The Dropa Stones The story of the Dropa for us begins in the same place, but the year is 1938. The mountains are the Baian-Kara-Ula mountains on the border that divides China and Tibet. An archaeological expedition, led by Chi Pu Tei, has trudged into the barely accessible mountain range, and has happened upon some caves that had obviously been occupied by a primitive people long ago.On the walls were carved pictograms of the heavens: the sun, the moon, the stars, and the Earth with lines of dots connecting them. Then the team made the most incredible discovery of all. Half-buried in the dirt floor of the cave was an odd stone disk, obviously fashioned by the hand of an intelligent creature. The disk was approximately nine inches in diameter and three-quarters of an inch thick. In the exact center was a perfectly round, 3/4" hole, and etched in its face was a fine groove spiraling out from the center to the rim, making the disk look for all the world like some kind of primitive phonograph record.This one plate, dated to be between 10,000 and 12,000 years old , but the wonder was multiplied manifold. In all, 716 such plates were found. And each held an incredible secret. The groove, upon further inspection, was not a groove at all, but a continuous line of strange carved hieroglyphics - writing!

Dr. Tsum Um Nui , in 1962, painstakingly transcribed the characters from the disk to paper. The writing was so small he had to use a magnifying glass to see it clearly. But the stones were old - perhaps 12,000 years old, it was estimated - and much of the hieroglyphics were difficult to make out or had been worn away by time and the elements. As he worked, many questions nagged the professor. How did these primitive people fashion these precise stones? How did they manage the almost microscopic writing? Who were they and what was the purpose of these hundreds of stones? Once the characters were transcribed, Dr. Tsum Um Nui began the arduous task of trying to decode its message. Eventually, he began to make progress. A word emerged. Then another. A phrase became understandable, then an entire sentence. He had broken the code. He discerned that the messages on the stones were written by a people who called themselves the Dropa. But what they were saying to him 12,000 years later made no sense. What the Dropa had written must have been one of their cultural myths, or was part of some prehistoric religious ceremony. Or was it? When he had completed the translation the professor wrote up a paper on his findings and presented it to the university for publication. Their reaction was swift and emphatic: the paper would notbe published. The Academy of Prehistory expressly forbade him to publish or even speak of his findings. The world, the academy decided, should not know about the Dropa and their fateful journey to Earth.The Dropa disks tell the story of a space probe from a distant planet that crash-landed in the Baian-Kara-Ula mountains of the Himalayas. The occupants of the spacecraft - the Dropa - found refuge in the caves of the mountains.The stones go on to say how the Dropa were unable to repair their disabled spacecraft and could not return to their home planet, and so were stranded on Earth. If that's true, have their descendents survived?

The Dogons The Dogons are a people well known by their cosmogony, their esotericism, their myths and legends that interest foreigners at the highest point in search for culture or tourism. The population is assessed to be about 300,000 people living in the South West of the Niger loop in the region of Mopti in Mali (Bandiagara, Koro, Banka), near Douentza and part of the North of Burkina (North west of Ouahigouya). The Dogon's (Mali, Africa) homeland has been designated a World Heritage site for its cultural and natural significance. They are also famous for their artistic abilities and vast knowledge about astrology, especially the Sirius star, which is the center of their religious teachings. The Dogons know that Sirius A, the brightest system in our firmament, is next to a small white dwarf called Sirius B, which was not identified by western scientists until 1978. The Dogons knew about it at least 1000 years ago. Sirius B has formed the basis of the holiest Dogon beliefs since antiquity. Western astronomers did not discover the star until the middle of the nineteenth century, and it wasn't even photographed until 1970. The Dogons go as far as describing a third star in the Sirius system, called "Emme Ya" that, to date, has not been identified by astronomers. In addition to their knowledge of Sirius B, the Dogon mythology includes Saturn's rings and Jupiter's four major moons. They have four calendars, for the Sun, Moon, Sirius, and Venus, and have long known that planets orbit the sun. How this Dogon's Enigmatic Scientific Knowledge about Astronomy came from? According to their oral traditions, a race people from the Sirius system called the Nommos visited Earth thousands of years ago. The Nommos were ugly, amphibious beings that resembled mermen and mermaids. They also appear in Babylonian, Accadian, and Sumerian myths. The Egyptian Goddess Isis, who is sometimes depicted as a mermaid, is also linked with the star Sirius. The Nommos, according to the Dogon legend, lived on a planet that orbits another star in the Sirius system. They landed on Earth in an "ark" that made a spinning decent to the ground with great noise and wind. It was the Nommos that gave the Dogon the knowledge about Sirius B ! (Picture: The original Dogon couple.This is one of the greatest symbols of the Dogon civilization. Sculpting represents spouses)

