welcome to Mysteries of the Superstition mountain I'm Larry Hedrick where we bring
the past into the present for our future viewers today we have another great story by hank Sheffer
well the superstition mountain area is truly an amazing place there's no doubt about that
and between the history and all the legends and the lore and whatnot there's so much of
it out here it's almost too much for one person to absorb at one time that's why we're doing
these stories so we can help you all out but the bottom line is all them stories aren't always
so real some of them are pretty fantastical and a lot of times stories come about
because this person over here who thinks he found something doesn't want this person over here to
know what he found so he'll tell him a story that probably wants to be true but it just isn't
and that's what we're going to talk about this morning some of the fantastical stories
the the mystical things that have mystery around them they even sound like the right places to be
sometimes because they'll use name places that are right but they might put this name place
over here and this name place over here and so consequently you really don't know where you
are but the story sounds great such as the first story I'm going to tell you today and I'm going
to try to tell it to you the way the fella who told it the first time told it it goes like this
it was me and my partner old little buck we'd been out walking all day it was kind of a dark
drizzly rainy day so clouds had hidden the sun all day we were walking it was chilly
it was getting on the nightfall not only was it time to quit walking but it was time to eat
we were both getting pretty hungry and we were wanting camp get set up pretty quick
so in case it did start to rain we wouldn't be get caught be getting caught out in it
well we were at across the la Barge area and we're coming up to what we call marsh flats march flats
area and we found this place that had an outcrop that we could crawl under it was pretty good-sized
place we could crawl under there get all of our gear in there and we could build a fire right at
the edge of that and it would keep the it would keep that little alcove in there nice and warm
and it would keep us out of the rain well we did that and we got it all set up
we fixed dinner and it was starting to cloud up lightning and thunder and and the water started
coming down and we thought oh here we go so we crawled back into space as far as we could get
we finished up our supper we put the pans up for the time being because we weren't going out
in the rain to wash dishes that's a little silly so we just kind of scooched it back
up in there and it was figured it was time to get some shut eye and that's just what we did
well we were sitting there and the thunder and lightning was so loud now little buck he didn't
care this guy could sleep through anything I swear he was just over there snoring and carrying on and
making as much racket as the thunderstorm was me I was having a terrible time getting to sleep
but finally I started dozing off and i just about gotten to that point where i was asleep
and upsets little buck he just sits up and it just dragged me right back into reality I guess
and he said did you see that and I said see what i said I'm asleep I'm trying to get to sleep
he says no it's right over there and I'm looking over there he says there's a woman over there
behind the bushes well I'm going to tell you I personally have been in and out of this desert for
a long time and I ain't found no women behind no bushes anytime it never happens that way it might
in the books but it doesn't happen that way but I looked over there where buck was pointing and
sure enough there was a woman out there floating about 10 feet off the ground she was just sitting
there kind of eerie and floating in and out of focus to us and I'm looking and I'm just about
figuring out what I'm looking at here and little buck fires off around the thing and that about
jerked me right off the ground so now I'm up about here and I'm still looking at this lady over here
and I'm trying to figure out what I'm looking at he says that lady's over there I said that
can't be a lady over there it's got to be a ghost or something well little buck didn't
figure that was any better so we're still sitting there and the thunder and the lightning is just
going on and on and the only time we can really see her is when the lightning flashes
so we're just kind of scooting ourselves back in that in that little alcove as far as we can
get hoping she's not going to come our way well the lightning and the thunder started to subside
it was a little bit quieter and the only thing was happening was the dripping rain and we looked
out over there and she was gone she was just plum going and we looked and we watched and we
couldn't see anything so we stoked the fire up a little bit and we figured maybe putting a pot of
coffee together would be a good idea and we'd stay awake and keep vigil just in case she came back
well little buck we got the fire built we had a cup of coffee little buck he's off he's snoring
again he's carrying on and me I'm sitting there just watching every place I can watch
what little lightning there was would light up and every saguaro that lit up looked like a great big
giant out there with their arms up in the air and you start seeing all sorts of funny things
you're not really sure what any of them are but you know that was a cactus a second ago but now it
looks like something different and you got your buddy over here snoring so that's not helping
well I'm still trying to get some sleep I figured maybe just get a little bit of sleep because dawn
can't be that far off and I was just starting to doze off when all of a sudden you got it little
buck it's time for breakfast and he's up and he's wide-eyed and bushy-tailed he's ready to go
me I'm just I'm as groggy as i can because I haven't hardly slept at all
and so we got we got our coffee going again we had to stoke the fire up again got the coffee going
gotta have coffee got to have coffee so we got that done we finished our coffee
we started stowing our gear and getting ready to leave because the way we figured
that lady at night that was drifting over marsh flats where we were
was gone and we weren't wanting to be there if she came back so we packed up all our goodies
and we started our trek home now I don't know if there was ever anything really there
little buck won't say much because he said he slept well he didn't but he saw her too
but we ain't never been back there and there have been other people that have heard the same story
and they said that they've seen her I just have to wonder if you can't trip somebody's imagination
you tell them they saw something enough times i suspect they're probably going to see it too
but we ain't never been back to that place and I'm sure there's a lot of folks that
have never been back up to that area either even though that particular area is one where
more often than not people talk about going to find gold
but I'm sure a lot of folks have been scared off because of the floating lady out at marsh flats.
