Monsters of the world. Mysterious places on the planet where monsters live. The most terrible monsters from lakes (11 photos) Underground monsters

We often hear that now more and more more types animals are becoming extinct or on the verge of extinction, and their complete disappearance is only a matter of time. Hunting, destruction natural environments habitats, climate change and other factors have led to a 1000-fold increase in the rate of loss of animal species more speed restoration of the natural background. And although the extinction of animals is always sad, sometimes for us humans, it can even be beneficial.

From 12-metre-long megasnakes to giraffe-sized flying creatures, check out this list of 25 animals you wouldn't want to see next to.

1. Pelagornis Sanders i

With a wingspan of about 7 meters, Pelargonis sandersi was apparently the largest flying bird to ever exist on Earth. She seemed to be able to fly only by pushing off a cliff, and spent most of her life above the ocean, relying on the winds rising off the ocean to keep her afloat. Although compared to pterosaurs, whose wingspan was almost 12 meters, this bird was still quite “moderate” in size.

2. Euphoberia

Similar to modern centipedes in form and behavior, Euphoberia did have one significant difference- it was more than 90 cm in length! Although scientists aren't entirely sure what exactly it ate, we do know that some modern centipedes feed on birds, snakes and bats. If a 25-centimeter centipede could hunt birds, imagine what a nearly meter-long one could hunt!

3. Gigantopithecus

Gigantopithecus lived between 9 million and 100,000 years ago in modern Asia. It was the largest species of monkey on Earth. It is believed that this creature, up to 3 meters tall and weighing up to 540 kg, walked on four legs, like gorillas and chimpanzees, but some believe that it could walk on two limbs, like humans. The properties of their teeth and jaws suggest that these animals were able to chew coarse, fibrous food by cutting into it and grinding it.

4. Andrewsarchus

This cutie lived during the Eocene era, about 45-30 million years ago. Andrewsarchus was a huge carnivorous mammal. Given the skull and several bones found, paleontologists suggest that this predator could weigh up to 1800 kg, making it the largest land mammals predator in history. However, the feeding behavior of this animal is not entirely understood, and some theories suggest that Andrewsarchus may have been omnivores or even scavengers.

5. Pulmonoscorpius

The scientific name of this creature translates to “breathing scorpion.” He lived during the Visean era (c. 345-330 million years ago) of the Carboniferous period. Relying on fossils found in Scotland, scientists believe that this species reached 76 cm in length. It lived on land and probably fed on small arthropods.

6. Megalania

Megalania lived in South Australia. It was a huge lizard that went extinct about 30,000 years ago, which means it may well have been encountered by the first Aborigines of Australia. Scientists disagree on the size of this lizard - it may have reached 7 meters in length, making Megalania the largest land lizard in history.

7. Helicoprion

One of the prehistoric centenarians (310-250 million years ago) - Helicoprion - is a genus of extinct shark-like creatures with an interesting jaw. Reached 4 m in length, but its closest living relatives - the chimaeras - can reach only 1.5 m in length.

8. Entelodons

Unlike their modern relatives, Entelodons were boar-like mammals with a special gourmet taste for meat. Probably one of the most fearsome-looking creatures in history, entelodons walked on four legs and were almost as tall as a man. Some scientists believe that entelodons were even cannibals. Well, if they ate each other, do you think they wouldn't want to eat a human?

9. Anomalocaris

Probably lived in all seas of the Cambrian period. Translated, its name means “abnormal shrimp.” This is a genus of marine animals, close relatives of arthropods. Scientists believe that it hunted solids sea ​​creatures, including trilobites. They had unique eyes with 30,000 lenses - it is believed that these were one of the most “advanced” eyes in the history of the species.

10. Meganeura

Meganeura is a genus of extinct insects from the Carboniferous period. Resembles modern dragonflies (and is related to them). With a wingspan of up to 66 cm, it is one of the largest flying insects in the history of our planet. Meganeura was a predator, and its diet consisted mainly of other insects and small amphibians.

11. Attercopus

Attercopus was a genus of arachnid animal with a scorpion-like tail. For a long time Attercopus was considered the prehistoric ancestor of modern spiders, but scientists who discovered its traces soon came to a different opinion. It is unlikely that Attercopus spun webs, although it may have been used to wrap eggs, lay frame thread, or build the walls of its burrow.

12. Deinosuchus

Deinosuchus is an extinct relative of modern alligator crocodiles that lived 80-73 million years ago. Although he was larger than any of them modern species, he looked almost the same. It reached 12 meters in length and had sharp large teeth capable of killing and devouring sea turtles, fish and even large dinosaurs.

13. Dunkleosteus

Living at the end of the Devonian period about 380-360 million years ago, Dunkleosteus was a huge super-predatory fish. Due to its terrifying size (up to 10 m in length and weighing almost 4 tons), it was the apex predator of its time. This fish had strong armor, which made it a relatively slow but very powerful swimmer.

