They Said Nothing Lives Out There
But that couldn’t be further from the truth. America’s deserts have buried stories of impossible findings, but there are 25 digs that will change how you see the dust-covered corners of the country.
Pet Cemeteries
Unlisted desert pet cemeteries in the West feature homemade grave markers like fire hydrants and mailboxes. Found in old mining towns and remote spots across California, Utah, and Arizona, they reflect personal grief, which is proof that losing a pet is never “only” losing an animal.
Holes in the Desert: the Las Vegas Pet Cemetery by Wonderhussy Adventures
The Giant Ground Sloth Dung Caves
Smell that? Scientists didn’t because the 10,000-year-old ground sloth poop they found in Arizona’s Rampart Cave was fossilized and scent-free. Preserved by the desert’s dryness, these ancient droppings reveal what books can’t, like what Ice Age giants ate, how they roamed, and how they lived.
Ancient Sloth Scat | America the Wild by Nat Geo Animals
Ancient Footprints In White Sands
Literally stomping through time. In 2009, archeologists in White Sands, New Mexico, discovered human footprints embedded in lakebed clay. In 2021, the carbon dating done on the footprints showed that they were between 20,000 and 23,000 years old. That’s even older than the pyramids.
Footprints from the Past by AZPM
The Atomic Bomb Craters Of Nevada
Drive through Nevada’s desert, and you’ll stumble upon massive craters left by Cold War nuclear testing. Between 1951 and 1992, the US detonated over 928 nuclear experiments at the Nevada Test Site. The result is a lunar terrain of impact scars so big they’re visible from space.
Why Apollo Astronauts Trained in Nuclear Bomb Craters by Veritasium
The Spirit Cave Mummy Of Nevada
Found in a Nevada cave in 1940, the Spirit Cave Mummy is approximately 9,400 years old, making it one of North America’s oldest naturally preserved bodies. DNA analysis later proved it belonged to a Native American tribe, the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone. This person watched centuries pass without uttering a word.
Photograph by Chip Clark, Smithsonian, Wikimedia Commons
Trinitite From The First Nuclear Blast
Melted desert sand turned into a green glass called “Trinitite” because of a Trinity Test. You can still find these radioactive souvenirs at the blast site in New Mexico. Unlike volcanic obsidian, this glass glows with atomic history. Banned from removal now, a sliver once fetched hundreds online.
The Death Valley Sailing Stones
Have you ever heard of rocks that move themselves? Well, here they are. Racetrack Playa’s stones glide across the desert like ghosts with no help. Scientists cracked the code later, and the catalysts were ice sheets, strong gusts, and perfect moisture. But before that, UFO theories ran wild.
Daniel Mayer (mav), Wikimedia Commons
The Preserved Mining Town Of Ruby, Arizona
Unlike crumbled ruins, Ruby remains astonishingly intact. Founded in the late 1800s, it boomed with zinc, gold, lead, and silver mining, then became empty by the 1940s. Today, homes and mines stand untouched, sun-worn but solid. Ruby isn’t buried; it’s waiting for curious explorers, quiet as a stone.
PhilipC at Flickr, Wikimedia Commons
Desert Megaphones In Nevada
Hidden in a remote corner of the Mojave Desert, the mysterious “Mojave Megaphone” rises from a rocky outcrop like a rusted sentinel. No one knows who placed it, when, or why, but theories range from Cold War tech to desert art. Want a real-life X-Files mission? Start here.
Greater Southwest Exploration Co., Wikimedia Commons
The Roswell UFO Incident Debris
In 1947, a rancher, WW “Mac” Brazel, found strange metal near Roswell: light, unbreakable, and alien. The US military called it a weather balloon, but witnesses whispered, “Not from this world,” and conspiracies were born. Even today, this area attracts tourists.
jdeeringdavis from San Francisco, CA, USA, Wikimedia Commons
The Mojave Phone Booth
Deep in the Mojave, a lone phone booth stood. Installed for miners, it became an internet legend in the 1960s. Callers rang in from across the globe, from New Zealand and sometimes even the Pentagon (allegedly). Sadly, it was removed in 2000. Just like that, no more rings.
Shooting Mojave Phone Booth by PUTCHFILMS
Fossilized Camel Tracks In Arizona
Long before camels crossed deserts abroad, their ancient relatives left tracks in the American Southwest. In Arizona’s Bear Springs Badland, fossilized footprints point to giants like Camelops and smaller kin like Hemiauchenia. These rare trackways in Arizona and New Mexico reveal a time when camelids ruled the prehistoric terrain.
