Short Stuff: Mojave Megaphone

most fun ride in the world. I gotta say, barren, isn't it. Yeah, it's pretty barrens everywhere, Yeah, exact tumbleweeds and dead mafia bodies and and me and my old friend John Pendell driving to Vegas to get him a Crispy Creme Las Vegas T shirt and then driving that does it just does not seem right to call him John. I know him as Johnny, and I always wi Johnny Pendell sounds like a bad kid at school. He was,

you know, he was a decent kid. He's probably laughing because he gets in touch with me every time we mentioned him, so he'll laugh at that, so I know he is. That's why I can out him as a bad kiddo. So, um, did you guys ever go see the Mojave megaphone or had you heard of it before? I had not heard of it until I found this article on how stuff works. Actually nice work, well, nice workhouse stuff works for really turning us onto something. No,

I hadn't already said. Okay, I've never heard of this before, and it's mohave okay. Um. So in the Mojave Desert, it is a matter of fact, in the Mojave Desert National Preserve, there is what looks a lot like a giant um weathered steal megaphone bolted pretty much permanently to a couple of boulders on the top of like a hill um and it weighs a lot and no one can make heads or tails of not only how it got there, but what it is and how long it's

been there. It's a bona fide mystery. Yeah, this is nuts to me that nobody has come out and knows the origin of this thing. I know, like surely by now somebody would have been like, oh, I know the guy who put it there, and here's here's what it is, you know, and by the way, this is Banks. He's

real identity kind of person, you know what I mean. Yeah, so the Majabi Desert is uh or this thing is located actually in the Mojave Desert National Preserve and sort of a it says, a remote corner, but they're all fairly remote, and it's just you know, it could be art, uh, it could be a horn of some sort, like maybe a siren, and you know, we'll get to some of these in a little more detail, but it's it's just crazy to me that no one knows how this got there,

especially because it has, you know, sort of shape like a megaphone. But it's the kind of thing where it seems like one would be able to say, oh, well, no, that used to be a thing, because there were other things that are shaped just like this, right exactly, there's

nothing like that. And like you're saying, nobody's come forward to be like this is what it is, or everyone has to preference what they're saying with with I think or I I see it as you know, like it's all just interpretation, which is great um and if you just describe it a little further, it looks like two slightly different sized rocket boosters um placed top to the top or mouth to mouth. I like to think that the fire comes out of the butt, you know, So

this is mouth to mouth bolted together like that. There's a couple of like triangular fins. I think there's a pair of them, at least towards the end on each side as they flare out. Then inside there's cross hairs basically made of rebar. It looked like to me, and the whole thing has no markings. There's no numbers, there's no letters, there's no nothing on it, not even what

seems like it was maybe used for before. And then if you look at like the rebar in the welding job, it doesn't seem like it was part of any kind of mass production. Like it almost gives you the idea is like a one off kind of thing, you know, yeah, which means it could be art. It's big. It's about eight ft long, and if you see where it is, you know it took some effort. Uh maybe two people, but probably at least three or four people to get this thing up there, get it bolted onto the side

of this cliff. Uh, And it has led to a lot of speculation over the years as to you know, there's some pretty decent ideas I think as to what this thing could be. And maybe we should take a break, Yes we should come back, Yes, mojave, and we'll be right back to really mahabi this mohave, Okay, mohave chuck alright. So some people think it might be a siren of some kind from the nineteen forties or fifties, Like, you know, they tested nuclear bombs not too far from here. It's

near some army and air force activity. Maybe it was an early warning signal. Other people say, I don't know about that, Like this thing is really out in the middle of nowhere. You would have something like that closer to where people area. So that idea is okay, but has also largely been shot down by a bunch of other people. So that to me, it still makes sense because while it's not it never was very heavily populated place. I think there's a a ghost town called crusero Um nearby.

