From: Chris Aubeck <caubeck@email.com>
Date: Sun, 20 May 2001 11:22:35 -0400 (EDT)
Fwd Date: Sun, 20 May 2001 14:29:25 -0400
Subject: The Legend of the Dropa


Hello List Members,

Having spent the weekend exploring the net and my archives (and
raiding other people's ­ thanks, everyone, for your letters!), I
have reached a point in my research that I doubt I can go beyond
without some kind of major breakthrough. Below is a synthesis of
what I consider to be the most relevant information connected
with the case. Like the Alençon hoax we discussed a few months
ago, this is another UFO legend that deserves to rest in peace.
Unlike Alençon, however, there just may be _something_ real
hidden behind so much silliness.


1) THE LEGEND OF THE DROPA

A controversial finding made in 1938 on the Chinese-Tibetan
border adds yet another dimension to the problem of dwarfish
beings in Asia. According to the evidence amassed so far by
researchers of the case, it seems that an expedition to the
region of Baian-Kara-Ula discovered graves in an almost
inaccessible cave in which lay the skeletal remains of strange
thin-boned beings, just a few feet tall, with over-sized
craniums. Next to these were found some 716 mysterious dull-grey
discs. These discs each had a hole in the centre which made them
look like modern LPs. A series of ‘runes' extended out from the
holes to the edges of the discs.

Five scientists at the University of Beijing, under the
direction of Professor Tsum Um Nui, set about examining the
discs and the symbols inscribed on them.

After a long and thorough investigation, it was concluded that
the symbols conveyed a message of great importance. The ‘runes,'
they said, described spaceships which arrived on our planet some
twelve thousand years ago, piloted by a race of beings called
the Dropas (or ‘Dzopas'). When the Dropas descended from the
skies in their flying machines, say the inscriptions, the
earthlings fled in fear and hid in caves until they received
signs from the visitors that no harm was to come to them.

The study group compared their findings with information
gathered by the 1938 expedition, which had collected old
folklore from the region. The people of Baian-Kara-Ula had
spoken of creatures who once lived in the same area in
antiquity, also called Dropas (or "Khams"). The Dropas, they
said, were humanoid but hideously ugly and measured no more than
130 centimetres in height. As their name suggests, they were
mountain- dwellers (in Tibetan ‘drok-pa' means ‘men of the
mountains').

Unfortunately, the University of Beijing refused to acknowledge
the findings and forbade Tsum Um Nui to make the results of his
investigations known. The skeletons were officially ‘identified'
as belonging to an extinct species of monkey, and the discs were
simply ignored. Clearly the discovery had been too spectacular,
too controversial and too potentially damaging to the dogma of
the period. And there was something else: on the cave walls
where the discs were found, the expedition came across strange
painted images. "Inscriptions were clearly distinguished that
depicted the sun, the moon and the nine planets of our solar
system, all recorded on the rocky walls…They were pea-sized dots
which appeared to show the position of the Earth."

2) THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY

It has proved extremely difficult to obtain more details, or
verify those already accumulated. Serious research into the case
is hindered by the plethora of contradictions and lies
surrounding it. However it does serve as an excellent example of
how badly such ‘enigmas' are handled at times by ufologists and
writers who are willing to sacrifice historical accuracy and
common sense for the buzz of a ‘grail quest.' Let us try to put
the history of this particular quest into chronological order,
presenting both the ‘legend' as it stands and the few hard facts
known as they stand.

According to the legend, the discs were found at the bottom of a
grave in 1938 when scientists, led by archaeologist and
professor Chi Pu Tei, explored a network of connecting caves in
the mountains of Baian- Kara-Ula, along the Chinese-Tibetan
border. They also found the remains of humanoid beings with
short bodies and disproportionately large heads. Chi Pu Tei has
never been traced. (The correct English spelling of the mountain
range appears to be Bayan-Khara Uula, judging by the results of
Gordon Creighton's research at the House of Royal Geographical
Society in London, published in the January 1973 edition of
Flying Saucer Review. He also found no sign of there ever have
being an expedition to explore caves there.)

In 1962 professor Dr. Tsum Um Nui (whose existence has never
been proved, and whose name, though not necessarily an
invention, is an unusual mixture of Chinese and Japanese)
succeeded in translating the symbols on the discs and announced
his findings to a small group of friends and colleagues. The
Peking Academy of Prehistory did not allow the professor to
publish anything.

It is said that when Tsum Um Nui was finally permitted to
publish a report on the objects in 1964 he was mocked by all his
contemporaries and ultimately fled to Japan, where he died a few
years later.

Hartwig Hausdorf, the latest champion of the case, notes in the
sources for The Chinese Roswell that the first mention of the
discs in a non-specialist publication was in an article by V.
Ritsch and M. Tschernenko in Russian Digest. Hausdorf says this
article, titled Were Alien Visitors on Earth?, was included in a
1960 issue.

However, this conflicts firstly with the claim that Tsum Um Nui
translated the hieroglyphics in 1962 and secondly with
Hausdorf's statement that 'Dr. Vyatcheslav Saitzev' first told
the story of the alien discs of Bara Kara Ula for the Soviet
Magazine Sputnik…" This becomes even less clear when we read in
the same book that the German magazine Das vegetarische
Universum also published an article about the discs based on the
Sputnik report, yet the edition of the German magazine cited is
dated July 1962 and the Sputnik article was published in its
first issue in 1968!