14. Spinosaurus

Larger than Tyrannosaurus Rex, Spinosaurus is the largest carnivorous dinosaur of all time. It reached 18 m in length and weighed up to 10 tons. They ate tons of fish, turtles, and even other dinosaurs. If this horror were alive today, we most likely would not be alive.

15. Smilodon

Smilodon lived in North and South America during the Pleistocene era (2.5 million - 10,000 years ago). This is the best example of a saber-toothed cat. An excellent predator with particularly well-developed forelimbs and incredibly long, sharp fangs. The largest individual could weigh up to 408 kg.

16. Quetzalcoatlus

The wingspan of these creatures could reach an incredible 12 meters. This pterosaur was the largest creature ever to fly, including modern birds. However, it is very difficult to estimate the size and weight of these huge animals, because... No existing animal has the same body plan, so published results vary widely. One of the characteristic features of these animals was that they all had unusually long and rigid necks.

17. Hallucigenia

The name comes from the idea that these creatures are very strange, almost like a hallucination. These worm-like creatures were 0.5-3 cm in length and lacked some sensory organs on their heads, such as eyes and nose. Instead, Hallucigenia had seven tentacles on each side of its body, as well as three pairs of tentacles behind them. Say what it is strange creature- consider it an understatement.

18. Arthropleura

Inhabitant of the Upper Carboniferous period (340-280 million years ago). Lived in the territory of modern North America and Scotland. It was the largest species of terrestrial invertebrate in history. Despite their enormous length, up to almost 2.7 meters, Arthropleura were not predators; they fed on rotting forest plants.

19. Short-faced bear

The short-faced bear is an extinct species of bear that lived in North America in the Pleistocene era up to 11,000 years ago, making it the "most recent" extinct creature on our list. However, its size is truly prehistoric. Standing on its two hind legs, the bear reached 3.6 m in height and 4.2 meters if it raised its front paw up. It is believed that these giants weighed more than 1360 kg.

20. Megalodon

The name of this toothy monster translates as “big tooth.” This is an extinct species huge shark, who lived about 28-1.5 million years ago. With an incredible length of up to 18 meters, it is considered one of the largest and most powerful predators to ever live on Earth. Lived almost all over the world and looked like a larger and more terrifying version of the modern great white shark.

21. Titanoboa

Living approximately 60-58 million years ago during the Paleocene era, Titanoboa was the largest, longest, and heaviest snake in history. Scientists believe that individual representatives of the species reached 12 meters in length and weighed about 1133 kg. Their diet consisted of giant crocodiles and turtles, with which they shared the territory of modern South America.

22. Fororacoaceae

Also called "terrible birds", these prehistoric creatures are an extinct genus of large birds of prey that were largest species in South America during the Cenozoic period, approximately 60 million years ago. The largest flightless predatory bird that ever roamed the Earth. They reached 3 meters in height, weighed up to half a ton and supposedly could run as fast as a cheetah.

23. Cameroceras

Lived during the Ordovician period 470-460 million years ago. This giant ancestor modern squids and octopuses. Most characteristic feature This mollusk had a huge cone-shaped shell and tentacles with which it caught fish and other sea creatures. It is believed that the size of its shell varied from 6 to 12 meters.

24. Carbonemys

Carbonemys is an extinct genus huge turtles, who lived about 60 million years ago, i.e. they survived the mass extinction of the dinosaurs. Fossils found in Colombia suggest they had a shell that reached almost 1.8 meters. The turtles were carnivores, with huge jaws powerful enough to eat large mammals, such as crocodiles.

25. Jaekelopterus

Jaekelopterus, without a doubt, can be called one of the largest arthropods in the world - its length reached 2.5 meters. It is sometimes called the "sea scorpion", but in fact it is more related to the lobsters that live in freshwater lakes and rivers of modern times. Western Europe. This terrible creature lived about 390 million years ago, earlier than most dinosaurs.

Sometimes it seems that modern man nothing can scare you anymore. We almost calmly watch even the most bloodthirsty horror films, read mystical novels, and computer games sometimes a variety of monsters of the world are involved, both real earthly and fictional. All this no longer surprises anyone. Even teenagers and small children treat all these creatures with slight irony and skepticism.

What will you answer to someone who claims that monsters and monstrosities are also found in our world today? Will you smile? Twist your finger at your temple? Will you start proving the opposite? Do not hurry. Why? The thing is that from time to time, unprecedented creatures still appear to people even now.

For example, after delving into your memory, you will probably remember that one of your loved ones, friends or just acquaintances once, under various circumstances, encountered a terrible monster or some inexplicable creature. Is it true?

What if this is not just a figment of an unhealthy imagination or the consequence of a sleepless night? Suddenly mythological ancient greek monsters actually existed and continue to live somewhere in our world? To tell the truth, such thoughts give even the bravest of us goosebumps and begin to listen to the surrounding rustles and sounds.

All this will be discussed in this article. However, in addition to the story about where monsters live, we will also touch on other, no less interesting, topics. For example, we will dwell in more detail on epics and beliefs, and also introduce readers to modern beliefs and hypotheses.

