Nevada Myths and Cryptology plus much of the rest of the US South West

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Nevada is state with many myths and cryptology elements about it.

One myth is that the Democratic Senator Key Pittman died in 1940 before the election, and was put in ice by supporters, so the voters would elect him and keep the state Democratic. In fact he did not die before the election.

The Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization reports up to the date of the making of this site in December 2007 many pieces of possible Bigfoot evidence. They are possible footprints in Clark County Nevada, in March 2005, 10 miles south of Pahrump in Carpenter Canyon.

And near the Nevada place of Genoa in 1984 2 hikers claim to have had a near meeting of a Bigfoot. This was in Douglas County.

In 1980 there was a reporting of a siting in the Southern Nevadan desert in a test site of one walking across a road towards the Yucca Flat, no evidence of foot prints were found, and people apparently made fun of the person who claimed to have seen the supposedly 6 foot creature. This was in Nye County.

Storey County saw in 1980 2 security guards in Gold Hill claim to have seen a upto 10 foot tall Bigfoot that was disturbed out of woods by the noise of children playing, the creature stood on a hill for about a minute then went away. It was about 4.15 and near hot and clear skied. The creature understood the terrain.

There have been 3 alleged sitings in Washoe County Nevada, 1 in which 4 stray dogs in 1972 chased a growling Bigfoot, in a area of steep hills, and sagebrush, sand, weeds boulders, and granite outcrops. There was another in 1972 when 3 boys are said to have sited a Bigfoot. And in 1970s when 2 family members heard what they feel may have been Bigfoot howls.

California has reported 370 pieces of possible evidence of the Bigfoot, Arizona 42, and Utah 42. Idaho has reported 51, Washington State 415, and Oregon 198.

The biggest Cryptology story for Nevada is Area 51,

Area 51 is a remote tract of land in the southwestern portion of Lincoln County in southern Nevada in the United States, located at the southern edge of a large dry salt flat called Groom Lake. It lies within the Nevada Test and Training Range and is owned by the United States Department of Defense and the United States Air Force. Area 51 contains an airfield whose primary purpose is believed to be the operation and analysis of enemy aircraft and weapons systems, and secret development and testing of new military aircraft. Area 51 is the frequent subject of UFO conspiracy theories.

Although the facilities at Nellis Air Force Base are managed by the 99th Air Base Wing, the Groom facility appears to be run as an adjunct of the Air Force Flight Test Centre (AFFTC) at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert, around 160 miles (260 km) from Groom (AFFTC homepage), and as such the base is known as Air Force Flight Test Center (Detachment 3).

Other names used for the facility include Dreamland, Paradise Ranch, Home Base, Watertown Strip, and Groom Lake. The area is part of the Nellis Military Operations Area, and military pilots refer to the forbidden airspace around it (R-4808N) as The Box

Area 51 shares a border with the Yucca Flats region of the Nevada Test Site (NTS), the location of many of the US Department of Energy's nuclear weapons tests. The Yucca Mountain nuclear storage facility is approximately 40 miles (64 km) southwest of Groom Lake.

The designation "Area 51" is somewhat contentious, appearing on older maps of the NTS but not newer ones, yet the same naming scheme is used for other parts of the Nevada Test Site.

The area is connected to the internal NTS road network, with paved roads leading south to Mercury and west to Yucca Flats. Leading northeast from the lake, the wide and well-maintained Groom Lake Road runs through a pass in the Jumbled Hills. The road formerly led to mines in the Groom basin, but has been improved since their closure. Its winding course runs past a security checkpoint, but the restricted area around the base extends further east. (Unauthorized visitors who travel west on Groom Lake Road are usually observed first by guards located on the hills surrounding the pass, still several miles from the checkpoint). After leaving the restricted area (marked by numerous warning signs stating that "photography is prohibited" and that "use of deadly force is authorized" under the terms of the 1950 McCarran Internal Security Act) Groom Lake Road descends eastward to the floor of the Tikaboo Valley, passing the dirt-road entrances to several small ranches, before converging with Nevada State Route 375, the "Extraterrestrial Highway", south of Rachel. Area 51 can be seem with Google Maps by searching Area 51.

Operations at Groom Lake

Groom Lake is not a conventional airbase, as frontline units are not normally deployed there. It instead appears to be used during the development, testing, and training phases for new aircraft. Once these aircraft have been approved by the United States Air Force or other agencies such as the CIA, operation of that aircraft is generally conducted as that of a normal air force base. Groom is reported, however, to be the permanent home for a small number of Soviet-designed aircraft (obtained by various means), which are analyzed and used for training purposes.

