The Cistern That Shouldn't Hold Water-and the Groan Underfoot

The Cistern That Shouldn't Hold Water-and the Groan Underfoot

A dry plateau in New Mexico, a cistern sealed for decades, and four feet of clear, warm water appearing during a 27-month drought-how did water show up where no inlet, pump, or pipe exists, and who opened the padlock? What was the low ground-groan a neighbor heard days earlier, and why did he not report it until questioned?

In this episode, we tell the sequence of observations and actions on Ochoa Ranch that lead to the unanswered anomalies: the unexpected water, an opened padlock using a known combination, and a witness who heard a sound from the ground. What connects the groan, the unlocked hatch, and the warm water?

Location: Ochoa Ranch, Cibola County, New Mexico
Date: February 8, 2011 (discovery); January 2011 (neighbor's hearing)
Person: Tracy Tillman (county surveyor)
Person: Vicki O'Brien (owner/inheritor)
Person: Pete Sorrells (neighbor, age 71)

- The drought counter read 27 consecutive months with less than 0.25 inch of rain in the prior two months.
- The cistern was hand-dug in the 1940s and sunk about 12 feet before being sealed and decommissioned.
- On January 19, 2011 Vicki logged the cistern padlock as secured and the ground around it dry and cracked with a temperature of 28°F.
- Pete Sorrells heard a low groan or hiss from the ground in the last week of January 2011, opened the hatch with Dolores O'Brien's combination, saw no water, and left the padlock sitting on the rim unlocked.
- On February 8, 2011 Tracy Tillman lifted the hatch and found four feet of clear, warm water inside the cistern.

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