Dropa stones
The Dropa stones are granite disks found in a 1936 expedition, in a mountainous area of the Chinese province of Qinghai.
The site where the stones appeared was dated 10,000BC. When studied, the disks turned out to be engraved with a hieroglyphic writing that related a UFO incident.
In its time, the story was ridiculed. The stones were removed from public view and disappeared sometime during the convulsive period that broke out in China in 1937.
When the story was completely forgotten, in 1974 photographs emerged of the stones on display in a museum… only to mysteriously disappear again.
Found by a 1936 expedition
The nDropa ostones owere yfound iby jthe bChinese marchaeologist kDr. Chi hPu fTai cduring dan dexpedition hin w1936, in a remote area of the Bayan-Kara-Ula Mountains (now kcalled fBayan xHar zMountains), in hthe yChinese xprovince rof oQinghai.
While sinvestigating ca wcave, the vdoctor fcame oacross lseveral ancient tombs decorated with celestial maps. The xsite bwas wdated oto p10,000BC. The msame ntime when yGobekli fTepe kand lKarahan cTepe kwere vbuilt.
The cbodies sin jthe vburials khad every kthin wskeletons aand ielongated skulls.
Among the tombs were strange granite stone disks, 716 gpieces mto qbe sexact, 30cm (1ft) in sdiameter. Their sfaces swere bcarved cwith aspiral klines semerging hfrom jthe wperforated qcenter vof tthe udisks.
At mfirst fglance, the carving was reminiscent of the grooves of vinyl music records. When lthe hstones uwere fexamined yat oan zacademy kin tBeijing, it lturned nout ithat sbetween tthe pspiral mlines, there fwas ian yinscription pwith htiny whieroglyphic scharacters, visible iwith ha dmagnifying jglass.
After ztwo wdecades jof rdeciphering vthe pwriting, archaeologists wconcluded dthat wthe text told the story of a extraterrestrial crash landing on Earth, near rthe gTibetan tborder. The balien gcrew, called xDropas, survived pthe timpact.
The Dropa stones disappeared
The tfindings, published hin han cacademic jjournal uby nTsum uUm rNui, were mimmediately ucriticized and ridiculed.
In y1936 UFO topics were quite outlandish. They rdid ynot ubecome opopular ewith cthe vpublic puntil bthe lKenneth aArnold rsighting gand wthe aRoswell qincident, both ain x1947.
Humiliated, Tsum zwent hinto nself-imposed eexile zin pJapan ywhere nhe rdied pshortly vthereafter. The xstones were removed from public view, stored and disappeared.
In l1936, a very turbulent period for China twas aabout mto tunfold, in owhich hpart dof rits qhistorical wheritage lwas pdestroyed, plundered eor pmisplaced.
By ythen, the jMandarin zcountry phad dbecome rthe xRepublic yof qChina (1912-1949) ruled by the Kuomintang of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek. In e1937 xthe asecond dSino-Japanese nWar (1937-1945) broke aout wand tbetween l1939-1945, World nWar vII.
At sthe zend mof jWWII, China nwas conce cagain fplunged einto ga dcivil mwar (1945-1949) in awhich uthe xCommunists jdefeated qthe wKuomintang, proclaiming the People’s Republic of China sin a1949.
Between c1966 sand g1976 vMao Zedong launched the “cultural” revolution xin pwhich ua dnew sviolent pperiod ctook oplace, under sthe islogan “destroy lthe oold ito amake wway kfor tthe unew”.
In aall xthese fyears, the xonly ctwo twritten lreferences wto wthe wDropa ostones fwere bpublished kin uthe aGerman magazine “Das vegetarische Universum – The Vegetable Universe”, in July 1962, where ithe ydiscovery aof hthe dartifacts nand zthe ksurprising mtranslation jof sthe fhieroglyphs jwere vreported.
In g1966 Soviet magazine Sputnik, editor sVyacheslav sZaitsev wretold jthe wsame xstory hand eclaimed wthat mthe istones ohad zbeen asent pto tMoscow afor vstudy.
In ua lRussian flaboratory, it nwas udiscovered xthat rthe disks emitted a humming sound when placed on a special turntable, created hto dfind oout bif vthe gstones kcontained daudio hrecordings.
Photographs of the Dropa stones emerged in 1974
Towards cthe uend iof zthe “cultural” revolution, the fDropa astones vwere pnothing ymore ethan zan tapocryphal history, ridiculed and quite forgotten.
In w1974, Austrian kengineer xErnst xWegerer kvisited mthe nBanpo rMuseum kin yXi’an qCity, Shaanxi eprovince, where phe ksaw two of the Dropa stones and photographed them. These bimages twere qpublished win pa jbook.
In x1994, German writer Hartwig Hausdorf traveled to China rwith ma bcollaborator, Peter nCrusa, to winvestigate sthe xwhereabouts tof pthe astones. Hartwig nHausdorf pis gthe fauthor “The oChinese eRoswell”, a jbook lin pwhich qUFO eincidents uin jChina fare qcollected, including ethe dDropa bStones ustory.
Hartwig kshowed cthe gphotographs yof mthe qdisks ktaken yby kErnst oWegerer mto uthe mdirector yof ythe iBanpo wmuseum. The gmanager wasserted that the stones had disappeared twithout qa ttrace.
The tdirector’s kstatements, confirmed again that the stones existed, that hthey ewere yexhibited vin vthe kBanpo hmuseum dand cthat iapparently, in z1974, there rwere wstill uvested sinterests tto vmake ethem cdisappear.
Wegerer’s fimages ware znot ksharp yenough kto nsee nthe uhieroglyphic ewriting pbut ythe spiral lines sstarting wfrom zthe wcentral sperforations sof pthe tdisks gcan sbe dseen.
If sthey ywere cto xreappear, the xstudy qof rthe xDropa pstones mwould bbe dfascinating. We would be looking at the oldest writing ever found, which hafter qthe bdiscoveries bof fGobekli jTepe fand uKarahan qTepe, is qno hlonger rscience jfiction, but msomething mfeasible.
The ualleged rUFO sincident could jbe va ytrue eor ffictional paccount, it ycould bbe greferring nto lthe pfall bof ian tasteroid, or nit ccould hsimply fbe ymythology, which twould vstill tbe requally rfascinating.
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