on the
crash site, only to find their radio calls home crackling
into static. In this barren patch of cactus and scrub,
normal signals seemed to die in the air. It was
(01:28):
as if the desert itself refused to give up its secrets.
Rumors would soon spread of an eerie silent zone around
the impact site, a place where radios fell mute and
compasses spun astray. A local rancher watching the American convoy
arrive could only marvel something strange had awoken in the desert.
The zone of silence had announced itself to the world
(02:04):
long before it had a name. This corner of the
Chihuahuan Desert held a reputation for the unexplained. Locals say
that as far back as the late eighteen hundreds, isolated
homesteaders witnessed hot pebbles tumbling from the sky, likely meteorites
pelting the sands. In the nineteen thirties, a celebrated Mexican pilot,
Francisco Sarabia, reported that his radio mysteriously died while flying
(02:28):
over this very region. His instruments went haywire in mid air,
making him, as the story goes, the first known victim
of the desert's strange silence. Such incidents were rarely publicized
beyond local lore. The area itself near the Bolson de Mapini,
a vast basin overlapping the states of Durango, Chihuahua, and
(02:48):
Koohila was scarcely populated and seldom visited. Its landscape was
an intimidating expanse of sun baked earth and distant mesas,
Once an ancient seabed of the Tethys Ocean that left
behind abundant salt flats and marine fossils, It wasn't until
the nineteen sixties that the Zone of Silence truly entered
public consciousness. In nineteen sixty six, Mexico's state oil company
(03:12):
Pemex sent a team of engineers to survey this desert
for drilling sites. As the story goes, the expedition's leader,
Augusto D'elapania, found himself grappling with a persistent radio failure.
Out of frustration and awe, he christened the area Lazona
del Salencio, aka the Zone of Silence. Word of Da
(03:32):
Lapania's silent airwaves slowly made the rounds among scientists and
adventure seekers. Whispers grew of a geographic oddity on the
Trino Vertex, where the three state borders meet. Some drew
comparisons to the infamous Bermuda Triangle, noting that both mysteries
sit between the twenty sixth and twenty eighth parallels. Here
(03:53):
was a place, they said, where radio signals refused to pass,
where perhaps the Earth itself used some magnet forest that
nullified technology. Still in the nineteen sixties, these tales remained
a curiosity known to few, but all of that changed
with the explosive event of nineteen seventy, which catapulted the
Zone of Silence from obscurity into international headlines. Just before
(04:28):
two am on that summer night in nineteen seventy, the
Tranquil Desert sky erupted into an otherworldly display. An Athena
ARTV rocket launched from Green River, Utah, was supposed to
arc harmlessly back to ground at White Sands, New Mexico. Instead,
it went rogue streaking south over the Mexican border, hurdling
(04:48):
at thousands of miles per hour. The missile crashed into
a desolate area near the Durango Chihuahua state line, roughly
four hundred miles off course. It carried two small canisters
of the radioactive element cobalt fifty seven, intended for scientific experiments.
In the aftermath, a joint Mexican US recovery operations scrambled
(05:09):
to secure the debris and any contaminated soil. American officials,
uneasy about an international incident, descended on the impact zone
with urgency and secrecy. What happened over the next few
weeks became the fodder for legend. The famous rocket engineer
Werner von Braun himself arrived to supervise parts of the recovery.
Locals watched astonished as fleets of trucks and even bulldozers
(05:33):
rumbled into the desert under tight security. Crews built a
sixteen kilometer makeshift rail line across the sands to haul
out wreckage from the remote crater. Temporary dormitories, labs, kitchens,
an entire base camp sprang up almost overnight. For nearly
a month, the usually empty landscape buzzed with activity. Over
three hundred Mexican workers were enlisted to help the Americans
(05:56):
dig up pieces of the five story rocket and shovel
up tons of a radius soil. By the time late
August rolled around, the task force had scoured the crash
site clean. They left no obvious trace. The crater was
filled in, the rails pulled up, the desert surface restored
to its natural hush. Yet that intense period of secrecy
(06:16):
and labor did not go unnoticed by those who lived
on the desert's fringes. To nearby villagers and ranchers, the
scene was utterly surreal. Us helicopters thumped overhead, men in
strange protective suits combed the ground. Armed soldiers guarded the perimeter. Naturally,
speculation ran wild. Why here? What was so special about
(06:37):
this place that drew a wayward rocket? Under orders to
keep curious onlookers away, American and Mexican officials offered minimal explanations,
further feeding local suspicion. One local man known as Hime
had been hired as a captain to watch over the
crash debris. Him quickly realized that this bizarre event had
given the region an aura of importance, and he rather
(06:59):
enjoyed the attention and the money it brought to him.
After the foreigners departed with their rocket pieces, him became
an enthusiastic storyteller. He eagerly fanned the flames of rumor,
suggesting that something uncanny in the desert had caused the
rocket to fall from the sky. Perhaps he hinted powerful
magnetic forces or other worldly influences in that desert were
(07:21):
at work. Other landowners in the area, sensing an opportunity,
echoed the sentiment that this was no ordinary waste land.
Within months, fantastical claims about the Mapemi crash site began
to take shape. Intriguingly, it wasn't the last time strange
objects rained down here. A few years later, locals were
called a large piece of a US Apollo program rocket
(07:43):
allegedly broke apart over the same region, and US documents
from the era show that a Saturn booster did fragment
and fall in Mexico in the early nineteen seventies, lending
some credence to this tale. To residents, it seemed beyond
coincidence two major space incidents in short succession, both touching
this remote patch of desert. In the public imagination, the
(08:05):
zone of Silence was now cemented as a place of
mystery and danger. Mexico's news media carried sensational headlines about
Mexico's Bermuda Triangle, and in the wake of the Athena crash,
both Mexican and American authorities were said to have dispatched
scientists to investigate whether some natural anomaly lurked here. By
the mid nineteen seventies, the Zone of Silence's eerie reputation
(08:29):
had taken on a life of its own. From the
nineteen seventies onward, the Zone of Silence became a magnet
for bizarre reports. The initial rumors sparked by the missile
incident evolved into an endless amount of tales that added
to the local lore, including UFO anecdotes and paranormal claims.
(08:50):
First and foremost were the tales of malfunctioning communications. Travelers
would later claim that upon entering the zone, their car
radios faded to nothing, and two way rates or walkie
talkies fell dead. Even the voices of companions a short
distance away would allegedly not carry, as if swallowed by
a cone of silence. These silent patches were said to
(09:11):
wander unpredictably. A person might be standing in one utterly
unable to pick up a signal, or even hear someone
shouting a few yards off, while a step or two away,
sound and radio came back. Though there was no real
hard evidence of these effects, the legends of intermittent dead
zones persisted, giving the region its ominous name. Along with
radio failures came stories of navigational oddities. Compass needles were
(09:36):
reported to spin wildly or point in the wrong directions,
as if huge deposits of iron under the sand were
tugging at them. Electronic equipment, people said, could go haywire
for no obvious reason. The belief took hold that strong
magnetic fields or subterranean minerals were distorting the very laws
of physics. Here. Some blamed the rocket crash on those forces,
(09:58):
suggesting that the Athena missile had been drawn off course
or its guidance disrupted by the zone's magnetic anomalies. Others
speculated that the atmosphere above the desert might be peculiar,
perhaps creating a kind of radio interference or ionospheric mirror
that causes signals and rockets to go astray. There was
no scientific proof of any such effect, but in the
(10:19):
story swapping around campfires, the Mappini Desert became a place
where compasses and rockets alike both seem to lose their way.
Night time brings some of the most frequently recounted phenomena
under the desert's ink black skies. Witnesses have described strange
lights dancing on the horizon and in the air. On
many occasions, glowing orbs or light spheres have been seen
(10:42):
flitting above the scrubland. Ranchers tell of brilliant fireballs streaking
across the sky, sometimes silently, other times with a thunderous boom. Remarkably,
two large meteorites fell on the same nearby ranch in
nineteen thirty eight and nineteen fifty four, and another spectacular
meteorite e ssas, floated over the region in nineteen sixty nine,
(11:02):
showering the area with fragments. It's no wonder people began
to feel like this land attracted rocks from the heavens.
