Our planet is a very mysterious place. For example, according to studies, people know only about 15% of the species of living organisms that inhabit our planet, and we do not even suspect as much as 85%.
This is especially true of amazing creatures living in the ocean depths, where we, for obvious reasons, cannot yet penetrate, despite all the technological progress.
The same is true for fungi and bacteria. But sometimes strange and mysterious finds appear - the bodies of creatures, a description of the like of which can be found only in science fiction. True, sometimes they are just an artful hoax, sometimes science can give logical explanations, and sometimes any version seems to be untenable. We offer you a selection of seven such cases.
1. Trunko
On October 24, 1924, near the town of Margate in South Africa, local residents witnessed an unusual sight. In the ocean, not far from the shore, two quite ordinary killer whales fought with a huge strange creature of milky white color, whose body was completely covered with thick hair.
One of the eyewitnesses later said that the creature vaguely resembled a "polar polar bear", although it had fins and a whale's tail. The animal used this tail to attack - at first, the animal fell on the killer whales, jumping up from the water to a height of about six meters, and then beat them with its tail.
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The white giant was defeated in the battle. In the evening of the same day, his bloodless carcass washed ashore. It turned out to be even larger than it seemed at first: the body was about 14 m long, three m wide and 1.5 m in diameter. The tail was three meters long and shaped like a lobster's tail, and the body was indeed covered with thick fur 20 cm long. Instead of a nose, the creature had an elephant-like trunk, 1.5 m long and 14 cm in diameter. The creature was named Trunko.
But here's the bad luck - eyewitnesses examined the body, measured it and told about it to everyone who was possible. But the scientists never saw the unknown monster, despite the fact that the carcass lay on the shore for ten whole days until the tide dragged him back into the ocean. Hoax? Conjectures of the townsfolk? Not at all.
In 1924, information about a strange creature was published in several reputable newspapers, but the case did not attract public attention. People talked a little about it and forgot it for years. But in 2007, cryptozoologist Markus Hemmler published photographs of Trunko that he found in a newspaper archive, which confirmed that the case really took place. Careful analysis of the photographs revealed that Trunko was nothing more than a globster - a massive, tough "bag" of fat and skin containing collagen. Sometimes this happens with dead whales: when a whale dies, its skull and skeleton are separated from the body and sink to the seabed, and the remains are left to "drift" in the ocean. As for the battle with killer whales, they could simply eat the corpse.
Unfortunately, often the solution to the mystery is the most mundane - as, for example, it was in this case.
2. Pedro
In October 1932, two gold diggers, Cecil Mine and Frank Carr, were looking for gold in the San Pedro mountains. During the blasting work, a cave of clearly man-made origin suddenly opened to their eyes: the walls and ceiling were reinforced with beams hardened from time to time. The cave was small: only 1.2 m high and wide and 4.5 m long. But this is not strange: the point is that the cave turned out to be "inhabited".
To tell you the truth, the "master" of the cave was dead. To be more precise, he was a mummy. By the far wall, in a lotus position, with crossed arms, sat on a small ledge a tiny man who no doubt was once alive. The height of the mummy did not exceed 17 cm in a sitting position, therefore, if it were possible to straighten the mummy, then the growth of the man would be no more than 35 cm.
The mummy was so well preserved that the prospectors were able to examine it in great detail: a flat skull, bulging eyes with heavy eyelids, a flat nose, thin lips and a wide mouth, brown wrinkled skin … Even flat nails on thin elongated fingers were visible.
The prospectors removed the little man from the cave and took him to the nearest town, Casper, where the mummy immediately fell into the hands of researchers. In honor of the mountains where she was found, she was given the name Pedro. The mummified remains were carefully studied over the years, and in 1950 it was possible to take X-rays, which clearly showed a well-preserved skeleton and internal organs, very reminiscent of humans. It is noteworthy that the creature's fangs were disproportionately large in relation to all other parts of the body.
The anthropologist from the American Museum of Natural History Henry Shapiro carefully studied both the mummy and the photographs, and concluded that the death of the creature was hardly natural - some bones were broken, and caked blood was found on the head. Consequently, someone killed the creature, or it got into a terrible accident and suffered injuries incompatible with life. Apparently, at the time of his death, Pedro was about 65 years old.
True, later other theories appeared: for example, it could be the body of a child from some unknown Indian tribe. This hypothesis is supported by a second find made in the same places - a woman's mummy, ten cm high. The researchers again suggested that it was an infant. But babies do not have such teeth - strong, healthy and with disproportionately long canines.
Science did not give answers, since both Pedro and his "girlfriend" were bought by an unknown businessman in the 1960s, and since then no one has ever seen the mummies. Now a reward of ten thousand dollars has been announced for them. But on the other hand, the Indians inhabiting those places have their own version, in whose folklore there are many legends about the tribes of little people who inhabited America in time immemorial. Legends say that these little men were harmful and spiteful creatures, and when they got old, their fellow tribesmen simply gave them a stone on the head so that they would not eat food in vain. And all these legends arose long before the prospectors found Pedro's mummy in the mountains.
3. Persian princess from Baluchistan
On October 19, 2000, a strange mummy was discovered in Baluchistan. Oddly enough, it was sold on the local black market for a fabulous amount of $ 20 million and would probably have fallen into the hands of not scientists, but some wealthy lover of antiquities, if someone Ali Akbar had not sent a video cassette to Pakistani scientists, where the mysterious remains were shown in all the details.
