… Weakly gurgled a stream, flowing into a shallow muddy river, which, moreover, whimsically twisted. The stunted light that filtered through the foliage was lost in the thick of the forest, slipping and dying. There was a swamp somewhere nearby - the sweet smell of peat was distinctly felt. From here the ascent to the Horned Mountain began. Actually, this is not a mountain, but a hill, but in the district it is called a mountain.
“Now look up,” Volodya Malyshev broke the silence. - How would you call it?
A cloud hovered over the ridge. Such that I involuntarily flinched. It looked like a bull with swirling horns. Black shadows ran down the hillside. At that moment, an owl hooted and a dead silence reigned, as in a crypt. It became really scary …
Virtual wind
I realized that I was being led somewhere not there. As if the wind carried me into some kind of abyss. Thanks to Volodya Malyshev, who encouraged me to travel to these parts, - he grabbed my hand. And the wind immediately lost its strength.
- When there is no one to help, no one to rely on, people disappear, - said Volodya. - This wind almost dragged me away too. But the wind is not real, it is virtual - it is in our minds. If you give yourself the order to disobey, nothing will happen.
Yes, of course he was right. But I still could not grasp the essence of the phenomenon. It was more multifaceted than I imagined. It was not like any meteorological process that occurs in nature. However, I don't even know if what I saw can be counted among the already known physical processes. If it is possible, then, probably, only with a very big stretch.
Promotional video:
Although I'm afraid I'm not right. For the first time, not a meteorologist, not a physicist, but a modest physician from the county town of Elabuga, Rodion Sviridov, spoke about the effect of thickened clouds on the physical and mental state of a person. On the basis of his research, in the middle of the century before last, he confirmed what the people knew from ancient times: if clouds hang, a person is threatened with depression. And he cited the following statistics: up to 80 percent of all patients in his outpatient clinic react to a thunderstorm in one way or another.
Missing
These places in the north of the Nizhny Novgorod region have long been considered disastrous. And not only because there are many swamps here. For some reason, people bypassed them, although in terms of fishing, everything was much better here than anywhere else. Furry animals were not translated until Soviet times. Here they hunted for sable, marten, ermine, Siberian weasel, and squirrel, and did not touch such "small things" as a ferret or badger at all.
But even at the dawn of the development of the Nizhny Novgorod Volga region, hunters began to disappear. I went to the forest once - I returned without problems, another time - too, and on the third or fourth - everyone arrived. This was explained by one thing: the bear lifted up. And wolves were also found. Only one thing was embarrassing: no traces, not a single, even microscopic piece of clothing. People seemed to evaporate under the influence of high temperatures. But the wolves cannot gnaw a gun!
No documents related to this have survived to this day. There is still confusion due to the fact that a number of districts of the Nizhny Novgorod region were then under the jurisdiction of the authorities of the Kostroma province. But I managed to find something.
Historical chronicle
* On June 9, 1878, the district police chief Dulebov reported to the Kostroma police chief: “For 11 days I have been looking for the missing peasant Seralion Petrov Fedorov, born in 1851, who disappeared during a hunt. To this day, his location has not been found. Local residents claim that he disappeared due to supernatural reasons, but those are not shown in this search."
* On September 23, 1887, a peasant from the same village, Kuzma Petrovich Yasenev, disappeared. Another police chief, Yakov Morgalov, reported to his higher authorities: “There is an illusory delusion that the disappearance of people is associated with the appearance of a strange shape of clouds on the Slingshot (this is what they call the Horned Mountain now. - Approx. S. S.). But the body of Yasenev was not found even with a particularly thorough survey of the area. Rumors of devilish abductions continue to circulate. All this is a product of the deliberate intoxication of the dark masses by all sorts of well-wishers. Perhaps they are involved in the murder and hiding the body …"
* Note in the newspaper "Volgar" dated October 12, 1899: "Disappeared on October 5, p. d. two girls 13 and 15 years old, Daria Kovylkina and Matryona Petrov, who went to the Horned Mountain for cranberries. They collected cranberries individually, but both did not return before dark, their parents and neighbors did not find the missing. They could not get lost, because they know the surroundings well.
* And finally, an article in the newspaper Svet, June 1901: “Nizhny Novgorod. Two weeks ago, a 9-year-old girl Ariadna Levkovich from the Kostroma province disappeared. There is a suspicion that she was taken to Nizhny Novgorod, where she is in some local brothel and is numbered among the women who engage in shameful craft, or among the beggars who are exloating children (so in the text. - Yarim. S. S.). The missing girl is of average height, her hair is ashy, her eyes are gray, her face is dark, oblong. She was wearing a blue skirt and a white blouse. Alas, the police did not find her anywhere.
Clouds Called Asperatus
Few people knew about the strange clouds that arose over the current territory of the Nizhny Novgorod region. No one traced any connection with the disappearance of people either.
However, as it turned out, strange clouds appear not only in these parts. They are currently seen in various places. What is it? Any previously unknown processes in the atmosphere? The clouds began to take on amazing shapes. Many discoid UFOs appeared (one such cloud was photographed in 1998 by the scientist A. V. Shitov in the Caucasus). Then, three years later, similar pictures were published by V. V. Skripko from Altai University and student S. Rogov. In April 2003, M. G. Sukhova observed a similar cloud. The cloud was motionless, over the mountain.
But is this related to the loss of people? Alas, nobody knows. And in general - is there it, this connection?
There are, by the way, other types of cloud anomalies. For example, the so-called Asperatus clouds, which translated from English means "uneven, rough". Indeed, this type of clouds has a very bizarre, and sometimes eerie and ominous shape, and meteorologists puzzle over their origin.
“Judging by the color, the structures of these clouds contain a lot of moisture,” says Professor Paul Hardaker, Executive Director of the British Royal Meteorological Society. “It takes a lot of energy and heat to shape them into such an amazing shape. I strongly doubt that the desired, completely free energy is contained in the Earth's atmosphere.
Despite the fact that there is a great variety of clouds, such as in the north of the Nizhny Novgorod region, nowhere else. What if they do kidnap people? Could it be some kind of disguised UFO?
I asked this question to Anton Zelenov, Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. And this is what he said:
- Scientists still cannot understand what factors influence the formation of clouds of an unusual shape. Suppose the Sun, illuminating the uneven base of a cloud formation, somehow heats it up, and it begins to behave completely inadequately. But most importantly, no one can even put forward a hypothesis how these cloud formations are connected with the fate of people. Moreover: are they cloud formations at all?
Is this the machinations of the Lord of Darkness?
It looked like an episode of a science fiction movie. In the leaden sky overhanging the Horned Mountain, a ring formed through which the sun's rays made their way. It was not even a cloud, but a breakdown in the cloud, made by some unknown aircraft.
This is the first time I've seen this. But the heavenly extravaganza did not end there. The ring, through which the rays penetrated, thickened and began to resemble … a cow's udder. But that was not all. The cloud once again thickened and took on the shape of a mushroom - the kind that occurs in a nuclear explosion.
- All! - Volodya Malyshev signaled to me. - No matter how we disappear at all, how all the others disappeared.
“You forget that we are together,” I said. - Only those who alone meet the eccentricities of the atmosphere disappear.
And then Volodya Malyshev surprised me.
“The atmosphere here, it seems to me, has nothing to do with it,” he said. - This is all - the machinations of the Lord of Darkness.
I must say that Volodya seemed to me a man by no means superstitious.
Sergey STEPANOV.
The magazine "Adventures. Secrets. Wonders"