Haunted Cosmos - The Mysteries of Lake Baikal

Episode Date: February 5, 2025

Dive into the depths of Lake Baikal, the world's deepest lake, where legends of underwater civilizations, UFO sightings, and strange appearances lurk beneath the surface.🎧 Tune in to our latest podcast as we unravel the mysteries of this Siberian enigma!Love Haunted Cosmos? Get access to our exclusive show, The Dusty Tome, early ad-free access to main episodes, monthly AMA's, and livestreams with Ben and Brian by becoming a patron of the show: https://www.patreon.com/c/HauntedCosmosBuy the Haunted Cosmos book: https://www.newchristendompress.com/cosmos PS: It's also available as an audiobook!Want to keep nefarious fairy Bigfoots away and also avoid icky seed oils, preservatives, artificial colorants, and other nasties in your daily shower routine? Then check out the vast array of homemade soaps from our friends at Indigo Sundries Soap Co.! Go to http://indigosundriessoap.com to learn more—and as our gift to you, use code HAUNTEDCOSMOS for 10% off your whole order!This episode is sponsored by New Dominion Design Co. Visit their website here and learn more!http://newdominiondesignco.com/This episode is also sponsored by Stonecrop Wealth Advisors! Go to this link to check out their special offers to Haunted Cosmos listeners today.https://stonecropadvisors.com/hauntedcosmosThis episode is also sponsored by the King's Ridge Elderberries! Check them out here and use code HAUNTED for 10% off your first order!https://tkrfarm.com/Check out the music of Sower Projects.https://www.sowerproject.com/Finally, this episode is sponsored by Gray Toad Tallow. Visit their website here and use COSMOS15 at checkout for 15% off your order.Support the show

It's a country bigger than three continents, a mass of resources difficult to comprehend, a theater of glory that few have seen the edges of, and so it seems a dark place. It has the feel of the unknown about it, a fairy tale place stuck in a different time and world, where immeasurable wildernesses are interrupted only by the odds settlement here and there. Those settlements could range from a few ramshackle houses to concrete ruins left over from a checkered past, and even to colorful castles that inspire whimsy in awe. It's a dream world, an ocean of unknowns painted green and brown and gray. It is a rope tugged between the two poles of Europe and Asia,

the great west and the farthest east. And the strain of this tug of war has left its marks on the land. Tossing here and there between pagan history and Christian settlement and godless communist uprising has beaten the country to a pulp time and time again, leaving it bloodied in the face and bleeding from the vitals. Yet it remains. It lingers on, sometimes confusedly, dancing its dance of orthodoxy and dealing still with the rampant sin

that few have been immune to in this modern age. Even its modernity shows signs of its incompleteness, for that is what Russia really feels like, somehow incomplete, unfinished, waiting. The Metropolitan Titans of Moscow and St. Peter's, shine with lights as bright as any major center of modern human development in our day. But bright as they may be, they cannot hide the shadow that covers the land's bulk. Again, it is like a fairy world caught between what modern man wants to make of it

and what it actually is, what it perhaps used to be. And despite its true and glorious history, its courageous stands against the onset of Islam, its conquering of the Mongol horde by the Christian Tsar, its tragic fight to the death and the first great war to end all wars. The thing it is perhaps most known for is a thing it did not really consent to at all. At least, not its common man. What am I talking about?

Well, I'm talking about its time bearing the name Soviet Union. The scars of the Iron Curtain remain today both in its infrastructure and its lineage of people. How far back did Lenin and Stalin and the Bolsheviks set their Riffian comrades? Well, who can say? But it must certainly be a long way. Under the thumb of communism, the land became a library of Alexandria writ large,

burning in the fires, losing uncounted volumes of tradition and knowledge and wealth and identity to the consuming flames of communist utopianism. That time of mystery, of debauchery, of death, and of intrigue is perhaps what fuels so much natural speculation about what sorts of things could be lurking in that place that we haven't seen before. Things lost in the great and terrible fire of tyranny.

But it isn't just that. There's something in Russia's deep past that haunts the edges of any eyes turned to peer into its history. In southern Siberia, tucked away in a long-forgotten limestone cave, scientists found a fragment of bone. The year was 2008. They took it for study, thinking, it may be the remains of some very early human inhabitants of the region, but what they found struck them dumb.

Closer inspection made them wonder whether or not the bone fragment was human at all. The DNA tests were all over the place, leading them to believe that the finger belonged to a young female who was more related to Neanderthals than modern man, but who was nonetheless not a Neanderthal. Eventually, this subspecies of man, for that is what the materialist scientist called them, took on the colloquial name, the Denisovans, after the cave in which they were first found.

A race of humans or humanoids from an epic of time long past. And our disagreements with the evolutionary narrative and timeline aside, it is a fascinating find. Some other ancient cultures speak of a people thought by some to be the old Denisovans, sages from the far north who bring knowledge and technology to the budding man in the fertile crescent, giants and demigods of great power and lore. But of course, this is probably nothing more than an overblown Graham Hancock-inspired fancy. I'd place very little stock in it, relying as it does on the deep time view of history that I frankly reject.

However, it can't be denied that it is fascinating. Perhaps it betrays a longing in the collective subconscious of man to make sense of all the strangeness that comes to us from the badlands of Russia. because my goodness, there is a great deal of strangeness there. Take just one little sliver of the strange northern country, for example. Well, I say little, but Lake by Call is anything but little. It is the world's largest freshwater lake by volume, containing 23% of the world's fresh surface water.

It is also the world's deepest lake, reaching over a mile into the earth in some areas. Its footprint is not small either. No, it has a surface area larger than that of belmont. Baikal is cradled in the southern section of Russia's more easterly side, just above the border to neighboring Mongolia, acting as a great wall separating the fertile land to the north from the high desert to the south. Some argue that it is the oldest freshwater lake in the world, though that is disputed. With age comes memory, deep memory.

And if the stories are to be believed, other things as well. There are some who believe that the things we call UFOs and UAPs actually do not come to us from somewhere out there in the vastness of space. Rather, it said, they come from the deep places of the world, both the crafts and their occupants. In 1982, a team of elite Soviet soldiers sat on the bank of Lake Baikal in the summer. The records indicate that they were there for a training exercise that took place over the course of several days. This was a routine event for the Soviet military and was therefore routine for the seven men undertaking this training.

They had been to buy call before many times even. The story goes that things went very well for the first few days of the exercise. Benchmarks were met, new skills were taught, and the team was showing the quiet professionalism characteristic of the elite soldiering class in Russia. All signs pointed to a successful, which is to say ordinary and uneventful,

conclusion to the proceedings. But then dawn rose up the next morning. The sun shone brightly that day and the white clouds jumped out at them from a rich blue sky. It was the fairest time of the year for that part of the world and spirits were high,

even among the characteristically sullen and stoic special forces soldiers. As they checked their equipment and suited up for the dive, they cracked jokes among themselves and looked forward to the task ahead of them. They had two decompression chambers on the shore that were ready for use should someone come up with the bends, but nobody expected

them to get any use. These men had done far more grueling dives in far more treacherous places. They knew how to handle themselves. The confidence only lightened the mood more, not to mention the unusually excited and friendly state of the higher brass that had come to watch the proceedings. All of it felt so informal. It was a welcome relief, they figured, from the more serious and perilous regiment of training and field work they did in those times. And so while the wind came down over the mountains across the lake and stirred up little waves that lapped onto the shore, the group of soldiers waded into the clear water, pulled their masks down and put their regulators in, and gave the signal before all seven of them plunged beneath the little waves at the same time. They were to dive

deep, but not for too long. Of course, once one goes deep enough, time matters less and less. The Decompression stops would ensure they only came out of the water around midday, so the higher-ups and other non-elite soldiers were able to, for lack of a better word, relax until they came back. Kind of like that scene in Harry Potter, where apparently all of the schools sat on floating docks and watched the task during the fourth book. You know the one where they couldn't see anything happening under the surface of the water. Absolutely a strange plot hole, J.K. Rolling, but, you know, we'll overlook it.

Anyway, what happened next was strange. The brass was standing on the shore when all of a sudden the soldiers came back. They came back far too soon. A full hour before their slated surface window, all seven divers were seen bobbing up from the depths and swimming quickly to the shore. They ran up onto the beach as if to escape something

and then collapsed on the sand in exhaustion, turned on their backs so that they were facing the water they'd just been as if looking at it, keeping a watch. One of the commanders marched up to the soldiers and shouted questions at them. them. Why are you back now? Get back in the water and finish the training. Why are you already here? The divers shared nervous looks with one another before finally, one of them rose and met the commander's eyes. He told him everything that he could remember from what they had all just

witnessed. Everything began normally enough. The descent was just as each descent had been on the other days. The unbelievably clear waters let them see far in every direction as they sank down. Even when the depth made the light dim, they could look up and see the shining blue sky above him. They could even still catch sight of clouds and birds above the surface of the water. At depth, they started moving in the predetermined pattern that was the reason for the dive. It was something of an odd formation, but one they had picked up on fairly well enough. The seven men swam around a few hundred feet down in a ring where each man faced outwards as if to protect something in the middle of their group.

that was the exercise. Obviously, not the most intuitive thing, but once the awkwardness and difficulties in communication had been worked out, once they remembered all the instruction from the surface, they started to move fluidly through the water. That is, until something happened, about 10 minutes into the exercise. Eventually, one of the men turned his body enough to look back into the middle of the ring and what he saw shocked him. Three figures were there, three figures that did not belong to his team. He couldn't contain his surprise in the fear that resulted from what he saw. He frantically waved to the divers adjacent to him and with wide eyes pointed out their company. Soon all seven men now formed a ring facing inwards, looking at the surreal guests that had

joined them uninvited on their training. The three things just hung there in the water. They hardly moved. did not appear concerned at all that they'd been seen. The men studied them to try and determine what they were. They couldn't be other divers. No other teams were anywhere close to the area. But gradually, each man realized that trying to determine exactly who they were was futile. See, the problem was that these figures just weren't human. Instead of who, they began to ask themselves the more surreal question.