well that's the way that story was told you know whether or not it was true remains to be seen
I prefer to believe that it wasn't but at this point in time I can tell you there was there
was another story out basically the same area about these three fellows that had gone out there
and if you've watched any of our shows at all you know that at one time or another there were
over 30 stone houses or stone buildings or sacks whatever you want to call them
that were in the superstitions at one time or another and this particular story deals with
one of those stone houses that was apparently put up by an Indian fellow there's Indian fellows back
here in this mountain that apparently do a lot of things that we don't really know who they were
it's it's kind of like the Indian squall that we hear about that tells white men about gold
there's always an Indian squad someplace and she's always talking too much
we're gonna let that be at any rate there's always an Indian squall woman who tells a white man and
something happens to her but anyway so these three fellas are back up around bluff springs
up near Charlie boy and they come across this this little stone house well it's getting late
in the evening and I don't suppose you believe it was a rainy nasty cloudy kind of day too
but they decided that they were going to stop in this in this stone house
now the stone house was like four or five feet of stone that went all the way around four walls
that way and then the rest of it was built with boards and logs or whatever else they had with a
little roof on it like a lean too well they went inside and inside there was there's an old table
and a built-in bench that they could use for a bed and one of the three fellas went in there
and he was just plum tucker down he just went in he sat down on that bench and it took him no time
at all he was asleep he laid himself down and out he went well my partner and I decided right now to
be a good time before it rains we'll go down and replenish our water because it was a good spring
probably six seven hundred yards from us and we knew it was a nice clear spring we could
go down there replenish our water and we'd be ready to go in the morning so we lit up
we lit our lantern put it on the table and we just let him sleep him he my partner and I we
we kind of skedaddled down toward that that water spring we were down there getting the water and
all of a sudden at the same time we both had this feeling that something was watching us or there
was impending danger there was something going on and we both turned around at the same time
we went for a weapon we do our weapons standing there kind of silly because can't see anything
but then we looked up over the hill toward the cabin and all we could see was this huge
fire going on it was like the cabin was on fire and the problem with that was that our
our friends were still inside their sound asleep so we got our water together our canteens and we
started back up that draw up toward the up toward the cabin and the closer we got to it the dimmer
the fire got and finally we got to the cabin we went inside and the only fire to be seen anywhere
was that lantern that was sitting on the table and our friend was still over on that bench
sound asleep it was just as the title of the story goes it was the enigma
in the stone house so we really don't know what happened but we didn't spend a lot of time there
either we got up the next morning and we left we've never been back to that stone house either
but now as I said earlier if you've watched any of our episodes before you're going to find that
a lot of the clues that went to gold out in the Charlie boy area Charlie boy springs out at the
at the green flats of the green springs which was also the marsh flats area you'll find that
these clues always mention gold even Jacob Walsh's clues talked about the same area
so that this this area was probably the most walked over area in the superstition mountains
besides weaver's needle we'll hear a little bit about that too but that's those are two stories
that I remember right off hand the superstition mountain is full of them
there are mystical happenings there are people that go up there and disappear um and that's still
a fact there have been nearly they say nearly 300 people have lost their lives or been lost in
the mountains over the last 150 to 200 years and that's about all i can say about that other than
figuring out what happened to those people was just another one of those mysteries of the
superstition mountain thank you for watching this episode of Mysteries of the Superstition Mountains