Fire Serpents - Who Are They?
(Ancient and Modern Beliefs About Fire Serpents)
With the evening dew, the grass is falling,
The dark-browed widow combs her hair, washes her neck.
She can't take her eyes off the dark sky outside the window,
And a bright, long fiery snake twists and flies around.
It roars, closer and closer, above the widow's yard,
And it spreads out in flames over the thatched roof.
The dark-browed widow quickly closes the window;
Only kisses and words are heard in the room...
A. A. Fet, 1847.
Fairy tales and legends from many peoples of the Earth tell of various beings that preceded humans. Indeed, when the ancestors of the first humans appeared on the expanses of this planet, it was not empty. Many species of plants and animals inhabited it, most of which disappeared without a trace in the mist of past years, but perhaps there was still SOMETHING, whose elusive form can even now be discerned through the thick veil of legends and myths. Today, in mythology, these beings are represented as ANCIENT, although in many legends of various peoples of the Earth, they are known as the Sleeping Ones. The diversity of the ANCIENT beings is so great that in this article, we are forced to consider only one "kind" of them - the Flyers or Fire Serpents.
The Fire Serpent (commonly known as the Flyer) is a serpent-like demon endowed with anthropomorphic features. The first known mentions of these beings are reflected in a number of ancient Russian tales and incantations. ATTENTION! The Flyers are an undeniable reality of modern information databases and as such, they are considered promising for research in this quality.
Furthermore, as field studies have shown, the actions of this character relate to quite material objects (such as "wedding hole", "pit near the nursery", "fiery clearing", etc.).
The Fire Serpent is an embodiment of the element of fire; and this function, as well as the connection with hidden treasures and riches that it often brings into the house where it flies, makes it akin to the Firebird of Eastern Slavic tales. It also seems possible to link the tales of Fire Serpents with beliefs in the ancient Slavic deity Usenya, represented in some legends in the form of the "Fiery Wheel". Most modern researchers agree that the image of the Fire Serpent is very ancient. "The image of the Fire Serpent is older and more complex than the image of the devil. They embody the notions of life-giving celestial 'fire phenomena' and 'living' falling stars."
In folk incantations, the Fire Serpent is depicted as a magical creature capable of inspiring passion in a woman. According to legends, it can enter into a marriage with any woman (or violate her), after which a creature of serpent descent can be born under certain conditions. According to these legends, the Son of the Fire Serpent often engages in combat with his father and defeats him (for example, the Serbian epic about Vuk the Fire Serpent). Ancient beliefs about Flyers were firmly preserved among Russian peasants in the 18th-20th centuries. They knew that Fire Serpents were "devils who fly and tempt women". In villages, such a motif of stories was widely spread: the Fire Serpent (referred to as a fiery snake in Yaroslavl) flies to girls and women: "Sparks scatter above the pipe, he (through the pipe) appears in the hut in the form of a handsome guy or the deceased husband of the house owner." (M.D. Chulkov, 1786)
There is no singular name for this creature. In the Smolensk and Ryazan regions, such a serpent was named - Lyubak, in the Oryol region - Volokita, in the Tambov province - Lyubostai. According to beliefs from the Yaroslavl and Vladimir regions, there is a Naliet, an unclean force in the form of a fiery broom "six arshins long". He often visits people who mourn the deceased.
In the Samara region, the belief in "Conversations" with the Flyers has been preserved. It was well known that the Fire Serpent was attracted to excessive grief of widows. When it arrived, it could be stopped and subdued by saying: "Tpru!" Some sources add the necessity to first plant three iron knives in the ground in a specific way before the serpent's arrival. After this, the serpent, being somewhat dependent on the person, would fulfill their requests, reveal secrets of the Earth and Sky, past, and future. To release the serpent, it was necessary to tear one's shirt downward from the neck; otherwise, the Fire Serpent would fly away and destroy the person who stopped it.
It is interesting to note that similar beliefs have been preserved to this day. Researchers in Yaroslavl have recorded 166 stories involving the Fire Serpent over the last twelve years. These beings fly slowly, twisting, sometimes making noise as they circle and somersault. Numerous reports of encounters with these beings are dated to the years 1910-1919, 1930-1939, and 1940-1949. From the information they have gathered, there is believed to be a special mediator language necessary for cooperation between humans and Fire Serpents, using specific and highly distinctive signs and symbols.
At present, an encounter with Fire Serpents is quite unlikely. Although, according to unverified information (personal contacts in the mid-1980s in Sverdlovsk), there was a belief among climbers of the former USSR in the existence of a whole "plateau of Fire Serpents" located on the southern border of Dagestan near the peak of Guton, the main Caucasian ridge, and the lesser-known mountain valley of Bochohmeer, the Bogosky ridge.
