Mampimi Silent Zone

The Mapimí Silent Zone (Spanish: La Zona del Silencio) is the popular name for a desert patch near the Bolsón de Mapimí in Durango, Mexico, overlapping the Mapimí Biosphere Reserve. It is the subject of an urban myth that claims it is an area where radio signals and any type of communications cannot be received.

In July 1970, an Athena test missile launched from a U.S. military base near Green River, Utah toward White Sands Missile Range lost control and fell in the Mapimí Desert region. The rocket was carrying two small containers of cobalt 57, a radioactive element commonly associated with the construction of Salted bombs. After several weeks of searching, local farmers found and reported the crash in the Northeast corner of the State of Durango. Once the rocket was found, a road was built to transport the wreckage, along with a small amount of contaminated top soil.

Over the years since then, stories about that area where the rocket fell have surfaced. The most prominent among these is the story that gives the area its nickname "The Silent Zone." Apparently, no radio waves can be received in certain areas surrounding the rocket's crash site. While areas devoid of radio signals are not unknown on earth, most of these are the product of altitude and mountainous terrain combined with a lack of transmitters in the area.

The Mapimi Silent Zone is located in flat terrain with only small foothills surrounding it. Moreover, it is well within the range of several "Border Blaster" radio stations, known for highly boosted signals designed to carry them well into US territory. None of these stations can be picked up in the silent zone. Not even static is present. Just dead silence across all radio bands until you leave these areas of radio void.

Physical oddities are also present. Plants in some areas have taken on strange colorations, especially among certain breeds of desert plants. Bright purple or dark violet versions of cacti that are normally green have been found, along with strange, abnormally large growth patterns in scrub vegetation.

The strange patterns are also prevalent in local animal species, with some tortoises in the area exhibiting triangular shell patterns, wild coyotes growing unusually large and small desert lizards growing to sizes unheard of in other areas. Blood work done on these animals, as well as on people living near the area, showed signs of blood cells that exhibited unusual properties, including rounded triangular structure in some cases.

The geology of the region is also highly unusual. Some pebbles and rocks in the Silent Zone feature an unusual content of rare metals including ruthenium, rhodium, and most notably extremely trace amounts of technetium. These technetium traces are most startling because technetium is not a naturally occurring element, and almost all isotopes decay to ruthenium in a matter of seconds or minutes.

The few pieces that have had a relatively stable isotope, Technetium-97, had a wide array of origin dates when their decay rates were analyzed, indicating that no single event could have been the source. Strange magnetic fields plague the area, causing compass needles to spin crazily. Ferrous rocks and pebbles can sometimes be seen to move, evidently being pulled by these magnetic anomalies.