The most mysterious lakes on earth. Mystical lakes of Russia

At all times, lakes have attracted people with their mystery, because water is a substance endowed with unusual properties. Legends about living and dead water to this day excite the curiosity and consciousness of man. Daredevils try to independently explore mysterious reservoirs and, unfortunately, do not always return from there alive. Russia is densely dotted with mystical lakes, which annually absorb thousands of innocent victims.

Lake Baikal

It is not for nothing that one of the largest lakes on our planet is called witchcraft, since the phenomena occurring on the territory of the reservoir are difficult to rationalize. Eyewitnesses claim that there are sudden flashes of light or a bright glow over the water, which just as suddenly disappear. The capes of the Baikal region are called anomalous zones, since ships passing by them record a temporary failure of navigation devices and disorientation in space. On Lake Baikal, there are frequent cases of people disappearing without a trace. Recently, the famous lake has become a favorite object of ufologists.

Labynkyr is often compared to the Scottish Loch Ness. According to local fishermen, a creature that vaguely resembles a reptile often emerges from the water surface. Eyewitness accounts are striking in their accuracy: people describe the appearance, size, eyes and behavior of a mysterious animal in the same way. Another proof of the habitation of a large animal, unknown to modern science, is found on the shores of the skulls of large fish, crushed, apparently, by incredibly massive jaws. Locals are reluctant to visit the lake for fear of becoming a tidbit for the monster. Studies of the bottom of a strange reservoir have shown the presence of deep-water caves-tunnels. It is striking that in the most severe winters, the water on the lake practically does not freeze.

Lovozero

Lovozero is located in the Murmansk region and is also overgrown with mystical legends and superstitions. Near the lake, people often observed the manifestation of hysterical fits of their companions. Those who were in a strange state followed orders like robots and carried out monotonous movements. An expedition studying this phenomenon was unable to provide clear explanations for the reasons for the unusual behavior of people. Local old-timers claim that there is a powerful deity on the islands of the lake, which is especially unfavorable to women. It remains inexplicable that in the territory of Lovozero weather conditions change within a few seconds, and waves on the water rise up to ten meters in height, which is often the cause of the death of visitors to the lake.

To this day, mystical properties are attributed to the blue lakes in the Caucasus. Researchers have not been able to sufficiently study these reservoirs, since it is impossible to accurately measure their depth - the waters of the lakes are so bottomless. Presumably, their depths reach at least 400 m. In some places you can see the bottom under a water column of 20-40 m. The most mysterious reservoir of the family is Lake Nizhnee: it was in its waters that several divers died under mysterious circumstances. Nitrogen was found in their blood, despite the serviceable oxygen cylinders. The reservoir does not freeze all year round - the water temperature in the lake does not leave the + 9 ° C mark, and the water level always remains the same. At the same time, it is excluded that any river flows into the lake.

The depths of water beckon to themselves with uncertainty and mysticism, and people increasingly show carelessness, trying to unravel the mysteries of nature. It seems to the gaze of an amazingly beautiful lake surrounded by virgin nature, but, perhaps, at its bottom there are creepy creatures unknown to modern science, waiting for an opportune moment to declare themselves to the whole world.

There are more than one hundred lakes on Earth, which are associated with all kinds of legends, mystical, scary stories, anomalous incidents. Therefore, they have appropriate names: Dead, Mortal, Lake of Death. Some of them are anomalous from time immemorial, others have become so due to human activities ...

The dead stand like candles.

There are mysterious lakes that bring death to all living things, and on the territory of the former Soviet Union. One of them is located in Latvia. Its name is appropriate - Devilish!

Local residents of Devil's Lake do not like it, telling visitors that if a person is on the shore for a long time, he is seized with inexplicable horror. Tourists do not always believe the warnings and settle down to rest by the water, but after half an hour or an hour they jump up and try to get away from the lake as far as possible. The most impressionable then end up in a psychiatric hospital.

One of the local legends says that the Devil's Lake has no bottom, so drowned people are never found.

Latvian scientists believe that the anomalies of the reservoir are due to relief features and put forward several versions of the origin of the lake.

According to one of them, it is a meteorite crater about 70 meters deep, at the bottom of which the radioactive gas radon accumulates, destroying all life in the lake.

Recent studies of the lake show that a powerful stream of energy is constantly coming from the depths. That is why it is dangerous to be on the shore for more than an hour - a person can simply “go crazy”, and he will go crazy. The strongest energy flow hits in the middle of the lake. Perhaps that is why not a single person has yet been able to successfully swim across the damn body of water.

In the vicinity of the village of Gerasimovka, in Kazakhstan, there is a small - one hundred meters long and sixty wide - Lake Dead.

It is surprising and sad that almost every year people drown in the Dead. Locals try to bypass it and advise visiting tourists to do the same. However, that's why they are tourists, to walk unbeaten paths!

For some unknown reason, even in the midst of a hot summer, the lake does not dry up, and the water remains icy in it. There is no fish in the reservoir, no algae grow, all types of aquatic insects are absolutely absent. And, by the way, you won't find mosquitoes and flies on the shore either.

It is impossible to be in the waters of the Dead Lake for a long time. The diver, even with a full tank, cannot withstand more than three minutes, begins to suffocate for mysterious reasons and is forced to urgently rise to the surface.

Drowning in the Dead is mainly visitors who do not listen to the advice of local residents or simply do not know anything about the mysterious properties of the mysterious lake. What is noteworthy is that the drowned people do not float to the surface, as is usually the case after a few days, but stand at the bottom, straight like candles.

Local scientists explain the lifelessness of the lake waters by some kind of gas escaping from the crevices of the bottom, but special studies have not been carried out there, and it is not known when it will be possible to carry it out.

