The desert is a harsh and dangerous land for people. Perhaps this is why ghost and ghost stories are so popular in places dominated by the desert. You will read some of these eerie and sinister desert legends in this article.
Everyone in California knows about the ghost of the White Lady. According to legend, in the early 1850s, a young girl arrived at Vallecito Station in the Anza-Borrego Desert in California on her way to her fiancé in Sacramento. But she did not get to Sacramento, dying in the desert from lack of water. She was buried in an unmarked grave near Vallecito. And to this day, local residents say, the ghost of a girl in white appears from time to time at the site of Vallecito station. She stands in the middle of the desert, as if waiting for the groom to come to her.
Locals have repeatedly talked about encounters in the Anza-Borrego Desert in young California with huge hairy creatures, according to descriptions, similar to Bigfoot - if there was snow in California. The locals call him Bigfoot. For the first time, a local man spoke about his meetings with Bigfoot in 1939. Left to spend the night in the desert, he was awakened by a whole flock of huge creatures. They walked on two legs and were covered with silvery fur. They were clearly afraid of the fire, and when they saw the fire, they fled in fear. Since then, there have been at least a dozen evidences of the existence of Bigfoots - however, documentary evidence is still scarce.
In 1990, a group of teenagers went to the Chihuahua Desert for new experiences, bringing with them yet another terrible legend. According to them, in the desert, they first stumbled upon a pair of torn ungulate corpses - and soon noticed those who, presumably, had killed the animals. They were small two-legged creatures covered with green hair, about 80 centimeters tall, but very toothy! One of the creatures, noticing the people, chased after them, not even frightened by pistol shots! Since then, the green ghosts of the Chihuahua Desert have become an object of fear and interest for local residents.
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The legendary desert town of Toomstone, the former home of the famous Sheriff Wyatt Earp, is considered one of the most haunted places in the United States. Locals say that since Wyatt Earp and his people shot a gang of robbers here in 1881, their ghosts have settled here and still haunt the peace of the locals, appearing on the streets.
Legends of giant desert snakes have been wandering among the inhabitants of the Sahara desert for two hundred years. According to rumors, these snakes come unexpectedly from the desert, killing and devouring goats, cows, camels and even humans. These snakes, according to nomads, reach a length of 20 meters, some have horns on their heads, others have terrifying bone ridges. This could be considered just an ancient legend, if in our time, starting from the 1960s, rumors of 9-10-meter snakes killed in the desert, unlike any known species, were not heard from the Sahara.
The legend of the ghost train has been around in Arizona since the 19th century. According to her, one day a young gold digger got lost in the Arizona desert. He no longer hoped for anything and, exhausted from hunger and thirst, sank to the ground. But then a train stopped next to him, and the polite conductor kindly invited him into the car. Little understanding of where the train had come from in the desert, he sat down on a seat and dozed off. He woke up when someone sprayed water in his face. It turned out to be the local sheriff with his men, who said that he was five miles from Willocks, and that there were no trains in these parts since birth. And today, some Arizona residents swear that they saw a train in the desert, silently disappearing beyond the horizon.
In the 1860s, in the vicinity of the town of Vallecito, a group of robbers attacked a coach laden with gold, killing the driver and all passengers. Since then, residents of the city of Vallecito have been telling each other about the ghost stagecoach that roams around the former Carrizo station. The black carriage is driven by a ghost in a coachman's hat and carried by ghostly mules. It seems that the driver is trying to find his killers - at least he does not pay attention to other people, and, seeing them, disappears into the distance.
And this legend from the Brazilian state of Maranhao is clearly more modern. The locals whisper to each other about the ghostly jeep driving through the desert. It can be seen only in the most impassable places, and only from a distance, because upon seeing people or other vehicle, the jeep immediately accelerates and disappears in the distance. You can recognize it by the dazzlingly bright headlights that dazzle the eyes of drivers. He does not cause any harm to people, but, like everything supernatural, they are afraid of him.
This legend is much nicer than the rest: stories about treasures are pleasing to the ear and stimulates the imagination. However, if you believe the ancient legends of the Apaches, their treasure carries death. Native American legends tell about a forgotten gold mine called the "Dutchman's mine", forgotten in time immemorial in the desert, in the area of the present city of Phoenix in Arizona, and guarded by the god of thunder himself. According to legend, in the 19th century, despite warnings, they set out in search. The expedition ended badly: the members of the search detachment disappeared one by one. The Apache treasure, according to legend, still lies in the desert today, but now it is guarded by a detachment of ghostly Spanish warriors.
The desert place, where, according to legend, the Dutchman's gold mine is located, is not for nothing called the Mountains of Superstition. There are many stories of ghosts in this area. According to one of them, revived skeletons roam the mountains. These are the spirits of three dead emigrants who quarreled over gold in the area of the Yaki well. Two of them died at the hands of their comrades, and the third, losing his mind, fled into the desert. Since then, the water in the well has been under their protection, and, being in the area, they can easily be seen wandering around the source.
Residents of the city of Santa Fe, New Mexico, fear the headless horseman who drives through city streets at night, heading towards Alto Street and further to the riverbank. According to rumors, this is the ghost of a man who, a couple of centuries ago, turned to a local witch for a love drink, with which he wanted to drink his girlfriend, but did not agree with her on the price, and during a quarrel, the witch cut off his head. Since then, the legend has it, the ghost has been traveling the streets in search of either a beloved or an offensive witch. Despite the fact that the rider is armed with a sword, he did no harm to anyone, but he still catches up a lot of fear.
Residents of South America do not doubt the existence of the Chupacabra, although witnesses have seen this beast, at best, briefly. Chupacabra lives in desert areas, hides in rare bushes during the day, and at night sneaks into villages and barbarously destroys livestock. She does not eat the slaughtered cattle, but only sucks the brain, eyes and blood. At the same time, the chupacabra does this so deftly that no gate and locks can stop it. Dozens of peasants from South America in the morning found bloodless domestic animals in their pens, although no one was lucky enough to catch the culprit.
Another skeleton - huge and shining with death light - according to legend, has been roaming the mountains of Arizona since at least 1800, when a man nicknamed Charlie Arizona noticed it while driving through the desert. According to his stories, the skeleton was at least 2.5 meters tall, between his ribs a lantern was shining with phosphoric light, and he seemed to be looking for someone in a rare bush. Not noticing Charlie, he disappeared. Probably, Charlie's story would be considered a drunken delirium, but over the past two and a half centuries, at least a dozen more people have reported about the glowing bony ghost.
In Texas, in the Chihuahua Desert, near the city of Martha, people have watched for many years the ghostly lights that light up over the desert sands. They were first spoken about by local resident Robert Ellison in 1883, and since then they have been seen dozens of times and have even been videotaped! True, no one knows about the significance of this phenomenon. Indians consider them shooting stars, ufologists take them for UFOs, and scientists shrug their shoulders altogether. Be that as it may, in this case, the existence of the phenomenon is documented. But it is still far from solving it.
Highway 666, which runs through the deserts of the states of Arizona, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico, is considered the most sinister highway in America. There are many ghost stories associated with it. Many people know about the "infernal sedan" - a ghostly car that, blinded by headlights, rushes towards the cars in order to disappear at the last moment. Another legend tells of the "Hellhounds", a pack of ghostly dogs that suddenly appears on the highway and rushes at cars with terrible barking. There are many cases when drivers named these phenomena, which they allegedly had to face on the road, as the causes of accidents. At the same time, the drivers were quite sober, so it is not clear what to think about their supernatural confessions.