Our planet is incredibly filled with many places where a variety of mysterious phenomena and mystical events occur that simply do not have a logical explanation. One of these places is Envaitenet Island.
It is located in the north of Kenya, on Lake Rudolf, named after the Crown Prince of Austria. This small island - several kilometers long and the same width - is reputed to be a cursed place. In the language of the Elmolo tribe living on the shores of the lake, this name means "Irrevocable". Local residents have not settled on this island for several decades. And I must say, they have certain reasons for that.
There are many legends around this small island, many mysterious stories are told about it. Interested in the legends, the English explorer Vivian Fush, who happened to be in Kenya in 1935 on business, decided to explore the island. An expedition was organized, two members of the expedition went to the island - topographers Martin Sheflis and Bill Dyson. It was agreed with the leader that every evening with light signals they should signal that everything is fine with them.
After a couple of days on the island, the signals stopped. The rest of the expedition members were not very worried about this: they thought that the topographers had simply gone deep into the island, from where, due to dense vegetation, the light was simply not visible.
However, 15 days passed, and there were still no signals from the researchers. That's when Fusch got really excited - after all, the topographers ran out of food! Three more members of the expedition went to the island. They began to carefully comb the island, but Sheflis and Dyson were not found.
An airplane was called from Marsabit and flew around the island for two days. Then almost two hundred local residents, seduced by a huge reward, which Fush promised at least for some traces of his comrades, literally turned every stone on the island. But even this time nothing was found. Nothing - this means that not only people were not found, but even the slightest traces of their stay. And it was simply impossible not to leave them in two days: people had to spend the night somewhere, to eat something, and such processes never happen without a trace.
Someone may consider it an exaggeration that there are no traces left. However, Fusch later wrote in his diary: “But all these people, who literally searched every stone on the island, did not even find a trace. And no one has ever seen my two comrades-in-arms wandering around these most remote and harsh places in Africa. This is a riddle that hardly anyone can solve …"
Local residents told Fush the legend that once upon a time people settled on the island, fished, hunted, traded their goods with the inhabitants of villages on the shores of the lake. After a while, the inhabitants of the surrounding settlements noticed that no one had sailed from the island for a suspiciously long time.
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Then a raft was sent from the coastal village of Loinglani to "reconnaissance". Those who arrived on the island were dumbfounded: they were awaited by a completely empty village with huts inside which things lay, fish decomposed by an extinct fire … Where did the people go? The envoys hastily left the island, not wanting to tempt fate any longer. Since then, no one has risked going there, except for the birds.
Over time, this story began to be forgotten, and several families of the Elmolo tribe settled on the island, fleeing here from the raids of their warlike nomadic neighbors. Elmolo successfully settled on the island, sometimes they brought fish to the coast, which they exchanged for skins and milk, sometimes they invited relatives to visit.
This is a legend. And there are also facts recorded in various written sources. The first mention of the "enchanted island" and the people disappearing on it dates back to about 1630. Then several natives families settled on the island.
At first, the island seemed to them quite friendly: the rich vegetation directly indicated the fertility of the soil. At first, the settlers and their families enjoyed comfort and safety. It should be noted that no one bothered them for quite a long period: they managed to rebuild several houses and settle down in order; in the midst of the fertile nature, the village began to grow rapidly.
True, the settlers were surprised by one circumstance: there were no animals and birds on the island. Only lush vegetation of some unusually bright emerald hue, heaps of smooth, as if polished, brown stones that had a "tendency" to appear and disappear.
And also … strange sounds that the islanders heard every new moon: eerie, chilling cries of either an animal or a person, turning into a drawn-out groan, which usually lasted from several minutes to an hour.
Over time, some parts of the island became inaccessible to people: the branches of the trees standing next to each other were tightly intertwined and became solid, like stone, forever blocking the entrance to some parts of the island.
But the most frightening were the visions that the villagers visited at night with enviable frequency. They were bizarre creatures that vaguely resembled humans. After the visions, the islanders lay for hours as if in a coma, unable to move.
The saddest thing is that after that, some of the natives necessarily suffered a misfortune: people became crippled, being injured literally from scratch, or even died altogether, being poisoned by fish, which they had eaten many times before; got blood poisoning from a minor cut or, being excellent swimmers, drowned in the waters of a completely calm lake.
Over time, the inhabitants of the village began to feel that their island was inhabited by terrible monsters, not similar to any known animal and ready to devour them at any second. Monsters appeared right in front of a person at the most unexpected moment, and here everything was decided by how fast the native runs. However, several small children disappeared literally in front of their mothers, and it was not possible to find them.