Where do the drowned men disappear to?

In the lake, located not far from Pereslavl-Zalessky (Russia), local residents do not swim - it is forbidden, but fishermen catch fish. Quite often they come across either fish breeds not even known to scientists at all, or real mutants: one-eyed, three-eyed, with paws instead of fins, and even hairy!

Representatives from the regional sanitary and epidemiological station repeatedly took the lake water for analysis: water is like water, closer in composition to mineral water. There are seven springs in the lake. The water level never drops, despite the fact that a river leaves it and flows into the nearby Pleshcheyevo Lake, which feeds the city with water.

Every summer tourists drown in the lake, not paying attention to the numerous prohibition shields installed on the shore. However, until now no one has been able to answer - where do the drowned people disappear to? Fishermen once saw how one of the swimming tourists swam into the middle of the lake, and then, with a cry, disappeared under the water. In a moment, an oil slick appeared at this place, spreading all over the lake. In the evening, at the place of the death of a person, a light circle appeared, phosphorescent - a spot with a diameter of about five meters.

Two brave fishermen swam on a boat to this place, and those watching from the shore suddenly saw how the whole boat immediately lit up with some kind of greenish light. This lasted for several seconds, and then a four meter high fountain hit out of the water. The fishermen immediately rushed to get out of the damn place so that, God forbid, they themselves would not drown.

Several cases were recorded when those who bathed in the lake fell ill with an unknown skin disease. Their bodies were covered with horny scales, their face completely changed, their hair fell out. In addition, long horn-like processes grew on the forehead, which subsequently fell off by themselves. All this lasted six months, then the disease slowly receded.

Divers who were conducting research on the bottom of the lake discovered several strange cracks in the ground, where water is leaving at a tremendous speed. There is a depression-well in the middle of the lake. But where it leads, no one has determined. It's too deep.

Another deadly lake - Smerdyachye - is located in the Shatura district of the Moscow region. It is peaty, the water has a reddish-brown color, and in some places it even seems black. There is no fish in it, and Smerdyachye is notorious among the locals. As soon as you approach him, the state of health immediately deteriorates, there is a feeling of discomfort and anxiety. People regularly drown in Smerdyachye, and it is not surprising that many try to bypass it. From a bird's eye view, the lake looks like a perfect circle with an earthen bank.

Assumptions about the cosmic origin of the lake were expressed back in the late 80s of the last century, but it was only now possible to prove this version. Experts from the laboratory of cosmo-chemistry, having examined the mysterious lake, came to the conclusion that it really is a crater formed after a giant meteorite fell in the distant past.

The horror of the ancient temple.

80 kilometers from St. Petersburg, in the vicinity of the town of Sosnovy Bor, local residents can show you another dead lake - Kanlishenskoye. The name of the lake probably comes from the old Russian word "temple", which meant the place where the ancient Rus made sacrifices to their gods. The forest surrounding the lake is full of small animals, birds and insects, but they prefer not to approach the water. There are no fish in the lake, and scientists cannot explain this mysterious fact.

Local residents say that near the lake, a person is seized with inexplicable fear, and sometimes this happens to whole groups of people at the same time.

Occasionally, square pits with a cross-section of one square meter are found on the shore. And on clear nights, a slight glow can be observed over the lake. Experts explain this phenomenon by gases released from the bottom, although the glow is located a meter above the water.

The Yachenskoye reservoir, located in the Kaluga region, also has a bad reputation. Local residents nicknamed one of its sections the Thunder of the Lord and superstitiously avoid it. In early spring, this cursed place is perfectly visible, as if outlined by an invisible circle. The fact is that for several years in a row there have been regular accidents here, and half of them are fatal. This is caused by a sudden electric shock of great magnitude.

One of the last victims of the Thunder of the Lord was a resident of Kaluga, who together with his family at the beginning of last summer came to rest at the Yachensky reservoir. As soon as the family settled on the shore, there was a crackling sound, accompanied by a flash, and the man's clothes immediately began to smoke and burst into flames. Coaches from a nearby sports base helped to save the victim from imminent death. With severe burns affecting 50 percent of his body, the man was taken to the hospital.

What is the mystical Thunder of the Lord? Locals say that ball lightning is to blame, which, like mosquitoes, circle over the same place in the reservoir. Ufologists add that the Thunder of the Lord is associated with UFOs that regularly land in the nearby Kaluzhsky pine forest. And experts say that the fatal anomaly in the area of ​​the Yachensky reservoir occurs primarily due to man-made reasons. The fact is that a high-voltage line runs along the shore of the reservoir, the wires of which sag in places so that they almost touch the water. And from time to time, a favorable discharge environment is created, and the discharge from the power transmission line affects the gaping vacationer.

Poison from the periodic table.

Many reservoirs are associated with barbaric or ill-conceived human activities, even approaching them closer than a kilometer is categorically not recommended. For example, the deadly lake located in the town of Cherdyn in the Perm region has no name at all. Locals bypass it by the "tenth road", And all because it is actually a trench filled with water, formed as a result of ... three nuclear explosions!

In winter, it is almost impossible to get to it - only along the winter road. The places around are deaf. The tests were carried out at a record minimum depth of only 270 meters, and the explosions were twice as powerful as the nuclear charge dropped on Hiroshima. The project was carried out under the code name Taiga "and marked the beginning of the" epoch-making "transfer of northern rivers to the south. Fortunately for nature and people, this was all over, there were only crumpled metal structures sticking out of the ground, heaps of cement and graphite turned into stone around the radioactive lake.

The Karelian Lake Surzi has also recently become famous. First, here in huge quantities fish began to float belly upwards. Then two fishermen died under mysterious circumstances, and 15 more were taken to the regional hospital with severe poisoning.

