In north-central New Mexico there’s an old town with the unusual name of Abiquiú.
It’s a quaint, historic, and quite beautiful place, at any time of year, and its eventful history stretches back centuries—back to the far-off days of Spain’s sprawling New World empire. Abiquiú was originally founded as a kind of frontier post and buffer-state at the northernmost edge of this empire, and was settled with Tewa Indians—newly returned after a long sojourn among the Hopis in Arizona.
It was the unenviable lot of these poor settlers to defend the frontier against the yearly depredations of the Navajos, Apaches, and Comanches, and, somehow—in the face of endless raids, attacks, and counterattacks—the settlement survived and eventually flourished.
In fact, in July of 1776—as a handful of ungrateful rabble-rousers were declaring independence from the British Crown back east—it was in dusty Abiquiú that the intrepid explorers Fray Francisco Atanasio Domínguez and Fray Francisco Silvestre Vélez de Escalante stopped a few days after their expedition set forth from Santa Fé with all due ceremony and fond hopes of glory. It was but the first stop in a grand adventure that saw the dauntless Franciscan friars range all throughout the Four Corners region—from present-day Chama and Pagosa Springs, to the La Plata Mountains near Durango, through the Mancos Valley at the foot of Mesa Verde, and thence throughout the San Juans and into Utah, before circling back through Arizona and Hopi country and back to Santa Fé.
At the time of the expedition’s visit, Abiquiú was still a small and much-beleaguered settlement.
These days, things are much more peaceful in Abiquiú, but it is still a frontier of sorts—this time, however, the frontier has less to do with delineating the boundary between civilization and its lack, and more to do with distinguishing between the terrestrial and the extraterrestrial. At least, that’s the inescapable conclusion one is led to draw from the significant number of sightings of strange cryptids, inexplicable UFOs, and other strange celestial objects in the skies over Abiquiú and adjacent regions.
And let’s not overlook the fact that Shirley MacLaine used to live in the area. People often laugh at her for claiming to have seen UFOs from the front porch of her Abiquiú ranch, but—for reasons of my own, as we’ll shortly see—I’m inclined to believe her.
Actually, the real fun starts in the rugged and spectacular area to the northwest of Abiquiú. This is where the high country begins, and the placid blue waters of the Abiquiu Lake reservoir reflect like a mirror the azure skies, the red sandstone cliffs, and the dark skyline of the mysterious Jemez Mountains—all of which form just the least part of the great natural beauty of that part of New Mexico.
It’s here that US Highway 84 snakes across the plateau, beside the red rock cliffs on one side and the lake on the other, before beginning the ascent into the even higher country around Canjilon, Tierra Amarilla, and eventually the gorgeous jewel of the Chama Valley nestled beneath the snow-capped peaks of the southernmost spur of the San Juan Mountains.
The famous Ghost Ranch, the storied retreat of Georgia O’Keefe, is also located in this part of New Mexico. Now, it’s often said that the evocative name “Ghost Ranch” is derived from some disreputable cattle rustlers who used the box canyons beneath the great overhanging mesas to hide their pelf; these blackguards took to encouraging rumors that the place was haunted, whence it came to be called “el Rancho de Los Brujos,” that is to say, “the Ranch of the Sorcerers.” Over time, and in English, this became corrupted into Ghost Ranch.
It’s a likely story, but I’m not sure I’m really convinced. No, there are strange things seen and heard in this particular corner of New Mexico, as I can personally attest. It’s not just that the beauty of the place is otherworldly; it’s easy enough to make room for that in our earthbound philosophies. There’s much more to it—something, I can’t say what it is, likes to make its presence felt there.
And let’s just say, well…it ain’t from around here.
We might as well start out our investigation with this curious story, which seems to involve a UFO (?) and a cryptid, and which occurred somewhere near Abiquiú in the Spring of 2019. Possibly it was a Close Encounter of the First and Third Kinds; in any case, it was submitted anonymously to The Pine Barrens Institute, a sort of online clearinghouse for cryptozoological and folkloric material:
“We arrived at our secluded campsite [the account begins] along the [Chama] river around 5 pm and set up camp with our dog. We had eaten dinner and had just opened a beer each. Only one beer, we were not on drugs or drunk or anything. But I wanted to mention the beer for complete story clarity.
