341: The Superstition Mountains

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It's time to see what you can accomplish with Shopify by your side. all right matt so there was this high school guy and he went to the candy store because the prom was coming up so he picked out three boxes of candy five ten and fifteen dollar boxes and he went up to the register and the owner of the candy store is there and he goes son why are you buying three boxes of candy and the kid goes well i got this beautiful prom date so if she lets me hold her hand, I'm going to give her the $5 box. But if she kisses me on the cheek, I'm going to give her the $10 box. But if she lets me make out with her, I'll give her the $15 box. And the owner goes, okay, and sold it to him. And he went on his way. Well, the prom night shows up. And so he goes to pick up the date and the family's like, Hey, we've got a dinner, you know, come in and have dinner with us, whatever. So he comes in and the mom is like, we usually pray before dinner and the kid goes, I'll get it. I'll get it. And he says this long, emotional, very, very long, deep prayer. And after the prayer, his date goes, I didn't know you were that religious. And he goes, I didn't know your dad owned a candy store. Oh, that's a good one. That's a good one. Good evening, everybody, and welcome to the graveyard. Thank you for joining us tonight. My name is Adam. And my name's Matt. Now, pull up a tombstone or settle into your casket and get comfortable because this is Graveyard Tales. All right, everybody. Here we are again. Matt, how you doing tonight, brother? I'm a little cold, but I'm still here. I hear you. I hear you. So this will let you guys know kind of when we're recording this, but Matt and I both in different states have been kind of trapped at home for a few days. Yeah. Just today here in Texas, it got up to 50, so things are starting to thaw, thankfully. Yeah. But, I mean, me and Ashley and Michael were at home for 72 hours nearly and didn't leave. Yeah. That's not normal. No, we did not leave. I got out on like Monday around midday to kind of survey the damage because our neighborhood lost a lot of trees and there were a lot of people without power. We fortunately were not without power. Um, my parents in Nashville lost power and have power lines down across their driveway. They still do not have power. Oh, wow. I mean, this has been day five for them. And so they, they had to evacuate. They could not leave because they couldn't drive over the dead gum power lines. Yeah. Yeah. so they had to get an uber and walk to the next door neighbor's house so that the uber could pick them up that's crazy yeah yeah nuts and we couldn't we couldn't go get them because we couldn't i mean you know they they live you know 20 miles from from us and it just wasn't doable to get them and plus you know if we got them here we didn't have anywhere to put them so yeah right Yeah, we didn't get it as bad as y'all did ice-wise because y'all got like a freezing rain that froze to trees and everything. We got hours and hours of sleet. So it missed the trees and went to the ground, but then it froze over on the ground. So we had a skating rink. Everywhere was a skating rink. So it took till Monday before we could get out and do anything as well. but hopefully by the time you're hearing this it's going to be long gone but hopefully all you guys made it through safe and sound without too much damage anything like that but before we get too off track go check out patreon go to patreon.com graveyard tales sign up to become a patron if you're not already we have three different levels we have a one five and ten dollar and all the levels get a bonus episode every week. We put out a bonus short episode for every level every week. Then $5 and $10, they get the ad-free audio and video versions of the main episode. So if you like the main episodes, but you hate the fact that we do ads, well, when we do ads, we will put out an ad free audio and video version on patreon then if you are a ten dollar patron you get all of that plus you get our second show side quest which is a whole nother thing from graveyard tales i like to find historical stuff and tell matt stories matt likes to make me look like a fool and do trivia games because I'm terrible at trivia. I know a lot of useless stuff, but I can't recall it when you ask me a question about it. It's my brain is dumb. And, you know, we've eaten some funny things. We drank weird sodas. We've early on, we had guests on. We had Ashley and Amanda on. But if you want to see us in a different light, then go over there and check it out. um you know we're passing 100 episodes of that which is amazing to me that we've been doing it that long um but go over patreon.com slash graveyard tales and check it out promise you it's a good deal we we think it's a value for your dollar absolutely absolutely um also i'll just say go check out our sponsors when we have a sponsor you can find the links in the show notes And that's all I'm going to say about that because this is going to be a long episode. So, Matt, why don't you tell us, what are we talking about tonight, brother? Okay, so tonight, Adam and I head to the state of Arizona in the U.S. Southwest and a range of mountains with a reputation that is just hard to ignore. Now, for centuries, people have been drawn to these peaks, whether it's the Apache tribes who treated that land as sacred, or Spanish explorers who were chasing rumors of lost gold, or modern-day hikers who just can't resist the thrill of what might still be out there. stories of hidden treasure and strange happenings are just linger in the air and it makes it easy to feel like these particular mountains are just holding on to secrets you know they're not sharing everything so if you believe the legends or not there's something about the superstition mountains that just pulls you in and makes you wonder what's waiting just on the other side of the next ridge and uh you know for for people there in arizona and stuff i get the feeling that the superstitions are like the appalachians gotta be where similar you know as far as i lived yeah i lived there near the Appalachians for 15 years, and Matt has lived there a lot longer than that. And you just hear those stories about it. And I feel like people in Arizona and that area kind of have the same thought about the superstitions. But as we always say, go check our sources down at the bottom of the show notes. You can find where we found this information. Everything we talk about is sourced and referenced down there in the bottom of the show notes. Now, the Superstition Mountains are a rugged volcanic range just east of Phoenix, Arizona, and they're famous for dramatic cliffs. They've got desert wilderness there and a dense web of legends about hidden gold and deadly curses. Now, the range lies east of the Phoenix metro area and is bounded roughly by US 60 to the south. And Arizona State routes 88 and 188 to the northwest and northeast. So if you know anything about the Phoenix area, that's roughly where it's at. Well, the highest point is Mound Mountain, which I don't know if that seems redundant or if that seems like an oxymoron. I couldn't figure that out when I was doing this. I was like, is that redundant or is that like saying, uh, you know, it, it, jumbo shrimp mound mountain. Yeah. Is it an oxymoron? Yeah. You're an oxymoron. I am. I am. I sure am. So I dated an oxymoron one time back in the day, but that's a whole nother story. Now, the highest point is Mound Mountain, and it reaches about 6,266 feet, with Superstition Mountain itself looming roughly 3,000 feet above the surrounding desert floor. Now, the area is part of the federally designated Superstition Wilderness and 160,000 acres with more than 140 miles of developed trails and many miles of rough unmarked routes are included in that. And I have to say, before I go any further, I love the name Superstition Mountains and Superstition Wilderness. I love it. It's just, it's perfect. I mean, it is just so perfect. And when Matt takes over, you'll see why this fits just so well, whether they meant to initially or not. Now you get the classic Sonoran Desert ecology. So you get the saguaros and low desert scrub in the foothills. And then it goes up to the juniper and pines in the higher cooler pockets. And up there, you know, they've got mule deer, javelina, puma, bobcat, coyotes, reptiles, and a wide variety of birds in the area. Well, geologists describe the superstitions as the remains of a massive volcanic system active