Soviet spy satellites obtained photographs of the Groom Lake area during the height of the Cold War, and later civilian satellites produced detailed images of the base and its surroundings. These images support only modest conclusions about the base; they depict a nondescript base, airstrip, hangars and the lake, but nothing that supports some of the claims about underground facilities.

It was used by the U-2 program, Blackbird programs, Have Blue/F-117 program and the Defense contractor EG&G maintains a private terminal at McCarran International Airport in the Las Vegas metropolitan area. A number of unmarked aircraft operate daily shuttle services from McCarran to sites operated by EG&G in the extensive federally controlled lands in southern Nevada.

The Federal Government admits the facility's existence, tacitly conceeding that the Air Force has an "operating location" near the lake, but does not provide any further information. The base is conspicuously absent from Federal publications and inquiries to the government regarding the facility are rejected for reasons of national security.

The base does not appear on public U.S. government maps; the USGS topographic map for the area only shows the long-disused Groom Mine, and the civil aviation chart for Nevada shows a large restricted area, but defines it as part of the Nellis restricted airspace. Similarly the National Atlas page showing federal lands in Nevada does not distinguish between the Groom block and other parts of the Nellis range. Although officially declassified, the original film taken by U.S. Corona spy satellite in the 1960s has been altered prior to declassification; in answer to freedom of information queries, the government responds that these exposures (which map to Groom and the entire NAFR) appear to have been destroyed. Nevada's state government, recognizing the folklore surrounding the base might afford the otherwise neglected area some tourism potential, officially renamed the section of Nevada State Route 375 near Area 51 "The Extraterrestrial Highway", and posted fancifully illustrated signs along its length.

Although federal property within the base is exempt from state and local taxes, facilities owned by private contractors are not. Area 51 researcher Glenn Campbell claimed in 1994 that the base only declares a taxable value of $2 million to the Lincoln County tax assessor, who is unable to enter the area to perform an assessment.

1974 Skylab photography
In January of 2006, space historian Dwayne A. Day published an article in online aerospace magazine The Space Review titled "Astronauts and Area 51: the Skylab Incident." The article was based around a recently declassified memo written in 1974 to CIA director William Colby by an unknown CIA official. The memo reported that astronauts on board Skylab 4 had, as part of a larger program, inadvertently photographed a location of which the memo said "There were specific instructions not to do this. <redacted> was the only location which had such an instruction." Although the name of the location was obscured, the context led Day to believe that the subject was Groom Lake.

The memo details debate between federal agencies regarding whether the images should be classified, with Department of Defense agencies arguing that it should, and NASA and the State Department arguing against classification. The memo itself questions the legality of unclassified images to be retroactively classified.

Remarks on the memo, handwritten apparently by DCI (Director of Central Intelligence) Colby himself, read:

He did raise it - said State Dept. people felt strongly. But he inclined leave decision to me (DCI) - I confessed some question over need to protect since:
USSR has it from own sats
What really does it reveal?
If exposed, don't we just say classified USAF work is done there?
The declassified documents do not disclose the outcome of discussions regarding the Skylab imagery, but were not placed in the federal government's archive of satellite imagery along with the remaining Skylab 4 photographs.

UFO and other conspiracy theories concerning Area 51
Its secretive nature and undoubted connection to classified aircraft research, together with reports of unusual phenomena, have led Area 51 to become a focus of modern UFO and conspiracy theory. Some of the unconventional activities claimed to be underway at Area 51 include:

The storage, examination, and reverse engineering of crashed alien spacecraft (including material supposedly recovered at Roswell), the study of their occupants (living and dead), and the manufacture of aircraft based on alien technology.
Meetings or joint undertakings with extraterrestrials.
The development of exotic energy weapons (for SDI applications or otherwise) or means of weather control.
The development of time travel technology.
The development of unusual and exotic propulsion systems related to the Aurora Program (see Aurora aircraft).
Activities related to a supposed shadowy one world government and or the Majestic Twelve organization.
Many of the hypotheses concern underground facilities at Groom or at nearby Papoose Lake, and include claims of a transcontinental underground railroad system, a disappearing airstrip (nicknamed the "Cheshire Airstrip", after Lewis Carroll's Cheshire cat) which briefly appears when water is sprayed onto its camouflaged asphalt, and engineering based on alien technology. In 1989, Bob Lazar claimed that he had worked at a facility at Papoose Lake (which he called S-4) on such a U.S. Government flying saucer.

