A lot of people mysteriously disappear in the thick woods of the Pecos Wilderness, which encompasses 223,637 acres in the Carson and Santa Fe National Forests. This area has become known as the Pecos Triangle. It’s not really a triangle on maps, but I guess that name just sounds cool, sort of like the “Bermuda Triangle.”
Whether or not the Pecos Triangle is a real thing is debatable. Yes, several people have disappeared here. But per my research, an equal or greater number of people have gone missing and/or been found dead in the Gila wilderness, especially the Black Range, and in the Manzano Mountains. Several people have also disappeared in El Malpais, never to be recovered from the scorching black rock rivers. It appears that the highest concentration of missing persons and mysterious deaths in this state are actually in the Northwestern corner of NM, on the Navajo Nation. The Pecos Wilderness is certainly not the leader in disappearances.
But Pecos Triangle missing persons cases stand out because they typically have no resolution. A common theme in these cases is that the victim gets separated from others and then disappears. When search parties look for the missing person, they discover that the victim’s footsteps stop suddenly and scent dogs lose the trail inexplicably. Some of the people who vanish in the Pecos Triangle are eventually found dead of the elements, unclothed and severely injured; however, most of them are never found.
Another oddity is that most or all of the disappeared were avid outdoorspeople with above average wilderness experience and physical fitness. Yet they are no match for the Pecos Triangle. Something happens to make these people disoriented and confused so that they cannot find their way back to their camp or their group.
Several of them also had no business being in the areas where their vehicles were eventually found within the Pecos Triangle. It is a big mystery how these people ended up here and why. Understanding how they ended up in a remote area of the Pecos Triangle, far from their planned routes, might unlock what happened to them. But these mysteries only grow colder as the years pass, with absolutely no clues and no answers.
So What Happens in the Pecos Triangle?
Some people attribute the Pecos Triangle cases to some sort of energy vortex, skinwalkers, Bigfoot, or aliens. Another theory is that a serial killer is active here, hiding in the shadows of the alpine trees.
Skeptics say that this is rough terrain and people can easily get lost out here, never to be found. The high-altitude climate is not forgiving and there is not enough clean water. Cold temperatures, especially at night, and foggy or snowy weather add to the difficulty of surviving out here. While many of the victims of the Pecos Triangle are experienced with the outdoors, the harshness of New Mexico terrain and climate is easy to underestimate.
Native American legend tells of a demon in these woods that was not friendly to humans. Early European settlers had their own lore about strange lights, bright and dark orbs, shadow beings, giant snake creatures, and humanoid creatures. Even today, people claim they see UFOs and shadow people among the trees or hear grunting and snorting from Sasquatch-esque creatures.
The Holy Ghost Campground in the Pecos Triangle is said to be the most haunted place in New Mexico. It is supposedly haunted by a dead Catholic priest and the spirits of the many Pueblo people he slaughtered. Some say the priest was killing Pueblo people, so they killed him in self-defense. Others say that he was one of many colonists killed during the Pueblo Revolt.
Supposedly several state troopers have gone missing here but I have not been able to substantiate those claims. It would be big news if a state trooper went missing and there is nothing about that anywhere – the closest story I found to a missing state trooper was the eerie story of missing Prohibition Agent Ray Sutton.
There are also reports of shadow people darting between the trees and creeping out campers. This I do believe, as I have seen shadow people myself. Many campers have seen things out of the corner of their eyes, but when they turn to look, the entity is mysteriously gone. This has happened to me out in the wilderness of NM and I know how disconcerting it is!
Paranormal investigators have gone out here with equipment and detected high levels of electromagnetic activity. I’m not sure how much stock I put in this type of equipment, but it is interesting that all the devices seem to go crazy out here. Maybe there is a lot of iron in the rocks or something to generate strong electromagnetic fields. That could potentially mess with peoples’ brains, leading them to get confused faster than usual in the wilderness. This is all pseudo-science and speculation, mind you.
So let’s dive into some of the people who have vanished out here. Then we’ll go more into the possible reasons the Pecos Triangle swallows people whole.
The Pecos Triangle Victims
Arden Ray Bogart, Jr.
I’m not sure if Arden Ray Bogart, Jr., should be on this list because it is not certain he vanished near Pecos. The person who said he disappeared from this area is not a reliable witness. But Santa Fe police are investigating his 1988 disappearance, so I decided to mention him here just in case he really did vanish in this area.
Arden Ray Bogart and a friend traveled from Lima, Ohio, to southern California to pick up a car. His friend also had a court appearance in California for drugs. They rode the whole way to California in Bogart’s Mercury Capri. While in California, Bogart called his dad and said he was not having fun and planned to return early. He called again from Needles, CA, saying that his car had broken down. That would be the last time his dad ever heard from him.
