“The Red Ghost”

[grinch]

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Ghost_(folklore)?fbclid=IwAR2aWXX8YTw4SfZyR21kas6ADkJSxVWRQEmpVIV9W5fxaNbj2kZscAGEY8k

A weird piece of Arizonian folklore which is just begging for an explanation. Both a mundane and a perhaps more alien one.

[Catsmate]

Jan 26, 2022 11:47:22 GMT grinch said:

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Ghost_(folklore)?fbclid=IwAR2aWXX8YTw4SfZyR21kas6ADkJSxVWRQEmpVIV9W5fxaNbj2kZscAGEY8k

A weird piece of Arizonian folklore which is just begging for an explanation. Both a mundane and a perhaps more alien one.

Oh very nice indeed!
An excellent dollop of weirdness. A lost member of the Camel Corps who died of thirst? Or something weirder? Given the links of the proponents of the Camel Corps to the Confederacy, maybe in a universe a little to strawberry the Confederate Army used the more extensively?

Quartzsite isn't far away either, that's seen UFO sightings right back to the Scareships.

Now all I need is to figure out how to add a Gatling-gun armed camel to the story.

Thanks.

[grinch]

Jan 26, 2022 12:19:59 GMT Catsmate said:

Jan 26, 2022 11:47:22 GMT grinch said:

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Ghost_(folklore)?fbclid=IwAR2aWXX8YTw4SfZyR21kas6ADkJSxVWRQEmpVIV9W5fxaNbj2kZscAGEY8k

A weird piece of Arizonian folklore which is just begging for an explanation. Both a mundane and a perhaps more alien one.

Oh very nice indeed!
An excellent dollop of weirdness. A lost member of the Camel Corps who died of thirst? Or something weirder? Given the links of the proponents of the Camel Corps to the Confederacy, maybe in a universe a little to strawberry the Confederate Army used the more extensively?

Quartzsite isn't far away either, that's seen UFO sightings right back to the Scareships.

Now all I need is to figure out how to add a Gatling-gun armed camel to the story.

Thanks.

I must admit when I first heard the story I thought maybe the Camel had been some genetic experiment gone wrong! Maybe from an alternate universe where the Confederacy tapped into some ancient knowledge and ended up unleashing something horrible. Perhaps the Camel themselves even took over!

I did also think that maybe the Red Ghost was meant to serve as some type of warning. But for what exactly?

[Catsmate]

Jan 30, 2022 20:10:53 GMT grinch said:

Jan 26, 2022 12:19:59 GMT Catsmate said:

Oh very nice indeed!
An excellent dollop of weirdness. A lost member of the Camel Corps who died of thirst? Or something weirder? Given the links of the proponents of the Camel Corps to the Confederacy, maybe in a universe a little to strawberry the Confederate Army used the more extensively?

Quartzsite isn't far away either, that's seen UFO sightings right back to the Scareships.

Now all I need is to figure out how to add a Gatling-gun armed camel to the story.

Thanks.

I must admit when I first heard the story I thought maybe the Camel had been some genetic experiment gone wrong! Maybe from an alternate universe where the Confederacy tapped into some ancient knowledge and ended up unleashing something horrible. Perhaps the Camel themselves even took over!

I did also think that maybe the Red Ghost was meant to serve as some type of warning. But for what exactly?

Hmm, genetically enhanced camel from the late fourth millennium perhaps? Or, as you say, intelligent camel and rider from a different universe.
Perhaps it was an attempt to alter the past and prevent the horrific future of Earth by a long time traveller, who (alas) didn't survive the attempt (unlike the camel who took sensible precautions). However now they're both dead.
Are their notes in the saddlebags or among the human rider's possessions?

[grinch]

Feb 1, 2022 10:26:48 GMT Catsmate said:

Jan 30, 2022 20:10:53 GMT grinch said:

I must admit when I first heard the story I thought maybe the Camel had been some genetic experiment gone wrong! Maybe from an alternate universe where the Confederacy tapped into some ancient knowledge and ended up unleashing something horrible. Perhaps the Camel themselves even took over!

I did also think that maybe the Red Ghost was meant to serve as some type of warning. But for what exactly?

Hmm, genetically enhanced camel from the late fourth millennium perhaps? Or, as you say, intelligent camel and rider from a different universe.
Perhaps it was an attempt to alter the past and prevent the horrific future of Earth by a long time traveller, who (alas) didn't survive the attempt (unlike the camel who took sensible precautions). However now they're both dead.
Are their notes in the saddlebags or among the human rider's possessions?

I like the idea it was a botched attempt to change the future. Maybe the method of time travel went wrong reducing the ‘humanoid’ to a skeleton yet still leaving him very much alive albeit barely conscious and the camel (who I’m imagining was some uplifted animal or possibly even a member of a camel like species) in an almost feral and aggressive state. 

As far I know, no letters or means of identification were ever found on the corpse. Still, could either mean that they were lost or confiscated suppressed by some particularly zealous Time Agent.

[Catsmate]

The more that I think on this the more I wonder about a link to the perennial mystery of The Lost Ship of the Desert

       A mountaineer, storm-stained and brown
        from farthest desert touched the town
        And, striding through the town held, up
        Above his head a jewell'd cup.
        He put two fingers to his lip,
        He whispere'd wild, he stood a-tip,
        And lean'd the while with lifted hand,
        And said, "a ship lies yonder dead,"
        And said, "Doubloons lie sown in sand
        along yon desert dead and brown,"
                                        Joaquin Miller 1875, The Ship in the Desert,

Now, in general ships are found on, or at least in proximity to, substantial bodies of water¹.
But there are legends, loosely referred to as The Lost Ship of the Desert, about various maritime vessels having supposedly become stranded and subsequently lost in desert, mainly of the American Southwest (and most commonly California's Colorado Desert²). The stories began in the period after the US Civil War, especially the major flood of the Colorado river in 1862, usually about Spanish treasure galleons buried in, or under, the desert sands in the area north of the Gulf of California.

• Though there are stories of lost Viking ships too, most of which seem to have started around 1900 in the same period as the faked Kensington Runestone and other Norse hoaxes.

There is a certain level of possibility around such lost ships, given the multiple large flood events in the area in the last half-millennium. And of course the presence of large military reservations³ adds extra spice to any such search....

So, why not have multiple ships lost there, from various periods in time? Past and future. Swept through a rip in space-time like the Sky Gypsy.







1. Except maybe on Craggy Island. Or after Krakatoa.

2. The Colorado Desert is part of the Sonoran Desert and is 40% larger than Wales. The famously odd Salton Sea is there.

3. And bombing ranges. The area are the Salton Sea can be rather hazardous.