Further more. Akbar was found, he testified, and the police arrived for the mummy in the city of Haran. The mummy was found in the house of Vali Mohammed Riki, who explained that the mummy was "presented" to him by the Iranian Sharif Shah Bahi, who accidentally discovered a corpse near Kveta after the earthquake.
The story itself would be quite ordinary - a mummy is like a mummy, in Egypt, for example, there are many of them. However, a thorough study allowed to establish the identity of the mummified woman - it turned out that her name was Rodugune, she was the daughter of the King of Persia Xerxes I of the Achaemenid dynasty. The information was obtained after decoding the inscription on the golden crown, which was reclining on the head of the princess. In addition, the mummy was originally in a gilded coffin, and the mixture for embalming was not cheap - wax and honey.
Rodugune died 2,600 years ago, and the fact that the remains were so perfectly preserved seemed like a great success. In addition, it was previously believed that the Persians did not embalm the dead. In this regard, a sensation arose in scientific circles. But the trouble is - the ancient princess ended up being fake. Professon Ahmad Dani, after a thorough examination of the remains, found out that "Rodugune" died only in 1996 at the age of 20 - the young woman was first killed and then made the subject of speculation. The real identity of the "princess" has not yet been established, and since she is not of scientific interest, according to the laws of human morality, she should be buried, but due to bureaucratic intrigues, the body still rests in some Pakistani morgue.
4. Luba the mammoth
Lyuba was found by a reindeer breeder Yuri Khudi in May 2007 in Yamal. In permafrost conditions, the mammoth carcass was perfectly preserved, and it was possible to transfer it to scientists without any damage - even the internal organs, fur and eyes remained intact, not to mention the skin and fur. The find made it possible to learn a lot about mammoths, their life and structural features.
The little mammoth died 42 thousand years ago. Then, according to DNA analysis, she was only a month old. Lyuba weighed 50 kg, reaches 85 cm in height, and 1.3 m in length. The remains of mother's milk were preserved in the animal's stomach, and feces in the intestines.
It is noteworthy that the mammoth died, apparently as a result of a fatal accident: it got stuck in the mud and could not get out, and subsequently suffocated. Scientists made this conclusion because the animal's body was in perfect condition - there are no signs of illness or physical damage. In addition, Lyuba's DNA is also perfectly preserved, and thanks to this there is an opportunity to clone a mammoth someday.
5. Montauk monster
The corpse of a mysterious animal was found on one of the American beaches in the summer of 2008. The body was found by four young men strolling along Ditch Beach near East Hampton, New York. They failed to identify the species of the animal, and then, of course, the case was transferred to scientists. Those, however, also could not immediately identify him. There was absolutely no hair on the body, the skin was smooth and thick, and the muzzle in shape did not fit any animal living in these places.
But the story was quickly picked up by local newspapers. There were many versions of the origin and type of creature: they said that it was just the remains of a strange sea turtle, or a raccoon in general. Or maybe a water rat, a coyote, a dog, a feral cat … A more fantastic version in the spirit of Stephen King's novels said that this is a mutant who escaped from the Center for Animal Diseases Research, over which insidious scientists experimented, did not track, and now deny their involvement to history. For a living such a monster, they even promised a reward of several thousand dollars. True, no one else has found anything like it - neither alive nor dead.
However, this single monster also disappeared quite quickly - after the scientists got hold of the carcass, the public had to be content with a few photographs taken by journalists. According to the same photographs, the animal was eventually officially declared an ordinary raccoon - the body could decompose and swell in the water beyond recognition, and the absence of hair can also be explained by exposure to water.
6. Panama monster
In September 2009, in the vicinity of the Panamanian city of Cerro Azul, children playing on the shore of a lake discovered a strange hairless creature. The children in Panama, apparently, were not timid - they stoned the animal, and later explained their action by the fact that the animal got out of the cave and crawled towards them. After killing the animal, the children photographed it and threw the corpse into the water.
The photographs show that the animal's muzzle was disgusting in appearance, and the limbs were disproportionately long. Moreover, in shape, these limbs resembled human hands, only unusually thin.
One way or another, the body was pulled out of the lake a few days later and handed over to scientists. As a result of DNA analysis, it was found that it was just a sloth. It is not clear, however, what the sloth was doing in the cave, why there was no fur on his body, and the shape of his body was so strange. This can partially be explained by the effect on the body of water, but why then did the corpse move, as the children told about it? However, children may have exaggerated.
However, the official version is simple - it was a sloth.
7. Canadian monster
In May 2010, two women walked with their dog along the shores of a lake in Ontario, Canada. Suddenly, the dog broke off the leash and ran somewhere. The women followed her and saw that the dog was sniffing at the body of a strange little animal the size of a large water rat. The eyewitnesses were frightened, photographed the body and rushed to leave the scene.
The picture, as usual, was published on the Internet and attracted the attention of researchers. Analysis of the snapshot showed that the dead animal's muzzle was somewhat unusual for a water rat or a warthog: although the tail was "rat", the fangs in the animal's mouth were long for the rat and protruded strongly forward, and there was no hair at all on the muzzle. It is a pity that when the group of researchers was on the shore of that lake, the body of the animal had already disappeared.
Where science fails, legends come into play. In the folklore of some American Indian tribes, there are references to omajinaakoos (literally translated, this word means "freak"). The habitat of the legendary "freak" is the swamps of Canada. According to legend, terrible misfortunes will soon fall on the one who found the body of this creature. However, given the fact that both women and their dog are still fine, it remains to be assumed that it was still a dead rat or mink, whose body was damaged by water.