Enigmas in Empty Places: Haunted Deserts

One does not immediately associate the concept of deserts with Brazil - our mental images of the South American giant immediately take us to the jungle greenery of the Amazon or to the bright pleasures of Rio de Janeiro. However, the South American superpower extensive coastal deserts—complete with sand dunes—in the northern region of Maranhao, once known to be the wealthiest part of this Portuguese possession (so wealthy, in fact, that a Portuguese monarch was willing to abdicate his crown as long he was able to keep control over Maranhao). Located between the Mangueira and Parnaíba deserts, the vast sand dunes are contained within the Lencois Maranhenses National Park and aerial photography shows the sand encroaching on the surrounding vegetation, like a stain of white ink on a green tablecloth. This is not surprising, as the Maranhao dunes stand a staggering thirty meters talls and are a source of humidity that attracts all manner of wildlife to it.

The sand dunes of Maranhao are also the home of highly unusual paranormal phenomena. In 1997, researchers Pablo Villarubia and Carlos Alberto Martins crossed the desert to visit remote communities and interview locals about their brushes with the unknown. The people who somehow wrest a living out of this harsh land speak freely of a recurrent luminous phenomenon known as the caburé or even more picturesquely as “the phantom Jeep”. Unlike tales involving phantom cars like the terrifying Haitian zobop, the ghost Jeep of the Maranhao dunes is seen where no vehicles usually drive; some claim having been blinded by the intense blueness of its headlights, which can illuminate the surroundings like daylight. One man interviewed by Villarubia and Martins was out deer-hunting when the ethereal vehicle made a beeline toward him, scaring him out of his wits and making him beleive that he was about to be run over in the wilderness. Unable to move, he saw the phantom Jeep vanish into thin air before it struck him. The "phantom Jeep" may also have a Mexican cousin: the carro de Banda reported in Durango's Zone of Silence since the 1920s.