Meteor Crater, Arizona

Astronaut practicing near Meteor Crater

Buzz Aldrin looked at the rim of the massive crater hovering five stories above him. It was treacherous terrain, but Aldrin, being a part of the exclusive group of Apollo astronauts, was not nervous. It was his job to explore where no one had explored before.

The heavy suit hindered his movements, but Aldrin knew he had a job to do, and no difficulty would stand in his way.

Suddenly, his right boot caught a rock sideways, sending him to the ground with a painful crunch. Worse, though, was that a gaping tear had ripped through the suit's arm, and Aldrin knew what could happen within moments.

On the moon’s surface, he may lose consciousness within 15 seconds as his brain depletes the last of his oxygen supply. Since there would no longer be any artificial pressure within the suit, the water in his body would immediately begin to boil at normal body temperature. Finally, the lack of oxygen would cause his death within one or two minutes.

This was a serious situation, but the iconic adventurer would have another day to ponder that tear in the arm of his suit. This was Meteor Crater in Arizona, and NASA had just learned a valuable lesson.

Suits to function on the moon or other planets must have redundancy after redundancy to ensure a simple fall will not end catastrophically, thus ending any hopes of a successful mission. By the time NASA sent a man to the moon, the suits had 21 layers to ensure the astronaut was as perfectly protected from any unforeseen and possibly tragic situations.

Laureen and John Beyer enjoying Meteor Crater, Arizona

During the mid 1960s to the mid 1970s, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration would utilize the first impact crater recognized on Earth for their astronaut training, gearing up for the Apollo 11 moon landing on July 20, 1969, and follow-up missions.

Mining area and astronaut training grounds, Meteor Crater, Arizona

Colonel Buzz Aldrin, who would become the second person to ever step onto the surface of the closest celestial neighbor, may have been grateful for that tumble he had taken within the confines of Meteor Crater, way back on Earth in Arizona.

Meteor Crater, 44 miles east of Flagstaff, Arizona, is now a mecca for those who are interested in not only space but also what sometimes falls from space.

Early geologists believed the three-quarters-of-a-mile-wide by nearly 600 feet deep crater was the result of an ancient volcanic eruption. 

Meteor Crater, Arizona

One man, Daniel Barringer, a mining engineer, saw the crater for himself in 1903 and proposed that the nearly circular crater was caused by a meteor, and not volcanic activity.

Daniel Barringer

The scientific world scoffed, but the stubborn self-made man spent the next 27 years digging in the center of the crater looking for that elusive meteor, along with dozens of skilled workers he hired through the years. He never found the meteor and suffered a massive heart attack on November 30, 1929.

Neither the engineer nor his contemporaries understood that when a meteor enters Earth’s atmosphere, nearly 90% of its mass is burned off by the friction of speeding at 26,000 miles per hour, as was the case with the meteor striking the Arizona High Desert. Thus, this meteor was only 

Dig as he might, Barringer was never going to find a large meteor, only tiny shards that were blasted all over the surrounding desert for miles. 

Viewing window looking toward Flagstaff to the northwest

It would take four more decades before planetary scientist Eugene Shoemaker told the world that Mr. Barringer had been correct.

Shoemaker studied the crater sides and floor, and compared them to craters left after atomic bomb detonations. He referred to ‘shocked rocks’ and microscopic high-pressure minerals like coesite that had been pulverized by a hyper-velocity impact.

Just like Barriniger had once theorized.

Meteor Crater is only 50,000 years old, relatively young compared to the North Pole Dome Impact Crater, which could date back three billion years. Or the most famous one, the Chicxulub, which plummeted into the Yucatan Peninsula 66 million years ago, killing off nearly 75% of life on Earth, including the dinosaurs.  

Nevertheless, Daniel Barringer will forever go down in history as the man who first recognized a meteor impact crater on Earth.

And that is a pretty huge legacy.

John R. Beyer getting ready for next mission

John can be contacted at: beyersbyways@gmail.com

For further information: https://meteorcrater.com/

The Haunting at Apache Death Cave

As Laureen and I were driving west along Route 66, after visiting Winslow, Arizona – we decided to stop by a place that is so haunted, so scary, so unnaturally spooky that most humans would not dare to tread there.

Not being like most humans, we knew it was an experience we just had to visit on our very own.

Laureen is not that fancy on these spectral sorts of sites but since I was driving . . .

After pulling south off Route 66 by the ruins of the town of Two Guns, I was busy scanning my hand-held GPS looking for the scariest area near Two Guns.

Welcome to Two Guns, Arizona

“I don’t think this thing is working,” I told Laureen. “If I’m holding it correctly, we’re somewhere between Vienna and Salzburg.”

No reply from Laureen.

Suddenly I heard her from about 50 feet away. “It’s right here, I can feel it.”

Laureen Beyer looking for the Apache Death Cave

The reason Laureen does not like to travel to many supposedly haunted places is due to the fact she actually ‘feels’ something. A sense or foreboding of what may have occurred in the past at such a place.

Me, I usually feel hungry or thirsty. 

As in earlier articles concerning ‘haunted places’ I tend to be a bit of a skeptic. Don’t really think folks from the afterlife are lingering around waiting for me to invade their space.

“Hey, you are now in my personal ghost space. So rude of you that I will throw this antique rocking chair at your head.”

Of course, I do have to admit I have heard or seen things that I can not explain while traveling here and there.

I once saw a boy scout escort an elderly woman across the street in Houston, and I thought that only happened in Hallmark films.