What? In the middle of the ring, as close to the world, clear as day, three humanoid yet alien-like creatures hung in the water. They wore silvery skins that harshly reflected any light that touched them. Instead of any diving gear, each one had a strange bell or dome-shaped thing around its head. It was not a helmet, for it did not appear closed, and its surface seemed thin and translucent, almost like a jellyfish. They had massive eyes that stared keenly through the clear water

and in turn at each of the seven Soviet divers. Oh, and one more thing. They were tall. At least nine feet tall. For what felt like hours, the men were trapped in the trance of strangeness that came with the uncanny picture before their eyes. Everyone stayed completely still and the creatures appeared eerily calm. After a while, each of the intruders just sort of dissolved back into a shadow of the water like they were made from it and could spawn out of it and then into it again at will. Finally, when the last one had entirely faded away, each man found himself looking across the ring at his comrades. Without any need for consultation, and without anyone giving signs of assent, they all began the surfacing process as one unit, though they knew it was too early to do so. The commander was initially shaken by the story. He knew these men, and even of those he knew less well, he knew their pedigree and what they had to go through to get to this level of. elite military prowess. These were trusted men. He knew they wouldn't be making something like this up, something that could only make their superiors question their sanity, with nothing to gain

at all but skepticism. He dismissed the divers to recover in whatever manner they chose so long as they didn't leave the beach. Once that was done, he walked over to consult with the other higher-ranking officers who were there that day. He couldn't hide the note of anxiety in his voice at the strange report. The more hardened men he spoke to could hear it, seasoning his every word. Upon completing the story, one of the men pulled the commander aside

and tried to open his eyes to the truth of what had happened. He told him that, though these things were unknown and strange, they need not be feared. He told them that these actually represented an incredible opportunity for the Soviets if they played their cards right. He told him to steal himself and get his nerves in order. He told him to order the divers back into the,

hungry depths of Lake by call. Not only that, he told him to order the divers to capture and bring back one of those creatures to the surface for study, dead or alive. The mood was somber by the late afternoon. The soldiers present, who were not part of the elite seven divers, stood idly by and watched the seven soberly work through the process of putting all their dive gear back on for another dive. Though they tried to conceal it, they could see that the men were beginning to even tremble with anxiety and fear about what could happen should they have the misfortune of meeting those strange swimmers again. But orders were orders and these men were not accustomed to disobeying them. Each man was given a small length of steel wire, no more than 20 feet worth,

with a noose tied into one end. They were told to use these nooses to catch and drag one of the creatures back to the water's edge so that it could be subdued and taken by the government for further study elsewhere. As the sun touched the edge of the mountains to the west, fleeing over the horizon, the divers waded into the frigid waters. The men flicked on their headlamps and performed the final pre-dive checks before sinking slowly into the water. Those on the surface waited with bated breath. The soldiers hoped for an empty-handed return, and the officers rubbed their hands together, hoping for some monster to appear on the men's leashes. After about half an hour, the answer came. Observers saw the water begin to churn as if heated to an instant

boil. A thick cloud like dense fog rose off the bubbling surface, coalesced into a shade lit by the moon, and sped off into the night. Following this, black masses began to shoot through the surface with an impossible violence, breaching the waters before falling back into the churn to swirl like lifeless dolls in the violent eddies. The men on the shore did not wait for the order. They ran into the water and began dragging the unconscious divers out, two to a man, onto the beach, and towards the decompression chambers that, like I said, had to be ready, along with the exercise according to military regulations. Each man was pale white like a sheet, already succumbing to decompression sickness, the deadly ailment known to divers everywhere as the

bends. The bends are a silent killer, always waiting for a diver to make a single fatal mistake. It happens when a diver ascends too quickly after spending too much time deep underwater. See, in the deep water, the pressure is crushing. It pushes gases, mostly nitrogen, into the bloodstream where they dissolve into the tissues like a sponge soaking up water. But when a diver rises too fast, the gases, instead of gradually releasing through the lungs and tiny bubbles, come rushing out in large bubbles. The result? Excruciating pain, tissue destruction, and ultimately a painful death. The first sign of the bends is often a sharp searing pain, like someone's taken a knife to your joints. That's the nitrogen bubbles forming in your muscles and ligaments.

It can start in the shoulders, the knees are the elbows. In the chaos of a rapid ascent, you're at the mercy of those bubbles, and if they move into your bloodstream, they can clog the arteries, the heart, the brain, and that's when it turns lethal. The only treatment for a diver who has taken too rapid of an ascent is to quickly recompress their body in a compression chamber, simulating the deep water environment and preventing the bubbles from destroying vital tissues.

The problem for the Soviet divers was that not only were there not really enough compression chambers available, one of them turned out to be broken. As the divers reached the shore, they quickly shoved the first four men into the first chamber and latched it shut to begin this life-saving compression process. The other three were placed in the other chamber, but after they shut it, they found that it was faulty. In a classically Soviet-Russia-era gaffe, the engineers had not checked the maintenance performed on it

before deploying the piece of equipment for the exercise. The first chamber could not fit any more men. It was really only built for two in the first place, not the four that currently occupied it, and certainly not seven. The men on the shore could do nothing nothing other than weight, intense, and knowing silence. A few of them stayed to watch as the unconscious men inside the defective chamber died in agony one by one. After hours of compression and then slow decompression, the other men were lucid enough to tell the story of what had happened. Though left with lifelong and debilitating injuries from the event, this is what they told the commander through chattering teeth and crazed eyes. After a quick descent to their previous depth, they had made their way to the vicinity of the earlier sighting.

They waited there, floating in the water and shining their lamps on full brightness, in an attempt to attract anything sentient that may be close by. It worked. From the darkness of the water emerged three silvery bodies, long and thin and strangely faceless, groping towards them. In a shocking display of courage, one of the divers began to start. swim directly towards the alien group unspooling his noose in the hopes of surprising one of them unawares. But just as he got nearer to them, the tallest one seemed to produce a metallic, shimmering

device from its side and bring it up to point it at the divers. The thing moved its device around, not violently, but in an almost understated movement. But what emanated from it was anything but understated. Out of the device, there suddenly formed a powerful swirling force, a kind of immensely strong whirlpool. The water all around the divers began to violently toss, and the men were quickly incapable of figuring out which way was up or down or left or right. They knocked hard into one another, barely hanging on to their regulators, and completely at the mercy of this underwater storm that the beings seemed to create at will. The whirlpool enclosed about them, and they felt the sensation of rapid movement, but they did not know which direction they were being hurled.

The chaos was so powerful that each man lost consciousness in its wake. Thus, they were each vomited out from the conjured maelstrom of death out of the maw of Lake Baikal, battered and desperately injured. The Soviets launched a full investigation into the events of that exercise, but no answers for what the swimmers were has ever been put forward. To this day, no one has been. been able to explain the deadly swimmers of Lake Baikal. What lurks in the crystalline depths of this crack in Russia's skin?

What glories? What horrors? Join us in this episode of Haunted Cosmos as we set our sights on the mysteries of the drowned rift known as Lake Baikal. Hey, everybody. Welcome to this episode of Haunted Cosmos. I'm glad to be here. I'm your host, Ben Garrett, here with my good friend. Y'all know him. What's his name? Brian Sobey. It's Brian Sovay. That's the crowd going wild for my good friend,

Brioche Brian. Oh, man, I look like an enriched dough, am I right? Dude, you do look rich. Thank you. In that tie? Those earth tones? Thank you. Speaking of Earth tones.

I needed that. We heard today talking about one of, I mean, one of our favorite geographical, geological features in the entire world. What's your favorite rift lake, Brian? Easy Lake by call. Lake by call is mine.

When I'm on a plane, And there's that little feature that lets you, like, zoom in on the flight plan. Only on Delta. Only on Delta. I move all the way over to Russia. I find Lake Baikal and I stare at the whole flight. Yeah. Part of why it took us so long, I mean, y'all don't know this.

But part of why we're so delayed in recording this episode, which, again, y'all don't know. But we are is because I wasted a lot of writing time just looking at Lake Baikal on Google Earth, absolutely mesmerized by what I was seeing. Yep. Oh, sorry, guys, I'm still a little under the weather, but it's all right. We're going to push through. Now, before we get into the Lake by call fun stuff, we are going to talk about some housekeeping items that we have for you guys here at Hanna Cosmos.

The first and most important is that RQ, okay, any 007 fans out there, our Q guy has equipped us with one of the most technologically advanced pieces of machinery that we have access to in the world currently today. Yes. And that is this beautiful display for our book that swivels automatically. It is so cool. Battery-powered, reflective surface that shows off the features of the book, the curve appeal, if you will. And basically, we want to show you guys this so that you know that we do, in fact, have a haunted Cosmos book that is available on the market for purchase today.

And you can find the link for that in the description. If you love this show, if you love the material that we talk about, if you're a patron and you love the dusty tome, then I really think that y'all would enjoy and get a lot out of this book. Brian and I both put a ton of work into it, and we're glad that it's finally available to you all. So check out Haunted Cosmos,

doing your duty in the world that's not just stuff by going to Newchristinimpress.com slash cosmos and getting this beauty in your hands today. And if you've read it, you should also go to Goodreads and look up the book because it's on Goodreads and give us that, if you don't, give us a five-star review, if you're not going to give it a five-star review,

like even if you're lying, then give it a five-star review anyway. Then go to badreads.com to look it up and that's where you can leave that review. Yeah. And no, thanks to everybody who left reviews to the book. It's, you know, got good reviews right now. So I check it out.

Yeah. I think it's, uh, it will please you. So far, it's been great and we've been very excited. So enjoy it. Pick yourself up a copy today. Get one for your friend too. Get one for your friends. The other thing that's,

don't be selfish. The other thing that it's time to start. Oh. Hey Ben, I just read that our great-grandparents probably experimented with butter on their dry skin as a moisturizer. Is that why you look so radiant? Maybe it's grandma's butter recipe, or maybe it's Grato Tallow. Their Tallow products are 100% organic and naturally contain the good stuff your skin craves. No mystery there.

So say Sayanara, Sammy, to kitchen experiments and say hello to healthier skin. Gray Toad Tallow, trusted by skin, envied by Great Grandma's Butter recipe. For more information and to get a sample pack, check out graytoed tallow.com. Don't forget to use the code Cosmos 15. That's all caps, Cosmos 1-5 for 15% off your order. Ben, do you know what's weird? The fact that Gobeckley-TEPI contains advanced technology far beyond the time period in which it was made. Okay, nerd.

