Zone of Silence

1970 the zone first entered public awareness when an American missile, an Athena, fired from the White Sands Missile Base, went off course inexplicably, heading for the Zone of Silence, where it ultimately crashed. A few years later, an upper stage from one of the Saturn boosters used on the Apollo project broke up over the very same area. The U.S, military sent a team down to the region to investigate its surprising natural properties.
Pena and his group became aware of the "silence" when they found that it was impossible to communicate with one another via walkie-talkies: radio waves are not transmitted at the accustomed speed and frequency. Portable radios would emit but the lightest whisper when turned on at full volume. To this day, television signals cannot be received in Ceballos or in the neighboring ranches. Some magnetic force, with the power to dampen radio waves, seems to exist in the region.