DV Legends & Monsters?

[Beardilocks]

As we enter Spooky Season, I thought I would bring up something that has been on my mind for the last couple of years. 

In all my travels across the US and many many Nat'l/State Parks/Preserves/Monuments I've heard story upon story of different legends in almost every region I've been to.  Ghostly wagon trains, supernatural phenomenon, women in white, UFOs, mysterious lights, Cryptids of all descriptions from Sasquatch to Thunderbirds to more classics like Will-o-the-Wisps or Pukwudgies. .  

But I rarely hear anything at all about what haunts or creeps in Death Valley!  For such a legendary place with such an ominous name (not to mention how many people have died or been lost in the area) there seem to be so few spooky stories. 

I know that the 29 Palms area and part of the Mojave have the Yucca Man (desert sasqautch variety).  


I have heard the legend of a huge cave under the Panamints that held mummified giants and loads of Egyptian-style riches, marrying two popular legends of Egyptian-type ancient civilizations in the West with the old tales of giant humaniods.  Apparently 2 or 3 groups of people have been lost trying to re-find the cave after first stumbling into it prospecting, never to return. 



The Shoshone and other tribes have legends of the Water/Rock Babies, small humanoids that inhabit springs & rocks that protect water sources and come out at night to carve petroglyphs and/or lure people to their doom. 

But I have not heard of much else.  And I have not experienced anything spooky or unexplainable in my many many nights in the park. Other than one of the early Space-X satellite launches that had me thinking that I was witnessing a full scale alien invasion unfolding overhead.

Does anyone have any tales of the paranormal or the supernatural, of monsters or mysterious lights in Death Valley?  Or is the place itself, the unforgiving land and ruthless environs, the only villain necessary?

[Beardilocks]

I did find this utterly IDIOTIC representation of a denizen of the supposed cave of mummified giants that was illustrated by someone who...  apparently never even read the legend?  I don't know.  What the hell man.

For the uninitiated, the supposed giant cave mummies were just overly large corpses mummified by the desert climate.  None were EVER mentioned to be ambulatory or anywhere but entombed in the mysterious caverns (which ran for miles under the Panamints).  No curse is mentioned (beyond the poor decision making by those that have gone looking for it, never to return). 

But I guess that gives you an idea of how much anyone is scraping the bottom of the barrel to come up with a Death Valley Monster of any kind. 

[DAW89446]

... I have not experienced anything spooky or unexplainable in my many many nights in the park.  Other than one of the early Space-X satellite launches that had me thinking that I was witnessing a full scale alien invasion unfolding overhead. 

Does anyone have any tales of the paranormal or the supernatural, of monsters or mysterious lights in Death Valley?

I've read of the cave and extended length mummy.

In my years of pre-dawn commuting between home in Big Pine and work in Trona I've seen a myriad of strange lights, holographic phenomena and ultra high speed illuminated contrails from missile launches to the south in the China Lake B Range.

My scariest encounters were from sneaky fighter pilots coming from behind at super low altitude, numerous encounters with that. The one in which I thought I was going to die was a near head-on collision with a small plane attempting to take off after midnight north of the Ballarat road in Panamint Valley; I drove into yet another night time drug drop (I lived in Trona then, was coming home with my son after a day of mountain biking at Mammoth Mountain). Rounding a blind, uphill corner just west of the southern road into Saline Valley at speed and before dawn on CA190, I barely had time to react to the sight of a Chevy sedan parked in the travel lane with three men pissing in the road on the driver side. And on two occasions I had suspicious vehicles stalking me with lights out, following me for miles over attempts to shake them off by detours, stopping and starting.

[Beardilocks]

"Holographic phenomena" sound pretty wild!

It's not at all surprising that the most creepy or dangerous scenarios that you've experienced have been caused by the human monsters. I hear that time & time again from paranormal enthusiasts: people are the most dangerous thing out there.

[sparky]

I had a paranormal experience in the Eastern Sierra. At the time it happened I was on a solo hiking trip about to go to sleep for the night at a lake just below the north face of university peak and I honestly just experienced it and thought that it was shockingly weird but then ust went along on my trip without thinking about it as I needed to stay focused on what I was doing.  In the following years I didn't think about it much at all.  I'd tell people about it thought I wasn't shy...especially around a campfire but everyone including my family would look at me like I was making it up, and that I had 2 heads.

After 8 years it bubbled up and i spent another 2 or 3 years with it bouncing around in my head a little more often and a little deeper and was getting desperate for some sort of perspective and probably some validation from....well anyone...so much so that I finally wrote an awkward "I'm not a white guy but this thing happened" email to the historical preservation officer to the local native American tribe and I received a wonderful response that while didn't close the loop by any means it was a sort of healing balm to calm down the questions.