I was thinking more in the vein of health and wellness. in this cold and flu season. Oh, well, were you actually thinking about how God gave us amazing small native berries called elder berries that actually carry all kinds of vitamins and minerals and antioxidants and antiviral compounds that our bodies crave? And that Trevor and Autumn at the King's Ridge grow and produce the freshest elderberries and elderberry syrup known to mankind? Okay, so I'm guessing you were talking about that.

But did you also know that they're running a special? for haunted cosmonauts. That's right. If you use code haunted, all caps haunted, you can get 10% off your first order at tkrfarm.com. Dude, absolutely the best news I've heard today. We are living in the beginning of a new reformation. Christian content is being produced at a rapid rate. Art, businesses, publications, ministries, and a thousand other mediums are acting as agents to get us out of our current and. Christian world. And all of these mediums are going to need marketing to help them get more eyes and ears on them. New Dominion Design Co is ready to provide that help. Unashamedly Christian, New Dominion Design Co exists to labor alongside fellow members of the body of Christ as we engage in this great

work of Reformation. With over 15 years of design and marketing experience spanning across multiple industries, New Dominion Design Co was launched in 24 to help like-minded businesses, ministries, institutions, publishing houses, and other content creators around the globe, raise the bar of excellence in our Christian culture. If you're ready to build, New Dominion Design Co is ready to work with you. Visit New Dominion Designco.com. That's New Dominion Designco.com. And reach out to Jenkins for all your graphic needs.

And as always, that link will be in the description. Man, I sound like I was like drowning Lake by Call. Wow. If I had to drown anywhere. Can I just say? Let's say where we each would most like to drown if we had to drown. Okay. One, two, three.

Lake by call. Imagine that drowning in that clarity. You can see 130 feet down into the water because it's some of the clearest water on Earth. It'd be a delight to drown in that water. I'm pretty sure it has the record for the clearest fresh water on earth. That's what I've heard. Oh, how amazing. Hey, another thing that we need to talk about is our conference coming up in June.

We do. We're finally ready to start promoting the next new Christian Impress. conference. It's coming up June 2025. What are the dates? I think it's 12 to the 14th. You can go to newchristinpress.com slash 2025-2025. It's got all the details, tickets, et cetera, et cetera. But the main thing you need to know, listener, is that Ben

and I will be doing a live haunted Cosmos show on stage at the conference, which we did last year as well with live piano accompaniment. This year we're going to be upping it. Live piano. It's going to have other stuff to sound design happening live. And the topic is a mystery to you right now, but it is going to be absolutely great. Yes.

Not only is the topic a mystery to all of you, but it's also a mystery to us. I actually know what it's going to be. And that, well, Brian did send me a link. I've sent him one link. It'll definitely be included. It's decided. But it's a matter of, you know, what's the full scope? Mystery still to hear and I.

And that makes it even, you know, the essence of romance. It does. Is the unknown. And we want to romance you all at this new Christenum Press conference. So come join us, be romanced by the mystery, by the Misteon. I don't remember. Mysterion. Mysterion.

We're going to do something whose profundity is akin to the Ellucinian rights that we talked about. Wow. It's going to be insane. This is now gone on long enough. It's going to be insane. So get your tickets today. Be there. Yes.

It's going to be amazing. Now, do we have any other housekeeping that we need to take care of? Yes, we do. What? We actually have the single biggest announcement in the history of mankind, and I don't think I'm exaggerating about that. Definitely not. No, I'm not.

We are, here at Honda Cosmos, we are well known for having one of the best patron supporter communities of any podcast, any show project like ours in the world. We have a great, great community. It's like a top four or five hundred on the platform that we've been using. And it comes with its own show just for patrons, the dusty tome, every week. And man, like we have seriously a great group there. We laugh. We cry.

We sweat. Overwork. We talk about every, you know, we talk about the sizes of our various mothers. Okay. And that's true as well. Things like that. Great community. And we are upping the quality of our patron experience.

We bleed like now. It's been upped. Our existing patrons already know about this. They've been in process with us. We're actually moving over to a new patron support platform for a lot of reasons. One of them is it's going to increase the quality for all of our patrons of their experience in interacting with the patron exclusive content, allowing us to do even more. patron-only type of stuff in thanks for their support and making the show possible.

Because you guys, we couldn't do this without the patron support we have. 100%. This show is a full-time job for at least one person and more. So there's a lot of hands on this show at New Christenam Press. We have quite a few employees that touch different aspects of this show. And patrons are the ones who make that possible. So what I want you to do right now, listener, especially if you've never been a patron of the show before, but also existing patrons, make sure you check out all the communication

we've been given you. But go to hauntedcosmos.com. Supercast. Supercast. What is supercast? It's not a normal cast. It's not the cast of friends. It's faster than a locomotive. It's more powerful than a thousand men. It's faster also than a speeding bullet. It's haunted cosmos on supercast. Cosmos on Supercast. Go check it out. Link in the description, hauntedcosmos. Dot Suburcast.com.

And it's a great experience for patrons and supporters there. We have a lot of exciting stuff to show you. We're not going to belabor it now. But if you like the show, want to support the work, go head over there. And I think it's,

you know, there are tears where it's like a cup of coffee a month. Yeah. And you basically get access to some of the greatest content ever made by man. It's going to be flipping sweet. Okay.

We're going to do like, it'll make us, it'll make it easier for us to do things like live streams for Q&As, more interaction with the Patreon supporters, not Patreon supporters, the Supercasters. The ones who keep the lights on here in this amazing wallpaper that shows cryptids and mountains and things like that. That's right. So check it out, guys. We're very, very excited to launch that. We've been working on it for some months here behind the scenes.

And honestly, the bottom line is, Ben is going to die of tuberculosis unless you guys go support show. That's right. I do have the consumption. I also have walking pneumonia. I also have the flu. I did. I did have the flu. I think, you know, every year around this time of year, I get really, really sick. Your birthday. Yeah. And then I don't get sick for the rest of the year. Ben just turned 30. I did just turn 30 years young. And I feel it. So let's do a seamless tie in here. Yep. Because nothing gets me going surrounding the number 30. Like nothing gets me 30 times more. excited than thinking about the deepest freshwater lake in the entire world, the rift lake known as Lake by call. So let's talk some more, Ben, about, let's just orient our listeners here on what,

like, what actually is this lake? What makes it so fascinating? Yeah. And it's not just the high strangeness. That's right. It's just the, the magnanimity of the lake itself. It is massive in scale. If you've never heard of Lake by call, then seriously, what are you doing with your life? And have you been living under a rock. If so, welcome to the light of day. I would like to introduce you to Lake by Call. One of the coolest things God ever made. It is probably, probably the oldest lake in the world. And it's sitting nestled in the southern reaches of Siberia and Russia. And it's huge. Yeah, absolutely enormous. By volume, it is giant. Yes. Enormo cast. Gigantic. Welcome. This isn't called a podcast anymore. This is now called an Enormo cast.

because it's talking about Lake Baikal. It is bigger than Belgium. It's a mile deep. Over a mile deep. More than a mile. And then even under that water, it's so old that there's like sediment layers that some say go even another mile,

like more than a mile below that. And it's not like, but here's the thing. It's not like, oh, it's a mile deep in one little spot and then it's like 15 feet deep everywhere else. No, its average depth is over 2,000 feet deep. That's absolutely insane. That's insane. It's created a river.

Lake is when the plates actually are moving apart. So it's like it cracks. It rips the world. It's like a crack in the skin of Russia. Yeah. That it's crazy. It's crazy. It's really, really cool. It does have some of, if not the clearest fresh water in the world, as well as some of the oldest water in the world. The average residence time, by the way, I learned this. Do you know what residence time is for water in a lake? I do. What is it? It's the amount of time that a water molecule stays in that lake before in the hydrological cycle, either exiting through a stream or evaporation or whatever, the average time it stays. And this is one of the best anecdotes. I'm so locked, we didn't plan this. Dude, we're locked in. I'm so excited that you know this. Like this anecdote.

To me, this is insane. The residence time of water in Lake Baikal is 330 years. That's wild. So it takes a full three centuries plus for it to recycle all of its water, which is nuts because it's fed by like massive rivers. Yeah, meaning that water molecules that entered Lake Baikal around the signing of the Declaration of Independence are still there. Yes. And we'll be there for another, for more, for decades. Yeah.

Like where they leave. Water in Lake Baikal witnessed the, the fall of the Mongol Empire. Dang. You know, I actually don't know if that's true. That's not true. Because I can't remember when that happened. I think that's true. But some water molecules were in the lake at that time.

Yes. And averages, you know, they have, There's still some. There's some. There's some that's been there since the beginning of time. Yep. Okay? There's some noeic molecules in there for sure. Some other fun facts about Lake Baikal include the fact that in the wintertime, it freezes completely.

Now, this is crazy because it has the surface area over Belgium. Yeah, bigger than Belgium. Bigger than Belgium. It's about 400 miles long. It's 50 miles wide at its widest. And it freezes over completely to a depth of six. feet like multiple meters of ice yes they open up roads which that's not too crazy they do that in the great lakes as well like i've seen ice road truckers yeah 100% they pop like 50 milligrams ends yeah

and then they're able to drive across lake by car from russia i've seen the commercials it's actually the the ice is thick enough that ben's mom can walk all the way across it like without dude it's so clear it's true though my mom can walk all the way across it but but in seriousness the ice is the water's so clear and the ice is so clear that it's like surreal. You can actually still see to great depth through the ice, like crystal clear ice. And I don't like, the women who are listening right now are probably like, why is this interesting?

Every man who's listening right now is absolutely locked in. Yeah. Because there are only a few things that men like will make their whole personality surround. And one of them are lakes and ocean. Strange lakes. Datoms. Okay. Maritime mysteries and then also lake mysteries.

Yes, absolutely. Unsung hero, I think, of the male interest is lake mystery. Absolutely. Now, it's the biggest lake in the world in terms of water volume. Let me tell you how much water is contained. Tell us how much water is contained. Okay, it has more water in it than all the great lakes combined. That's actually crazy.