On the other hand, Gordon Creighton wrote (in Flying Saucer
Review Vol.19, No.1 January 1973, p24-27) that he had learnt
that Zaitsev "had done no original investigation of his own and
had simply taken the story as it had appeared in theGerman
publication Das Vegetarische Universum (no date given) and in
theGerman publication UFO-Nachrichten, No. 95 (of 1964)."

In 1974 Ernst Wegener, an Austrian engineer, saw two of the
discs in the Banpo Museum in Xian. Although the museum director
could not offer an explanation for the objects, she let him
touch one of them and to photograph them. He took four shots but
as he had only a Polaroid camera with him the photos are
slightly blurred and do not show any signs of bearing
hieroglyphic symbols. Whether the discs were truly those found
in the 1938 expedition is impossible to say, as artefacts of
similar design are found all over China.

David Agamon (a pseudonym) edited a book about the Dropa called
Sungods in Exile in 1979, claiming it was the posthumous work of
a British scientist named Karyl Robin-Evans. Robin-Evans (who
did not exist) supposedly led an expedition to the
Baian-Kara-Ula area in 1947 in order to find out more about a
disc that had been bought in India or Nepal by his colleague at
Oxford, Polish Professor Sergei Lolladoff (who does not exist,
either). Agamon writes that the expedition came across a tribe
of dwarfs in a remote valley in Baian-Kara-Ula. These dwarfs,
the Dropa, told him that their ancestors had come from a planet
in the Sirius system and had crash-landed on earth in 1014 AD.
(There is no evidence that the Dropa have ever existed.) Agamon,
using his real name Gamon, wrote to the British magazine Fortean
Times (issue 75) stating that "Sungods in Exile" was his
"favourite hoax," and adding that "The author of this leg-pull
received correspondence from as far away as Kiev. Don't ask me
how I know." When Bob Rickard telephoned Gamon while preparing a
note on the case for issue 109 of the same publication, Gamon
confessed to the deceit.

In 1994, when Hartwig Hausdorf was in China, he asked the
current director of the Banpo Museum about the disks and was
told that they had disappeared.

A news item from China reporting on a surge of birth defects in
1995 has been misunderstood as the discovery of a previously
unknown tribe of dwarfs. Sixty cases of dwarfism were reported
in the village of Huilong in Sichuan. An investigation found the
water supply to be contaminated with poisonous metals (an
extremely common problem in rural China). In January 1997 USA
Today reported that no new cases had been recorded since the
water supply had been improved. Hausdorf and others popularised
the rumour that a tribe of dwarfs had been found near
Baian-Kara-Ula at last! (Obviously this would not have been
necessary if anyone could find a real Dropa tribesman.) 60 cases
of dwarfism had become 120 dwarfs in the imaginations of many ­
an interesting exaggeration in itself.

For the record, the original report from USA Today (January 27th
1997) reads:

"Chinese Dwarfs [World]. High levels of mercury in the drinking
water of the village Huilong in Sichuan province are responsible
for sixty cases of dwarfism in the village, according to Chinese
officials. No new cases have been reported since the village
received a source of pollution-free drinking water."

To double-check this, I tried to find a scientific
report linking mercury poisoning with dwarfism. I couldn't find
one, though birth defects of many kinds are noted as a classic
consequence of mercury poisoning during pregnancy. Rural China
has often fallen victim to water contamination problems,
especially lead poisoning, which certainly has been linked with
growth problems in infants. If there is any doubt about the
effects of mercury on foetuses, the confusion may have come
about in this way, and I suggest the translation of the original
news report is checked.


3) A PERSONAL OPINION

It is possible that all or just a part of the story is true.
Official denials prove nothing for truths can be just as
strongly denied as falsehoods. It certainly seems more than mere
coincidence that the remains of the beings described in the
original reports (if such remains ever existed) fit the usual
‘alien' profile so well, especially in light of the strong
‘little men' tradition throughout Asia. However, so little proof
has been forthcoming to support the story that it would be
inappropriate to jump to any conclusions at this stage. The
subject of UFOs is so steeped in disinformation and error that
many years may still have to pass before the truth is finally
revealed, if, of course, there exists any truth to be revealed.
I hope that anyone attempting to shed any more light on the
elusive discs of Bayan-Khara Uula will at least separate the
tale of Karyl Robin-Evans from the ‘original' story of the 1938
expedition. In any case, and judging by the enormous popularity
that both cases have achieved in the Net, I expect the
immortality of Karyl Robin-Evans and Tsum Um Nui is as
guaranteed as that of Churchward and his Tablets and Lobsang
Rampa and his Toolbox.


POSTSCRIPT:EXTRATERRESTRIAL FOSSILS IN THE GOBI DESERT?

In June 1996, in fact not long after giving up on finding any
hard data on the alleged 1938 discovery, I read a report in a
Spanish magazine about certain "extraterrestrial fossils" that
had supposedly been found beneath the sands of the Gobi desert.
My efforts to trace this new information to its original source
failed miserably and I soon realised it was very unlikely there
was any substance to it at all. However, for the sake of
thoroughness and as a kind of ‘postscript' to the Baian-
Kara-Ula case, the following is a translation of the short
article:

Extraterrestrial Fossils?

Mongolian ufologists have announced that, underneath the Gobi
desert, in an area rich in dinosaur remains, Chinese and North
American scientists are concealing the existence of
extraterrestrial bodies. The investigators claim that the bodies
were photographed by palaeontologists. Among the remains there
was a being measuring 1.20 metres in height, with a
disproportionate cranium and pointed bones.


(c) Chris Aubeck 2001