0:04

Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff. Find Mohave

0:06

Josh, And there's Mohave Chuck, and Mohave Jerry's

0:09

out there somewhere, and so is Mohave Dave.

0:11

And this is short stuff about

0:13

something I had never heard of before, Chuck the

0:15

Mohave Desert megaphone, Yes,

0:18

mohab, how are you, Mohave. I'm good,

0:20

I'm Mohave Mohave you sure?

0:25

So dumb? Have you ever been to the Mojave

0:27

Desert? I guess you

0:29

have to have been if you've ever driven from Los

0:31

Angeles to Las Vegas? Right, yeah,

0:34

boy, that's a that's not the most

0:36

fun ride in the world. I gotta say, barren,

0:38

isn't it. Yeah, it's pretty barrens

0:42

everywhere, Yeah, exact tumbleweeds

0:44

and dead mafia bodies and

0:47

and me and my old friend John Pendell

0:50

driving to Vegas to get him

0:52

a Crispy Creme Las Vegas T shirt

0:54

and then driving that does

0:56

it just does not seem right to call him John.

0:58

I know him as Johnny, and I always wi Johnny

1:02

Pendell sounds like a bad kid at school.

1:04

He was, you know, he was a decent

1:06

kid. He's probably laughing because he gets

1:09

in touch with me every time we mentioned him, so he'll laugh at

1:11

that, so I

1:13

know he is. That's why I can out

1:15

him as a bad kiddo. So,

1:19

um, did you guys ever go see the Mojave megaphone

1:21

or had you heard of it before? I had not heard

1:23

of it until I found this article

1:26

on how stuff works. Actually nice work, well, nice

1:28

workhouse stuff works for really turning us

1:30

onto something. No, I

1:33

hadn't already said. Okay, I've

1:35

never heard of this before, and it's

1:39

mohave okay. Um.

1:42

So in the Mojave Desert,

1:45

it is a matter of fact, in the Mojave Desert National

1:47

Preserve, there is what

1:49

looks a lot like a giant um

1:53

weathered steal megaphone

1:57

bolted pretty much permanently

2:00

to a couple of boulders on the top of

2:02

like a hill um and it weighs

2:04

a lot and no one can make heads

2:06

or tails of not only how it got

2:08

there, but what it is and how long it's been

2:11

there. It's a bona fide mystery. Yeah,

2:13

this is nuts to me that

2:15

nobody has come out and knows the

2:17

origin of this thing. I know,

2:20

like surely by now somebody would have been

2:22

like, oh, I know the guy who put it there, and here's

2:24

here's what it is, you know, and by the way,

2:26

this is Banks. He's real identity

2:29

kind of person, you know what I mean. Yeah,

2:31

so the Majabi Desert is uh

2:34

or this thing is located actually in the

2:36

Mojave Desert National Preserve and sort

2:38

of a it says, a remote corner,

2:40

but they're all fairly remote, and

2:43

it's just you

2:45

know, it could be art, uh,

2:47

it could be a

2:50

horn of some sort, like maybe a siren,

2:53

and you know, we'll get to some of these in a little more detail,

2:55

but it's it's

2:57

just crazy to me that no one knows how this got there,

3:00

especially because it has, you know, sort of

3:02

shape like a megaphone. But it's the kind

3:04

of thing where it seems like one would

3:06

be able to say, oh, well, no, that used

3:08

to be a thing, because there were

3:10

other things that are shaped just like this, right

3:13

exactly, there's nothing like that. And

3:16

like you're saying, nobody's come forward to

3:18

be like this is what it is, or everyone

3:20

has to preference what they're saying with with

3:22

I think or I

3:25

I see it as you know, like it's all just

3:27

interpretation, which is great um

3:29

and if you just describe

3:31

it a little further, it looks like

3:33

two slightly different sized rocket

3:36

boosters um

3:38

placed top to the top or

3:41

mouth to mouth. I like to think that the fire

3:43

comes out of the butt, you know, So

3:46

this is mouth to mouth bolted

3:48

together like that. There's

3:50

a couple of like triangular fins.