Section 1. Mythical monsters from fairy tales and legends

Every spiritual culture and religion has its own myths and parables, and, as a rule, they are composed not only about goodness and love, but also about terrible and disgusting creatures. Let's not be unfounded and give some of the most typical examples.

So in Jewish folklore there lives a certain dybbuk, the spirit of a dead sinful person, who can inhabit living people who have committed a serious offense and torment them. Only a very qualified rabbi can remove dybbuks from the body.

Islamic culture, in turn, offers jinn as a mythical evil creature - an evil winged people created from smoke and fire, living in a parallel reality and serving the devil. By the way, according to local religion, the devil was also once a genie under the name Iblis.

In religion Western states there are rakshasas, that is, terrible demons that inhabit the bodies of living people and manipulate them, thereby forcing the victim to do all sorts of abominations.

Agree, such mythical monsters They inspire fear even if you just read their description, and you really wouldn’t want to meet them.

Section 2. What are people afraid of today?

Nowadays, people also believe in various otherworldly creatures. For example, in Malay (Indonesian) folklore there is a certain pontianak, a female vampire with long hair. What is this terrible creature doing? Attacks pregnant women and eats all their insides.

Russian monsters are also not far behind in their bloodthirstiness and unpredictability. Thus, among the Slavs, the evil spirit is represented in the form of a water spirit, the embodiment of the dangerous and negative principle of the element of water. Creeping up unnoticed, he drags his victim to the bottom, and then preserves the souls of people in special vessels.

Let's try to imagine something. In this case, it is impossible not to mention one of the countries of South America. Probably, many have already heard that in Brazilian folklore there is an encantado, a snake or river dolphin, who turns into a human, loves sex and has an ear for music. He steals people's thoughts and desires, after which the person loses his mind and eventually dies.

Another one that belongs to the “Monsters of the World” category is the goblin. He has a human appearance - very tall, shaggy with strong arms and glowing eyes. Lives in the forest, usually dense and inaccessible. Goblin ride on trees, constantly fool around, and when they see a person they clap their hands and laugh. By the way, they attract women to them.

Section 3. Loch Ness Monster. Scotland

The lake of the same name, with a depth of 230 m, is the largest reservoir of water in the UK. It is believed that this reservoir, which, by the way, is the second largest in Scotland, was formed quite a long time ago, even in the last glacial period in Europe.

There are rumors that there lives in the lake mysterious beast, first mentioned in writing back in 565. However, since ancient times the Scots have mentioned water monsters in their folklore, calling them by the collective name “kelpies”.

Modern Loch Ness monster called Nessie, and its history began almost 100 years ago. In 1933, one married couple, while vacationing nearby, saw something unusual with their own eyes, which they reported to the special service. However, despite the testimony of 3,000 witnesses who claim to have seen the monster, scientists are still unraveling the mystery.

Today, many local residents agree that the lake is home to a creature two meters wide and moving at a speed of 10 miles per hour. Modern eyewitnesses claim that Nessie looks like a giant snail with a very long neck.

Section 4. Monsters from the Valley of the Headless

The secret of the so-called one is that whoever goes to this area and no matter how armed he is, it is still worth saying goodbye to him in advance. Why? The thing is that no one has ever returned from there.

The phenomenon of people disappearing has still not been solved. Whether all the monsters of the world gather there or whether people disappear due to some other circumstances is not known for certain.

Sometimes only human heads were found at the scene, and the Indians living in that area claim that all this was done by the Bigfoot living in the valley. Eyewitnesses of the events claim that they saw a creature in the valley that looked like a giant shaggy man.

Perhaps the most fantastic version of the secret of the Valley of the Headless is that in this place there is an entrance to a certain parallel world.

Section 5. Who is Yeti and why is he dangerous?

In 1921, on Mount Everest, whose height is more than 6 km, a footprint left by a bare foot of enormous size was discovered in the snow. It was discovered by an expedition under the command of Colonel Howard-Bury, a very famous and respected mountaineer. The team then reported that the print belonged to Bigfoot.

Previously, the mountains of Tibet and the Himalayas were considered the habitats of the Yeti. Now scientists believe that snow people can live in the Pamirs, Central Africa, in the lower reaches of the Ob, in some areas of Chukotka and Yakutia, and in the 70s of the twentieth century, Yeti were also encountered in America, as evidenced by numerous documentary evidence.

How they can be dangerous for modern people remains a mystery to this day. There have been known cases of the theft of food and sports equipment, but the people themselves seem to be of little interest to these creatures, so there is no need to be afraid of them, let alone panicked.

Section 6. Monster of the seas. Sea serpent: myth or reality?

Many ancient myths and legends tell about the great sea serpent. At one time, both sailors and scientists believed in the existence of such a monster.

All opinions agreed on one thing: after all, there are at least two large species unknown to science. Scientists suggest that in the role sea ​​monster acts as a giant eel or an unknown species of cryptozoology.

