100 years ago, on March 4, 1918, in the Bermuda Triangle, the American ship Cyclops with 309 passengers and 10 thousand tons of manganese ore on board disappeared without a trace. Hypotheses of mysterious disappearances from unusual natural phenomena to aliens and time shift.
This happened long before the area bounded by the triangle, the peaks of which are Florida, Bermuda and Puerto Rico, became known as Bermuda. Long before people began to consider this place special. This area became a "circle of hell", "a witch's abyss", a "sea of dreams" and a "harbor of missing ships" only in the late 60s and early 70s of the XX century. This was greatly facilitated by the book of Charles Berlitz, a supporter of the existence of anomalous phenomena in the Bermuda Triangle, in which descriptions of various mysterious disappearances in the area were collected. But even after Lawrence Kouchet published the book "The Bermuda Triangle: Myths and Reality" in 1975, in which he argued that nothing supernatural and mysterious is happening in this area, in many cases a reasonable explanation has not yet been found.
On the occasion of the anniversary date of the disappearance of one of the largest victims of the Bermuda Triangle - the cargo steamer USS Cyclops (Cyclops), about which even President Wilson said: "Only God and the sea know what happened to this huge ship," the REGNUM news agency decided remember some of the hundreds of versions "about the powerlessness of science in front of the secret of Bermuda", as it is sung in the famous song by Vladimir Vysotsky.
The Cyclops ship.
The first documented case of disappearance dates back to 1840. Then, not far from the Bahamas, the French sailing ship "Rosalie" was discovered, which was drifting. All the sails were raised on it, all the necessary equipment was available, but the ship's crew itself was absent. No entries clarifying the essence of the case were found in the logbook. A similar case was recorded on October 20, 1902 with the German merchant ship "Freya". The weather in those days was fine. There was no storm for a long time. Nobody knows what could have happened to the team.
God only knows
So, on March 4, 1918, the Cyclops steamer with a displacement of 19,600 tons, en route from the Bay of Grande in Argentina to the North American shores, carrying a cargo of manganese ore necessary for the production of high-quality cannon steel (during the war, this cargo was more expensive than gold) and more than 300 passengers (vacationers and retired from the personnel of the coastal and sea services, as well as employees of the diplomatic mission), left the intermediate port on the island of Barbados (West Indies) and headed to Norfolk. (The port of destination is sometimes called Baltimore. In both cases, the route across the Atlantic is the same since both cities are in the Chesapeake Bay.) The vessel was 180 meters long and was one of the largest in the US Navy.
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Bermuda as seen from the Landsat 8 satellite.
The last time communication with the ship took place on the day of entering the ocean - March 4, then it was expected that the transition time would take 9 days and on March 13 the ship would arrive at its destination. But the ship disappeared.
The message about the loss appeared in the press only in the middle of the next month. The Virginian Pilot published an article on April 15, 1918, entitled “The Death of an American Carbohydrate. Another secret of the ocean. It said the following:
“Washington, April 14th. The Cyclops, a large coal carrier of the US Navy, did not arrive at its port of destination on the Atlantic coast, where it was expected on March 13th. As the Ministry of the Navy has informed, there is no communication with the ship since March 4, and its fate raises serious concerns.
The ministry said the following:
“It is difficult to explain why the Cyclops is late in arriving at the port of destination, since there has been no radio communication with it since the day it left the port on one of the West Indies. The weather on the route of the Cyclops was quite satisfactory and could not put the ship in any embarrassment. Of course, the Cyclops could have been sunk by an enemy raider or submarine, but there is no evidence of the presence of any enemy ships in this area of the ocean. As you know, one of the Cyclops's two engines was damaged, and it went at a reduced speed, using only one engine. But even if both of his main engines were out of order, he still had the ability to send a message over the radio. The search for the Cyclops continues, but the Department of the Navy is deeply concerned about the safety of the vessel."
Virginian Pilot, April 16, 1918:
“Washington, April 15th. Officials refuse to believe that a huge coal tanker with a displacement of 19,000 tons and the 293 people on board, in addition to the crew, could have disappeared completely without a trace. Therefore, the search vessels were ordered to carefully examine every meter of the Cyclops' route and approach each of the many islands in the zone of the route.