According to another unverified information source (personal correspondence from 2001), "every year on the first full moon of the eleventh lunar month, on the day that coincides with the end of the Buddhist fast, hundreds of red, pink, and orange fiery balls soar into the sky above the Mekong River (Indochina). This spectacle attracts huge crowds of spectators. Local residents call this phenomenon the 'Naga Fireballs'." The Naga is a mythical ruler of serpents dwelling in the underworld.
Local scientists, while not denying the fact of such a phenomenon, employ the gas hypothesis to explain it. "Methane rising from river sediments produces fiery balls." However, this hypothesis is unable to explain the peculiar regularity of this phenomenon, somewhat similar to the regular descent of the "Holy Fire" during Orthodox Easter on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
Where did the Fire Serpents come from?
It is practically impossible to determine how and when the image of the Fire Serpent first appeared. There are very few theories on this issue, and they are all quite speculative. For example, the Samara ethnographer K.I. Serebrenitsky suggests that Fire Serpents are a distorted image of a dragon. It should be noted that in the beliefs of Slavic peasants, Fire Serpents were just one of the varieties of the "Miraculous Snake" - the "underground snake," the "creeping snake," and the "fiery snake."
In the mythology of other non-Slavic peoples, this image is virtually non-existent! To some extent, the Latin "vivus ignis" - Living Fire; Japanese "Tengu Lanterns"; the creature "Azhi-Dahaka" from ancient Iranian mythology; and locally known creatures such as Liderc in Hungarian mythology, Aitvaras in Lithuanian mythology, and the "Money Snake" - Ognivik can be considered possible analogues of the Fire Serpent. Some researchers draw parallels between the images of the Fire Serpent and the Fire Salamander, but in our view, this direction is mistaken. It is logical to assume that the image of the Fire Serpents was replaced by legends of the so-called Will-o'-the-Wisps - ignis fatuus, mysterious flying lights of various colors, in ancient times among most European and North American peoples (if it existed). In folklore, they are known as "fiery balls," "Jack-O'-Lanterns," "Fires of the Monk," "Candle fires," "Elven lights," "St. Elmo's fires" at sea, the Finns called such lights - "lekko". They are characteristically positioned in the air at the height of a human hand.
In ancient times, observing these lights was considered a manifestation of the "otherworldly realm." The main difference between Will-o'-the-Wisps and Fire Serpents is the relatively small size and common occurrence of the former, while the Fire Serpents almost always appeared (with very rare exceptions) alone.
In Christian mythology, Will-o'-the-Wisps, mostly identified with "fiery balls," were associated with "fiery demons dwelling in the upper layers of the sky, practically never descending to the earth and having no dealings with humans until the Day of Judgment." Although it was likely not entirely so. The Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus documented that (around the year 252 AD), "fiery balls falling from the sky burned all the workers trying to restore the Temple of Jerusalem." (This testimony is also confirmed by other authors, such as Rabbi Gedaliah.) A more recent account of the mass appearance of special fiery balls in the Eastern Hemisphere was recorded on the night of November 12-13, 1832: "... hundreds of falling stars mixed with large and small fiery balls moving in various directions..." In the Western Hemisphere, they appeared on the night of November 12-13, 1833: "... the entire sky was covered with dozens of bright streaks illuminated by fiery balls..." The connection of fiery balls (Will-o'-the-Wisps) with the legends of modern theosophists about the first fiery races is intriguing. "The Fire Serpents descended from the heavens and taught the Fifth race (humans)." The samizdat book "The Chalice of Fire" provides more detailed information about the two first fiery races. In "The Chalice of Fire," they are called the first - "Pitri" and "Phat," the second - "Evoly."
Theoretically, if the first and second races did indeed exist, they could "give birth" to very peculiar relics in certain (energetically active) regions of the planet capable of surviving to the present day.
"The Chalice of Fire" states that "in the later stages of their evolution, the Evoly represented a kind of unified planetary organism consisting of relatively independent 'nest-colonies,' the latter being located in a belt of volcanic activity or drifting in the atmosphere in the storm front zone. Each 'nest' was perfectly adapted to collecting, accumulating, and maintaining a constant energy balance in a strictly defined territory. The 'nests' exchanged information with each other. The gradual decrease (possibly rapid) of cosmic energy entering the Earth eventually led to the demise of most 'nest-colonies' and an intensification of the struggle for existence among those that remained. Shortly before their 'extinction,' the Evoly 'sent out' the Moon into space."
* Perhaps they simply reached the Moon? - theosophical texts are difficult to understand.