roughly 17 to 29 million years ago, centered on a large caldera roughly seven miles across. well the mountains are built largely of welded tough that was my nickname in high school welded tough welded tough is just fused volcanic ash yeah yeah um it it sounds a lot better than what it actually is um but it's got um breccia dascite basalt granite and related volcanic rocks in there and It was uplifted and then carved by millions of years of erosion into sheer cliffs and these needle-like spires that it has. Well, after the caldera collapsed, magma pushed the center upward into a resurgent dome that was then eroded into the steep faces and deep canyons visible today. So it took a lot. to get if this is exactly what happened it took a lot to get to this point um now geologists estimate the central mountain mass used to be about a thousand feet higher than it is now and like the Appalachians it eroded over time because it's a fairly old mountain range not as old as Appalachians but it is old um hikers sometimes report low rumbling like distant thunder And geologists attribute this to small seismic movements or rock falls echoing through the canyons. And it may lead into some stuff Matt's going to talk about, but, you know, stories of the thunder gods in the area. Before American settlement, the area around Superstition Mountain was home to indigenous peoples, including the Pima. So it was the Akimel O'odham tribe, which most people just call the Pima, and the White Mountain Apache who had their own stories and taboos about the range. Well, farmers in the Salt River Valley who heard these stories from the Pima in the late 1860s began calling the peak Superstition Mountain, a name that appeared on U.S. military maps as Sierra supersticiones around 1870. Now, earlier Spanish names reportedly included Sierra de la Espuma, which just means foam mountain. Foam? Foam. And most likely that's because of the volcanic tuff that's there. You know, how volcanic rock looks foamy. Yeah. Yeah. Just don't try to bite it because it ain't foam. Don't matter. Just don't bite it. Exactly. So the Sierra de la Espuma or a foam mountain and variant variants like Thunder Mountain, you know, reflected the way light and storms play against the cliffs and stuff like that. So it's had several different names in its time, but superstition is the one that stuck. Now, the indigenous peoples who lived around the superstition mountains were, they were there for thousands of years, and there was a sequence of hunting bands, farming cultures, the Hohokum and the Salado, and then later O'odham, Yavapai, and the Apache communities tied to the range. Now, archaeologists, archaeological traces suggest small mobile hunting and gathering bands were using the superstition wilderness as early as 8,000 to 10,000 years before today, leaving scattered tools, camps, and fire sites. And these groups likely move seasonally following game and wild plants between the desert lowlands and the higher cooler elevations instead of them just building a permanent village there in the mountains. Now, by around 700 to 1100 AD, people that archaeologists called the Hohokum were active in the broader region. They were famous for large canal systems along the Salt and Gila rivers, but also for rock art sites that reach into the foothills of the superstitions. So petroglyphs in places like the misnamed Hieroglyphic Canyon are attributed to the Hohokam era artist, indicating ritual visits, hunting, or small farmsteads tied to larger communities in the West. Now roughly a thousand to 1250 AD, a new cultural pattern archaeologists call Salado appears around the Tonto Basin and the Salt River. Excuse me, I burped. Salado people are thought to be a blend of migrant ancestral Puebloans, the Anasazi. And near the Superstition Mountains, Salado groups built cliff and cave dwellings. in places like Rogers Canyon and other side canyons using shallow caves and ledges as defensible, cool, and easily monitored home sites. Oh yeah, they were really cool. Oh man, I thought they were. I love living in those cool places. Now, archaeologists have found salado pottery, stone tools, textiles, and food remains. So irrigated crops such as maize, beans, and squash there along with gathered desert plants and they hunted deer rabbit big horn sheep stuff like that now let's look at to lead into matt's matt's part here let's look at a guy called crazy jake this is so funny i love this crazy jake is not just one of my relatives um and if y'all are listening um to this he'll know exactly who i'm talking about this is a guy named robert simpson jacob he's better known as crazy jake now he was a charismatic con man and treasure hunter who turned the superstition mountains into his personal stage. Well, by the 1960s, the classic players of the Lost Dutchman saga were all gone, and we'll touch on the Lost Dutchman shortly. Jacob Waltz, the Dutchman himself, had been dead for decades. The old-time cowmen and ranchers who'd ridden the canyons were dying off one by one, But the Superstition Mountain still drew people in. Treasure hunters, drifters, and true believers. And then there was Crazy Jake. He was a born promoter. Part prospector, part preacher, part salesman. And to some, he was a visionary. But to others, a con man in a sweat-stained hat. He was kind of like a P.T. Barnum type character. Right. A little larger than life, too large in reality. Right, right. He was one of those personalities that you see and go, that dude is hiding something. Yeah. For him to be that way, he's hiding something. Well, Jake quickly understood what the superstitions offered. Not just the possibility of gold, but a ready-made myth that he could step into. All he had to do was claim that he held one more missing piece of that puzzle. A new map, a forgotten witness, a secret past at a deathbed, and people would lean in closer. Well, that's exactly what Crazy Jake did. You know what, Adam? I am a lifelong learner. I enjoy learning about topics. If I come across something that I don't know, I immediately look it up. I think that is the biggest benefit of having a smartphone. Right. Yeah. But what I have learned recently is an even bigger benefit of having a smartphone is Masterclass. Oh, yeah. And having access to Masterclass right in your pocket and to be able to learn, learn from experts about about virtually any topic you can imagine. With what we do, I have always wanted to be a good storyteller. And people tell me, oh, you tell great stories. But when I hear true storytellers, I'm just, I'm in awe. And I always am looking to get better at being able to tell a story. Michael Lewis, his Masterclass. It's fantastic how to be a great storyteller. Michael Lewis is the author of The Big Short and Money Ball. Those are incredible books and they tell such a fascinating story. I love it. Yeah, I'm waiting. And with Masterclass, I can do that and learn from a remarkable storyteller how to be a better storyteller. Yep, and it's very helpful, like you said, for what we do. It makes Masterclass 100% worth it for me. Oh yeah, and with Masterclass, like Matt said, you can learn from the best to become your best. With plans starting at $10 a month, billed annually, you get unlimited access to over 200 plus classes taught by the world's best business leaders, writers, chefs, and more. And I did a masterclass on Texas barbecue, perfected my rib recipe, Matt. I'm going to have to make you some. With masterclass, you get thousands of bite-sized lessons across 13 categories that can fit into even the busiest schedules. And that's the cool thing. They have a audio mode where you can just switch it over to audio and listen like you would listen to Graveyard Tales. You can listen to a masterclass while you're driving. and I do that a lot when I'm going to pick up Michael or dad taxing him around everywhere. And you can learn wherever you are on your phone, laptop, or even your TV because Masterclass will go with you. Plus, memberships come with bonus class guides and downloadable content to help you get even more out of each lesson. And the classes really make a difference. Three and four surveyed members feel inspired every time they watch Masterclass. and 83 of surveyed members have applied something they learned from Masterclass to their lives So if you want to join me and Matt in Masterclass right now our listeners get an additional 15 off any annual membership at masterclass.com slash graveyard, G-R-A-V-E-Y-A-R-D. Yeah, that's 15% off at masterclass.com slash graveyard, masterclass.com slash graveyard. crazy jake