A few months later - another tragedy. The fishermen had just settled on a small island in the middle of the lake, when suddenly two of them fainted.

It was something inexplicable, - said later one of the victims, a resident of the Leshukonsky district, Alexei Shitikov. - It seemed to me that some terrible force was creeping from the sky, my arms and legs immediately became heavy, the earth disappeared from under my feet. My friend Venya fell completely. I threw myself into the water and swam to the shore, began to call my father to help. But my father felt bad too. Venya died at night.

The Shitikovs were sent to the regional hospital, and the corpse of Veniamin Rodionov was taken to the regional forensic medical examination bureau. The relatives and friends of the deceased were told that an unknown poison was found during a forensic chemical study.

No natural anomalies have been identified on Surzi, - said after a medical and ecological study of the composition of lake water in the Department of Natural Resources of the Administration of the Arkhangelsk Region. -The only thing that we managed to find was a significant excess of the fluorine content in the water.

However, fluorine is not some neutral element from the periodic table, and in no case can its danger be underestimated. On contact with the skin, scientists believe, it causes severe burns, and inhalation of it leads to severe inflammation of the respiratory tract and lungs, which can result in pulmonary edema and death. Penetrating into water and soil, fluorine can remain in them for many years and lead to the most unpleasant consequences for animals, plants and, naturally, people.

But how did the fluoride end up in the lake? On this score, the experts involved in the investigation of accidents have only a guess so far. Surzi abounds in springs and underwater rivers. So the poison could get into the lake from Arkhangelsk or from the Komi Republic, where there are quite a few chemical industries. However, this is only a guess.

What else is concealed in our mysterious and beautiful nature? How many interesting reservoirs, birds and animals there are on our Earth. And I would like to tell you about 4 of the most unusual lakes on Earth. Who would have thought that there would be an asphalt lake on our native Earth? And it turns out there is even such a thing.

Asphalt lake

Trinidat Island became famous only because in its central part there is a real asphalt lake. Great asphalt! Of course, you cannot enter the lake and plunge into the lake, but it is located in the crater of a former mud volcano, its depth is ... 90 meters (!), And its area is 46 hectares. Oil escaping from the bowels of the earth through the mouth of the volcano, lying at great depths, under the influence of evaporation, loses all volatile substances and turns into asphalt. All this is happening in the center of the lake basin. The place where more and more layers of liquid asphalt appear is called "Mother Lake". It is thanks to him that Lake Trinidad retains its reserves, despite the fact that every year up to 150 thousand tons of asphalt is mined from it, which is used for construction needs. Most of it is exported to the USA, England and China. During the development of the lake, more than 5 million tons of asphalt were mined, while the level of the wonder lake dropped by only half a meter! Any object hitting the surface of the lake disappears into the black abyss. Scientists who explored the coastal depths of the "reservoir" have discovered a whole cemetery of prehistoric animals. Including skeletons of mastodons, extinct during the Ice Age, who lived in this region. There are also deposits of valuable resin in the Dead Sea, famous for its salt reserves. The whole world knows about the extreme salinity of its water, in which it is impossible to drown. However, only specialists know about the deposits of the rarest resin. The extraction of this unique substance from the waters of the Dead Sea has been carried out since ancient times. Resin is used in a wide variety of areas: medicine, for road construction, coating of ship hulls, in the chemical industry.

Ink lake

Such an unusual lake is located in Algeria, near the city of Sidi Bel Abbess. The lake is filled with ink. There are no fish or plants in the lake, since the poisonous dark blue ink is only suitable for writing with them! Until recently, people could not understand how such an unusual substance turned out to be in the reservoir. Scientists, after conducting appropriate research and analysis, came to the conclusion: it's all about the composition of the water of two small rivers flowing into this mysterious lake. One of them contains just a huge amount of dissolved iron salts, the other contains all kinds of organic compounds from peat bogs located in the river valley. Merging together into a lake pit, the streams interact with each other, replenishing the amount of wonderful ink. Local residents treat this miracle differently: some consider it a devilish obsession; others, on the contrary, benefit from it. The ink is sold not only in stores in Algeria, but also in Africa, the Mediterranean countries, the Middle East.

Empty lake

But the secret of the Russian Empty Lake, located in Altai, has not yet been revealed. Around all the reservoirs are teeming with fish and lake game, and in Pustovoe there are no blades of grass, no fry, no birds on the shore, and this despite the fact that rivers flowing from the fish lakes flow into Pustovoe. Researchers have tried dozens of times to populate the mysterious lake with local aquatic fauna and flora, giving preference to the most unpretentious species. However, all experiments ended in the same way: the fish and other animals, after a day or two, died, the vegetation rotted. Empty remained empty. But what is most surprising is that chemists, who have repeatedly analyzed water for the content of toxic substances, have proven that water is absolutely not poisonous, suitable for consumption, and even ... resembles champagne due to the smallest bubbles of harmless natural gas. The lake water was studied by experts from Germany, the USA, Belgium and Britain, and no one has yet been able to explain or at least offer a plausible hypothesis about the phenomenon of this amazing reservoir. Will this mystery be solved in the foreseeable future? Alas, experts shrug their shoulders vaguely.

Acid lake

Yet the most "dead" sea on planet Earth is considered the ill-fated Lake of Death - a large body of water located in Sicily. Its shores and waters are devoid of all vegetation and living creatures, even birds do not fly over the lead-gray water. Swimming in it is deadly. Any living creature caught in the water of this terrible lake instantly dies. A person who for a second lowers a hand in the water watches in horror as it turns red, blisters, the skin slides off, revealing bloody bones, bursting veins and blood vessels. And the fact is that the water contains in a huge concentration ... sulfuric acid. Very dangerous studies carried out by scientists in 1999 led to a stunning conclusion: concentrated sulfuric acid is thrown into the lake by two sources located at its bottom. It is not surprising that the Sicilian mafia has hidden its victims in these deadly waters from time immemorial: an hour - and not even teeth remain from a person.

