The Strangest Things Found In American Deserts

By Editorial Staff in Nature On 28th December 2016
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#1 Abandoned Prada Store

Talk about weird. Imagine driving down the highway in the middle of the Texas desert at night and seeing a little shop, all lit up, displaying designer shoes and handbags. This was actually a permanent art installation and not a random place to do shopping. Scandinavian Artists funded the project and wanted to see how the store would look after spending a long period of time in the middle of the desert. Nobody knows why. The installation was quickly robbed of all the designer products just days after it was opened, as you could imagine. The artists rebuilt the shop with unbreakable windows and security locks and restocked it with shoes, handbags, and accessories.

#2 Giant Arrows

If you go hiking through the Arizona desert, you might come across these giant arrows that appear to be leading the way to some mysterious location or treasures. But these arrows have actually been spotted all across the Southwest. They measure about 70 feet in length.

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#3 Like An Early GPS For Postal Planes

Some people have traveled across the desolate dry lands to try to photograph these arrows but it turns out that they are not as mysterious as they appear. Apparently, the US Post Office placed these cement arrows all over the desert in 1911 to help airplanes find their way to deliver mail and packages to the West coast.

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#4 Secret Swimming Pool

An Austrian artist erected a luxurious swimming pool in the middle of the Mohave desert, and it's real, not a mirage. The only problem is, the exact location is unknown without the use of Google Maps. It's located somewhere in Southeastern California and after hiking through the unforgiving terrain, a cool pool would be amazing. However, at last check, vandals had destroyed the pool.

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#5 Aliens

The Nevada desert is creepy for many reasons, one is because it goes on for hundreds of miles with no sign of life whatsoever. The state has only 26 people per square mile, and of course, most of them are in Las Vegas and Reno. Much of the land is uninhabitable. A few miles north of Vega, a bunch of locals believe the area is inhabited by aliens.

#6 Area 51 Tourist Trap

The area is now a tourist attraction, complete with everything to do with aliens and Area 51, where people believe that aliens bodies are stored from a UFO crash in Roswell, New Mexico. Because of this, alien believers flock to the Area 51 site to try and get a glimpse at a UFO or alien, but it's mostly just creepy souvenir shops and RV parks.

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#7 The Clown Motel

Just another reason why the Nevada desert is creepy, the Clown Motel is there and sits right next to an unattended cemetery. On the border of the isolated town called Tonopah, this motel town lies between Las Vegas and Reno and mainly caters to truckers or those who just want to stop and get off that long, long road.

#8 Haunted Miners Cemetery

The cemetery was built to bury the miners who once inhabited the area when they thought gold was there. The Clown Motel was featured on an episode of Ghost Hunters because the visitors say they experienced strange events there and believe the burial grounds are haunted. If you don't like clowns then this is not the place for you.The theme is all circus related and the rooms are decorated with eerie clown figurines. The doors to the rooms even have clowns on them.

#9 Atari Video Game Stash

In Southeastern New Mexico, Atari filled a landfill full of their games cartridges from the 80's including games like ET, Asteroids, warlords, and centipede. These games didn't succeed and Atari had to do something with them. Investigators were hired in an attempt to find the games and in 2014 the games were finally uncovered in the landfill near the Atari factory after months of planning and investing $50,000 dollars. Once they were found they discovered over 1,900 copies of games in pristine condition. The games sold on Ebay like hotcakes and even the Smithsonian was interested in some copies for its exhibit.

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#10 The Mojave Desert Phone Booth

There is something really creepy about seeing a phone booth these days, especially when it's in the middle of the desert just sitting off the side of the highway far away from civilization. The phone booth was placed 8 miles from the nearest road in the 1960s and was meant to service miners in the area or anyone who may find themselves lost out there. In 1997 it became an internet sensation and soon became a popular hiking destination. One man, John Kelowna, camped out by the phone and spent 32 days there claiming he was instructed by God to answer any incoming calls. He actually received over 500 calls, including one from the Pentagon.

#11

Near Amarillo, in the desert of Eastern Texas, Chip Marquez and Doug Michaels, two visual abstract artists, buried ten vintage Cadillac convertibles just off the highway. Despite most of the visible cars being covered in graffiti, the locals love the project and say it's like a modern Stonehenge.

#12 The Petrified Forest

Would you believe there's actually an entire forest of fossilized trees in Arizona!? A long time ago, this modern day desert was covered logs that were naturally transported by a river of now-extinct trees on the continent of Pangea. Each of these large rocks that are formed on the ground are actually fossils from the late Triassic Period about 225 million years ago. The went through a process known as petrification when their living cells were filled with minerals, like silica and quartz which helps the wood retain much of its original form. It's believed that some of these trees were over 200 feet tall when alive!

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#13 Flintstones Bedrock City

The designers of this Flintstones themed attraction park had the idea in mind that tourists would flock to the hot desert to see the Flintstones, but it didn't turn out to be quite as popular as they had hoped. This theme park is located in the desert just northwest of Flagstaff, Arizona and it's delightfully creepy. It's was abandoned for quite some time but it looks like it's recently been slightly renovated with the addition of the slide on the dinosaur's tail. Tourists are free to stop and wander around and snap a photo or two with Fred and Wilma as the park is not open.

#14 Utah Evaporation Pools

If you were hiking through the Utah desert might think you were slightly hallucinating when you came across these evaporation ponds. However, you certainly would not want to take a swim here because these waters actually contain salts with potassium. The ponds provide a brilliant blue light in contrast to the barren Moab desert that surrounds them. When the sun evaporates the pond, what's left over are potassium crystals which are then sold. The different shades of blue are actually due to how much of the water has evaporated. Cobalt blue dye is then added to the water to help the ponds capture more sunlight.

#15 Death Valley Castle

What's a huge castle doing in the middle of the desert in possibly the hottest place on Earth? Scotty's Castle is a two-story Spanish mission style villa, located in Northern Death Valley. It's known as Scotty's Castle and it was built by Alberty Johnson who was convinced there was possibly gold in Death Valley somewhere by prospector Walter Scott.

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#16 The Castle Was Never Completed

The claim turned out to be false however the two managed to become friends anyways. The mansion went unfinished due to the stock market crash in 1929 but tours are available for those who are intrigued by this place in one of the hottest places on earth. The castle sees about 200 tourists every year, and it's free to walk through it.

#17 Titan Missile Museum

Where else in the US can you visit a 9-ton nuclear warhead? The real one was moved in order for it to become a museum, but the missile that was used for training exercises looks quite real! This is the only megaton missile silo that's actually open to the public from the Cold War and it offers a truly mysterious experience for those who want to visit it. It's hidden away in the vast, Arizona desert but was decommissioned in 1982 by Ronald Reagan.

#18 Spend The Night In The Missle Silo

People can visit the living quarters of the crew who were ready to bring on an apocalypse if asked to do so. You can also spend the night here for the right price. You can even check out the key hole where people would have turned to key for it to be launched!

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#19 Oldest North American Petroglyphs

The Petroglyphs found in the Northern Nevada Desert, is home to North America's oldest known petroglyphs that are believed to date back to at least 5,600 BC but some can be as old as 14,000 years. That predates the pyramids by at least 3000 years! The rock art is extremely fragile and efforts are being made to protect them. Some of them depict geometric patterns, while others depict a spear and an antelope. Who were the ancient people who left this prehistoric artwork and what were they trying to convey? Nobody knows for sure, which adds to the mystery of the creepy Nevada desert.