On February 11, 1988, his dad got a call from Bogart’s friend saying that he had gotten separated from Bogart and was worried about him. They had fixed the Mercury Capri in Needles and had taken off again. His friend last saw Bogart on Interstate 25 between Santa Fe and Pecos. This sounds very similar to the route Emma Frances Tresp took before she vanished on a forest service road, as you’ll see shortly.
Bogart’s dad reported that Bogart was involved with meth and may have had meth in the car. The friend also seems very sketchy. His dad says the friend changes his story several times. But the fact Bogart was near Pecos makes me wonder….
Emma Frances Tresp
Emma Tresp was 71 and on her way to the Benedictine Monastery in Pecos, where she was a nun, on August 30, 1996. She never arrived and her car was found abandoned and locked with her things inside, just like Ann Linda Riffin’s car years before. It is unknown why she was on the remote forest service road where her car was found. Eerily, the road where her car was found is called El Camino de Diablo, or the Devil’s Road.
The odd thing is that her footsteps stopped abruptly outside her car and dogs could not trace her scent beyond that point. Why did her scent and footprints disappear just outside of her car? Did she get into another car that had pulled up beside her?
Furthermore, why was she even on this forest service road in the first place? Some think she may have had a stroke that caused her to get confused. Others think she was sightseeing. I doubt she was sightseeing after such a long drive. If I were her, I would have wanted to go straight to the nunnery, rest, and explore another day.
I think someone may have run her off the road. or she got lost and someone pulled up beside her to help, only they had nefarious intentions. However, if someone abducted her to hurt her, they didn’t rob her. All of her belongings, including her wallet, were inside her vehicle and she had locked the doors, taking her keys with her wherever she went. Why hurt an elderly nun like that? What would be the motive, beyond robbery? I suppose some people are just cruel and enjoy tormenting others. There is no evidence of foul play but also no evidence that she didn’t meet foul play. She just…vanished into the ether.
Melvin Nadel
Melvin Nadel was hunting with friends in the Pecos National Forest on September 6, 2009. He was 61 but in good shape. He owned a Pilates gym, he had a black belt in taekwondo, and he had no known health problems. He had a wife and daughter that he loved very much. He was an experienced hunter and he loved the outdoors, but he had gotten lost before. For that reason, he usually hunted from a blind, he stuck with his group, and he always carried a GPS.
The day he disappeared, he uncharacteristically left his group to walk down an established trail in search of game, carrying a .44 gun, a hunting bow, and a few zebra-striped arrows. He left behind his Jeep with most of his supplies, including his trusty GPS unit. He told his friends he would be back by nightfall but never returned.
Despite extensive searches, he has never been located. His footsteps suddenly stopped about 50 yards down the trail, and dogs could not pick up his scent past that point. No trace of him or his hunting bow or gun have ever been discovered since.
One thing that stands out to me is how he left his friends and his GPS when he normally did not do those things. Either he felt foolishly safe in the Pecos Wilderness, or he met with foul play. I think the friends need to be looked into.
Robert Amos Browning
Robert Amos Browning was 19 years old and living in his truck near Monastery Lake when he was discovered missing by his family on May 15, 1997. His Nissan truck was left near the lake with the windows down and a half tank of gas. The ignition key was missing but a mechanic was able to start the truck without issue. Inside the truck were his sleeping bag, ID, passport, fishing gear, and money. It is as if he walked away for a short jaunt, only to get sucked up into a UFO.
Shortly before vanishing, he had borrowed $500 from his mom with which he was supposed to pay back his brother Myles for a loan. But he gambled it all away at a casino and this made Myles mad. Browning fantasized about running off to Alaska but also planned to join the Navy.
He vanished only about 6-8 miles from the last known locations of Emma Tresp and Melvin Nadel. Few details are available in his case.
Ann Linda Riffin
Ann Linda Riffin was a free spirit who had bounced around homes and jobs around the United States. She always felt like the disappointment of her family, especially compared to her sister Judy. In 1982, she moved to Ruidoso and shared a rented cabin with another girl and waited tables. She left suddenly to visit friends in Colorado Springs in September that year and she disappeared on that trip.
Only Riffin’s car was found, abandoned on a remote forest service road outside of Mora. She may have been seen at a nearby store in Tres Piedras, where she asked for change for a payphone. Nobody ever called in tips from the signs her family posted around the area.
She has never been seen or heard from since. I think she may have stopped in the area to paint, for she loved painting New Mexico landscapes, but then she got lost in the woods. Her remains have probably disintegrated to dust or been destroyed by animals since.
