Time Portals? A Mystery in the Baboquivari Wilderness

The Strange Incident in the Baboquivari Peak Wilderness

Karen is very level-headed and down-to-earth. In fact, she’s an engineer who has designed specialized building systems for decades. With her remarkable eye for detail, she isn’t given to flights of fancy. Still, she and her husband experienced something in the Arizona wilderness they still can’t explain.

She asked her husband to share the incident with us, and here’s what he shared.

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The Strange Incident in the Baboquivari Peak Wilderness

The Baboquivari Peak Wilderness is a very odd, slightly spooky, and somewhat disorienting place, they shared. “My wife and I had admired the silhouette of Baboquivari Peak for a few years before ever venturing near it,” he told me.

The couple loved to spend days off-roading in their Jeep, exploring the Coronado, Rincon, Santa Rita, and Dragoon wilderness areas. They always packed the essentials: they assembled a bug-out bag, topped off the Jeep's gas tank, and made sure their phones were charged and their apps updated with the latest GPS software and maps for smooth travel wherever they were going.

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Planning the Adventure and Looking for Pronghorn Sheep

On one such adventure, the couple decided to visit the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge, hoping to spot some Pronghorn Sheep in the wild. This took them to the eastern side of the Baboquivari Peak.

Before heading out, they researched the area and learned there were ranger-led guided tours, but unfortunately, they weren’t available when they planned to visit. Still, they needed a permit from the Tohono O’odham Tribe to enter the wilderness area.

Online Rumors About the Area

As the couple researched the area, they came across some interesting—and very strange—internet chatter related to the Baboquivari Wilderness.

He told me, “Folks online reported, perhaps facetiously, that in the Baboquivari wilderness there was a natural arch that served as a portal between space and time.” It’s probably just internet rumors, they thought, but the couple decided that they had to see this for themselves.

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Following the Rules

They found several online reviews that talked about visiting the area. The websites emphasized the importance of getting a permit before venturing out. Without the required paperwork, the sites warned, authorities could impose fines and even seize their vehicle if they entered the protected wilderness without it.

Since they couldn’t secure the permit, the couple decided to park outside the fenced perimeter and hike up the hill to get a better photo of the peak.

“We didn’t go past the fence with the Jeep, but instead hiked toward a slight hill where we thought we might get a better picture of the landscape.”

As soon as they began hiking, they noticed a “Jacob’s Ladder” of stones, followed by even more “ladders” further along the slope of the hill. They theorized the stones might be the ranger’s way of marking the trail, most likely to keep visitors from trampling the vegetation and causing erosion.

They followed the ladders and took in the breathtaking views. Visibility of the surrounding area was great. Noting a row of trees and scrub near the bottom of the north end of the slope, they followed as it wound through the vegetation, and as they rose, they were able to see the start of the path a few hundred yards below them.

Dropping Pins, Stretching Time

As they walked, they took a few photos, then dropped a pin in their digital off-road map to mark their progress. They decided to head north down the slope to where they could see a road through the treeline. They spotted a road and continued to head toward it.

When they reached it, they were able to walk down the road, but then something began to seem strange.

Walking the road was easy, but it seemed to take a while, a long while, and it didn’t seem to match what they could see from their vantage point. Walking up the hill was taking much longer than logic would allow. The more they walked, the farther away the road seemed to be.

“We walked what we thought was a straight shot to the road, ‘as the bird flies’, but we couldn’t reach it,” he said. A few times, they had to change their route, finally reaching the road. They expected to find their Jeep parked there. Somehow, the logic wasn’t working out.

Bending Time, Altering Direction

Was the area somehow playing with their sense of direction? Was time bending? Things weren’t adding up.

It took twice as long to reach the jeep as it did to reach the point on the map where the couple had dropped their pin. Even more baffling, they could easily see the sloped hill to the south from the road.

That’s when things go really strange. The couple discovered a natural archway. Then a man appeared. They could only speculate that he was a Tohono O’odham man, riding horseback and dressed in what they could only describe as native dress—from another time. The man wasn’t dressed for a ceremony, and there were no events happening nearby.

The man didn’t seem to see or notice the couple as they stared, trying to make sense of the situation. Moments later, the man disappeared as he and the horse walked back through the archway.

Returning to the Jeep

That was it. The couple decided they’d seen enough and they bee-lined back toward their vehicle.

Even though they could clearly see where they had walked along the slope of the hill, time and space continued playing tricks on them, and they were flummoxed.

There was no logical explanation for the confusion over space and time. If anything, it should have taken less time to reach the jeep once they were on the road heading toward it. They were no longer stopping to take photos or to admire the landscape.

“There is indeed something odd about that place,” Karen told me. They never returned to the area again. Going back home, they didn’t use the Arivaca Road blacktop. The desert on the trip home was mysterious, beautiful, and oddly unsettling.

But that’s another story.