UFO UpDates
A mailing list for the study of UFO-related phenomena
'Its All Here In Black & White'

Location: VirtuallyStrange.net > UFO > UpDates Mailing List > 2001 > May > May 23

Re: The Legend of the Dropa - Anthony

From: Gary Anthony <garyant@mithrand.karoo.co.uk> Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 21:28:26 +0100 Fwd Date: Wed, 23 May 2001 09:55:22 -0400 Subject: Re: The Legend of the Dropa - Anthony >From: Chris Aubeck <caubeck@email.com> >Date: Mon, 21 May 2001 12:31:35 -0400 (EDT) >To: updates@sympatico.ca >Subject: Re: The Legend of the Dropa - Aubeck >>From: Alfred Lehmberg <Lehmberg@snowhill.com> >>Date: Sun, 20 May 2001 15:00:30 -0500 >>To: updates@sympatico.ca >>Subject: Re: The Legend of the Dropa >>>Date: Sun, 20 May 2001 11:22:35 -0400 (EDT) >>>From: Chris Aubeck <caubeck@email.com> >>>To: updates@sympatico.ca >>>Subject: The Legend of the Dropa >>>Hello List Members, >>>Having spent the weekend exploring the net and my archives >>>raiding other people's thanks, everyone, for your letters!), >>>have reached a point in my research that I doubt I can go >>>without some kind of major breakthrough. <snip> >>Erich Von Daniken (be not quick with a reflexive sneer...) >>wrote in "Gods From Outer Space (1970 pp96-98)" the >>following regarding the Dropa... <snip> >Hi Alfred, >Thanks for your feedback. >Now, I don't want to burst your bubble but I found a curious >datum in my archives, and then again during my web search. You >can take a look at where it appears on the Net if you want at: http://www.violations.dabsol.co.uk/weird/weirdpart3.htm >but here it is anyway: >"This story appears intriguing, however what appears historic >fact becomes decidedly fanciful when the author of the book >where this account first surfaced is mentioned. Erich Von >Daniken. >"Yes, the discs are there but little else is based on fact. >Daniken quotes his source for this story as a conversation in >Moscow in 1968 with Soviet writer Aleksandr Kazantsev and >records that the discs themselves and the documentation of their >discovery is preserved at the then Peking Academy of Prehistory >and the Chinese Academy of Sciences at T'ai-Pei in Taiwan. >"However over a period of four years, a journalist and expert in >linguistics and anthropology, Gordon Creighton, studied the >claims made, and on making further enquiries, drew numerous >blanks. Firstly he approached the scientific academies in both >T'ai-Pei and Peking for information, however received no >response to his enquiries. He then approached a number of >Chinese academics for information, but none of them had even >heard of the story. Then he contacted the Soviet writer who had >given the story to Von Daniken to check whether he had given Von >Daniken an accurate account. However the response was not as >expected; far from giving Von Daniken the story, Aleksandr >Kazantsev stated that Von Daniken had given it to him." >There's even a snappy photo of Erich von Darnitman himself which >you can copy, print and paste to your fridge door. >If anyone wants a list of my sources, by the way, I can send >them along in an e-mail. >Chris Aubeck Hi Alfred, Chris and List, Alfred, Chris may be correct here. I have followed this case up to some extent and expense, surprisingly the only thing of any note from the Chinese end is Gordon Creighton's brilliant investigation of this case during the 70's, which is still logged to this day with certain Chinese establishments. In fact, I might venture it was Creighton who initially tried to get at the truth of the Dropa story and in so doing, may have been first to alert the Chinese to the story's existence. On 2 September 2000, I politely emailed Erich von Daniken to try and obtain a clearer picture of his claims about the Dropa and to see if photographs of the alleged stones and hieroglyphs (in broad sense of term) were or could be obtained? Alas, Mr. von Daniken was not forthcoming with a reply, so perhaps we should exercise a bit more diligence in respect of this story. Or else, permit those with better facts to stand forth..! Best Regards Gary Anthony

