Aha! Interesting you should ask. We know exactly what you're talking about as we happen to drive past these huge pits every day on our way to and from the Huntington Press offices and we've been curious too, but not curious enough to find out. Until you gave us this added incentive, that is.
Two of the pits to which you refer are located on either side of Spring Mountain Rd. just east of Buffalo and they're the property of a construction company the name of which has always amused us: Wells Cargo. So we rang them to get some more information, and spoke to a very helpful man named Nelson, who gave us the following details.
As we'd long suspected, the pits are actually the recently-discovered fabled mass burial sites in the desert of all those victims who met their grisly ends back in the good old days when the mob was running this town. While it may be a residential area now, 30 years ago this was still a totally deserted area that was perfect for concealing skeletons. You can read all about them in our new title, Cullotta: The Life of a Chicago Criminal, Vegas Mobster, and Government Witness.
Ha! Just kidding. That was a shameless plug for our excellent book, which has nothing whatsoever to do with those holes. And they're nothing to do with aliens, either. Here's the real story (which we confess is not half as interesting, but has the benefit of being true).
Wells Cargo is owned by a Nevada family and has been around for 80 years or so. They started out in the trucking business -- hence Wells Cargo -- then got into construction. The pits you observed have been excavated for gravel for building projects and our friendly source estimates they're about 200 feet deep and yup, probably a couple of blocks wide (well, however far the distance between Spring Mountain almost to Flamingo is on one side, and Spring Mountain to Desert Inn on the other).
Currently, the one on the south side's still being excavated, while the other one is now being filled (they're both registered non-organic landfills, so they act as a general dumping ground for any construction project that has a bunch of old concrete or excavated foundation spoils that they need to get rid of). This comes as something of a relief to us, as we've noted the holes apparently getting bigger and bigger over the past couple of years and, as they are indeed located right in the middle of a residential area, we wondered if this was safe or if we might just slide into the abyss one rainy night. Guess not.
The third hole belongs to a different company, but we figure the story's pretty similar. Unless that's the one where the bodies are ...
We tried but failed to find a good aerial picture of these holes for you. However, if you have Google Earth, just search for Wells Cargo Inc. and you'll see 'em.