Could it be that the modern fiery balls observed on the surface of the Moon today [11] are distant descendants of the legendary Evoly? It is interesting to note that a large number of "fiery balls" were observed by pilots from Germany, Japan, the USA, and England. Most of the pilots considered these objects as secret enemy weapons and referred to them as "ghost fighters" in their reports. After the war, reports of such encounters greatly decreased* and persistently shifted into the category of UFO stories.
* The strange, very short-lived wave of such observations seems analogous to the story of the mysterious radio echo fixation from 1927-1929, known as the Stermer Paradox, perceived by some researchers as signals from extraterrestrial intelligence. A large number of recorded reports of human "encounters" with "fiery balls" in the second half of the 20th century in the USSR were compiled by the Siberian researcher M. Dmitryev. However, after his death, this data is practically inaccessible.
Possibly, some additional information about fiery balls is available in the unique database of the early 20th-century American researcher Charles Fort, in his book "The Book of the Damned." (A heavily abridged version of C. Fort's "The Book of the Damned," St. Petersburg, 1997)
Currently, modern science does not deny the fact of observing strange lights and fiery balls. However, it explains their origin through purely natural processes - unusual atmospheric conditions, luminescence, burning of marsh gases or the glow of radioactive "vapors," observations of ball lightning passing by, or traces of a disintegrated meteor.
In modern mythology (a subfield of ufology [15]), fiery balls are considered as specific means of transportation, piloted or unmanned flying devices of a highly developed civilization. They are also identified as: "Critters" - beings living in clouds in electrical fields with a frequency of 7-20 Hz, sometimes simply called "sky fire predators" [16]; "Red ghosts," energetic "birds" - living at an altitude of 30-90 km [17]. It is deemed necessary to mention another interpretation of the appearance of fiery balls: Fiery Balls - a creation of "skilled" individuals. "According to the beliefs of the inhabitants of the northwest of our country, flying fiery balls are a type of magical curse. Such balls, shimmering in all the colors of the rainbow, are created by sorcerers with the power of their 'will.' (Here, fiery balls are the product of ancient, almost forgotten technology.) They direct it towards a person and the ball, dispersing over their victim, causes dangerous illnesses."
The mentioned Samara ethnographer K.I. Serebrenitskiy tends to believe that fiery balls (fire serpents) are, in general, a kind of secondary, quite rarely observed form of human existence. "A chain is traced: human + something, leading to death in a particular form, transforming the human first into a sorcerer, and then into a fiery ball." It is commonly believed that the number of observations of Letuns (fiery balls) has significantly decreased in recent years. It is likely that the last observation is accurate, although not entirely precise due to the specific nature of perceptual changes. (But this observation is completely valid for ball lightning manifestations. It is difficult to say what this is connected to.) However, in the case of stories about Fire Serpents, we may be dealing with a vivid example of replacing the old Letun image with modern UFOs and UFO pilots, demonstrating a classic (adjusted for the era) style of behavior.
The Quest for the Tale Over a number of years, a group of historians and local lore experts from Samara tried to collect and verify these stories. We ourselves did not see the "fiery balls," unless you consider the observation of a mysterious "swarm." On August 15, 1990, around 10 p.m. (local time), I (I. Pavlovich), along with several of my companions, observed a group of fiery balls flying over the Zhiguli mountains. A large single ball with a small tail was followed by nine smaller balls flying in a row of three, shimmering with bright and long tails. Reports of sighting this group between 10 p.m. and midnight (local time) came from a fairly large area, from different districts of Samara, the village of Yermakovo, the village of Novodivichye, the town of Sergeevsk, and so on. What was it? It is impossible to say today.
Most of the stories were rather vague. For example, quite a few Fire Serpents were seen in the second half of the 20th century in the area near the settlement of Askuly on the Samara Bend. In 1974, people even shot at them with rifles. From the mass media, it is known that on June 21, 2001, a large fiery ball was seen in the vicinity of the village of Kinel-Cherkassy, and on May 24, 2002, the village of Verkhnie Belozerki was "visited" by a group of fiery balls. They broke windows and set trees on fire. The more intriguing fiery balls for us, capable of turning into humans, were quite frequently seen in the northeast of the Samara region. In 1984, a group of historians and local lore experts from Samara decided to investigate one of the stories about the Fire Balls somehow connected to the local Shikhan mountain.
Translated from the Mordovian language, the name Shikhan means Oath.
On that mountain, there are lakes. They never dry up, even during the most severe droughts. There resides an ancient Water Spirit. By performing a specific Ritual, one can beseech it to bring rain during dry summers or scatter clouds in excessively wet ones. Before the revolution, many people used to visit those lakes for "praying." The place where the Spirit "dwells" was marked by a "special stone." Offerings such as bread, salt, honey were left on it. According to folklore, there were some ruins nearby the lakes. The local residents, following the established tradition of the Middle Volga region, called them "Stepan Razin's Earthwork."