Yeah, I didn't know that. It is crazy. It has more water in it than all the great lakes combined. Wow. It contains just in this one lake, over 23% of all the earth's fresh, surface water. That's not frozen in glaciers. Yes. Yeah. I mean, which is surface water. Yes. Right. So if you take the glacier, the glaciers, as bear grills would say, away, that's insane. Almost a fourth of the fresh water on Earth is in Lake Baikal. Some of the purest water,

although they have had issues with algal blooms and different, there was like a paper factory, classic Soviet era thing, where they were just like rampantly polluting Lake Bike. They're like, oh, we have great greatest lake on earth. Oh, we. We ruin it. Oh, Sergei. Oh, pass me the vodka. Sergei. Hello.

Now they're Japanese. Oh, well, they're in southern Siberia, so they got the crossover. That's true. This is what an Eastern Russian sounds like. Oh, Gaborsky. Oh, nihow. Look at the lake by a collar. This is not accurate.

That is 100% how they sound. I've heard, because, hey, I've been to Lake Baikal in my dreams. Okay, in your dreams. I haven't been there. You know what else is crazy is that because it's so isolated too, it doesn't touch,

it's thousands, I think it's like a thousand miles plus to the nearest ocean. Yeah, like it's one of the most inland lakes. Very inland. I'm actually making that up. Very inland. But it is very inland.

But I'm sure I'm right. It's not close to the ocean at all. I'm sure I'm right. So it has many species of fish and wildlife that exists nowhere else. Yeah, like for example. Meet Sower,

a biblical indie rock band blending the soul, of Death Cab for Cutie and Manchester Orchestra with the wisdom of Calvin, Spurgeon, and even C.S. Lewis. Stream Sewer on your favorite app or visit Sewerproject.com. That's S-O-W-E-R project.com. And use code haunted, that's all caps haunted, for 30% off their vinyl and apparel. It's time to rethink Christian music with Sower. Post-Millennialists often talk about creating generational wealth. But where do you even begin to turn that vision into reality? Stonecropp wealth advisors is here to guide you. They'll demystify the wealth building process and equip you with the strategies needed to

secure a lasting legacy for future generations. With faith-based portfolios, they help align your investments with your values, moving your hard-earned dollars away from woke companies and into businesses advancing God's kingdom. As fee-only investment advisors, Stonecrop is unwavering in its fiduciary commitment to act in your best interest. That means no commissions, no hidden agendas, just a dedication to serving you. Get started with StoneCrop Wealth Advisors today by visiting Stonecropadvisors.com slash haunted cosmos or by clicking the link in the description below. Investment Advisory Services offered through StoneCrop Wealth Advisors LLC, a registered investment advisor with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The only truly freshwater seals in the world. Like there are other seals that go between freshwater and saltwater when the environment allows them to. But this is the only population. I'm pretty sure in the whole world, this type of seal that lives exclusively in freshwater. They have no idea how it got there. They're like, how did these seals get, I can tell you.

Underwater portals. A little guy named Noah. And Noah. Maybe. Maybe. but also underwater portals. Apparently, there was supposed to be a portal, a transdimensional portal linking Lake Baikal

with Lake Superior. Really? And there was a monster akin to Nessi that was going between the two. Is this confirmed? Yeah, by me. I mean, 100%. I read a report.

It's absolutely insane. It doesn't matter where I read it. Wow. I read it. So anyway, let me just, there's one more natural thing and then we can keep moving. Yeah.

About By Call. So in the winter, it's because of the interesting features, there aren't many places like this, like this really deep freshwater rift lake separated from the sea, all these different features it has. It also leads to some strange events and even mysteries that some of them end up becoming explicable over time with study. But for example, for a long time at Bichol, people notice these rings that would form in the ice. so when it froze, this insanely thick ice, they would notice these giant rings where they were like perfect circles,

and some of them huge. Like you could only see them very well from far overhead, which is why they're noticed, you know, more in modern times when people have planes and drones and satellites and that kind of thing. So they would form in the ice,

and you can go look this up if you're interested, and it would be like where the ring was, it was almost broken up, kind of like it wasn't just a faint scratch. It was like a really, really insane, intense breaking of the ice forming this ring. And people just were flat. They were mystified. How in the world are these rings forming in this huge, thick ice?

And now I know what you're probably thinking. It's formed by ice fishermen trying to fish for Brian's mom. That's what you're probably thinking. But that's actually not what they're from. Believe it or not. It's crazy. That is not what it was. what it was was.

So people were coming up with all sorts of explanations and some of them like supernatural, maybe, because there's so many of these lights stories and different high strangeness phenomena, orbs are going to get two lights,

like strange energy type of things that have happened around the lake. So people thought maybe this is related. There's like some kind of underwater there's USO. Yeah. The unknown submersible object phenomenon there

where, you know, UAP, UFO phenomena lights as well as things that seem like craft would go in and out of the water. And so they thought maybe there's some kind of portal activity or there's some kind of strange energy or magnetism. But what it turns out, most likely it is, is actually methane. Because there's this insanely thick sediment at the bottom. A lot of organic material stuff dies. It goes down to the bottom.

It creates methane and decomposition that creates. methane is an exothermic reaction. I don't know if you knew that. An exothermic reaction is a reaction that creates heat, like a compost pile. Yeah. Gets very hot when it's really going. You get like all your food scraps or whatever and bacteria and it's releasing heat.

It's an exothermic reaction. So there are vast pockets of methane that build up on the floor, the sea floor, the lake floor. and they released this hot methane. Speaking of methane, speaking of hot methane, getting released. Okay, wow. I was over at Ryan's for dinner the other night,

and his mom was there. Okay. And they would rise to the surface, and they would create these bubbles or whatever that would crack. And I don't know about melt, but they would, like, crack the ice and create these giant rings in the ice.

So there's stuff like that. It's just a weird place. Wait, I figured, because I know what you're talking about, obviously, because I'm a lake call enthusiast. Yeah. But I just assumed that it was like the methane was heating up the water in that area so that the ice wasn't forming as well. So it was cracking.

But it's actually, you're saying it's the force of the methane explosion. It's more like the methane coming up and somehow, whether through heat or the sheer force of its rise, it would form a bubble. you'd bubble like smashing up against something. Not actually a sheer force, though. It would be a form of a normal force. Like, right. When I said sheer, I meant S-H-E-E-R.

I see. Not E-A-R. I see. I see. So like a curtain. More like. Like sheer curtains. More like the brute force.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It would be a synonym. Sure. Okay. No. That I'm deploying here. You know, not like the sheer force of like shearing a screw off.

Just words. You know what I'm saying? Words sent out to do war with other words. So people are spooked around this place because of all the weird stuff. So then when, they find other unexplainable things, they're like, portal. Portal for sure. Now, I mean, here's the thing. We got to figure out

where this methane is coming from. There's no way that it's just as simple as subsurface methane deposits that are then leaking into the lake. It must be a massive underwater creature that is, we'll say, flatually. Breaking wind. Okay? Breaking water, because they're underwater.

There's no wind underwater. Fair. There is tidal pressure, though, which acts as a sort of wind. Anyway. Okay. Yeah. So we don't know. What do you think about the swimmers? The light by call swimmers.

There's this theme that repeats several times, and by the hot clothes of this show, you'll see that this nine foot tall, like humanoid thing, nine to ten feet tall, it's like in the meters. So, you know, three meters. Three meters. That's actually Spanish, but with a Russian accent. So, and that just meant three milks.

So, like, super didn't make sense. However, this nine plus feet foot tall humanoid thing keeps appearing. And my answer is, I have no flipping idea. No idea. What these strange jellyfish bobble-headed diving nine-foot tall. The wand? I know. It's like Dumbledore.

Like, no, it is true. The, like, not only are they like humanoid. massive things, okay? But they have this technology. Yes. They have this weird, like, it's like a bionicle, like the water bionicle,

where they have these water-based technologies that allow them to totally manipulate. Like the water. Yeah, the sea around Lake Baikal. Maybe that's the answer to the methane bubbles. They're just pointing their wand at the sea floor and they're like, boom. The silvery giant Denisovan Lake Baikal swimmers

are like creating these massive balls. of methane. Yeah, we don't know. We're not there. Maybe it's their art, you know what I mean? We're down there. It is crazy, though, because as Brian said, it's a trope that we'll see pop up again, and even not only in Lake Baikal, but in the surrounding region of the world. Is it cool?

Again, where these Denisovans were originally found. Denisovans have a, you know, esoteric connection to things like Gobeckley-Tepe. A lot of people believe that they helped build these megalithic structures in the Fertile Crescent and beyond. Now, I don't think that, okay?

But the point is, it's weird. It is, and it is genuinely strange. Like, it's something that doesn't seem to fit in the jigsaw that we've made for ourselves in man's history. And we see evidence of it lingering. Like, it hasn't all just been in the past. But with these lake by call swimmers and with the other findings that we'll see in other lakes in the region, it carries over. It remains as something that's totally unknown and a massive question mark. Can you imagine being like being a one of the Soviet,

I don't know, there's Spetsnaz or whatever they are. There's some kind of elite Soviet soldier. Les Petsnaz. I think the Spetsnaz. I think the Spetsnaz are like the Navy SEAL. Dude, yeah, they're supposed to be legit. So they're legit. Like, can you imagine, you know,

our Navy SEALs, Buds training stuff is crazy? Yeah. Can you imagine doing it in Soviet Russia? Make it Russia. They literally don't care about if you die. Yeah, they don't care about human life. They do not care. Whatsoever.

I mean, like, especially Soviet area. They, they were communists. communists. I mean, I, so I, I, of course, was in high school and middle school in the mid to early 2000s and late 2000s, you know, so I watched Spike TV's deadliest warrior. Oh, okay. Naturally. Wow. You know, you had the first episode with the Ninja and the Spartan and went on and on and on. And one of the warriors that they showcased on the show was the Spetsnaz. And so I know, okay, better than spetsnaz themselves. Wow.

The type of stuff that these guys go through, they get, like, apparently they do get, like, legitimately tortured. Oh, yeah. Multiple times. Yeah, like almost drowned. It's insane.

It's one of the most elite soldiering groups in the world. And the point is, these guys are sober-minded. They're not really, like, two guys doing a podcast about Lake By Call where they keep making your mom jokes. They tend to be very serious, people, extremely elite at the tasks that they're given, much like ourselves.

Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. It's just different tasks. Yeah. Wow. And they don't hyperboize. And so the fact that it wasn't just once, but twice in the same day that these elite

men came back with such a story for their commanding, like their commanding officers that they would especially not mess around with because these are the guys that tortured them already before. is genuinely astonishing. And it's documented. This is something that the Soviet military knew about, knew it happened, and actually wanted to find out more of, but they just couldn't. It's a high trust profession where the commanding officer sending these men into the field

have to have absolute trust in them. They're often, you know, they have some very high security clearances. They are sent on missions in the Soviet era as well. Like some of them would be sent in missions across borders into other nations. And so this was a time when Soviets were trying to keep people from escaping from the communist, you know, system. So they had to trust these men. And if you were one of those men, you'd gotten through all this elite testing. There's no way that you would risk it all on making up a story about nine foot tall, metallic, silvery, flashy, jellyfish bubblehead, wand-bearing underwater alien things.

Yeah. It's just not going to happen. Wizard things. I'm just imagining, though, these poor guys, you know, like, this is a classic, like, boss move where the boss is like, guys go back in. Yeah. And they're like, why don't you do it? They're like, I don't have the training. I'm the boss.

And, hey, and there's different accounts. I've heard accounts where, you know, different versions of this story because it's somewhat garbled. You know, the nooses, there was one version of it I heard where they had like a net. You know, they send in with this net. I was thinking... It's like a kid with a, like, catching jellyfish. Yeah, like, why not as a commander's, wait a minute, and maybe form a better plan?

Yeah. We're like, we've got some wire. It's like an episode of, of, uh, what's the Wiley Coyote in the... Yeah, it's like, roadrunner. Or Scooby-Doo. Wiley Coyote's like, I know what to work. A big net. A man-sized net.

The astonishing legends, uh, guys, they were like, this is like Scooby-Doo. Yeah. They're so true. Hey, take this net, go get that big lake monster. Try to un-ask. They're going to pull the mask off and be like, oh, it was. Yeah. The, you know, the Lake Baikal tourism department guy the whole time.

And the Lake By-Call, the monster sounds like Joe Pesci, and he's like, and I would have gotten away with it, too, if it won for these meddling spatsnaz. That would be amazing. Wow. We should make a movie. We should be. It would be so believable. Now, here's what I like. Here's what I like.

As a theory. Yeah. Lake by call is one of the oldest. places in the world. I think it is the most ancient lake in the world. And I do think that there's something to the, if you want to call it memory, you know, but when you add such amounts of time to a place that was largely untouched and unfound by man for a really, really long period of time, it would have required, you know, the migration of Noah's grandsons centuries to eventually make it. That far east. And we, obviously, they eventually did. But there was a lot of time that went by where

Lake by call wasn't subject to the subjugation of mankind. Now, here's where I'm going with that. We see other places that are akin to that, like forests in Great Britain or in northern Europe. We see the Appalachian Mountains in the U.S. and other wildernesses in the Western Hemisphere. And we find that there's a lot of this kind of activity in such places. And I don't, and I don't mean like silver, nine foot tall swimmers that have whirlpool guns, but I just mean strangeness, high concentrations

of high strangeness. And I do think ultimately that it goes back to ferries, of course. I knew it. So I think that Lake Baikal is home to, like, maybe a race of water ferries, you know, that specialize in guarding Lake Baikal. And so when these

Russians Vetsnaz are coming into their area, Maybe they start to find something that they don't want them to find for whatever reason. They're like, okay, release the swimmers and get them all whirlpooled up with our whirlpool gun. And then if you try to capture one of the fay, one of the water fay, they are not going to mess around with you. And maybe they take them, you know, to water, to Lake Baikal. Like, I'm not joking. This sounds stupid. I know.

But like Baikal Fairyland, you know. This is Ben's theory. they go into the lake, they come across the Dumbledore fame. And they're like, get out of our lake. Avatica d'avra. I would like someone to come up with a theory that's better, you know. That's better than before they start making fun of it. No, I, no, honestly.

See my published works. Okay, I think that the fairy can actually explain a lot of what we're seeing in these areas of high strangeness. And I'm going to hang my hat on that theory. I like it. until someone offers me something better. No, I like it because it does have broad explanatory power. Broad and also precise, you know, because if you see something new, you can just be like, that's a new fairy.

Well, we've been saying for a long time that this class of creature can't, because first of all, like in seriousness, people don't, people make stuff up, people don't just make stuff up. We've said this many times. Yeah. And there are so many sober-minded. people who have witnessed very strange occurrences in far-flung natural domains, that it does make you think, what is going on?

Like, what are these, you can't have a seven-person group hallucination where you all just go, we all hallucinated the exact same, the exact same thing. Weird, silver-fishing jellyfish had things. Yeah, more than one. Because it wasn't, yeah. And then, and then also the force to rapidly ascend the divers from, you know, many feet under the water to throw them out of the water like they did, knock them unconscious, give them the bends and kill them. That's not a fish. That's not like a sturgeon. Yeah. Or a, you know,

a freshwater seal. Although if it was a freshwater seal, oh, that'd be impressive. By the way, the freshwater seals, they are really cool, like they can hold their breath for really, really, really, really, really long time. But they're small. They're like three to four feet. They're not nine feet long. They're not nine feet. Just so everyone's listening. And it's the seal. And it's the seal. It's not the seeds. They're too small. Seals also don't have magic wands that we know of. That's a good point.

How many seals have you talked? Ben, I wanted to talk to you about something. I'm concerned about you. What are you concerned about? Every time I see you, you have more and more indigo sundries products. I feel like you're overdoing it. Dude, give me one example.

Dude, this is exactly what I'm talking about. Do you see, like, where did you even get this from? What's the problem with having some soap on hand? Ben, we're at work, right? now? There's- What, you don't want to smell good at work? There's gonna be no situation where you need Indigo sundry soap at work.

Uh, have you ever gotten sweaty in this basement? Dude, yes, every time we're filming, I look at you and I go, he's so handsome. Well, then, well then you're gonna need some soap so that you don't smell as bad. Do you see what's happening to you? Like, how are you even, are there fair, do you have fairies that give you this? Dude, what are you talking about? Have you partnered with the fay? No!

I'm a stone cold Christian who likes soap. Dude, I feel, wait this. Is that calendule? Oh, not so mad about it now, are you? They make liquid soap now? Yeah, you didn't know that? Dude, I didn't know that. Well, they're a sponsor in the show.

You should know that. I have duties and responsibilities. Not all of us can just be indigo sundrymaxing all the time. Okay, well, since you didn't know that, I'm assuming you also didn't know that if you use their subscription plan, you'll get 10% off of your work. 10% off. 10% off.

already great prices? I'm telling you, are you kidding me? Dude, Lake By Call is one of those places that if I could pick how to die, it'd be like I would want to be, I would want to save my whole family from some terrible existential threat. Absolutely. Around Lake By Call, somehow kill a seal with my bare hands. Yeah. It's frozen over and I just bleed out on the snowy surface of Lake Bycaul. Yeah. Looking up at the heavens. Now, Here's the other thing that I want to say about this fairy theory. Okay. It does have big explanatory power.

Part of why is because what I'm not saying is like, oh, it's demons. Because I don't think that all fairies are demons. I've said this multiple times. I think that you can have a category of angelic minister that is akin to what we would call the fairy. And if you think about like, what's the caliber of person that the Soviets are sending into Lake by Call? to do all these studies and trainings, a bad caliber, because the Soviets were bad.

I don't know if you know this, bad people. The Soviets were not good. No, they were not. So I'm like, some of the worst people who've ever lived. What if these, what if the reason that it's only the Soviets

that seem to see these Lake Baikal swimmers are because it's only the Soviets that were bad enough to warrant them coming and actually like, expelling them from Lake Baikal. You're like, get out of here. I think that's a great point. out of our pure lake.

Like, wow, Ben, what a great point you just made. Seriously. I humbly agree and accept that. My words. There's a twinkling. My words. My words. Yeah, absolutely.

No, I do. I like it. I like it. I'm not saying that all the people that live in Soviet Russia were the Soviet Union were really bad people, like unusually bad people. But the system, the overlords, the tyrannical leaders, that it was one of, one of if not the worst things that people. I've ever done. Yes. Were what the Bolsheviks and the Soviets did.

Yes, 100%. Stalin, Lenin. And usually the Spetsas were helping. Yeah, they weren't like fighting from the inside. Yeah, you give your elite soldiers and your higher-ups better lives. After you torture them, the average. Relentlessly. And in exchange for all of those perks and services and a Dacha out in the woods,

you know, you get. They do dirty work favors. They do dirty work favors. Yeah, indeed. They go do some killing. Why don't we move into our next dark tale? Yes. On the mayor's head of Lake Baikal.

Like a clawed finger reaching out into the middle of Lake Baikal, there is an island called Ocon. Since ancient times, it was inhabited by native buriats, tribal people who were mostly shepherds that practiced the religion of shamanism. But it has proven to attract invaders multiple times throughout history. Conquerors. drawn to what the shamans believe are its high concentration of spiritual energy. They say that tapping into the energy field of Alkan can give one strange abilities, or, if done improperly, curses and deformities. Long before any Russians stepped foot on the island,

the Mongol horde swept through the area and claimed lordship over Lake Baikal. The vassal king they put in charge of the area surrounding the lake was named Kutulul. Khan, and he ruled from an ornate city set upon Olkan Island. He chose the island for its abundance of lush fields that as many horses could run in and stay prepared for any need he may have of them. He had so many horses, it has said, that they drove out many of the Burriott settlements, which had been living on the island for centuries before the Mongols even existed. But he did not drive them all the way. They were skilled shepherds, and he kept a population of the best breakers of horses among them around to help manage his growing massive steeds.