liked to start his show in a parking lot along the apache trail somewhere now he would invite a young wide-eyed helper or a would-be investor to stand beside him and they would just look at the mountains then he'd say something like you're looking at the richest pile of rock in North America, and you don't even know why yet. Well, out of a pocket would come a folded scrap of paper, a rough sketch of a canyon, a spire like weaver's needle, and a shaded mark that might be mouth of a cave or something. Not a full map. It was never a full map right it was just enough just enough to get you intrigued it was like a it's like an an after school special you know we found it we found a map we found a map you got a bunch of like 12 year old boys you know running through the woods to to find uh you know joe the pirate's treasure in the middle of like oklahoma you're like what wait a minute yeah yeah well it It reminds me of the Goonies, but for real. Yeah, very, very similar. Now, he rarely called it a map at all. He would usually call it a memory, a clue, or a fragment. And he hinted that this came from someone who'd been there. Someone who had walked out of those canyons with pockets heavy and a conscience heavier. Maybe it was tied to an old rancher. Maybe it was traced from a, quote, real Dutchman source. The details shifted depending on who he was talking to, but the core of it stayed the same. There's a cave and there are bars of gold inside of it. And Crazy Jake is the man who knows how to get back to that cave. Well, with that promise, he built camps in the canyons, small tent cities with pack animals, lumber, food, and most important resource of all, belief. Men signed on to haul supplies and dig. Others wrote checks, expecting a slice of the strike when the cave finally gave up its treasures. And Jake himself became the center of a small orbit of laborers, backers, and hangers-on, all caught in the gravity of his certainty. well day after day he pushed deeper into the wilderness following landmarks that only he could decode and i'm gonna jump in here and say look if only one person can decode it it probably ain't real it's right that's exactly right history is full of stuff that only one dude knew how to do yep if somebody comes up to you and goes look there are there there are golden in their hills but the signs are so mysterious you got to pay me for me to get you there because i can see them i understand the indigenous writings i just walk away from that because And at what point does anybody go, if you know the secret, then why don't you just go and do it yourself? Right. Why have you been out here for all this time, you know, dragging people along? If you know where it is, if you know how to decode these clues or whatever, just go and get it. Why are you willing to split the money with everybody? And that's what I, you know, when I, when I found this and I was going over it and I sent it to you, I was just like, were people just, I guess people in general are gullible even nowadays, you know, they, they want something like that to be real so bad that they'll go, they'll look past a lot of logic and, and think, why did this fool not already find it and just go off and become a millionaire? and right you know forget trying to recruit just why regular why am i helping why am i helping him do this and then he's gonna split it with me yeah right right yeah well every new lead to him became another reason to stay in the game just a little bit longer well every disappointment was framed as a near miss. So don't be disciplined. We just barely missed it. We're at the front door, he might say, standing in a shallow alcove on a high cliff. You don't walk into a bank vault and hit the cash on the first door, do you? This is structure. This is geology. We're close. If you were tired, sore, and already in deep, money, time, ego-wise, whatever, it was easier to believe him than to admit that you might have been played. Crazy Jake didn't just use the mountains, he used the people. He made a habit of attaching himself to the reputations of older, respected superstition figures. men who really had lived and worked in that country when it was still cattle trails and lonely ranch houses. Their names gave his story weight. Well, one of the grossest episodes connected to his name involves an elderly rancher with deep ties to early Dutchman lore. When this man was near the end of his life living in a rest home in town, Jake helped remove him and set him up in a small trailer along the Apache Trail near the mountains. To an outsider or to a potential investor, that scene was irresistible. The old pioneer spending his last days in the shadow of the mountain that made him rich. Well, the modern prospector, Crazy Jake, tending to him and whispers that the old man had shared, quote, one last secret about the Dutchman with his loyal friend. It was a perfect image, too perfect. The rancher's family objected to it, and they felt he was being used. But by then, the story had already burrowed into the folklore. The details blurred, and what remained was the impression. Crazy Jake had special access. He was plugged directly into the last living veins of the legend. Whether that access was real or manufactured didn't really matter, and it mattered less than the spell that it cast on everybody else. Well, over time, a pattern emerged. New maps, new front doors, new camps, fresh money from people who wanted in on the discovery before it hit the newspapers, workers and local observers noticed that real gold never seemed to materialize. Not in the amounts that were promised, not the shining cave of bars way that the story suggested. What did keep flowing was cash from backers, from believers, from anyone who could be convinced that the next trip, the next canyon, the next season would be the one. Well, to some, Crazy Jake became the latest in a line of tragic superstition characters, a man who believed his own story so completely that he couldn't step off the stage. And that's the thing Matt and I were talking about before we started. Crazy Jake told these lies so much that Crazy Jake believed Crazy Jake. Yeah. Crazy Jake started drinking his own Kool-Aid. That's a good way to put it. But to others, the outsiders will say he was a straight-up swindler living off the hopes of others. and the truth probably lies between those two poles he he really did believe it and yes he was really using people but he felt he was using people for the real thing right so he did know how to manipulate people well he also seems to have like i was saying fallen into that thought that it's just on the next ridge. I've just got to get to that next ridge. And when we get into some of the stories that I'm going to share, you will understand how easy it would be to do that. You know, that there is so much, and, you know, not to make a pun, there's so many little nuggets out there about the mountains and about the legends, about the stories, that you begin to think, well, maybe there is a little bit of truth in this. And then you do. You kind of fall into it and go. And then you take a trip to Phoenix and waste your life. That's right. But that mix of conviction plus exploitation is what makes him such a haunting figure. It's the one thing. It's one thing to run a cold calculated scam, but it's another to be trapped inside a dream that you're selling to others. Eventually, Crazy Jake's camps faded. The men who carried packs for him grew old or they moved away. And the investors swallowed their losses and stopped answering the phone calls. robert simpson jacob died leaving behind no cave of gold bars no definitive proof that he'd ever been closer to the lost dutchman's treasure than anyone else but here's the thing the stories of the lost dutchman's mine the superstition mountains and the local folklore did not die with crazy jake not even close so you know like i said there there is enough out there to latch on to and believe that yeah it is over the next ridge nobody's ever gone this way um there's so many caves no they they say they checked them all but there's no way they checked them all. This one doesn't look like they checked in here. We just haven't been in every one of them. But, you know, we've mentioned the lost Dutchman several times in this story about Crazy Jake. Let's talk about the story that Crazy Jake had latched onto. So according to legend, and Adam mentioned him earlier, a German immigrant named Jacob Waltz, who is the so-called Dutchman, discovered a gold mine so rich that its walls were lined with gold veins. But Waltz took