Awesome or Off-Putting is a weekly delve into cryptozoology, ufology, aliens, medical marvels, scientific wonders, secret societies, government conspiracies, cults, ghosts, EVPs, ancient artifacts, strange facts, odd sightings or just the plain unexplainable.
Today, Mexico is mostly known as a place you don’t want to vacation for fear of getting kidnapped, murdered, then chopped up and stuffed into a pinata for your little nephew to discover at his sixth birthday party.
If drug cartels ever actually use that technique, please accept out apologies in advance. Seriously. And tell your nephew we’re sorry in advance too. Also tell him that should this ever happen, you’ll be in a better place.
The point being – Mexico is a pretty strange place. It’s jam-packed with all sorts of paranormal mumbo-jumbo. The most recent we’ve learned about is called the Zone of Silence – and it’s complete with disappearing radio transmissions of all sorts and disappearing men in bright yellow slickers.
Paranormally speaking, Mexico is full of all kinds of awesome stuff. Remember the flying witch? What about the UFOs as documented by the Mexican Air Force? Throw Quatzequatel on top of that pile and you’ve really got something.
Well today we’re bringing you another story from the land of salsa and dirt. It’s about a place known as The Zone of Silence. The Zone of Silence is called that because it’s thought to suck up any sort of transmissions emitted – be they radio, cell phone or what have you.
As Mexicolesstraveled.com explains it:
“…in 1970 a faulty American Athena missile fired from the White Sands Missile Base in nearby New Mexico went off course inexplicably and crashed into the mysterious desert region and made the world aware of the unique and apparently unusual properties of the area. Subsequently a team of U.S. Air Force investigators, with Mexican government approval, journeyed to the crash site and made an unexpected discovery. Within an unspecified and sometimes shifting area within the Zone, radio signals fail to travel through the air, creating a type of dark zone. No television, radio, short wave, microwave, or satellite signals seem to penetrate this zone. The name, Zone of Silence, was quickly adopted, and researchers began flocking to the remote location shortly thereafter.”
Of course that’s not about the birth of the zone – just it’s discovery on a larger scale. One instance of the Mexican anomaly dates back to the 1930s. As AboveTopSecret tells us:
“One of the first known instances of “odd behavior” coming from this location…. comes from around the 1930’s…. from a pilot called Francisco Sarabia. Upon flying his aircraft over the mysterious site, he noticed that suddenly, and without any warning, his radio had completely stopped working. The rest of the instruments on the plane had seemingly either stopped working, or had gone completely wild also.”
That sounds quite a bit like the Bermuda Triangle. And although airplane gadgetry running amok is interesting and all – disappearing good Samaritans dressed like Paddington Bear bring everything to another level. This next bit is taken from Strangemag.com:
“On October 13, 1975, Ernesto and Josefina Diaz, an enterprising couple drove into the zone in a brand new Ford pickup to collect unusual rocks and fossils which can be found in great abundance. As they busied themselves in their activity, they noticed that a desert rainstorm was heading toward them. Hoping to avoid being caught in a flash flood, they wisely packed their vehicle up and sped off, but not fast enough to avoid the relentless rain: the track ahead of them turned into a swamp: the pickup was quickly trapped and began to sink in the soft terrain.
“While the couple struggled to keep their vehicle from submerging into the mud, two figures approached them, waving at them amid the torrential rain. Two extremely tall men in yellow raincoats and caps, with unusual but by no means alarming features, offered their assistance to help them get underway again. The men instructed the totally drenched couple to get inside the pickup again while they pushed. Before the couple realized, their vehicle had popped out of the hole and on to firmer ground. When the husband got out of the pickup once more to thank the two men, he realized they were gone. There were no footprints in evidence or any surface feature that could have concealed their departure.”
And there it is all laid out nice & neat. Mexico’s Zone of Silence is indeed a strange place. The government there has even set up some sort of scientific base right smack in the middle of it. They say it’s to study the plant life or something of that sort, but some believe it’s there for far more paranormal reasons.
Us – we think it’s a drug depot. After all – it’s Mexico.
Hilary says
Did anyone else think ‘Chuckle Brothers’ when they read ‘ Two extremely tall men in yellow raincoats and caps, with unusual but by no means alarming features’?
“To me…to you.”
LeFarts says
A Zone of Silence is also quite a common phenomenon in many households, notably those with married couples in which one of the spouses cheated on the other, this zone of silence is usually accompanied by the man in the relationship doing the dishes, laundry, cooking dinner and fixing everything in the house…..Quite remarkably this old technique called ” Sucking Up”, usually guarantees that the Zone of Silence will eventually dissipate and the unpleasantries diminish………..
Sometimes though the Zone of Silence demands more, generally in the form of 1/2 of whatever the household is worth plus additional gratuities based on offspring and lifestyle …………………….