October 16, 2017: Illuminated Site of the Week: Sorry, Zone Of What, Again?

Not so loud. If you ask UNESCO, sure, you're going to get the boring party line about the Jornada Biosphere Reserve, its location and ecosystem and blah-blah-blah. Let's shoot straight: It's a stretch of desert in Mexico, home to La Zona del Silencio or the "Zone of Silence." Here, it is said, radio signals don't work and strange electromagnetic fields wander from one spot to another.

Want more? So do the ladies who visit these fields. Rumor has it that a visit to the zone can improve a woman's chances of conceiving a child. So the fact that America lost an Athena rocket here (in and of itself suspicious, no?) and had to send Wernher von Braun to fetch it, and that UFOs make repeated flyovers, may be among the least interesting aspects of the lay of this land. There's more at Atlas Obscura.

-- Suggested by RespectableLawyer