“The person I was with was facing the river behind me, while I was facing the road behind him. Suddenly I saw his eyes go wide and I saw something moving behind him. I would like to mention that the dog that was with us is very alert, strong, healthy, and extremely observant, but at this moment she just laid down and looked at the ground.
“The movement behind my friend became more apparent and I watched as something ran out of the trees and into the light of the fire. It stopped right in the middle of the road, directly in the firelight, and it looked me right in the eyes. Standing on all fours it was almost as tall as our jeep. It had long, thin legs that ended in more hoofs [sic] than feet, its skin was light grey or white, and it had a tiny head for its body size that was completely round with HUGE black holes for eyes. I could see each of its ribs in such detail. It then ran off in a circular path around us.
“I looked at my friend and he looked at me, at the same time we both said: ‘it’s time to go to bed.’ Neither of us told the other what we saw until we were far away from the site the next day. Turns out, behind me floating above the water he saw a HUGE glowing ‘ball of light’ which is how he described it. So we had both seen something behind the other person at the same time. Needless to say, we are now both believers and have been back to that site tons of times to try and investigate. I have dedicated so much of my free time trying to figure out what this thing was that I saw. I would love to have some input about what it was. Please help me figure it out.”
Now, that’s an interesting detail, this sighting of a glowing “ball of light” in the area around Abiquiú. It’s an important detail, too, because this orb-like celestial object—whatever it is—seems to be a frequent visitant to this particular neck of the woods.
Take, for instance, this description of a sighting recorded on the National UFO Reporting Center’s website:
“On Saturday, June 12, 2021 at about 9:30 PM (about 30 minutes to an hour after sunset), while camped at the Corps of Engineers campground at Lake Abiquiu, NM, and facing north at Camp Site 36, I saw a royal blue orb moving from the middle of the sky to the north until it reached the hills toward the town of Abiquiu. Once it reached the hills, it adjusted its trajectory, rose above the hills and disappeared from view. The speed seemed about the same as a typical aircraft. The size was larger than a typical aircraft—perhaps 20 percent of the size of the typical full moon.”
Curiouser and curiouser.
This talk of “orbs” and full moons in the area near Abiquiú puts me in mind of a strange sighting of my own, which occurred while my brother and I were returning from Pagosa Springs on the night of Sunday, September 30, 2018. It was around 9 PM, and I was driving; we had just reached the area around Echo Amphitheater—a kind of natural cave or alcove in the red rock cliffs near Ghost Ranch—after the long and winding descent from the high country near Tierra Amarilla and environs.
It was a very dark night, and Highway 84 was eerily quiet and lonely—there were no other cars around, either in front, behind, or oncoming, which even at that time of night is fairly unusual for that stretch of road. In any case, somewhere in the vicinity of Echo Amphitheater, I remember that I was watching the little mice, which were darting back and forth into the road before me from the grass on the side of the highway, when I suddenly noticed something in the sky above the sandstone cliffs to the southwest.
I don’t know when it appeared, or how it caught my attention; it didn’t make a sudden movement, or flash into existence. It was just there, and I suddenly and inexplicably became aware of the glaring presence of something that hadn’t been there but a moment before.
There wasn’t much to it; no flashing lights, or saucer shape, or black triangle with three luminous apices. In short, it looked exactly like a full moon—same angular diameter and all—just as if it was lightly shrouded in a thin mist or hazy cloud. I should point out that there was no cloud cover that night, something I didn’t notice until after the incident.
The truth was, in my confusion, I at first assumed that the object was the moon; it wasn’t until later on that I remembered I had seen the moon that day when we were driving up, nearly ten hours earlier—at around eleven in the morning—and in nearly the exact same place, hovering over Echo Amphitheater prior to its setting.
It’s a strange coincidence, that, and to this day I still don’t know if it’s anything more.
Regardless, the moon when I saw it in the morning was a half moon anyway, and this was most definitely a full moon; besides, the real deal was on the other side of the planet at the time. So, somewhat surprised and startled, I said to my brother—who was, characteristically, fiddling with his phone at the time and totally oblivious to the strange happenings in the night sky—“Is that the moon?”