Oddly enough, but in the folklore of the peoples of the world there is almost no mention of enchanted, enchanted or sacred streams and rivers, with the exception of the Jordan and the Ganges. But there are so many legends about mysterious and creepy, dangerous and frankly evil lakes and ponds in oral folk art that you cannot count.

MAGIC WORLD OF BLUE MOUNTAINS

The belief in the existence of enchanted lakes and ponds has long been a subject of research by folklorists. However, there is no doubt about the well-known fact that there are really enough reservoirs in the world that have some incomprehensible natural properties and, thanks to them, become the focus or source of paranormal activity. In some lakes and nearby, UFOs are allegedly often observed, strange creatures are found in others, and still others are reputed to be strange without any specific real or invented reason.

Several of these strange lakes are hidden in the mysterious and almost impassable Andes. Not everyone knows that this majestic mountain range has a younger brother, a much more modest and nondescript ridge called the Cordillera Azur (Blue Mountains). It stretches parallel to the Andes and is replete with cold reservoirs - lakes and lagoons, around which mainly South American Indians who speak the Quechua language live. These places are so beautiful that from time immemorial painters have come here for inspiration, and now photographers have joined them, although the Cordillera Azur is still one of the most inaccessible mountainous countries on the planet.

There, at an almost transcendental height, in the wilderness and desertedness, lies the "strange" Lake Gaipo. According to rumors, several years ago it was firmly chosen by a wide variety of UFOs. Several researchers, who ventured to this forgotten place by God and people, found that rumors were confirmed. Local Indians said that paranormal phenomena are observed here regularly, but they are brightest at six in the morning and from three to four in the afternoon. At this time of day, the Indians repeatedly saw some luminous objects falling into the lake or, conversely, taking off from the water. The shape of these unknown luminous objects is striking in its variety: balls, ovals, rectangles, rings. They freely penetrate the surface of the water, hover and slowly move a few centimeters from it, and then either rush with lightning speed into the sky, or decorously and leisurely crawl up along the slopes of the mountains that frame Gaipo. And since in the horizons of local residents there is no place for such a concept as interplanetary or even more interstellar contacts, the Indians consider the observed phenomena to be the intrigues of witches and sorcerers.

However, such strange phenomena are observed not only in remote and inaccessible places. The attention of researchers is attracted, for example, by the Al-Chichika lagoon, located near the city of Veracruz (Mexico). It is small - just over three kilometers across, but strikingly deep - more than six hundred meters. This reservoir was reputed to be enchanted long before the appearance of European conquerors on its shores and gave shelter to the Mexican species of water elves, known as "chanekwe", and other evil spirits.

The researchers who visited those places noted various anomalies already on the approaches to the lagoon. Batteries ran out in electrical appliances, the video tape became unusable, and the reception of radio signals in the DV, SV, HF and VHF bands stopped. All this made it possible to put forward a hypothesis about some electromagnetic disturbances created by unknown sources located in the lagoon or nearby.

In 1998, biologist Arturo del Moral decided to thoroughly investigate the reservoir and faced the same obstacles as his predecessors. Moreover, the members of the Moral's expedition heard strange sounds emitted by the water column at night, and they had the impression that something was floating there.

Moral managed to talk to one of the residents of the nearby town of Pueblo del Seco, and he said that in March 1996, at about ten o'clock in the evening, he saw a dazzling yellow glow emanating from the water. Not caring in the least about his own safety, the fearless city dweller ran to the very edge of the water and, to his surprise, saw “something huge and luminous. This thing emerged from the water, hovered a meter or two above the lagoon, and then flew into the night sky.

Other local residents told Moral that the light phenomena in the lagoon have a periodicity: in the spring they are observed more often, especially at night. Moral even managed to film these phenomena. They are very beautiful: luminous bunches hover over the surface of the lagoon near the coast and emit white or red flashes. The sight is breathtaking. No wonder the pioneer of ufology, Maurice Jessup, was very fond of visiting the shores of the Al-Chichika lagoon. He even nicknamed it the Perst crater, struck by the similarity of the lagoon with craters on the Moon and the strange similarity of the terrain to the lunar surface.

In one of his books, Jessup described in detail the "fleeting light phenomena" observed in some lunar craters (for example, in Plato's crater; at full moon they can be seen through ordinary binoculars). Probably, the scientist believed that the lights in the lunar craters could be explained by a deeper study of the light phenomena in the craters of the earth.

KILLER LAKES

In October 1994, the Americans were shocked by the news of the terrible crime. Susan Smith, a young mother in Union, North Carolina, deliberately allowed her car to roll off a boat dock into John D. Long Lake. Belted in the back seat, Susan's sons drowned. Their mother received a life sentence for premeditated murder. Almost two years later, another car crashed from the same pier into the same lake, in which three adults and four children were sitting. At the same time, the car spontaneously rolled between the monuments to Michael and Alex Smith, Susan's young sons. This sight resembled an episode from a horror movie. All seven passengers of the jeep drowned, one of the eyewitnesses tried to save them, but drowned and also died. The investigation found that the car was on the hand brake.

According to local residents, the misfortune happened for one single reason: Lake John D. Long is bewitched. Of course, the judicial authorities do not take such explanations seriously and do not intend to re-examine Susan Smith's case. But lakes, in which people die under mysterious circumstances, do exist, and a very lengthy section of "magical" folklore and literature about the supernatural is devoted to them.

