Case file · Anomaly hotspot
Athena rocket crash in the Zone of Silence
On 11 July 1970 a US Air Force Athena test rocket launched from Green River, Utah toward White Sands went off course and came down in the Mapimí desert of northern Mexico.
1970 CE · 26.70, -103.73 · status: explained
The account
The rocket carried small containers of the radioactive isotope cobalt-57. A US recovery team worked for weeks in the desert to find the wreck and remove contaminated soil, with Mexico's agreement. The secrecy of the operation fed the later 'Zone of Silence' myth.
The sceptical view
Nothing about the crash is mysterious: it was a guidance failure. The legend that the zone 'pulled the rocket down' came later.