Some nights, locals say an eerie glow can be observed
rolling down the distant hills, like ignited pumble weeds of flame.
Whether these are just meteorites and their after effects, or
something more mysterious, these visual displays have fueled the zone's
(11:23):
otherworldly aura. Those who venture out into the dark speak
in hush tones of seeing the sky open up with
unexplainable lights. The strangest stories to emerge from the Zone
of Silence involve encounters with beings not of this world,
or at least not of this locality. Over the years,
numerous witnesses from range families to passing. Motorists have reported
(11:44):
chance meetings with enigmatic strangers. These visitors are often described
as tall, blonde, and blue eyed, speaking perfect Spanish in polite,
quiet tones. They appear suddenly out of the empty desert,
sometimes in moments when travelers are lost or into stress.
One account tells of a family whose truck broke down
under the punishing sun. As the parents grew frantic and
(12:06):
the radio would not work, two unusually tall individuals in
pale clothing seemed to materialize on the road. They offered
water and reassuring words, then vanished without a trace once
help arrived. Geraldo Rivera, No, not the one you're thinking of.
A UFO investigator from Chihuahua has collected many such testimonies.
He noted people often get lost in the zone. When
(12:29):
this happens, sometimes tall blonde beings appear out of nowhere.
These mysterious good Samaritans ask only for water, it is said,
and when asked where they came from, they gesture vaguely
from above. Locals have taken to calling them loose Nordicos,
the Nordics, linking their appearance to a popular archetype of
extraterrestrial encounter. The lore of these Nordics in the Zone
(12:52):
of Silence became so prevalent that some visitors come specifically
hoping to meet these other worldly helpers. Hand in hand
with the stories of alien visitors are reports of classic
UFO phenomena. Travelers in the zone have described sightings of
disc shaped craft hovering silently in the night or darting
lights making impossible maneuvers. A persistent local legend claims that
(13:14):
a UFO crashed in this desert around a century ago,
long before the rocket incident, and that the zone's weirdness
stems from that cosmic accident. While no evidence of any
such crash has ever been found, it has not stopped
UFO enthusiast from scouring the terrain. Some who spend time
in the zone claimed that hours seemed to vanish without notice.
(13:35):
For instance, Benjamin Pealacios, a longtime resident of the area,
recalls an experience from his youth. One evening, he and
his brother witnessed a bright light enveloped them. When it disappeared,
they were turned home disoriented, only to find that two
hours had inexplicably gone missing from their night. Such accounts
of lost time echo classic alien abduction stories and have
(13:56):
only added to the zone's mystique. Over the decades, the
list of audio associated with the Zone of Silence has
grown long, an unusually high number of meteorite falls, patches
of mutated cacti or oddly colored wildlife, reports of telepathic
voices or ghost and even whispers of an ancient subterranean
civilization beneath the desert. As outlandish as many of these
(14:19):
claims are, they have all found a home in the
legend of the Zone. The unending mystery of this place
lies in how seamlessly real scientific intrigue such as meteorites,
lost rockets, magnetic geology has woven together with folklore, aliens,
ghost and time warps to create something that captivates the imagination.
(14:39):
Now we're going to pause for just a moment to
hear a word from the sponsors that support this show.
In the face of so many wild claims, scientists from
Mexico and abroad have taken a closer look at the
Zone of Silence. Not long after the nineteen seventy missile recovery,
the Mexican government recognized the need to study and protect
this unique desert ecosystem. In nineteen seventy seven, they established
(15:03):
the Mappini Biosphere Reserve, which encompasses the Zone of Silence.
At its heart, A permanent research station was built, and
over the years it has hosted biologist, geologist, ant ecologist
from around the world. Officially, their mandate was not to
hunt UFOs or debunk any paranormal tales, of course, but
rather to understand the desert's flora, fauna, and geology. Unofficially,
(15:26):
though many were curious to see if there was any
truth to the zone's mysterious reputation. From a scientific standpoint,
the results have been decidedly ordinary, even disappointingly so from
mystery seekers. Researchers who conduct field work in the reserve
report they have never encountered unusual radio interference. An ecologist
who spent years in the Mapimi Reserve in the late
(15:47):
nineteen eighties noted that neither she nor any of her
colleagues ever had any trouble with radios or compasses. In
other words, all standard equipment functioned normally for the scientist.
When outsiders claimed that their walkie talking would not work,
researchers suspected that those people may have simply been out
of range or using faulty gear. Similarly, detailed magnetic surveys
(16:08):
of the area have found no anomalous readings beyond the
expected variations from local iron rich minerals. There are magnetite
deposits in the soil, as well as abundant meteorite fragments
with high iron content, but nothing strong enough to disrupt
a compass at short range in any extraordinary way. In fact,
scientists point out that if the zone genuinely nullified radio transmissions,
(16:31):
the reserve's own communications would be crippled, which has never
been the case. So what about the famed mutations of
plants and animals? The Biosphere Reserve has given botanist and
zoologists the chance to catalog an impressive array of life
in this desert. They have identified over four hundred plant species,
many uniquely adapted to the salty, arid soil, and have
(16:52):
documented over two hundred types of birds and thirty six
species of reptiles thriving in this harsh environment. Among these
is the iconic Bolson tortoise, north America's largest land reptile,
and indeed some of these tortoises display unusual shell patterns
like triangular markings, but far from being products of cosmic
radiation or genetic mutation. Scientists say that these traits are
(17:15):
natural variations seen in a healthy population. Similarly, a certain
prickly pear cactus in the region turns a striking purple
hue during droughts, which early visitors thought was a bizarre mutation,
but is actually a normal stress response of the plant.
In short, every purported anomaly in local wildlife has had
a down to earth explanation once studied. The desert ecosystem
(17:37):
here is exceptionally rich and distinctive, but it doesn't seem
to be supernatural. If anything, the real scientific marvel of
the zone of silence is how many endemic and rare
species it does harbor, having evolved under extreme conditions of
an ancient sea bed turned desert. But that isn't to
say scientists have ignored the paranormal claims entirely out of curiosity.
(17:58):
Some have tagged along with TV crews or independent investigators
to test the legends. These studies have been informal but illuminating.
In one instance, a team set up a powerful transmitter
on one side of the so called silent zone and
took receivers to various spots to measure signal strength. No
mysterious dropouts were detected beyond the normal effects of distance
(18:20):
and terrain. Mexican geophysicists have also measured background radiation levels
given the area's association with rocket debris and meteorites, and
to found nothing abnormal. The US Air Force, after recovering
their Athena rocket back in nineteen seventy, quietly concluded that
the crash was caused by a guidance system failure, not
any exotic interference. And while it seems like an American
(18:42):
investigative team did visit following the Apollo debris incident, it's
reported that they too found no evidence of magnetic anomalies
or alien technology influencing their hardware. One significant scientific effort, however,
did emerge because of the zone's notoriety. The attention brought
to Mapini in the nineteen seventies indirectly helped secure funding
(19:04):
and interest in studying the desert ecology there. The UNESCO
designation of the Biosphere Reserve was supported in part because
the area had become famous, even if for mythical reasons.
As a result, decades of valuable environmental research have been done.
In an odd way, the myths of the Zone of
Silence paved the way for real science by shining a
(19:25):
spotlight on an overlooked environment. Researchers today continue to study climate, soil,
and wildlife at the reserve. They occasionally field questions from
curiosity seekers about UFOs and magnetic rays, but their focus
remains on the natural world. In summing up years of research,
one scientist wrote that the only unusual thing about the
(19:45):
Zone of Silence is how ordinary it actually is, a beautiful,
fragile desert ecosystem whose greatest mysteries lie in biology and geology,
not the paranormal sign points the way to the Zona
del Celencio, reflecting how the once obscure Mappini Desert has
(20:05):
become a destination for curious travelers. The legend of the
Zone of Silence has seeped deeply into popular culture and
the local economy. After the nineteen seventy missile incident, news
of the strange zones spread across Mexico and beyond, capturing
imaginations during a time of burgeoning interest in the unexplained.