“What is right here that you can feel it?” I asked Laureen, finally giving up on the hand-held GPS which had me now somewhere east of Moscow.

“The cave, it’s right here,” she replied.

The Apache Death Cave

The cave, Laureen was mentioning, was the famed Apache Death Cave located about 12 miles west of Meteor Crater in Arizona along Route 66.

The legend is terrifically sad.

In the late 19th century, the two dominate native tribes residing in the area were the Apache and the Navajo. These two groups did not get a long well together and often raided and killed each other over territory or perhaps because they did not like each other.

But in 1878 it is rumored that some Apaches entered two Navajo camps and killed everyone except three young girls whom they kidnapped.

Other Navajo warriors hearing of this diabolical action started to chase the Apache to seek their revenge and get the girls back.

The Navajo were closing the gap of the fleeing Apache but suddenly lost sight of them near the edge of the Canyon Diablo, a long arroyo that meanders through the territory.

Getting off their horses, the Navajo looked high and low and low and high but could not locate the Apache.

Just then, as the story goes, one of the Navajo thought he heard voices coming from somewhere below him and then found a deep cave carved into the Kaibab Limestone.

Sure enough, the Apache had ridden into the large cave with their horses and captives hoping to trick the tracking Navajo.

The ruse did not work.

Grabbing a lot of sagebrush, the Navajo decided to smoke the Apache out of the cave by lighting the bushes on fire.

Moments later, a few Apache ran from the cave but were immediately killed by the waiting Navajo.

It only took a few minutes to realize the captives had been murdered by the Apache, so the rest of the Navajo posse decided to finish the job and continued to throw large amounts of burning sagebrush into the mouth of the cave.

There was no chance for escape for any of the Apache trapped within the walls of the cave. 42 Apache succumbed to the smoke and fire.

I wandered over to where Laureen was standing by a small rock border, and she pointed downward. Sure enough, there was a cave which seemed as though the walls may have been smoke damaged sometime in the past.

“The hairs are standing up on head,” she stated.

Looking at her perfectly quaffed hair, I did not know what to say. So, I said nothing.

An old wooden ladder type of bridge ran across the width of the cave allowing the visitor a chance to get closer into the cave.

The bridge leading to the cave

“You first,” I said.

“Me never,” Laureen replied.

After a few tense moments of rock scrambling and teetering on the wooden bridge, I found myself at the bottom of the cave. 

It was dark inside the cave. 

“Do you feel anything?” 

“Yes,” I replied.

“Wow, what?”

“I think I dislocated my right shoulder.”

The cave was longer than I had thought it would be. I wandered a bit bumping into this wall or that wall, once nearly knocking off the top of my head on a low ceiling and thought that if the ghosts of the murdered Apache were not going to talk to me, it was time to call this adventure off.

Besides, it did seem rather spooky in that dark hole in the ground alone.

Not a lot of room inside the Apache Death Cave

“You want to come down, and see?”

“Nope.”

After dusting myself off and making sure my forehead was not bleeding, I noticed that Laureen was not looking quite herself.

She told me that there was something in the immediate surroundings she could sense. A sense of doom, of tragedy, of unmistakable horror.

“They were afraid to die in such a way.”

I do not question her feelings. I may do it inwardly but not outwardly.

But there was something different in that cave – I am not saying I felt what Laureen did, but it was rather oppressive in the cave. Almost suffocating, but that could be the close quarters and wandering around in a dark place by yourself.

New Reality paranormal investigators, Shawn and Cody, had visited the Apache Death Cave in the past and recorded their investigation for their hit series.

They felt and heard things while pulling their stint within that cave.

We spent time with them when they investigated a haunted ranch house in Lucerne. We all heard and experienced things that long haunting night.

These guys are experts in this paranormal field.

But I am still a skeptic. I am waiting for Casper to come sit next to me on the sofa and explain clearly why he is a ghost and why I need to believe.

In 1881, a bridge was built across Canyon Diablo by the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad and a small tent city, named Canyon Diablo was constructed for the workers.

Canyon Diablo

But that little tent city grew up to be a rootin’-tootin’ full-time town which made Tombstone look like a children’s nursery school.

The population boomed to 2,000 folks overnight and there was at least one killing in the streets near the dozen saloons, gambling halls, and brothels each day.

In fact, the first Marshall hired to protect the town was shot dead three hours later. It was a lawless town.

Boot Hill became so full that the undertaker ran out of room for any new customers.

One problem with this tale, according to the Republic Newspaper out of Arizona, is that this town probably never existed.

Images of town that may have never existed?

In an article written by Scott Craven, the town had been created by a fictional writer by the name of Gladwell Richardson who passed away in 1980 who had written nearly 300 western novels under various pseudonyms.

When the bridge was completed, the tent city moved on.

It was also Richardson who first wrote about the Apache Death Cave in his only non-fiction book about the town of Two Guns, Arizona. Prior to him writing about it in his book the tragic event had never seen print.

Seems, that both a town so wild Doc Holiday would have circumvented it and a horrific story such as the Apache Death Cave had occurred there should be more mention of it in the history books.

But, as with many historical records, things may get a bit exaggerated by those writing those histories.

Those silly writers. Who do they think they are embellishing here and there?

We walked around studying the layout, checking this out and checking that out and Laureen said she could still feel that something tragic had occurred here in the past.

Perhaps something had happened to the Apache and Navajo in the 19th century and perhaps not.

A town may have been here that was totally lawless but perhaps not.

That is the way with myths and legends, they grow stronger as the decades slip by.

Are they true or does it really matter?

Something was here at some time