I grew up in the Carefree Cave Creek area in Arizona. Back in the mid-80s (in the days of my miss spent youth I might add) and when the area was a lot less populated than it is now. I was on my way home from hanging out with my friends.
I decided to drive my 4WD into a wash that was on the way home off of Pima Road and South of Cave Creek Road to polish off a couple of the few remaining beers that were in the cooler and take the wash home that passed almost in front of my house before I called it a night. (This was a customary thing back then between the locals and the Sheriffs that if you had tied a little one on that it was safe passage as long as you stayed off the main roads).
I proceeded to stop my truck, turn on the tunes drop the tailgate and grabbed a beer and just started kicking back. Normally I’m mindful of the desert but that night I decided to be a litterbug and toss the empties off onto the side of the wash.
On about round three, a beer can was thrown earlier landed at my feet from where it was resting about 15-20 feet away in the darkness. It was common in the wash for some of my friends to slip in from some of the surrounding homes on foot if they saw someone park there.
I didn’t bother to look into the desert I just thought it was one of my buddies playing a joke on me. So I opened another one downed it, did the same thing and about ten seconds later there it was at my feet. I thought alright, enough is enough and grabbed my flashlight and shined it to the area, no one there. I thought I must have been losing my mind and grabbed another and sipped it down. Before I tossed it, a coke can that was laying around the same spot as where the others were landed at my feet.
This time, my flashlight was in hand and I shined it to the area, no one. I panicked and shouted, “do you want me to pick these up”? Then with my light on the area of the last can, it flew from behind a bush into the back of my truck no one definitely there! I quickly grabbed the cans at my feet jumped into the truck and made it home up a wash 1/4 mile in what seemed to be about ten seconds. I have not been in the wash since. The area is a little less than 1/4 mile from the town cemetery and near what used to be a cavalry road.