SHIPS THAT SAILED THE DESERT

FATE MAGAZINE JANUARY 1973

BY VINCENT H. GADDIS

PRESENTED BY:
the Wanderling


In the article above, written by Vincent Gaddis, an author named Harold O. Weight is mentioned several of times. The reason Weight is brought up is because he is considered to be one of the major go to guys regarding legends of the southwest. Weight has been a long time author and contributor to any number of magazines and periodicals for many years, almost all having to do with that same desert southwest. His stories invariably circulate around prospectors, old mines, ghost towns, and lost ships in the desert, most of which he personally explored or interviewed many of the main people involved, the ranks of which are seriously thinning out.

The link below will take you to an online book by Weight that is actually a compilation of seven of the most credible --- or at least the most interesting of the lost in the desert ships stories and legends. It was put together and published originally in 1959 by Weight 14 years before the above article. The seven article compilation starts with his own story of the lost ships. The titles of the seven stories and their authors are:

The Lost Ship Of The Desert by Harold O. Weight, A Ghost Of The Vikings by Paul Wilhelm, Mystery Of The Desert by J.A. Guthrie, The Lost Spanish Galleon by L. Burr Belden, The Serpent-Necked Canoa by Ed Stevens, Butcherknife Ike and the Lost Ship by Adelaide Arnold, and The Story Of The Pearl Ship by O.J. Fisk



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One of the things you may notice right away if you read and compare stories on the Viking ship is that there is a huge discrepancy between what Gaddis reports in the above article printed in 1973 and what Weight chose 14 years earlier to include in his compilation printed in 1959. In the compilation is Paul Wilhelm's article titled "Ghost of the Vikings." According to how Wilhelm writes it, Botts, whose comments initially brought the Viking ship story to the public eye, did not go up into the canyon and actually see the entombed ship herself. Not so with the Gaddis article nor to how I've reported it, especially so, since my own personal interview with Botts in 1970, three years before Gaddis' article. In the end he and I are pretty much in agreement although I'm not sure where he got his information from, Botts having died in 1973. Wilhelm's story was first published in his desert column "The Indio Date Palm," in October 1951. What happened between Wilhelm's story in 1951 and that of Gaddis' article of 1973 that changed the context of the story so dramatically, at least as far as Botts participation is concerned, I'm yet to run down.


VIKINGS OF THE DESERT SOUTHWEST




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THE DESERT SHIP: A LEGEND, OR TWO

THE WESTERNER COMICS, DECEMBER 1950 ISSUE #31

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SHIP IN THE DESERT

GENE AUTRY COMICS, JUNE 1951 ISSUE #52

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LOST SHIP OF THE DESERT

UNCLE SCROOGE COMICS, SEPTEMBER 1954 ISSUE #7

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SEE:


LOST SHIP OF THE DESERT: THE CASE FOR VIKING SHIELDS


BUDDHISM IN THE AMERICA'S BEFORE COLUMBUS


COLORADO RIVER: WAS IT NAVIGABLE?


THE KENSINGTON STONE
A STRONG CASE FOR NORSEMEN IN AMERICA
BEFORE COLUMBUS

COTTONWOOD ISLAND



1942 UFO OVER LOS ANGELES

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E-MAIL
THE WANDERLING

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As to the subject of donations, for those who may be so interested as it applies to the gratefulness of my works, I invariably suggest any funds be directed toward THE WOUNDED WARRIOR PROJECT and/or THE AMERICAN RED CROSS.