The stories of the white caver are especially common in places where there are natural caves or abandoned underground corridors of artificial origin, such as salt mines.
Researchers of various kinds of dungeons often like to talk about the white caver. It is believed that this ghost maintains order and acts very harshly with those who do not adhere to the unspoken laws adopted among cavers.
It is believed that there is a very high probability of seeing a white speleologist in the Sablinsky quarries, well-known to Petersburgers, located several tens of kilometers from the Northern capital.
A rather curious story related to the appearance of a white speleologist in these places was told by Yuri Lyakhnitsky, who spent many years exploring caves and dungeons. Here is his short story: “Once a certain extreme lover decided to wander through the caves alone. And since it happened in winter, all the entrances to the underground labyrinths were covered with ice. The unlucky speleologist slipped and rushed at great speed into the depths of the cave. At the very bottom, he hit his head on a stone wall, broke his cervical vertebra and died instantly. Someone unknown buried him in the gallery of the cave called "Pants" and fixed a cross on the grave mound. And nevertheless, since that time, the ghost of the white caver has been wandering through all the caves."
But the mysterious ghost of caves not only hovers carelessly in the underground labyrinths, but sometimes does really evil deeds. Here, for example, what he arranged for a 16-year-old boy who decided to single-handedly make an excursion to the Sablinsky stone galleries. For this purpose, he chose the Pants cave, that is, exactly the one where the white speleologist is buried.
What happened underground is unknown. But the frivolous boy was barely alive from fear almost at the very end of the ten-kilometer labyrinth. He could not say anything intelligible, but only kept repeating about some strange cloud, similar to the figure of a man, which followed him until he lost consciousness. They say that after this incident the inscription appeared over the grave of the white caver: "Vengeance awaits everyone!" …
There is also information about the existence of a speleologist's ghost in the New Athos cave, which is located in Abkhazia.
So, once a group of Moscow cavers, after many kilometers of crossings, decided to rest in the Landfall Hall of the cave. It should be noted that earlier most cavers adhered to an unspoken rule, according to which it was forbidden to take out of the dungeons as a souvenir drips, crystals, cave pearls and other curious rarities. The only exceptions were samples that were later used as objects for geological research.
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But one of the expedition members, let's call him Sergei, who first found himself in such an amazing and mysterious world, had a desire to get hold of some cave wonder in memory of his trip.
Already in the tent, he told his comrades that he had found several amazingly beautiful corallites - special formations that outwardly very similar to sea corals. They were so gorgeous that he didn't even realize how they ended up in his jacket pocket. Everyone wanted to sleep, so they did not try to prove to Sergei that he had violated an unwritten law.
Suddenly, from the opposite side of the hall, about fifty meters from the tent, strange sounds were heard. The dream passed instantly. And incomprehensible sounds were approaching. Now everyone could clearly hear someone's confident step in them.
The bravest of the group pushed aside the tent curtain and sent a powerful flashlight beam into the darkness of the cave. However, he found nothing suspicious. The “steps” also froze at this time. But as soon as the lights went out, they broke the silence of the cave again.
“Most likely it's a white caver,” someone from the company said in a hoarse voice. "He doesn't like it when his property is stolen."
The footsteps died away outside the tent. An icy wave of fear swept over the group members. Several seconds passed. And suddenly a strange sound was heard again, but now it was already moving away from the speleologists' overnight stay.
And the next day, barely waking up, frightened by the night incident, Sergei took the corallites to the grotto, in which he broke them …
There is also a white caver in the Zhiguli mountains. He is kind by nature and often helps cave explorers in trouble. There are even several interesting stories on this score.
Here is just one of them.
A group of speleologists ascended from one rugged cave to the surface. Everyone had already left the dungeon, and only one member of the expedition could not get to the exit. And suddenly the man heard someone's voice: “Stand on my shoulder. Just don't give your neck back!"
And soon, thanks to the timely assistance provided, the caver was on the surface. And it was then that he noticed that the whole group was fully assembled. It turned out that he was the last to leave the cave. It means that someone unknown helped him. But who? The conclusion was unambiguous: a white caver.
Some eyewitnesses say that they met a white caver in a quarry near Moscow, called Syany. They saw how he appeared directly from the stone wall of the drift and extinguished or, on the contrary, lit the torches with which the cavers illuminated their path.
Many cavers claim that an underground ghost sometimes appears in the caves of Central Asia. Especially often it can be seen in the Chil-Ustun cave, or the Forty Columns, the main attraction of which is the petrified trees. It is believed that it often saves the lives of cavers.
Samarkand cavers were once convinced of this. One day, in the middle of the night, they were awakened by sounds similar to human footsteps approaching their temporary camp. The guys turned out to be not timid. They instantly jumped up and turned on powerful lights. But they saw no one, although footsteps were still audible. True, now they were removed. Then the cavers, obeying an incomprehensible internal stimulus, rushed in pursuit of either an animal, or a man, or a ghost.
It was at this moment that a collapse occurred at the entrance: stone fragments weighing hundreds of kilograms fell onto sleeping bags. There is no doubt that if the travelers had not woken up in time and ran out to the sound of strange footsteps, huge boulders would have destroyed them.
These are the stories. Here are just a few of them. Although cavers know them much more. Because almost every known cavern has its own white guardian.
Of course, all these stories could not appear from scratch. And even though there are many fictional ones among them, nevertheless there is some truth in these stories. This means that experts have a question: what do people still face in underground labyrinths?
According to the stories, cavers and adventure lovers meet in caves with the ghosts of people who died there. And there are a lot of hypotheses explaining the appearance of ghosts. And we have already talked about them.
But it is likely that cave ghosts are associated with specific, characteristic only for underground phenomena.
It should be noted that any cave has a very definite effect on the human psyche. Silent silence, almost absolute darkness, constant temperature and still air largely block any tactile sensations.
It is clear that after 1.5-2 hours of staying in such conditions, a variety of hallucinations may appear. Including the image of a man in white.
One of the hypotheses suggests that infrasound can also cause hallucinations, which, for example, appears in caves as a result of the movement of waters of underground rivers or minor movements of soil.
And some psychiatrists believe that the reason for the strange visions may be the special chemical properties of the cave air. After all, natural gas compounds that provoke the appearance of hallucinations in people have been known for a long time. Perhaps they are the ones that cause the unusual effects of consciousness.
It is possible that the appearance of ghosts is also provoked by electromagnetic oscillations, which lead to the appearance of light phenomena, or phantoms, which are easily mistaken for a white caver.
For example, V. Bondarenko, a geophysicist, candidate of technical sciences, wrote that he more than once in the caves of the Crimea and the Urals saw rapidly moving glowing columns and ropes. With a sufficiently developed imagination, frightened people could easily mistake them for the ghost of a white caver.
Bernatsky Anatoly