A Small Note on an Puzzlingly-Ignored Mystery

FAFROTSKI ..... Ivan Sanderson's word for Things Which Fall From The Skies.

Most of you have seen the recent report by a biology teacher in Norway who was on a skiing trip with friends near Bergen. The group came across large numbers of worms {as pictured above} lying moribund but alive on the surface of the snow, which was in many places up to a meter deep. There was no sign of any penetration of the snow [i.e. tunneling upwards], and such behavior makes no survival sense at all anyway. The worms were just lying there as if dropped down in large numbers from above.

While no one in the teacher's party saw these worms in the act of falling, there was no explanation, given the quantities scattered about, of anything else which would explain their presence.

I've collected a thick notebook full of such strange {apparent} falls over the years, and Ivan collected hundreds of the incidents. Wormfalls are not as common as many other categories, but they are not absent in the literature either --- "famous" ones occurred in 1927 in Sydney NSW and in Sweden in 1924 and 1945 --- the latter one is pretty spectacular, being seen falling over an ellipse 100x300 meters in size, and some sploshing down into a family's cream cake. The worms were described as "deep frozen, transparent, and reddish in color." Neither the local crows nor chickens would eat them. {My guess here is that, being frozen, the worms didn't have the requisite odor that signaled dinner}.

The evidence therefore would point towards the fact that worms [and other things] DO fall from the sky. What continues to stun me however is the talk which tends to follow in the media when such things are acknowledged. There is always some denial skepticism, which usually makes no sense given the quality of the observations, and then some expert comes in and is quoted about "whirlwinds and waterspouts" picking up objects in one place and dumping them in another --- as if that could end the story. But it doesn't even come close.

Let us give the mini-tornado theory a temporary OK. Alright then, what are the "experts" saying? IF THEY FOLLOWED THEIR OWN LINE OF REASONING, then they must believe that these winds have the ability to pick up JUST ONE KIND OF OBJECT, leaving everything else on the ground [or in the water]. Boy, are those whirlwinds smart.

If they don't think that whirlwinds are that smart, they they must engage in further theoretical dances : Oh, only those particular things were at the site of the pick-up; nothing else at all, and large quantities of the things picked up. Hmmmm.... I find that idea EXTREMELY unreasonable. Oh well then, how about this?: The whirlwinds picked up all different sorts of stuff, but in transit dropped out everything but just this one kind of thing --- sort of like a fabulously efficient air centrifuge. So everything heavier was dumped AND everything lighter. And this despite that all manner of other things are JUST the density of the worms, or extremely near to it. And I find THAT just as unreasonable.

The mystery of the phenomenon of the Fafrotski is not that things fall, but that things are SORTED out during whatever the process is. Either something has sorted them while still "on the ground", or they have been somehow sorted in the air.

What about Norway's worms? I can't buy the air centrifuge theory [is there even one stated in the literature?]. It is a bit like the solid waste "air classification" blower system for separating mixed recyclables, but impossibly better refined. So how else might the Norwegian worms have been separated? Worms might "gather" I suppose, but how good are the chances with a natural process that nothing else of similar size [and lift-ability] was in the same place as the pickup?

But the great SORTER-OUTERS of the universe are intelligences. Whoops! Probably shouldn't go there. And maybe that's why the experts don't continue their line-of-reasoning either.

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That's my BS for the day folks. I'll get back here with another Down-in-the-Cryptodumps entry [about ABSMs] soon,     Peace

Rinchen Y-Byambyn and the Central Asian Wildmen

{ first a preliminary note on workload here: I am immersed in the long task of scanning my UFO files with the intention of making them available broadly someday. This task is long and the "after-task" work with the UFOs and Government book group will be longer, so don't look for them on the internet anytime soon. The relevance here is that this absorbs lots of time away from the blog --- I'll do what I can.}

Now to the matter of today: You know from the last two posts that I, after luckily stumbling upon a rare Russian ABSM reference, have been trying to give some of the content for you. After attempting a data summary of sorts from monograph #2, I cracked open monograph 3 and read something that I thought interesting, and maybe new to some of you. This was an english translation of two items about Central Asian ABSM possibilities by the legendary Mongolian scholar "B. Rinchen." After saying a few words about Rinchen himself, I believe that it will be appropriate to just re-type his whole writing here. Normally I wouldn't do that, but this seems like a primary resource which maybe no one who reads this blog has seen, and few people anywhere. 

This quick thumbnail biography is to indicate why the Soviet Snowman Committee would lead off its "data collection" monographs with information gained from him.

Rinchen was born in 1905 on the borders of Mongolia and Russia to what we'd call middle class parents [his father was a language translator and a public educator.] He "automatically" became proficient in Mongolian, Russian, and Manchu. By the time of the first congress of the Mongolian People's Party in 1921, Rinchen was working there as an interpreter. In 1924 he went to Leningrad to study along with several other Mongolian boys. He, in 1927, graduated [the first Mongolian to do so, I believe] with the degree of "Orientalist", an expert in Eastern Languages and History.

