Al Capone's Hideout
Mike Smith
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Rising over the desert of north-central New Mexico are the green and rugged Jemez Mountains. Nestled among these mountains, ringed by walls of jagged and wooded lava rock, is a valley. Rolling through this valley is a meadow. All across this meadow are the faint traces of an old ranch, and hidden among these traces is a legend.
In the late 1920s, the legend says, “Scarface” Al Capone, Chicago’s notorious Prohibition-era crime boss, used this mountain ranch as a getaway, when he needed a place to hole up for a while.
“Capone was here, but he was kept pretty well hidden,” remembered Mary Caldwell, a lifelong mountain resident. “He had a hideout. There’s no question he was here.”
“He used to come by, and when he’d come by he’d just stop in and have dinner with you,” added Jack Caldwell, Mary’s son. “There wasn’t a lot of people here back then.”
But one person who was around back then, and someone who may have known Capone, was an eccentric Chicago businessman named Seth Seiders.
Born in 1883, in Paulding, Ohio, Seth Seiders seemed to have entered this life driven by an intense desire to make money. As a child, he sold magazines, trapped muskrats for their pelts, and sold buckets full of wild blackberries. He read nothing but books about successful men, did little besides work, and thought of almost nothing but how to make a million.
Before long, he had grown into “a big, well-dressed, blonde-headed man with an arresting gray eye,” as writer Neil M. Clark described him in 1926. Possessing a seemingly endless supply of blustery enthusiasm, Seiders started a short-lived business, sold advertising for a newspaper, traveled the country selling door to door, married a businesswoman, and ultimately did make a million dollars.
How he made that money, though, is a matter of some debate. After moving to Chicago, he founded and presided over Seth Seiders Incorporated, and built a tiny empire selling printed pep talks and motivational sales booklets.
“…There’s something about the whole situation that keeps it from quite jelling—an almost intangible something,” wrote Merle Crowell, editor of The American Magazine, in response to a 1926 draft of an article about the man. “For one thing, you can’t quite visualize [Seiders’] business. ‘Made a million in six years out of selling some kind of mottoes,’ you say. ‘Sounds kind o’ phony to me.'”
“There was a rumor that he was a little shady,” recalled Tom Abousleman, an old friend of Seiders’. “Said he was in advertising, though that comes with a lot of territory.”
During the same years of the first half of the 1920s that Seiders was building his business in Chicago, Al Capone was taking over the Chicago underworld—making millions every year off liquor and gambling and prostitution—bribing and threatening and striking deals with countless lawmen and politicians and businessmen.
“Many of the businessmen and politicians who knew Capone best are still to be found in Chicago and its suburbs,” wrote George Murray in 1975, in The Legacy of Al Capone. “Some are living out their days in Florida, California, Arizona, or New Mexico. Few will acknowledge in so many words that Capone started them on the road to riches and power.”
In 1924, Seiders left Chicago for New Mexico, for the Jemez Mountains, but continued to spend at least half of every year in Illinois. He bought a large piece of property in the Jemez Mountains’ Cebolla Valley, built a house, a dancehall, an exclusive and technically illegal bar, a little store, and numerous outbuildings. Stables held horses for his guests to ride, hop plants grew around a mysteriously locked building, and there was more than enough room for friendly local girls, banquets, and slot machines. The property became known as the Rancho Rea, after Seiders’ wife, Rhea, and Seiders’ friends and associates would come west from Chicago and the East Coast just to see it.
“It was a very private place and lots of things went on there that wouldn’t go on in the normal world,” said Elsie MacKinnon, owner of the Laughing Lizard Inn & Café, in the mountain town of Jemez Springs. “And that’s where Al Capone stayed.”
“We kind of figured [Seiders] was in partnership with Al Capone in some ways,” said Mary Caldwell, and the situation wouldn’t be unthinkable. Seiders business was based in the same city as Capone’s, and by almost all accounts his morals were nearly as flexible: he bought and produced large quantities of illegal alcohol, engaged in a number of questionable business transactions, cheated on his taxes, and perhaps cheated on his wife with a young woman who sued him in 1928 for “both mental and physical suffering”—suffering caused in part by Seiders’ forcing the girl to dye her hair red.