By the nineteen eighties, the area was routinely being dubbed
(20:27):
Mexico's Bermuda Triangle. A land based cousin of the Devil's
Triangle at sea. Mass media featured it in magazines and
TV programs as one of Earth's greatest mysterious locales. The
allure of a forbidden desert where cosmic forces held sway
proved irresistible to some. Tour Buses and adventurous road trippers
started making their way to Drengo's dusty highways in search
(20:50):
of Lezona. Some enterprising locals embraced and at times embellished
the myth to encourage tourism. In the small town of Escalone,
the near a settlement of any size, a ranch was
converted into a sort of informal visitor center with the
UFO themed motif. Visitors who arrived could find murals of
aliens and flying saucers, and there were guides willing to
(21:12):
take them out into the salt flats and scrub lands
where these silent zones were said to lurk. During the
late nineteen eighties, the Mappini Biosphere Reserves Field Station logged
hundreds of drop in visitors each year asking for directions
to the zone of silence. Over six hundred and fifty
people showed up in nineteen eighty nine alone, an anthropologist observed,
noting that many more likely ventured into the desert on
(21:33):
their own. They came in all forms, college student groups
on a lark, foreign tourists armed with cameras and wild theories,
new age spiritualists seeking energy for Texas, and hardcore UFO
hunters with Geiger counters in hand. The phenomenon was not
limited to just Mexicans either. Visitors came from the United States, Europe,
(21:54):
and South America, drawn by articles and word of mouth
that made the zone legendary. And this influx of Zenero's,
as locals nicknamed the paranormal enthusiast, had a mixed reception.
On one hand, it brought a trickle of economic activity
to a very poor region. Some residents earned money as guides,
selling cold drinks or lodging to visitors, and spinning yarns
(22:16):
about their desert's mysteries. The zone's mystique also generated a
sense of local pride, an identity that made their home unique.
On the other hand, not everyone was thrilled. Scientists at
the reserve grew concerned as souvenir hunters began pocketing fossils, rocks,
and even pieces of meteorites as mementoes. The desert's fragile
landscape and scientific value were at risk of being disturbed
(22:39):
by thrill seekers. Reserve officials tried to distance themselves from
the paranormal hype, even as the legend was what inadvertently
funded some of their research. Meanwhile, many longtime villagers simply
found the whole thing amusing. They would watch convoys of
SUVs full of self proclaimed investigators bounce down the dirt
tracks and shake their heads. Some locals took to playing
(23:01):
gentle pranks on global visitors. One ranger, when asked for
the zone's location, deadpanned that they must keep driving until
you see the martians jumping over the road. The tourists
earnestly thanked them and sped off, and then the wiser.
Another field station worker, cornered by insistent travelers asking where
exactly the silent zone was, could only chuckle and say,
(23:22):
you're never going to get there. The locals knew that
in a landscape this fast, a zone could be anywhere
you want it to be. Throughout the nineteen nineties and
two thousands, the Zone of Silence maintained a steady presence
in the alternative tourism and media circuit. It has been
featured on paranormal TV specials, in books about Earth's mysterious places,
and endless online articles. The legend devolved with the times.
(23:46):
Some modern takes emphasized New Age spiritual energy, imagining the
zone as a shakra point of the planet or a
beacon for alien intelligences. The connection with other global mysteries,
the Bermuda Triangle, the Pyramids of Giza, the Dragon's Triangle
in Japan has been a popular theme, with claims often
exaggerated that these sites aligned perfectly on maps or share
(24:10):
some thirty degree north latitude significance. Pop culture has also
taken note. In twenty eighteen, a thriller film titled Celenio
wove the zone's lure into its plot, introducing it to
movie audiences. The zone even inspired a local festival for
a time, with residents of another nearby town organizing an
annual Dia de Salnzio where they'd invite vendors and curious visitors,
(24:34):
part tongue in cheek celebration, part earnest tourism push. However,
the fervor has been tempered somewhat in recent years. Northern
Mexico has faced rising security issues over the past two decades,
which has made casual tourism in remote deserts less popular
than before. The once frequent hordes of zenneros have dwindled
(24:54):
to a trickle. Benjamin Palacios, one of the region's biggest
promoters of the legend life, I meant that fewer people
now venture out, but he remains optimistic. His family ranch,
which lies within the zone, still welcomes the odd intrepid traveler.
Glassio's dreams of building a full fledged tourist mecca dedicated
to the zone's mysteries, complete with cabins named after planets
(25:18):
and guided night tours for UFO spotting. Indeed, a green
road sign on the highway now proudly points the way
to Zona del Salncio at testament to how this once
forgotten desert has put itself on the map. Love it
or laugh at it, the Zone of Silence has become
part of the cultural heritage of the region. More after
the break, What might really be happening in the Zone
(25:56):
of Silence? Over the years, explanations have ranged from the
scientific to the fantastic. On the speculative end, some propose
that the zone sits at a confluence of cosmic or
geophysical forces. One popular theory attributes the anomalies to large
deposits of magnetite or loadstone in the ground, which could
create localized magnetic fields strong enough to disrupt compasses and radios.
(26:18):
This ties in with the known meteorite fragments scattered around,
since meteorites often contain high levels of iron and nickel,
and believers think that the desert may be littered with
space rocks that amplify Earth's magnetism in unusual ways. Another
theory suggests an atmospheric factor, perhaps a quirk of the
ionosphere or geomagnetic field over Mappini, creates a skip zone
(26:41):
where radio waves that normally travel straight instead bend away,
leaving a pocket of silence. This concept of a radio
dead zone is real in some context, but no evidence
has shown that the zone of silence is an epicenter
of it. Then there are the lay line and cosmic
alignment enthusiast They point out that the zone of silence,
the Bermuda Triangle, and the Great Pyramids of Egypt all
(27:04):
lie roughly along the twenty six to twenty eight degree
north latitude band. Could it be They ask that ancient
civilizations and modern mysteries align on a global grid of energy.
In those theories, the zone might be sort of a
planetary vortex, a place where Earth's energies concentrate, or where
interdimensional doorways open. Such claims are virtually impossible to prove,
(27:25):
but they have a certain romantic appeal. A fringe group
in the nineteen eighties even suggested that an ancient extraterrestrial
base or a lost civilization lies beneath the desert, emitting
radiation or magnetic waves that confuse technology. Every imaginative idea
you could think of, from UFO beacons to secret government experiments,
has at some point been proposed to explain the zone's legend.
(27:48):
These theories, while there's no evidence to support them, thrive
in books, late night radio shows, and internet forums, keeping
the zone's mystique alive. On the other side of the
spectrum stand the skeptics and the scientists, who assert that
there are simple explanations for pretty much everything. From their perspective,
the Zone of Silence is a case study in myth
(28:09):
making and misinterpretation, rather than an unsolved scientific puzzle. They
note that Northern Mexico's deserts are naturally remote and sparsely populated.
Radios might seem to go silent simply because you're far
from any broadcast source or or a Peter tower. In
the nineteen sixties, for example, rural areas had spotty radio coverage,
so an oil crew with a weak transmitter could easily
(28:32):
believe something mysterious was afoot when their signals failed. Skeptics
also point out that the Earth's magnetic field does have
some subtle fluctuations, and iron rich rocks can cause compass deviations,
but these exist in many regions without giving rise to
supernatural stories. No rigorous survey has ever identified abnormal magnetic
readings in Mapini beyond what's geologically expected. In short, nothing
(28:56):
indicates that physical laws behave any differently here than elsewhere.