It was well known among the people that Kutul prized one of his mares over all the others. She was a giant white beast, indescribably quick and able to leap high over walls. She had no fear of swords and arrows and had carried the Khan through the most perilous adventures of his life already. He prized this mare and gave for the choicest of foods from his table. second only to himself. He had received her at the beginning of his military career as a young captain. A prince, far into the west, had ransomed the life of his son

by giving over the horse to the invading clan and the horse passed to Kul Khun. The legend told him by the prince was that she was a descendant of the warrior in the stars, and that she was prophesied to give birth to the greatest horse to ever live. It took years for Kutul to find a stallion he felt was worthy to mate with Kinta, the name that he gave the mayor. But finally, the time did come, and the Khan patiently waited to meet the foal, which would become the greatest horse in the world. He checked on the pregnant Kinta each day and fed her by his own hand and effort. He attended the fields almost incessantly as the time approached for the birth, but when it actually happened, he had. happened to be away at the palace.

Messengers raced to the Khan to inform him that the birth had occurred and that he needed to come see the offspring for himself. And so he raced through the island from his throne, leaving his servants far behind him, until he lighted upon a hill overlooking Kinta's field. What he looked down on was a horror beyond comprehension. Lying beside its beautiful mother was a grotesque mass of disproportionate flesh. a massive head like an elephant's leg oozing viscera and pus on top of a wrinkled and tiny body and legs. When the foal tried to stand, it could only barely do it.

The con looked on with disgust in his heart mixed with something else too. Malice for some reason. As he stormed away from his initial meeting with the beast, the con muttered to his men to keep it and its mother separated from the other herds and to keep a constant close watch on the beast. They confirmed his order and set a cycle of centuries over Kinta's private field. They watched as the days turned the monster into something even more hellish. The head grew larger and larger with dead eyes like those of a serpent that bulged out.

Meanwhile, the trunk and legs only continued to shrink as if they were decaying and wrinkling away with the passing wind. Even still, the thing could somehow walk. And the watchers noticed that it followed its mother around constantly, taking whatever grass she was about to eat for itself. Soon the mother appeared emaciated and sick. She hardly stood anymore, and when she did, she could not escape the envious gaze of her son.

He ate and ate and ate the field bear, until finally the glorious mayor Kinta dropped to the ground one day and never got up again. She was dead by starvation. The con was furious. But he could not shake the evil feeling inside of him that told him that the foal may somehow prove useful. He mourned the death of his favorite horse, sure. But the morning was almost interrupted or usurped by the curiosity he felt for its sun.

He therefore ordered the watch of the monster to be doubled, and his men raced away from the palace back to the field to bear the news. But when they arrived, they found tragedy waiting for them. The three men who had been sanctioned on the watch that day were nowhere to. to be seen, or they thought they weren't at first. After some time looking, though, one of the messengers realized that the three tall pole-like stones next to the foals gate had not been there the day before. He approached them and could see carved into their likeness as if completely natural, the faces of the watchers. Somehow they had been turned into stone. Of course, they knew

right away that it had been done by some power of the beastly foe. In response, To this new and gruesome development of power by the animal, the Khan decided to enlist the help and wisdom of the burriat shepherds. He called upon a youth named Oladoy, a boy with a reputation for being skilled with animals and obedient to commands. He told the young shepherd to do whatever needed to be done in order to kill this creature, as his morbid curiosity with it had finally run its course. In the meantime, he offered the prize of one of his other great horses to any of the mom. Mongol footman who could kill the foal before the shepherd boy. Oladoy walked to the hill overlooking the foals' field under the cover of night to not attract the attention of it or any of the soldiers hungry for the prize.

He observed as man after man launched a charge on the foal, only to be caught in its wicked eyes and turned to stone at its halacious whinny. Dozens of stone pillars that used to be men peppered the field by the time dawn rose up with her red fingers in the morning. The shepherd boy, unable to return with the task unfinished, walked helpless down to the coast of the island, and stared aimlessly into the crystal clear waters of Lake by Call. As he did this, he wondered at the strange power the lake seemed to have over the life that forms on its surface. He marveled at its dream like otherworldliness, how a place so firmly fixed on the world can be a place that feels so remote from it. Even as he pondered these things, the morning mists that rose to.

from the water seemed to whisper to him, forgotten ghosts from a time long before any that he could imagine. They told him things and words he could not and did not wish to understand, but as they spoke, he looked down once more into the water and found there an idea. Olladoy collected the most fresh and fragrant grasses from that side of Olkan and wheeled them close to the fence line of the foal with a cart. He kept care not to turn and try and steal a glance at the disgusting monster that followed from the other side of the fence, but the squishing sound of its flesh lumbering along betrayed that it was indeed following the scent of the grass. He walked ahead to the gate and opened it, before placing tufts of the grass along the path behind him, leading ever downward

to the water. When the two were near to the short cliff that Oladoy had stood upon earlier that morning to see his reflection, he checked once more to confirm that the fall was still just behind him, before throwing himself and the cart of grass, completely into the water off of the side of the path. He turned in the water and pushed himself deeper in while looking back up to the surface. We could see the fall safely now, since the fall would not be looking at him. Suddenly, the bulging flesh of the monster began to crack and then jerked to a halt as if it was being quickly frozen over. Blood poured out of gaping wounds that began to form as jagged rock replaced the beast,

who had foolishly looked into the water's reflection. of itself. After mere seconds, the shepherd boy resurfaced and looked upon the rock that had been the full. It loomed large on the landscape, somehow far larger than the animal had actually been. And to this day, it is called the mare's head rock, or shamanca's rock. And it is the most sacred site in the lake for the few remaining burriot shamans. there's a couple things about this story that strike me that hit me some similarities just like that i just struck are you okay my hand is broken are you looking dude you've already got TB now you've got a broken left hand a pack of stone i just hit what strikes me about

this story is that it is there's a there are a few themes that show up in lots of high strangeness or folkloric accounts um so you have like the an example would be the jersey devil Yeah. It's another story of a strange or distorted or grotesque offspring born to an otherwise normal mother. Yeah. In that case, it's a human woman who gives birth to this devilish 13th cursed child that goes on, you know, maybe we'll talk about at some point. Or I can't remember if we already have. We've mentioned it in past.

We've mentioned it. Yeah. That's an American story. The Pine Barrens, Jersey Pine Barrens. I know there are Russian, I'm sorry, there's Japanese, there are, like you could go through a whole list of this theme of mothers giving birth to strange, grotesque offspring. Yeah. Then go on to terrorize. And another connection would be like a shamanic or witchcraft element where the burriot culture, their shamanistic culture.

So their spiritual, their religious ideology was shamanistic. they would have shamans who basically all across the world, shamans which is they enter into altered states of consciousness, sometimes through drugs, sometimes through meditation, like we talked about in our ayahuasca and hallucinogenic episode. And they'll enter into these alternate states of consciousness, and they claim they're controlled alternate states of consciousness.

And then they connect in that altered state of consciousness with spirits. with the spirit world. They kind of, they view themselves as a bridge between the physical and the spiritual. You can see the distortions of reality in this idea. And then they will connect with these spirits and the spirits will give them knowledge or they will accomplish things for them or they'll give them power to bless or curse or heal. But when things go wrong, they, you know, when someone violates a taboo or they go and, you know, desecrate a sacred land or they're even greedy or they're a bad ruler.

or like a lot of these stories and across the world, folkloric shamanistic accounts, they will curse a people or a person or a family and the spirits will cause this kind of grotesque offspring. Yeah. And the offspring comes to almost represent the wickedness of the person that earned the curse. Yeah.

So in this case, the ruler maybe was wicked or he, you know, and it just strikes me that you see these things. themes like over and over. It's not a, it's not just one place. Yeah. And that's really the, the point for including the story at all is to show that, uh, it, this connection of shamanism with like by call, I do think it's really important. Part of why I think it's important is because, um, of this idea that, that I think we've talked about maybe in less terms on this show of pagan religions, um, even, I mean, even the Christian, uh, um, um,

religion to a degree, is at least partly informed by the place where the people who practice it live. Yeah. Okay. So, like in the West, in Greece and Rome and places, you know, like that, it was a distinctly Grecian or a distinctly Roman paganism that sprung up. Whereas in the East, you had more shamanism or you had Islam, which is a distinctly eastern thing. You know, at least more or less, it's a distinctly eastern kind of mystical thing. And I think that this is an example of another religion that if you want to call it like nature versus nurture just to be colloquial, you know, I think that'd be fine.

But you have a people that sprung up around Lake by Kohl, this place that is extremely ancient, full of memory that transcends. I think a lot of what man is able to understand about the way that the world were. or its beginnings and things like that. Not that we're incapable of understanding it, but just that we don't totally know it. And I don't think it's a coincidence, is what I'm trying to say, that at a place like that,

this shamanism forms. And I think that it actually lends credence to this idea that Lake Baikal is a place that is a sort of thin place where the unseen seems to be especially present or powerful at this place of Lake Baikal. And I think that one kind of adjacent proof of that is the existence for recorded history of a shamanistic culture being present there. Yeah.

And that almost to me, I think you could argue it in multiple directions. To me, the most compelling version of that idea is that these, where the gospel, where the light of truth, where the one true living God hasn't penetrated into the culture, people always, like wherever they are, they come up with this idea that, oh, we're spiritual, physical beings. We're like a bridge between both worlds. And look, there are other beings who are spiritual in nature that are powerful and we can connect with them and they can help us or they can hurt our enemies or they can do things for

us. So when you have a culture over a long period of time that gives way to that and all of its folklore and all of its customs and all of its ideas about the sacred, they are in. informed by unclean spirits. Yeah. That culture then will descend further and further into this slavery to this idea. And the place itself becomes like a haunt. Yeah.

Of spirits. But then there's also like rules that these things tend to follow. Maybe rules is the wrong word. But like in scripture, you had, you know, the people post flood building the Tower of Battle. This idea that they could build. a tower to heaven or open up a gateway to heaven by forming a structure in a certain pattern and in a certain shape. And here's the thing is it's not like they were crazy for thinking that. It's not like they were out of their mind for thinking that certain architectural structures

may have implications in the unseen world. The reason that I say that is because you see God give very, very strict blueprints for the tabernacle and for the temple. And even, you know, in prophetic visions to Ezekiel and then visions in John's revelation, like these things from God aren't arbitrary. The scene ordering of unseen experience and worship actually does really matter. And so I don't think it's a coincidence that most of the time you see that happening, this shamanistic sort of bridging the gap action. It's in a place that has some form of sacred tradition already surrounding it.

