In 1883, Arizonans were being stalked by the ‘Red Ghost’ – a devil riding a huge beast. The chilling part? It was real

Something weird and terrifying was going on in Arizona in the late 1800’s. People in the South East of the state were claiming to have seen a demonic beast stalking the lands. When asked to describe what they saw they claimed it was a huge red creature with a rider on top that looked like the devil. Thus began the legend of the “Red Ghost,” a nightmarish monster that haunted the people in the area.

Numerous sightings were reported around 1883, with the first being an account of two women in Eagle Creek who had been home alone while the men of the family were away. 

The Red Ghost haunts Arizona

According to americanheritage.com one of the women left the house to get water from a nearby Spring. Shortly after she went out, the dog began to bark, when the other woman looked outside she saw what she later described as a red, enormous creature being ridden by the devil. The woman who left for water was found trampled to death.

This wasn’t the only sighting. A few weeks later two men, a few miles from Eagle Creek, were awoken in the dead of night when their tent came crashing down. They heard the stomping of hooves and described an impossibly tall horse which ran off into the bushes. They returned with others and found large hoofprints and long red hairs along the trail.

The terrifying presence of the Red Ghost took hold in this small corner of Arizona as people began adding their own tall tales which the local papers happily published. What was fact and what was fiction soon became jumbled and the creature became a legend. Of course, the idea of a demonic rider on a red beast was somewhat ridiculous, but the reality of the Red Ghost was somehow stranger than the stories.

The truth is revealed

Roughly a month after the death of the woman at Eagle Creek a rancher named Cyrus Hamblin encountered the beast while out hunting. While it’s appearance initially shocked him he quickly realized what it was: a camel.

Now it’s understandable why the people of Arizona might not know what a camel is, after all, they’re not exactly native to the U.S. so it makes sense why people would think it’s some demonic beast especially considering this particular camel had supposedly been responsible for at least one death already. But this new information leaves many more questions, for example, what is a camel doing in Arizona?

The camel was likely a part of an army project known as the camel corps, which began in 1855. The idea was to purchase camels for use by the army to explore the southwest, an area that was particularly dry. Long story short the project failed and the camels were abandoned. This one was evidently one of those camels.

What about the rider?

As for the supposed devil rider, this is where it gets kind of morbid. While theories at the time suggested witnesses mistook the hump for a rider, many insisted that there had been a skeletal figure on the back of the beast and they weren’t wrong. It appeared that a deceased soldier was still strapped to the poor animal’s back.

This was later confirmed when the animal returned to Hamblin’s ranch where Hamblin and others opened fire. The shots missed and the camel took off but it did leave behind the skull of its deceased rider.

The story of the Red Ghost came to a sad end in 1893 when it was shot dead by another farmer. Its body showed evidence of a painful existence with the rawhide strips used to secure the saddle and other burdens having cut into the flesh after years of being attached. While there were later supposed sightings of the Red Ghost as late as 1957, these were not confirmed, perhaps it’s the ghost of the Red Ghost.