Wagon Mound John Doe
Wagon Mound John Doe is an unidentified decedent found by hunters on April 13th, 2015. He was just a few bones gnawed by animals and had likely died between April 2013 and November 2014. The ME estimated that John Doe was a white male between 5’6 and 5’10 and aged 25-40.
He appeared to have been prepared for the wilderness, carrying a backpack with a sleeping bag, a pen from a local bank in Mora, shorts with extensions, a flashlight, a garbage bag, a compact mirror, deodorant, and extra clothes including warm plaid. Blue fibers wound around his knee may have been from blue shorts or underwear that had disintegrated. His clothes and sunglasses were expensive, but he also carried a ratty carpet bag with a belt and did not have keys, money, ID, or a phone among his things. He possessed a Soil Conservation shirt which was dated pre-1994, and also a Ropes that Rescue cap, suggesting he may have worked for Ropes that Rescue in Sedona at one time.
Due to his belongings, it appears he was an avid outdoorsman, so it’s not certain how he ended up as scattered bones in a field near Wagon Mound, near the Pecos Triangle. He may have succumbed to a heart attack or a broken bone that rendered him helpless to the elements. He was pretty young, but heart attacks can happen to anyone. There is no evidence proving or disproving foul play.
Despite the many identifying items on him, he still has not gotten his name back. He is thought to be white or Hispanic with a hyper-masculine face and dark hair and a prominent nose. He may have been working in the area or he may have been a drifter. His possessions may have been cobbled together in thrift shops and donation boxes. You can find surprisingly expensive things in thrift stores.
David F. Chavez
Not many details are available in this case. David F. Chavez went out in the woods in Chacon with a gun on March 10, 1980, and has never been seen or found since. I don’t know this for sure, but it seems like he was a local familiar with the area, probably going out to shoot for sport or to poach some animals.
Stanley Vigil
Stanley Vigil was 50 years old and deer hunting with friends and family near Barrillas Peak. He left his group and his companions heard two shots, which they took to mean that he had gotten his quarry. They tried to find him but failed so they shot a sounding shot. He responded with a shot, but it sounded farther away then the first two shots. They kept trying to find him, but could not. As snow and fog began to accumulate, they eventually reported him missing and a search commenced. The search and rescue team brought in dogs who could not find his scent.
He was spotted on a game cam at a ranch at 9:30 that night. He was bundled up against the cold. Shortly after that, he arrived at a mobile home in San Juan and asked for help. The resident was a lone woman with kids and she was scared of the armed stranger so she understandably turned him away. However, that is probably the reason he ended up dead.
His body was eventually found in the Pecos River months later by a cop who was out fishing. His ribs were smashed and his head had signs of trauma. The cause of death was drowning. It is still mysterious exactly how he died. How did he get so lost? How did he end up in that river? What happened to his head and his ribs?
Audrey Kaplan
Like Stanley Vigil, Audrey Kaplan is one of the few Pecos Triangle victims who has been successfully found. Though she was 75, she was in great shape. She and her husband lived in Dallas but had a second home in the Pecos area and often hiked around the wilderness.
On July 30, 2014, Audrey Kaplan was hiking with her husband, Norman Kaplan, and some friends. She left her group to hunt for mushrooms around 10:30 am. When the group couldn’t locate her by 12:15 pm, they started to search. But the foggy, cool weather that enveloped the Sangre de Cristos hampered their search efforts. At high elevations, it can still get cold in summer. Kaplan was not found until August 4 that year.
Her body was discovered in the Pecos River, with her arm and head submerged in the chilly water. She was fully nude. Her cause of death was found to be hypothermia. She probably felt pins and needles from hypothermia and so she stripped down and tried to cool off in the Pecos River, but this only hastened her death. This is called “paradoxical undressing.” Many are puzzled why this seasoned hiker fell victim to the Pecos Wilderness in this way, but it is proof that you should always use the buddy system and always respect the power of Nature.
David C. Chavez
David C. Chavez was last seen in Las Vegas, NM, on October 6, 2016. His beanie, sleeping bag, and other items were located in the Pecos Wilderness, but there was no sign of David Chavez. He went exploring with friends and they claimed that he became sick and decided to stay in the mountains while they left. That story makes little sense to me and the police say they have not ruled out foul play. Chavez was only 28 when he vanished and he has two kids.
Carmen Marta Gonzalez
Carmen Marta Gonzalez was a Puerto Rican nurse living and working in Zuni. In later December 2000, she rented a silver 2001 Ford Windstar van and drove it to Santa Fe. She spent the night of the 31 at the Day’s Inn on 2900 Cerrillos Rd. She never checked out. Staff entered her room and found her possessions in the room, like she planned to come back. The van was missing from the parking lot. The rental agency reported the van stolen when Gonzalez never returned it.
