At the tip of northern Mexico, well off highways and civilization, we find a place that seems like it was taken from a serious science fiction book. The Zone of Silence, Mexico, or La Zona del Silencio, is a desert that has intrigued scientists, travelers, and people who think they know better for several decades.
Here, there are varying beliefs as to what has been reported: radio signals simply vanish; compasses spin like tops; strange lights flicker across the night sky; locals tell of alien beings arriving from thin air; locals tell of plants mutating and growing in ways unlike anywhere else. The skeptics offer explanations about magnetic minerals and geological anomalies, but believers point to the causation of extraterrestrial activity.
Beyond the strange occurrences regarding signals and aliens, the Zone of Silence offers something much more: the brotherhood of the Chihuahuan Desert in its rawest and most desolate form. Surpassing your perception of wilderness, you will see a limitless amount of salt flats, rock mountains, and what can be thousands of stars if the conditions allow for it; this is a unique and remote location in the entire continent of North America.
How did the legend of The Zone of Silence originate?
The first whispers of the Zone began in the 1930s, when a Mexican pilot named Francisco Sarabia recounted how, while flying over a patch of desert near the borders of Durango, Chihuahua, and Coahuila, his radio mysteriously cut out. This report was mostly disregarded until years later.
When a U.S. Air Force Athena missile fired from Green River, Utah, veered hundreds of miles off course and ultimately crashed into the Zone in 1970, it made international headlines almost overnight. The American military got to the site quickly, in an attempt to recover the missile and restore some control over the situation. There were stories of all sorts of oddities ensuing, a multitude of reports about oddities in their equipment and strange malfunctions during the mission.
Not long after, a deluge of reporters, scientists, and the merely curious began to descend on the desert landscape. Clearly, there were broad tales of radio silence, malfunctioning compasses, experiences of colored lights in the night sky, and so on. Some of the journalists associated this phenomenon with the obvious geolocation of the site on the 27th parallel north, the same latitude as the Bermuda Triangle, while others were reporting too, the Great Pyramid of Giza, and others still suggesting a "mystical alignment" of some kind across the planet.
Why is it called “Zone of Silence”?
The name is not just for show. Both guests and flying folk say that in some spots of the desert, radio talks fail, TVs get only fuzz, and even small wave kits don't work.
Experts think this might be due to:
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Lots of iron-rich bits from space mixed into the ground.
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Weird magnetic shifts from stuff deep in the earth.
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Air patterns that mess with wave moves.
Still, these real reasons haven't stopped wild guesses, from space folk meddling to gateways to other worlds. No matter the reason, when you stand in the heart of the Zone, with only the wind and your own breathing to hear, the quiet hits you harder than anywhere else.
Mysterious encounters at the Zone of Silence
With sufficient exposure to the locals, you'll hear an eclectic array of stories and experiences that blur the line between myth and eyewitness account.
One of the more widely known stories involves a rancher who was visited by three tall, fair-skinned humanoid-like characters dressed in silver clothing. The entities spoke fluent Spanish, requested water, and when asked, where they were "from," they stated plainly "from above".
Other reports tell of glowing, floating orbs silently waving across the desert floor at night that immediately disappear once approached. Still more reports claim to have witnessed strange squiggly plants, albino animals, and other oddities that aren't common to the area.
While skeptics practically insist that these tales are hallucinations that happen as a result of the desert heat and the isolating aspects of living in the desert, advocates point to the richness of experience and sheer volume of nearly identical stories that remain consistent over several decades, as legitimate evidence that SOMETHING atypical is happening.
Beauty of the Desert
The Zone of Silence is situated in the Mapimí Biosphere Reserve, an area of about 1,500 square kilometers of protected desert, which is also part of the attraction.
The land is a study of contrasts:
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The salt flats glisten white in the scorching sun.
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Cactus forests stretch like naked watchmen over fissured, ocher-colored soil.
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Distant mountain ranges, swallowed by blue haze.
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Wild desert winds blow grains of fine grit and sand in whispers of longing.
The Zone of Silence is so remote that there are no paved roads leading to the center. Visitors negotiate rough dirt tracks in hopes of making a river bed crossing, which leads them to a vast area of desolate land.
This remoteness equals a lack of human disturbance. Hence, upon sunset, the desert sky transforms into a dark velvet curtain sprinkled with more stars than anyone living in a city would even dream of.
Wildlife at the Zone of Silence
Apart from being a place of paranormal intrigue, the Zone of Silence is an ecologically stimulating area. Therefore, you might see:
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Desert tortoises meandering, or inching their way through the chaparral.
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Kangaroo rats scurrying through the shadows just after dusk.
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Either rattlesnakes, lizards, or both are basking in the afternoon sun.
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Rare species of cacti boast brilliant blooms, perhaps nestled into the ground after a rainfall.
Scientific studies carried out in the Zone of Silence
The Zone is being taken seriously, in spite of its wild associations. The geology of the place has been very interesting to scientists who examined it as a potential high-grade meteorite litter site. Some of the meteorites are thousands of years old. The biology of the Zone has identified unique species that have extremely peculiar adaptations to high heat and aridity.
The Mexican government made a reserve called the Mapimí Biosphere Reserve in 1979 to keep the area from getting too overdeveloped, notably to keep people from accessing the area, but also to protect it. While scientists mostly disbelieve in supernatural notions, they would agree that the Zone is unique geologically and ecologically.