So what then sparked this legend. Many analysts believed that
the answer lies in human psychology and local opportunity. The
zone supernatural reputation, by most accounts, developed in the nineteen
seventies directly after the Athena rocket crash. A massive clean
(29:16):
up with secrecy in foreign military personnel is bound to
sow rumors in any rural community into that fertile ground.
Locals like Hime and others planted the seeds of mystery,
and we've seen those seeds grow in the decades since.
As one science writer dryly noted, the truth of Mapinia
is a lot more mundane than the myth, and that
the legend was essentially invented by enterprising locals hoping to
(29:40):
attract tourist dollars. Over time, the myth took on a
life of its own, evolving and accruing new layers, with
each retelling. The Mexican government's establishment of a research station
in the area a few years later inadvertently added fuel.
Outsiders assumed, why build a lab there unless something is
special about that spot. In reality, the timing was coincidental
(30:02):
and related to environmental conservation, not aliens, but the perception
remained even decades later. Scientists working at the Mappini Reserve
have consistently reported normal conditions. Alleged mutant creatures are shocked
up to misidentified species or natural variance. In essence, Skeptics
argue the zone of silence exists mostly in the mind.
(30:23):
It's a compelling story perpetuated by anecdote and media, rather
than a reality backed up by empirical data. That said,
not everyone is ready to dismiss the zone's mystique outright.
Even some scientists admit that unexplained things can occur in
isolated places, and our understanding of Earth's complexities isn't perfect.
(30:44):
While no anomaly has been confirmed in Mapini, the enduring
allure of the zone lies in the possibility that perhaps
something unusual could still be out there. It sits in
that tantalizing intersection of science and folklore, a reminder that
humans love a mystery, even when the facts points elsewhere.
As one local put it, with a grin on their face,
I don't believe in any nonsense, but I'll keep an
(31:06):
open mind out here. Who knows? And the Zone of
Silence believers and skeptics continue to trade theories, one side
citing magnetic maps and the other side citing personal encounters,
And so the debate, as well as the legend, lives
on today. The Zone of Silence remains a place of
(31:32):
dual identities. On one hand, it is a scientifically unremarkable
stretch of desert, part of a protected biosphere reserve, recognized
for its ecological value and studied by biologists who focus
on desertification, wildlife, and climate. Ask any researcher at the
Mapimi Field Station and they'll tell you that the biggest
challenges they face are ecological, like preserving the endangered tortoises
(31:55):
or managing water resources, not paranormal. They use radio and
GPS daily with no trouble, and some have never even
encountered a tourist asking about the zone, Especially in recent
years as visitation has decreased. In scientific literature, the area's
fame as the Zone of Silence barely warrants a footnote.
(32:16):
It's known instead as an important site for dry land
environmental research and the long term monitoring of desert ecosystems.
In this light, the zone is quiet, indeed, not because
of magnetic waves, but because of its profound isolation and serenity,
disturbed only by the wind in the distant call of
an owl at dusk. On the other hand, the legend
(32:37):
of the Zone of Silence persists, if not in full fervor,
then at least as a quirky piece of modern folklore.
It survives in campfire stories, on websites and YouTube videos,
and on the occasional Daring Traveler's blog. The narrative has
proven resilient even without recent happenings. The historical incidents and
accumulated lore provide plenty of material to speculate about. The
(33:00):
Mexican public's fascination peaked in the late twentieth century, but
many still recall hearing fantastical tales of La Zona. It
has become part of the national mythology of strange places,
akin to how Roswell New Mexico evokes UFOs in the US.
Even mainstream media revisit the topic from time to time.
As recently as this year twenty twenty five, a BBC
(33:22):
Science Focus article revisited the zone's history, acknowledging the supernatural
reputation while concluding that biology, not aliens, was the real draw.
The very need for such an article shows that people
continue to ask what is the Zone of Silence really?
The absence of definitive mysteries hasn't completely killed the curiosity.
(33:43):
Local sentiment around Mappini today is largely one of affectionate amusement.
The older generations who remember the rocket fall and the
influx of outsiders still swap memories of those exciting days.
Younger residents, meanwhile, inherit a story that they know brings
a certain fame to their other wors quiet towns. Some
embrace it by catering to tourists if and when they come.
(34:05):
Others roll their eyes at the mention of aliens and
prefer to talk about the region's real issues and their heritage. Notably,
a small museum of the desert was established in a
nearby city, and it includes a section on the Zone
of Silence, displaying meteorite fragments and photos of the nineteen
seventy clean up, treating the legend as part of local history.
Yet there is also a sense of relief among the
(34:26):
scientific community that the frenzy has calmed. The Biosphere Reserve
staff no longer have to field dozens of questions each
week about martians or moving silent spots, whatever those are.
Occasionally a van full of paranormal enthusiasts will still arrive unannounced,
and the researchers will oblige with a tour and may
be a gentle reality check, but those are fewer and
(34:48):
far between now. It seems like the quieting of human
activity in the zone may be for the best. The
desert can begin to regenerate some of the wear and
tear from past tourism and the wildlife can go about
its business with less disturbance. In a way, the Zone
of Silence has returned to a true silence, but the
idea of the zone remains potent. It symbolizes our desire
(35:10):
to find the extraordinary in the seemingly emptiest of places.
As one writer puts it, the Zone's greatest power is
how it makes us listen a little closer to the static,
to the stars, and to our own love of mystery.
So is there nothing truly supernatural about the Zone of Silence?
All empirical evidence says no. Doesn't seem like there's any
(35:30):
bizarre magnetic vortex, no radio killing force field, no alien
base hidden under the desert ground. Yet stand out there
at dusk amid the purple shadows of distant mountains, and
you might feel a shiver of the uncanny. The stillness
of the air, the canopy of brilliant stars overhead, and
the knowledge that this place has inspired so many strange
(35:52):
tales it can all converge into an atmosphere of deep mystery.
The Zone of Silence today is a land of paradox,
scientific explained yet forever enchanting. It teaches us that sometimes
the stories we create can matter just as much as
the facts on the ground. In the end, the Mappini
silence zone remains, in both legend and reality, a quiet enigma,
(36:14):
a remote desert that continues to echo with questions even
in its silence, And for that reason, I would argue
that the mystery surrounding the zone of silence remains unresolved.
(36:42):
Thank you all for listening to Unresolved. I have been
your host Michael Whelan. Research by Ira Ray and writing
by Amelia White, Production by myself. To learn more about
this podcast, visit the Unresolved website at unresolved dot e.
The producers of this podcast, who support the show each
month on Patreon are Roberta Jansen, Sarah Moscaritolo, Ben crokem Scott, Neacy,
(37:06):
Marian Welsh, Crystal Jay, Justinta Class, Lauren Nicole, James Weiss,
Alex Calogeropolis, Annie Brod, Kevin Tweedy, Stephen Diez, Heather Fiddler,
Anna t CEC Marcus Mitchell, Tabitha Colvin, Trixie Fink, and
Nora or kuy Oh. Thank you all for your continued support.
(37:27):
I still can't believe we are inching ever closer to
the ten year mark of the show, and coincidentally, our
next episode will be the three hundredth full length podcast.
I'm planning on covering a pretty big story, one that
has been as requested as any other since this show
got started back in twenty fifteen. But I'd like to
hear your thoughts. What story do you think I'm covering.
(37:47):
Let me know through email, text, voicemail, or DM. I'd
really like to hear your thoughts. Thank you all once
again for listening. Now I gotta go take care of
that baby that you might hear crying in the background.