It is worth mentioning that Stepan Razin in the Volga region is a collective image and has very little to do with his historical prototype. Stepan Razin, the leader of the uprising in the Volga region, was executed in Moscow in 1671. In local tradition, Razin is a sorcerer, a werewolf, a powerful wizard, the owner of a flying boat (hidden in one of the mounds).
After the revolution and the civil war, people practically stopped visiting the mountain (due to the fruits of enlightenment, prohibitions, and cultural revolution). Sacrifices ceased, and the "angry spirit" flooded the lakes, turning them into swamps. Wild boars settled on the mountain, attacking anyone who disturbed their domain.
Presumably, in the book "Legends, Folklore, Tales" edited by the well-known researcher N.A. Krinichnaya, there is a mention of the Volga Shikhan mountain: "We heard from the old-timers that Shikhan Mountain is not natural, but built by human hands from wild stone. It is hollow inside. If you knock on its Side with a crowbar, Shikhan will hum like an empty barrel or drum, and inside it will hiss like a snake." On May 28, 1984, I (I. Pavlovich) and a group of like-minded individuals set out in search of this mountain. In this article, we will intentionally not provide exact geographical coordinates, following the general rules of safety techniques for "communicating" with eager but unprepared audiences about such places.
...The steppe. The boundless steppe stretched from horizon to horizon. We were driving in a "GAZ-66" truck, and the kilometers happily passed under the wheels. What mountain? Why is it here? - doubts plagued us. But there it was, a dome-shaped vault covered with forest. It felt like we were facing a glacial moraine. The ice tongue brought tons of stones (many fragments of quartz) here and melted away. However, according to experts' views, the glacier never reached these lands. The dosimeter clicked at 20-30 μSv/h, practically normal. In legends, it was said that Shaitan had "sealed" the mountain, "closed" the caves.
A preliminary examination indeed suggests the presence of some large voids in the mountain. We found several narrow crevices in the hillside, filled with clay and large stones that appeared melted.
We attempted to explore the summit of the mountain. It was a swamp. Thick thickets, traces of boars and ticks. All of this hindered our search, and we were limited by time. Local residents (inhabitants of surrounding villages) refused to accompany us to the mountain, citing their (clearly exaggerated) fear of boars. That time, we were unable to complete the entire planned research program - to reach the "prayer stone" and inspect the "ruins." They still await their "discoverers." Surveys of local residents suggested that the "Spirit" had left these places. They even told us how it happened: "Shaitan flew away! He flew away! His appearance was like a man, his head - all fire, with fiery tails around." Such a description of Shaitan placed him in the same category as the aforementioned Fire Serpents. According to local folklore, the "fiery Shaitan," entering into love affairs with village women, fathered quite a few children of "snake lineage." Although most of these children did not live long (died in infancy), some lived to a ripe old age. According to one version of local beliefs, it was they who banished their "father" Shaitan and then went into the mountain, where they slept...
Interestingly, similar "ideas" about the possible merging of humans and fire snakes are quite common in modern theosophical literature. It even claims that the emergence of representatives of the Third Race - the Lemurians, occurred thanks to the "merging" of the latter Evolves and the first cold-blooded ones, giving rise to the Atlanteans and modern humans.
Such stories were also typical for the northwest of our region. Therefore, in 1994, we directed our next expedition to the northwest of the Samara region, where beliefs about Fire Snakes have also been preserved. On this trip, we were accompanied by a representative of the Samara Historical and Ecological Association "Volga," ethnographer Kirill Serebrenitsky.
It is hard to believe that in our industrial age, relatively close to the "ring" of major cities, there is a practically untouched corner of wild nature. Locals lovingly call it the Volga Alps. These are darkly beautiful, truly fairy-tale places. Incredibly mysterious and surprisingly silent, not even birds are heard. Only owls hoot at night. And to climb up to the sky, above the low hills, the rock outcrops, a legacy of long-gone epochs.