the secret of its location to his grave in 1891, leaving behind this trail of cryptic clues and a whole lot of speculation. now over the years many people have searched for the mine not just jake some never returned so there's theories all over the place but no one has ever found the dutchman's treasure and some say that the mine is protected by spirits while other people go it's all just a myth it's all just a story. So during the 1840s, look at where this begins. The 1840s, the Peralta family of northern Mexico supposedly developed rich gold mines in the superstitions. Their last expedition to carry gold back to Mexico occurred in 1848. Now, according to the legend, there was a large party that was ambushed by Apaches, and everyone was killed except for maybe one or two Peralta family members who managed to escape to Mexico. Now, this area where this attack occurred is known today as the Massacre Grounds. Apropos, I suppose. I was going to say, it's quite the name. Yeah, right. Now, there were a lot of other people who were supposed to have known where the mine was or even had worked in it. And there's numerous maps that have surfaced over the years only to become lost or misplaced when interested parties are pressed for facts. Men who claim to have found the Peralta mine were unable to return to it or some disaster occurred before they could file a claim, which all adds to the lore of there being an actual lost mine. Now, in the 1870s, Jacob Watts, the Dutchman, was said to have located the mine with the help of a Peralta family descendant. Watts and his partner, a man named Jacob Weiser, worked this mine and allegedly hid one or more caches of gold somewhere in the Superstition Mountains. Most of the stories place the gold in the vicinity of Weaver's Needle, which Adam mentioned earlier. It's a well-known location inside the superstitions. Weiser was killed by Apaches, or, depending on who you ask, Waltz himself. now over time uh jacob waltz health began to decline and he moved to phoenix and he died 20 years later in 1891 now as the story goes he supposedly described the mine's location to a woman named julia thomas who was a neighbor and a nurse who took care of him prior to his death. Waltz told her to look under his bed where she found a box. Inside the box, she found a lot of gold ore. Waltz said he had been living off of it for years and there was enough left in the mine to make millionaires out of 20 men. So in his last moments, he told her how to find it. so Julia Thomas enamored by the idea of becoming a millionaire sold everything she had to provision an expedition into the superstitions she teamed up with a pair of brothers she scoured the mountains followed the instructions given by Waltz but no dice so after just weeks and weeks of fruitless searching in the scorching sun, she finally admitted defeat and went back to Phoenix, destitute. Okay? She spent everything she had. She had sunk her whole life savings into this expedition to find this gold. I don't understand why people do that. My only thought is if this story is true, Waltz had something that was enough that, you know, maybe he did find a little bit of gold. Okay. Maybe he had fool's gold and, you know, he just kept it. I mean, there's nothing that says that Waltz was a millionaire. I mean, but he was living off of this apparently. I mean, he was in poor health, so he had some money from somewhere. But, I mean, you would think if your health was declining and you lived another 20 years and you were living off an amount of gold ore that you drug back to Phoenix, you'd be living fairly well. Right, right. You know, you didn't drug back more. You wouldn't rely on, you know, the kindness of a neighbor to take care of you. You know, you'd have whatever care you needed 24 hours a day. Yeah, right. Now, the two brothers that went with Julia Thomas, they fought and argued and quarreled all the time. and they eventually split up and never spoke to one another again. But a lot of people say they were kind of like, one went this way and one went that way, and they both spent the rest of their life looking for this treasure. Probably. So if either one of these brothers or anyone else for that matter found the mine, they kept that to themselves. But it has not prevented others from continuing to try. So subsequent searchers have sometimes met with foul play or even death, contributing to the superstition and legend that surrounds these mountains. And for our Patreon members, I'm going to dig into the number of deaths that have occurred looking for the lost Dutchman's mind. And let me tell you, it is insane. it's staggering i mean it is crazy how many people have gone looking for this treasure and never come back yep now according to the legend waltz's spirit haunts the superstition mountains of course it does and it guards the location of his hidden gold mine but he freaking told somebody about it so now he's like oh yeah and by the way my ghost is gonna be there waiting for you when you try to find it yeah good luck finding it because i gave you bad directions and if you happen to find it my ghost will push you off a cliff yeah yeah that's it you know but i'll be there already you know just look for me you'll know you found it because you'll see me now many treasure hunters have reported sightings of a shadowy figure watching them from the ridges or felt this unexplainable presence guiding or hindering them during their search. So is it helping them or is it taking them down the wrong way? It depends on what you look like. If he likes the look of you, then he's going to help you. He'll never get you fully to it, but he'll get you going a nice way. If he doesn't like the look of you, he'll put you on a hard path. But there's a lot of stories of people seeing what looks like an old prospector in the mountain. Now, some believe that Waltz's ghost is protecting his treasure, ensuring that it remains undiscovered by those who would exploit it. I don't know. But, yeah. See? Like the look of you. If he knows, because ghosts know things, apparently, they know your intentions. So if you go in there with bad intentions, he's going to send you to the right. Right. But if you come in with pure, pure intentions, he's like, go left. No, don't. No, not go left. Your other left. Yeah. The other left. Hold your fingers up. Which one makes the L go that way? Stupid. You know, I love, I love these lost treasure stories. I love them. and we've done plenty of them over the years i just don't ever i never would see myself going yeah i'm gonna go um i i think i can find it no i don't know why maybe it's i'm maybe i'm too skeptical when it comes to this i mean i've watched oak island and i'm like man you dudes i mean come on ruined it for us yeah because i i would go looking for it if i had a production crew like oak island that every episode would make you think i found something and then they'd go is this a splinter from the box that the the the old spanish treasure was hidden and then it's like no it was just a splinter here's another hole yeah at the end of every show right before every commercial you know what do we find you know and you're just like gosh i gotta watch i gotta i gotta look did they find did they find old spanish gold i mean that that show i know i'm talking about treasure hunters and but that show in particular i had to give up on after a while i was just like okay they they have sucked me in and i don't i don't like it i'm not like well that that that was the problem is i got so infatuated with that show and i was watching it streaming so i didn't have commercials and when i caught up on streaming i told myself when it comes back out i'm not watching it because i am stuck it's going to be the same thing and i'm going to get hooked again and i'm going to waste time with this uh knight's templar treasure or something here on oak island and i'm just going to waste time it's a great show oh yeah very well done yeah they sucked me in and most shows don't do that but they did and that's why that's i liked it too much that's why i stopped yeah and you know So there's just been too many actual treasures discovered in the last hundred years to make some people go, nah, there's nothing there. I mean, there have been people who have found incredible caches of treasure, whether it's in the bottom of the ocean or it's off in the mountains, whatever. Accidentally in their backyard There have been people that have found it So you you always want to believe that this this is the one this is the one And I'm just like, Oh, I don't, I