(“…The business executive will associate with none but red haired women,” reported the December 16, 1928 Chicago Daily Tribune.)
“Seiders knew Capone, but Capone wasn’t up here,” said Tom Abousleman. “First I heard about those rumors was after World War II, at an auction. Guy was selling a milking stool from Seiders’ ranch and said, ‘Al Capone might have sat on this,’ and everyone rushed to bid on it.”
Rumors or not, there are literally dozens of stories that place Capone and his henchmen all over these mountains. Employees at the Jemez Springs Bathhouse, in Jemez Springs, claim that Capone liked to drive down from his hideaway for a soak in the Bathhouse’s famous tubs. Residents tell of Capone visiting a nearby liquor store, an area church, and Seth Seiders’ other Jemez property, on the edge of Jemez Springs. That property was known as the Rancho Chico, featured a small stone hotel, and was bought and developed when Seiders’ wife got tired of Rancho Rea.
And, all rumors aside, Capone did pass through New Mexico. In December of 1927, Capone and some his cohorts boarded a train on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway. They rode from Chicago to Los Angeles, passing through both Santa Fe and Albuquerque along the way. The police and the media quickly hounded them out of town, and Capone and his men hurried onto another train, headed back through Albuquerque, back through Santa Fe, and back to Chicago.
So, Capone was in New Mexico.
Capone was here, and it is possible that when his train pulled into Albuquerque, he might have considering stopping to see an old acquaintance. Seiders often hired cars to drive guests up from Albuquerque’s train station, and it’s not impossible that Capone could have been such a guest, discovered the beautiful seclusion of Rancho Rhea, and gone back later when life in Chicago grew too intense.
Many of Capone’s biographers believe that his life was probably too well documented to have included multiple previously unknown trips to New Mexico, but they remain open to future proof.
“Just as ‘George Washington slept here’ is probably true of many places in the East, Al Capone got around in his day as well,” said John Binder, author of The Chicago Outfit. “He traveled widely and may have stopped at many places. Logically, it’s impossible to prove that he was never at a particular place.”
The Seiders’ place, the old Ranch Rea, was long ago taken from Seiders by the IRS, renamed the Lazy Ray, and torn down by the Forest Service, but the site can still be hiked to today. Visitors to the site can pause to hear the wind lift the valley’s aspens and ponderosas, watch lava-colored clouds smolder along a rocky horizon, and catch themselves wondering how anyone—even Al Capone—could have possibly stayed away.
***
The above article first appeared in the July 2007 issue of New Mexico Magazine, with additional images and a much more attractive layout. Affordable subscriptions to the magazine, to promptly receive future articles by Mike Smith, can be ordered by clicking here.
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Reader Comments (17)
Since I've been here in Roswell, I've encountered conversations with the dead.
fred call
I'm from Florida. Spent a good deal of quality time in Chicago. Was a friend to Matty Capone, the youngest of the Capone brothers. There are many family ghost stories connected to the Capones.
Anyway, I came to Roswell on a Delta flight into El Paso on June 1st. Wasn't sure how long I'd stay in Roswell. My return ticket was for three weeks. But I'm still here. At first, I wasn't all that crazy about the drive from El Paso. Then it turns out American Eagle is flying into Roswell Airport. So, now I'm ten minutes from the airport in Fort Lauderdale, and ten minutes from the airport in Roswell.
I've had some very interesting experiences here in Roswell. The way it looks, I'm going to be flying back and forth. I was searching the internet for more Roswell information, came across your web.
Glad to meet you.
fred call aka bigbro
fred call aka bigbro
It is very, very likely that Al Capone was in New Mexico, and more than once. But I wouldn’t call it hiding out. And I wouldn’t say that Capone spent a lot of time in the desert. When, and if he did, it was for business.