In the geological past, a vast Tetis sea raged here, and the current rocks, the most durable rocks that formed ancient islands. Gloomy beliefs are associated with these places by local residents. Even today, they believe that evil spirits inhabit these rocks, forests, and swamps. And although no one dares to admit it directly, they fear these places and the beings they believe inhabit them. Although there is no one specifically to "confess" to, in the nearby settlements organized in the 1930s, as per Stalin's directives, only four houses are still inhabited, with a total of eight people, all Chuvash. It is known that by their own will, people did not settle here in historical times. Although it is unclear why. Abundant wildlife, untouched land, healing water... (The water from this mountain range is now widely advertised and sold under the name "Palace Water.") Kirill Serebrenitsky, working with the local population, found out that almost everyone who has spent a night on these swamps has seen wandering lights - a wandering evil spirit. They call it - Pata Kabusya. Another pronunciation of this name, preserved by the older generation, is Patavka-bus - "flying head" or "bird-head." Later, upon returning to Samara, Kirill Serebrenitsky specifically consulted with ethnographers from Cheboksary and found out that "patavka" is a completely unfamiliar and incomprehensible word in modern Chuvash language. The closest word to it is "pudovka" - meaning an old measuring bucket. So then, Pata-Kabusya is a kind of "Flying Head" in the form of an old measuring bucket. In the modern Chuvash language, the word "Patavka" is completely rare and incomprehensible. The closest word to it is "Pudovka." Then, Patavka-bus is a kind of "flying head" in the form of an old bucket. In the Chuvash language, "Bus" (Pus) means "source," "beginning."
According to local beliefs, Pata-Kabusya lives in a large mossy swamp, a strange relic from a long-gone glacial era. It is said that if someone died a violent death here and was not buried according to a certain ritual, Pata-Kabusya could appear: "A fiery ball flies in the form of a snake, with a thick head that gets thinner towards the tail. It flies straight into the village..." There, it allegedly exalted the deceased, then led the deceased around the surroundings and took them to its swamp. No one has seen the deceased after that. "Locals do not know why this sphere does this..."
In 1997, we were told that Patavka-bus "protecting its territory" destroyed a military helicopter, killing three crew members. On August 3, 1997, the "Mi-24" seemed to hit some sort of aerial sieve. The machine lost its horizontal speed component and vertically plummeted to the ground. The impact was so strong that a seismic jolt was detected 30-40 km away from the crash site. (Instances of such accidents in global practice can be counted on one hand. The machine was in working order. Systems were normal. Weather was good.)
Working in this area, we were able to uncover some intriguing details. For example, although fiery spheres usually appeared at night during dry summer storms, they could also appear in broad daylight. A blue sphere is young. A red sphere is old. The old ones are not dangerous. The spheres can move hills, change river currents, awaken springs. They extinguish forest fires. Sometimes, two spheres converge and start "crushing" each other, sometimes they shoot lightning at each other. It is interesting to note that in these areas, according to information from an anonymous storyteller, a certain Ritual took place, preventing Jupiter's explosion from the impact of Shoemaker-Levy comet debris. (See the magazine "Novy Vodoley" N 15-16, 21, 1996.) More detailed information will be presented in the third book of the study of modern mythology "Playing Shadows."
As mentioned before, according to ancient beliefs, "children" are sometimes born from the "cohabitation" of humans and Fire Snakes. They usually do not live long or... become sorcerers. And if Pata-Kabusya lived in the swamp, then his "children" or "speakers" with the snakes (including Stepan Razin) lived in the "Stone House". The Stone House - presumably a rock outcrop connected to an extensive network of caves that stretched for tens of kilometers, leading to the banks of the Volga River. "That place is cursed. Many wanted to know what was happening down there. They descended on ropes. Those who returned were terribly frightened, and those who were more foolish ventured deeper - they never returned. The levels in that 'House' (caves) are countless. If a person falls in, there is no way out for them... Sorcerers lived there, and maybe they still do today. We don't know for sure."
After questioning local residents, we headed towards these caves. We walked for about forty minutes through an old pine forest. Soon, the superficial layer of soil disappeared, revealing the underlying bedrock. Huge cracks split the massif, providing access to the depths of the earth.
Once again, a lack of free time prevented us from thoroughly exploring the entire area. We only found one deep cave from which a noticeable cold air emanated. Squeezing through a rocky crevice, we entered into a kind of underground well about three meters deep. The further path was "blocked" by a large sharp stone. Without excavation and removal of small obstructing rocks, it was impossible to go further. So, these caves are also waiting for their researchers.
Navigating through the twists of these cracks, we once again felt a barely discernible oily spirit. Indeed, while traveling through the remnants of these ancient islands, literally riddled with caves and extensive underground voids, one can believe in the "last representatives" of a long-gone world who are hidden "until the appointed hour".
These feelings blended well with the legends of the "sleepers in the hills" who once ruled these lands, now turned into swamps. But on a fateful day - as the legend goes, they will rise from these hills and regain dominion over the world.