Lake Baikal has been held as sacred for as long as it's existed. But it also has the central island, Olcon Island, that is, A, quite large and includes its own mountain range. And so mountain kind of high places, these are commonly places that are seen as gap places between earth and quote unquote heaven or between the scene and the unseen. And so I think that even there you see a lake by call and Olcon Island following this pattern

of what a quote unquote thin place or traditionally shamanistic place might look like by having high places or sacred groves, you know, like this. The mayor's head rock. Yeah, this place where, and it's called the mayor's head because the child was born to the mayor and it was like all head. And so they started calling it the mayor's head just I don't know why. And so that's why it's called the mayor's head rock. But, you know, that's kind of like the sacred grove of a place. Yeah, they still, to this day, the remaining few Burriott people call it, call it the most sacred site in their whole culture. Yeah. Where that's the epicenter. You know,

this place where, you know, the shepherd boy who was a Burriott boy, probably connected to the shamanistic culture in some way, you know, received this wisdom. on how to turn this beast into this monument now to Lake by Call in a sense. And so it becomes the sacred grove. And so even like the geography of Lake by Call tends to lend itself, I think, to this possibility of it actually being a place where we should actually expect more high strangeness activity or more kind of unseen activity. Dang.

Yeah. Dang. And here's the bottom line, guys. friends don't let friends become shamans. And that's a fact. Don't do it. That's a fact. If you're thinking about making contact with spiritual entities through altered states of consciousness

and attempting to get blessing from them, let me just tell you that what you're looking for is prayer to the living God. May I interest you in having contact with the father of all spirits, with God the Father and communion with him through the Son by His Holy Spirit? may I, you receive. You receive. You receive freedom, communion with God. And instead, like, people are going, but what if I did drugs and talk to demons? And I receive horrors beyond comprehension. Beyond my comprehension. Beyond human comprehension. And it's funny, these are, these are still relevant. Like, yeah, again, go back, see our episode on hallucinogenic drugs.

And the great tradition of mankind be, you know, enslaving himself to demons. Yeah. And contacting them, whether it's through meditation, transcendental meditation or ayahuasco or other drugs. Like, C.R. published works. Yeah. Honoccosmos, doing your duty in a world that's not just stuff. I don't think this book is really about that. But C.R. Published Works, the episode.

And then don't go do that because it doesn't end well. They promise you power and they give you death. Yeah. And so maybe now it would be helpful to kind of trace how more patterns through stories help reinforce this idea. Lake by call, yeah, it's a big lake, and that in itself really is fascinating.

But I think that it draws so much attention and curiosity because there actually is something more going on. Yeah, this next set of stories, pair of stories brings me back to Skinwalker Ranch. Yeah, exactly. It's some of this other related phenomena that apparently goes together in these places. For whatever reason, where you see this,

you often see that. as well. And know, by the way, that with all these stories, we're scratching the surface. There's always more that can be said about a place like Lake by Coltso. I hope you guys enjoy these. In the 1970s, the Soviets were on a desperate push to ensure their academic pursuits stayed up to date with an ever modernizing world of scientific innovation. That's why they leaped at an opportunity to acquire an update what another country was ready to scrap altogether, two Canadian submersibles. After securing the submersibles and, knocking them into shape, the Pisces 2 and Pisces 7 were ready for geological surveying in Lake Baikal.

Over the course of a summer, the submersibles logged a total of 42 dives apiece and each with the same dive crew. At one point, both of them had even been able to descend to within just a few hundred feet of the lowest point of Lake Baikal, a feat that pushed the submersibles to their limit. In all of this, the Soviets were quite happy with the results of their surveying. They were gaining an understanding of Baikal that was frankly unprecedented. They were excited about what it could mean for future study and even future military training exercises. But the excitement was soon to stop and turned to fear and wonder. Near the end of the diving season, Pisces 7 was exploring a section of the lake's floor they had not focused on yet.

The scientists inside diligently looked out of the portholes and down towards the sediment below as the spotlight's dimly lit what would otherwise be invisible in such deep waters. But as they focused downwards, something eerie began to appear before their straining eyes. A bright orange glow seemed to illuminate the area from above them. They twisted their necks to try and see as far up out of the fish eye windows as they could, but they couldn't find the source of the strange new light. Still, its intensity grew. Soon it was not just the exterior that was lit up and the glist.

of orange and gold, but the interior as well. Somehow, whatever force or power or thing controlling the light was also illuminating the small open space inside of the Pisces 7 submersible. As they marveled, the brightness still began to climb until the scientists had to shield their eyes from its strength. After a few minutes of this intensity and curiosity, the mysterious radiation of pure light began to dim and fade away until like a cloud passing on a high wind, everything returned to normal. The Pisces 7 surfaced soon after these events, and right away the crew began asking questions about whether those on the surface had been able to see the strange lights down below. But no one had. But they were able to confirm that it wasn't the Pisces 2 that

they had seen. She and the crew had been on the surface all day performing routine maintenance before a scheduled dive for later that night. After additional probing, the Soviets were able to determine, with all the certainty available to them at the time, that no other government, commercial, or civilian boats or submersibles had been operating anywhere near the Picey 7 during her dive. To this day, no one knows the source of the powerful light under the water. Diving instructor Oleg Chichulin bobbed up and down in the brisk waters of Lake Baikal

during the autumn chill. His boat was filled with a gaggle of excited youth, diving students eager to learn from their master teacher in the legendary lake whose reputation for challenge and reward and also strangeness preceded it. The group stood on the deck of Chichulin's boat after a successful day of diving, completing all of the debriefs of the day's lessons

before turning the prow back towards the shore and anticipation of their continued diving the next day. Suddenly, however, the group became aware of a strange light drifting down from the sky above the mountains off to the west. The light moved with such rapid subtlety and smoothness that it immediately caught everyone's attention and refused to let it go. The group watched as the red light descended from above the ridge all the way down to the water in front of them and then hovering just above the water shot directly towards them. It moved so rapidly that they did not notice what it was until it was about a quarter mile away, but even then, they could not actually make out what it was.

By all appearances, the pulsating red light was just that, a completely self-contained flying red orb that pulsed slightly as it flew. It did not belong to any craft or vessel that they could see. The orb was heading for them in no uncertain course, and was due to either fly through their boat or just barely miss them as it whizzed overhead. But right as Chichulin wondered what would happen if it barreled through his group, he watched it turn directly downwards and quickly sink beneath the water before continuing at very much the same speed towards them again.

The water under his boat glowed in eerie blood red as the orb went underneath, swimming now, and he chased it alongside of the boat as quickly as he. he could. Once he reached the bow, the light was already hundreds of feet beyond them. It then shot back up from the water with what seemed like perfect ease before accelerating upwards and vanishing into the night sky on the horizon. On another occasion, a man named Sergei stepped out of his home and onto his porch on the shores of Lake by call late one evening. His son had called him out saying that he could see an odd light floating over the water. Sergei went to join his son and was shocked to see a golden orb dancing erratically about 10 feet above the water's surface just down from his home.

It appeared to him no bigger than a child's ball, but it seemed to move with almost sentience, like it was piloted by something with great skill and as if there was a mind controlling it. It zoomed here and there in an almost playful manner before rocking straight up into the sky, and then slowly descending back down again. The air tingled with tension. as Sergei watched, he felt anxiety rising in his chest, inexplicable anxiety growing to alarm and then to fear. But then his fear mingled with awe as a second golden orb seemed to form from the first one. The first one had not shrunk or diminished in any way. The two orbs weren't half each of the original.

They were both the same size as the orb had been when he first noticed it, causing Sergei to rub his eyes and wonder. the question if he might be seeing double or seeing things, but he wasn't. Or at least if he was, his son was also imagining the same exact things playing out at the same time. The fear remained as the two orbs danced with each other, quickly flying away across the lake and then back again, weaving around one another in elegant and interwoven flight patterns. Sergei knew that no craft or plane of his own time was capable of the kind of of motion that he was witnessing. Nothing could change its flight vector like this without killing

its occupants from the G-forces. Nothing could stop and start, hover and zoom away with such rapidity. As these realizations formed in his mind, Sergei watched as the two lights flew up into the sky together as the first one had done before rapidly diving towards the lake. But this time, instead of stopping and hovering or swooping over the surface in its intricate dance, the orbs dove into the water with a great splash. Neither of the strange objects ever came back up again. You know, I just, I love orbs, dude. I think we can both agree that orbs are definitely, you shouldn't mess with them.

Don't be inviting them into your heart. They'll melt your dogs and if they're in Utah. You know what I like about these ones, though? these are polite orbs. They're kind of just doing their thing. They don't hit the boat. They don't melt your dog. This is why I think the lake by call ferries are good.

They don't melt your dogs in a butter. Yeah, they're kicking the communists out of the lake. And then they're like, look kid, a light show. They're like, hey, kids, check it out. You know what? That's a good point. That father was probably unsettled just because he was bad guy. He had probably just done something dishonest.

Yeah. He was probably a Bolshevik. I choose to interpret all events through my own reality. to quote Adam Savage of the MythBusters, I reject your reality and substitute my own. So true. No, seriously, I do love Orbs. Like I said before,

like this is just scratching the surface. It reminded me of another story that I heard about Lake by Call. The details are pretty fuzzy. Okay. Okay. So it definitely happened. It definitely happened.

I am like 95% sure. I wrote this in a dusty tone one time. But I looked during the research, for the show and I was doing like keyword searches and stuff, couldn't find it. So any of you patrons that remember, this is from memory, maybe just give me a shout out. So off the dome.

Off the dome. Emergency story mode. Ready? Emergency story mode. Engage. Enhance. One time at a time of history in Lake Bike Hall. There was a fisherman who was done for the day and he was drifting closer and closer to

the shore. As he approached the shore in the fading light, he noticed a disturbance in the water up on this point that he was nearing. And out of the water, there emerged this black being, massive humanoid being that was quadrupedal, but was crawling on all fours almost with the fluidity of a spider. You know how that's creepy, like uncanny. Oh, yeah, dude, that is so creepy. Yeah.