There were a lot of Capone’s adventures connected to the American west. The eldest Capone brother, James Vincenzo Capone, was a Nebraska lawman. The eldest Capone served in the army during WWI. Al Capone used to brag that he got his infamous scar while serving in the trenches during the war. James Vincenzo was the only Capone to serve in the military. After the war, the eldest Capone moved to Homer, Nebraska. He changed his name to Richard James Hart. Of all things, Richard Hart was a Revenuer, policing the stills on the Indian reservations. Back in the Depression and Prohibition days, Native Americans were able to make money distilling booze. Richard Hart was given the nickname of ‘Two Gun’ Richard Hart because of the pair of cowboy pistols he wore. It wasn’t until after Al Capone’s death in Miami that the newspapers mentioned the brotherly relationship. One side of the story is that the eldest Capone changed his name to stay apart from Al. The other side of the story is that the Capone family made sure Richard Hart was never without needed money. Two-Gun Hart became Marshall of Homer, Nebraska, where he died of a heart attack.
During New York Godfather Joe Bonanno’s long career he invested readily for his family’s future in Arizona real estate. Bonanno is buried near his home in Tucson, where he wrote his autobiography ‘A Man of Honor.’ In fact, a couple of weeks ago there was an interview of Bill Bonnano and his family, there in Tucson. Joe Bonnano and Al Capone had a long history together. When Bonanno illegally entered the country in 1924, he was given refuge and work in Chicago running guns and liquor for Capone. During the New York Castellammarese Wars, Capone naturally backed Joe Bonnano.
In 1931, Las Vegas issued it’s first license for a gambling casino. Capone already had more than a hundred casinos in operation in and around the Cicero area. Capone and ‘Fast’ Eddie O’Hare even opened an illegal dog race track next door to Hawthorne Park’s thoroughbred race track. Eddie O’Hare’s son, Butch, was a Navy pilot shot down in the South Pacific. O’Hare Airport is named after Butch. Eddie O’Hare was gunned down at a Chicago intersection by Frank Nitt’s gunmen.
Cicero was known then as the gambling capital west of New York. When Las Vegas started in the gambling business, the Vegas people needed those who knew how to run a casino. The Kansas City and St. Louis godfathers generally took orders from the Chicago mob. The running joke in Chicago was that the mob joined the Mormon Church, being that Las Vegas was settled by the Mormons. Capone and Accardo and Nitti and others helped the Mormons recognize the value of a well run casino business.
As for crossing through New Mexico on his way to either Arizona or Las Vegas, Al Capone and movie stars of the caliber of Charlie Chaplin and other celebrities of the day were frequent visitors to the border towns of Tijuana and Juarez. Capone’s reputation was more popularly known for rum running. But it was well known in Chicago that when Capone threw a party, there was plenty of cocaine and marijuana. The Chicago mob’s influence in the growing Las Vegas gambling venue also meant prospering from the flow of drugs across the Mexican border. For a Chicago gangster to be seen traveling through New Mexico in those days, that generally meant border town drug business.
When it came to hiding out, Capone was better known to head to Saskatchewan, Canada. When asked about his Canadian hideout, it prompted Capone’s famous quote to a newspaperman, “I don’t even know what street Canada is on.”
JP
When I came in June, I flew Delta into El Paso. The four hour drive to Roswell was almost as long as the flight itself. But now American Eagle is flying into Roswell. I can tell already this area is growing steadily. The other day I was talking to a native Roswellian. He was bemoaning the changes. I told him that when he starts seeing Condos being built, then he knows he's in trouble.
In Florida, the Capone family owns a long running popular pizza resaurant on the beach. If you want to watch either the Bears or the Bulls play, that's where you go. My family has long stretches of history in Chicago. My Aunt Adeline, when she was a kid, used to go over to Mother Capone's house for cookies. Like all the kids in the neighborhood. Those were the Depression Years when finding food was tough. Thing about Capone, he took care of the people in the neighborhood. Made sure nobody was starving. One thing was for sure, you could walk the neighborhood streets any time of the night without fear of muggers. People just learned to mind their own business when it came to the Chicago Outfit. Quid pro quo.
Anyway, what do you think of Bill Richardson's chances in his run for the Big House in Washington? Bill's Wife isn't running too good in the polls in Florida. I am a bit surprised by how many Florida Democrats like Richardson. Though I don't see him gettng the press that Bill's Wife is getting. Looks as though the Democrats have already conceded the '08 elections. It'd be nice to see Richardson get more press time.
Let me know what you think?
fred call
Is that what you're hinting at?