Once graduating, he applied himself to his interests in all-things-Mongolian [literature, ethnography, religion, folklore, and even palaeontology and prehistory.] He became a fiction writer "on the side" and, somewhen between the thirties and forties wrote poetry and novels, one of which is considered essential reading for Mongolian school children in recent times. This book, ZAAN ZALUUDAI, depicts Rinchen's idea of living in the Mongolian prehistoric past. Perhaps I am wrong here, but I see a strain of unity in his interests in how the Mongolian people came to be and his interests in the Mongolian wildman.

In the early 1950s Rinchen studied for and received his doctorate in linguistics --- I believe that I am on stronger ground to suggest that this WAS the first PhD by a Mongolian scholar from a western university. A decade earlier, in 1942, the first Mongolian Russian-language newspaper was published. Its editor: Byambyn Rinchen. [a small point but one creating some confusion now and then: Mongolian is an ethnic group which states the patrilineal name first and the given name second, like we would if we went about calling people "Sanderson Ivan-T" or "Mao Tse-tung". The Russians therefore refer to him, wrongly, just as I have, while his formal name is Rinchen Byambyn --- helps a little when googling. His famous fossil-discovering son is, for instance, Rinchen Barsbold.]

In the intervening years between first graduation [1927] and his PhD [1956], Rinchen pursued many things in his interest to find out everything about his culture and his land. One of these were stories about the Central Asian wildmen. Because he was so highly respected as an all-everything Mongolian scholar, when the Soviet Snowman Committee formed in 1958, they went right to Rinchen for information.

So, here goes with the Committee's "findings" directly from him. He suggested an article that he had just written [1958] on the subject, and followed with a supplementary letter in 1959. The article, the far longer piece, goes as follows:

Title: "Almass, Mongolian Relatives of the Snow Man"

" From time immemorial the Mongolians were aware of wild horses and camels. They also knew of the existence of the wild man whose habitat coincided with areas inhabited by wild horses and camels. The travelers during the Middle Ages who who visited Mongolia mentioned in their accounts that the Mongolians knew of the existence of the wild man who lived on the fringes of the Gobi desert, but somehow this information escaped the attention of scientists.

In Mongolian there is a special terminology for all the wild beasts of the region. The wild horse was known as "takhi", the European scholars knew it under the name of Prjewalski's horse; the wild camel was "khaptagai", and the wild man as "almass". Many toponymical names in these regions where once upon a time lived this (unknown to science, but well known to Mongolians) wild man, bear names which tie in with the Mongolian definitions, like "almasin ulaan khad", red rock of almass.

The late professor B. Baradin was the only scientist who was fortunate enough to meet an 'almass' during his travels .... {at this point either the Committee or the translator decided to omit this story, saying that it had already been covered by Porshnev in an article in Contemporary East} ... booo....

According to the data collected by the late Professor Jamtzarano from 1890 to 1925, the area of the habitat of the wild man became much smaller in size and roughly coincided with the area inhabited by wild horses and camels in the South-Eastern Mongolia.

Brief information on the materials collected by Professor Jamtzarano was published recently in the bulletin prepared by a committee charged with the responsibility of studying the 'snow man'. In the same bulletin was also a brief compilation of the data I was able to get together in 1927. "

{ I wonder if Rinchen collected this wild man data as part of his graduating degree the same year? Seems too much of a coincidence.}

... at this point the committee or the translator shifts into a third party mode for some reason... but I'll still quote it.

" Dr. Rinchen goes on to tell how he met three different witnesses who claimed that they had seen dead  and live 'almass'.

One was an elementary school teacher in Gobi-Altai who saw in 1929 or 1930 a dead almass girl who was killed inadvertently by a hunter. He also saw a live male almass.

The second witness was a member of the border patrol who saw three almass and mistook them for refugees from beyond the border.

The third witness is a man who is at the present time working in a pharmacy in Ulan Bator. This man describes how together with three hunting companions, in the mountains of Burkhutoo, in the upper basin of the Deelum-Gol river, they came upon footprints of naked feet in the soft snow. Following these footprints they came within 100 meters of a tall powerfully built man with a shock of gray hair, whose body was covered with dark short hair. His wide shoulders, muscular body, and height [not less than two meters] astonished the hunters. The natives reacted to this apparition differently -- 'Albast -- the spirit of the mountains!' -- they exclaimed.

For the witnesses -- Nagmit and Joltaiev -- this encounter with the albast [as the kasakhs call the Mongolian almass] was a most interesting experience. They hailed him and he stopped, looking at the people with interest. They offered him food and clothing. Noticing that he did not understand them, they folded the clothing and foodstuffs and walked away. It became apparent that the almass had no desire to come over. Then they made a move toward him. The almass moved away, keeping his distance and not allowing the people to come nearer to him. When they stopped, he stopped; when they moved, he moved away. Nagmit and Joltaiev fired a few shots at him from a small caliber gun, but were not able to hit him. {thank the Lord --- we are a real bunch of jerks}. At this point the local hunters protested the shooting and they had to stop."

... at this point the translator seems to shift back to Rinchen's own words [though much of the previous could well be quoting too...]

