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.

Przeczytaj dalej

Lake Brosno and Its Dragon

A small but unusually deep lake in Tver Oblast — over forty metres, which is anomalous here. A tradition recorded in the chronicles has a dragon from the lake swallowing a detachment of Batu Khan's army on its way to Novgorod, after which the khan turned back. Fishermen describe a surfacing "head" and splashes that raise a wave on still water. Science offers something plainer: the lake carries hydrogen sulphide, and gas releases from the bottom periodically dome the surface.