The Mysterious Superstition Mountains

We don't have a cold open thing for this or a phrase. Are you going to go see Barbie this weekend? No? No, well I'm trying to do a cold open, and so I'm just starting with whatever comes to mind. I think I'm going to go see Barbie. But fine, yeah, cool. Welcome to Scary Mystery Surprise, where we talk about scary things that surprised us around the Internet. I'm Edwin, I'm Michelle. Michelle. H how far would you go for two million dollars worth of gold? Oh? Appropriate answers, only appropriate answers. What else did you think I was gonna sell? Though? I don't know what in your brain, you know, like where you had to preface that because you were like thinking about it, Like, well, I was thinking about it, but I wasn't going in the gutter with it. I'm not going to sell my panties or something for two million dollars all that I'd sell him for three million dollars. Oh that revised me. I don't know if I should just say this because Carla's right here, but we recently left the hotel where this guy just gave us the creepiest vibes. Michelle, Like, seriously, the creepiest vibes. And he opened the door two times to get into our room, like without knocking or anything. Actually got in one time and he was like the manager or whatever. Anyway, once we left and we did our laundry, we're missing a pair of Carla's underwear. Oh no, yeah, they were like, oh no, first of wee. I was kind of joking that he was creepy, but he really was creepy or whatever. Uh yeah, oh my god, that's so traumatic. Yeah, it was just he was like overly friendly, like oh anyway, anyway, anyway, Yeah, you gotta trust those vibes. It's like, put that chair under the door, make sure he can't ever come in again. Like, oh, anyway, look about the two million dollar things right, Like the amount was actually generic. I made that up. But okay, there might actually be a lot more of this gold and this mine and stuff that I'm going to talk about today. Okay, So I found this out while searching for creepy places, and there's this place that gets a ton of attention. Already, countless YouTubers have gone to these places to figure out the mystery, or at least to get that thrill of going to a place with such a dark history. Now this has vibes of like Native American like legends and purses and anyway, by the title of this episode, you might already know what I'm talking about. But here's the deal. Michelle. You're a desert hiker, all right, you love it? Okay, you can't get enough of the heat and the rattlesnakes. Oh so love it. So it's like my hold on though, I thought of a better example than Michelle. Though, Okay, because you're a photographer. For those of you who don't know, Michelle is a photographer. I was a photographer. For the love of God, I was a photographer. Ed. I'll never let anyone forget it, all right, So Michelle, then the picture of the scenario then and then imagine the scenery right of a desert, blue sky, scattered clouds, hack tie, just sharp rocks, so much color in life, and you're there to capture it with your lengs. In fact, though this is real. The place is the second most photographed or painted region in Arizona. Can you guess the first? Oh? Interesting? Probably the Grand Canyon. Yeah, the Grand Canyon, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've been there. It's quite creepy, but not because of ghosts, but because of the people. The people and the Grand Canyon. Yeah, there's something about the towns around the Grand Canyon, the survivalist vibe. Yeah, there was. I mean, I was traveling alone at the time, and I kept getting asked if you're alone over and over again, like oh, are you alone? And I'm like, no, my boyfriend, imaginary boyfriend is back at the hotel. He just didn't want to come out tonight. He just wanted to stay in the hotel. I know, isn't that crazy. He just didn't want to come out. He's just in the hotel fixing his guns, and he's a linebacker. I respect his privacy. I respect his need to decompress. I need to do that too sometimes. Jesus, that is creepy, though. I can imagine how are you alone question? Yeah, it's very threatening when you're alone. So, yeah, you just got to have your stock. Lie ready. Happened several times at the Grand Canyon, and I've gotten that, like just the people there hiking for pleasure in the heat. It doesn't seem natural to me. No, that's bizarre. I'd never do that anyway. The only weird thing about this visit and what makes you nervous is its name Superstition mountains. And even though you're not superstitious. The little stishes a joke from the office, by the way, and where do you who gets it? Wow? If you like saved that up for like ever, yes, I finally got to use it. You just a little stishes, You decide to ignore it and just you catch that picture of that that picture perfect scenery. Now you just want that portfolio. But as you're walking along and you notice that no one is behind you or in front of you, you're like, oh, no, am I still on the trail. Oh god? But up ahead you see a sign that says this is a trail, so you're like, hew, okay, I'm safe. Luckily there's a sign that literally says you're the answer to your question right here, thank God. But then you hear a strange sound, a rattlesnake. You think you're I don't know if someone's calling you