We did not get to see any fiery orbs. But one night, we witnessed a rather unusual phenomenon. On a large clearing formed between two converging ridges of hills, we saw brightly burning blue lights. There were three of them, arranged in a triangular formation, and through binoculars, it was distinctly visible that they were elongated rhombuses with clearly defined edges. My companion Andrei and I stayed on the hill slope to adjust the movement. Meanwhile, four of our comrades armed with dosimeters headed towards the lights to try to determine their nature. Interestingly, the closer they got to the lights, the worse their visibility became. From the hill, we continued to clearly observe both the lights and the dark silhouettes of our companions. The blue light was so bright that my eyes teared up, and I had to pass the binoculars to my partner. As I wiped my teary eyes, something happened. They still could not see the lights. My partner Andrei, through the binoculars, saw a beam from one of the lanterns hitting one of the blue "rhombuses". Andrei claims that it instantly turned darker than the surrounding darkness of the night, almost as if it burst into flames in reverse, and the lights went out.
After a few minutes, they or similar lights appeared again, but much further away in the hills. We attempted to approach them once more, but the same story repeated itself. From a distance, the lights were clearly visible, but as we approached, they seemed to disappear. The dosimeters showed normal readings. Compass needles behaved normally. There was also no smell of swamp gas. So, this mystery also awaits its discoverer.
Some results of our research were presented in a series of articles published in 1995-2000 in the Samara newspaper "Novy Vodoley," the journal "Svet" No.1, 1997 (I. Pavlovich "Patavka-bus. Who is he?"), and the book "Legends of Volga Dungeons," Samara, 2001.
Who are the Fire Snakes? The most similar analog to the mythical Fire Snakes in appearance are Ball Lightning. Ball lightning is a luminous body that usually appears in the air during a thunderstorm and can reach sizes from two to three centimeters to several meters. [25] Its behavioral properties are so unusual that until recently many scientists leaned towards the idea that all stories about it were fabrications. But too many people have seen it - so its existence had to be believed. It is noted that ball lightning most often appears in areas of high tectonic stress. Professor Michael Persinger (Canada) suggests that changes in mechanical stress in certain types of rocky formations generate electric current. This current ionizes the column of air above the rock, twisting it around an axis. This is how ball lightning and UFOs are "born". According to numerous eyewitness accounts, bright luminous spheres (or other objects) with a visible diameter reaching the size of a full Moon are often observed over the Zhiguli Mountains. They move along complex trajectories and are capable of disappearing instantly. And it is not surprising, on the calm, "stable" Russian platform - this piece of land shows increased activity. The "Volga Alps" in general have a tendency to grow. Perhaps the "active energy" of these places can partly explain why by the beginning of the 20th century, adherents and keepers of practically all major secret and apocryphal teachings of Russia gradually gathered in these places.
Here a small digression is necessary.
After all, today we are striving to uncover the secrets of Ball Lightning, which "promises" humanity a new, compact source of energy. Perhaps some highly developed ancient civilization has already unlocked its secret, and the last keepers of forgotten knowledge are utilizing it today? Some researchers of the "unusual" at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries claimed that according to ancient views of human evolution on Earth, there were several rational Races that preceded humanity. According to their beliefs, the first Races did not have solid bodies but were "fiery clusters". Indeed, one can imagine a bubbling surface over the Earth where clusters of ionized gas intermix and collide at speeds of hundreds of kilometers per hour. Such collisions could lead to the formation of complex structures made up of various components. After some time, most of these formations will disintegrate, but not instantly, but having participated in various interactions with the environment. It is conceivable that a kind of "simplest being" could arise, capable of utilizing planetary and cosmic energy, initially to sustain its own existence. And then, to transition to higher and higher levels of orderliness. Gradually, it could learn to "think" through ordered electromagnetic impulses. It is assumed that with the emergence of even the simplest such systems, their evolution would proceed much faster than for chemical-biological beings. As the Earth cools, they would find themselves in increasingly adverse conditions. And perhaps Pata-Kabusa, like all Fire Snakes, are the last surviving relics of bygone eras, sheltered in specific energetic points of the planet. Today, they are limited in their abilities and require the "assistance" of other rational beings. It is possible that they indirectly "push" the development of human civilization in a specific direction (for example, towards the use of high energies and nuclear reactions). In our archive, there are many reports of observations of fiery spheres seemingly "sticking" to high-voltage power lines. They also "barge" over areas with the highest levels of radioactive waste pollution. Probably, for the first time after the "cooling" of the Earth's crust, people were able to somehow turn back time. Over two to three decades, the brightness temperature in the meter-wave range increased by millions of times. It is quite possible that in the coming decades our planet, as a source of radio emission fueling ball lightning, will surpass the Sun! And then humans will once again make Earth the realm of the Fire Snakes. Whether this will happen or not can only be proven by further research. In this regard, the vast expanses of Russia still remain largely "terra incognito" for the curious researcher capable of meticulous work.