I'll keep that in mind as part of the big and exciting changes coming soon(er or later). Hint: More writers! More content! Et cetera!
You see, Capone was haunted by John Scalise and Albert Anselmi. Something I said in my earlier posts. To give you a little bit of history, John Scalise and Albert Anselmi were known as the ‘Twin Killers.’ Though they weren’t related. They came from the same village in Sicily. Came to America to get rich. Except Capone killed them. Beat them to death with a baseball bat. At a dinner table. While the other guys watched.
Maybe you’ve seen this act of murder dramatized in various movies. Like the when where Robert DeNiro played Capone. In the ‘Untouchables.’ With Kevin Costner and Sean Connery. The real life incident happened in Cicero. At the Hawthorne Hotel. The hotel was Capone’s headquarters in Cicero. Cicero was the gambling capital of America, west of New York. Long story. Let me cut to the quick.
Scalise and Anselmi were two of the gunmen at the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. A couple of weeks after the famous massacre, Capone threw a party for the guys. Kind of a thank you party. Except there was a problem. See, the massacre was designed to kill George ‘Bugs’ Moran. But Moran didn’t show up at the garage like he was supposed to. Capone got to thinking that someone tipped Moran off. That someone was plotting to kill him. Capone believed it was Scalise and Anselmi. So, he threw the party. Came up behind the two and beat them with a Louisville Slugger. Legend has it the baseball bat had Babe Ruth’s autograph on it. But we won’t go into that right now.
Matters went bad for Capone after that. Scalise and Anselmi had the old Sicilian curse on whoever it would be that betrayed or killed them. Not that Scalise and Anselmi thought anyone would kill them. But it happened. The curse was that whoever killed them would be haunted by the ‘Twin Killer’ ghosts. That is the beginning of the story about how Capone went mad. Scalise and Anselmi’s ghosts went dogging Capone wherever he went.
The rub was that my grandfather, he could see the ghosts of Scalise and Anselmi. None of the other guys in the gang could. Only Capone and my grandfather could see the two ghosts. My grandfather became Capone’s bodyguard. Not a bodyguard from other living gangsters. My grandfather was a bodyguard against the ghosts haunting Capone.
Okay, now what does that have to do with Roswell and the brothers of Pazuzu and a lot of other unusual events that happen around here in this part of New Mexico, in the vent you are asking yourself.
Well, it’s a long story. Takes some time and space. I’ve been called here to New Mexico because I ‘have it in my blood.’ There are those who are linked to extradimensional entities in one way or the other. I’m not the only one. Not by a long shot. There are others who are ‘chosen.’ I’ve been called to Roswell to be the scribe to the elders. You can imagine that they aren’t much for sitting down and typing. They need someone they can communicate with. Someone who can do their writing for them. It’s a lot like automatic writing. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s wife, Lady Conan Doyle, was well known for her automatic writing adventures with her Arabic spirit guide Phineas.
The reason for this automatic writing exercise with the entities is to communicate with the ‘chosen.’ What I write is a coded message within a message. Let me give you a very simplified example. If I write ‘The quick red fox,’ a ‘chosen’ will read ‘Thick ox.’ Now, that is a very simplistic illustration. Like showing two plus two to a physicist. Everything I’ve written in these comments has an encoded message. Who can read? Who can decipher? Ah, but that’s the trick among us mortals interconnected with the extradimensionals.
So, I have a diary of my days here in Roswell, since I arrived on June 1st. Texts psychically given to me by Pazuzu’s brothers and others with complicated definitions. If you think you’ve got some ‘chosen’ among your readers, I’d be more than happy to post my diary. Piece by piece. I sure wouldn’t throw all of Pazuzu’s brothers thoughts on you all in one fell swoop.
If you are so of a mind.
You got my email addy. And I’ll keep tabs on what you comment here. See how you feel about it.
When one is dealing with crossing invisible boundaries, not everything is obvious by its reception of the five senses. The process might be a bit daunting for some. There may not be any ‘chosen’ in the reading process. Then, again, you might be surprised what you can find out. About others. About yourself.
The good part: nobody gets hurt. They’re not here to hurt. They’re not here to abduct. They’re not here to pinch and probe. They got lots more important things to do. All that dramatic stuff about people disappearing, that’s for television and movies. You have free will. That can mean that you will be given a vision of the future. Because you have free will, you can prepare.
