The Casa Grande Domes have been a site of intrigue ever since their construction. The concrete and polyurethane domes were built in the early 1980’s by InnerConn Technology Inc. as a complex to manufacture circuit boards in order to improve cost efficiency and insulation. Despite their efforts for cost efficiency, InnerConn went into bankruptcy forcing them to default on a loan and abandon the domes in 1983. The discovery of the hazardous chemical, trichloroethylene, in the groundwater under the domes did not exactly help their attempts to continue InnerConn’s operations there. Ever since then, like every other strange abandoned places -- stories, rumors and urban legends began circulating. Some stories involved drifters and the homeless using the site as temporary housing while there were also claimed sighting of chupacabra and other cryptozoological creatures. The most popular and seemingly outlandish urban legend was that it turned into a Satanist hangout and sacrificial ritual site. Being a skeptic of such rumors, I came to investigate why such rumors would be linked to a defunct tech company’s abandoned manufacturing complex in the middle of nowhere and become a real life episode of The Twilight Zone. Since The Domes were in the heart of the Sonoran Desert, the natural decay process of the site started rapidly which gave it a unique aesthetic quality to it. I quickly realized the Satanist rumors were true based on the numerous Satanist symbols scattering the site and what appeared to be fresh bonfire ritual surrounded by even more symbols. All of this along side the mysteriously strange graffiti gave justification to The Domes’ stories which turned it from urban legend to weirdly intriguing legend.