[ Next Message | Previous Message | This Day's Messages ]
[ This Month's Index | UFO UpDates Main Index ]
UFO UpDates - Toronto - ufoupdates@virtuallystrange.net
Operated by Errol Bruce-Knapp
A Hand-Operated E-Mail Subscription Service for the Study of UFO Related Phenomena.
To subscribe please send your first and last name to ufoupdates@virtuallystrange.net
Message submissions should be sent to the same address.

Archive programming by Glenn Campbell at AliensOnEarth.com

A bit of "paranormal" news for you .. this is the TRUE story of the Dropa stones. The stones were discovered in 1938 by Chinese archeologists in a remote mountain cave. The stones contain an incredible message!

Read on for the complete and rather interesting story! and please feel free to comment and discuss, what do you think of the stones?

In the Baian-Kara-Ula mountains, the divider between China and Tibet, An archaeological expedition, led by Chi Pu Tei, has trudged into the barely accessible mountain range, and has happened upon some caves that had obviously been occupied by a primitive people long ago. But what he and his team find in these remote caves is something highly unusual and, if verified, could change everything we know about our distant past.

Chi Pu Tei, a professor of archaeology at Beijing University, was leading some his students on an expedition to survey a series of interlinking caves in the Himalayan mountains. According to one account, the caves may have been artificially carved, and were more like a complex system of tunnels and underground storerooms. The walls were squared and glazed, as if cut into the mountain with a source of extreme heat. Inside the caves were several ancient, but neatly arranged burial sites, and in them the skeletal remains of a strange people. The skeletons, measuring a little more than four feet tall, were frail and spindly with disproportionately large skulls. At first. it was suggested by a member of the team that these might be the remains of an unknown species of mountain gorilla. Professor Chi Pu Tei is reputed to have responded, "Who ever heard of apes burying one another?" Yet, what kind of human was this?

More discoveries made further in the caves all but ruled out the idea that these were apes. On the walls were carved pictograms of the heavens: the sun, the moon, the stars, and the Earth with lines of dots connecting them. Then the team made the most incredible discovery of all. Half-buried in the dirt floor of the cave was an odd stone disk, obviously fashioned by the hand of an intelligent creature. The disk was approximately nine inches in diameter and three-quarters of an inch thick. In the exact center was a perfectly round, 3/4" hole, and etched in its face was a fine groove spiraling out from the center to the rim, making the disk look for all the world like some kind of primitive phonograph record.

This one plate, dated to be between 10,000 and 12,000 years old - older by far than the great pyramids of Egypt - was fantastic enough, but the wonder was multiplied manyfold. In all, 716 such plates were found. And each held an incredible secret. The groove, upon further inspection, was not a groove at all, but a continuous line of strange carved hieroglyphics - writing!

The tiny, almost microscopic characters were in a language never encountered before. It wasn't until 1962 that another Chinese scientist was able to decode the message of the stone plates - a message so incredible and earth-shattering that the Prehistory Department of the Beijing Academy prohibited its translation to be published. Eventually, the message was published, and what is says will astound you.

Dr. Tsum Um Nui felt the smooth face of the disk with the palm of his hand. "What could this disk possibly be?" he wondered. He knew of its recent history; how it was discovered in 1938 by a Chinese archaeologist in a cave high in the Himalayans, along with 715 similar disks; how buried nearby were skeletons of a strange tribe of people averaging only a little over four feet high; how it was found that each disk was inscribed with a tiny groove that spiraled around its face, and that the groove turned out to be an unknown hieroglyphic. He also knew how the disks, as remarkable as they were, had been simply labeled along with other finds of the expedition and stored away at Beijing University for 20 years. During that time, others had attempted to decipher the strange inscriptions, but without success. Perhaps now, in 1962, he could.

