Investigation Timeline
One investigation. Many sources. More questions than answers.
The Mesilla Files did not begin with a single discovery. It grew from recordings, photographs, research reports, field investigations, personal journals and documents created decades apart.
This timeline tracks the investigation as the evidence has been discovered and released by TMF.
Some entries are historical documents. Others are modern investigations. Connections shown here do not necessarily mean the events themselves are connected.
This record will be updated as new material becomes available.
THE ARCHIVE IS OPENED
Early TMF Investigation
Theodore Orion Xyler—known throughout the surviving material as TOX—turns over an unusual collection of documents, photographs, recordings and research material.
Dylan Carrillo and Spencer Clifton begin examining the collection.
What initially appears to be a collection of unrelated Southwestern stories begins producing recurring names, locations and symbols.
STATUS: Investigation ongoing
SOURCE: TOX Archive
THE MESILLA FILES EMERGE
Material in the archive repeatedly leads back to Mesilla, New Mexico, and the surrounding desert.
Four names begin appearing with unusual frequency:
Sheriff Tomas Ortega.
Father Miguel Serrano.
Lawrence Jackson.
Captain Voss.
The men apparently knew one another.
A surviving photograph even shows the four sitting together in a Mesilla bar during the 1930s.
Three left records behind.
Voss did not.
QUESTION: Why does Captain Voss appear throughout other people's records while leaving almost nothing in his own voice?
THE ORTEGA RECORDINGS
Recordings and surviving records belonging to Sheriff Tomas Ortega begin revealing the life of the Mesilla lawman before his unexplained disappearance in 1936.
Early material describes ordinary law-enforcement problems.
Later recordings increasingly reference unexplained desert reports, unusual incidents and Ortega's growing concern about Captain Voss.
Ortega eventually begins making trips into the desert alone.
STATUS: Audio archive being released
SOURCE: TMF Audio Archive — The Saga of Sheriff Tomas Ortega
THE JACKSON DIARIES
The personal records of Lawrence Jackson provide another perspective on early Mesilla.
Jackson was a businessman, publisher, filmmaker and collector who became increasingly interested in stories circulating through the region.
One diary describes Jackson's growing suspicion that Captain Voss was not aging normally.
An old photograph apparently showed a man identical to Voss years earlier.
After Voss learned about the photograph, it disappeared.
QUESTION: Who was Captain Voss?
THE SERRANO RECORDINGS
Surviving parish recordings made by Father Miguel Serrano provide yet another record of Mesilla during the early twentieth century.
Many of Serrano's earliest recordings were damaged or lost.
A substantial number from the 1920s survived.
Among otherwise ordinary parish matters are accounts of people reporting unusual events in the surrounding desert.
One surviving recording contains separate reports involving stones arranged deliberately into unusual shapes.
Serrano also remembers seeing a similar marking years earlier.
The recording that might have documented that earlier event is missing.
STATUS: Archive being examined
SOURCE: The Serrano Chronicles
CAPTAIN VOSS--THE PROBLEM GROWS
Additional photographs apparently depicting Captain Voss are discovered.
Images believed to date from the 1930s, 1968 and 1987 appear to show the same man with remarkably little change in apparent age.
One early photograph places Voss near a remote structure bearing an unusual marking later identified in TMF records as the Scorpion Mark.
No satisfactory explanation has been established.
STATUS: Unresolved
CTA APPEARS
Documents reveal references to an organization identified as the:
CONTACT AND TRANSITION AUTHORITY — CTA
The discovery is unexpected because surviving material places CTA activity considerably earlier than previously believed.
One document appears to date CTA activity to 1958.
Amy Wright later confirms that CTA existed decades ago and says her father helped organize it.
She promises additional information.
Questions remain.
STATUS: Active investigation
QUESTION: Contact with whom? Transition to what?
TRC LOOKS BACK 50,000 YEARS
The TRC Research Center begins examining the Mesilla–El Paso region as it may have existed approximately 50,000 years ago.
The research indicates a dramatically different environment—cooler and wetter, with grasslands, woodland, lakes and large Ice Age animals.
The purpose of examining such a distant period initially seems unrelated to much of the historical archive.
TRC argues that some questions may require looking much farther into the past.
STATUS: Research continuing
SOURCE: TRC Research Report
THE X HYPOTHESIS
Geographic research identifies an unusual pattern with Mesilla near the center of an apparent X connecting several areas associated with TMF investigations.
The locations extend through New Mexico and into northern Mexico.
Whether the pattern is meaningful or coincidental remains unresolved.
STATUS: Hypothesis only
SOURCE: TRC Research
VOSS AT WHITE SANDS
Journalist and TMF investigator T.J. Clayton receives access to portions of the White Sands area while investigating historical material.
Records connected with Captain Voss are discovered.
The best preliminary dating places some of the material at approximately 1935.
The discovery further complicates the known timeline of Voss's activities.
STATUS: Under investigation
SOURCE: T.J. Clayton / Special Archive Session
SEVEN STONES POINTING SOUTH
Clayton follows information from an old NMSU acquaintance into remote desert country south of Deming, New Mexico.
Unusual stone arrangements are reported near the Mexican border.
The formations appear deliberate.
Their purpose is unknown.
STATUS: Field investigation