Representatives of the naval forces frankly admitted that none of the theories trying to explain the disappearance of the Cyclops do not stand up to the test of facts … If there was an explosion, it really could instantly destroy both the radio station and the engine, but then a huge the amount of wreckage, indicating where the ship's grave is.
It can be assumed that a sudden hurricane, as is often the case in those waters, first paralyzed the ship, and then flooded it, but in this case there would have been some evidence of the disaster.
The search ended in May when all attempts to find the ship were unsuccessful. The disappearance of the Cyclops has become one of the greatest mysteries in the history of navigation. In any case, this is how the top leadership of the US Navy appraised the incident - perhaps to justify the failure of the search and rescue operation that followed.
“The disappearance of the Cyclops is one of the most intractable mysteries in the annals of the navy; all attempts to establish his whereabouts have been unsuccessful. None of the theories put forward explain in any way satisfactorily how and under what circumstances this ship went missing, "a Navy spokesman said after a lengthy investigation, while President Wilson said that" only God and the sea know what happened to this huge ship."
Subsequently, the Department of Naval Intelligence listed in its report all the versions put forward in connection with the loss of the ship.
The Cyclops ship. 1913.
1. The crew mutinied, hijacked the ship and took it to some point located away from the main sea routes.
2. The US Consul General in Rio de Janeiro, who was on the Cyclops as a passenger and known for his pro-German sentiments, arranged for the ship to be handed over to the Germans.
3. The ship was torpedoed by a German submarine.
4. There was an explosion of manganese dioxide, which under certain conditions becomes extremely explosive.
5. "Cyclops" sank as a result of strong rolling.
6. Captain Worley, originally from Germany, handed over the Cyclops to the Germans or enabled German U-boats to sink the ship.
Alas, these standard versions of the accident do not explain the Cyclops mystery. There were no mines or minefields along the coast. The ship could hardly have run over the underwater rocks, if it was sailing in a well-adjusted fairway, and the pilot was always on board. And even if the unfortunate ship got a hole or exploded, the radio operator would have time to send a distress signal, but no one ever received such signals from the ship. Consequently, it sank instantly.
“No trace of the ship has been found. But this is understandable: they started looking for him only a month later. Rescuers found neither the wreckage of the ship, nor the surviving sailors, nor even a circle from the lost ship. The huge ore carrier vanished into the sea without a trace. It was 1918, the First World War was going on, the death of ships was usually attributed to the actions of the enemy. And although the Cyclops route ran in the coastal waters of the United States, the first thing that occurred to many people: the ship was attacked and sunk by a German submarine.
True, the study of the archives has not given such an unambiguous solution even today. German boats at the beginning of the 20th century never climbed so far to the west, they did not conduct any military operations off the coast of the United States, and they had nothing to do with it,”Lin Von Pal writes in his book“Secrets of the Bermuda Triangle”.
He also recalls that the search for the missing ship was carried out in our days. And finally, the search engines seem to be lucky. In 1968, a naval diver, Dean Haves, 100 kilometers east of Norfolk, found the wreck of a large ship lying at a depth of 60 meters. And in 1974, another diver, Douglas Armstrong, saw the same wreck. The only trouble is that it turned out to be difficult to establish exactly whether this found ship was the desired ship. And none of those who discovered the ship are not completely sure that this is in fact the disappeared Cyclops. But even if it is "Cyclops", the mysteries do not diminish.
The wreck of the ship lies very close to Norfolk harbor, and in any case, at least one of the ship's crew could have escaped and reached the coast. And if there was a storm, then the bodies and things should have been on the shore. Only in one single case there are no survivors or wreckage: if the vessel sank instantly, without having time to collapse. And what about Kushe? Kushe is sure: the reason is a storm, the ship has been found, the triangle has nothing to do with it.
Board of the Cyclops ship.
“Yes, Norfolk is already outside the zone of the small triangle. But this "out" is relative enough. The skeleton was found very close to the small and inside the large triangle. Yes, there are fewer mysterious shipwrecks in this area, but there are some. And besides, the ore carrier could receive its damage while moving inside the small triangle. After all, he had to cross the danger zone exactly in the middle. Perhaps it was precisely what the ship collided with inside the danger zone that caused its death,”the writer and author of many popular works Lin von Pal suggested.
