New Mexico: La Mala Hora & Bigfoot

New Mexico: La Mala Hora & Bigfoot

From Backwoods Bigfoot Stories by Backwoods Bigfoot Stories-Bigfoot Encounters

September 9, 2026 · 1h 2m

About this episode

This episode explores the legend of La Mala Hora and unsettling encounters in northern New Mexico.

This stop on the Backwoods Cryptid Road Trip follows the High Road out of Chimayó and deep into the old Spanish villages of northern New Mexico, where generations have warned their children about what can happen when you linger at a crossroads after dark. Here, the thing on the road is known as La Mala Hora—the Bad Hour. It doesn’t chase you. It doesn’t attack. It simply appears. Sometimes it looks like a woman dressed in black. Sometimes it is nothing more than a shapeless mass of darkness standing where two roads meet. Witnesses say it can grow larger as you watch it, and according to the old stories, seeing it is not the danger. The danger is what comes afterward. By morning, someone close to you may be dead. This episode traces the legend from one of its earliest written accounts, folklorist Aurelio Espinosa’s story of a strange ball of wool that grew at a crossroads, through tales of owl-witches and mysterious fireballs in the Río Puerco Valley, and eventually into the Four Corners, where Highway 550 cuts across Diné country and outsiders have spent decades trying to put familiar names on things they may not fully understand. Along the way, we revisit a series of unsettling…

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Keywords

Mentioned in this episode

Places: New Mexico, Chimayó, Río Puerco Valley, Four Corners, Diné country, Mora County, Highway 550, Highway 54

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