The Mapimí Silent Zone is the popular name for a desert patch near the Bolsón de Mapimí in Durango, Mexico, overlapping the Mapimí Biosphere Reserve. It is the subject of an urban myth that claims it is an area where radio signals and any type of communication cannot be received.
Throughout the 20th century large meteorites landed in southern Chihuahua near the Zone, with two even falling on the same ranch one in 1938, and another in 1954. A third fell in 1969 in the Allende Valley, just to the west. “It woke me, and I saw the firmament alight,” Palacios says of that meteorite. “People for miles saw the light and heard the tremendous noise, which broke windows. It attracted the attention of scientists from around the world.”
The name Zone of Silence (Zona del silencio) was not given until 1966 when Pemex, the national oil company, sent an expedition to explore the area. The leader, Augusto Harry de la Peña, was frustrated by the problems he was having with his radio. He christened it the Zone of Silence. This turned the area into something of a curiosity. However, on July, 11, 1970, the Zone made headlines. That was when an Athena rocket was launched from a U.S. air force base in Green River, Utah, as part of a scientific mission to study the upper atmosphere. The rocket was supposed to come down near White Sands, New Mexico. Instead, it went wildly astray and, at two in the morning, crashed in the heart of the Zone of Silence.
The Zone was now if only briefly in the international spotlight, and some locals saw a tourism opportunity. Wernher Von Braun, the famous Nazi rocket scientist who helped the Americans build their space program, came to investigate on behalf of the U.S. He was greeted at the train station by Palacios’ father, who was then the mayor of Escalón. Von Braun took reconnaissance flights in a Cessna to confirm the crash site. With the aid of 300 Mexican workers, a 16 kilometer rail spur was built across the desert to the impact crater. A team of Americans then came and excavated.
“There are lots of stories of aliens and unidentified flying objects in the Zone,” says Geraldo Rivera, a bespectacled state bureaucrat who is also Chihuahua’s most devoted UFO investigator. “People often get lost in the Zone. When this happens, sometimes tall blond beings appear out of nowhere.” Those who claim to have encountered the tall, fair haired aliens, say that the individuals speak perfect Spanish, ask only for water, and disappear without so much as a footprint. When asked where they come from, the beings known as Nordics say only, “Above”.