The professor painstakingly transcribed the characters from the disk to paper. The writing was so small he had to use a magnifying glass to see it clearly. But the stones were old - perhaps 12,000 years old, it was estimated - and much of the hieroglyphics were difficult to make out or had been worn away by time and the elements. As he worked, many questions nagged the professor. How did these primitive people fashion these precise stones? How did they manage the almost microscopic writing? Who were they and what was the purpose of these hundreds of stones? Once the characters were transcribed, Dr. Tsum Um Nui began the arduous task of trying to decode its message. Eventually, he began to make progress. A word emerged. Then another. A phrase became understandable, then an entire sentence. He had broken the code. He discerned that the messages on the stones were written by a people who called themselves the Dropa. But what they were saying to him 12,000 years later made no sense. What the Dropa had written must have been one of their cultural myths, or was part of some prehistoric religious ceremony.

Or was it? When he had completed the translation as much as he could, the professor sat back in his chair in disbelief. The story the Dropa related was nothing short of astounding. How would his colleagues react? How might the world react if this story was true? The professor wrote up a paper on his findings and presented it to the university for publication. Their reaction was swift and emphatic: the paper would not be published. The Academy of Prehistory expressly forbade him to publish or even speak of his findings. The world, the academy decided, should not know about the Dropa and their fateful journey to Earth.

Dr. Tsum Um Nui's findings were eventually published, however. Just two years later, he published the paper entitled, "The Grooved Script Concerning Spaceships Which, as Recorded on the Discs, Landed on Earth 12,000 Years Ago." By some accounts, the academy relented and gave permission to the professor to publish the paper, and by other accounts he published it despite the official ban. In either case, his translation and his theory were met with ridicule by the archaeology establishment. The translation was just too shattering to be taken at face value or as an historical account. It just could not be true. It would change everything we know about our history and humankind's place in the universe.

The Dropa disks tell the story of a space probe from a distant planet that crash-landed in the Baian-Kara-Ula mountains of the Himalayas. The occupants of the spacecraft - the Dropa - found refuge in the caves of the mountains. Despite their peaceful intentions, the Dropa were misunderstood by members of the Ham tribe who were occupying neighboring caves and who hunted down the aliens and even killed some of them. A translation of one of the passages says: "The Dropa came down from the clouds in their aircraft. Our men, women, and children hid in the caves ten times before sunrise. When at last they understood the sign language of the Dropa, they realized that the newcomers had peaceful intentions...."

The stones go on to say how the Dropa were unable to repair their disabled spacecraft and could not return to their home planet, and so were stranded on Earth. If that's true, have their descendents survived?

Today, the isolated area is inhabited by two tribes of people who, in fact, call themselves the Dropa and the Han. Anthropologists have been unable to categorize either tribe into any other known race; they are neither Chinese nor Tibetan. Both tribes are of pygmy stature, adults measuring between 3-foot-6 and 4-foot-7 with an average height of 4-foot-2, and body weights of 38 to 52 pounds. They are yellow-skinned with thin bodies and disproportionately large heads, corresponding to the skeletal remains found in the caves in 1938. They have sparse hair on their bodies and have large eyes that are not Asian in aspect, but have pale blue irises.

Supposedly, there also is an ancient Chinese tale that might bear-out the Dropa's claims. The tale relates the story of a small, slender, yellow-skinned people who descended to the Earth from the clouds, and who were shunned by everyone because of their ugliness.

Strange Properties

In 1968, the Dropa stones came to the attention of W. Saitsew, a Russian scientist who re-published the findings of Tsum Um Nui and conducted tests on the disks that revealed some very peculiar properties. Physically, the granite stones contained high concentrations of cobalt and other metals - a very hard stone indeed that would have made it difficult for the primitive people to carve the lettering, especially with such minute characters. When testing a disk with an oscillograph, a surprising oscillation rhythm was recorded as if, the scientists said, they had once been electrically charged or had functioned as electrical conductors.

Whatever their true nature, origin, or meaning, the Dropa stones present an intriguing puzzle for archaeologists and anthropologists. Were the Dropa truly visitors from some distant planet, or is their story merely a creation myth imagined by a primitive culture? If the latter is true, it adds one more such "myth" to the large number of stories from ancient cultures that claim their descendents came to Earth from the heavens. And if the former is true, the Dropa stones could represent the first recorded visit of an alien civilization to our planet. For now, the Dropa stones remain unexplained.