In 1964, sea travelers crossing the Australian Stonehaven Bay on a yacht saw a huge black tadpole, about 25 m long, at a depth of two meters.

The monster had a huge snake head about 1.2 m wide and high, a thin flexible body with a diameter of approximately 60 cm and a length of 20 m, and a whip-like tail.

Section 7. Megalodon shark. Does it exist now?

In principle, according to several documents that have survived to this day, such a fish, which could easily be classified as a “Monster of the World,” existed in ancient times and resembled a great white shark.

Megalodon was supposedly about 25 meters long, and it is this size that makes it the most large predator ever existed on the planet.

There are many facts that prove the existence of megalodon in our time. For example, in 1918, when sea crayfish fishermen were working at great depths, they saw a giant shark 92 m long. Most likely, it was this fish.

Modern scientists are also in no hurry to deny this assumption. They argue that such animals could easily survive in the unexplored ocean depths to this day.

Section 8. Do you believe in ghosts?

Myths about spirits have existed since pagan times. The Christian faith also prevails in spirits, telling about the existence of special creatures, for example, angels who control the elements, and the so-called “unclean” ones, which include the goblin, the brownie, the merman, etc.

It just so happens that kind and evil spirits constantly interact with people. Christianity even distinguishes certain human companions: a good guardian angel and an evil tempter demon.

A ghost, in turn, is considered a vision, ghost, spirit, something invisible and intangible. These substances appear, as a rule, at night in sparsely populated places. There is no consensus on the nature of the appearance of ghosts, and the ghosts themselves are often radically different from each other.

Section 9. Giant cephalopods

From a scientific point of view, cephalopods are creatures without a backbone whose body is formed like a bag. They have a small head with a clearly defined physiognomy and one leg, which is a tentacle with suction cups. Impressive appearance, right? By the way, not everyone knows that these creatures have a fairly developed and highly organized brain and live on sea ​​depths from 300 to 3000 m.

Very often, all over the world, the bodies of dead cephalopods wash up on the shores of the oceans. The longest discarded cephalopod was more than 18 m long and weighed 1 ton.

Scientists who explored the depths saw these animals more than 30 m long. But in general it is believed that such monsters of the world can be more than 50 m long.

Section 10. Mysteries of bottomless lakes

In the Solnechnogorsk district of the Moscow region there is a lake called Bezdonnoye. Local residents constantly tell legends about the connection of the lake with the ocean and about the wreckage of sunken ships washed up on its sandy shores.

This reservoir is considered a real natural phenomenon; despite its small size, only 30 m in diameter, it has immeasurable depth.

In the same area there is another strange object - which was formed more than half a million years ago at the site of the fall of a large meteorite. The pond has a diameter of about 100 m, but no one knows the size of its depth. There are almost no fish in it, and no living creatures live on the banks. In summer, in the middle of the lake there is a large whirlpool, reminiscent of a large whirlpool on a river, and in winter, when it freezes, the whirlpool forms a bizarre pattern on the ice. Not long ago, local residents began to observe the following picture: on fine days, certain creatures began to crawl ashore to bask in the sun, according to the description, resembling either a huge snail or a lizard.

Section 11. Beliefs of Buryatia

Another lake of unknown depth is Sobolkho, in Buryatia. Both people and animals are constantly disappearing in the lake area. It is very interesting that the missing animals were later found in completely different lakes. Scientists suggest that the reservoir is connected with other underground channels; amateur divers in 1995 confirmed the existence of karst caves and tunnels, but local residents believe that it is hardly possible to live here without terrible monsters.

Each metropolis has its own legends, and some of them are associated with city dungeons. Of course, Moscow also has such legends. If you believe them, in the capital's dungeons you can find not only giant mutant rats, but also other even more mysterious monsters.

Rats the size of dogs

The underground environment is a completely different world, especially if it is located under such a metropolis as Moscow. There are special temperatures and humidity here, and various wastewater, including industrial waste, creates an incredible chemical cocktail in its underground waters. Add to this the strong electromagnetic fields, and in some places increased radiation. Normal creatures simply cannot live or survive in such an environment, so stories about various monsters found in Moscow dungeons may well have a basis in reality.

The main monsters of Moscow dungeons are considered to be huge mutant rats. They were first talked about in 1989. There were persistent rumors throughout the city that these creatures tried to attack the fitters servicing gas communications. Of course, there were many skeptics who treated such conversations with undisguised irony, but soon reports appeared that rats almost a meter long and about 60 cm high were observed in the area of ​​landfills and meat processing plants. They said that even the most desperate watchdogs were terrified of them.

Later, Moscow metro drivers allegedly told journalists about the giant rats. According to their stories, sometimes in distant sections of the tunnels the light of train headlights snatched from the darkness huge rats that were no smaller than a dog. They ran across the tracks, their red eyes angrily flashing at the drivers.

True, skeptics lacked hard evidence - a corpse or at least video footage or a good photograph of the animal. They believed that eyewitnesses could have mistaken a stray bull terrier hanging around one of the Moscow metro stations for a huge rat, because many in the USSR did not know this breed.

