Elk hunter finds human skull ‘in middle of nowhere’ in Wyoming desert
Published at | Updated at
Brooke Baitinger, Idaho Statesman
(Idaho Statesman) — A man hunting elk in a southern Wyoming desert stumbled upon something much more mysterious, officials say.
As he retrieved his harvest Saturday, Nov. 11, a bright white object in the sagebrush caught his eye, Sweetwater Now reported.
It turned out to be a sun-bleached and apparently long-forgotten human skull, Wyo4News reported. Any human tissue had decomposed long ago, and the lower jaw was detached and lying undisturbed nearby, a spokesperson for the Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Office told the outlet.
The hunter found the skull in the Red Desert about four miles north of Wamsutter, in elk-hunting area 118 with no major roads nearby, the outlet reported. Wamsutter is about 170 miles northwest from Cheyenne.
The area is made up of rocky rims, rolling hills and sagebrush mesas, according to the Wyoming Fish and Game Department.
The southwestern portion has a dense network of two-track and private oil well roads, but no major public road access, Cowboy State Daily reported.
There were no obvious signs of trauma or foul play to the skull, and officials aren’t aware “of any open, cold, or missing persons cases we have that might connect the skull to a known victim of a crime,” Jason Mower, spokesperson for the Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Office, told Sweetwater Now.
The county coroner collected the skull and sent it to a forensic lab, where experts will examine it, the outlet reported.
No one knows how the skull might have ended up in the middle of the desolate Red Desert.
“Anybody that’s been to the Red Desert knows it’s virtually in the middle of nowhere,” Mower told Cowboy State Daily. “A desert filled with sagebrush.”