3:53

I think there's a pair of them, at least towards

3:57

the end on each side as they flare

3:59

out. Then inside there's

4:02

cross hairs basically made of rebar.

4:04

It looked like to me, and the whole thing

4:07

has no markings. There's no numbers,

4:09

there's no letters, there's no nothing on it,

4:11

not even what seems like it was maybe

4:14

used for before. And then if

4:16

you look at like the rebar in the welding job,

4:18

it doesn't seem like it was part

4:21

of any kind of mass production. Like

4:23

it almost gives you the idea is like a one

4:25

off kind of thing, you know, yeah,

4:28

which means it could be art. It's

4:30

big. It's about eight ft long, and

4:33

if you see where it is, you know it

4:35

took some effort. Uh

4:38

maybe two people, but probably at

4:40

least three or four people to get

4:42

this thing up there, get it bolted

4:44

onto the side of this cliff. Uh,

4:47

And it has led to a lot of speculation over

4:49

the years as to you know, there's

4:51

some pretty decent ideas I think as to what this thing

4:54

could be. And maybe we should

4:56

take a break, Yes we should come

4:58

back, Yes, mojave, and we'll

5:00

be right back to really mahabi

5:02

this mohave, Okay,

5:30

mohave chuck alright.

5:32

So some people think it might be a

5:36

siren of some kind from

5:38

the nineteen forties or fifties, Like,

5:41

you know, they tested nuclear bombs not too

5:43

far from here. It's near some

5:46

army and air force activity.

