• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Giant Wandering Skeleton (Anza-Borrego Desert; California)

amarok2005

Ephemeral Spectre
Joined
Aug 26, 2005
Messages
370
(NOTE: This topic has been spun off into its own thread.)

... (H)
ere's a little ditty from my book I Heard of That, Too, which is to be published . . . sometime after the pandemic:

The earliest report came from an old desert rat known only as Charlie Arizona. One dark night he was camping about four miles southeast of Borrego, California, when his burros started braying. He rose to calm them only to find that they had good reason to panic. About 200 yards east of his camp, a human skeleton was wandering erratically among the cacti and creosote. It was huge, about eight feet tall even without any flesh or skin.

“The most awesome thing about the skeleton was that it had a light in its chest, a sort of lantern that flickered through its ribs,” writes folklorist Philip Bailey.

The entity climbed up over a nearby ridge with amazing speed and disappeared. Charlie also left with amazing speed. “I could hear his bones a-rattlin’!” he said after returning to civilization. [Bailey, p. 123]

About two years later, two prospectors camped in the nearby Superstition Mountains (of California, not the similarly-named range in Arizona). One night they spotted a flickering light in the distance. One of the pair thought it looked like “a skeleton carrying a lantern,” but the other dismissed it as someone else’s fire reflecting off the rocks. They recalled the incident a year afterward when another gold-hunter entered Vallecito from the Borrego Badlands with a tale to tell.

“You can believe it or not, I don’t give a damn which,” said the new witness, “but I saw a skeleton walkin’ in the hills, and he was carryin’ a light! At least, there was a light there. It kinda looked like it came from his insides – if a skeleton’s got insides.”

As formidable as the bony specter appeared, it did nothing but shamble around aimlessly, “like a cow lookin’ for a lost calf.”

The legend of the giant skeleton spread across the desert, and eventually two brave men, whose names have unfortunately been lost to history, decided to track it down. After three days of searching they found it in the Borrego Badlands. It was eight feet tall with a light shining out between its ribs, just like everyone said.

The two adventurers chased after the bony creature, which easily outpaced them. Their rifle bullets had no effect on it. It might have left them far behind if it weren’t for its inexplicable ramblings. It traveled in a zigzag pattern in the general direction of Fish Mountain, sometimes almost running – but then it would stop and putter around in circles as if it didn’t know what to do. Then it would stride majestically in a straight line across the plain, only to enter a box canyon and mill around as if in confusion. The hunters eventually lost it in the dark of night.

Sightings of the skeleton tailed off as the 20th century progressed. The last known witness was a Texas prospector camping at the base of Red Mountain. As he poked his fire one night, he heard a rattling noise he thought was the wood crackling. The noise persisted, however, and the Texan soon located a glow on a ridge, about 200 feet off. “With the glow there was movement, as though fence pickets were walking in a row.” The moon was bright and there was no wind. [Bailey, p. 125]

Bailey, Philip A. Golden Mirages (New York: MacMillan Co., 1940).
 
Last edited by a moderator:
The wandering oversized skeleton with a light or lantern is associated with the Anza Borrego Desert area (the site of the Anza-Borrego State Park):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anza-Borrego_Desert_State_Park

This same area is reputed to host ghost lights (i.e., luminous orbs flitting around certain mountains or canyons there).
 
This desert tourism / info website includes an account of the Anza Borrego skeleton that adds some additional details to the text posted above. No specific source for this text is given.

The Eight-Foot Skeleton
If you find yourself out late in the desert night, somewhere between the Superstition Mountains and Seventeen Palms, you may see the apparition of an 8-foot skeleton with a lantern in his chest. A prospector by the name of Charley Arizona first saw the ghost about 4 miles southeast of Borrego.

It was a dark night and Charley had already set up camp and was settling down for the night. Not long after Charley turned in for the night, something disturbed his burros and he went to investigate. Suddenly, he saw a large human skeleton with a lantern light shining through its ribs. The skeleton walked in a crazy fashion, as if looking for something or as if it were lost. Shortly after Charley sighted the skeleton, it disappeared over a small ridge.

About two years later, two prospectors had a similar experience while camping in the Superstition Mountains. They caught sight of a flickering light in the distance and wondered what it was; it quickly disappeared. One of the prospectors thought it looked like a skeleton carrying a lantern, but they figured it was the fire reflecting off a rock.

The two prospectors didn't think much of the incident until a year later, when a traveler came into the Vallecito Station with the tale of a skeleton he saw wandering in the desert carrying a light. It wasn't long before news of the skeleton got around and two adventurers went out into the desert to search for this legendary skeleton ghost.

During their third night in the desert, they encountered the ghastly lit skeleton. One of the men shot at it with a gun, but the skeleton continued on unfazed by the gun fire. The two men followed the skeleton for three miles as it wandered in a strange and intermittent gait, over ridges and through valleys, before they lost track of it.

Many believe that the skeleton is the ghost of a prospector who discovered and worked the Phantom mine, which has been lost for many years. The skeleton is no better off than the rest of us, for he too continues to search for the lost Phantom Mine, wandering the dark desert nights looking for his final resting place.

Anza Borrego's Haunted Desert
https://www.desertusa.com/anza_borrego/haunted-desert.html
 
Oo, I love this!
The light reminds me (faintly) of the recurring story-element of burning rubies/lights associated with mountains in stories from Myths and Legends Of Our Own Land by Skinner (although he sounds like a jerk, and also a manifest-destiny fan etc, so his choices of story are sometimes suspect)
Then there's a Japanese giant skeleton yokai-- the Gashadokuro.
 
I always like when an already fortean tale carries a detail that makes it all the stranger, such as the fact that the skeleton sometimes marched purposefully across the sands yet at other times it stumbled in circles like a confused Roomba.

In my own essay on the skeleton, I mention Borrego "Sandman"/bigfoot reports and jokingly suggest that, since I doubt any old timey prospectors were eight feet [2.5 meters] tall, perhaps people were seeing the skeleton of a desert 'squatch shambling around. Or was I joking?
 
The descriptions of its movements make it sound more like an out-of-control automaton than an organic thing. Not a tale I'd heard the like of before - great stuff!
 
Back
Top