on the phone because it's buzzing. But then a fly flies in your ear and you slap it and it's still stuck there and it finally flies away, and then you realize what you're hearing. It's flies hundreds or thousands of them just a few feet away from you. You wha you, and then the sweet smell of death. As you step closer to the buzzing sound, you see a hiking hoot, and then a pair of legs, and then the rest of the body. Oh shit, And you wish you hadn't seen the head though, because part of it has been blown off. Okay, so this is too graphic here, so will n Michelle's visit. She continued on her trail, took the perfect shot and won a prize for it, and then had years of therapy after seeing a have eaten fly maggotty body. Turns out her success didn't matter. Her success didn't matter because she was traumatized and had to sit in a corner of her room and rock her self to sleep, used all her prize money for therapy. Yeah, that's basically what happened for those of you who might get like a little too scientific here. Yes, okay, so it's the desert. Maybe that doesn't work there. Maybe the heat will dry up somebody someone faster. I don't know, maybe not. Maybe we'll make them rot faster. I don't know, something like that. So I might not have gotten that story. One hundred percent accurate. I like how you disclaimered that and you know that kind of thing was not uncommon in this in this area. This actually has a lot it's a mystery, so we're gonna call this this episode's theme is like a mystery. But okay, there's a few theories out there, and I think that they get from out there out there to more like, huh, something really might be happening there. The Superstition Mountains are located on the east side of Phoenix, Arizona, and they're known to you know, due to the large mountain that is a popular destination for hikers in that Phoenix area. So if your Phoenix, you've probably seen that area in super Si Mountains and they go and just hike around and spend the day there and all that. But if you're around there, you might want to think twice about visiting. So, like I described earlier, it is like a picture perfect desert scene, right, like just how you imagine the western part of the US. That's what you see, you know, the sharp rocks, the red areas, like, that's it. It's the typical desert. Sometimes, you know, the weather there is very unpredictable, so there's thunderstorms and sometimes there's just super hot, really sunny and stuff. And like I said earlier, it is super photographed. So you've probably seen images of these mountains, whether you know it or not. According to the president of the Superstition Mountains Museum, the name of the mountain range, I want that job. How do I get that job? They have an interesting reason why they call them Superstition, and that's because of the Pimas who spoke about in regards to the mountains. They said that these I guess the farmers of the Salt River Valley had heard about strange sounds, like they heard strange sounds coming from that area. They've heard of mysterious deaths and a healthy fear of the mountain itself. And you know, I think that's from like Native culture. I think it's a very popular thing to be afraid, not afraid, but like respectful of big like mountains and forests and volcanoes and stuff like that. But when they were describing what kind of like why Superstition Mountain, the most sinister of these details was that four to five hikers disappear on the mountains every year and then they're found dead. What yeah, and there are many factors that make it different. Yeah, it's different than other wilderness areas like drop offs, you know, just cliffs, deep canyon and then the extreme changes in temperature is a desert, so that's what happens. And then plus snakes and spiders and scorpions and geez all those animals I can kill you, which is to bite. The stories go back all the way to the fifteen hundreds, like it's insane, Like it's what, Yeah, the stuff that happened there, Like for example, the Spanish conquistadors arrived in search of gold right like everywhere, and obviously they got there and they were following the myth of the seven Cities of Gold. But when they got there, one of the groups, that of the Spaniards that arrived, started going through the mysterious like they started experiencing mysterious disappearances and it affected them so much that they left, like to scare away a Spanish guy who's searching for a goal. Oh me, my god. They wiped out cultures and they were too freaked out to go on in these mountains. So yeah, that's yeah, like in the research because we actually worked on the story for this for dark memory. The first I think, like the story actually begins, like you need to understand the Peralta family in order to really get the behind the scenes view of this of the mountains. The Paraltas, they operated a few mines, right, they were in charge of mines in the Superstition Mountains after they found just a bunch of gold, right, so they had a lot of money. They were digging deep into the mines and extracted a fortune out of them, and they lived in luxury obviously, although now it's you know, might consider it greed because why would they need more? Like they had so much thereously so much money. But it is said that a group of apaches killed the entire