don't, I don't want to see myself go down that path. Even if it's just watching the show about it. Yep, exactly. So, you know, that's the story of the lost Dutchman. Pretty cool. Great story. but there at the end you heard about people seeing waltz's ghost okay and that this puts this one on a little bit of a twist okay not only do you see you know waltz's ghost strutting around in the superstition mountains you see a ton of other weird eerie paranormal things okay so you know if you think well we'll just go out there we might see the old prospector's ghost you might see it you might see a ton of other stuff so many stuff you might not want exactly and many hikers and campers have reported all kinds of unsettling experiences in the superstitions, from mysterious lights hovering over the mountains to disembodied voices whispering in the wind. Native American legends speak of portals to the underworld hidden somewhere in the canyons, and some claim to have seen shadowy figures just lurking in the darkness, just watching. Other visitors will report an unsettling feeling that they're being watched, even in broad daylight, and this eerie sense that eyes follow their every move. Some even claim to hear phantom gunshots and shouting in the dead of night. The mountains have been... If you're out there, sorry, if you're out there in the middle of the night camping and you hear shouting or blood-curdling screams, dude... Or freaking gunshots. or gunshots yeah i i will hightail it out of there quicker than i don't run but i would be running right like that that is not cool yeah remember we're adam and i are always more afraid of the living than we are of the dead and gunshots are like nope gunshots means living right living means danger danger means adam actually runs that's right that's why i used to tell people i don't run unless i'm chased i don't run so if you see me running you better run too try to keep up but because of all these stories the mountains have been on many paranormal tv shows they've been ghost adventures um where the investigators uh explored the ghost town of goldfield which is near the superstitions and had some you know weird encounters um but one of these really really creepy ghost stories is about um the headless horseman not not the sleepy hollow headless horseman but very similar this phantom rider is said to be the spirit of a miner who was decapitated in a fight over gold and according to the legend the headless ghost roams the trails at night seeking revenge on those who dare to trespass in his territory witnesses have described seeing a spectral figure riding a ghostly horse carrying his severed head under his arm as he gallops through the darkness so it is exactly like the headless horseman of sleep yalla yeah why do they always carry their head too you know maybe maybe i'm i'm thinking about this all wrong but if that were me i would try to tie it on to myself or something put it back in where it goes dude you got some zip ties or some baling wire or something right right put it on get it borrow a celestial staple gun or something or you know like put a hat on tie ropes to the hat yeah yeah yeah and then sit on the ropes right right so that i hold it down clip them down on your belt like suspenders you know see yeah yeah don't let my suspender go or my head goes, you know, you just do one and he like leans over the side, like your dog looking at you when you're making funny noise, you know? Yeah. I didn't know I was that confusing. No, he just forgot to strap that other thing down. Pull on his ear. He'll be all right. Yeah. Another, another thing that people report in the superstition mountains are really weird sounds, these eerie sounds. And one in particular is these mournful cries of a woman. And these are known as, or this spirit that supposedly makes these sounds, is known as the weeping woman. And this apparition is believed to be the spirit of a woman who lost her husband and son in a tragic mining accident. Okay, not to negate what you just said, but you said known as the weeping woman. This spirit is known to be a woman. I'm glad you kept going. A woman who? Because I was like, well, no crap, Matt. You just said the weeping woman, known to be a woman. Thanks. Thanks, buddy. Okay. So she lost her husband in a mining accident. sorry listen it's cold it's cold yeah my fingers were my fingers were numb when i was typing all this okay so yeah so so she lost her husband and her son in a mining so she was heartbroken and she is said to wander the mountains, of course, looking for her husband and son, which they always are looking for. But these sorrowful whales echo through the canyons as she searches for her loved ones. Yeah, okay. Look, this one, it's a great story, and there are reports of people hearing this, But if you look at the Superstition Mountains, you could understand, even without any kind of, you know, geological understanding, any kind of understanding of weather or anything else, how the wind would sound coming through these particular mountains. And I guarantee you that is the majority of it. it's got to sound weird. I mean, these don't look like, I mean, these don't look like the Rocky mountains. They don't look like the smokies. I mean, they, they have a very unique appearance and the way wind would come through. I mean, it probably sounds like some just crazy stuff. Yeah. I mean, somebody were like, man, it says like bagpipes up there, you know, whatever. Like, yeah, it's the wind, dude. Look at, look at the shape of this place. Look, it's like a saxophone reed. Of course, it's going to make that noise. But it makes for a good story to tell around the campfire when you're out there camping and you hear it. You know, then everybody's, you know, hair stands on end and, you know, you get a good laugh out of it. Let me guess. She's wearing a white dress. Or is it a black dress? She's wearing a poncho. Yeah. And a miner's helmet. Now, this one is a little bit stranger. So we've heard about people seeing prospectors and the headless horsemen and everything. Some people actually report seeing apparitions of people in clothing from different eras, like Spanish conquistadors. Okay. Spanish conquistadors, 19th century miners, or indigenous people in traditional dress. So we got the Native American spirits. yeah okay we've got you know the old minor 49er or whatever from scooby-doo and and the ghost of spanish conquistadors because you know the when the spanish got to this area you know they all they wanted was you know more gold you know it's like spain was dead set on finding all the gold in the world it's all they wanted so that's what they went after so you you can bet that a lot of these people died in the mountains either because of the elements uh or just because of conflict and so their spirits are regularly seen right i was going to say there's so many different eras of people in here that I wouldn't be surprised to see many, many different ways of dressing and spirits from many different times in history. Now, this next one is not so much a ghost story other than a really unsettling phenomena that people have reported when hiking or camping in the Superstition Mountains. It is this sudden appearance of a dense black mist. Oh, yeah. Now, it's kind of like a fog, but not a fog, and it's black. And it is said to just engulf visitors with no warning, causes feelings of intense dread and disorientation. Somebody set like a peyote button on fire is what it is. You're just sitting there going, what is this black mist? Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know what it reminds me of is the, what is it, Keel? Was it John Keel that found the area of fear where when he walked into it, he got so scared and like his heart raced. He was sweating. He knew he was scared. But then if he stepped back three paces, then he was out of it. And he tested it a time or two and it finally went away. But there was a specific area where if he stepped into it, he just got existential dread. And I think he talked about it in the Mothman Prophecies book. I was just about to ask. You said John Keel. I was like, are you talking about the Mothman John Keel? Okay. Yep, that one. And so it kind of reminds me of that, where within this fog, you have this existential dread. and then the fog dissipates and i use fog in quotes because like matt said it's a it's a black mist a black fog type thing so it's not an actual fog but that's kind of what it reminds me of is it it is an area of fear now people that reportedly have encountered the black mist say they have become lost. They have come out hours later with no recollection of the time that they spent in there. And some believe that the mist is a manifestation of spirits who died in the mountains seeking to confuse and trap the living. Yeah. Now, there are a few explanations for this, but they're not really good, so I left them out. Plus, we've still got a lot to cover, so we're not going to start debunking the mist. We've got a lot of other stuff to talk about. now the the spectral miners okay the you know the minor 49er you know um they are are also very commonly seen at night and these ghostly figures are believed to be guess what the spirit of miners go figure but it's the ones who died in accidents or under mysterious circumstances because you know greed was a big thing you know during the gold rush and if me and a buddy if we found gold together i don't have to split it if buddy doesn't make it back you know so right you know finding even a small amount of gold and then your partner so that you know you could have it all for yourself was not uncommon okay and so yeah and then you go i don't know what happened there was this black mist we were out there black mist came up and it swallowed he got him you know he slipped and fell he broke his leg we couldn't go whatever i mean you know i mean who's gonna be able to go up there and check you know well he stubbed his toe and then i knew he wouldn't be able to make it back so i killed him that's right to put him out of it's like a racehorse you know he broke his leg he's dead weight now you know done he got a hangnail i couldn't help him he he told me just just shoot me it'd be much better for me i can't deal with this hangnail pain snake bit him on the butt and i wasn't gonna suck the poison out so yeah i'm not getting that poison out now um witnesses that have encountered these ghostly miners say they hear the sounds of picks and shovels and sometimes even voices, although no one is ever found. The miners are thought to be continuing their search for gold in the afterlife and their spirits are tied to the mountains because of the emotion or because of all the time and work they put into it. So now their spirit just can't leave let's uh this is i know this is one of one of adam's favorite things is these mystery lights you know he and i have talked about mystery lights a lot um these strange flickering lights that are often seen on the slopes of the superstition mountains at night now these mysterious lights are sometimes called will of the wisps right and they're thought to be the lanterns of the ghostly prospectors we just finished talking about looking for their lost fortune some believe that the lights are also tied to extraterrestrial activity yep now that that adds a whole other layer to why why the superstition mountains are so appropriately named you know because you know we've gone from ghost to black mists you know and now to ufos but that area in arizona i mean it is very well known for ufo sightings and i mean it's just i mean it's just common yeah what you're making me do though i'm sitting here thinking about it when i put this on youtube i'm i've got to click every one of our folders that i've made for paranormal um ufo um cryptozoology yeah i'm gonna have to click them all i i didn't come across any bigfoot sightings or anything like that which is odd it is odd yeah you know because then then it would completely fit into these you know bridgewater triangle types places you know It would complete the bingo card. But multiple hikers have reported seeing lights move along the ridgelines. Lights that follow no trail and appear to be in areas that would be impossible to reach without very sophisticated climbing equipment. Now, Jennifer Williams, who is a Phoenix resident who frequently camps in this area, was quoted as saying this. i thought they were other hikers at first but they moved too fast and they covered a distance that would take a normal person hours in just minutes and they gave off this weird blue glow rather than the yellow of a flashlight or a lantern yeah that's you can tell when something's a flashlight or lantern because it does have that hue right but the most unsettling explanation comes from a man named Dave Cooper, who is a retired park ranger. He says, those lights are what we call the watchers. Now, he said this during an interview at his retirement home. The interviewer even made a comment in this article that his hands trembled when he started talking about them. He said, I've seen them up close once. It was my third year on the job doing a night patrol after reports of illegal camping. What I saw wasn't a light. It was a figure, transparent but somehow still visible, dressed in old prospector's clothes. He was floating a few inches off the ground, and when he turned toward me, I saw nothing but darkness where his face should have been. cooper requested a transfer the next day and never worked night shifts in the mountains again so something scared the living whatever out of dave cooper i mean he he saw something and he was like i ain't coming back he had the bejeebies scared out and you know i i've talked to a lot of people that you know they just they scare themselves because of the situation they're in and and the mind can make things way more horrifying than they actually are oh but yeah when you step away eventually you can look at something like this logically and go well i don't know what i saw but boy it did scare me but nah so yeah this makes me think that mr cooper's story he he saw something he saw something whether it was the ghost of a of a prospector or something else there was something out there that he saw because it terrified him so bad that he was like i am not going back i mean that that's going to take a lot for you to go to your boss and go uh-uh. I'm done. I'm done. Send me somewhere else, please. Well, and it'll take a lot too for you to, in a retirement home, still be talking about it that vividly. Yeah. Like if it was just something that kind of scared you and now you feel silly about, you wouldn't bring it up again. You're like, man, I had to live that when I was in my 20s i am not reliving that in my 80s exactly you know i'm not gonna get picked on about that but that sounds like he's been thinking about that ever since for decades yeah yeah it just it just some things just stick you know you can't shake them now the most consistent reports come from an area known as whisper canyon which is a narrow passage between two cliff faces about four miles from the Peralta Trailhead. Now, even on completely still days with no wind, visitors will still report hearing voices, sometimes whispers, sometimes clear conversations in languages they don't understand. Oh, wow. Now, they say you won't find Whisper Canyon listed on maps or any official guide for the Superstition Mountains, but the name speaks of the region's secretive character and this just dramatic atmosphere here's what i want to know you you mentioned earlier that the indigenous people had stories of like a way to get to the underworld there i want to know if these voices that they hear even though they can't understand what they're saying does it sound like a language or a dialect that they've heard before or is it more guttural is it something that could be coming from the portal to the underworld like does this sound ancient demonic yeah whatever you know like it's something coming out of that or does it sound like it's the spirit of somebody who's still here and maybe it's a ancestral language yeah i don't know so one of the reports that i read all they said was it sounded like multiple people having a conversation like in a room together that you could hear you know distinct voices different voices, almost like a call and response, you know, but intertwined. But you couldn't make out any individual words or phrases. So that led them to go, it was a language that I didn't understand. So it doesn't really tell us. I mean, if I heard an old Native American language being spoken, I might not recognize that as any language. Now, unlike if I heard German or Russian or Mandarin being spoken, I recognize that as Mandarin. I don't understand it, but I recognize that it's a language or at least it's close enough that I could say that sounds like Russian. That sounds like, you know, Spanish. um but you know these folks were saying you know it it was either a language we had never heard or it you know it it but it sounded like a conversation you know but that is an interesting uh idea you know is this what what what do you think you're