Beyond any shadow of doubt, the most famous of all the many mysteries of Death Valley, in California’s Mojave Desert, are its rolling stones – and, no, I’m not talking here about Mick and Keith. For decades, astounded visitors to the valley – and particularly so in the vicinity of an 850-feet high hillside of dolomite on the southern side of its Racetrack Playa – have come across large stones and rocks that appear to have moved across the desert floor of their own free will and under some perceived, but poorly understood, magical power.

Such scenarios and beliefs have gained a great deal of weight by the fact that, behind the same stones and rocks, grooves and tracks are always found – sometimes extending for hundreds of feet, and occasionally even displaying evidence of the rocks having actually flipped over during the course of their curious travels across the harsh lands of Death Valley.

The prevailing theory of those in the field of geology that have traveled to the area is that the seemingly baffling movement of the stones can be explained by a phenomenon that, while not supernatural in nature, is still certainly remarkable, and one that requires specific weather patterns to be in place to explain the puzzle.

In essence, it’s a theory suggesting that when the clay of the flat desert floor becomes saturated with water, strong gusts of wind, of the type that certainly are in evidence in Death Valley’s Racetrack Playa, force the stones along on a thin veneer of water – rather like a small yacht propelled along ocean waters during a storm – and, incredibly, sometimes at speeds reaching those one would expect to see in the average person taking a leisurely jog.

Not everyone in the academic community is quite so sure that this particularly theory is a sound one, however. Geologist George M. Stanley, for example, noted in a 1955 paper that some of the sailing stones of Death Valley were of a weight equivalent to that of a fully-grown man – something which made Stanley very doubtful of the idea that the power of the wind would be strong enough to kick-start such large and heavy stones, never mind keep them in constant motion for hundreds of feet, or more, across the valley.

There are other problems, too, when it comes to trying to rationalize the enigma. It’s not as if each and every time the weather conditions are perceived as being conducive to such activity that dozens of stones all suddenly begin moving across the desert like an army of dutiful, marching soldiers. No, only specific, select stones seem to be targeted by whatever phenomenon is at work, while the rest remain totally unmoved by the experience.

Attempts to try and capture the movements of the stones on film – usually via time-lapse photography – have ended in complete failure, always. And, in some cases the stones have actually done 360 degree turns and headed back in the very direction from which they first originated! The result: despite the down to earth opinions of the scientific world, the rolling stones of Death Valley continue to bask in a heady mix of mystery, intrigue and wonder.

Located within California’s Mojave Desert, Death Valley is a most apt name for a place that resembles the rugged surface of some far away, battle-scarred planet and which holds the dubious honor of being home to the highest recorded temperature in the western world. An incredible 136° Fahrenheit, it was recorded on July 10, 1913, in the very appropriately named Furnace Creek.

It is somewhat ironic that, although Death Valley got its memorable moniker during the famous Gold Rush of 1849, only one death among all the prospectors eager to seek out gold was actually reported during that turbulent period. And although the name may be relatively new, the history of the area is most definitely not. For more than a thousand years the Timbisha Native Americans have lived in the harsh environs of Death Valley. And, in times both past and present, so have a whole range of things undeniably weird.

One of the strangest of all sagas relative to the mysteries of Death Valley erupted in the summer of 1947, the very same period in which the era of the Flying Saucer took the entire world by storm. In early August of that year, Howard E. Hill, of Los Angeles, spoke before the city’s Transportation Club and told a sensational story.

It was an extravagant tale that described the work of a certain Dr. F. Bruce Russell, a retired Cincinnati, Ohio physician, who claimed to have discovered, in 1931, a series of complex tunnels deep below Death Valley. Well, you may justifiably ask, so what?

[The images used in this post are used for illustration purposes only and are obviously photoshopped (except for the giant skull in the wheelbarrow, I took that one myself back in 1849) - MU]

After all, caves, caverns and underground grottos exist all around the world. They most certainly do. But, there was something very special and unique about these particular tunnels beneath Death Valley. According to the story told to Hill by Russell, the caves contained the skeletons of several gigantic men, each in the region of around nine feet in height, which Russell stumbled upon with a colleague, Dr. Daniel S. Bovee, who Russell had worked with on archaeological excavations in Mexico several years earlier.

And “stumbled upon” is highly apt terminology. Russell reportedly fell headlong into one of the caves when the surface soil gave way beneath him as he was in the middle of busily sinking a shaft for a mining claim. In Hill’s own words, spoken before the amazed and hushed audience of the Transportation Club, he said:

“These giants are clothed in garments consisting of a medium length jacket and trousers extending slightly below the knees. The texture of the material is said to resemble gray dyed sheepskin, but obviously it was taken from an animal unknown today.”

Upping the weird stakes even further, Hill said that while deep underground Russell and Bovee apparently came across what they described as a “ritual hall,” in which were found unspecified devices adorned with markings “similar to those now used by the Masonic order.” More bizarrely, the long-dead remains of both tigers and elephants – or, as was later suggested, and which was certainly far more plausible, the remnants of ancient saber-tooth tigers and mammoths – were also found strewn across the floor of the huge hall.

As for this fantastic, below-surface realm, we’re not talking about just a few, measly tunnels either. Hill revealed that then current estimates suggested there were at least thirty-two of them, and they ran for an amazing 180 square miles, covering whole swathes of Death Valley and certain parts of southern Nevada.

As for the era in which the bodies originated, while no explanation was given as to how Russell had come up with such a figure, he estimated they extended back an incredible 80,000 years, if not even longer, Hill told the crowd.

Hardly surprisingly, the local media of the day loudly cited the comments of certain, unnamed “professional archaeologists” who openly scoffed at such a story, assuring anyone and everyone who would listen that the tale simply had to be that and nothing else at all: a tall story of April Fools’ Day proportions.

Rather incredibly, but some might say predictably, no-one in the professional world of archeology would even dare take up the challenge to see the incredible evidence for his or herself – possibly fearful of being viewed as gullible and lacking in credibility.

The result: it was left up to Howard E. Hill to continue to speak on behalf of Dr. Russell – which he certainly did, until the story died a mysterious death, and Hill, Russell and Bovee mysteriously vanished into the shadows (or, perhaps, into the depths of those old caves), never, ever to return….