King of Wings Rock Formation Destroyed: What Happened to the New Mexico Hoodoo

Short answer: The King of Wings, a winged rock formation (a hoodoo) near the Ah-Shi-Sle-Pah Wilderness in northwestern New Mexico, has collapsed. Visitors began posting photos of its fallen slab in early October 2026, and a Bureau of Land Management photo from October 30 shows it on the ground. The nearby Alien Throne was found in pieces the same day. Both fell after back-to-back storms soaked ground that was already wet, the Associated Press reported on November 6.

What was the King of Wings?

The King of Wings was a thin, wing-shaped slab of rock balanced on a clay mound, in the remote high desert of San Juan County, New Mexico. It sat near the Ah-Shi-Sle-Pah Wilderness, in the same badlands country as the better-known Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness, at the end of a long, rutted dirt road. Night-sky photographers made it famous: it appeared in NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day and in a Smithsonian Magazine photo contest.

When did the King of Wings fall?

News of the collapse spread on social media in early October 2026, when visitors photographed a large slab lying next to the clay mound it had stood on. The Bureau of Land Management photographed the fallen formation on October 30, 2026. Photographer Alan Studt of Parma, Ohio, had photographed it still standing on April 9, 2026.

Why did it collapse?

Erosion and flooding. Rain from a run of storms fell on ground already saturated by an unusually wet fall. Experts estimate more than 20 trillion gallons of rain fell across the Four Corners states and Nevada in late October and early November, as tropical moisture moved into the region. Studt's April photos already showed cracks at the base of the wing.

The Alien Throne fell too

The Alien Throne, called Tsé Bináká Níyol in Navajo, stood nearby. Kialo Winters, a Navajo tour guide and founder of Navajo Tours USA, found it in pieces on October 30, 2026. Bad roads had kept him away for about two weeks, so the exact day it fell isn't known. "It was surreal," he told the AP.

For Winters and other Native Americans in the region, the formations were waypoints on trade routes for thousands of years and appear in oral stories.

Can you still visit?

The area is public land, but the same storms washed out many dirt roads in the region, including on the Navajo Nation, so check road conditions with the BLM Farmington office before you go. Winters asks visitors to let the sites rest: don't climb on what's left and don't take any pieces home.