The Zone of Silence: America's Missile Secret

AJ (0:00)

At 2:40 a.m. on July 11th, 1970, the United States Air Force launched a missile from Green River, Utah. 50 feet tall, 16,000 pounds, and carrying radioactive cobalt. It was aimed at a test range in New Mexico, 600 miles away. It didn't stop in New Mexico.

Radar crews watched it climb, turn south, and disappear over the horizon.

It took three weeks to find it. The missile came down in a patch of Mexico the locals avoided, a place where strange visitors wander the desert and radios die. They call it the Zone of Silence.

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The Zone of Silence is in the Boson de Mapimí, a bowl of desert where three Mexican states meet, Durango, Chihuahua, and Coahuila. In the summer, it hits 113 degrees in the shade.

Hegel Fish (2:15)

Oh, Gertie calls that sweater weather.

AJ (2:17)

One minute, can you let me get through one minute without a comment?

Hegel Fish (2:21)

Look, if you say desert, sand, or leather outfits, I immediately think of Gertie. It's a hot once with a hot once.

AJ (2:30)

There's almost no water out there and almost no people. If something goes wrong, help isn't coming. Your radio is your lifeline. In 1966, Pemex, Mexico's national oil company, wanted to run a pipeline through that desert. Survey crews were sent to some of the emptiest land in the country. The engineer leading the survey was Harry de la Peña. The job was routine, map the route, mark the ground, and radio back to base every few hours. Except the radio stopped working. A crew checked in all morning and then went silent for hours while base called into dead air. So Harry drove into the desert himself to find them. He found them alive, working, and just as confused as he was. Their radios were switched on. The batteries were charged and the frequencies were right. The men transmitted, but the signal went nowhere. Harry was an engineer, so he started to troubleshoot. He tried different radios and different frequencies. Nothing worked. He moved the crew a few hundred feet, and the radios came back on. He moved them back to the original spot, and the radios died again. He tried to map the dead spots, but they moved. A stretch of ground blocked radios in the morning, but not in the afternoon.

Harry called the place La Zona del Silencio, the Zone of Silence. Something about the area bothered Harry. He came back again and again to take readings. He even brought in scientists to help. But the anomaly wasn't always there. He couldn't find a pattern. It was like he was playing with him.

He thought he was the first to identify the Zone of Silence. But the locals said this part of the desert has always been a strange place, and it was known for things much stranger than radio interference. For years, people saw mysterious light in the Zone. One day, a rancher decided to flash his headlights at it.

The locals call it the Carro de Vanda. It looks like a car's headlights, but there are no roads. If you flash a light, it answers, flash for flash. Sometimes it disappears and then reappears behind you. Whatever it is, it moves fast but makes no sound. Six generations of families grew up talking to the Carro de Vanda. Travelers crossing the Zone report the same thing Aries Cruise found. Radios play only static. But they also found that compasses don't work. Needles catch north for a second then spin in point south. Put a compass on the ground and the needle spins in a circle forever.