Login

Nickname

Password

Don't have an account yet? You can create one. As registered user you have some advantages like comments configuration and post comments with your name.

Related Links

Home

The Dropas:

THE ROBIN-EVANS 1947 EXPEDITION:

Shortly after World War II the polish professor Lolladoff showed one of the Dropas 'stonedisk' to the English scientist Dr. Karyl Robin-Evans. Lolladoff claimed to have bought the disk in Mussorie in Northern India and that it is supposed to be from a mysterious people called the "Dzopa" who had used it for religious rituals.

In 1947 Dr. Karyl Robin-Evans made for the "mysterious land of the Dzopa", travelling through Lhassa (Tibet) where he was granted an audience with the 14th Dalai Lama. On the way to the very inaccessible region to the northeast of the Himalaja, the English scientist was abandoned by his Tibetan carriers as they were terribly afraid of Baian-Kara-Ula, and only with tremendous effort did he manage to reach his destination. After having won the faith of the people, Dr. Karyl Robin-Evans was assigned a language-teacher in order to introduce him to the basics of the Dropa language and so he learned their history from Lurgan-La, their religious guardian. Lurgan-La taught him that they originally came from a planet in the Sirius system. They lead about 12000 years ago an exploration mission to earth. Their ship crashed and those survivors among them were then unable to leave earth again. Dr. Karyl Robin-Evans died in 1974, his report was published only in 1978.

EXPEDITION PICTURES:

Black & white picture of the Dzopas/Dropas rulers:

This picture taken by Dr. Karyl Robin-Evans during his 1947 expedition shows the Dzopa ruling couple Hueypah-La (4 ft. tall) and Veez-La (3 ft. 4 in. tall).

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS:

The Dzopa are often referred to as the Dropa. This is due to the fact that the sound of the second consonant is in between a 'Z' and an 'R'.
As Tibet wasn't under the rule of China in 1947, Dr. Robin-Evans trip could easily be arranged.
It is well possible that Dr. Robin-Evans was received by a "lineholder" instead of the Dalai Lama directly, a fact which could be used to verify the correctness of Dr. Robin-Evans' report.
Dr. Robin-Evans' report dates the crash to the year 1014, all other sources however talk of a crash 12.000 years ago. This discrepancy remains unexplained so far, it might be an indication of veracity if it came from a discrepancy or difficulty to match our calendar and the Dropas own calendar system.
According to Lurgan-La's history the Dzopa would appear to be direct descendants of space travelling "aliens".

This page was last updated on 02.26.2001

The Dropa Stones

In 1938, Chinese archaeologists discover strange stone disks in a remote mountain cave, and they may contain an incredible message.

Part 1: The Discovery

The gray overcast sky hung low in the isolated valley on the cool autumn afternoon. The surrounding mountain peaks had been masked by the heavy clouds for days. A deep rumble shook the ground, sending animals scurrying and startling birds from their roosts in the trees. The thunder-like rumbling from above the clouds grew louder. The valley had never heard thunder like this. The rumbling intensified to a heavy roar. A small group of hunters stalking deer cast their eyes to the sky, expecting the clouds to break open from the deafening thunder with a torrent of rain. But this wasn't thunder at all. A bright flash burst forth from the ceiling of clouds. The hunters realized this was not lightning. They had never seen anything like this before. A glowing orb streaked through the sky above their heads as they watched in dazed disbelief. The orb wobbled and veered as it fell, as if it were trying to fight gravity and keep itself from smashing into the ground. The hunters readied their weapons, not knowing what threat this mystery from the sky might present. Suddenly the thundering roar stopped, and the orb made one final veer and a slight upward turn before slamming into the earth. The hunters were nearly knocked off their feet from the shockwave. The thing - whatever it was - hit the ground just beyond a line of trees, perhaps an hour's walk away, the hunters estimated. A cloud of dirt and leaves rose above the tree line. The hunters debated whether or not they should investigate. Each of them was afraid, but none was willing to admit it. Tightly gripping their weapons, they headed in the direction of the great thing from the clouds. They'd have to hurry; evening was drawing near. The sun had already set behind the mountains by the time they made their way through the sparse growth of trees. Then there it was before them. An indescribable thing, half as high as the trees and reflecting the remaining light of the day like a huge, wet, shiny rock. The hunters couldn't find the words to speak of what this thing might be - a shape completely alien to their experience. They stared at it, hesitant to move closer. Then ... a hole appeared in the side of the great shiny thing ... and something was moving inside. The year, by our calendar, was about 10,000 B.C.