Fossilized prehistoric footprints discovered in Eastern Arizona by Arizona’s Family (3TV / CBS 5)
The Hoover Dam Human Remains
Lake Mead, formed by the Hoover Dam, has revealed haunting truths of its own. As drought-dropped water levels, skeletal remains surfaced. As reported by CBS News, one set belonged to Donald Smith, a Nevada man who drowned nearly 50 years ago. Thanks to DNA and historical records, his story resurfaced.
Federal Highway Administration, Wikimedia Commons
The Ancient Shell Beds In Arizona
Deserts hold fossils of seashells. Arizona’s drylands were once hidden under a shallow sea millions of years ago, and people have discovered beds of beads and tinkers in places like the Kaibab Formation. Just picture that: a beach where now only cacti grow. Geology tells tales no narrator can.
Grand Canyon National Park, Wikimedia Commons
Giant Crater From A Meteor Strike In Arizona
Think it’s just a giant pit in the Arizona desert? Think again. The Meteor Crater near Winslow was carved by a 160 ft (50 m) nickel-iron meteorite that hit with an explosive force 50,000 years ago. Thousands of fragments still dot the 100-square-mile impact zone.
National Map Seamless Server, Wikimedia Commons
The Abandoned WWII Desert Training Camps
Before D-Day, soldiers trained in desert heat. General Patton’s Desert Training Center stretched across California to Nevada, prepping troops for North Africa. Barracks and command posts lie crumbling now as ghosts of military exercises lost to time. Rummage carefully; you might still spot hand-laid stones for specific purposes.
Visiting the Remains of a Top Secret WWII Army Camp - Camp Bouse, Arizona by Sidetrack Adventures
Petroglyphs Hidden In Utah’s Deserts
In Utah’s remote West Desert, ancient petroglyphs carved by Archaic hunter-gatherers, Fremont agriculturalists, and protohistoric Ute and Shoshone tribes reveal a cultural legacy thousands of years old. These images etched into limestone and orthoquartzite are maps and markers of sacred ground.
James St. John, Wikimedia Commons
The Desert’s Naturally Occurring Tar Pits
Step wrong and sink in California’s tar pits, which trap animals and then time-stamp them. At Los Angeles’s La Brea Tar Pits, natural asphalt has oozed from the earth for tens of thousands of years, luring in animals. Asphalt soaked into their bones and preserved fossils and micro-remnants alike.
Daniel Schwen, Wikimedia Commons
The Blythe Intaglios Of California
Look down from above, and California’s Blythe Intaglios will steal your breath. Carved into the desert crust near the Colorado River at Blythe, these enormous human and animal figures—the largest one 171 feet long—date back between 450 and 2,000 years.
Rsfinlayson, Wikimedia Commons
The Joshua Tree UFO Watchtower Reports
Joshua Tree’s dark skies invite stargazers and alien seekers. With over 10,000 sightings reported in California, it’s a hotspot for sky-watchers. Gatherings like "Contact in the Desert" turn it into a UFO Mecca. Watch the skies, and maybe someone will watch back.
Jarek Tuszyński, Wikimedia Commons
The Ghost Town Of Calico
Calico isn’t fiction but a fully rebuilt ghost town from the 1880s silver boom. Walk its crooked wooden sidewalks, and you’ll feel the echoes. At its best (between 1883 and 1885) Calico had 500 mines and 1,200 people. Tourists visit today for gunfight stunt shows and mine tours.
The Abandoned Route 66 Trading Posts
Once-busy Route 66 trading posts now sit weathered and quiet. It was once filled with gas, goods, and laughter. Restorations like the Painted Desert Trading Post preserve their story, honoring Route 66’s legacy as it approaches its 100th anniversary in 2026.
The Lost Pilot Of Area 51
In 1967, CIA pilot Ray vanished during a secret A-12 test flight from Area 51. The crash site, hidden for decades, was uncovered by urban explorer Jeremy Krans. Ray’s parachute failed to deploy, and this sealed his fate. Today, the wreckage stands as a haunting Cold War-era mystery.
U.S.Air Force, Wikimedia Commons
The Mammoth Kill Site At Naco, Arizona
A mammoth’s rib cage, pierced by ancient Clovis points, changed everything. In 1952, archeologist Cameron Greenleaf confirmed the find at Naco, Arizona, proof that Paleo-Indians hunted Columbian mammoths 12,000 years ago. It was the first clear evidence of Ice Age humans in the region, etched in bone and stone.
Jeff the quiet, Wikimedia Commons
The Giant Rock Meeting Place Of California
Rising seven stories near Landers, Giant Rock has long been a symbol of connection. For centuries, Native American tribes gathered here to mark the changing seasons. In the 1950s, its mysterious presence attracted UFO enthusiasts, and George Van Tassel held Interplanetary Spacecraft Conventions, merging ancient rituals with extraterrestrial wonder.