Obvious-incredible
Since we are considering Bermuda secrets, then we cannot do without the mysterious disappearance of bombers - torpedo bombers "Avenger" ("Avenger") under the command of Lieutenant Charles Taylor.
December 5, 1945 was a normal day for the Florida-based US Air Force. The weather was excellent, and five three-seat bombers took to the skies for a training flight. The planes took off at exactly 14:00, and an hour and a quarter later, the pilots reported on the execution of torpedo throwing and headed home.
And suddenly at the base they hear the disturbing voice of the squadron commander: "We have lost our course, we cannot see the ground at all."
The base orders Taylor to fly west, but he says: "We do not know where the west is, we do not understand anything."
After that, the connection deteriorated sharply, and radio amateurs, according to some sources, intercepted Taylor's words:
“They are like us. We enter the white water, we perish."
According to others, the pilot said:
"Don't follow me … They look like they came from the universe …"
However, there is still a dispute about the very last words of Taylor. According to the reporter and writer A. Ford, the last phrase was probably invented or interpreted later.
Wrecked plane. Bermuda region.
Be that as it may, it is known that 22 ships of the US Navy, several submarines, as well as hundreds of private boats and yachts came out in search of the missing "Avengers". 307 aircraft took off, and the British fleet also joined the operation. It surveyed 380 thousand square miles of the Atlantic Ocean and coastal areas. And this did not give any result. Not the slightest trace of the disaster was found. Also a secret remained and what Lieutenant Taylor saw in the last seconds of his life. The tragedy with the Eveners gave impetus to the study of the problem, which was later called the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle: it turned out that ships and vessels have been missing in this place for a long time, and people mysteriously die.
At the end of the First World War, an American and a Norwegian ship disappear in the same square. Again, there is not even a hint of bad weather, distress signals and signs of a shipwreck. It was only in 1924 that an intermittent signal from the dying Japanese dry-cargo ship Raifuku-Maru was caught on the shore, only one phrase was heard:
“Rather help. It's like a dagger strike. We will not be saved."
The triangle will be drunk
According to statistics, in the XX century alone, about 150 ships and aircraft disappeared without a trace in the Bermuda Triangle, more than a thousand sailors and aviators disappeared without trace.
“The Bermuda Triangle is a crossroads of a huge number of roads, air, passenger and transport. And, as at any intersection, accidents happen most often. Radio communication disappears. Vysotsky's famous song about the Kanatchikova dacha is connected with the fact that our big Soviet liner is "mired in a triangle".
In fact, it was not Kurchatov that disappeared, but the connection with him. And the Kurchatovites transmitted information to the nearest ship that the connection was lost, we are restoring it. But this information did not reach the Institute of Oceanology in Kaliningrad, and people got scared: how could it be that Kurchatov disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle,”he recalled in the program“Earth. Territory of Mysteries Deputy Director of the Museum of the World Ocean Viktor Stryuk.
Communication was then restored on the Soviet research ship Akademik Kurchatov. And the ship did not sink into the abyss. Others were less fortunate. Why did good-quality ships, led by experienced crews, instantly go under water in calm weather? Seasoned sailors recalled the legends that at times the sea in the Bermuda Triangle parted, and terrible monsters instantly swallow ships. Scientists put forward their versions.
"One of the modern hypotheses as to why ships sink and disappear together with the crew is the hypothesis of crystalline methane hydrate, when methane pressed under high pressure, when released into water, dissolves, forms a vacuum of such density - a kind of emptiness is formed into which the ships fall", - noted the doctor of geological and mineralogical sciences, professor Alexander Gorodnitsky.
Indeed, over millions of years, dead marine organisms decay and release methane. At the very bottom, this substance forms the so-called crystalline hydrates. The hydrate, heated by energy emissions from the bowels of the earth, turns into pure gas, which rushes with terrible force to the surface of the ocean, and the water turns into boiling foam. At the same time, its density is significantly reduced and the ship falls into the abyss in a matter of seconds.
Other researchers believe that it's all about the gravitational swelling of water. This phenomenon has been observed by many. For example, the Boeing 707 pilots flying from Puerto Rico to New York on April 11, 1963. Twenty minutes after takeoff, they saw the ocean surface about 5 miles to the right bulge into an enormous circular dome. He, according to observers, reached a diameter of several hundred meters. As the airliner flew this place, the mountain began to quickly disappear. The pilots then asked the coast guard, seismic centers, but received no response. How can we not remember those old legends about sea monsters?
