Lightning discharges, hitting the same place with enviable consistency, helped to discover the ruins of a temple of an unknown civilization.
This letter came to the Phenomenon commission from the town of Korosten, Zhytomyr region from N. Bolshakov, a regular subscriber of Trud. Here is what Nikolai Petrovich writes:
“Several years ago, I bought a small house in the village. The merchant of our area. The communication with the city is convenient, there is a small plot of land for a vegetable garden, and most importantly fishing and mushrooms. So I and my wife began to go to the village on weekends, near which the events took place, which I want to tell you about.
It all started when young guys dressed as tourists began to appear in Kupischi. We bought matches, smoke, alcohol in the store … Rumor has it that they are camped in the forest nearby and are digging holes in the ground. Maybe geologists? - I thought back then. But I met one of them on the shore of the pond, where he was fishing, and he said that they were excavating the graves of the dead soldiers in order to determine their names, that their group "Search" was registered by the regional committee for youth affairs …
I wanted to look at these excavations. After all, the "search engines" set up tents in a clearing, where you can't drag any of the locals on a lasso. This glade, called "Thunderstorm", is notorious. According to local folklore, a rich gentleman known for his cruelty once lived there. But one day a thunderstorm killed the gentleman and burned down his estate. Since then, lightning strikes at Thunderstorm during every thunderstorm that passes over the village. And also, people say, sometimes a strange glow appears in the clearing and a ray rises into the sky, as if a searchlight is turned on somewhere underground …
One evening a familiar search engine came in and said that they had found old coins and they needed to determine what metal they were from. He had about two dozen with him. I rubbed them with gasoline and it turned out that they were copper. The coins were very old - the inscription of several letters, illegible, I have never seen such. The guy gave me (for a liter of vodka) five pieces. They are not interested in copper, he explained, only gold and silver. I understood - for sale …"
Soon, as N. Bolshakov says, the search engines again showed up in the village in their Zhiguli. Their dead comrade lay in the car. They told the village council that during the last thunderstorm he was killed by lightning. Nikolai Petrovich, a doctor by profession, came to inspect the corpse - indeed, death occurred due to an electric discharge. The police conducted an inquiry, after which these guys left and did not appear in the village again.
But the accident at Gromovishche had already interested Bolshakov. Especially strange, as he himself admits, everything looked exactly in the light of local superstitions. He began to visit the clearing and was convinced that it was a really strange place. “First,” writes Bolshakov, “I noticed that mushrooms, which are numerous in the vicinity, do not grow there at all. Secondly, a strange effect was invariably felt - as soon as you step into the clearing, your mood drops sharply, your heart rate increases, your blood pressure rises …"
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So, judging by the description of our reader, the clearing, nicknamed "Thundering", is a pronounced "abnormal place". There is also a geophysical impact, which affects both vegetation (the absence of fungi) and the well-being of people. Fits into the classic picture and "behavior" of lightning.
From the archive of the Phenomenon commission:
“Nest of lightning” - people call the place where thunderstorms strike with enviable constancy. In ancient times, such zones were endowed in the minds of people with magical properties. They were fenced off with huge boulders, creating structures like the famous Stonehenge / Great Britain /. And it is no coincidence that the word "megalith" means "thunder stone".
African sorcerers, who are famous for their ability to control heavenly discharges, use such places for their rituals to this day. They draw a circle on the ground and sometimes perform a rhythmic dance for several hours in a row until lightning strikes the chosen place. The hitting accuracy is amazing, because the diameter of the circle hardly exceeds two or three meters …
Scientists explain the mystery of "lightning nests" by the reduced electrical resistance of such places. This is possible when there is a hidden water source in the ground, or deposits of metal … And the legends about the robbers of the Scythian burial mounds, who during a thunderstorm chose a hill, where more often lightning struck and dug a passage in the ground along a burnt canal, become understandable … them for gold. Here is the Muscovite D. Ananiev, who sent a letter to the Phenomenon commission, says that at his dacha lightning struck the same place several times. Digging there, he found a shell case filled with silver royal coins …
However, let's return to the story of Nikolai Petrovich Bolshakov. And so and so he examined the strange coins found in the clearing, but he could not figure out their origin. Then he took them to Kiev, where, as he knew, every week numismatists gather in the Darnytskyi Palace of Culture. Local experts, seeing the find, clattered their tongues with delight. They explained that this is the greatest rarity, Roman coins and money of the Bosporus state, which was once located on the territory of Crimea. When they learned that they had been found in Polesie, they were even more surprised.
Then Bolshakov decided to turn to the Korosten Museum of Local Lore - where did Roman coins come from on "Gromovishche"? Is there anything else in the ground? Although the search engines dug up the clearing with large holes, but not all - there was not enough time.
“The museum is interested in my story,” writes Nikolai Petrovich. - And soon archaeologists from the regional center came to the village. The results of their work were completely unexpected. Scientists have unearthed the remains of some ancient structure made of monolithic stone blocks measuring 6 meters by 8 meters each. A bronze statue of some idol was also found there, which was loaded by crane onto a KamAZ truck and taken away. Found more coins like mine and many other little things. And also underground stone slabs were found with inscriptions, as archaeologists told me, made in an unknown language.
Everything testifies to the fact, archaeologists said, that once upon a time in this territory (long before the appearance of Kievan Rus) there was another highly developed civilization. Scientists have said that Thunderstorm in ancient times was a place of prayer, and the ruins discovered were an ancient temple. And it is no coincidence that it was located in the place where abnormal natural phenomena occur, on the earth, which attracts lightning discharges. It was such places that were chosen by the ancients for religious rituals.
Now, as N. Bolshakov testifies, archaeological work at Gromovishche has been suspended. The abnormal clearing is surrounded by a wire, on which signs are rusting that this object is a historical monument and access to it is limited.
“Thunderstorms are an ordinary thing in our area,” says I. Stanovoy from the village of Sokhachi, Koropsky district, Chernihiv region. As if something attracts lightning here. Now they hit the chimney, then they set fire to the shed, then they smash the tree into chips. I happened to see ball lightning several times. Once a luminous ball swam very close to me - it seemed to stretch out your hand and reach it … It moved easily and smoothly, but suddenly stopped and hit the ground with a heavy weight. There was a deep hole with scorched edges, about fifteen centimeters in diameter. We tried to reach the bottom, but the six-meter pole was not enough … Then I noticed that lightning very often choose this place.
A resident of Voronezh G. Serov wrote to us about the same melted "hole" in the ground:
"Lightning strikes there during every thunderstorm. Why? Maybe the old people say that this underground source is looking for a way out? In Russia, according to legend, from time immemorial, wells were dug in such places. Should I believe this?.."