As follows from the archives of Tobolsk, in the spring of 1906, patients with unusual clinical manifestations began to be admitted to the provincial hospital: numerous abscesses on the skin of the face, neck and hands, high fever, convulsions, shortness of breath, general weakness. The number of patients in a matter of days increased so much that doctors began to talk about an epidemic of some mysterious disease
In the photo: Willamette is the sixth largest meteorite in the world. Perhaps he brought microorganisms unknown to science to Earth.
Pink fog
The disease affected a number of villages in the north of the Tobolsk province and had the same manifestations in different age and social groups. Some doctors have even suggested that they are dealing with a special form of smallpox or bubonic plague. To organize and conduct quarantine measures, specialists were sent to the villages covered by a mysterious epidemic, who soon learned about the cause that could well cause this disease. So, in particular, local residents told doctors that a few days before the first cases appeared, a pink fog hung over the villages in the predawn and morning hours, which came from the north, from the taiga. The fog seemed to make pets and livestock nervous. Soon after this strange natural phenomenon, sick people began to appear in the villages.
The case then did not find an explanation. After about half a month, all the patients of the provincial hospital recovered safely, and only the deep scars on the skin left after the abscesses reminded them of the mysterious illness they had suffered.
Poisonous geysers
Another case of a mass illness caused by factors, presumably of a natural nature, with more tragic consequences, occurred in the south of Kamchatka. In April 1949, this eastern region of the USSR experienced a series of minor tremors, which resulted in the opening of several new geyser springs. And almost immediately after this, outbreaks of a strange disease that invariably led to death began to be recorded in two villages located in the immediate vicinity of the sources in which the indigenous population - Kamchadals - lived. So, a completely healthy and full of strength man suddenly began to choke, refused food, his body swelled and acquired a bluish tint. The disease lasted from one and a half to four days, after which the sick person died in terrible agony.
A commission that came from the region, which included state security officers, found that the death of the victims occurred as a result of respiratory paralysis caused by exposure to an unknown gas. Someone put forward a version of a sabotage act, but it soon disappeared. Samples of gas vapors emanating from the hot springs resulting from the earthquake were taken, which showed the presence of toxic impurities in them. By the decision of the commission, the residents of the affected villages were evacuated to a safe place within 24 hours.
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Premature aging
Almost half a century earlier, a Russian ethnographic expedition led by the SI. Travkina, who studied the life and customs of the Tuvan people in one of the villages of the southern burkhagda tract, encountered a frightening pattern: the life expectancy of almost all residents of the national village did not exceed twenty to twenty-five years. Tuvans who reached this age looked very old. The doctor who was on the expedition stated that almost all aborigines, whose age exceeded ten years, had tumors. The organisms of the elders were worn out and destroyed as much as if they belonged to the ancient elders. With the average life expectancy of representatives of this people at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries, equal to forty - fifty years, this phenomenon of the inhabitants of a separate village then seemed to scientists very mysterious. At the same time,from the words of SI. Travkin, it was suggested that the reason for such an early aging and massive development of pathologies is … incest, which was widespread in those remote regions.
However, at the end of the forties of the XX century, scientists found an explanation for this, having found extensive deposits of uranium in the mountain strata of the tract, located near the surface. It was the constant radioactive radiation that caused the premature destruction of the body in local residents and even caused cancer in children.
Strange disc over the Yenisei
However, not all, at first glance, mysterious outbreaks of mass diseases can be explained by the influence of natural factors. Thus, the old-timers of the Zykovsky district of the Krasnoyarsk Territory recall a story that happened in those lands at the end of the fifties of the last century. Then, at the end of summer, residents of some villages in the region for several days watched a luminous disc-shaped object hanging high in the sky over the right bank of the Yenisei. He appeared as soon as the sun set below the horizon, throughout the night slowly moved along the river bed to the north and disappeared at dawn. The inhabitants of those places noticed that during the periods when the disk appeared in the sky, the water in the Yenisei began to literally boil - so many fish appeared in the river. Savvy fishermen had an unheard-of catch every night, which quickly spread to the nearest villages. However, soon in several villages, cases of poisoning began to be recorded one after another. People who ate the caught fish started vomiting, bloody diarrhea, convulsions and clouding of consciousness that did not stop for hours. Doctors suggested that they were dealing with an unusually severe form of hepatitis, in which the patient's liver disintegrates in just a few hours, which led to the inevitable death of a person.
Analysis of fish and river water samples showed nothing unusual, despite the fact that the relationship between the deaths and the catch of fishermen was clear. Only after a detour of the villages and the removal of the remaining fish was it possible to deal with a strange disease that claimed the lives of several dozen residents of the area.
After the strange disk stopped appearing in the sky, endless schools of dead fish floated along the Yenisei for a week …
"Spaniard" and the Tunguska meteorite
Outbreaks of unusual forms of anthrax and cholera, plague and typhus and many other diseases dangerous to humans in the 20th century have repeatedly occurred not only in the territory of the former USSR, but also in other countries of Europe, Africa and America. To a large extent, these epidemics were explained by poor sanitary and hygienic conditions, and sometimes by the burial grounds of radioactive waste that were opened without special precautions. However, in a number of cases, the cause of outbreaks of mass diseases was accidents in secret military biological laboratories, accompanied by the leakage of mutated deadly viruses.
According to Irkutsk biologist Anton Kruchinin, the epidemic of typhus in the Far East in the fifties of the last century and cholera in Western Siberia in the sixties were just a consequence of such accidents. However, the Irkutsk scientist puts forward a more curious version of the emergence of epidemics of mysterious and previously unknown diseases. A. Kruchinin believes that many viruses, including those dangerous to human life and health, arrive to Earth from space. Some of them, being modified under the influence of terrestrial conditions, acquire the features of microorganisms known to science. The other part, actively invading the living human body, causes irreparable harm to it. A. Kruchinin is sure that the virus of the deadly Spanish flu was brought from space by the famous Tunguska meteorite. Most likely, AIDS also has an extraterrestrial nature. That is why it is so difficult for modern medicine to find an effective cure for these and similar mysterious diseases.
Sergey KOZHUSHKO