The Red Ghost

Bigfoot, The Loch Ness Monster, The Moth Man, The Lazy Butt Goblin, Okay I don't know what the last one is I think I made it up, but there are a lot of legendary creatures out there that I find so fascinating! Not because I like scary stories, but because it's fun to imagine! Especially when so many legendary creatures have turned out to be true! Such as the Kraken that turned out to be a Giant Squid, and the platypus and Gorilla were once considered nothing more than legends until proven true! However, there is one legend that turned out to be true that interests me and that's what I wanted to talk to you about here! So get your popcorn and explore into The Red Ghost.

It is the year Life Magazine was founded, and the year Buffalo Bill's Wild West show was first opened, 1883. This story starts in Eagle Creek Arizona. Two Women are alone in a home, while their husbands are out checking on their animals on the ranch. I personally like to think the guys while working were talking about what we guys talk about today, I would like to think that the guys were talking about Professional Wrestling, talking about Abraham Lincoln's up to 300 wins, and the time in the 1830s when he beat the local champion in New Salem, Illinois, named Jack Armstrong. I know I've looked a lot but couldn't find any information on Abraham Lincoln having a wrestling catchphrase but I'd like to think it went along the lines of "Watcha gonna do brother?! When the Lincomaniac and The Union Army go wild on you brother?!"

However, while the men were doing that the women were back at the ranch until one of the women had to go outside to retrieve something. While the other lady stayed inside she after a bit started hearing the dogs barking, So the lady that stayed inside rushed to the window to see what was going on, and what she saw she described as a red-haired four-legged creature ridden by the Devil himself. I can personally assume looking for a fiddle challenge. She then heard the terrifying screams of her friend that terrified her so much she barricaded the door. Later that night the husbands returned home, and after hearing the one woman's story they went out to investigate. They eventually found the second wife unfortunately trampled to death. She had red hair around her and hoof prints were around her as well. Sometime later Prospectors ended up reporting the same thing, going through their campground, with more red hair found, after some more sightings word started getting around like crazy. It grew to become a huge story where even some people with grins not taking it so seriously sat around a campfire telling the story of the Red Ghost, and since the flashlight wasn't invented until 1899 I want to think they might have held up a lantern to their face, singeing their eyebrows off, however, I have no proof of that. I also like to think even some hippies with a talking dog got interested in this case, but again I have no evidence for that thought. This legend went on until 1893 because that's when a farmer by the name of Mizoo Hastings found the red ghost eating and shot it dead. That is when it was discovered the Red Ghost all along was a camel, with a body on its back that was strapped so tight by leather straps it never fell off. I found a few theories on why the man was on the camel's back from a prospector who died of dehydration, but before he died he tied himself to the camel's back in the hopes the camel would take him to water. While some people think it was a soldier from the US Camel Corpse. The US Camel Corpse was an experiment by the US Army to use camels as pack animals instead of horses in the southwestern parts of the US. The Camel Corps ran from 1856 to 1866 The first set of camels to reach the USA was on May 14, 1856, which of course was on HUMP DAY!

I'm very interested since Camels can vomit at you if felt threatened I wonder if people thought that was "ectoplasm" but let's get serious for a second. I know this story is pretty sad, from what the camel dealt with and the poor guy and woman who passed away from this tragedy. However, I think this story is just plain fascinating regardless of the moral lesson it teaches. As a society, we are fast to go up to someone who is telling a story that isn't making sense and call them crazy or, a conspiracy theorist, and to be fair sometimes they are, but I believe as explorers in wildlife we shouldn't be so quick to judge and explore it ourselves to find the truth. I know the conspiracy or legend sometimes is exaggerated or fake, but sometimes it is worth the adventure, just look at the Kraken, the gorilla, and the Red Ghost, the story originally might have been over-exaggerated but when explored the truth was an amazing story. Even if it turns out to be completely nothing it still doesn't ruin the fun of telling the story to your friends while burning your eyebrows off. I would also like to think to myself can you imagine the amazing adventure if one day, maybe just one day the legend isn't fake or exaggerated?

Thank you for reading.

-Wolfy