Phoenix has long been known for its weird happenings. We seem to have more than our share of “crazies” here in the area and I think that our local history will bear me out on this one. Remember that old coot Jacob Waltz, the Lost Dutchman of the Superstitions, wandering around in the heat of summer claiming that he had found the richest mine in the world back in the wilderness of the Superstition Mountain? Or Madman Hyde, the deranged mine operator who finally met his doom head first in a honey bucket back in the year of 1860? You have probably heard of the Phoenix lights, unexplained phenomena of several lights darting about the night sky. Flying saucers are what most people here-abouts called them.
Well I have yet another story to tell ya’, a true story at that. This one happened right here in the foothills of the mighty Superstition Mountain. That’s right, ol’ Jacob Waltz’s stomping grounds. I know its true, because it happened to me. Well, not actually to me, but to three of my grandchildren, and if they say it happened you can darn well believe that it did.
It was during one of those family get-togethers over Christmas vacation of ’03 while the northern family was down visiting us at our MountainBrook home. Things were getting a little testy, as they always seem to do during the long nights of the desert, when the kids went stomping out of the room yelling that they just couldn’t take it any more. I don’t know what had gotten into them. They had been just fine for the last three hours while we were playing our favorite game of Mexican Train. Well, even though it was night, there was a full moon, so we weren’t too concerned about them. The rattlers had gone to sleep, and the coyotes hadn’t bothered anyone all month.
I was just about ready to lay my last three dominoes down when we heard a blood curdling cry come from the back yard. We jumped up and ran to the back door, when we were nearly trampled by three kids running into the house. All were screaming as though someone had stolen their gummy bears. Jonathan came running in with eyes as big as saucers, yelling “They were monsters. Arms as big as trees and breath that smelled like Pippin’s!” Celci kept crying “I’m not afraid, I’m not afraid!”, while Julianna, quite calmly exclaimed that “they seemed like really nice people”.
I don’t know what it was out there in the dark of night, but whatever it was that caused all that commotion seemed to disappear just as mysteriously as it appeared. We searched the area all through the night and into the morning and could didn’t find hide nor hair of them. When questioned about it, the kids just said that all of the sudden they came from nowhere and then just seemed to disappear into thin air, most terrible thing they had ever seen. A bunch of hooey? I don’t think so, stranger things have happened here in the cold and dark nights of the desert.
By Gary (Madman) Hyde
December 2003