With the evening dew, the grass is falling,
The dark-browed widow combs her hair, washes her neck.
She can't take her eyes off the dark sky outside the window,
And a bright, long fiery snake twists and flies around.
It roars, closer and closer, above the widow's yard,
And it spreads out in flames over the thatched roof.
The dark-browed widow quickly closes the window;
Only kisses and words are heard in the room...
A. A. Fet, 1847.
Fairy tales and legends from many peoples of the Earth tell of various beings that preceded humans. Indeed, when the ancestors of the first humans appeared on the expanses of this planet, it was not empty. Many species of plants and animals inhabited it, most of which disappeared without a trace in the mist of past years, but perhaps there was still SOMETHING, whose elusive form can even now be discerned through the thick veil of legends and myths. Today, in mythology, these beings are represented as ANCIENT, although in many legends of various peoples of the Earth, they are known as the Sleeping Ones. The diversity of the ANCIENT beings is so great that in this article, we are forced to consider only one "kind" of them - the Flyers or Fire Serpents.
The Fire Serpent (commonly known as the Flyer) is a serpent-like demon endowed with anthropomorphic features. The first known mentions of these beings are reflected in a number of ancient Russian tales and incantations. ATTENTION! The Flyers are an undeniable reality of modern information databases and as such, they are considered promising for research in this quality.
Furthermore, as field studies have shown, the actions of this character relate to quite material objects (such as "wedding hole", "pit near the nursery", "fiery clearing", etc.).
The Fire Serpent is an embodiment of the element of fire; and this function, as well as the connection with hidden treasures and riches that it often brings into the house where it flies, makes it akin to the Firebird of Eastern Slavic tales. It also seems possible to link the tales of Fire Serpents with beliefs in the ancient Slavic deity Usenya, represented in some legends in the form of the "Fiery Wheel". Most modern researchers agree that the image of the Fire Serpent is very ancient. "The image of the Fire Serpent is older and more complex than the image of the devil. They embody the notions of life-giving celestial 'fire phenomena' and 'living' falling stars."
In folk incantations, the Fire Serpent is depicted as a magical creature capable of inspiring passion in a woman. According to legends, it can enter into a marriage with any woman (or violate her), after which a creature of serpent descent can be born under certain conditions. According to these legends, the Son of the Fire Serpent often engages in combat with his father and defeats him (for example, the Serbian epic about Vuk the Fire Serpent). Ancient beliefs about Flyers were firmly preserved among Russian peasants in the 18th-20th centuries. They knew that Fire Serpents were "devils who fly and tempt women". In villages, such a motif of stories was widely spread: the Fire Serpent (referred to as a fiery snake in Yaroslavl) flies to girls and women: "Sparks scatter above the pipe, he (through the pipe) appears in the hut in the form of a handsome guy or the deceased husband of the house owner." (M.D. Chulkov, 1786)
There is no singular name for this creature. In the Smolensk and Ryazan regions, such a serpent was named - Lyubak, in the Oryol region - Volokita, in the Tambov province - Lyubostai. According to beliefs from the Yaroslavl and Vladimir regions, there is a Naliet, an unclean force in the form of a fiery broom "six arshins long". He often visits people who mourn the deceased.
In the Samara region, the belief in "Conversations" with the Flyers has been preserved. It was well known that the Fire Serpent was attracted to excessive grief of widows. When it arrived, it could be stopped and subdued by saying: "Tpru!" Some sources add the necessity to first plant three iron knives in the ground in a specific way before the serpent's arrival. After this, the serpent, being somewhat dependent on the person, would fulfill their requests, reveal secrets of the Earth and Sky, past, and future. To release the serpent, it was necessary to tear one's shirt downward from the neck; otherwise, the Fire Serpent would fly away and destroy the person who stopped it.
It is interesting to note that similar beliefs have been preserved to this day. Researchers in Yaroslavl have recorded 166 stories involving the Fire Serpent over the last twelve years. These beings fly slowly, twisting, sometimes making noise as they circle and somersault. Numerous reports of encounters with these beings are dated to the years 1910-1919, 1930-1939, and 1940-1949. From the information they have gathered, there is believed to be a special mediator language necessary for cooperation between humans and Fire Serpents, using specific and highly distinctive signs and symbols.
At present, an encounter with Fire Serpents is quite unlikely. Although, according to unverified information (personal contacts in the mid-1980s in Sverdlovsk), there was a belief among climbers of the former USSR in the existence of a whole "plateau of Fire Serpents" located on the southern border of Dagestan near the peak of Guton, the main Caucasian ridge, and the lesser-known mountain valley of Bochohmeer, the Bogosky ridge.