One of the most notorious killer lakes is called Whitney. It is located north of the town of Waco in the US state of Texas and seems to outperform Lake John D. Long. For many years in a row in Whitney every now and then a variety of cars roll down from the dock walkways, and the number of drowned people here is steadily growing. Police divers found several dozen cars on the muddy bottom of the lake, but never found human remains. Many of the cars lying in the lake simply should not have rolled there: their parking brakes were on, as was the case with Susan Smith's car in North Carolina. Also worthy of mention is the fact that two UFOs landed on the shores of Lake Whitney during the Alien Parade (another massive UFO invasion observed around the world) in 1974-1975, leaving scorched bald spots on the ground in Calvert.

The second largest country in the world - Canada - is also rich in black spots and, in particular, lakes, which are very ill-famed. In June 1966, the elderly couple and their teenage son went fishing in Lake Anion, located in an abandoned quarry thirty-three kilometers north of Thunder Bay, Ontario.

Arriving at the place and not finding a single living soul there, the fishermen were delighted at first, but soon they became creepy. Suddenly, pitch darkness fell. The frightening silence was only occasionally broken by a strange grinding sound, which, according to one of the few witnesses, was accompanied by "a sharp, suffocating smell of steel, processed with an emery wheel." And then, to the horror of the parents, their fifteen-year-old son suddenly disappeared.

Father and mother called the boy for a long time, but they did not receive an answer. When the mysterious haze that enveloped the lake in broad daylight dissipated, the parents saw their son, who appeared from nowhere and, terribly worried, said that he had seen "some kind of round plane." The boy ran to him, but did not remember what happened next. Soon, the loss of memory turned into a mental disorder, and the boy was admitted to an asylum for the mentally ill, but he could not be cured.

GREAT LAKE TRIANGLE

In addition to relatively small lakes, in the waters and surroundings of which all sorts of devilry is going on, there are also huge lakes that look more like seas. Sometimes all sorts of things also happen in them. The clearest example of this is the American Great Lakes, gigantic freshwater bodies of water that separate the Canadian province of Ontario from the United States. Much has been written about the mysterious phenomena associated with them, and Jay Gurley devoted a separate book to this topic, "Great Lake Triangle".

Many striking and mysterious events taking place here, according to Gurley, are explained by “the action of some destructive force, so powerful and swift that anyone who dares to penetrate here, it destroys mercilessly (however, this does not prevent the Great Lakes from being navigable, and navigation there very lively. - Author's note). And no one has yet offered an explanation for this power and swiftness. " Or maybe the power and swiftness of this mysterious force is somehow connected with UFOs?

In March 1998, the UFO Research Center closely examined reports of the appearance of unidentified flying objects near the Perry nuclear power plant on the shores of one of the Great Lakes of Erie. On March 4, a woman who did not want to be named was driving along the coast to Eastlake, Ohio. Suddenly she saw "an object that looked like an airship, at both ends of which were burning bright lights." This object painted a pretzel in the air, darted back and forth, as befits a classic UFO, and did not show the slightest desire to fly away.

Having reached the house, the woman told her husband about what she had seen and persuaded him to go to the nearest beach to look at the miracle. When they arrived ashore, the UFO was still maneuvering over the lake. It was winter. Eri was frozen, but the ice under the UFO cracked and broke. This time, eyewitnesses managed to determine the approximate dimensions of the object. He was "bigger than a football field." The observers had the impression that the "airship" was waiting for the return of some small flying objects sent for reconnaissance.

Soon the guess was confirmed: the "airship" landed on the ice-bound surface of the lake and began to take these scouts on board, and then the object disappeared from sight. Perhaps he went through the thickness of the ice and sank to the bottom, where the UFO base was located. Or maybe the crew is simply tired of the idle curiosity of earthly onlookers?

ASPHALT LAKE

The gods punish those who try to break the unwritten laws given from above. So, for example, it happened with the Chima Indians living on the island of Trinidad, which huddled in the Atlantic Ocean off the northeastern coast of South America. Once an Indian village was located on the shores of the crystal clear Peach Lake. Now ...

Once the gods of the forest gave the people of the Chima tribe an extraordinary bird - a hummingbird. This tiny creature, whose colorful plumage changes its shade depending on the angle of incidence of the sun's rays, was supposed, according to the plan of the gods, to decorate the life of people, soften their hearts and cheer souls. After all, it was not for nothing that the gods created the birds as beautiful, like flowers that came to life. In addition, this bird, the size of a fly, was distinguished by amazing courage: with strong blows of its beak, it could knock down a snake crawling to its nest from a tree. Remembering the courage of this tiny creature defending his home from enemies, the Indians had to fearlessly engage the enemy if necessary.

However, it so happened that, by the will of evil spirits, black thoughts were born in the heads of Chima. Looking at how a tiny bird, hovering over flowers, feasting on nectar, they thought: if this creature drinks the sweet essence of a flower, then how should it taste? Isn't it interesting to try a sacred bird baked in banana leaves for lunch? No sooner said than done. Having caught many birds with a net woven from grass, the Indians tried to arrange a feast. However, nothing came of it - their prey turned out to be too small and fragile, the delicacy turned out to be useless. And the gods, offended by such an attitude towards their gift, decided to punish Chima. The next morning, after the shameful meal, people saw that the blue waters of their lake had turned into sticky brown mud.

Such is the legend of the Chima Indians, who to this day live in the vicinity of Peach Lake. This lake, located on the island of Trinidad near the village of La Brea, is filled with ... asphalt! The area of ​​the pit with a semi-liquid black mass, which consists of 40 percent bitumen, 30 percent of clay and 30 percent of salt water, is 45 hectares. There are even small islands covered with vegetation on the lake. In the depressions between the viscous asphalt waves, rain water accumulates, and bituminous oils shimmer on it with all the colors of the rainbow, vaguely resembling the plumage of a hummingbird, with which everything supposedly started.

