University of New Mexico Press Weird New Mexico

The author of Mysterious New Mexico returns to explore and explain another dozen strange stories of the mysterious and weird in the “Land of Enchantment,” including the infernal Taos Hum, the Dulce Alien Base, and the Hobbs Weeping Statue.

New Mexico has a well-earned reputation as home to the mysterious and bizarre. It is a land of contradictions and stark contrasts, a place where the exceptional and the commonplace, the rational and the mystical, mix freely.
Sometimes the strangeness is well-known—even world-famous—such as the 1947 Roswell crash and the infernal Taos Hum. Other stories of ghosts, monsters, miracles, and magic are told only in hushed whispers or as ancient riddles that lurk under the sunbaked desert sands.

In Weird New Mexico researcher Benjamin Radford examines monsters and miracles, ghost stories and UFOs, conspiracy theories and historical mysteries across the Land of Enchantment, asking:

• What caused the infamous and terrifying Taos Hum?
• What’s behind reports of a UFO base inside a mountain outside Dulce?
• What are the strange “skyfish” recorded above Roswell?
• Who—or what—made sinister symbols found on Albuquerque’s West Mesa?
• What ghosts are said to haunt Old Town, the St. James Hotel, and the Territorial House restaurant?
• Who carved the strange Los Lunas mystery stone?
• Where are Bigfoot and chupacabra said to lurk in New Mexico?
• Why did a statue miraculously weep in a Hobbs church?

Radford tackles these mysteries with an open mind, seeking explanations where it seems none are possible. Using folklore, sociology, history, psychology, forensic science, and of course good old-fashioned detective work, he reveals the truths behind these weird cases.