Obviously, I have fictionalized the details of this story, but if the interpretation of an exciting discovery made in 1938 is correct, this is a true story. The story of the Dropa.

What the Professor Found

The story of the Dropa for us begins in the same place, but the year is 1938. The mountains are the Baian-Kara-Ula mountains on the border that divides China and Tibet. An archaeological expedition, led by Chi Pu Tei, has trudged into the barely accessible mountain range, and has happened upon some caves that had obviously been occupied by a primitive people long ago. But what he and his team find in these remote caves is something highly unusual and, if verified, could change everything we know about our distant past.

Not all of the facts of this case are clear and, as you'll understand later, difficult to verify. Some of the details are contradictory, fuzzy, or may have been sensationalized by imaginative writers. But even if part of this story is true, it represents one of the greatest discoveries of our age.

Chi Pu Tei, a professor of archaeology at Beijing University, was leading some his students on an expedition to survey a series of interlinking caves in the Himalayan mountains. According to one account, the caves may have been artificially carved, and were more like a complex system of tunnels and underground storerooms. The walls were squared and glazed, as if cut into the mountain with a source of extreme heat. Inside the caves were several ancient, but neatly arranged burial sites, and in them the skeletal remains of a strange people. The skeletons, measuring a little more than four feet tall, were frail and spindly with disproportionately large skulls. At first. it was suggested by a member of the team that these might be the remains of an unknown species of mountain gorilla. Professor Chi Pu Tei is reputed to have responded, "Who ever heard of apes burying one another?" Yet, what kind of human was this?

Two of the disks. More discoveries made further in the caves all but ruled out the idea that these were apes. On the walls were carved pictograms of the heavens: the sun, the moon, the stars, and the Earth with lines of dots connecting them. Then the team made the most incredible discovery of all. Half-buried in the dirt floor of the cave was an odd stone disk, obviously fashioned by the hand of an intelligent creature. The disk was approximately nine inches in diameter and three-quarters of an inch thick. In the exact center was a perfectly round, 3/4" hole, and etched in its face was a fine groove spiraling out from the center to the rim, making the disk look for all the world like some kind of primitive phonograph record.

This one plate, dated to be between 10,000 and 12,000 years old - older by far than the great pyramids of Egypt - was fantastic enough, but the wonder was multiplied manyfold. In all, 716 such plates were found. And each held an incredible secret. The groove, upon further inspection, was not a groove at all, but a continuous line of strange carved hieroglyphics - writing!

The tiny, almost microscopic characters were in a language never encountered before. It wasn't until 1962 that another Chinese scientist was able to decode the message of the stone plates - a message so incredible and earth-shattering that the Prehistory Department of the Beijing Academy prohibited its translation to be published. Eventually, the message was published, and what is says will astound you.

Dr. Tsum Um Nui felt the smooth face of the disk with the palm of his hand. "What could this disk possibly be?" he wondered. He knew of its recent history; how it was discovered in 1938 by a Chinese archaeologist in a cave high in the Himalayans, along with 715 similar disks; how buried nearby were skeletons of a strange tribe of people averaging only a little over four feet high; how it was found that each disk was inscribed with a tiny groove that spiraled around its face, and that the groove turned out to be an unknown hieroglyphic. He also knew how the disks, as remarkable as they were, had been simply labeled along with other finds of the expedition and stored away at Beijing University for 20 years. During that time, others had attempted to decipher the strange inscriptions, but without success. Perhaps now, in 1962, he could.