For a hundred years now, hundreds of tons of natural asphalt have been mined here every year, but it is not getting smaller.

The surface of the amazing lake is so hard in places that you can walk on it, but it's better not to do this, after all, the depth of the bubbling brown-black cauldron is 82 meters, and in which case it will be as difficult for a person to get out of it as a fly caught in jam. True, after some time, the drowned man, drawn to the bottom, will again be on the surface, since the asphalt is in constant slow motion. But, of course, very few people will be happy about it.

The legend about the origin of Peach Lake does not satisfy scientists, they still argue about where it came from. Many believe that the accumulation of natural asphalt formed in the crater of a dormant volcano. Oil, gradually coming from the bowels of the earth, mixed with volcanic ash and over time formed an asphalt boiler.

According to another version, the lake of asphalt was once at the bottom of the sea, and about 50 million years ago, the bodies of small marine animals sank to the bottom, turning into oil there, and then, under the influence of processes in the earth's crust, this oil was displaced to the surface and thickened under the influence sun.

Peach Lake is the largest, but not the only asphalt lake in the world. They are in California, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and other places.

Evil lakes

Probably, many of you have met names on the map that mention colors: Black, White, Yellow, Red Sea, Belukha Mountain and others. But there are especially many so-called colored lakes on our Earth. And these lakes really have the most different, unusual shades of water: red, crimson, blue-green, blue, yellow, white and even black. Moreover, multi-colored lakes are scattered around the globe!

There is, for example, in the Carpathian Mountains near the town of Svalyava, at an altitude of 700 meters above sea level, Lake Sinyak. The sulfur compounds dissolved in it give the water an intense blue color. There are many similar lakes in the Caucasus Mountains, but the queen of blue lakes is considered to be Lake Gek-Gel ("Blue Lake"), located in Azerbaijan in the Asgun Gorge, at an altitude of 1576 meters.

Most of all in the world of White Lakes. There are about twenty of them in Russia alone. At first glance, there is nothing unusual about such lakes. But as soon as the wind begins to catch up with the waves, the mirror water surface is covered with white lambs. Perhaps this is where the name comes from.

But on the island of Kunashir - one of the Kuril Islands - there is a milky white lake, moreover ... boiling. It is filled with a solution of sulfuric and hydrochloric acids, hot volcanic gases rise from the bottom all the time, which heat the "water" to a boil.

There are many purple-red lakes in Western Siberia and Central Asia. During sunset, they change their color slightly and become like bowls filled with molten gold.

There are truly unique raspberry lakes near Astrakhan, which are named so not only for their color, but also ... a smell that is very reminiscent of the smell of ripe raspberries. By the way, the salt extracted from these lakes retains a persistent aroma of raspberries or violets and was once highly prized at the royal court.

Another Raspberry Lake, located in the south of Siberia in the Kulundinskaya steppe, attracts not only with its beauty. In the water of this lake, saturated with magnesium salts and soda, stones are constantly formed and grow (to the delight of the local population, which widely uses this extraordinary building material).

Lakes with red water are also found in the Italian Alps, on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, in Western Europe, in Bolivia, and Japan.

By the way, there is a unique two-color lake on the Japanese island of Kyushu. One half of it from sulfur impurities turned yellow, and the other half, due to iron oxides, turned pink.

Three colored lakes lie in the crater of Keli Mutu Volcano on Flores Island in Indonesia. Two of them are painted in different shades of green, and the third is black and red. The inner forces of the earth and ... chemistry are to blame for this. The lakes were formed in different craters of the volcano, rich in various minerals. All three lakes bear romantic names Tivoe Ata Polo means "Lake of the enchanted people". Tivoe Noea Moeri Kos Fay is translated as "Lake of youths and girls", the third - Tivoe Ata Mboepoe - "Lake of drowned hopes."

Many lakes bear the name Sarykul, which means "yellow lake". The largest of them is located in the Chelyabinsk region of Russia. The color of the water in this lake resembles highly diluted coffee due to the fact that many clay particles are dissolved in it as a result of constant erosion of the banks.

There are many black lakes on Earth. The color of the water in them is explained not only by the presence of peat. For example, in the "most-most" black lake in the world - Lake Kakhinaidaakh, located in Yakutia, water is a kind of solution of soot, ash and soot. The phenomenon is explained by the fact that this lake is located in a depression where a fire raged several millennia ago (coal was burning there for several years). Later, water flooded the conflagration.

But in Algeria, near the city of Sidi Bel Abbes, in the picturesque Atlas Mountains, the basin of the lake is not filled with water, but with the most real ... ink. Two rivers flowing into the ink lake carry iron salts and the remains of various vegetation, which, mixing with each other, turn the lake into a huge inkwell.

BRONTIDES OR SOUNDING LAKES

In the spring of 2002, a group of French researchers in inflatable boats surveyed one of the southern bays of Lake Victoria in Africa, where, according to local residents, a large animal unknown to science appeared.

The hydrophones lowered into the water recorded strange loud sounds, as if some giant was hitting the same giant anvil with a hammer. These sounds arose an hour or two after sunrise and stopped shortly before sunset, sometimes they stopped for a long time and reappeared after five to seven days.

However, the history of this phenomenon goes back several centuries, and the sounding lakes themselves are found on all continents. On the territory of Eurasia, the most famous "talking" lake is Ladoga. Often fishermen who have gone 2–3 kilometers from the coast hear a mysterious roar, rolling, like a distant echo of a thunderstorm. When the sky is covered with clouds, these mysterious sounds (brontids) often come across newcomers to the lake - both "motorboats" and yachtsmen, who immediately direct their ships to the shore.