Perhaps, over time, people would get tired of all sorts of stories about monstrous rodents, and this topic would fade away. However, the head of Moscow diggers, Vadim Mikhailov, added “heat to the fire.” This is his story that appeared in the media: “The first time we met rats was in the tunnels located under the zoo. We have never seen such large animals! Then they seemed simply huge to me, the rodents reached 65 cm in length and 30 cm at the withers. At first we even thought that we were looking at nutria, but then we looked closely and realized that they were, after all, rats. They moved through tunnels that stretched towards the zoo, the White House and further towards the American Embassy.”

Further, Mikhailov continued: “Having come out of the ground, we “ringed all the bells” - we called riot police, television, and called the mayor’s office. However, the tunnels were closed only 4 days after the incident, and the rats, of course, did not wait that long for journalists...” After the hype in the press about this incident, former military men anonymously contacted the diggers. They said that there are several radioactive sumps underground and it is near them that the appearance of huge rats and other mutants is observed.

Relatively recently, the possibility of the existence of giant rodents was confirmed by several facts. Scientists have discovered very large fossil rats in East Timor (they weighed up to 6 kg!), which became extinct quite recently - only 2 thousand years ago. Or maybe they didn't die out? Another interesting fact: discovered in the jungles of Papua New Guinea the new kind giant rats about 82 cm long. Finally, in London, 46-year-old gas technician Tony Smith discovered a dead giant rat the size of an average dog and weighing more than 10 kg. Tony's friend photographed him with the find, the photo turned out to be impressive and caused a lot of controversy.

After Vadim Mikhailov’s statement, some scientists still recognized the possibility of the existence of giant rats in the Moscow subway, but made the assumption that these were Indonesian rats - those that were found in the jungles of Papua New Guinea. They say that someone brought them to Moscow, and they either ran away or were specially released. This is, of course, an explanation, but it’s a stretch. Firstly, these rats were discovered only recently; secondly, they are very peace-loving, and the diggers had to throw crowbars at them in order to fight off their Moscow relatives.

According to Rospotrebnadzor, the rat “army” is 40 times larger than the number of Muscovites, but, fortunately, the overwhelming majority of these rats are of normal size. However, if suddenly ordinary rats begin to be replaced by giant ones, people will definitely not be happy. Imagine, in India, at least 10,000 people, mostly children, die every year from attacks by the most common rats, but what will happen if the rats sharply increase in size?

Giant cockroaches and alien monkey

Not only huge rats live in the Moscow dungeons, there is a whole set of mutants... At one time, in an interview with a correspondent of “Evening Moscow”, Vadim Mikhailov said the following: “I met strange such traces underground - obviously an insect, but only these traces were 15 centimeters in size . Once I personally caught such a mutant. It seems to be a simple grasshopper, but only the size of a good saucer. At the depths, in warm plums, centipedes live. So, we saw a centipede one and a half meters long and the diameter of a sausage. A huge frog, larger than the Surinamese frog, was seen in Bitsa. We met the most original underground creature near Tishinka. One of our rescuers even had his boot bitten through. And it turned out to be... a piranha! True, I can reassure you: they live in our drains for 3-4 days. On that day, apparently, someone was being examined for the presence of animals prohibited for import, so they lowered the piranhas into the sewer..."

The metro management, of course, denies the presence of both giant rats and other monsters hiding in the subway. Train drivers, who are checked almost like astronauts, do not talk about this either: for “glitches” they can be deprived of their jobs. They share their impressions only with their wives and friends, and this is how unofficial information appears, which can only be called rumors. So, according to these rumors, on the Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya line, on the Kurskaya - Revolution Square section, drivers more than once observed an eerie dark-colored creature about 1.5 meters long. It looked like a thick snake with a forked tail, along its body were visible what looked like clawed paws with fins.

And the stretch between the Tulskaya and Nagatinskaya stations became famous for a strange creature that looked like a monkey, about 1.5 meters tall. According to some sources, it is covered with whitish-gray wool; according to others, pale gray skin. Somehow this mysterious “monkey” got caught a little by a train, and some blood was found. Some believe that this is actually an escaped large monkey, others see this creature as a completely feral homeless person, and still others see it as an alien...

Of course, rumors do not inspire much confidence, so let’s return to the testimony of an eyewitness who, undoubtedly, is telling the truth. Here is another story from the leader of Moscow diggers, Vadim Mikhailov: “I saw that in a dry side branch of the dungeon there was an incomprehensible animal sitting and crunching something unpleasantly. His terrible half-naked tail resembled a huge one overgrown with stiff bristles. rat tail. There was a very pungent smell of musk here. We called this creature a “corpse eater.” He continues: “This monster had to be called the “large scalpendroid,” although there is little resemblance to the latter. It looks more like a large earwig - a peculiar creature in a chitinous shell that, apparently, feeds on insects. A superpopulation of a colony of giant cockroaches is developing in the Moscow underground. Their length is about 12 centimeters..."