When especially humanoid things, start doing spider-like stuff. going to all fours. Get get me out of there. That's like Windigoon or Winding. Windigo. Windigo stuff. Yeah. 100%. He watches this thing crawl, you know, like a creature. But it looks like you're in your chair. He's crawling. Yeah, I'm crawling. I can hear the sound as I

yeah. Crackling, like crackling bone. Skittering. But it has a face. But like the face didn't have any real discernible features on it. All right. But he could tell that it was turning back and looking at him as he that close to the shore. And then he saw that it got in this weird craft. And the craft, it didn't like fly away like a UFO. It just started drifting slowly through the forest that was on the shores of like

Vicar. Needless to say, the guy did not stop there. Okay. He went to a different place to finish up for the day. Yeah. So that he wouldn't get eaten by a weird black, humanoid giant, crawly spider thing in its mysterious craft. Yeah, dude.

And yet despite those stories, I stand by. I think the fairies are good. You're like, but the fairies are good. Yeah. Well, maybe the swimmers came and took care of that one. Off this out of frame. Apart from its ugliness, which, you know, who's to say it was bad? I mean, the spider-like.

Some people think that a servant of the enemy, though, would seem fairer but feel fowler. Wow, that is a stretch. Although, I guess the fisherman did think, like, that thing's terrible. That thing's evil. I mean, who among us wouldn't, though? But the reason the good fairies are there is to fight off all the bad. But when prophets saw angels in the Bible, they were like, this is terrifying. As long as those angels didn't crawl like spider things.

No, they didn't crawl like spider things. Spider things. But they were terrible. So I like this theory. I like this theory of the good, good fairy orbs that are nice. Lake by call being filled with good fairy orbs. Being good fairy orbs. I think it's a perfect time.

Yeah. I think it's a perfect time to land this plane and end where we have begun with a final story that ties us back to some nine foot tall, strange humanoid figures. Do you love when you're listening to a podcast and someone says something totally like benign and normal? And the co-host just goes, as if it's this mega profound point. If you all notice that I just did that just then, no, it's a. a joke. It's tongue and cheek. Right. So I would never, ever acknowledge some of the smart things that Brian says.

I would never. Ever. So thanks for listening, guys. Make sure that you, you, before we go to this last story, don't click off. Last story is a banger. Head to hauntedcosmos.com to support the show over on our new patron plan platform. And we think you're going to have a lot of fun there. If you've never been a patron, like Ben just said about the dusty tone, you're going to get access to like closing it on a hundred bonus episodes of haunted cosmos. Every one of them better than the last. Wow. Every single one of them better than the last.

One of the stories that you will find if you go and sign up there is an interview that we did, the only interview in the history of the show with an actual local churchman that had a very similar experience to the weird, crawly, creepy spider-like thing into or out of a body of water. Not going to spoil it. He and his wife. He and his wife.

They both saw it. You can go listen to this. And it happened exactly where you would think to see evil things. That's right. California. California. So with that said, thanks for listening, guys. We will catch you next time on haunted cosmos. And I think it's time to take us out. Well, if I can just say, sorry. Okay. I know. I know. Perfect. No, that was very good. I landed like a, like a gymnast. You looked like a small Russian. And then Ben came and pushed me out of the way and he was like, if I might. You are like a small Russian girl. Thank you. With how you land. I've never been more flattered up to receive a compliment. All I was going to say was if enough. of you go to Supercast and sign up to support the show. Brian and I will be able to travel to Lake by Call.

Yeah, that's true. And we will explore the grounds. We'll take Martina McBride with us. Maybe we'll go to the mayor's head. Yeah, Martina will be there. Ethnically curious Martina. Okay? Like no one quite knows,

he could be Pakistani. He could be some other Middle Eastern thing. He could be Scandinavian. He could be Mexican. We don't know. He could be French. Honestly. he's got that ethnic vagary to him that I just like it. He could be Italian. He could be Italian.

He could be Eastern Russian. Yeah. Point is, maybe we'll go to Lake Baikal. If we don't, you definitely should go to Lake Baikal and report back on what you find. And I think with that much smoother transition. Wow. Let's go ahead and let's land this plane. Yes.

Thank you for listening. In the 1930s, a man named Boris Grabovsky was conducting research for the Soviet Union into some of the more esoteric history of the countries in the Union, which surrounded Russia. Grabowski was an engineer by trade, and he took great pride in being chosen for this job because of his proclivity to bring lucid rationalism to the table of the sometimes more out-there investigations. For most of what he researched, this rationalism was an immediate help, both to him and the local lore masters that he spoke to. But sometimes he didn't know how to square what he heard with what he was.

what he so rigidly believed. Sometimes he didn't know what to give more specific weight to, the conviction of truth that he could so plainly see painted onto the interviewer's face and the bent towards skepticism that he thought kept him grounded in reality. In just one such interview with a man from Kyrgyzstan, a man who had only agreed to speak with Krabowski reluctantly and after great convincing, it was said that some years prior a team of students had been exploring the caves around an ancient lake named Issyk Kool, in the hopes of finding some archaeologically significant things they could use to justify further study there.

Isak Kool is one of the largest lakes in the eastern hemisphere, and it's also one that is sorely overlooked by both tourists and scientists alike. It's in a section of the world that, though quieter than the bulk of Christendum to the West was not free from the rich history that touched to other parts of the world closer to the fertile crescent. Having said that, though, it does seem to be less tarnished by the tumult of man's own past, mostly because of where the lake actually lies, it's bounded by jagged mountain ranges on all sides, fertile and green ranges to the north, with dry and arid high desert to the south and snow capping at all. It is a place whose greatest claims to historical and mythical fame, including

clued nods to that enigmatic race spoken of earlier, the Denisovans. Anyways, the man said that he and his team approached the cliffs, imposing on the eastern stretch of Issa Kool's banks on a sunny day in late spring. They climbed up a steep scree field and entered a cave that overlooked the pristine blue waters just as the sun began to string low golden lights across the western sky. Inside the cave, they initially found nothing and mistook it for another strike. out on their expedition, but they kept looking and they started turning over stones a bit deeper into the cold back sections past the cave's mouth. As they did, they started to see traces

of what they had been hoping for, little shards of old pottery and even silver bits of what looked like pieces of ancient tools. They bagged some of these things and left the bulk of the other pieces untampered with on the cave floor and the hopes that they'd be back later that summer to examine them more closely. Just before they were going to leave, they checked at a final corner, a very dark one, that thus far was unexplored. The leading man,

the same man who gave the forced interview to Grabavsky so many years later, knocked at a large stone with his axe before wedging his body between it and the cave's wall to loosen it up. It worked, and within a minute he and his mates were trying to gently lower the stone down onto the floor to look behind where it had been.

And that cleft of the rock, they saw something so monumental and yet so terrifying. It left them speechless and unwilling to return there for many years. Before them stood, set against the wall, the skeletons of three enormous humanoids. Each skeleton was so well preserved, and each one was at least three meters tall. Hanging from their limbs and placed onto each of their shoulders were silvery, beaten pieces of something, armor or funeral dress they didn't know, that gave the impression of bat-like wings on these monsters.

For of course, that is what they were, monsters. Primordial monsters from a past, man must have been desperate to forget and move on from. All of this is in a place so close to where the Denisovans had been originally found. All of this so close to the strange lake of Issyk Kul, a lake that many believe is a sister of strangeness, to the dark Baikal many miles to the east. Perhaps it's the legend of a lost sunken city ruled over by a giant man with long strung out ears that gives so much fuel to the mystery. In the earlier 1900s, three boys from Georgia were on a holiday in Kyrgyzstan when they decided to go for a long swim in the cold alpine waters of a secool. They readied packs of food and water and lashed these items to a light raft that they could drag along with them during their swim.

They would stop for breaks at whatever remote shorelines they fancy during their day of adventure, and they hoped it would allow them to reach some of the quieter, more forgotten neighborhoods of the water. They began early enough in the morning to only catch the first shimmers of dawn's redness, poking out through the light blue in the east, and from their main camp on the very populated shore, the other tourists bathed on, they hopped into the dream-like water to begin a day of treading wherever they wanted to go. As the day wore on, they hopped from thin shoreline to thin shoreline, laughing and marveling at the stone carvings they found peppered along the forgotten shores. Finally, about midway through their day, the group was well out of sight of any popular area of the lake.

They only found companions in the birds and fish and towering mountains, staring down at them like gargoyles on a church. In the quiet, they could hear a deep rumbling sound within the earth, beneath the sand of their latest shore. and they wondered at what could be making such strange sounds inside the world. One of the boys, upon treading out into the deep to look back and see if a wider view of the area could tell him anything, told his friends that he could see a section of a special dark inked onto the rock wall that sank down beside their shoreline. He told them to join him in diving down to study it closer, wondering if it could be a school of fish or some immense ancient petroglyph in the stone. His friends joined him, and they took the biggest breaths that they all could before diving under and pushing their way through the crystal clear water, always towards the black hole in the stone.

When they arrived to it, still full of air, they were shocked to see that it was just that, a hole. It was so dark because only a shadowy hall was behind it. They shared excited glances at one another before going in. Once behind the entrance, they looked up to see silvery water dancing against the scant light on the ceiling. it was another water surface underneath the water's surface. It was, they hoped, an underground hall of air that could only be reached by their diving. Up they swam to the shining ripples, and next thing they knew, they were breathing clean air of the underwater cave,

whose rocky beach they now walked up. It was dark in there with only dim, blue light from the lake outside, giving them any ability to see. But it was enough. There in one of the most ancient and abandoned alleyways of the world, the boys found row after row of skeleton, giant, humanoid skeleton, stretching for a length of corridor the size of a football field. They took a couple of the bones from one of the unlucky dead down there

and swam nervously back to the surface. Based on the thigh bone they had taken, each boy, and this was later confirmed in their adulthood research, was sure that the skeletons were no less than nine feet tall. each, nine feet tall. Sound familiar? Could this be related to the mysterious and deadly swimmers that the Soviet soldiers would encounter on their fateful dive some decades later in Lake Baikal? We may ask these questions, but the Russian lands make no reply. They seem content instead to leave us with more questions than we had at the outset. How many mysteries can one place hold?

Want more hunted cosmos? Then make your way over to Patreon, where you can get early access to our content as well as exclusive content in regular dusty tomes and monthly live streams with brian and myself so go to patreon.com slash haunted cosmos and sign up now