The only way you or anyone else can get hurt is if you attack them. And let’s face it, you can’t hurt them. Not with all the hydrogen bombs on this planet. Attacking one of them would be like getting into a steel cage wrestling death match with a ten thousand pound saber tooth tiger. Their technology is so far beyond our humble imaginations, and there’s no need for them to cause you or anyone else any harm.
Fred call aka bigbro
Bigbro With the Future Soldier in New Mexico……..
Are you Sarah Connors? And I had to come back to this area of the Future Soldier.
Why? Because I’m in New Mexico. Which is a desert state. And this is August. And it’s 2:30 in the afternoon as I’m writing these thoughts (when I email them is whenever I get back enough energy to push the send button). Rattlesnakes are self-cooking it is so hot in the desert. Odd that New Mexico is both the home to the atomic bomb, and rumors of the future soldier.
Governor Bill Richardson is running for President in ’08. And Hillary and Obama are headed for a landslide beating experienced by the likes of Democrats McGovern and Dukakis and Carter in the past. I’m wondering what chance, if any, the Democrats will give Bill Richardson an opportunity. Cause, before you shoot the messenger, Hillary and Obama don’t have a chance in Hades against Romney and Thompson. In fact, the GOP can pretty much run anyone they want against Hillary and Obama. It doesn’t matter. While Bill Clinton and George Bush the Elder are playing golf, the GOP is most likely passing money under the table to the Hillary campaign. They want her to win the Democratic nomination in the worst possible way.
Here in New Mexico, one can kind of symbiotically feel the ambience of what American troops are experiencing in Iraq. Unless you’ve spent a summer in the desert, you can’t really understand how debilitating the heat is. You just want to fall down on your knees and puke and not get up. I’m sitting here typing in the air conditioning. I’m just not going outside until the sun sets. Those guys wearing about fifteen or twenty pounds of Kevlar and other protective gear in Iraq, man, that’s got to be the total pits. I don’t think a soldier can carry enough water to sustain himself. They say that a century ago the Apaches around here were like camels. The Apaches only knew the desert. I’m thinking about the nanotech soldier of the future. Nanotech sustenance for the desert troops.
M.I.T. was given a government contract to come up with nanotech gear and weaponry for the future soldier. Physicist Richard Feynman once described nanotechnology as there not only being a thousand angels on the head of a pin, but each of those angels will be typing away on a computer. I’m assuming the thousand angels will be sitting in nanotech created air conditioning feeling nothing but the glory of god.
In it’s simplest terms, the nanotech soldier of the future will wear bullet proof protective gear that is near invisible. He, or she, will have a nanoglove that can punch a hole through a wall, they’ll wear nanoboots that enable them to leap over six foot walls like nothing. Nanotech surveillance computers will be dust motes in the air. The Metal Storm automatic weapon (with no moving parts) theoretically fires a million rounds per minute. Why theoretically? Because they have to figure out a way to transport the weight of a million rounds of ammunition. Nanotechnology will reduce the weight of a million rounds to that of a single .22 caliber long rifle projectile.
Sound like super soldier of the future sci-fi? Well,
I’ll be back………………
fred call aka bigbro
Blackwater and Pazuzu
There’s talk that the Blackwater mercenaries have an interesting relationship with Pazuzu, the ancient Mesopotamian demon god of the wind.
Since American troops invaded Iraq....and we're going back to the First Persian Gulf War of George the elder Bush........there's been rumors that our soldiers have seen strange visions walking in the night. Walking in the dust storms. Walking in the mirages.
Could Blackwater be making a deal? Well, I've seen Pazuzu's brothers here in Roswell. But let's not rush into things all at once. These matters take time. Patience. An understanding of ambiguity and decoding.
Okay, logically the National Guard and the Reserves will be stressed to the extent that American troop numbers will have to be pulled out of Iraq. I mean, what is the troop level in Iraq? A hundred and some thousand in a country the size of Texas. In Vietnam there were half a million in a country the size of New Hampshire, or thereabouts. That’s logically. But for those of you who are aware of the oxymoron ‘Army Intelligence,’ you get to doubting logic in all it’s forms.