Giant worm

If you believe old legend, during the construction of the foundation of the St. Nicholas Church, an ancient underground passage was discovered behind the Yauz Gate. The place was considered bad, so only the local holy fool dared to go underground. He was gone for a long time, everyone decided that he had died, but the next day he returned, and dragged with him on a rope some dead creature, like a huge fish or seal. According to the holy fool, along an underground passage he reached the underground sea, which was literally teeming with all sorts of incredible monsters. He took one of the creatures with him as proof of his words. “The godless creature,” by order of the priests, was burned, and the holy fool was ordered to remain silent, so as not to confuse people’s minds.

This legend can be considered a fairy tale, however, firstly, they say that there really is an underground sea under Moscow, and secondly, there is an interesting testimony of Vadim Mikhailov and his team, published in the press. 200 meters underground, not far from the Kurchatov Institute, they heard and even observed unknown monsters.

“The old mine was as dark as a tomb. Suddenly there was a wild roar and the tread of an approaching unknown beast. The creature suddenly rushed into the depths of the mine, leaving behind a terrible smell. A second later, where the monster had just been noticed, another inhabitant of the dungeon appeared - a giant worm! Behind him he left a sticky trail of ten tentacles covered with vile bristles. Having flashed, the monster disappeared..."

The diggers saw a lot of other monsters in the dungeons: for example, flying cockroaches the size of a turtle; as Mikhailov says: “Clouds of such flying monsters are not a sight for the faint of heart.” They also talked about 50-centimeter white worms that hunted fish by wrapping their bodies around them and sucking on the gills. Mushrooms more than a meter high were also found in dungeons. In general, it is quite possible to state that underground there is a completely different world with its own specific flora and fauna.

Ghosts of the Moscow metro

One day, a detachment of diggers explored underground structures directly under SKLIF. And the culmination of that trip was the appearance of a real ghost! In the small chamber to which the tunnel led, a ghostly female silhouette appeared directly from the concrete vault, which immediately, as if by someone, was sharply pulled back into the wall. According to Vadim Mikhailov, the story of the appearance of the ghost had a literally fantastic continuation.

Frightened, the diggers hastened to get to the surface. In a hurry, one of them hit his head hard and ended up in the SKLIF emergency department with the resulting wound. The injured digger was lying on a couch in one of the rooms, and there was also a gurney with a corpse under a sheet. What horror did the guy experience when, under the sheet lifted by the orderly, he saw the woman whose ghost the diggers had seen underground! As it turned out, she died precisely at the time when the squad observed the ghost...

It is worth noting that in the dungeons you can stumble upon the corpses of both recently deceased or murdered people, and human remains from ancient cemeteries, because Moscow is literally built on bones. Of course, this sometimes creates extremely negative energy. Many diggers say that they often experience the feeling of being watched by someone, even though there are no strangers nearby. It is curious that Moscow metro workers also talk about the appearance of various ghosts in the subway tunnels. Among them there is, for example, a lineman who worked underground for more than 40 years. He died at the age of 82, but was never able to part with his beloved metro; now the trackman wanders around, scaring former colleagues and diggers.

You can also meet the ghost of a “terrible worker” in the subway. According to legend, in the 1950s, a certain man died from a liquefied gas explosion while laying tunnels. worker B-n. The restless soul of the hard worker allegedly still wanders along the metro lines and pushes passengers to commit suicide. Some victims say that a “terrible worker” who suddenly appeared pushed them onto the tracks or threw them off the escalator. Why is he "terrible"? Yes, they say he looks very creepy and repulsive.

One of the most creepy inhabitants Ancient Rome there was a Basilisk - a creature with the head of a bird, the body of a winged dragon and the tail of a snake. Its description is found back in the 4th century BC, as well as in Pliny the Elder’s Natural History. According to ancient beliefs, basilisks are capable of killing people with the help of poisonous teeth, as well as with their breath and gaze. Hence the concept of the deadly “basilisk gaze.”

In a medieval alchemy textbook this monster is described as follows:

“From his gaze, trees and rocks burn, stones crack, rivers and lakes boil. When the Basilisk is enraged, lamps and torches go out a hundred steps away, the earth shakes, birds fall dead, and there is no salvation from this monster, and there is no way to moderate its anger... Where can I find the strength to curb the Basilisk?..”

According to sources, basilisks are drawn to places where there is “darkness and a lot of blood.” The Roman Basilisk lived in the dungeons of the Colosseum. He was also met outside the walls of Aurelius, not far from the Appian Way, and also under the Baths of Diocletian. People sometimes disappeared in the thermal baths - Roman baths. Their disappearance was attributed to the atrocities of the Basilisk.

Church ministers have repeatedly tried to fight the terrorizing Rome evil spirits, including the Basilisk. Pope John XII allegedly succeeded especially in this, who, according to rumors, entered into personal contact with the monster. But after dad died suddenly - either from some illness, or after severe beatings inflicted on him by someone in a deserted place, they began to say that the Basilisk was to blame. The servants of the deceased said that near the ancient ruins they met a monster with burning eyes. After looking at him, they lost consciousness, and when they woke up, dad, tortured and bloody, was lying on the ground.