He looked up, noticed the object, and said something to the effect of “I sure hope it is,” which we both found grimly humorous; after all, we had been wondering only an hour or so before about whether we would in fact see something extraterrestrial, especially as we had passed near the infamous Archuleta Mesa, of “Dulce Base” fame, earlier in the evening.
Anyhow, as soon as he said this, the object moved, and for the first time; prior to this, it had been stationary in the sky, which further lent it a “moon-like” appearance. But now it most definitely changed its position, in a series of evolutions that occupied all of a split-second; it compressed from a full-moon shape, to a kind of flattened oval, and glided rapidly to the right and downward at a forty-five-degree angle, then straight horizontally to the left, and then it shot straight downward and disappeared.
It seemed to disappear into the ground at an area that was more or less level with the highway, which leads me to believe the thing was smaller than it might otherwise have seemed, and was most likely between us and the red cliffs that I knew were somewhere in that direction. I can tell you there was a lot of confusion in that car that night; I thought of stopping at a turnoff that appeared shortly after the sighting, and turning around to go back and investigate. But my brother negatived that suggestion, and I agreed that discretion was, indeed, the better part of valor.
For the rest of the drive home, I tried to rationalize the whole incident to myself; for a time I was convinced it was someone near Echo Amphitheater, perhaps playing a flashlight along the cliffs. But I soon realized that explanation was ridiculous; a light directed from below creates an oval patch, and the cliff face is so rugged and curved and broken up that a perfectly circular, moon-sized, stationary, and fuzzy light just wouldn’t be possible.
And then there was the eerie conviction—which both my brother and I felt—that the thing had patiently waited until it had attracted the full attention of both of us, before undergoing its strange gyrations and aerial acrobatics preparatory to its final disappearance. It was just as if it wanted to make sure we had noticed it, before doing something baffling and utterly confounding, the sort of thing that leaves an impression in someone’s imagination.
I guess you could say it was toying with us, in a way…whatever it was.
So that’s my story, for what it’s worth, and I guess I’m sticking to it. You can see the NUFORC report my brother filed shortly after the incident here, and I’ve also included a (not very articulate) recording I made that night, after we got back, and the sighting was still fresh in my mind.
Verdict: So what exactly is going on around Abiquiú and Ghost Ranch, New Mexico?
Well, as always, that’s not easy to say. Is it UFOs and aliens? Secret government bases and experimental craft? High strangeness? Portals to other dimensions and times? Time travel (I always like to throw that one in there, just for the heck of it)?
For one thing, others seem to have seen something similar to what my brother and I witnessed that night in late September of 2018. Take this eyewitness account, for instance, reported to MUFON, which occurred only a little over a month before ours:
“I had just finished a hike at Abiquiu Lake and was now in my car leaving the parking area driving east towards Highway 84. As I got closer to the highway I noticed this bright white light off in the distance. Upon noticing it it got brighter and brighter and then flickered off. I found that to be odd and so pulled onto the shoulder. I sat there in my car along the road scanning the sky for about 10 or so minutes and then suddenly I noticed this urge to look to my left which would be north. In the northwest part of the sky I see this red/orange light and it is pulsating for about 6 seconds, then it suddenly pulsated to a bigger size and brighter within and then simply vanished. The light stayed in one spot the whole entire time and it looked like it was quite far away. The sky was still lit but the sun was about to start setting in about roughly an hour. This is the second time that I have this sort of experience where I feel an urge to look in a direction and I see a light as mentioned above. Same exact experience as far as the description of the light.”
Is there a connection between these strange orbs, and other UFOs and UAPs seen in the neighborhood of Ghost Ranch, Abiquiu Lake, and Abiquiú itself? And if so, just what is that connection, and is it in anyway relatable to Ghost Ranch’s own somewhat paranormal reputation?
Damned if I know.
But I’ll tell you one thing—every time I drive along Highway 84 near Echo Amphitheater, which is fairly often these days, I can’t help but wonder about that moon-like object my brother and I witnessed…about what it was, and why it wished to show itself to us at that particular moment, on that particular night, which I’m quite certain it did.