But for the sake of argument: Okay, American troop strength is reduced. What happens next in Iraq? My guess is that Blackwater takes over. As if Blackwater isn’t already running much of the show in Iraq, already. Blackwater is a future look of American military incursion. They are America’s French Foreign Legion. Go on Youtube, type in Blackwater. You’ll see a lot of interesting videos. Many of them made by Blackwater themselves. I particularly enjoyed the video accompanied by Elvis singing ‘Mystery Train.’
fred call aka bigbro
And thanks, Fred. I appreciate hearing from you, especially since my attitude--an attitude which becomes very apparent upon reading my past columns--is an attitude of hopeful but realistic skepticism regarding the reality of just about all of the sorts of things you've mentioned in your comments.
So thanks for sticking with me.
And, I have to say, your last comment contains what I think is one of the best lines I've ever read: "There’s talk that the Blackwater mercenaries have an interesting relationship with Pazuzu, the ancient Mesopotamian demon god of the wind."
That is awesome! Are you Jack Kutz reincarnated?
As for the Pazuzu references in and around Roswell, allow me to explain. There are psychic hot spots in the world. The Egyptian pyramids and the Mayan pyramids with their nearly identical hieroglyphic markings. Edgar Cayce’s home in Virginia Beach. A site I’ve made pilgrimages to on several pleasant occasions. Then there is the famed Bermuda Triangle. I’ve spent a good portion of my life within the triangle’s boundaries. I was born within a few miles of the naval air station where the famed squadron disappeared. Then there is Roswell.
For a good three years I carried on correspondences and connections with people who have intimate and long running knowledge of life in Roswell. Eventually the moment came. I got on the airplane. Came here with as little preconceived expectations as I could clear my mind in doing. I’ve had a good guide. Someone who was raised in the area. A reader of exceptional talents. Life among the extradimensionals has proven to be very interesting, to say the least. Now I’m sort of working for them. Voluntarily. As I said. There’s none of this abduction and probing stuff. That’s for sci-fi movies. The life forms valued free will. Of course, they wouldn’t have called me here to Roswell if they hadn’t known that I couldn’t resist the offer. Sly little devils, they are. And very, very intelligent.
As you most likely know, Roswell is a FLETC site (Federal Law Enforcement Training Center). Roswell Airfield is lined with CIA 747s that have been here since 9-11. Here in the event of another nationwide airport closing and other emergencies. Roswell, aka the former Walker Air Force Base, was where the Enola Gay was attached on her way to dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. It’s also the home to Robert Goddard, the father of American rocketry. The man who pretty much taught Werner von Braun much. The so-called Area 51 is out there. You just don’t drive past the warning signs. Not unless you want to have your jeep totally riddled with .50 caliber rounds from an Apache Attack Helicopter. Fortunately, the life forms aren’t much worried about such puny human war machines. And remote viewing is an interesting topic of conversation.
Roswell’s terrain is also familiar to that of Iraq. You can easily imagine that our CIA and NSA people come here for training and experimentation. And, there is that effervescent exchange of technological information between them and us. And, of course, to extradimensional life forms, our concept of linear time is laughable to them. Pazuzu knew Babylonia quite intimately. His brothers are here on sort of a metaphysical exchange program. Not that linear distance means anything to them. They cross dimensions. What are miles to them? Nothing.
This whole Iraq war deal has meaning other than the politics of oil. If they wanted, they could hand us the technology to completely negate the need for oil in our global lives. Unfortunately, human greed would be exercised by the elite to keep that technology from us. For their continued oil profits. Why the life forms are here is that great big mystery. What they want with us is part of the great Gordian Knot. Possibly it’s a major key to the philosophical question to the meaning of sentient life itself. Figure it all out, and there’s a good chance you have a personal look into the Big Bang itself. Good luck.
In the meantime, there are messages to be sent and had. Like I said, the life forms aren’t much for sitting around typing and sending emails. That’s for those like myself. These messages, forms of automatic writing dictated by Pazuzu’s brothers, are coded messages. Who reads them, that is the big surprise. Who understands them, that is even more the big surprise. What they mean, I don’t know. I go with the flow. I enjoy working with Pazuzu’s brothers. They have helped enhanced my intuition and premonitions. The relationship is quite equitable. I figure I’m getting more from them than they are getting for me. Consequently, I’m only way too happy to go the extra mile to do my part.
