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).
... (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).
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