But until next time, I hope you also stay healthy,
stay active, and stay safe. Take care O the come
This episode contains graphic content that may not be suitable
for all ages. Listener discretion is advised. If you or
someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available,
call or text nine eight eight, or chat with someone
at nine eight eight lifeline dot Org. Those outside of
the US, reach out to someone at your local crisis
(00:24):
center or hotline. Please do not suffer in silence. A clear,
(00:47):
star studded night sky stretched over the Mapimi Desert in
northern Mexico in the early hours of July eleventh, nineteen seventy,
that silence was shattered. Without warning, a US seen a
test rocket launched hundreds of miles away in Utah, streaked
off course, and slammed into the remote desert. Tracking stations
(01:07):
had lost contact with the wayward missile as it vanished
beyond the horizon, leaving officials briefly baffled as to where
it had gone. At daybreak, recovery teams descended on the
crash site, only to find their radio calls home crackling
into static. In this barren patch of cactus and scrub,
normal signals seemed to die in the air. It was
(01:28):
as if the desert itself refused to give up its secrets.
Rumors would soon spread of an eerie silent zone around
the impact site, a place where radios fell mute and
compasses spun astray. A local rancher watching the American convoy
arrive could only marvel something strange had awoken in the desert.
The zone of silence had announced itself to the world
(02:04):
long before it had a name. This corner of the
Chihuahuan Desert held a reputation for the unexplained. Locals say
that as far back as the late eighteen hundreds, isolated
homesteaders witnessed hot pebbles tumbling from the sky, likely meteorites
pelting the sands. In the nineteen thirties, a celebrated Mexican pilot,
Francisco Sarabia, reported that his radio mysteriously died while flying
(02:28):
over this very region. His instruments went haywire in mid air,
making him, as the story goes, the first known victim
of the desert's strange silence. Such incidents were rarely publicized
beyond local lore. The area itself near the Bolson de Mapini,
a vast basin overlapping the states of Durango, Chihuahua, and
(02:48):
Koohila was scarcely populated and seldom visited. Its landscape was
an intimidating expanse of sun baked earth and distant mesas,
Once an ancient seabed of the Tethys Ocean that left
behind abundant salt flats and marine fossils, It wasn't until
the nineteen sixties that the Zone of Silence truly entered
public consciousness. In nineteen sixty six, Mexico's state oil company
(03:12):
Pemex sent a team of engineers to survey this desert
for drilling sites. As the story goes, the expedition's leader,
Augusto D'elapania, found himself grappling with a persistent radio failure.
Out of frustration and awe, he christened the area Lazona
del Salencio, aka the Zone of Silence. Word of Da
(03:32):
Lapania's silent airwaves slowly made the rounds among scientists and
adventure seekers. Whispers grew of a geographic oddity on the
Trino Vertex, where the three state borders meet. Some drew
comparisons to the infamous Bermuda Triangle, noting that both mysteries
sit between the twenty sixth and twenty eighth parallels. Here
(03:53):
was a place, they said, where radio signals refused to pass,
where perhaps the Earth itself used some magnet forest that
nullified technology. Still in the nineteen sixties, these tales remained
a curiosity known to few, but all of that changed
with the explosive event of nineteen seventy, which catapulted the
Zone of Silence from obscurity into international headlines. Just before
(04:28):
two am on that summer night in nineteen seventy, the
Tranquil Desert sky erupted into an otherworldly display. An Athena
ARTV rocket launched from Green River, Utah, was supposed to
arc harmlessly back to ground at White Sands, New Mexico. Instead,
it went rogue streaking south over the Mexican border, hurdling
(04:48):
at thousands of miles per hour. The missile crashed into
a desolate area near the Durango Chihuahua state line, roughly
four hundred miles off course. It carried two small canisters
of the radioactive element cobalt fifty seven, intended for scientific experiments.
In the aftermath, a joint Mexican US recovery operations scrambled
(05:09):
to secure the debris and any contaminated soil. American officials,
uneasy about an international incident, descended on the impact zone
with urgency and secrecy. What happened over the next few
weeks became the fodder for legend. The famous rocket engineer
Werner von Braun himself arrived to supervise parts of the recovery.
Locals watched astonished as fleets of trucks and even bulldozers
(05:33):
rumbled into the desert under tight security. Crews built a
sixteen kilometer makeshift rail line across the sands to haul
out wreckage from the remote crater. Temporary dormitories, labs, kitchens,
an entire base camp sprang up almost overnight. For nearly
a month, the usually empty landscape buzzed with activity. Over
three hundred Mexican workers were enlisted to help the Americans
(05:56):
dig up pieces of the five story rocket and shovel
up tons of a radius soil. By the time late
August rolled around, the task force had scoured the crash
site clean. They left no obvious trace. The crater was
filled in, the rails pulled up, the desert surface restored
to its natural hush. Yet that intense period of secrecy
(06:16):
and labor did not go unnoticed by those who lived
on the desert's fringes. To nearby villagers and ranchers, the
scene was utterly surreal. Us helicopters thumped overhead, men in
strange protective suits combed the ground. Armed soldiers guarded the perimeter. Naturally,
speculation ran wild. Why here? What was so special about
(06:37):
this place that drew a wayward rocket? Under orders to
keep curious onlookers away, American and Mexican officials offered minimal explanations,
further feeding local suspicion. One local man known as Hime
had been hired as a captain to watch over the
crash debris. Him quickly realized that this bizarre event had
given the region an aura of importance, and he rather
(06:59):
enjoyed the attention and the money it brought to him.
After the foreigners departed with their rocket pieces, him became
an enthusiastic storyteller. He eagerly fanned the flames of rumor,
suggesting that something uncanny in the desert had caused the
rocket to fall from the sky. Perhaps he hinted powerful
magnetic forces or other worldly influences in that desert were
(07:21):
at work. Other landowners in the area, sensing an opportunity,
echoed the sentiment that this was no ordinary waste land.
Within months, fantastical claims about the Mapemi crash site began
to take shape. Intriguingly, it wasn't the last time strange
objects rained down here. A few years later, locals were
called a large piece of a US Apollo program rocket
(07:43):
allegedly broke apart over the same region, and US documents
from the era show that a Saturn booster did fragment
and fall in Mexico in the early nineteen seventies, lending
some credence to this tale. To residents, it seemed beyond
coincidence two major space incidents in short succession, both touching
this remote patch of desert. In the public imagination, the
(08:05):
zone of Silence was now cemented as a place of
mystery and danger. Mexico's news media carried sensational headlines about
Mexico's Bermuda Triangle, and in the wake of the Athena crash,
both Mexican and American authorities were said to have dispatched
scientists to investigate whether some natural anomaly lurked here. By
the mid nineteen seventies, the Zone of Silence's eerie reputation
(08:29):
had taken on a life of its own. From the
nineteen seventies onward, the Zone of Silence became a magnet
for bizarre reports. The initial rumors sparked by the missile
incident evolved into an endless amount of tales that added
to the local lore, including UFO anecdotes and paranormal claims.
(08:50):
First and foremost were the tales of malfunctioning communications. Travelers
would later claim that upon entering the zone, their car
radios faded to nothing, and two way rates or walkie
talkies fell dead. Even the voices of companions a short
distance away would allegedly not carry, as if swallowed by
a cone of silence. These silent patches were said to
(09:11):
wander unpredictably. A person might be standing in one utterly
unable to pick up a signal, or even hear someone
shouting a few yards off, while a step or two away,
sound and radio came back. Though there was no real
hard evidence of these effects, the legends of intermittent dead
zones persisted, giving the region its ominous name. Along with
radio failures came stories of navigational oddities. Compass needles were
(09:36):
reported to spin wildly or point in the wrong directions,
as if huge deposits of iron under the sand were
tugging at them. Electronic equipment, people said, could go haywire
for no obvious reason. The belief took hold that strong
magnetic fields or subterranean minerals were distorting the very laws
of physics. Here. Some blamed the rocket crash on those forces,
(09:58):
suggesting that the Athena missile had been drawn off course
or its guidance disrupted by the zone's magnetic anomalies. Others
speculated that the atmosphere above the desert might be peculiar,
perhaps creating a kind of radio interference or ionospheric mirror
that causes signals and rockets to go astray. There was
no scientific proof of any such effect, but in the
(10:19):
story swapping around campfires, the Mappini Desert became a place
where compasses and rockets alike both seem to lose their way.
