Sounds like you were near the White Tanks. Back in the 70s I was stationed at Luke AFB. I rode horses and hunted all over that dessert around there. I knew the area well. I hear it's changed a lot since then. Anyway I had two experiences there you might be interested in.
First we were out in the dessert down near Gila Bend on a three day exercise. We had set up an encampment, and was expecting aggressors to attack the camp that night. I sent a couple of scouts out to check on things, they came back saying someone was coming up the valley. We set up an ambush to catch the aggressors. We waited until the people were well inside our trap, then we set off slap flares and lite up the whole area. My people started shooting their M-16s and M-60s (loaded with blanks) all around what we thought were the aggressors. People started screaming, some ran, many fell to the ground and burrowed into the sand, others raised their hands and stood there. All were speaking spanish, and we did not have a clue what they were saying, we just thought the aggressors were trying to confuse us. So we went on the attack. We went down and started taking them prisoner. Then we discovered we did not have the aggressors but a bunch of illegials. As the Border Patrol picked them up later they said it would probably be a long time before those 18 tried to sneak across the border again.
Second: We were North-West of the base, there was nothing there but an airfield, and a fence surrounding about 50 acres. This was an emergence landing field in case a pilot had an emergency and needed to land after take off, and could not make it back to the base. We sometimes held training exercises there also. We were out there for an overnighter, it had been several years since the Air Force had used this area for field training. One of the first things we noticed was that the gate locks were gone, there was fresh aircraft tire marks on the pavement, from touch and goes. Also fresh tire marks in the sand from big trucks leading to the runway. We set up our camp near the North end of the runway. The commander thought that the marks might have been made from drug runners, so he orders silence and no lights if we heard an airplane or heard trucks coming near the area. About 3AM we were awakened, a sentry heard an airplane approaching. We watched what looked like a C-130 touch down and run the length of the runway, dumping things out the back of the airplane. Suddenly two old duce and a halfs crashed through the gates. The trucks went to the south end of the runway and started picking up the dumped objects. The Captain ordered total silence on our part, he did not want the runners to know we were there since all the troops had was blanks for their M-16s. As the trucks approached the North end someone turned on a light (we never did find out who turned that light on). Anyway the trucks veered off the runway and left quick, leaving several objects on the runway. The Captain then ordered all light turned on, hoping that when they saw the number of people they would not return. We placed a call to the State Police, they came out at daybreak. After they arrived we went out to investigate the objects left on the runway. They were bales of marijuana wrapped in heavy plastic. Each of the seven remaining bales weighed about 80lbs.