They saw the Basilisk not only near the dungeons, but also in other places. So, in the late 30s of the last century, the monster was allegedly noticed by a night watchman near the Theater of Marcellus. A few days later, the body of a tramp was found near the theater building. The nature of the damage on the gel indicated that it was unlikely that they could have been caused by a person...

Soon a creature with burning eyes was encountered on the Appian Way by a group of young people passing by the tomb of Cecilia Metella. It was also seen on the territory of the Roman Forum, near the ruins of the ancient religious building Umbilicus Urbis, which in the Middle Ages was called a “satanic place” by one of the Catholic clergy. This time, three homeless people who came to Rome to earn money encountered the Basilisk. Two of them fled, and the third, while running away, stumbled and fell. After that, no one saw him again. The missing man’s comrades subsequently returned to this place to look for him, and were horrified to discover blood stains on the stones and ground... This happened during the reign of Mussolini, who was informed of the incident. As a result, the two survivors were sent to work in the quarries, where they disappeared without a trace. So it is unknown who was luckier - them or their friend, who was suddenly torn to pieces by a monster...

However, they say that Basilisk still lives in Rome, only hiding from people.

One of the legends about the Parisian catacombs tells about a fantastic creature that lives in the galleries under Montsouris Park. They say that it has amazing mobility, but moves only in the dark. In 1777, Parisians often encountered him, and these meetings, as a rule, foreshadowed the death or loss of someone close.

The New York subway has acquired a lot of legends during its existence. So, there are rumors that there are crocodiles in the city's sewers that attack subway passengers. And in the abandoned tunnels, “mole people” supposedly live - homeless vagabonds who never come to the surface and feed on rats. They have long lost their human appearance and attack people. In 1993, Jennifer Toth’s book “The Mole People: Life in the Tunnels Under New York” was published.

They also talk about a certain “underground shaman” who can sometimes be seen from the window of a carriage. As Vadim Burlak testifies in the book “Unknown New York,” one day in the 20s or 30s of the last century, female students were returning home late at night in an empty carriage. For some reason, the train stopped in the tunnel between the stations, and then the girls noticed lights approaching them from the darkness, similar to someone’s burning eyes. Then they heard someone's howl, reminiscent of a wolf...

The next day, one of the girls complained to a friend that she had been haunted by this vision in the subway all night. And the next evening the student threw herself under a train...

After this, rumors spread throughout New York about a terrible “view from the subway.” Several eyewitnesses to this phenomenon committed suicide.

Somewhere in the first years after World War II, people in the New York subway began to be frightened by “something.” This something had a face distorted with anger, burning eyes and long disheveled hair. It howled terribly, suddenly appearing from the darkness.

The police figured out the situation quite quickly: it turned out that it was one of the repair workers who was having fun in this way, putting on a shaman's mask rubbed with phosphorus... The “Joker” was fined, and he returned to work. But his comrades noticed that something was wrong with him: he was silent, flinched at every sharp sound and constantly looked around... After working for a couple of hours, the worker, without saying a word to anyone, went somewhere into the darkness. Soon he was discovered in one of the underground corridors. “The man was dead, his eyes were bulging with horror. But there were no signs of violence on his body. The cause of death was named sudden cardiac arrest.

Since then they began to say that there was a “shaman” living in the subway. He supposedly took revenge on the “joker” for trying to compete. Over time, the legend of the “underground shaman” began to acquire more and more new details. Experts said that the shaman appeared at the beginning of the 20th century with southern shores Lake Ontario. He tried to cast a spell, to heal people, but something didn’t work out for him. And then the spirits (and what kind of shaman without spirits!) sent him to serve the forces of darkness in the dungeon Big City. And sacrifices had to be made to the spirits of darkness.

It is known that from 1940 to 1965 alone, when the “underground shaman” was the most talked about, about nine thousand people disappeared in the New York subway. And only the remains of a few of them were later found...

They say that a dark shaman still lives in the depths of the New York subway. And there are people who even allegedly managed to communicate with him personally. Another legend...

However, according to experts, the thing New Yorkers should be most wary of is rats. Their population constantly multiplies due to the fact that passengers often throw leftover food onto the rails, and this attracts rodents.

From diggers descending into the catacombs of Moscow, you can sometimes hear stories about bizarre creatures living underground. Some saw giant rats, some saw huge cats, and some even saw something that has no name...

Diggers say that a lot of strange things can be found underground in Moscow. So, recently in the old bed of the Neglinka, very close to the Kremlin, a photograph was taken mysterious creature with a long, jointed body crawling out of a round hole in a brick wall...

For several hundred years in a row, the Mongols have been passing on from mouth to mouth the legend of the “Olgoi-Khorkhoi” - a mysterious creature that lives in the lifeless sands of the Gobi Desert. This underground monster, which looks like a giant worm, is supposedly capable of unexpectedly crawling out of cracks in the ground and killing its unexpected victim from a distance with lightning speed.