5:49

Maybe it was an early warning

5:51

signal. Other people say, I

5:54

don't know about that, Like this thing is really out in the middle

5:56

of nowhere. You would have something like that closer

5:58

to where people area. So

6:01

that idea is okay, but

6:03

has also largely been shot

6:06

down by a bunch of other people. So that

6:08

to me, it still makes sense because

6:10

while it's not it never was very

6:12

heavily populated place. I think there's a

6:14

a ghost town called crusero

6:17

Um nearby. I mean it's

6:19

between the existing towns of Baker

6:21

and Ludlow, and they're not exactly like Beijing

6:25

and Shanghai or anything like that, you know, but

6:28

there's a rail line and all the banded rail

6:31

line that runs right through there, and apparently

6:33

they used to run chemical agents

6:35

to um the

6:37

military bases out that way. So while

6:40

you wouldn't have had a lot of people to

6:42

warn, you would have had a potential

6:45

situation to warn about, even

6:47

if it was just a few people of like a

6:49

major chemical spill or a gas leak or

6:51

something like that. So to me, the idea

6:53

that it was some sort of warning system

6:56

it does make sense. But at

6:58

the same time, it doesn't make sense that they

7:00

would use some handmade one rather

7:02

than one that was, you know, available, because

7:04

there were huge air raid sirens

7:06

that were around in World War Two that

7:09

look kind of similar, but we're

7:11

obviously a raid sirens and

7:13

they look like they would work a lot

7:15

better than whatever this thing was. Yeah,

7:18

I saw on YouTube there was this woman who

7:20

did a siren tests, like, got

7:22

a crank siren and put it in the small

7:24

end, then had her friends down on the ground

7:26

and see if they could hear it, and they

7:29

could, but it wasn't It didn't amplify things

7:31

that much. UM And interestingly,

7:34

in the YouTube comments, and so believe

7:36

me, I'm not saying that this this is

7:38

like the worst research possible to

7:40

say. A YouTube commenter said this, But

7:43

there was a YouTube comment that said, hey,

7:45

listen, I think it might be something from

7:47

an old salt mine, like hot

7:50

brine might have been pumped at high pressure

7:54

through this thing, because it's just made of such

7:56

thick iron and steel. Like it

7:58

doesn't he said, you could make something a megaphone

8:00

out of something a lot lighter, and

8:03

that sort of made sense a little bit. That's the only reason I

8:05

mentioned it. Um other people

8:07

said that. They said something like a rocket

8:09

booster maybe, or maybe what's

8:11

called a venturi, a pipeline venturi,

8:14

which is an enclosure that's is our

8:16

glass shape that controls the flow of

8:19

fluids through a pipe, which

8:21

is legitimate too. I mean they're

8:24

like, and wouldn'ty have some record of a pipeline

8:26

through there? That's the thing, Like, there's

8:28

no apparent either some no one's

8:31

looked in the right place yet, or it's

8:34

it just wasn't documented, which

8:36

which means it was either secret or it

8:38

is a more recent art installation. But if

8:40

you look at it, I think one of the people who run

8:43

tours out there, um said

8:45

that, Um, they think that it's been there

8:47

for thirty or more years. This thing looks like

8:49

it's been around for a lot longer than you

8:52

know. Um, so it looks

8:54

very old. And it's possible it's use was

8:56

just so mundane that

8:59

it didn't need any kind of documentation

9:02

or you know. Yeah, it is possible as

9:04

secret and I kind of I

9:06

don't want to know, But at the same time, I

9:09

think I would find it pretty fascinating to

9:11

know it's used to. Like, I think

9:13

that that also makes mysterious

9:15

objects really interesting, you know,

9:17

knowing their history. Yeah.

9:19

Another thing that feels plausible to me

9:21

is that it, uh,

9:24

it was not something that sent out a

9:26

sound, but something that maybe

9:28

was used to detect something

9:31

like if they were doing nuclear

9:33

testing at the Nevada

9:35

testing site, that maybe it was something that

9:38

like measured or detected long range shock

9:40

waves or something like that.

9:43

Uh, And then it could make sense that the government,

9:45

you know, it was it might have been sort

9:47

of a one off and not have manufacturing

9:50

numbers, and the government wouldn't readily come out

9:52

and say anything like that, yeah, you

9:54

know existed. Plus also, Edwards

9:56

Air Force Base is kind of nearby, which

9:58

is where um, Chuck Yeager

10:00

broke the sound barrier. Yeah, sure, and

10:03

he very famous. He said, Uh,

10:05

folks, mohab over

10:10

and that was it. Uh should we tell

10:12

people how to get there? I think so

10:14

sure. I mean it's all over the place. We

10:16

even have the exact coordinates. Yeah, the

10:19

exact coordinates. Are you at

10:21

your pencil everyone in Mahabi. Just down

10:23

on your Mojave thirty five

10:25

point zero zero five six degrees north

10:28

a hundred and sixteen point one degrees

10:30

west. And that's the use

10:33

your Dakota pins, the little

10:35

or fan any secret message if

10:37

you want to go there. Um,

10:39

you cannot just walk there or drive there

10:42

in your Toyota's her Cell

10:45

no shade on the r Cell. Great car, but

10:48

you need a four wheel drive because you're gonna have to drive

10:50

through the Mojave River, You're

10:53

gonna be on dirt roads, you're gonna be driving through sand,

10:55

through canyons, and uh,

10:58

you know it's not the easiest thing to get you

11:01

No, not at all. But if you want to get there, you

11:03

can. People have before and you can take a

11:05

photo with it, or

11:07

do a bring a cranks iron and do a

11:09

test of your own, or you can look

11:11

for gold. There's a legend that it actually points

11:14

to a gold horde underground,

11:16

but yeah, I'm not sure I buy that one.

11:19

No. I think they mentioned the crosshairs for

11:22

that reason. But I don't know. It's just really

11:24

interesting. It doesn't it doesn't look like

11:26

any megaphones that were used at any period

11:28

in anyone's history. So uh,

11:31

I don't know. I think sometimes people just then

11:33

they find something like a monolith in Utah recently.

11:36

Yeah, that definitely was an art installation,

11:39

you know. Yeah, that's just this isn't

11:41

necessarily so well,

11:43

if you do, go, let us know, we want to hear about it, get

11:45

in touch with us. And in the meantime, everybody

11:48

short stuff is mohabby Stuff

11:52

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