Night time brings some of the most frequently recounted phenomena
under the desert's ink black skies. Witnesses have described strange
lights dancing on the horizon and in the air. On
many occasions, glowing orbs or light spheres have been seen
(10:42):
flitting above the scrubland. Ranchers tell of brilliant fireballs streaking
across the sky, sometimes silently, other times with a thunderous boom. Remarkably,
two large meteorites fell on the same nearby ranch in
nineteen thirty eight and nineteen fifty four, and another spectacular
meteorite e ssas, floated over the region in nineteen sixty nine,
(11:02):
showering the area with fragments. It's no wonder people began
to feel like this land attracted rocks from the heavens.
Some nights, locals say an eerie glow can be observed
rolling down the distant hills, like ignited pumble weeds of flame.
Whether these are just meteorites and their after effects, or
something more mysterious, these visual displays have fueled the zone's
(11:23):
otherworldly aura. Those who venture out into the dark speak
in hush tones of seeing the sky open up with
unexplainable lights. The strangest stories to emerge from the Zone
of Silence involve encounters with beings not of this world,
or at least not of this locality. Over the years,
numerous witnesses from range families to passing. Motorists have reported
(11:44):
chance meetings with enigmatic strangers. These visitors are often described
as tall, blonde, and blue eyed, speaking perfect Spanish in polite,
quiet tones. They appear suddenly out of the empty desert,
sometimes in moments when travelers are lost or into stress.
One account tells of a family whose truck broke down
under the punishing sun. As the parents grew frantic and
(12:06):
the radio would not work, two unusually tall individuals in
pale clothing seemed to materialize on the road. They offered
water and reassuring words, then vanished without a trace once
help arrived. Geraldo Rivera, No, not the one you're thinking of.
A UFO investigator from Chihuahua has collected many such testimonies.
He noted people often get lost in the zone. When
(12:29):
this happens, sometimes tall blonde beings appear out of nowhere.
These mysterious good Samaritans ask only for water, it is said,
and when asked where they came from, they gesture vaguely
from above. Locals have taken to calling them loose Nordicos,
the Nordics, linking their appearance to a popular archetype of
extraterrestrial encounter. The lore of these Nordics in the Zone
(12:52):
of Silence became so prevalent that some visitors come specifically
hoping to meet these other worldly helpers. Hand in hand
with the stories of alien visitors are reports of classic
UFO phenomena. Travelers in the zone have described sightings of
disc shaped craft hovering silently in the night or darting
lights making impossible maneuvers. A persistent local legend claims that
(13:14):
a UFO crashed in this desert around a century ago,
long before the rocket incident, and that the zone's weirdness
stems from that cosmic accident. While no evidence of any
such crash has ever been found, it has not stopped
UFO enthusiast from scouring the terrain. Some who spend time
in the zone claimed that hours seemed to vanish without notice.
(13:35):
For instance, Benjamin Pealacios, a longtime resident of the area,
recalls an experience from his youth. One evening, he and
his brother witnessed a bright light enveloped them. When it disappeared,
they were turned home disoriented, only to find that two
hours had inexplicably gone missing from their night. Such accounts
of lost time echo classic alien abduction stories and have
(13:56):
only added to the zone's mystique. Over the decades, the
list of audio associated with the Zone of Silence has
grown long, an unusually high number of meteorite falls, patches
of mutated cacti or oddly colored wildlife, reports of telepathic
voices or ghost and even whispers of an ancient subterranean
civilization beneath the desert. As outlandish as many of these
(14:19):
claims are, they have all found a home in the
legend of the Zone. The unending mystery of this place
lies in how seamlessly real scientific intrigue such as meteorites,
lost rockets, magnetic geology has woven together with folklore, aliens,
ghost and time warps to create something that captivates the imagination.
(14:39):
Now we're going to pause for just a moment to
hear a word from the sponsors that support this show.
In the face of so many wild claims, scientists from
Mexico and abroad have taken a closer look at the
Zone of Silence. Not long after the nineteen seventy missile recovery,
the Mexican government recognized the need to study and protect
this unique desert ecosystem. In nineteen seventy seven, they established
(15:03):
the Mappini Biosphere Reserve, which encompasses the Zone of Silence.
At its heart, A permanent research station was built, and
over the years it has hosted biologist, geologist, ant ecologist
from around the world. Officially, their mandate was not to
hunt UFOs or debunk any paranormal tales, of course, but
rather to understand the desert's flora, fauna, and geology. Unofficially,
(15:26):
though many were curious to see if there was any
truth to the zone's mysterious reputation. From a scientific standpoint,
the results have been decidedly ordinary, even disappointingly so from
mystery seekers. Researchers who conduct field work in the reserve
report they have never encountered unusual radio interference. An ecologist
who spent years in the Mapimi Reserve in the late
(15:47):
nineteen eighties noted that neither she nor any of her
colleagues ever had any trouble with radios or compasses. In
other words, all standard equipment functioned normally for the scientist.
When outsiders claimed that their walkie talking would not work,
researchers suspected that those people may have simply been out
of range or using faulty gear. Similarly, detailed magnetic surveys
(16:08):
of the area have found no anomalous readings beyond the
expected variations from local iron rich minerals. There are magnetite
deposits in the soil, as well as abundant meteorite fragments
with high iron content, but nothing strong enough to disrupt
a compass at short range in any extraordinary way. In fact,
scientists point out that if the zone genuinely nullified radio transmissions,
(16:31):
the reserve's own communications would be crippled, which has never
been the case. So what about the famed mutations of
plants and animals? The Biosphere Reserve has given botanist and
zoologists the chance to catalog an impressive array of life
in this desert. They have identified over four hundred plant species,
many uniquely adapted to the salty, arid soil, and have
(16:52):
documented over two hundred types of birds and thirty six
species of reptiles thriving in this harsh environment. Among these
is the iconic Bolson tortoise, north America's largest land reptile,
and indeed some of these tortoises display unusual shell patterns
like triangular markings, but far from being products of cosmic
radiation or genetic mutation. Scientists say that these traits are
(17:15):
natural variations seen in a healthy population. Similarly, a certain
prickly pear cactus in the region turns a striking purple
hue during droughts, which early visitors thought was a bizarre mutation,
but is actually a normal stress response of the plant.
In short, every purported anomaly in local wildlife has had
a down to earth explanation once studied. The desert ecosystem
(17:37):
here is exceptionally rich and distinctive, but it doesn't seem
to be supernatural. If anything, the real scientific marvel of
the zone of silence is how many endemic and rare
species it does harbor, having evolved under extreme conditions of
an ancient sea bed turned desert. But that isn't to
say scientists have ignored the paranormal claims entirely out of curiosity.
(17:58):
Some have tagged along with TV crews or independent investigators
to test the legends. These studies have been informal but illuminating.
In one instance, a team set up a powerful transmitter
on one side of the so called silent zone and
took receivers to various spots to measure signal strength. No
mysterious dropouts were detected beyond the normal effects of distance
(18:20):
and terrain. Mexican geophysicists have also measured background radiation levels
given the area's association with rocket debris and meteorites, and
to found nothing abnormal. The US Air Force, after recovering
their Athena rocket back in nineteen seventy, quietly concluded that
the crash was caused by a guidance system failure, not
any exotic interference. And while it seems like an American
(18:42):
investigative team did visit following the Apollo debris incident, it's
reported that they too found no evidence of magnetic anomalies
or alien technology influencing their hardware. One significant scientific effort, however,
did emerge because of the zone's notoriety. The attention brought
to Mapini in the nineteen seventies indirectly helped secure funding
(19:04):
and interest in studying the desert ecology there. The UNESCO
designation of the Biosphere Reserve was supported in part because
the area had become famous, even if for mythical reasons.
As a result, decades of valuable environmental research have been done.