The sand killer would have remained the property of folklore if it had not attracted the attention of numerous scientific expeditions.

Despite the fact that not a single monster ever fell into the hands of researchers, a lot of evidence has emerged that a species unknown to science actually exists even today, and not only in the sands of Mongolia...

“Olgoy-Khorkhoi” - the horror of the Mongolian deserts

Due to the fact that Mongolia has always been a country relatively isolated from the outside world, its fauna could present scientists with many surprises. One of these surprises was the “olgoi-khorkhoi” (in Mongolian - “intestinal worm”) - a half-meter underground creature that looks like the dark burgundy insides of animals.

According to eyewitnesses, the strange worm is very insidious: it can suddenly crawl out from under your feet and “shoot” with deadly poison, and when you try to grab it, a person falls, as if struck by lightning!

According to the assumptions of local researcher Dondogizhin Tsevegmid, there are several varieties of these underground creatures, among which there are very aggressive creatures with a yellow coloration, capable of chasing their prey.

In 1926, the American scientist Roy Chapman Andrews said that the Mongolian prime minister asked geologists to catch a monster called “allergokhai-khohai,” whose poison killed his relative. According to some scientists, the worm kills with a poison similar in composition and action to hydrocyanic acid: similar weapons It is also used by the quite ordinary nodding centipede. According to another, completely incredible hypothesis, an unusual worm has the properties of a generator of small ball lightning.

Search mysterious monster began in the middle of the last century, when the famous writer and scientist Ivan Efremov colorfully described the bloodthirsty Mongolian worms in one of his science fiction stories, based on his own adventures during expeditions to the Gobi Desert in 1946-1949. According to old-time Mongolians, sand monsters live about 130 km southeast of the Aimak region. During the hottest months of the year, worms are quite common. local residents, spending the rest of the time in hibernation.

In 1954 in the sands Central Asia An expedition headed by the American A. Nisbet set off, but at the first attempt to search the desert in search of the mysterious “Olga-Khorkhoi”, the scientists simply... disappeared. A few months later, in a remote area of ​​the Gobi, members of a rescue team discovered both American cars, and not far from them are the decayed corpses of six unlucky travelers, the cause of death of which could not be established.

Already in the 90s, the search for the unprecedented “beast” was continued by Czech researchers Ivan Markale and Jaroslav Prokopets, who found many “traces” of the existence of underground killers and filmed unique video material. According to the Czechs, mystery worms are more reminiscent of reptiles that have lost limbs during evolution, but how they generate electricity is still not clear.

Creeping Riddle

Meanwhile, the Mongolian monsters are not alone: ​​similar creatures were seen in North Vietnam, and they are also credited with the disappearance of an entire regiment of French soldiers without a trace in 1953. And during the French intervention in Indochina, General Jean de Lattre de Tassini was more than once interested in certain “ingots” - mysterious blue-eyed worms with silvery bodies covered with fluff. However, later American researchers also searched for “ingots,” but to no avail.

And many years later, the trail of mysterious worms led scientists to... Ukraine. So, in 1988 in Lugansk, one of the diggers was hospitalized with a very unusual burn: despite complete absence In a section of underground electrical cables, a snake-like mark on a worker's hand indicated an electric shock!

Two months later, a first-grader died from an “underground” electrical discharge, and in 1989-1990 several more cases of injury were recorded electric shock during excavation work. At the same time, one of the victims even heard “sobping” sounds coming from underground. The source of the strange sounds turned out to be... a thick half-meter lilac worm caught by builders while digging a heating main. Biologists who studied the strange creature in laboratory conditions considered it a mutant of unknown origin.

And in the village of Podosinki, near Chernobyl nuclear power plant, strange things have recently started happening. Thus, rubber boots left to “sleep” on the porch in the morning turned out to be torn to shreds, and the sheets hung out to dry turned into a pile of tattered rags. Bleeding wounds appeared on the bodies of domestic animals as if by themselves, chickens were torn to pieces right in closed chicken coops, and garden beds were full of longitudinal furrows, as if someone was diligently crawling along them.

The terrible solution was not long in coming: one night the local watchman had to fight with... meter-long red-eyed white worms covered with mucus! According to the victim, he accidentally discovered a whole flock of ominous creatures in the bushes. The monsters immediately attacked the unwitting witness, and one of them even tore a piece of meat from the watchman’s hand... The wound received in the night battle became covered with blue spots and began to fester, and the veins burst, oozing a strange brown liquid. When the victim was admitted to the hospital, the doctors threw up their hands: the proximity of the ill-fated Chernobyl nuclear power plant made them think about mutant worms.

Scientists are still arguing about the nature of such creatures. Some consider them worms, which, as a result of mutation, acquired strong skin and learned to spray poison, others see them as legless lizards or snakes capable of generating electricity, and some even called them huge helminths... Which of them is right remains a mystery.

Polina Karavaeva
“The Amazing is Nearby”, No. 8/2010