By the way, in various literary sources one can find distorted versions of this term, but it directly goes back to the Italian word "brontidi", meaning sounds that are observed in a number of coastal regions of the Mediterranean.

Much less often, another type of brontid is observed on Ladoga - a long sound similar to the sound of a broken bass string. It is even less common to hear two or three such sounds in a row. And some water tourists, who have lodged for the night on numerous skerries in the north-western part of Ladoga, suddenly wake up from the sound of the wheels of a rapidly approaching train, although, of course, there is no train nearby.

At the beginning of 1890, the American professor S.A. Forbes traveled to Lake Shoshone in Yellowstone National Park to study invertebrates. In his report, he made the following entry: “In this place, in an early quiet morning, we heard the mysterious sounds for which the lake is famous. They were like the trembling of a harp string that someone was touching at the top of the trees. It also sounded like the ringing of telegraph wires, and sometimes like quiet melodic voices talking high above us. The sound appeared somewhere far away, approaching and becoming louder, and then receding and disappearing in a different direction. Sometimes it seemed that he was aimlessly wandering around us. In each case, the phenomenon lasted from a few seconds to half a minute. Usually, these sounds can be heard on a calm, clear morning just before sunrise, at this time of day the sounds are louder and clearer. But one day I heard them at noon when the breeze was blowing. "

Forbes' colleague, Professor Edwin Linton, while working on the nearby Yellowstone Lake, heard similar sounds. They resembled some kind of metallic vibration that arose directly overhead and then moved southwest. On average, this phenomenon was observed for about 30 seconds. Sometimes the sounds resembled the howl of the wind, although it was completely calm all around.

In the same place, researcher Hugh M. Smith in 1919 heard something like the distant hum of a huge bell, repeated at intervals of about ten minutes. It is curious that strange sounds, reminiscent of the sound of an organ, were observed by Smith during the movement of the canoe in which the members of the expedition were.

In Australia, Wilg's “sobbing water hole” near Ruthven Station became famous since 1870. Once, two sheep shearers spent the night not far from her. However, they did not manage to get enough sleep: in the middle of the night, they suddenly heard a quiet cry, which became louder and louder. Then it was replaced, according to witnesses, with devilish otherworldly sounds, "which are beyond the power of a human voice." The sounds grew. It began to seem to the shearers that their eardrums were now bursting, a wild fear literally fettered them, not allowing them to leave the damned place. Then the howl became quieter and gradually turned into a quiet whine. When all was quiet, the shearers jumped on their horses and galloped away.

Sounds similar to the Ladoga brontids and reminiscent of distant thunderclaps are also observed on the coast of the North Sea, mainly on quiet foggy days. They are known to the locals by the hard-to-pronounce name "Mistpoeferry". The same rumblings in the Ganges delta are called "barisal cannons." A similar phenomenon in the state of New York bears the consonant name of the "Seneca Lake Cannon".

Researcher Albert J. Ingalls writes about the mysterious sounds: "Their direction is indefinable, and, like the beginning of a rainbow, they are always 'somewhere else'."

In the Connecticut River Valley, this phenomenon is called the "roar of Mudusa" (after the name of the city), and in Haiti - "goof-fra". In the Philippines, locals consider unusual sounds to be a kind of voice of a distant sea and are sure that they are produced by waves hitting the shore or the walls of grottoes. They also believe that these mysterious sounds are closely related to weather changes and usually herald the arrival of a typhoon.

In 1870, Nature correspondents undertook an investigation of the so-called "Greytown sounds" that are heard in coastal lakes and on the coasts of Costa Rica, Guatemala and Trinidad. They were strange metallic vibrating musical sounds with a characteristic rhythm. Two additional, but inconsistent factors were also noted: sounds are more often heard on metal ships, but only at night. And researcher S. Kingsley heard the sounds "that a locomotive rumbling in the distance makes when it releases steam" (that is, very similar to some Ladoga brontids).

With all the extensive statistics of observations of such a phenomenon over the past two centuries, no acceptable explanation has been found for it, and those who express themselves are sometimes simply naive. In geophysics, there is a whole area of ​​science called atmospheric acoustics. There is also the acoustics of the ocean, but, alas, there is no acoustics of the lakes. In one story by an Armenian writer, it was told how schoolchildren, together with a teacher, explored the mysterious sounds emitted by a high-mountain lake and which local residents attributed to the roar of an underwater deity. So, the guys discovered a hole, into which the waters of the lake periodically rushed, making frightening sounds. This is practically all that I have been able to read about the studies of the “voices of the lakes”. By the way, approximately the same explanation of the "devilish sounds" of Wilg's "water hole" is expressed for the Australian phenomenon.

A more or less acceptable explanation is given to the sounding lakes of Yellowstone National Park. There is a very high seismic activity; nearby geysers periodically operate, connected with lakes, apparently, by a common water layer. Apparently, these musical sounds appear during their work.

Well, as for the Ladoga brontids, the reader will have to be content with a very meager assumption that, perhaps, they are associated with the peculiarity of the underwater currents and the complex topography of the lake bottom.

BLOOD BAIT

Lake Tovel, located not far from the Italian city of Trento, may soon become a place of pilgrimage for tourists, since, according to an ancient legend, the water in it can turn into blood.

According to legend, during one of the internecine wars of the dark Middle Ages, a large detachment of knights from the Trezenya fortress was surrounded and defeated by an army from the neighboring town of Tueno. As the legend says, after a hot fight in the lake "there was more blood than water." Since then, the water in it sometimes began to turn into blood. As a rule, this took place on the eve of another violent internecine feud. The last time, however, this happened in the dry summer of 1964 and was in no way connected with the war on the peninsula.