" One is able to meet at the present time many old men living around Gobi who claim that they saw footprints of almass on wild paths, and also their silhouettes at early dawn. They all agree that at the present time, the almass is seen less and less.

Old female almass are called by the people of Gobi 'zageen-emgen' - { here the translator admits defeat on the phrase --- the feeling is for the term to indicate a very old female creature who lives among rocky places }. According to the description, the almass are slightly stooped in posture, have bent knees, and arms longer than humans. They have long hair on the head, and their bodies are covered with short darkish hair. The females have long hanging breasts. The almass are not familiar with fire or firearms.

In the northern part of Mongolia, the name almass is almost unknown, as well as the names of the wild horses and camels. In the central part one may sometimes hear tales which were derived from lama folklore about almass being demonic creatures.

In the southern regions of Gobi, even though they have no wild horses, or camels, or almass, one may hear tales about chance meetings with them. In other regions, however, where all three species lived at the turn of the century, the stories are of a more concrete character. The rare instances where the almass was seen in 1930-1938 supports the idea that the creature is close to extinction now, and that a close relative of the Himalayan 'snow man' actually did live in the south-east of Mongolia during the early decades of this century, and is perhaps still existing in the far and remote regions seldom visited by people.

At any rate, these chance encounters with the almass in Mongolia support the thought that this close relative of the snow man inhabited Gobi and the mountains around it, and probably survived to the present time.

Accumulation of material in the places and regions of the ever-narrowing area of almass habitat will help in the study and clarification of this question. The tales about the hairy almass and the saxatile grand mother are so realistic, and the description of the few eyewitnesses are so vivid, that it is impossible to deny the existence of this distant relative of ours, who fell behind in his development, and at the present time is at the last stage of his existence. Like the wild horse 'takhi', and the wild camel 'khaptagai', the 'almass' is retreating before encroachment of the man who is gradually taking over large portions of the vast Gobi desert. "

Rinchen, writing in Contemporary Mongolia 1958.

I find that there is no way to read this without feeling, concurrently, optimistic that almass recently existed, and sad.

And now to his letter to the committee:

"I was so crowded with work that it was impossible for me to leave Ulan-Bator, nevertheless I have much interesting information.

A worker at the local fruit experimental station by name of Chimidorji, who was born in the south Gobi district, gave a student of mine, Badra, some interesting data about things which took place 20 or 25 years ago.

A monk by the name of Dambaiorin, a resident of south Gobi, was traveling by camel to Sudgin Gobi, and saw a naked child. Thinking that the child may have been lost, he came nearer and noticed that the child was covered all over with red hair. The monk realized that he was seeing a little almass, and in panic turned and ran for his life, because Mongolian monks consider the almass a supernatural creature.

About the same year and in about the same region of East Gobi, a local woman met, not too far from an ancient stone burial place, a naked almass child. She likewise turned and ran.

Also the same year, a man who was driving a herd of horses through the Nomogan pass was set upon by an adult female almass, but was able to get the best of her.

Another local woman who was tending sheep in about the same region, saw a little almass approaching her sheep and ran away abandoning her flock. The next day a neighbor of hers whose turn it was to tend sheep also saw apparently the same little almass.

In the eastern Gobi near the pass of the High Blue Mountains -- Undur Khukhu -- a local farmer was attacked by a male almass, but managed to gallop away, leaving behind one of his boots. A similar attack took place to the northeast in the Sumburin Pass.

According to Chimidorji, in all the above mentioned regions there is an abundance of information about numerous meetings between local residents and the almass. One may also find some residents who saw the almass, or were attacked by him.

According to Chimidorji, local trackers could find, in the regions once inhabited by the almass, their remains. How true it is, I don't know, but there is no doubt that the local farmers remember the almass who inhabited their region at the turn of the century.

I was told that the father and grandfather of one of the workers of the local base, in the general store, met with the almass in the Gobi regions.

Dorgisirun, an archaeologist of the historical institute told me recently, that in the late thirties of this century at his birthplace in northeast Mongolia, once in early spring, a naked hairy man wandered in and was driven away by the dogs. The women of the settlement decided that he was a cannibal. The farmers who attempted to pursue him followed his footprints and noticed that he stopped from time to time on elevated places. But they were unable to catch up with him. The footprints showed that this creature had widely spread toes. The spring of that year was a 'hungry' one and, because of lack of food, there appeared around the settlements many wild animals from Gobi not previously seen in those parts."

Ulan-Bator, March 8, 1959.

So... those were the direct inputs to the Snow Man Committee by the great man. Rinchen obviously believed the Almass to be real and his hypothesis was that it was a distant relative of humans dying out. He buttressed his views intelligently by integrating what he knew about palaeontology and biology and linguistics --- his Almass were a species which had grown in an ecology also containing the wild horse and camel, and he saw those connections as tight and beyond coincidence.

Generally, I've grown to like Rinchen --- a true in-the-heart Fortean, following a mystery in everything he did. Was he "right" about Almass being a different species rather than a dying micro-culture?

... hmmmm.... who knows ... there are some pretty impressive Mongolians.

Till next time ... maybe not for a while with this scanning project going, but I'll try.

Peace, folks.