Arizona Museum of Natural History — Attraction in Mesa

NEAR TRAGIC EVENT. We visited the museum on Friday March 29, 2024.

The museum is lovely, but we had a near tragic event occur while we were there. While visiting the museum, my family I stepped into an interactive feature that “rumbles” like a volcano.

My husband, 44, has had a pacemaker since he was an infant and is dependent on it to keep his heart beating. As soon as he stepped into the feature, he immediately felt the symptoms of pacemaker inhibition (meaning something electrical/magnetic is interfering with his pacemaker and it is not working properly). We noted the time. This happened before the rumbling had actually began, the feature was still counting down.

Pacemakers record all data and his suspicions were confirmed at a follow up visit at Mayo Clinic.

We immediately contacted the museum, but didn’t receive too much feedback back other than they are looking into it. After that, we didn’t receive anymore feedback other than the motor has been in “continual” use for several years and telling us they read the manual and there’s no mention of pacemakers.

I tried to explain to everyone involved, that it has been confirmed that the attraction interfered with my husband’s pacemaker. I further explained to them, I spoke to a a Medtronic Engineer. He explained that “a possible cause is poorly grounded electrical equipment which may result in directly conducted electromagnetic energy in the form galvanic currents. Electromagnetic radiation is the term used to describe electromagnetic energy radiating away from its source. This can result in pacemaker inhibition.”

The museum did confirm the feature was made “in house”.

I suggested that it would be prudent to have a third party, electrical engineer, evaluate the feature but no one has responded to me since then.

We also explained that we are not looking to gain anything out of this other than looking out for others safety. But that doesn’t seem to matter. I hope no one suffers from worse or catastrophic results due to this. Having had a pacemaker for 44 years, my husband is well versed in how it feels and when something is wrong. That is not usually the case and someone else may not recognize the symptoms until...

COOL! AMAZING! EDUCATIONAL! The fun starts outside where you can see a giant dinosaur crashing through the museum wall!

The Arizona Museum of Natural History is a great place to get out of the heat. You don't have to be a kid to enjoy it. The exhibits are great: Dinosaurs! Space! Geology! Volcanoes! Weather! (Ask about the flash flood every 30 minutes on the half hour.)

There's an entire section on Arizona history that includes the lost Dutchman mine, the Mesa territorial prison, and filmmaking. There is a whole floor of Native American exhibits displaying beadwork, pottery, and baskets from the Southwest and Central and South America. Be sure to scan the QR codes to get more information at each display!

There are a few volunteers stationed throughout the museum and some hands-on displays. There's even a small mountain with a stream outside where you can pan for gold (and take your treasure home with you!).

The only reason I did not give this five stars is I felt there should be more docents. I know they are volunteers, but I think that having one or two in each exhibit to tell stories and answer questions would greatly benefit visitors. When we paid our entrance fee no one told us about the flash flood events; we might have missed them had not another visitor told us about them.

This museum is a good value for the cost. Adults are $13, seniors are $10. They have a special discount for veterans currently running for $8 (the same as a student entry), but it is temporary and will be ending soon.

We spent about 2.5 hours wandering and enjoying this wonderful museum. You can do it faster, but there is so much...

🔥🔥🔥🔥 This place is HOT and MISERABLE!! 🥵🥵🥵🥵🥵🥵🥵🥵🥵🥵🥵🥵🥵 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 So here we are thinking it's a hot summer day and we'll go escape inside to this museum, so my wife and I and our 1-year-old daughter decided to visit. Upon walking in it's like being in a sauna! I OPEN THE DOOR TO THE PLACE AND I WAS MET WITH A GUST OF HOT AIR COMING OUT AND I WAS IMMEDIATELY CONFUSED!! I thought that maybe if we walked around a bit and went to the different exhibits or different levels that it would cool down, nope, actually it got hotter! The only place it was cool was in one corner of the building where you couldn't stand and you had to shuffle along with many other people sweating and being uncomfortable. It was like we were being March to our deaths! 😭 Thank God though for some reason I brought a portable fan and that's what saved us!. We were told we couldn't have any drinks around the exhibits and that furthered my suspicion that they wanted us to die. Finally I asked the management if anybody has ever complained about the heat and they looked at me like I was stupid and said no!

Cool exhibits but a hot environment do not go during summer months

EDIT: below on the reply the owner has stated that " there was an AC unit out" but we asked some of the employees that day about the heat inside the building and they said that " it's always that temperature" and that "the heat was due to body heat" so I don't know if he's lying or not or if his staff is lying but somebody is not...