An indescribable horror seized then people. Some in panic ran headlong away from the lake, others, on the contrary, threw themselves into the water and drowned, others lost their minds from fear ... But the local peasants, embittered by the drought, were not going to drown or go crazy. They almost completely scooped up the ominous lake, using water to irrigate their plots and "bloody" all nearby lands. This natural phenomenon was scientifically substantiated by a botanist from Trento, associate professor at the Universities of Padua and Camerino, Vittorio Marchesoni. He found that the culprit is a unicellular algae, which contains a high concentration of carotenoids in its plasma. Under certain conditions, it is capable of rapidly multiplying - up to 4 thousand cells in 1 cubic meter. cm (the water turns red) and also die off rapidly, sinking to the bottom and covering it with a thick purple carpet.

For several years now, a research team led by Alessandro dal Piatza, a leading researcher at the Trent Museum of Natural History, has been trying to determine the most favorable conditions for algae reproduction. If scientists still manage to solve this problem and it will be possible to artificially induce the effect of a "bloody" lake, the local area will face a real invasion of tourists.

A natural lake filled with real ink is located in Algeria, near the city of Sidi Bel Abbes. There are no fish or plants in the reservoir, since this ink, created by nature, is poisonous and is only suitable for writing with them. For a long time, people could not understand how such an unusual substance for a reservoir arises. And recently, scientists, after conducting research and analysis, found out the reason for this phenomenon. It's all about the composition of the water of the two rivers flowing into this lake.

One of the rivers contains a huge amount of dissolved iron salts, the other contains all kinds of organic compounds, many of which are borrowed from peat bogs located in the river valley. Merging together into a lake basin, the streams interact with each other, and in the course of constantly occurring chemical reactions, the amount of ink is more and more replenished.

Local residents are ambiguous about this attraction. Some consider the lake to be a devilish obsession, while others, on the contrary, try to benefit from it. Therefore, there are half a dozen names for him. Among the most famous are "Devil's Eye", "Black Lake" and "Inkwell". And the ink from it is sold in stationery stores not only in Algeria, but also in several other countries.

A real asphalt lake is located on the island of Trinidad, located fifty kilometers from the northern part of Venezuela. Swimming and swimming in it, of course, is impossible. The lake is located in the crater of a former mud volcano, its depth is 90 meters, and its area is 46 hectares. A few kilometers from it there is the settlement of La Brea. Coming out of the bowels of the earth through the mouth of the volcano, the oil lying at great depths under the influence of evaporation loses volatile substances, as a result of which it turns into asphalt. All this takes place in the center of the lake basin. The place where more and more new portions of asphalt are born has been called “Mother Lake” for many years. It is thanks to him that Lake Trinidad retains its reserves, despite the fact that every year up to 150 thousand tons of asphalt is mined from it, which is used for construction needs. Most of the mined is exported to the USA, England and many other countries. During the development of the deposits, more than five million tons of asphalt were mined. At the same time, the level of the lake dropped by only half a meter.

On the surface of Lake Trinidad, in addition to its center, a person can safely move without the risk of getting stuck and going into the depths. However, if, for example, someone dares to stay in one place for a long time and does not move at the same time, he will begin to slowly sink into the thickness of the asphalt. Almost any object left for a long time on the surface of the lake, some time later disappears into the black abyss. Scientists who have been exploring the deep bowels of the "reservoir" have discovered a whole cemetery of prehistoric animals, including the bones of mastodons that died out during the Ice Age and, apparently, once inhabited the area. Probably, new amazing finds will be made in the miracle lake.

There are asphalt reserves in the Dead Sea, famous for its healing salt reserves, located on the border of Israel and Jordan. Many people know about the extreme salinity and the special composition of its waters, but not everyone has heard about asphalt deposits. Accumulations of asphalt, resembling tar in appearance, periodically float to the surface of the water, are released to the will of the waves and are often thrown onto the shore in large masses. Asphalt has been mined from the Dead Sea since ancient times. It is used in a wide variety of industries: for building roads, tarring ships, obtaining all kinds of chemical products ... Until the middle of this century, it was believed that the Dead Sea region was practically the only supplier of asphalt in the whole world. And only in the 50s new deposits were developed.

And the most “dead” body of water on the whole planet is considered to be the Lake of Death, on the island of Sicily. Not only are its shores and waters devoid of all vegetation and living creatures, it is also deadly to swim in it. Any living creature caught in the waters of this terrible lake dies instantly. A person who lowers an arm or leg into the water feels a strong burning sensation and then watches in horror as the skin becomes covered with burns and blisters. The chemists who analyzed the contents of the lake were surprised. The water contains in a rather high concentration ... sulfuric acid. On this occasion, scientists have put forward several versions - for example, that the lake dissolves some unknown rocks and, due to this, is enriched with acids. However, studies have confirmed another hypothesis. It turned out that concentrated sulfuric acid is thrown into the lake by two sources located at its bottom.

But the mystery of the Russian Empty Lake, located among many other lakes in the Kuznetsk Alatau, has not yet been solved. Around all the lakes are teeming with fish, and in Empty - even rolling, despite the fact that rivers flow out of these fish lakes, flowing into a fishless lake.

Researchers have repeatedly tried to populate a strange reservoir with various types of fish, giving preference to the most unpretentious ones. However, nothing came of it - all the fish fell asleep, and Empty remained empty. But what is most surprising, the chemists who analyzed the water for the possible content of toxic substances in it, proved that nothing of the kind is contained in it. The water of the Empty Lake turned out to be practically the same as in the neighboring lakes. And no one can still explain or even put forward a plausible hypothesis about the phenomenon of this strange reservoir. Time will tell whether it will be possible to solve a seemingly simple riddle.