Beginning in the seventeenth century, townsfolk and rural dwellers in the remote Spanish colonial city of Santa Fe maintained a provocative interest in mysterious and miraculous visions. This preoccupation with the afterlife, occult forces and unearthly beings existing outside the natural world led to early witch trials, stories about saintly apparitions and strange encounters with spirits and haunted places. New Mexican author Ray John de Arag�n explores the time-honored tradition of frightening folklore in the Land of Enchantment in this intriguing collection of tales that crosses cultures in the dark corners of the southwestern night.

Famous writers tell of the fascination of New Mexico.

Whether you’re a born-and-raised New Mexican, a recent transplant, or just passing through, New Mexico Curiosities will have you laughing out loud as it introduces you to the most fascinating characters in the Spanish State, and takes you places you never could have imagined—some of them right around the corner!

UNSOLVED There are few subjects that fascinate people as much as New Mexico and a good mystery. New Mexico has always been an enigmatic place, filled with rich history. This book explores and examines forty-four of New Mexico's most baffling mysteries, which lure the curious and beg for investigation even though their solutions have eluded experts, many for decades. Many relate to the death or disappearance of some of the best-known lawmen and outlaws in history - Sheriffs Pat Garrett, Les Dow, and William Brady, as well as Jesse Evans, Russian Bill Tethenborn, Bronco Bill Walters, and Mysterious Dave Mather, while others involve mysterious tales and legends of lost mines and treasures. And who can forget the UFO incident at Roswell? All this told by a former lawman and journalist who is one of the region's leading historians, Don Bullis; Bullis also happens to be an award-winning author of over a dozen best-selling books on New Mexico's past. Leave it to Bullis, respected writer and historian, to open my eyes to a whole new world of outlaws, crooked politicians, puzzling crimes and surreal occurrences....With a reporter's affection for the hard questions, a novelist's approach to bringing characters to life, and an historian's attention to details, he has assembled a stellar collection of New Mexico's mysteries, famous and obscure. - Anne Hillerman, author of Spider Woman's Daughter

This is a book about Knights Templar who visited northern New Mexico sometime in the period of 1200 AD to 1400 AD and left two mysterious obelisk shaped stones in a most obscure location high in the mountain foothills of Wheeler Peak, the highest mountain in New Mexico at 13,000 feet in elevation. (Yes, this is some 300 years before Columbus!). The obelisk shaped stones were placed upright in locations near each other. The location of the area is in the Carson National Forest, in a valley known as the "Valle Vidal", Spanish for "Happy Valley". The stones appear to be a type of limestone and are approximately 10 inches X 10 inches X 42 inches tall. On each of the four side of the stones are deeply carved Templar crosses and several Middle Eastern symbols that clearly identify the stones as being of and about the Templar Knights Crusades experience in and around the Temple of Solomon! Are the symbols a treasure map? There appears to be no other explanation why they would have been placed in this obscure location! This book is the result of four years of research by well-known southwest author of over 15 books about New Mexico and the Southwest, Louis F. Serna. The book is sure to become an incredible part of New Mexico history!

Distributed by the University of Nebraska Press for Caxton Press Veteran treasure hunter and folklorist W.C. Jameson presetns twenty-six colorful, inriguing and mysterious stories about fortunes lost and found in the mountains and deserts of New Mexico.

New Mexico's Spanish legacy has informed the cultural traditions of one of the last states to join the union for more than four hundred years, or before the alluring capital of Santa Fe was founded in 1610. The fame the region gained from artist Georgia O'Keefe, writers Lew Wallace and D.H. Lawrence and pistolero Billy the Kid has made New Mexico an international tourist destination. But the Spanish annals also have enriched the Land of Enchantment with the factual stories of a superhero knight, the greatest queen in history, a saintly gent whose coffin periodically rises from the depths of the earth and a mysterious ancient map. Join author Ray John de Aragón as he reveals hidden treasure full of suspense and intrigue.

Some of these tales are about genuine heroes. Some are about dastardly villains. Others you’ll have to decide for yourself: hero or villain? You’ll recognize these people, even if you don’t remember their names. They are Spanish colonials, Mexicans, and Anglos all the way to the present. They are even aboriginal Americans predating the arrival of Europeans. These are personal tales—gossip, you might say—and, when you finish a story, if you’re like me, you’ll be able to say, “I didn’t know that!” Now, don’t you think knowing the quirks and grit of those who peopled the pages of your history textbooks—rather than all those dates and places—is more interesting? The author always thought so. After a dozen years writing travel stories about New Mexico, he undertook writing yarns of adventure, intrigue, failure, and even death. Open the book to Elfego Baca’s story and learn why one Mexican had no fear of American cowboys. Or how Navajo Chester Nez, who was denied the right to speak his native language, used Navajo words to help win World War II. Or even how the haughty wife of a colonial governor was falsely denounced to the Inquisition as a Crypto-Jew. Fact or imagination? Sometimes it’s hard to know which it is, but these, at least, are true life episodes. Includes Readers Guide.

The murder of 18-year-old Ovida "Cricket" Coogler in 1949 launched a series of court inquiries and trials that would reshape the direction of New Mexico politics and expose political corruption. Paula Moore examines the infamous murder and the events that unfolded in its wake.University of New Mexico Press

No other region in North America features the variety and intensity of unusual phenomena found in the world’s largest alpine valley, the San Luis Valley of Colorado and New Mexico. Since 1989, Christopher O’Brien has documented thousands of high-strange accounts that report UFOs, ghosts, crypto-creatures, cattle mutilations, skinwalkers and sorcerers, along with portal areas, secret underground bases and covert military activity. This mysterious region at the top of North America has a higher incidence of UFO reports than any other area of the continent and is the publicized birthplace of the “cattle mutilation” mystery. Hundreds of animals have been found strangely slain during waves of anomalous aerial craft sightings. Is the government directly involved? Are there underground bases here? Does the military fly exotic aerial craft in this valley that are radar-invisible below 18,000 feet? These and many other questions are addressed in this all-new work by one of America’s top paranormal investigators. Take a fantastic journey through one of the world’s most enigmatic locales!