The professor painstakingly transcribed the characters from the disk to paper. The writing was so small he had to use a magnifying glass to see it clearly. But the stones were old - perhaps 12,000 years old, it was estimated - and much of the hieroglyphics were difficult to make out or had been worn away by time and the elements. As he worked, many questions nagged the professor. How did these primitive people fashion these precise stones? How did they manage the almost microscopic writing? Who were they and what was the purpose of these hundreds of stones? Once the characters were transcribed, Dr. Tsum Um Nui began the arduous task of trying to decode its message. Eventually, he began to make progress. A word emerged. Then another. A phrase became understandable, then an entire sentence. He had broken the code. He discerned that the messages on the stones were written by a people who called themselves the Dropa. But what they were saying to him 12,000 years later made no sense. What the Dropa had written must have been one of their cultural myths, or was part of some prehistoric religious ceremony.

Or was it? When he had completed the translation as much as he could, the professor sat back in his chair in disbelief. The story the Dropa related was nothing short of astounding. How would his colleagues react? How might the world react if this story was true? The professor wrote up a paper on his findings and presented it to the university for publication. Their reaction was swift and emphatic: the paper would not be published. The Academy of Prehistory expressly forbade him to publish or even speak of his findings. The world, the academy decided, should not know about the Dropa and their fateful journey to Earth.

One of the disks. Dr. Tsum Um Nui's findings were eventually published, however. Just two years later, he published the paper entitled, "The Grooved Script Concerning Spaceships Which, as Recorded on the Discs, Landed on Earth 12,000 Years Ago." By some accounts, the academy relented and gave permission to the professor to publish the paper, and by other accounts he published it despite the official ban. In either case, his translation and his theory were met with ridicule by the archaeology establishment. The translation was just too shattering to be taken at face value or as an historical account. It just could not be true. It would change everything we know about our history and humankind's place in the universe.

What the Stones Reveal

The Dropa disks tell the story of a space probe from a distant planet that crash-landed in the Baian-Kara-Ula mountains of the Himalayas. The occupants of the spacecraft - the Dropa - found refuge in the caves of the mountains. Despite their peaceful intentions, the Dropa were misunderstood by members of the Ham tribe who were occupying neighboring caves and who hunted down the aliens and even killed some of them. A translation of one of the passages says: "The Dropa came down from the clouds in their aircraft. Our men, women, and children hid in the caves ten times before sunrise. When at last they understood the sign language of the Dropa, they realized that the newcomers had peaceful intentions...."

The stones go on to say how the Dropa were unable to repair their disabled spacecraft and could not return to their home planet, and so were stranded on Earth. If that's true, have their descendents survived?

Today, the isolated area is inhabited by two tribes of people who, in fact, call themselves the Dropa and the Han. Anthropologists have been unable to categorize either tribe into any other known race; they are neither Chinese nor Tibetan. Both tribes are of pygmy stature, adults measuring between 3-foot-6 and 4-foot-7 with an average height of 4-foot-2, and body weights of 38 to 52 pounds. They are yellow-skinned with thin bodies and disproportionately large heads, corresponding to the skeletal remains found in the caves in 1938. They have sparse hair on their bodies and have large eyes that are not Asian in aspect, but have pale blue irises.

Supposedly, there also is an ancient Chinese tale that might bear-out the Dropa's claims. The tale relates the story of a small, slender, yellow-skinned people who descended to the Earth from the clouds, and who were shunned by everyone because of their ugliness.

Strange Properties

In 1968, the Dropa stones came to the attention of W. Saitsew, a Russian scientist who re-published the findings of Tsum Um Nui and conducted tests on the disks that revealed some very peculiar properties. Physically, the granite stones contained high concentrations of cobalt and other metals - a very hard stone indeed that would have made it difficult for the primitive people to carve the lettering, especially with such minute characters. When testing a disk with an oscillograph, a surprising oscillation rhythm was recorded as if, the scientists said, they had once been electrically charged or had functioned as electrical conductors.

Whatever their true nature, origin, or meaning, the Dropa stones present an intriguing puzzle for archaeologists and anthropologists. Were the Dropa truly visitors from some distant planet, or is their story merely a creation myth imagined by a primitive culture? If the latter is true, it adds one more such "myth" to the large number of stories from ancient cultures that claim their descendents came to Earth from the heavens. And if the former is true, the Dropa stones could represent the first recorded visit of an alien civilization to our planet. For now, the Dropa stones remain unexplained.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.