family except for one membran, and one likely explanation of this is that they did not like the exploitation of their sacred lands and that's why they just killed them. But other stories spread about wanting to keep the fortunes for themselves, so the Apaches were like, huh, okay, you have a lot of money. Boom boom boom or I don't know if it was guns, maybe it's aeros huge. It was eighteen forty eight when they were killed by the apaches, Anyway, some places were even like commemorated to them with one with his name Massacre Falls, which is interesting, great, super romantic, super we picnic at Massacre Falls. Yeah, let's go to Massacre Falls, you guys for a family vacation. Yeah, we love a good swim there. I found this article on Grunge by Benito Sino where they talked about doctor Thorne, who was a doctor from Illinois who moved the West to practice medicine among the Native American tribes. Now in eighteen seventy the elders of the tribe promised to take him to a place with lots of gold in return for his kindness, so they blindfolded him. He was taken through over twenty miles of desert terrain, and as he was being led through the mountains, he realized just how important it was for the apache to keep the location a secret. When his blindfold was removed and his eyes adjusted, he saw the landmark of the Superstition Mountains, which is a sharp rock known as the Weaver's Needle. And just as they promised, gold nuggets were against the canyon wall, so basically it took them in like a secret like hey, I'm going to show you where we have a bunch of gold just because you were nice. But like, did he get to keep any of the gold or yeah, they said here like half some of this. But he wasn't supposed to know where he was, right, so he wouldn't take other people there. Then there's another famous tale of the Superstition Mountains, and this is like a typical treasure hunt fashion. Well, there's supposedly this map that is said to lead the way to the lost Dutchman mine, where millions of dollars worth of gold still wait and they're just there hanging out. Oh, I think I remember this from Unsolved Mysteries. Yeah, Dutchman mine. But go on, Yeah, there The map is etched on something that's now called the Peralta stones or per Alta stone. Does I want to say, by the way, the Petatas were a Mexican family anyway, Stones in the shape of heart of a heart, a rectangle and crosses are etched with strange lines and shapes, some marking x'es, and require previous knowledge to be able to gain a sense of their orientation or what the strange symbols mean. They were found in the nineteen forties on the side of the road by Travis Tumlinson, who was a police officer. Okay, now were they really found on the side of the road. I mean, that's the story. I found these. I found these rocks on the side of the road while I was driving and my cruiser card. Then there's a map on them. Look see there's a map there. You go. That's exactly what happened. And the name Peata stones come from the names Pedro and Miguel that were on the stones and were assumed that they belonged to the family. So those names were there that like, Okay, this is the family. This belongs to the family. So during the massacre. The stones were dropped on the side of the road for many years until this guy, Travis, the police officer, happened to see them and pick them up, and it was like who snaps, there we go. I'm like, the problem is is I'm imagining it like on the side of a paved road. But I'm sure you're like, it's a dirt road right like in this it's not. I'm like, oh, it's Route sixty six. It might be it might be you know, asphalter or whatever. Now, but you know, it's the nineteen forties. All right, Well, I'm assuming it's a dirt, but it's better if it's dirt. Yeah, let's make a dirty and it's dirt. Yeah, it's dirt. It's gotta be dirt. So you said that you heard of the Lost Dutchman's Mind, right, Yeah, I think so. Yeah, it's very famous. It's a famous thing. They have an amusement park rides. I don't know where, but I mean I found that in the articles video games with that, with that have different parts of the Lost Dutchman's Mind and the legends and all that stuff. But the true story is a mystery, Like nobody really knows what this is. Basically, how I imagine it is like just a mine with a bunch of gold and like if you find it, like that's it. But there's so many curses and protectors and like people that are gonna stop you by, you know, by all means, and they're not gonna let you in. This is where the story's going, by the way, is actually what's been happening in the Superstition Mountains. Oh yeah, it's pretty intense. So it was a dark night at an old bar and then a fight started like this is the west or this is the desert. Jacob Waltz and Jacob Wiser, they were sitting together when suddenly another man got attacked by a few others, and then obviously they joined the brawl, like the like what else, I just joined the two guys Jacob and Jacob. They saved his life that night, and the man was so grateful for the help. Thank you, Jacob and Jacob, thank you so much. And that guy that they say was Don Miguel Peralta, the one from that family. Now this time keeps coming back, right, this is back in the day, So they say that. The legend goes that he was so thankful that he showed