Acoustic contacts with the invisible were at different times recorded by folklorists and ethnographers throughout Russia.
In the thirties of the XX century, the ethnographer M. Shatilov, for example, was personally present at the shaman's ritual, that is, at the act of invoking spirits. The rituals took place late in the evening. And as soon as it began, someone invisible, says Shatilov, “fell from the roof onto a birch bark spread in the middle of the yurt; at the same time someone flew by … Some intriguing rustling began in the yurt."
Another ethnographer, V. Basilov, in the book "Chosen of Spirits" cites the testimony of his colleague, the ethnographer Prokofiev. He, too, once observed a shaman's ritual in a dark yurt. At the same time, the shaman lay on the ground bound hand and foot, loudly calling out to the spirits. Soon strange rustles and steps were heard in the yurt.
“The sounds of footsteps do not have time to freeze,” the ethnographer recalls, “as a swarm of fractional sounds rushes in like a hail. As if many small horny hooves clatter on the floor and on an iron bowl … The whistle of cut air, rustling, some screams … In the air you can feel the wind from the flapping of the wings.
Rustles and nobody knows whose steps, other strange sounds emitted by somebody unknown … They can be heard not only in shamans' yurts.
In 1919, a detachment of red partisans joined the horse ranks in a village on the banks of the Far Eastern Amur River. Dismounting and looking around, the partisans decided to settle down for the night in a large wooden house. The house was new, recently built, but for some reason no one lived in it.
No sooner had the people settled in that house than the frightened owner of the house who lived next to him, mind you, in a shack, ran to them. And he began to dissuade the red partisans:
- Oh guys! I would have allowed you to spend the night in my house, but the trouble is - it "seems" in it. You can't sleep in this house! In general, you can't live in it.
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The partisans were gallant guys. They walked through fire, water and copper pipes along the roads of the civil war. In a word, they didn’t give a damn about the fact that, you see, “it seemed” in the house. Nice house, spacious. What they need to spend the night.
As soon as the partisans went to bed, in the house, in the pitch darkness of the night, “the music began to play, the dance rose. Tap dance is knocked out! The noise began such that the partisans - every one of them - woke up, listened and did not understand anything. And the invisible musicians know they are playing. And the invisible dancers are still tap-dancing and beating … In complete bewilderment, the partisans lit the oil-lamp.
And in the blink of an eye there was silence in the house. The men looked around, but they found no one but themselves in the house. As soon as they put out the lamp, the same parsley began again. Music, dancing. Yes, such a loud music and such strong dances that the whole house was shaking.
People again quickly lit the fire, and, the witness notes, “while the light is on - nothing, everything around is calm, no one is there. But as soon as we extinguish the light, we lie down - again the same thing! And until the morning, none of us could sleep a wink. They didn't give us."
Well, the partisans did not get enough sleep - this is not so bad. After all, they were all guys with nerves hardened on the fronts of the Civil War. In addition, they got into a situation of contact with evil spirits by a large and friendly company. The feeling of comradely shoulder, the feeling of elbowing … I think the reader himself knows how it helps when you get into trouble.
But all the time it happens that there is no shoulder at hand, on which you could rely in a critical situation. More often than not, evil spirits, if you believe bylichs, make contact not with a group of people, but with a single person.
Avdotya Moshnikova told the folklorist Balashov how she was once "frightened" personally. It was during Moshnikova's youth, in the mid-twenties. Avdotya once went to spend the night in the attic. She lay down on the trestle bed, covered herself with a blanket and fell asleep.
“And suddenly,” she says, “the blanket pulled at me and dropped it on the floor. I think: Gregory, my brother, is spoiling. I examined everything around me, striking matches - there was no one anywhere. Well, I think the blanket fell off in a dream. She went to bed. Again, the blanket pulled. And again I was looking - there was nobody. I see I'm wrong. I got hot. And suddenly the blanket pulled out again.
A desperate woman, Avdotya grabbed the coverlet with her hands and teeth. For a while there was a stubborn silent struggle in the attic. Each pulled the cape to his side. Invisible - slightly upward, into the echoing attic darkness, and Moshnikova, growling through gritted teeth, - downward, trying to crush the impudently snatched thing under him. Ultimately, the woman is tired of fighting with no one knows whom. And she said with feeling a phrase that I find amazing.
Moshnikova said:
- Frighten, do not frighten, I will not go anywhere!
And the invisible man, apparently, realized that it was really useless to frighten Avdotya. He let go of the covers and disappeared.
“After that, I never slept in the attic,” Moshnikova told Balashov.
And she added: a few days after the described incident, one of her brothers, a self-taught accordion player Stepan, climbed into that very attic late in the evening. He climbed up there with an accordion under his arm. He settled down in front of the dormer window and began to play the accordion.
- So on him, - recalled Avdotya, - a whole box of old newspapers turned out.
In other words, a box with old newspapers, which stood in the attic, flew into the air by itself and, soaring over Stepan, turned upside down strictly above his head.