In an odd way, the myths of the Zone of
Silence paved the way for real science by shining a
(19:25):
spotlight on an overlooked environment. Researchers today continue to study climate, soil,
and wildlife at the reserve. They occasionally field questions from
curiosity seekers about UFOs and magnetic rays, but their focus
remains on the natural world. In summing up years of research,
one scientist wrote that the only unusual thing about the
(19:45):
Zone of Silence is how ordinary it actually is, a beautiful,
fragile desert ecosystem whose greatest mysteries lie in biology and geology,
not the paranormal sign points the way to the Zona
del Celencio, reflecting how the once obscure Mappini Desert has
(20:05):
become a destination for curious travelers. The legend of the
Zone of Silence has seeped deeply into popular culture and
the local economy. After the nineteen seventy missile incident, news
of the strange zones spread across Mexico and beyond, capturing
imaginations during a time of burgeoning interest in the unexplained.
By the nineteen eighties, the area was routinely being dubbed
(20:27):
Mexico's Bermuda Triangle. A land based cousin of the Devil's
Triangle at sea. Mass media featured it in magazines and
TV programs as one of Earth's greatest mysterious locales. The
allure of a forbidden desert where cosmic forces held sway
proved irresistible to some. Tour Buses and adventurous road trippers
started making their way to Drengo's dusty highways in search
(20:50):
of Lezona. Some enterprising locals embraced and at times embellished
the myth to encourage tourism. In the small town of Escalone,
the near a settlement of any size, a ranch was
converted into a sort of informal visitor center with the
UFO themed motif. Visitors who arrived could find murals of
aliens and flying saucers, and there were guides willing to
(21:12):
take them out into the salt flats and scrub lands
where these silent zones were said to lurk. During the
late nineteen eighties, the Mappini Biosphere Reserves Field Station logged
hundreds of drop in visitors each year asking for directions
to the zone of silence. Over six hundred and fifty
people showed up in nineteen eighty nine alone, an anthropologist observed,
noting that many more likely ventured into the desert on
(21:33):
their own. They came in all forms, college student groups
on a lark, foreign tourists armed with cameras and wild theories,
new age spiritualists seeking energy for Texas, and hardcore UFO
hunters with Geiger counters in hand. The phenomenon was not
limited to just Mexicans either. Visitors came from the United States, Europe,
(21:54):
and South America, drawn by articles and word of mouth
that made the zone legendary. And this influx of Zenero's,
as locals nicknamed the paranormal enthusiast, had a mixed reception.
On one hand, it brought a trickle of economic activity
to a very poor region. Some residents earned money as guides,
selling cold drinks or lodging to visitors, and spinning yarns
(22:16):
about their desert's mysteries. The zone's mystique also generated a
sense of local pride, an identity that made their home unique.
On the other hand, not everyone was thrilled. Scientists at
the reserve grew concerned as souvenir hunters began pocketing fossils, rocks,
and even pieces of meteorites as mementoes. The desert's fragile
landscape and scientific value were at risk of being disturbed
(22:39):
by thrill seekers. Reserve officials tried to distance themselves from
the paranormal hype, even as the legend was what inadvertently
funded some of their research. Meanwhile, many longtime villagers simply
found the whole thing amusing. They would watch convoys of
SUVs full of self proclaimed investigators bounce down the dirt
tracks and shake their heads. Some locals took to playing
(23:01):
gentle pranks on global visitors. One ranger, when asked for
the zone's location, deadpanned that they must keep driving until
you see the martians jumping over the road. The tourists
earnestly thanked them and sped off, and then the wiser.
Another field station worker, cornered by insistent travelers asking where
exactly the silent zone was, could only chuckle and say,
(23:22):
you're never going to get there. The locals knew that
in a landscape this fast, a zone could be anywhere
you want it to be. Throughout the nineteen nineties and
two thousands, the Zone of Silence maintained a steady presence
in the alternative tourism and media circuit. It has been
featured on paranormal TV specials, in books about Earth's mysterious places,
and endless online articles. The legend devolved with the times.
(23:46):
Some modern takes emphasized New Age spiritual energy, imagining the
zone as a shakra point of the planet or a
beacon for alien intelligences. The connection with other global mysteries,
the Bermuda Triangle, the Pyramids of Giza, the Dragon's Triangle
in Japan has been a popular theme, with claims often
exaggerated that these sites aligned perfectly on maps or share
(24:10):
some thirty degree north latitude significance. Pop culture has also
taken note. In twenty eighteen, a thriller film titled Celenio
wove the zone's lure into its plot, introducing it to
movie audiences. The zone even inspired a local festival for
a time, with residents of another nearby town organizing an
annual Dia de Salnzio where they'd invite vendors and curious visitors,
(24:34):
part tongue in cheek celebration, part earnest tourism push. However,
the fervor has been tempered somewhat in recent years. Northern
Mexico has faced rising security issues over the past two decades,
which has made casual tourism in remote deserts less popular
than before. The once frequent hordes of zenneros have dwindled
(24:54):
to a trickle. Benjamin Palacios, one of the region's biggest
promoters of the legend life, I meant that fewer people
now venture out, but he remains optimistic. His family ranch,
which lies within the zone, still welcomes the odd intrepid traveler.
Glassio's dreams of building a full fledged tourist mecca dedicated
to the zone's mysteries, complete with cabins named after planets
(25:18):
and guided night tours for UFO spotting. Indeed, a green
road sign on the highway now proudly points the way
to Zona del Salncio at testament to how this once
forgotten desert has put itself on the map. Love it
or laugh at it, the Zone of Silence has become
part of the cultural heritage of the region. More after
the break, What might really be happening in the Zone
(25:56):
of Silence? Over the years, explanations have ranged from the
scientific to the fantastic. On the speculative end, some propose
that the zone sits at a confluence of cosmic or
geophysical forces. One popular theory attributes the anomalies to large
deposits of magnetite or loadstone in the ground, which could
create localized magnetic fields strong enough to disrupt compasses and radios.
(26:18):
This ties in with the known meteorite fragments scattered around,
since meteorites often contain high levels of iron and nickel,
and believers think that the desert may be littered with
space rocks that amplify Earth's magnetism in unusual ways. Another
theory suggests an atmospheric factor, perhaps a quirk of the
ionosphere or geomagnetic field over Mappini, creates a skip zone
(26:41):
where radio waves that normally travel straight instead bend away,
leaving a pocket of silence. This concept of a radio
dead zone is real in some context, but no evidence
has shown that the zone of silence is an epicenter
of it. Then there are the lay line and cosmic
alignment enthusiast They point out that the zone of silence,
the Bermuda Triangle, and the Great Pyramids of Egypt all
(27:04):
lie roughly along the twenty six to twenty eight degree
north latitude band. Could it be They ask that ancient
civilizations and modern mysteries align on a global grid of energy.
In those theories, the zone might be sort of a
planetary vortex, a place where Earth's energies concentrate, or where
interdimensional doorways open. Such claims are virtually impossible to prove,
(27:25):
but they have a certain romantic appeal. A fringe group
in the nineteen eighties even suggested that an ancient extraterrestrial
base or a lost civilization lies beneath the desert, emitting
radiation or magnetic waves that confuse technology. Every imaginative idea
you could think of, from UFO beacons to secret government experiments,
has at some point been proposed to explain the zone's legend.
(27:48):
These theories, while there's no evidence to support them, thrive
in books, late night radio shows, and internet forums, keeping
the zone's mystique alive. On the other side of the
spectrum stand the skeptics and the scientists, who assert that
there are simple explanations for pretty much everything. From their perspective,
the Zone of Silence is a case study in myth
(28:09):
making and misinterpretation, rather than an unsolved scientific puzzle. They
note that Northern Mexico's deserts are naturally remote and sparsely populated.
