OPINION | MIKE MASTERSON: Day of mystery


I suspect few of us exit this life without having at least one mysterious experience we can never explain. I'm prone to refer to some as GodNods.

While I'd had several such events over a lifetime, one sweltering day in Phoenix remains at the top of my "what was that?" list.

It occurred early on a weekday afternoon as I was returning from an interview in Sun City on the western outskirts of Phoenix.

The air conditioning was running full blast in typical 100-degree heat. I decided to exit the freeway and detour down a surface street through shady neighborhoods leading to a major city thoroughfare that would lead me straight downtown to the Arizona Republic.

I barely noticed the name of the street I'd chosen (and have long since forgotten). After a few minutes of driving past middle-class houses on either side, I looked ahead about two blocks to see smoke rising from the left side of the street.

I wondered what could have caused those clouds in such a tranquil neighborhood. Growing closer, I got my answer. I could see a smoldering car parked beside the curb. The street around the vehicle was wet, apparently from hoses. Yet there was no fire truck or anyone else in sight.

Things became even more bizarre as I eased alongside the smoldering car and peered into its driver's side window to see two charred bodies in the front seat. There might also have been others in the back, but I only had a fleeting moment to focus on the unexpected horror I was seeing right in front of my eyes.

The driver's blackened head was leaning back with its mouth agape in a scene from a horror film.

"What could have happened here?" I whispered to myself. "And where is everyone? No neighbors? Firemen? Police? Gawkers? How can that be with the car still smoking?"

I'd quickly passed the gruesome scene and by now was anxious to get back to the newspaper and make phone calls to get answers. That was before the age of pervasive cell phones, so my only way of learning about the horror I'd just seen was to get back to the office.

Once there, I called the fire department and asked what had transpired with a car fire in northwest Phoenix that afternoon, explaining in detail what I'd witnessed. A firefighter called back after checking and said there hadn't been any fires reported that afternoon in the city.

"Say wha?" I uttered, reminding the firemen of what I'd seen. He said that while he found that most interesting, still no firefighters had responded to any calls.

Next I called the police department and explained the situation. They also checked for calls and found none had been dispatched to that region of Phoenix.

"This is nuts," I thought. "I know exactly what I saw and smelled on the street only an hour ago. Yet, despite the water standing in the street and the charcoaled bodies no one in authority knew anything about it? How could that possibly be?"

Our city reporters had nothing in the paper the next morning. Curious and frustrated, I decided to try and retrace my steps from the previous day.

Exiting the freeway where I thought I had originally departed, I turned left onto what seemed to be the correct street and drove the ensuing blocks hoping to locate the spot and perhaps speak with neighbors. While I had no idea what was behind my experience, I also knew there could be a major news story behind those observations from the previous day.

After all, someone's car had caught fire. Someone's body (or bodies) were burned black inside it, and the street had still been wet from water. Too many connected events to be coincidence.

Driving much farther than I had the previous day to make sure I hadn't overlooked anything, I turned around and began driving back and forth along east-west parallel streets, believing I'd somehow missed the correct one. An hour later, I'd criss-crossed at least eight neighborhood streets with no sign of burned pavement or artifacts from that blaze.

Nada, zip, nothing.

At one point I pulled over and actually began talking to myself. "OK, Mike, you know what you saw and smelled yesterday. You aren't delusional and were in perfectly normal condition, so what the heck did you see and where was it?"

After a few minutes of reflection, I decided I'd done all the thinking I could and reluctantly headed back downtown.

Back at the paper, I again called the fire and police department. Still nothing to report a day later.

At that point, there was nothing else I could imagine to do. So I filed the experience away in the closet within my tiny brain where I kept confusing and mysterious things that never make sense and got on with our project about nursing homes intentionally mis-medicating the elderly, which we did document.

Some 34 years after that afternoon, I find myself at the keyboard still reliving the vivid memory of that mysterious afternoon when I still know what I'd clearly witnessed, even though no one in authority who should have been able to explain such a terrible scene ever could.

Got a mystery of your own to share?


Mike Masterson is a longtime Arkansas journalist, was editor of three Arkansas dailies and headed the master's journalism program at Ohio State University. Email him at [email protected].


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