This happened in Transbaikalia on an intermontane steppe plateau (with an area of about 20x20 kilometers), where I worked as a geologist. My route ran along the eastern edge of this plateau, and I went to our camp, located on the western one.
At the mercy of the night
In mid-August, in those parts, twilight begins to creep up at seven in the evening, and already at eight, absolute night descends on the ground. I realized late that I was working and that darkness was about to envelop everything around. I hurried to the camp, but just before getting out on the road, I had to overcome a strip 40-50 meters wide, consisting of large (up to a meter in size) blocks of turf turned out by autumn plowing. Fearing that the night would be ahead of me, I flew over it like a mountain chamois. As soon as I had time to jump out onto a section of a partially plowed rural road and take an azimuth to the camp, it became completely dark. After ten minutes, nothing could be seen.
The first thing that came to mind was to stay where I am and wait for the sun to rise, because walking in such darkness is simply unrealistic. The blackness around is absolute! Yes, only dawn was expected at six in the morning, that is, ten hours later. Meanwhile, the coolness felt strong from the ground, and I was wearing only a thin cowboy shirt with short sleeves. Moreover, I was incredibly tired, because I worked for almost twelve hours. However, she did not dare to budge either: to leave the road that was no longer visible to the eye - to definitely get lost.
Invisible light
So I stood in complete confusion, not knowing what to do. Wanting to somehow distract myself, I began to look into the black sky, trying to make out a large bluish star that had long attracted my attention. She appeared every evening at eleven and hung high in the sky like a lantern. For some reason, this star fascinated me. I tried to find out its name, but none of my colleagues knew it. And in general, as it turned out, she was only interested in me, the others did not pay attention to her. Much later, I found out that this star was Vega from the constellation Lyra, which is one of the brightest stars in the firmament.
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I stood motionless for a long time, waiting for my star to appear. At the same time, trying not to lose the sense of azimuth, I kept in my head the direction in which our camp is located. Suddenly it seemed to me that something silvery under my feet. I look down - nothing, impenetrable darkness. I look up - there is still the same dark sky. But I saw something silvery under my feet!
“What could give such an effect? - I thought. - Perhaps, if you stand motionless, not taking your eyes off the sky and not blinking …"
On the silver road
So I did. She stood, afraid to move, staring at one imaginary point in the sky to complete exhaustion. It hurts my eyes, but I look and look. And suddenly - lo and behold! - something silvery appears below. This time, I did not look away from the sky, I observed only with peripheral vision. This something underfoot was expanding more and more, acquiring the outline of a road. Brighter and brighter! The contours of the silvery road are already visible, even the paths branching off from it. This path next to me was clearly visible, but at a distance of 2-3 meters in front, it seemed to be blurred.
I made up my mind and took a step. The silvery road did not disappear; on the contrary, it visually stepped forward. This opens the path in the fog. I take another step, another and another, speeding up. The silvery road is still under my feet.
"Perhaps this is my way out?" - I thought and decided to completely trust this mysterious path.
I walked faster and faster, even started running, looking at the sky with wide eyes. And, surprisingly, I never stumbled! Over the next two hours, in such an unusual way, I covered eleven kilometers (I then specifically checked with the map). All this time, most of all I was afraid to blink so that the effect of the silver road would not disappear.
Return to camp
And suddenly the glow disappeared. Immediately, pitch darkness fell on me. I stopped like a blind man, stretched out my hands and felt the surface of the steep mountainside under my palms. What to do? I began to climb up. The slope suddenly ended in a flat area that I felt under my feet. I turned left, walked, trying to keep to the edge of the slope, so that the left leg was on the slope, and the right leg was on a flat surface.
Then I stumbled over something, fell. I felt the obstacle. It turned out to be an iron cross. She got up and walked on. I stumbled again. I feel - the cross again! I remember that the day before, looking at the map of the area of work, I noticed a flat "blotch" 10-15 meters high and 50-60 meters long, three kilometers north of the camp, on which the cemetery was located. I felt uneasy. And yet it was a landmark. Now I knew exactly where I was.
"We must reach the turn and go down!" - I decided and confidently moved on.
And then I was lucky again. The sky in the west (that is, ahead, in the direction of my movement) suddenly began to brighten, at first barely, then more and more. I could make out the contours of the mountain range. It was from behind the mountains that the moon was rising! It appeared a little too quickly. Since it was a full moon, it became so light in the neighborhood that I could go further quickly and without any miracles. Within half an hour I was in the camp. As soon as I entered the tent and sat down on the cot, I instantly passed out from fatigue.
Tibetan messengers
Quite a long time passed, and I managed to forget about my fantastic night journey along the silver road. But one day I came across an article about the outstanding French traveler Alexandra David-Neel. It turned out that during her trip to Tibet she encountered exactly the same phenomenon and even described it in detail. During the expedition, Alexandra met a man who, looking at the sky with detachment, walked with unrealistic speed near their caravan.
“Lungompa,” the guide said, and explained that he was a messenger, capable of quickly covering long distances in a trance.
David-Neel wanted to stop the wanderer in order to talk to him, but only the guide warned her:
- Don't do this! There have been cases of lungompas dying when suddenly brought out of their trance.
I think something similar happened to me. After examining my case in more detail, I realized that I had several conditions under which Tibetan messengers enter a trance. First, it was the most hypnotic time of the day - late evening flowing into early night. Secondly, I am a sleepwalker, which my mother and brother told me more than once in my youth. Thirdly, at that moment I was extremely focused - after all, without blinking, I looked into the sky and waited for the appearance of my star. Fourthly, there was a full moon, which, although it appeared only a few hours later, still influenced and filled the area with certain lunar fluids, to which I was always very sensitive.
I also tried to scientifically explain why the road glowed. Apparently, on it myriads of dust grains reflected with their microscopic planes a dim light that was not perceived by human vision. However, it was perceived by my consciousness, which at that moment was working in some other mode.
All the rest of the soil was covered with grass, so I could not distinguish it. That is why I could see a monolithic silvery road below. I'm right? Or does anyone have another explanation for this phenomenon?
Svetlana Fedorovna Mironova, geologist, Moscow