Life in the once prosperous village was becoming unbearable, besides, its inhabitants found themselves in a kind of isolation: relatives from the coast, having heard about the strange events on the island, did not rush to visit them. And then - as in the already mentioned legends: the inhabitants of the coast sailed to the island and saw that the village was empty. However, nothing indicated signs of a struggle or an urgent departure of the inhabitants: bows and arrows were neatly stacked in the corner of each hut, clothes and dishes were also intact.
This story was recorded in the papers of the German traveler Thomas Fischer, who visited Kenya in the 30s. XVII century
There is in local legends a mention of a mysterious fire spewing from a certain steep pipe on the island, covered with a “flapping lid”, and corridors leading deep into the bowels of the earth … There, according to legend, the giant Wat Usumu Tong Duurai lives there. …
And also, according to the stories of the Elmolo tribe, from time to time, right at the island, a city rises from the fog. It glows with different colors, like a rainbow of the night falling to the ground. Walls and towers rise above the night lake, amazing and multicolored, as if a handful of jewels thrown from the starry sky to the earth.
However, it is clearly seen that many amazing towers have been destroyed, and only ruins have remained from some of the palaces. It also seemed that some strange pulsating sound was coming from the city - some funeral song rushing over the lake. The sound was sometimes soft and gentle, then it became furious and caused mental confusion.
After such visions, members of the tribe for a long time felt muscle pain, severe headache, aversion to food and a sharp decrease in vision. Pregnant women gave birth to either dead children or ugly babies who soon died, and their bodies, despite the tropical climate, were mummified in a matter of hours. All these "miracles" for decades did not allow Elmolo to live in peace, and they were forced to move from the shores of the lake closer to the forest belt.
At the end of the twentieth century, having heard about the "cursed island", two private expeditions went there (from Holland and Germany), but both of them disappeared, leaving no traces behind.
Nobody knows why it happens the way it happens. Scientists, researchers of anomalous phenomena, and simply not indifferent people come up with a variety of explanations. Various ethnic groups inhabiting Kenya have their own versions.
So, samburu say that after death, the souls of distinguished sorcerers, elders and hunters turn into snakes and settle on this island. Therefore, it should not be visited so as not to disturb them. Otherwise, inevitable punishment awaits the disobedient. Previously, the samburu changed their fattest cows to rent rafts from Elmolo and take milk to Envaitenet to appease the spirits living in cobras.
People from the Turkana tribe, who graze their livestock on the high plateaus, believe that this island is the petrified body of the great Neiytergib, the goddess of the earth, pastures and fertility. According to Turkan, this goddess is not devoid of human feelings, and therefore takes all men and adolescents for herself. “And their wives and sisters go after them to the goddess, underground,” assure the Turkana.
The Elmolo fatalists believe that the disappearance of their brethren is just one of the manifestations of an evil fate that has persecuted the tribe for centuries. (The Elmolo tribe was on the verge of extinction, and only in recent years the tribe's population reached one hundred people.)
On the other hand, Father Palette, the rector of the local Catholic mission, was looking for a clue to the events on the island in completely mundane - but no less fantastic - reasons. The two Englishmen, in his opinion, were drowned by the fierce wind of the Syrota-Sabuk, when they, having eaten all their food, went by boat to the Fusha camp, and the inhabitants of the village on the island were destroyed by a landing from a submarine, who knows where and why appeared on Lake Rudolph during Italo-Ethiopian War. It's time to recall the joke about a submarine in the steppes of Ukraine …
Geologists of the English Royal Geographical Society expressed the opinion that volcanic gases are periodically released from the bowels of the island, which cause hallucinations in people. They make them throw themselves into the water, and there are crocodiles teeming with and there is no chance of survival.
These gases (or some vapors) can also affect the course of pregnancy, which ultimately leads to the birth of dead babies and children with deformities, and the fish can become poisonous.
There are many versions, but which one is true, no one can say for sure. But everyone agrees on one thing: you shouldn't visit the island. Even tourists, fans of exotic tourism in Africa, there is nothing to lure. Although some daredevils still get there - to take a couple of photos. Sergey Kulik's wonderful book "Kenyan Safaris" about Envaitenet contains a whole chapter and several expressive photographs.
Scientists agree that the situation with Envaitenet is actually very serious and the island is considered one of the most inexplicable anomalous zones on Earth. By the way, one of the unexplained oddities is its constantly changing area.
However, no matter what scientists think, there is no clue yet. We spend billions on space flights when our Earth is still full of mysteries …
O. BULANOVA