Later that winter, a cross country skier found the van in a canyon in the Sangre de Cristo mountain range, near Las Vegas Highway. It was locked with no Carmen inside. She left no footprints in the fresh snow around the van, and tracked dogs could not pick up her scent.
She may have been planning to move to Santa Fe, but it is not clear why she drove out to the mountains. She has never been heard from since and there has been no activity on her social security cards or bank account.
The Curious Case of the Missing Plane
In 2019, a wrecked two-seater plane was located in the Pecos Wilderness with two deceased individuals inside. It is believed to be a plane that disappeared just twelve minutes after refueling in Santa Fe. The plane last pinged near Terrero and the crash site is nearby.
The news has never disclosed the names of the two passengers, but the plane was reported missing by its owner in Colorado, so clearly the owner was not flying it. Was the plane stolen or did he lend it to someone?
It is not clear what caused the plane to lose contact and crash. It took a long time to find the plane in the vast wilderness of the Pecos Triangle. The secrecy surrounding the victims’ identities and the cause of the crash is kind of weird.
Why Haven’t the Pecos Triangle Victims Been Found?
As you just read, most of these victims have never been found and that really adds to the creepiness of the Pecos Triangle. But a few have been found, and the ending was not good. That leads me to believe that the others met the same fate. They just haven’t been found yet.
One of the main reasons that victims are not found could be because this is rough terrain. There are countless caves, crannies, boulders, streams, and ponds where a body can fall in and never be found. There is also the matter of wildlife. Once a body starts to decompose, critters carry away the remains. Sometimes a few bones are found scattered apart, other times the bones seem to disappear into the ether.
Yet as Allan Pacheco points out in his blog, Santa Fe Ghost and History Tours, this area is not…that desolate. Sure, it is remote, with thick woods and uneven ground. But it is crisscrossed with hiking and game trails, Forest Service roads, ATV tracks, and campgrounds. Lots of people come out here to enjoy recreation. So it seems like these people who get lost could easily find a trail and follow it to civilization or a camp for help. Stanley Vigil even made it to a trailer – so even though the woman at the trailer turned him away, he could easily have waited in the area for help or followed the trailer’s driveway back to San Juan. Ann Riffin apparently made her way to Tres Piedras, so how she vanished after that is a complete mystery and makes foul play seem plausible.
I have noticed that the New Mexico wilderness can start to look the same. It is not surprising that someone could get confused and start walking in circles without landmarks with which to get their bearings. But the Pecos Wilderness area has some landmarks that can help one find their way. In the case of Emma Tresp, she should have been able to find her way based on the nearby interstate, which can be clearly seen from many spots in the hills around where she vanished. Stanley Vigil and Melvin Nadel should have also been able to find their way back to camp following the same trail they left on.
I thought that the lack of scent trails and abruptly ending footprints common to several of the stories was odd. In my research, I found the most logical explanation is that scent dogs are only accurate 50% of the time on average, and novice dogs are even more prone to mistakes than that. Hence, dogs are not foolproof.
Also, tracking dogs can only work with a trail that is fresh. Search parties, wild animals, and even weather can mess up a scent trail. So it could be that wind, water, wild animals, the missing hiker’s companions, and search parties made the trail impossible to follow in these cases.
However, search and rescue teams often use air tracking dogs, who do not follow ground scent trails. These dogs instead search for the scent of a person on the air and find where it is most concentrated. They do not require a starting point to zero in on where someone is. These dogs are more accurate in this setting. Where these types of dogs used in the searches for the Pecos Triangle victims? If so, then this makes the abrupt end of scent trails all the more chilling, even if there is a logical explanation.
I think for me the biggest mystery is why people deviate from their expected trajectory or plans and then vanish out here. For example, why was Emma Tresp on El Camino de Diablo, a ways off the route to the Benedictine Monastery? Why was Ann Linda Riffin on the side of the road near Mora, way off of her supposed route to Colorado Springs? Why did Melvin Nadel wander off to search for game without his GPS when he usually hunted from a blind? What was Carmen Gonzalez doing out in that canyon, very far from home on the Zuni reservation? Whatever brought these people to their unexpected demises in the Pecos Triangle is, to me, a more perplexing mystery than what happened after they disappeared.
Sources:
https://www.santafeghostandhistorytours.com/UNEXPLAINED-DISAPEARENCE.html
https://www.krqe.com/news/state-police-missing-hunters-body-found-in-pecos-river
https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/new-mexico/holy-ghost-campground-nm