So, if you want to set up a message board or whatever convenience to you in communications you care to endeavor, I got the diary. The word goes out. However others respond, that’s their free will. I can’t predict what’s going to happen. I can say this much: If Pazuzu’s brothers didn’t think it was a good idea, they wouldn’t have guided the process this far. There’s no telling who out there will see the message within the message.
Fred call aka bigbro
Bigbro says: The secret to understanding the mystery of Roswell is that it’s perfectly okay to blame everything on the aliens. Now, the problem New Mexican historians have is that they simply can’t find a way to blame the bad behavior of Billy the Kid on alien abduction or alien technology. Billy was, after all, wild west long before there were even biplanes in the sky.
Two people Roswell historians around here shy from talking about are Billy the Kid and Werner von Braun. Billy was born in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, New York. Pretty much the same neighborhood as Al Capone was raised in. Billy supposedly shot twenty-one men, one of them because he was snoring and kept Billy awake. It’s arguable if Billy the Kid was the meanest killer to roam New Mexico. It’s not so arguable that he is the best known. It’s just not good publicity to tout Billy, that’s all. Nothing personal.
Werner von Braun figured out how to make a rocket that would hit London from Germany thanks to the rocketry experimentation stolen from Robert Goddard’s schematics drawn up in Roswell. There’s a lot of history here in Roswell. The B-29 bomber Enola Gay took off from Roswell (Walker Air Field) headed for Hiroshima. The uranium bomb Little Boy was manufactured not far from here. As was the plutonium bomb Fat Man that landed on top of Nagasaki. Had Werner von Braun been working for America instead of Germany, the first atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki likely would have arrived by rocket, rather than B-29 bombers. But people around here don’t like to talk about that sort of possibility.
All in all, Roswellians would rather reminisce the historical context of Werner von Braun than of Billy the Kid. I suppose brandishing a Colt. 45 is more embarrassing than launching a nuclear tipped rocket. There’s not much one can blame UFO technology on the outlaw behavior of The Kid. As for Werner and the rest of the Nazi related rocket arcing geniuses, yep, you guessed it. They’re all related to UFO technology. And that makes them not bad people. It’s the aliens’ fault, after all.
There is an urban legend that the Roswell Miranda Rights are read thusly: You have the right to remain silent, unless you have been probed by foreign objects that make you say unimaginably strange things, and anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law, unless you can prove that alien abduction made you say these things and you didn’t really mean it.
Anyway, the other night I was having a chat with the ghost of Billy the Kid. You see, the nice part about this section of the desert is that if you step out of your front door to fire a pistol in six different directions, and if you hit someone, the sonofabitch shouldn’t have been on your property in the first place. So, after I clear off the land of trespassers, me and the ghost of Billy the Kid sat down to have a friendly chat under the moonlight. The first myth buster I discovered about Billy is that he is not left handed. The famous photo of The Kid started that rumor because the negative was turned around so it looked like Billy’s pistol hung from his left hip.
Billy the kid did hold his cup of hot chocolate in his left hand, though. And I know why. It’s because he needs to keep his right hand free. For his gun. Even though Billy the Kid has been dead for more than a century, he is always ready to draw his gun. Ghostly habits are hard to break, I guess. We’re sitting around the campfire, Billy and me, with hot chocolate, exploring each other’s lives. And deaths. I’m really not sure, but I might have died in the mini-nuke Third World War.
Fred call aka bigbro
Oh, the "fisical featers"! Those were just so interesting I thought I should write a seperate piece just about them. "Fisical Featers of New Mexico!" Keep your eyes open for it.
Allison--
That's cool. If I can help you with your research, just e-mail me.
Yes, I know it is off topic, but if this is what our public education system is spewing out, our future is indeed very bleak.
Mike,
I enjoy your site. Very interesting and informative. I live in ABQ and will be planning many rides on my Harley to visit the places you have written about. I've found many of them on my own by mistake, but look forward to visiting the others. Keep the intel coming!