Stolen rock is mailed back to Colorado park after recipient has bout of bad luck
Everyone knows it’s bad luck to break a mirror or open an umbrella indoors, but what about taking a rock from a state park?
An unidentified and apparently superstitious person returned a rock to Colorado park officials, explaining in a letter that it brought her bad luck.
“Someone brought this home to me three years ago. Bad things have been happening ever since,” the person wrote in a letter that was posted to Twitter on Monday by the Southeast Region of the Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
Park officials said on Twitter that visitors should not take rocks home with them.
“The best practice when visiting any park or wilderness is to take only photographs and leave only footprints,” they said.
It’s not common for reports to surface suggesting that removing rocks from Colorado’s public lands causes anything bad to happen. But it has been suspected in other parts of the country.
At Petrified Forest National Park, a myth developed that stealing petrified wood and rocks brings bad luck, The Arizona Republic reported. Park rangers there get letters and packages from people returning pieces of nature.
“These miserable rocks have caused pure havoc in my love life,” a letter sent to the park said, according to The Republic. “By the time these rocks reach you, things should be back to normal. If not, I give up. Dateless and Desperate.”
In Hawaii, there is a common superstition that taking anything from the volcano goddess Pele’s domain means “a curse will fall upon you,” Vice reported. Hundreds of stolen rocks and other items are sent back to the National Park Service.
“There is NO ‘Curse of the Rocks,’” a cultural interpreter for the National Park Service wrote in an internal memo, Vice reported in 2016. ”Many believe that the idea of lava rocks being cursed gained traction in the 1940s or 1950s when tour guides grew tired of cleaning their vehicles of lava and/or black sand after tours to Kalapana [a popular destination on the island of Hawaiʻi for viewing active lava flows].”
Rangers at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park also received a letter and a rock last year.
“Deep Creek was awesome! I especially liked Tom Branch Falls. I loved it so much, I wanted to have a souvenir to come home with me, so I took a rock. I’m so sorry and want to return it,” the letter said.
It’s not clear what exactly was happening to the Colorado letter writer, but the person hoped park officials could return it to its home.
“Surely one of you can find which park it belongs in,” the letter said.
This story was originally published July 22, 2020 at 12:32 PM with the headline "Stolen rock is mailed back to Colorado park after recipient has bout of bad luck."