Kyshtym

The Kyshtym dwarf, Alyoshenka

In May 1996 Tamara Prosvirina, a resident of the village of Kaolinovy near Kyshtym in the Urals, brought home a creature about twenty-five centimetres long with an elongated skull and large eyes. She called it Alyoshenka, fed it, and told neighbours a son had come to live with her. She was taken to a psychiatric hospital; the body was filmed and photographed in the meantime, and that autumn it vanished without trace. What makes the case unusual is the sheer volume of material: video, photographs, dozens of interviews. Later genetic work points to human remains — most likely a premature infant with severe developmental defects.