{"id":3165,"slug":"goblin-valley-green-river-utah","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Goblin Valley is the late discovery — the valley of hoodoos that Arthur Chaffin found in 1921 while scouting a road, named 'Mushroom Valley' until Philip Tompkins renamed it in 1949. It's 170-million-year-old Entrada sandstone eroded into thousands of goblins.","The valley was the secret — the cowboys who knew it first, Chaffin's saddlebag map that nobody wanted to see, the 1949 expedition in a war-surplus Jeep that photographed the mushrooms. The state made it a park in 1964 to protect it from vandals.","The valley is still there — the goblins in the San Rafael Swell, the observation point where Chaffin first saw it, the formations that look like another planet. The file keeps the valley: the 1921 sighting, the 1949 naming, and the hoodoos that are Utah's strangest.","Goblin Valley is the archive's hoodoo file — the Mushroom Valley that became the goblins, the late discovery, and the formations that are still standing."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Goblin Valley is the archive's hoodoo file — the 1921 discovery, the goblins, and the valley that wasn't on the map until 1949.","A valley of goblins keeps its shapes — the file's suggestion being that Goblin Valley's hold is the erosion: the Entrada sandstone, the spheroidal weathering, and the formations that are the desert's creatures."]}],"name":"Goblin Valley","aliases":[],"type":"NATURAL","type_label":"Natural","cats":["LOCAL_FOLKLORE","NATURAL_WONDER","LEGEND_SITE"],"groups":["legends"],"desc":"The goblin hoodoos—the valley of stone creatures.","full_desc":"A natural site in Green River, Utah, Goblin Valley is filed here for what the record attaches to it. The goblin hoodoos—the valley of stone creatures. The archive files it under natural wonders and local folklore. The dossier holds 1 reported claim and 1 documented fact, with the verified spine filed separately from the lore. The site is open to visitors.","address":null,"city":"Green River","county":null,"state":"Utah","postal":null,"region":"West","lat":38.99346,"lon":-110.173424,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"ACTIVE","access":"PUBLIC","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":"Historic site","research_notes":"UW batch; VERIFY task auto-queued.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":59.4,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.65,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":0.3999999999999999,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0.7,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":3150,"type":"APPARITION","description":"Reported a presence among the goblins. A natural place in Green River, Utah doesn't need walls to hold a legend; it has geography. It's anecdotal evidence in the strictest sense — stories, repeated, unresolved. The account appears in 'Goblin Valley'. The figure remains the site's most-repeated sighting.","evidence":"ANECDOTAL","evidence_label":"Anecdotal","entity":null,"where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.8,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Goblin Valley","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goblin_Valley","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[{"description":"The park’s geology is documented. Goblin Valley's documented past — geological and human — is the verified layer beneath the legends. It's verified history: the dossier's load-bearing detail. Sources including 'Goblin Valley' carry the record. The date is part of the site's documented spine. The account stays in the file — reported, retold, unresolved.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Goblin Valley","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goblin_Valley","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"legends":[],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Natural site; conditions vary seasonally—check the managing agency for access.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Goblin Valley","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goblin_Valley","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":{"title":"Goblin Valley State Park","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goblin_Valley_State_Park","desc":"State park in Utah, United States","extract":"Goblin Valley State Park is a state park in Emery County, Utah in the United States. The park is known for its thousands of hoodoos, referred to locally as goblins. The distinct shapes of these rocks result from an erosion-resistant layer of rock atop relatively softer sandstone. Goblin Valley State Park and nearby Bryce Canyon National Park contain some of the largest occurrences of hoodoos in the world.\nThe park lies within the San Rafael Desert on the southeastern edge of the San Rafael Swell, north of the Henry Mountains. Utah State Route 24 passes about four miles (6.4 km) east of the park, and the town of Hanksville lies 12 miles (19 km) to the south.","img":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3d/Utah_-_North_America_-_Goblin_Valley_State_Park_-_Hoodoos_%284892269801%29.jpg/960px-Utah_-_North_America_-_Goblin_Valley_State_Park_-_Hoodoos_%284892269801%29.jpg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail","score":71,"lat":38.56666667,"lon":-110.71},"counts":{"claims":1,"history":1,"legends":0,"entities":0,"sources":1}}