I mean it's between the existing towns of Baker and Ludlow, and they're not exactly like Beijing and Shanghai or anything like that, you know, but there's a rail line and all the banded rail line that runs right through there, and apparently they used to run chemical agents to um

the military bases out that way. So while you wouldn't have had a lot of people to warn, you would have had a potential situation to warn about, even if it was just a few people of like a major chemical spill or a gas leak or something like that. So to me, the idea that it was some sort

of warning system it does make sense. But at the same time, it doesn't make sense that they would use some handmade one rather than one that was, you know, available, because there were huge air raid sirens that were around in World War Two that look kind of similar, but we're obviously a raid sirens and they look like they

would work a lot better than whatever this thing was. Yeah, I saw on YouTube there was this woman who did a siren tests, like, got a crank siren and put it in the small end, then had her friends down on the ground and see if they could hear it, and they could, but it wasn't It didn't amplify things that much. UM And interestingly, in the YouTube comments, and so believe me, I'm not saying that this this is

like the worst research possible to say. A YouTube commenter said this, But there was a YouTube comment that said, hey, listen, I think it might be something from an old salt mine, like hot brine might have been pumped at high pressure through this thing, because it's just made of such thick iron and steel. Like it doesn't he said, you could make something a megaphone out of something a lot lighter, and that sort of made sense a little bit. That's

the only reason I mentioned it. Um other people said that. They said something like a rocket booster maybe, or maybe what's called a venturi, a pipeline venturi, which is an enclosure that's is our glass shape that controls the flow of fluids through a pipe, which is legitimate too. I mean they're like, and wouldn'ty have some record of a

pipeline through there? That's the thing, Like, there's no apparent either some no one's looked in the right place yet, or it's it just wasn't documented, which which means it was either secret or it is a more recent art installation. But if you look at it, I think one of the people who run tours out there, um said that, Um, they think that it's been there for thirty or more years. This thing looks like it's been around for a lot longer than you know. Um, so it looks very old.

And it's possible it's use was just so mundane that it didn't need any kind of documentation or you know. Yeah, it is possible as secret and I kind of I don't want to know, But at the same time, I think I would find it pretty fascinating to know it's used to. Like, I think that that also makes mysterious

objects really interesting, you know, knowing their history. Yeah. Another thing that feels plausible to me is that it, uh, it was not something that sent out a sound, but something that maybe was used to detect something like if they were doing nuclear testing at the Nevada testing site, that maybe it was something that like measured or detected

long range shock waves or something like that. Uh, And then it could make sense that the government, you know, it was it might have been sort of a one off and not have manufacturing numbers, and the government wouldn't readily come out and say anything like that, yeah, you know existed. Plus also, Edwards Air Force Base is kind of nearby, which is where um, Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier. Yeah, sure, and he very famous. He said, Uh, folks, mohab over and that was it. Uh should we tell

people how to get there? I think so sure. I mean it's all over the place. We even have the exact coordinates. Yeah, the exact coordinates. Are you at your pencil everyone in Mahabi. Just down on your Mojave thirty five point zero zero five six degrees north a hundred and sixteen point one degrees west. And that's the use your Dakota pins, the little or fan any secret message

if you want to go there. Um, you cannot just walk there or drive there in your Toyota's her Cell no shade on the r Cell. Great car, but you need a four wheel drive because you're gonna have to drive through the Mojave River, You're gonna be on dirt roads, you're gonna be driving through sand, through canyons, and uh, you know it's not the easiest thing to get you No, not at all. But if you want to get there,

you can. People have before and you can take a photo with it, or do a bring a cranks iron and do a test of your own, or you can look for gold. There's a legend that it actually points to a gold horde underground, but yeah, I'm not sure I buy that one. No. I think they mentioned the crosshairs for that reason. But I don't know. It's just really interesting. It doesn't it doesn't look like any megaphones that were used at any period in anyone's history. So uh,

I don't know. I think sometimes people just then they find something like a monolith in Utah recently. Yeah, that definitely was an art installation, you know. Yeah, that's just this isn't necessarily so well, if you do, go, let us know, we want to hear about it, get in touch with us. And in the meantime, everybody short stuff is mohabby Stuff you should know is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app. Apple podcasts are where ever you listening

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