So then when my wife had an experience in death valley, again with a native American theme, considering I looked like a liar or a crazy person when I told my story she decided to keep it to herself.  I know mine actually happened, and I know my wife's did too because I was there and watched it unfold.  While we both have a connection to the Sierra, we have only within the last couple years started getting into DV and it's just mind blowing having these deep connections with these areas

[MojaveGeek]

I would say that image was probably AI generated but I bet it's older than that.

[Beardilocks]

I had a paranormal experience in the Eastern Sierra. At the time it happened I was on a solo hiking trip about to go to sleep for the night at a lake just below the north face of university peak and I honestly just experienced it and thought that it was shockingly weird but then ust went along on my trip without thinking about it as I needed to stay focused on what I was doing.  In the following years I didn't think about it much at all.  I'd tell people about it thought I wasn't shy...especially around a campfire but everyone including my family would look at me like I was making it up, and that I had 2 heads.

After 8 years it bubbled up and i spent another 2 or 3 years with it bouncing around in my head a little more often and a little deeper and was getting desperate for some sort of perspective and probably some validation from....well anyone...so much so that I finally wrote an awkward "I'm not a white guy but this thing happened" email to the historical preservation officer to the local native American tribe and I received a wonderful response that while didn't close the loop by any means it was a sort of healing balm to calm down the questions.

So then when my wife had an experience in death valley, again with a native American theme, considering I looked like a liar or a crazy person when I told my story she decided to keep it to herself.  I know mine actually happened, and I know my wife's did too because I was there and watched it unfold.  While we both have a connection to the Sierra, we have only within the last couple years started getting into DV and it's just mind blowing having these deep connections with these areas

Sparky:
Thank you for this deeply personal response. I have had some experiences (on the east coast) that I don’t share very frequently either.  

Theres an interesting thing called “paranormal apathy” that seems to be quite common n people that experience odd or even downright terrifying experiences that sit outside of the “normal” human interactions with the sort of “agreed upon reality” that all supposedly share.  Whether it’s an internal reaction from the brain to try to keep things simple for us or it’s caused by the entity or experience in some way that we can’t register is unknown.  But I do find it interesting every time I talk to anyone that brushes off something like that.  Hell, I’ve had experience with things that I kind of don’t believe in, that happened as clear as day, but I’m still overly doubtful sometimes.  

I’d love to hear about your experience if you would like to share. If not in the open here, feel free to PM me or PM me for contact details. 

Thanks for your story!

[sparky]

I don't want to put my wife's DV experience out there, it is too personal and involves our son. 

But as for mine, I will share.  Internally I have dissected every detail, from every angle within the context of the experience under the microscope of my own reason and logic for well over a decade.  Just know that whatever perfectly reasonable explanation you can come up with I have likely spent untold hours contemplating it and finding it unable to satisfy all the details.   I will keep this short and sweet. 

I got late start that day, sometime late afternoon so by the time I reached the lake, found a suitable campsite with an astounding view of University Peak, made dinner and chilled out for a bit it was well into the dark of night.  My last chore before bed was to gather water.

I walked to the vicinity of the shore and began searching for a way in as it was completely socked in with willows.  I soon found a very large and flat boulder roughly the dimensions of a large conference room table I could access without bushwhacking. I hopped up on this and was pleased to see the other side had a small strip of beach just enough for me to crouch down to gather water and zap it with my steripen.  I believe 1 liter of water takes like 90 seconds, so I was there just long enough to zap a liter. 

When done, I stood up and turned around to face the boulder to hop up on it when a very large (roughly deer sized) white thing swooped down then up through the air over the boulder.  It was maybe a couple feet in front of me and a couple feet above my head.  It flew first downward into the light of my headlamp, then arced upward and away all above the boulder, and was completely silent.  No flapping of wings, no landing and running away, nothing.  In the next instant it is day and the same boulder is in front of me, I am in the same place at the lake.  A native american man lay dying on the boulder, and a woman is crouched by his side holding his hand.   Both looked to be in their mid 20's, and I was in another time.  I was at this scene for 5 to 10 seconds, then it was night again and I was standing alone at the boulder.

My mind and body then went into hyperdrive from the shock.  My mind raced in 20 directions at once struggling to process and my adrenaline was pumping.  By the time I went back to camp I was pretty spent from all that and luckily was able to just fall asleep.  

The the Big Pine Paiute Historical Preservation Officer I shared the story with was the first person besides my wife who said despite the fact I am white, they believed I experienced a vision.  There was more that was said, but that stays between us.