"Such a monster actually turned out to be the hydrated bottom, which, when disturbed, simultaneously raises huge columns of foam, and this gas, rising up, actually drags down any floating vehicle," said Vadim Chernobrovov, head of the Cosmopoisk research association. …
If we accept this assumption, then, of course, we can say that the secret of the sudden absorption by the abyss of ships has been revealed. But how then to explain the disappearance of the planes? What kind of mysterious fog at an altitude of two thousand meters blocked the Sun from military pilots? It is possible that the torpedo bombers were affected by a source of some radiation unknown to science. But which one?
Whirlpool.
Atlantis
Not so long ago, North American oceanographers discovered a perfectly flat plain with an area of 800 square kilometers at the bottom of the Bermuda Triangle. The surface of the plain looked smoothly polished, as if polished on a giant sander. Some have suggested that this is ancient Atlantis.
“I believe in Atlantis, Atlantis really existed. It must be sought where Plato spoke. That is, not where it was allegedly found, in the underwater part of the island of Tire - namely in the Atlantic Ocean, and Plato should be believed,”says Alexander Gorodnitsky.
Many researchers are inclined to the version that it is located in the Bermuda Triangle. Is it possible that the inhabitants of this legendary civilization possessed technologies unknown to modern man, for example, the most powerful energy installations? The most daring experts suggested that these attitudes are still valid and may well be the cause of the tragedies in the Bermuda Triangle. That is, some underwater generator splashes out streams of deadly radio waves and destroys those who get too close to the place of the flooded Atlantis? This hypothesis looks so fantastic that not everyone agrees to believe in it. Moreover, it has not been confirmed either by the results of experiments or by thorough research of specialists. It is very convenient to write off all our ignorance on some kind of magical power, but …
In the documentary "Draining the Bermuda Traingle," a group of researchers revealed new details about the mysterious territory. To debunk the myths, scientists used the technology of the so-called "sonar mapping": sound waves reflected from the ocean floor and returned back. Thanks to this, we managed to find out the shape and depth of the relief.
As it turned out, Bermuda is located on the top of a huge sea mountain, which is over 4 thousand meters high. Presumably, it was formed as a result of volcanic eruptions that occurred at an early stage in the development of the Atlantic. The volcano erupted and gradually rose above the ocean surface until it became dead 30 million years ago. Wind and rain destroyed its summit to a flat plateau. As sea levels rose after the Ice Age, Bermuda became a small land mass atop an isolated sea mountain.
South coast of Bermuda (Sinki Bay).
Moreover, according to scientists, the territory of the Bermuda Triangle is a "weather hive" where hurricanes and storms can create huge and bizarre waves. Hexagonal clouds with straight edges along the perimeter of the triangle can also cause aircraft crashes. They create turbulence zones and powerful air currents, the speed of which reaches 275 kilometers per hour. No existing aircraft is able to cope with such conditions - it is literally thrown into the water, writes game2day.org.
Infrasound and animal horror
“Our ear perceives mechanical sound vibrations in the range from 20 hertz to 20 kilohertz. What is lower is called infrasound - we do not hear it yet, and what is higher is ultrasound - we no longer hear it. But this does not mean that we do not perceive it,”noted Natalya Lebedeva, Doctor of Biological Sciences.
This hypothesis also explains why catastrophes occur in clear weather. It is likely that an infrasonic wave caused by a storm that raged hundreds of kilometers from this area is capable of reaching the crash site. Perhaps, under the influence of infrasound, the sailors fell into a state of panic horror? Moreover, the masts and the hull of the ship, having begun to oscillate in resonance with the infrasonic wave, can crack and even break. It is quite obvious that at such moments the sailors are capable of leaving the ship in indescribable panic - and by any means - simply throwing themselves into the open sea and not using lifeboats.
December 4, 1972. The brigantine "Maria Celeste" left New York for Genoa with a large consignment of alcoholic beverages. A month later, she was discovered in the ocean by the crew of the schooner Dei Grazia. The sailors were surprised that the brigantine was walking somehow strangely and did not respond to the signalman's requests. When the sailors from the schooner boarded, they did not find a single crew member: the cargo of alcohol in the holds was not touched, as was the money in the captain's safe.