Another hypothesis is that Area 51 is a place which simulates the environment of the moon. In 2000-2001, Fox Television broadcast a show about Apollo moon landing hoax accusations, in which it was suggested that the whole moon landing in 1969 was a hoax and was filmed in parts of Area 51.

Others, however, claim that during the mid 1990s, the most secret work previously done at Groom was quietly moved to other facilities, including Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, and that the continued secrecy around Groom is largely a successful attempt at misdirection.

In July 1996, a man named "Victor" announced on Art Bell's Coast to Coast AM radio show that he had a videotape of an alien interrogation which had taken place in Area 51. He claimed that he had made a copy of the tape during a scheduled transfer of analogue videotape files on the base into digital form, and had then smuggled the copy out of Area 51. The video appears to show the head of an alien creature in a dark interrogation room, possibly using telepathy to communicate with military personnel and scientists.The footage was eventually included in a video documentary entitled Area 51: The Alien Interview.

In the X Files in The "Dreamland" two-parter was set in Nevada, this time in the legendary Area 51. It marked another comedy outing for the show, in a season increasingly light in tone, with guest star Michael McKean playing man in black Morris Fletcher, who switches bodies with Fox Mulder during the course of the episodes. It is the only non-mythology two part episode of The X-Files. Another episode was set in Nevada about a car chase.

There were Spanish Myths of a Native American City of Gold, which inspired some of their searches, being in the South Western USA, Quivira and Cíbola are two of the fantastic Seven Cities of Gold existing only in a myth that originated around the year 1150 when the Moors conquered Mérida, Spain. According to the legend, seven bishops fled the city, not only to save their own lives but also to prevent the Muslims from obtaining sacred religious relics. Years later, a rumor circulated that in a far away land—a place unknown to the people of that time—the seven bishops had founded the cities of Cíbola and Quivira.

The legend says that these cities grew very rich, mainly from gold and precious stones. This idea fueled many expeditions in search of the mythical cities during the following centuries.

Eventually, the legend behind these cities grew to such an extent that no one spoke solely of Quivira and Cíbola, but instead of seven magnificent cities made of gold, one for each of the seven bishops who had left Mérida.

In a way, the myth survived until the time that the English explorers were in the New England. It was fed by the castaways of Pánfilo de Narváez's unsuccessful expedition to Florida in 1528, who, upon returning to New Spain, said that they had heard from the mouths of the Native Americans stories of cities with great riches. Only four men had survived that expedition. One was Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca who wrote Naufragios (Shipwrecks) in which he described his adventure on foot from the coast of Florida to the coast of Sinaloa in Mexico. One of the other three survivors was a Moor named Esteban, or Estevanico.

The myth of the seven cities of gold drew the Conquistadors northward through the Jornada del Muerto, the Llano Estacado (Staked Plains), in which they encountered a "Sea of Grass", and finally, the French colonists, who successfully resisted their further northward advance.

In search of the seven cities of gold
Upon hearing the castaways' tales of cities with limitless riches to the North of New Spain, Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza organized an expedition headed by the Franciscan monk Marcos de Niza, who took as his guide Estevanico. During the voyage, in a place called Vacapa (probably located somewhere around the state of Sonora) the monk sent Estevanico to scout ahead. A short while later, Estevanico met a monk who had heard stories from the natives about cities overflowing with riches.

When Marcos de Niza heard of this man, he supposed that the stories pertained to the "Seven Cities of Cíbola y Quivira."

Estevanico did not wait for the friar, but instead continued travelling until he reached Háwikuh, now in New Mexico, where, at the hands of Native Americans, he supposedly met his death, and his companions were forced to flee.

Marcos de Niza returned to Mexico City and said that the expedition moved on even after the reported death of Estevanico. He claimed that they had seen a city very far away and greater than the great Tenochtitlan; in this city, the people used dishes of gold and silver, decorated their houses with turquoise, and had gigantic pearls, emeralds, and other beautiful gems.

It is now believed by many historians that the mica-inflected clay of the adobe pueblos may have created an optical illusion when inflamed by the setting sun. Thus fueling the tale of the "Seven Cities of Cíbola y Quivira."

