by Steve Gleydura on
BENJAMIN RADFORD GREW UP in Corrales during the 1970s and ’80s with some big-time FOMO. All the sensational mysteries seemed far, far away: Bigfoot prowled the Pacific Northwest, the Bermuda Triangle claimed ships and planes off the Florida coast, and the Loch Ness Monster patrolled the Scottish Highlands.
But as Radford turned his attention closer to home, he found plenty of legends, ghost stories, and mysteries to satisfy his investigative eye. “In New Mexico, there’s weird stuff everywhere,” says the author of Weird New Mexico: More Miracles, Magic, and Monsters in the Land of Enchantment (University of New Mexico Press), which was published in September. “It’s one of the things I love about the state.”
I think it’s a reason so many others love it too. This month, “Tales of the Strange, Mysterious, and Unexplained!” leans heavily into that sensibility with a 1950s horror comics treatment by illustrator Andy Bourne and a look at our UFO sightings, lingering ghost stories, groundbreaking art, and quirky roadside attractions.
“Who doesn’t love a mystery?” asks Radford, who has built a career as a writer, investigator, and skeptic. A follow-up to 2014’s Mysterious New Mexico (UNM Press), his book brings a MythBusters approach to stories—such as the Taos Hum, St. James Hotel ghosts, Bigfoot, and the Dulce alien base—looking to uncover the truth.
But for me, the more interesting question is why New Mexico seems to breed the strange and invite the unconventional. “You have this collision of worlds,” Radford maintains. Faith, mysticism, artistic expression, and science aren’t just neighbors here, he says: “They all ooze together.” That includes a famed UFO incident and two national laboratories where government secrecy and high-tech innovation produce wormholes for the unexplained.
Similarly, New Mexico’s rich mix of cultures and complex history creates an environment where myths and legends thrive, often as attempts to make sense of a complicated world. “When you look at these mysteries, these stories, these monsters, what you’re really seeing is a reflection of ourselves and our fears,” he says.
Thus, finding the truth only helps us to better understand who we are. “The world is a beautiful, amazing, strange, and mysterious place,” he says. “Solving these mysteries doesn’t take away from the magic in the world, it enhances it.”
The same can be said for our relationship with the Land of Enchantment. “We’re weird,” Radford offers. “Embrace it.”