“As for the Flying Dutchmen, such facts have been historically recorded, yachts have met,” said Igor Barclay, a veteran of the USSR Navy intelligence.
Some experts explain the theory of the impact of infrasound on living organisms such a phenomenon as the mass suicide of whales and dolphins, which are thrown ashore for no apparent reason. In 1946, a ship abandoned by the crew was discovered near the Bahamas. Two years earlier, the ghost ship Rubicon was constantly seen drifting uncrewed along the Florida coast. Only the dog remained on board. What made the crews leave their ships?
“An overwhelming sense of fear. Because anyone in the ocean understood that there were actually sharks and other dangers there, but the feeling of fear was stronger when he was on the ship,”says Doctor of Biological Sciences Natalya Lebedeva.
It would seem that the version looks very convincing. Infrasound generated by the elements provokes various mental disorders, causes animal fear and even destroys sailors. But then again - this hypothesis is without hard evidence. Moreover, it also does not explain the disappearance of the planes. And above all - that tragedy of the Avenger bomber flight. By the way, here you can once again recall the last words of Lieutenant Taylor on the air: "They are like us." Who are they? Or what is it? The biggest mystery in that story. Only two decades later, the first versions began to appear that could bring them closer to the solution.
UFO
June 5, 1965. A C-119 military transport aircraft with nine crew members took off from the US Naval Base Homestead. The plane did not return to the airfield. No one recorded any explosions in the air or when falling into the water. At the same time, American astronaut James McDivitt, who was orbiting the Gemini 4, saw and photographed an unidentified flying object that was hovering over the Caribbean islands at the time C-119 disappeared. Neither the pilots nor the wreckage of the aircraft were found then. As well as the traces of those bombers that disappeared in 1945. As well as the traces of ships and sailors who were listed as missing in the Bermuda Triangle. And then a new version appeared - the aggression of space aliens.
Sunken ship.
“The 70s and 80s are characterized by a surge in information about the impact on the Earth of some alien objects - flying, underwater - all kinds. The reports that came from our submariners both in the Northern Fleet and the Pacific Fleet forced the leadership of the navy, together with some scientific organizations, to set a program of scientific research. And in the navy, a special analytical group was created, which included representatives of our department and other organizations, for collecting statistics, for observing, analyzing these phenomena,”said Igor Barclay, a veteran of the USSR Navy intelligence.
Indeed, in the post-war period, mysterious objects and phenomena that were mistaken for space aliens began to be noticed often. Especially many such objects were observed above the surface of the ocean and even in its depths. Most often, submarine crews had to deal with mysterious guests. In the region of the Bermuda Triangle, Soviet submarines were constantly on alert. That is, in the immediate vicinity of the United States for a lightning strike of retaliation against enemy territory in case of war.
“We carried out combat service underwater. I am urgently invited to the central post. A signal of a certain frequency was detected, which was moving very quickly. That is, there was no noise of propellers, no signs that it was a surface target. Just fast movement of the signal. Even if it's a torpedo, it still makes noise. And here the speed of movement was about 125-135 knots, said the former commander of the nuclear submarine, Rear Admiral Yuri Beketov.
It is known that no country has been able to create such underwater vehicles that could move in the aquatic environment at a speed of 200 kilometers per hour. Similar speeds are not available to marine life. The sailors have no doubts that this was a meeting with aliens.
“Then the signal bypassed us and disappeared. There was no feeling that the target was leaving, the signal was decreasing, it simply dropped sharply, and that was all. We recorded everything we heard, classified it as an unidentified object,”recalls Yuri Beketov.
“All these ships are alien - they protect themselves very well. Reckless pilots who are famous for their bravado, relying on their speed, tried several times to approach, to get in touch with them. But it all ended very badly. They turned on their wave weapons and either the pilots lost consciousness, then came to their senses, or even came to disasters.
Such cases were recorded in the 70s, we have many such facts, "- admitted in the program" Earth. Territory of Mysteries "Soviet Navy intelligence veteran Igor Barclay.
According to him, the sailors have collected solid material, which indicates the possible involvement of unidentified objects of extraterrestrial civilization in the dramas in the Bermuda Triangle. But this topic has not received its development.