Radios might seem to go silent simply because you're far
from any broadcast source or or a Peter tower. In
the nineteen sixties, for example, rural areas had spotty radio coverage,
so an oil crew with a weak transmitter could easily
(28:32):
believe something mysterious was afoot when their signals failed. Skeptics
also point out that the Earth's magnetic field does have
some subtle fluctuations, and iron rich rocks can cause compass deviations,
but these exist in many regions without giving rise to
supernatural stories. No rigorous survey has ever identified abnormal magnetic
readings in Mapini beyond what's geologically expected. In short, nothing
(28:56):
indicates that physical laws behave any differently here than elsewhere.
So what then sparked this legend. Many analysts believed that
the answer lies in human psychology and local opportunity. The
zone supernatural reputation, by most accounts, developed in the nineteen
seventies directly after the Athena rocket crash. A massive clean
(29:16):
up with secrecy in foreign military personnel is bound to
sow rumors in any rural community into that fertile ground.
Locals like Hime and others planted the seeds of mystery,
and we've seen those seeds grow in the decades since.
As one science writer dryly noted, the truth of Mapinia
is a lot more mundane than the myth, and that
the legend was essentially invented by enterprising locals hoping to
(29:40):
attract tourist dollars. Over time, the myth took on a
life of its own, evolving and accruing new layers, with
each retelling. The Mexican government's establishment of a research station
in the area a few years later inadvertently added fuel.
Outsiders assumed, why build a lab there unless something is
special about that spot. In reality, the timing was coincidental
(30:02):
and related to environmental conservation, not aliens, but the perception
remained even decades later. Scientists working at the Mappini Reserve
have consistently reported normal conditions. Alleged mutant creatures are shocked
up to misidentified species or natural variance. In essence, Skeptics
argue the zone of silence exists mostly in the mind.
(30:23):
It's a compelling story perpetuated by anecdote and media, rather
than a reality backed up by empirical data. That said,
not everyone is ready to dismiss the zone's mystique outright.
Even some scientists admit that unexplained things can occur in
isolated places, and our understanding of Earth's complexities isn't perfect.
(30:44):
While no anomaly has been confirmed in Mapini, the enduring
allure of the zone lies in the possibility that perhaps
something unusual could still be out there. It sits in
that tantalizing intersection of science and folklore, a reminder that
humans love a mystery, even when the facts points elsewhere.
As one local put it, with a grin on their face,
I don't believe in any nonsense, but I'll keep an
(31:06):
open mind out here. Who knows? And the Zone of
Silence believers and skeptics continue to trade theories, one side
citing magnetic maps and the other side citing personal encounters,
And so the debate, as well as the legend, lives
on today. The Zone of Silence remains a place of
(31:32):
dual identities. On one hand, it is a scientifically unremarkable
stretch of desert, part of a protected biosphere reserve, recognized
for its ecological value and studied by biologists who focus
on desertification, wildlife, and climate. Ask any researcher at the
Mapimi Field Station and they'll tell you that the biggest
challenges they face are ecological, like preserving the endangered tortoises
(31:55):
or managing water resources, not paranormal. They use radio and
GPS daily with no trouble, and some have never even
encountered a tourist asking about the zone, Especially in recent
years as visitation has decreased. In scientific literature, the area's
fame as the Zone of Silence barely warrants a footnote.
(32:16):
It's known instead as an important site for dry land
environmental research and the long term monitoring of desert ecosystems.
In this light, the zone is quiet, indeed, not because
of magnetic waves, but because of its profound isolation and serenity,
disturbed only by the wind in the distant call of
an owl at dusk. On the other hand, the legend
(32:37):
of the Zone of Silence persists, if not in full fervor,
then at least as a quirky piece of modern folklore.
It survives in campfire stories, on websites and YouTube videos,
and on the occasional Daring Traveler's blog. The narrative has
proven resilient even without recent happenings. The historical incidents and
accumulated lore provide plenty of material to speculate about. The
(33:00):
Mexican public's fascination peaked in the late twentieth century, but
many still recall hearing fantastical tales of La Zona. It
has become part of the national mythology of strange places,
akin to how Roswell New Mexico evokes UFOs in the US.
Even mainstream media revisit the topic from time to time.
As recently as this year twenty twenty five, a BBC
(33:22):
Science Focus article revisited the zone's history, acknowledging the supernatural
reputation while concluding that biology, not aliens, was the real draw.
The very need for such an article shows that people
continue to ask what is the Zone of Silence really?
The absence of definitive mysteries hasn't completely killed the curiosity.
(33:43):
Local sentiment around Mappini today is largely one of affectionate amusement.
The older generations who remember the rocket fall and the
influx of outsiders still swap memories of those exciting days.
Younger residents, meanwhile, inherit a story that they know brings
a certain fame to their other wors quiet towns. Some
embrace it by catering to tourists if and when they come.
(34:05):
Others roll their eyes at the mention of aliens and
prefer to talk about the region's real issues and their heritage. Notably,
a small museum of the desert was established in a
nearby city, and it includes a section on the Zone
of Silence, displaying meteorite fragments and photos of the nineteen
seventy clean up, treating the legend as part of local history.
Yet there is also a sense of relief among the
(34:26):
scientific community that the frenzy has calmed. The Biosphere Reserve
staff no longer have to field dozens of questions each
week about martians or moving silent spots, whatever those are.
Occasionally a van full of paranormal enthusiasts will still arrive unannounced,
and the researchers will oblige with a tour and may
be a gentle reality check, but those are fewer and
(34:48):
far between now. It seems like the quieting of human
activity in the zone may be for the best. The
desert can begin to regenerate some of the wear and
tear from past tourism and the wildlife can go about
its business with less disturbance. In a way, the Zone
of Silence has returned to a true silence, but the
idea of the zone remains potent. It symbolizes our desire
(35:10):
to find the extraordinary in the seemingly emptiest of places.
As one writer puts it, the Zone's greatest power is
how it makes us listen a little closer to the static,
to the stars, and to our own love of mystery.
So is there nothing truly supernatural about the Zone of Silence?
All empirical evidence says no. Doesn't seem like there's any
(35:30):
bizarre magnetic vortex, no radio killing force field, no alien
base hidden under the desert ground. Yet stand out there
at dusk amid the purple shadows of distant mountains, and
you might feel a shiver of the uncanny. The stillness
of the air, the canopy of brilliant stars overhead, and
the knowledge that this place has inspired so many strange
(35:52):
tales it can all converge into an atmosphere of deep mystery.
The Zone of Silence today is a land of paradox,
scientific explained yet forever enchanting. It teaches us that sometimes
the stories we create can matter just as much as
the facts on the ground. In the end, the Mappini
silence zone remains, in both legend and reality, a quiet enigma,
(36:14):
a remote desert that continues to echo with questions even
in its silence, And for that reason, I would argue
that the mystery surrounding the zone of silence remains unresolved.
(36:42):
Thank you all for listening to Unresolved. I have been
your host Michael Whelan. Research by Ira Ray and writing
by Amelia White, Production by myself. To learn more about
this podcast, visit the Unresolved website at unresolved dot e.
The producers of this podcast, who support the show each
month on Patreon are Roberta Jansen, Sarah Moscaritolo, Ben crokem Scott, Neacy,
(37:06):
Marian Welsh, Crystal Jay, Justinta Class, Lauren Nicole, James Weiss,
Alex Calogeropolis, Annie Brod, Kevin Tweedy, Stephen Diez, Heather Fiddler,
Anna t CEC Marcus Mitchell, Tabitha Colvin, Trixie Fink, and
Nora or kuy Oh. Thank you all for your continued support.
(37:27):
I still can't believe we are inching ever closer to
the ten year mark of the show, and coincidentally, our
next episode will be the three hundredth full length podcast.
I'm planning on covering a pretty big story, one that
has been as requested as any other since this show
got started back in twenty fifteen. But I'd like to
hear your thoughts. What story do you think I'm covering.
(37:47):
Let me know through email, text, voicemail, or DM. I'd
really like to hear your thoughts. Thank you all once
again for listening. Now I gotta go take care of
that baby that you might hear crying in the background.
But until next time, I hope you also stay healthy,
stay active, and stay safe. Take care O the come
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