him. She showed them where the mine was. But along with that came tragedy because Jacob Wiser and Jacob Waltz they went inserted and they found the mine and actually found it, and the quantities of gold were just so much that they were like wow, like we're never going to run out. We could just do whatever we want now. But then Jacob Wiser disappeared. Oh in one yeah, in one version of the story, he was killed by the apaches. However, the most likely scenario is that the other Jacob killed them. Yeah, of course, money man, it'll do that. Money. It just makes you nuts, that's it. As it turns out, Jacob Waltz was the infamous last Dutchman. He would spend a few days heading out into the mine, treating it as his personal bank, where he would grab some gold and then just keep doing that forever. He died in the winter of eighteen of pneumonia, and some say that he told that those people that were near his deathbed where the famous mine was. And ever since people have been searching for the lost Dutchman's mind. And some people like, this is serious, So this is real. Some people spend their whole lives searching for that treasure. Now, along with the death of Jacob, there were other deaths. There's just a super long list, like there's too many, like and the descriptions that I found were so vague that I don't know, like it just seems like such a like give me an example of one. For example, there were some campers that were in the Superstition Mountains one day and they found a bottle in one of the rivers. There was a message tightly wrapped inside on a piece of paper, and that message read that the writer of the note needed help because he had injured his leg and was in danger. And the PostScript stated, PS have found the Lost Dutchman. And now this is some of the more like mysterious deaths. Oh man, Wait, wait, like was there a date on that letter? Like did people find it in what like the fifties? And then like it was like dated nine eighteen, eighteen ninety three or something like that. No, Like, I don't think the letter itself had a ding it. No, I don't think I had a date. No. No, I mean but I found out who the note, who wrote the note and everything. Oh they did. Yeah. It was written by a treasure hunter by the name of Adolph Ruth. He would search for treasure and he became so obsessed with the Lost Dutchman's mind that he would collect maps. He would like, it's one of those people that get obsessed with stuff like that. I feel like I would be that type of person. I would just be like, I gotta find it. I gotta find it. It's gonna be mine. So he got a hold of several maps, and during one of those searches, he did suffer a fall and he damaged one of his leg and it was nineteen thirty one at this time. Okay, yeah, and by the way, by this time, he was obsessed. That's all he would talk about. And at sixty six years old, he wrote a note and put the message in that bottle, and it would be the last thing anyone ever read from him. Oh shit, because he was found December of nineteen thirty two. And that's when the tale gets darker. His skull was found with a whole from an Army style forty four caliber revolver. Oh shit, yeah, it's probably I mean, unless he shot himself. But the tale of Adam Ruth became even stranger as time passed because they found his skull. Like when they found the skull, it had been separated from the rest of his body by almost a mile. Oh that's weird. Yeah, and yeah, they found some items along with his body, like notes and stuff from his adventures. This is strange because then there's this I found this book. It's called what's it called thunder God's Gold written by Barry Storm, who claims that there's a sniper that protects the mind. Oh what, that's crazy. Yeah, it's you know, it's it's a weird, like what kind of what is this, right, Barry the writer believes that Adolf Ruth had gotten too close and suffered the consequence. So, but there's more disappearances Jesse Capan who disappeared in two thousand and nine, and then yeah, he was one of them, and then there was three other bodies in twenty eleven, so this is still going on, and a lot of them with gunshot holes in the skulls. So I think someone's there, or maybe it's a whole operation and like they have guards or something. I don't know, maybe, but that's fucking weird that Honestly, that kind of gave me chills a little bit when you said that it's like multiple people with multiple gunshot I think the story that intrigues me the most is one of the Apache and of the local Native Americans, because to them, the Superstition Mountains were sacred and were home to the thunder God who kept his treasure and he wouldn't even kill to protect it from thieves. So that might be what's happening. Others believe that there is a hole at the top of the mountain that if you follow it, it will lead you to the underworld, all right. Also valid yeah, I guess if you're there, though, they say that you can see shadows and hear strange voices in the distance sometimes see that I believe more than yes, of course it could just be a vortex, but oh a vortex. Yeah, but that I'm just like, all of it's scary. All it's really scary. And there's also accounts of I found so many things around, like alien sightings. Of course, lizard people always ah man, but petroglyphs throughout the region