Aberration in time
Not a single hypothesis gives an answer to the question - why many who became a victim of the deep sea in the Bermuda Triangle zone, before their death, reported a loss of orientation in space and time, and who managed to escape from this ominous place testified that the navigation technology refused work? This, for example, happened in 1974 with a Soviet hydrographic vessel: it went blind for 13 minutes, all instruments on board failed.
“All the clocks, everything has stopped, everything connected with magnetism. The clock also actually works on a magnetic basis. Therefore, they had to be counted, and after they were counted, they established that the time loss was 13 minutes. These 13 minutes were lost somewhere. The same cases happened with American ships, says Igor Barclay, a veteran of the USSR Navy intelligence.
Experts believe that the ships and aircraft that disappeared in the triangle fell into another time dimension. And, most likely, they continued, and possibly continue to exist there.
“Among the many unexpected disappearances of ships and aircraft and attempts to explain these anomalies, there is a hypothesis of aberration in time - that is, a space-time shift, which gives some hope that the ship not only died with the crew, but was transferred to another dimension, to another space and somewhere, perhaps, both the captain and the crew with passengers survived. Of course, this is a rather fantastic assumption, but it should be considered as a hypothesis,”explained Sergei Smirnov, senior researcher at the Pulkovo Observatory.
Dear broadcast …
Over the 39 years of the existence of the program "Obvious-Incredible", almost 700 issues were broadcast. At least one is guaranteed to remain in history. This issue is dated November 13, 1976, about the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle. He inspired Vladimir Vysotsky to create the famous song "Letter to the editor of the TV show" Obvious-incredible "from a madhouse from Kanatchikovaya dacha".
Everyone will easily remember:
“Dear program! On Saturday, almost crying, the entire Kanatchikova dacha was eager to see the TV … "," Instead of eating, washing, injecting and forgetting … "," Dear editor, maybe it's better about the reactor?.. "," And piles of medicines - into the toilet who is not a fool … "," There are few real violent ones - there are no leaders "," Churchill invented it all "," We are bermut in our hearts and bermut in our souls "," He mocked us. Crazy - what can you take!”,“We will write to Sportloto …
By the way, in that historical program, Sergey Kapitsa was visited by the candidate of technical sciences Vladimir Azhazha. They discussed why ships and planes disappear in the Bermuda Triangle. But Vladimir Azhazha did not break his hands in the frame and did not gesticulate at all. He did not at all look like a "troublemaker" and did not insist on the "impotence of science." He offered to explain the mysterious disappearances by scientific concepts.
“Recently, one of the employees of the Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism introduced me to an interesting magnetogram and data that show that it was on December 5, 1945, when this sad event occurred, that a giant chromospheric flare, a prominence, was recorded on the Sun. There was a solar storm … The phenomenon of disturbance of the earth's magnetic field also causes radio interference, disables the pointer courses, magnetic and gyro compasses, - this is how he explained the tragedy with American aircraft.
When considering the disappearance of the ships, Azhazha suggested taking into account the phenomenon of infrasound (waves having a frequency lower than that perceived by the human ear), which sometimes makes sailors lose their minds and in a hurry to leave the ship.
Ivan Constantinovich Aivazovski. Rainbow.
However, Sergei Kapitsa on the screen convincingly smashed his arguments. Why did the solar storm on December 5, 1945, if there really was one, affect only these aircraft? After all, it should have been felt across the globe. And it is possible to go crazy in a long voyage not only because of infrasound, but also because of difficult conditions, a long separation from relatives.
"Do we always need to resort to such completely revolutionary ideas, when often the most unusual things can be explained on the basis of the well-known laws of mechanics?" - Sergei Kapitsa asked a rhetorical question.
In a word, there are about a hundred hypotheses with the help of which people are trying to explain the mysterious phenomenon of the Bermuda Triangle. But none of them could stand the criticism of opponents. This area seems to be a reserve of incredible, sometimes conflicting anomalous phenomena and the same hypotheses.
And one more thing: the Bermuda Triangle is not the only place on Earth where anomalous phenomena are observed. There are at least 4 more similar zones: an area north of the island of Guam, an area southeast of Africa, a part of the ocean between Australia and Antarctica, and the so-called "Devil's Sea" off the coast of Japan. The key to the mystery of these places has not been found either.
Svetlana Shapovalova