actually hearing you know Mm-hmm. Something demonic. And you know what? You brought it up. I hunted. I hunted and hunted. For more info you find things that mention the Native American hell hole quotes in the Superstition Mountains but there just no other information about it other than oh yeah they believed that it was there And that may be very well because the Native Americans were not ghost hunters, okay? They did not go poking around. they said um over there is bad juju we're gonna stay over here we don't need to go messing around over there we don't we know whatever's over there is bad it goes to the underworld it goes to the spirit realm we're in the living we're gonna stay over here on this side we're not gonna go over there so they didn't go and investigate all this kind of stuff to just start to have all these stories um when it's like skinwalkers when we talked about yeah right when we talked about skinwalkers we we had a hard time finding traditional stories of them because they don't talk about it but exactly so it's the same thing for this underworld thing they they don't talk about it they don't want to they don't want to bring that on themselves because like you and i have said many times when you start looking into the paranormal it starts looking back at you yeah oh yeah they didn't want anything to do with that but you know all these uh all these canyons you know that like west boulder east boulder and needle canyon they all have their own legends and you know all the all the different aspects of what goes on in there. Um, it is common, just like I said earlier for the wind to swirl through these rocky corridors. And it, it does create some very unique sounds, um, that could be mistaken for voices. But, you know, when, when people come back and they have these stories enough, you know, at some point you got to go okay maybe it's maybe it's not the wind you know maybe that's not what they're hearing you know this the these dozen hikers come back and talk about boy could you hear the wind coming through the canyon but all of these other people are going no we heard the wind this was something else yeah you know we know what the wind sounds like we know it makes crazy sounds this was something totally different there's a there's a lot of that that comes out of the superstitions um let's see oh this one talking about that in the reports of these voices this one comes from sandra miller who is a paranormal investigator who recorded these phenomena and she says it sounds like a dozen people talking at once but the words are just beyond comprehension we've captured evps here that our linguistic linguist our linguistic our linguistic consultants can't identify as any known language living or dead so you know now um moving on from there uh we talked about the black mist a little bit and how people that get engulfed in it lose time time slips are also reported inside the superstition mountains and this is one of the most perplexing reports and it just it's strange because it's really really hard to pin down what happens here multiple hikers have described experiencing these these anomalies that while in certain areas of the mountains specifically in an area known as the vortex, they lose time, you know, a few minutes, a few hours, but they just, they can't account for what occurred in this, you know, in this space. Now, Mark Jefferson, who's a job, who's a geology student at Arizona state described his, uh, experience in an interview and said, I went in for a day hike on a Tuesday morning in June 2019. Everything was normal until I reached this small valley surrounded by rock formations. The air felt thick somehow. When I checked my watch, it had stopped, which was weird since I had just replaced the battery. now mark continued hiking but began feeling disoriented when he finally made it back to the trailhead his car was gone and the parking lot looked different he says there was a ranger station that hadn't been there before when i asked for help they looked at me like i was crazy Turns out it was Friday. He said, somehow I'd lost three days, but in my mind, only about six hours had passed. Now, medical professionals might attribute such experiences to dehydration or heat exhaustion, but mark insists he was well prepared with plenty of water and snacks none of which were consumed during his lost time that's wild it says some locals tell tales of those who supposedly encountered mountain spirits or curses before disappearing further deepening the mountain's dark mystique bodies are occasionally found in remote areas but many are never recovered which fuels speculation that the mountains harbor secrets beyond human understanding. So that leads me to talk about missing persons. Now the historical mysteries, they really play up the mystique. But recent events suggest that the supernatural activity continues unabated. Since 2000, at least seven hikers have vanished without explanation in areas that were subsequently searched extensively by rescue teams with dogs, helicopters, and thermal imaging. In 2015, experienced hiker Matthew Johnson disappeared while on a well-marked trail on a clear day. five days into the search one of the rescued dogs began behaving erratically at a specific location refusing to continue and whimpering uncontrollably nothing was found there but three weeks later johnson's backpack appeared in that exact spot a location that had been thoroughly searched multiple times but johnson himself was never found that's a that's a yeah go go for it you know where we're going that sounds like missing 411 absolutely especially with that presence of the backpack yes yep because there's so many of those stories where you know we heard one where these guys are on the trail to go to and from the area they were searching they passed this area every day twice a day wants to go wants to come back through and then after days and days and days of this happening they come back and they find this kid's clothes yep well and that that backpack with the dog hitting on that spot that makes me wonder was that was the backpack there in an alternate dimension yep and the dog smelled it absolutely the dog said i don't know what's going on but there's something here that's what i thought too because you know we we've touched on some of these stories um where where people just they vanish while hiking and stuff and then they come back and there's one famous one where the person comes back and says i could see you guys you could not see or hear me i was right here yeah and you know I'm trying to make noise. I'm trying to wave. You know, I can't interact with you guys at all. You guys are calling my name and I'm answering, but you couldn't hear me. Yeah. And then back, you know, with, you know, days later or hours later. So, you know, it's like, what, what the heck happened? You know, and again, in a wilderness area, not a, this isn't happening on your street. this is happening in the deep wilderness. Yeah, it's really, really strange. Now, there are also disturbing reports from the owners of homes that are built on the mountain's lower slopes. Lisa Carpenter, whose family built their dream home on the northwestern edge of the range in 2017, described a series of unexplainable events that eventually drove them to sell at a significant loss. Lisa says, it started with footsteps on the roof at night. We thought it was animals at first, but no animal moves that deliberately. Then came the knocking. Always three knocks on different doors or windows. Always at 3.17 a.m. We installed cameras, but they would mysteriously stop recording just before the knocking started. Yeah. Yeah. She says the final straw came when their seven-year-old son began having conversations with someone he called the mountain man. Yeah. In his room at night. Says he described him as an old man with a long white beard and dirty clothes with shiny rocks in his pockets. He said, we might have dismissed this as an imaginary friend, but when my son drew a picture of him, my husband recognized the face from old photographs of Jacob Waltz. Oh, geez. I was like, you gotta be kidding me. If it's not bad enough that, you know, your child is seeing something and interacting with it, you know, as you live on the edge of a creepy ass mountain range. Mm-hmm. But to draw a picture well enough for the dad to go, that looks just like Jacob Waltz. I wanted to find this drawing, and I couldn't because I wanted to see, does it really look like Jacob Waltz? But I could not find it. So if we can come across this image, it will give us an