depict images that appeared to be of bipedal lizards that walk upright, So, hey, that might be the lizard people. Just for Mark Zuckerberg, it might be. Yeah, it's actually where Mark Zuckerberg is from, Zonetown. It's his hometown, and that's where all the Facebook money goes. Yeah, and you know, all under that mountain in deep deep research here. In October of eighteen seventy eight, the Louisville Courier Journal told the story of a wild man of the woods that had been killed and put on display and it was covered in scales and had large eyes and it was there, it was covered there. Weird. That's pretty weird. Yeah, super strange. But anyway, in conclusion here. Despite the legends and folklore of the Superstition Mountains about the Apache, the mining family, Dutchmen entrance to the underworld, one thing is certain is that the area goes through extreme and unpredictable weather conditions, and hiking in the remote zones is to be left only for experienced hikers. And when people try to experiment with that and they fall, you know, they die or disappear or whatever. Even if they don't get shot or they don't get killed by some animal or whatever, the weather is probably gonna knock them out. So my warning here is don't go you guys, leave the goal to the Dutchman and stay away. And that's it. Warning. Duly noted. Yeah, Duly noted, I'd stay away because of the heat. If other than that, my humorous would definitely I'd definitely be into my ego be like, yeah, I can find it, but because it's hot, I'm not going to. I'm not going to just being lazy. No, But you know, I did find a lot of information on it on just if you search on YouTube, for example, just people talking about Superstition Mountains, you can see so many legends like I just went over, like the skimmed over the top of everything that goes on. But if you go into like some of the legends of like the one about the Apache and the Native Americans that talk about all their stuff that goes on, You're like, wow, like you gotta watch out for that kind of thing. You know. There's a lake that I found out about recently in Peru that is a place known for like magic and witchcraft, and like witchcraft is in like the bad kind like dark and for protection stuff. And I'm like, and they really believe in it so much that they're willing to go to Like all these were like hiked for days in these remote areas to go way peopable. Like if they're that dedicated, then it's real, right, that's a lot. The power of belief is real. Yeah, So when when you hear stuff like this, like the Superstition Mountain and you're like, could this be real? I mean, like people have been found dead there, I wouldn't go. I mean I guess I would go there, but like it's still pretty extreme, like for me to go hiking out in the desert, I wonder what the statistics are between like how many people just die out in the hiking and then the statistics of the superstition mountains, like I wonder if there's like a higher and enjoy if it's about average or what might be average, But like it does, we don't know. Not every like forest or whatever has a weird superstition about it where it happens like I don't think it happens every single fucking year. It doesn't seem like it would be. I don't know. Maybe it does. If you're a park service ranger and you know how many people die in a park every year, let us know, because no, because we're just sitting here spitballing right now and we have no idea. Yeah, it'd be interesting to know. Plus who keeps track of these things. I guess there are like a national registry of this stuff for there is I'm having a brief memory of maybe talking about it at some point, but I just the staircases in the woods. I think we talked about the speriences and the statistic button maybe not dead, Yeah, because yeah, we talked about this. Yeah it's very I'm getting right now. Yeah me too, so for sure. But I mean because if the National Park Service tries to from visits to the parks, I don't think it would, you know, they don't want to be like, oh, the crime in the park. Oh, by the way, by the way, actually, people keep getting shot in the head here, losing their heads. Yeah, we don't really know why, but watch your head. Just there's a thunder god that has a gun, and we're sorry, but yes, please look out on the trail for und wild thunder god with guns. There's a hole of the mountains. Don't go, or you're in the in the underworld, stay on the designated Beths. Yeah, I hate it when that happens. I hate it when I end up in the underworld one accident. It's just such a pain in the ass. I have to figure out how to get back. Oh man, So don't go to the Superstition Mountain guys, But if you are interested in finding more stories, definitely google it like you're gonna find a lot. And also the Peralta families really is a very interesting thing. But greed and the early West and the early you know, the early US. Anyway, be sure to rape subscribe, tell us that you like the show, tell us what you don't like, but don't put that in review, send us that private and email. Yeah, and then we'll change it, and then you say that you like that we changed it, and give us five stars. Yeah. AnyWho, what are we going to talk about next week, Michelle? I don't know, but I think it'll be a surprise. Yeah, all right, we bye,