The second expedition
Upon hearing this news, the Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza wasted no time in organizing a large military expedition to take possession of the riches that the monk had described with such vivid detail.

Upon the Viceroy's command, Francisco Vásquez de Coronado began his expedition, taking the monk Marcos de Niza as his guide. Coronado left with a small group of explorers from Culiacán on 22 April, 1540. While the main part of the expedition was going more slowly under the command of Tristán de Arellano—in each Spanish town the land expedition was re-forming—another expedition commanded by Fernando de Alarcón was leaving by sea to bring supplies to the land expedition.

Vásquez de Coronado went through the state of Sonora and arrived in present day Arizona. There, he discovered that Marcos de Niza's stories were lies and that there were in fact no treasures as the monk had described. He also found that, contrary to the monk's account, the sea was not within view from that region, but it was instead many days' walking distance away.

The Great Quivira
Today there is an old settlement in New Mexico that has been given the name La Gran Quivira ("The Great Quivira"). During the period of Spanish colonization, the settlement was called Pueblo de Las Humanas.

Vásquez de Coronado mentioned an indigenous settlement named Quivira, the location of which is unknown today. García López de Cárdenas had left from there in search of a river that the native Hopi had spoken about.

When García López came to the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River, the river had already been visited and baptized hundreds of miles away at its mouth by Francisco de Ulloa in September of 1539, who named the delta Ancón de San Andrés. Also, Fernando de Alarcón had already travelled 80 leagues up the river and had named it Río de Nuestra Señora del Buen Guía in August of 1540.

García López could not find a path or shortcut leading down from the Grand Canyon to the Colorado River. Still, he is considered the first European to have visited the Grand Canyon.

In popular culture
In the Western video game Gun, Quivira is a central part of the plot, as the game's villain, Thomas Magruder, seeks a golden cross which he believes leads to Quivira. A prologue scene at the beginning of the game, which is supposed to show Coronado's search for Quivira (called Coronado's Second Expedition). However, in this scene, Coronado and all of his associates are slaughtered by the Wichita.
In the Stephen King book The Stand, Trashcan Man is instructed by Randall Flagg to meet him in Cibola, which is later revealed to be Las Vegas.
In the Lincoln Child and Douglas Preston book Thunderhead, the location of Quivira is discovered to be a cliff dwelling and an expedition is mounted. The gold is found to be black-on-yellow micaceous pottery.
Scrooge McDuck and his nephews discover the seven cities in the comic "The Seven Cities of Cibola". Unfortunately, the Beagle Boys follow them and try to steal some treasure for themselves, setting off a boobytrap that collapses the cities and buries them for all time. The ducks and the Beagle Boys escape but forget all about the cities.
In Scott O'Dell's book "The king's fifth" various references to the seven cities of gold are made, as well as about Cibola. The main character is also named Esteban and there is also a Mendoza.
The 1980s Japanese/French animated children's series The Mysterious Cities of Gold was inspired by the quest of the seven hidden cities.
The 1984 video game Seven Cities of Gold, dramatizing the Spanish conquest of the Americas, takes its name from this legend.
The Vertigo/DC comic book series Jack of Fables recently began a storyline called "Americana" which relates the efforts of Jack of the Tales in entering Cibola through the here-to-fore restricted land of American fables (issue 17, Jan 08 cover date).

The Nevada Test Site is a United States Department of Energy reservation located in Nye County, Nevada, about 65 miles (105 km) northwest of the City of Las Vegas, near 37°07'N, 116°03'W. Formerly known as the Nevada Proving Ground, the site, established on January 11, 1951 for the testing of nuclear weapons, is composed of approximately 1,350 square miles (3,500 km²) of desert and mountainous terrain. Nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site began with a one-kiloton (4 terajoule) bomb dropped on Frenchman Flat on January 27, 1951. Many of the iconic images of the nuclear era come from NTS. It is said it is possible over 10,000-75,000 people have been given cancer by the 928 Nuclear tests at this Southern Nevadan site, of which some were seen miles away in Las Vegas. Though there have been none since September 1992. The blasts could be seen for 100 miles around. Most tests were underground. Some people today have tourist trips to see the test sites.

So there is plenty for tourists to see in the state of Nevada. And for tourists to fly to.

The official Webpage of the Abominable Snowman Internet Resource Study Group. Reams of facts, views, history & fun on the elusive creature, Where you need to go, if you are interested in the Yeti