idea of, well, how much of an artist the seven-year-old boy was. Right. But if it actually looked like Jacob Waltz. All right. So we've covered a lot up to this point, but one thing that we have not touched on that I'm going to talk about here to wrap up is the Apache legends associated with the Superstition Mountains. Now, the indigenous Apache people considered the mountains sacred, and it was forbidden territory long before European settlers ever got here. They believed the entrance to the underworld existed somewhere within the range, and it was guarded by the thunder god who unleashed his wrath upon trespassers. Again, they did not go hunting for it because we're among the living. We don't belong there. Right. Now, according to Apache lore, the mountains are protected by magical shapeshifters, beings able to transform into animals, sentinels who guard the earth and its secrets, helping those who honor the land by thwarting intruders. the area known as the, you're going to love this, the Apache Death Cave. Oh, that's good. I want to know where this is on the map so I can go the other way. Right, yeah. But the Apache Death Cave is said to be on the site where Apache warriors met a tragic end defending their homeland. Many believe their restless spirits still haunt the cave and nearby trails, warning visitors that the mountains are no place for the unwary. That's just good advice. Yeah. Maria Whitefeather, she says, my grandfather would never look directly at the mountains during storms. storms. So as a descendant of the Apache who once called this region home, Maria's family stories stretch back generations. Maria says, he said the lightning was the thunder god's eyes searching for disrespectful visitors to punish. When asked if she believed those stories herself, Maria simply smiled and said, I've hiked every trail in those mountains except during thunderstorms. Some traditions exist for a reason. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't blame you. Now, whether it is the thunder god's eyes or not, there's some reason that they say that. So let's heed that a little bit. And you make an excellent point because some people like to, you know, frou-frou, poo-poo, whatever, these Native American legends. But here's the thing. The Native Americans of all tribes had legends and stories based on what they saw and experienced. So if there was something that was... otherworldly, out of sorts, dangerous, spiritual, whatever that was going on, they may not have understood it and came up with a story, okay, much like people do today, but something happened. Something was known to happen, and so the story was meant to tell future generations, you don't go here you don't do this so you can't just blow off these legends as they're just stories because they weren't just stories you know right they were they were warnings they were you know ways to live you know how to honor your your ancestors i mean these were not just hey gather around kids i'm going to tell you this funny story it wasn't it was so much more than that and it was because you know these native americans experienced something and they needed the rest they needed the rest of their descendants to know to understand right now i'm going to wrap up with this last one and this is pretty cool this is a legend of the sleeping woman Now, according to the legend, a long time ago, there was a Native American woman named Maria who lived in a village near the Superstition Mountains. Maria was known for her beauty, kindness, and deep connection with nature. She was loved by her tribe and admired by many. One day, a rival tribe attacked Maria's village, seeking to claim their land. In the chaos, Maria's family and friends were killed. and she was taken captive by the enemy tribe. Determined to escape and seek revenge, Maria plotted her escape. After several months of captivity, Maria managed to break free from her captors. She ran through the harsh desert, with the enemy tribe chasing her relentlessly. Exhausted and wounded, Maria reached the Superstition Mountains, where she hoped to find safety. desperate for shelter maria stumbled upon a hidden cave within the mountains inside she found a peaceful oasis a small spring surrounded by lush vegetation overwhelmed by fatigue and pain maria laid down by the spring and fell into a deep sleep seeking solace from her traumatic ordeal legend has it that if that maria's sleep was so deep it transformed her into a mountain forever becoming a part of the superstition mountains her body formed the shape of a woman lying on her back hence the name sleeping woman or la mujer du media i can't speak spanish okay y'all are lucky that i got mu hair right you know today visitors to the superstition mountains can see the silhouette of the sleeping woman a natural rock formation that resembles a woman lying down some claim to feel a sense of serenity and protection when they are near the sleeping woman while others believe that her spirit still watches over the land offering guidance and protection to those who respect the mountains and that is that is a really really cool rock formation you know we've seen similar ones you know especially when the people talk about that you know don't you notice how this island looks like a woman lying down you know because it was a giant um but it is it's it's really really cool um and so if you if you go and you look up the sleeping woman or the the sleeping lady you know it's uh but you got to look because there's others you got to look at the superstition mountains um you'll you'll go huh well that's kind of cool yeah it kind of does i mean it it really really does and and like i found a really good photo we can probably put this in the group um it it circles it it's not something it's it's big it's really big and you have to be you have to be standing you know miles back to really see it but when you look at it in the right way you're kind of like yeah that does look like a woman lying down on her back that's kind of weird um but now how do they know she's on her back what gives it away i'm not going there don't answer that but for another show um that's for sign quest but you know i mean just just story after story um coming out of the superstition mountains it's just it's fascinating i mean it really is i mean there's so much um you know so so much history you know with uh the the gold mining with the the you know apache tribe um you know with the just the the the unique formation uh of the rocks and mountains there it it just it just lends itself to um all the superstition around the superstition mountain so yep what do you guys think you know are are these just really really great stories that have been shared over the last 200, 300 years? Or is there more going on? I mean, we know that if gold was ever found in any amount in these mountains, that prospectors went. And we know how greed takes over. We know that the Apache people believed that these mountains were sacred, you know had stories associated with them um and and there's so many stories of people having these odd experiences you know whether it's a time slip or whether it's people walking on the roof in the middle of the night what do you think is there is there more to it let us know and and the best place to do that is in our facebook group um it is called the graveyard we have thousands of people in there that share those kind of experiences and stories and opinions. They share jokes. It's just a lot of fun. It's a safe place for you to, you know, share some stories and get some information from some other people. It's really, really great. When you're done there, you can go check out our website, which is graveyardpodcast.com. And there you can listen to the show. You can find links to purchase graveyard tells merchandise and that is where you can become a patron and as adam mentioned at the top of the show um you can get the video versions you can get ad-free versions you can get our other show side quest um you know we we hope that all of that and we feel like it's it's a great value but ultimately you're helping graveyard tales and you know it it keeps adam and i putting out Graveyard Tales at a level that you guys have come to enjoy and we appreciate you guys continuing to listen so much and supporting us. So just keep it up. Go check it out. We got a lot of stuff in there we think you'll enjoy. Yep, for sure. So until next time, we'll save you a seat in the graveyard. See you soon. Thank you. Thank you. That's Shopify.nl. It's time to see what you can accomplish with Shopify by your side.