According to another unverified information source (personal correspondence from 2001), "every year on the first full moon of the eleventh lunar month, on the day that coincides with the end of the Buddhist fast, hundreds of red, pink, and orange fiery balls soar into the sky above the Mekong River (Indochina). This spectacle attracts huge crowds of spectators. Local residents call this phenomenon the 'Naga Fireballs'." The Naga is a mythical ruler of serpents dwelling in the underworld.
Local scientists, while not denying the fact of such a phenomenon, employ the gas hypothesis to explain it. "Methane rising from river sediments produces fiery balls." However, this hypothesis is unable to explain the peculiar regularity of this phenomenon, somewhat similar to the regular descent of the "Holy Fire" during Orthodox Easter on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
Where did the Fire Serpents come from?
It is practically impossible to determine how and when the image of the Fire Serpent first appeared. There are very few theories on this issue, and they are all quite speculative. For example, the Samara ethnographer K.I. Serebrenitsky suggests that Fire Serpents are a distorted image of a dragon. It should be noted that in the beliefs of Slavic peasants, Fire Serpents were just one of the varieties of the "Miraculous Snake" - the "underground snake," the "creeping snake," and the "fiery snake."
In the mythology of other non-Slavic peoples, this image is virtually non-existent! To some extent, the Latin "vivus ignis" - Living Fire; Japanese "Tengu Lanterns"; the creature "Azhi-Dahaka" from ancient Iranian mythology; and locally known creatures such as Liderc in Hungarian mythology, Aitvaras in Lithuanian mythology, and the "Money Snake" - Ognivik can be considered possible analogues of the Fire Serpent. Some researchers draw parallels between the images of the Fire Serpent and the Fire Salamander, but in our view, this direction is mistaken. It is logical to assume that the image of the Fire Serpents was replaced by legends of the so-called Will-o'-the-Wisps - ignis fatuus, mysterious flying lights of various colors, in ancient times among most European and North American peoples (if it existed). In folklore, they are known as "fiery balls," "Jack-O'-Lanterns," "Fires of the Monk," "Candle fires," "Elven lights," "St. Elmo's fires" at sea, the Finns called such lights - "lekko". They are characteristically positioned in the air at the height of a human hand.
In ancient times, observing these lights was considered a manifestation of the "otherworldly realm." The main difference between Will-o'-the-Wisps and Fire Serpents is the relatively small size and common occurrence of the former, while the Fire Serpents almost always appeared (with very rare exceptions) alone.
In Christian mythology, Will-o'-the-Wisps, mostly identified with "fiery balls," were associated with "fiery demons dwelling in the upper layers of the sky, practically never descending to the earth and having no dealings with humans until the Day of Judgment." Although it was likely not entirely so. The Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus documented that (around the year 252 AD), "fiery balls falling from the sky burned all the workers trying to restore the Temple of Jerusalem." (This testimony is also confirmed by other authors, such as Rabbi Gedaliah.) A more recent account of the mass appearance of special fiery balls in the Eastern Hemisphere was recorded on the night of November 12-13, 1832: "... hundreds of falling stars mixed with large and small fiery balls moving in various directions..." In the Western Hemisphere, they appeared on the night of November 12-13, 1833: "... the entire sky was covered with dozens of bright streaks illuminated by fiery balls..." The connection of fiery balls (Will-o'-the-Wisps) with the legends of modern theosophists about the first fiery races is intriguing. "The Fire Serpents descended from the heavens and taught the Fifth race (humans)." The samizdat book "The Chalice of Fire" provides more detailed information about the two first fiery races. In "The Chalice of Fire," they are called the first - "Pitri" and "Phat," the second - "Evoly."
Theoretically, if the first and second races did indeed exist, they could "give birth" to very peculiar relics in certain (energetically active) regions of the planet capable of surviving to the present day.
"The Chalice of Fire" states that "in the later stages of their evolution, the Evoly represented a kind of unified planetary organism consisting of relatively independent 'nest-colonies,' the latter being located in a belt of volcanic activity or drifting in the atmosphere in the storm front zone. Each 'nest' was perfectly adapted to collecting, accumulating, and maintaining a constant energy balance in a strictly defined territory. The 'nests' exchanged information with each other. The gradual decrease (possibly rapid) of cosmic energy entering the Earth eventually led to the demise of most 'nest-colonies' and an intensification of the struggle for existence among those that remained. Shortly before their 'extinction,' the Evoly 'sent out' the Moon into space."
* Perhaps they simply reached the Moon? - theosophical texts are difficult to understand.
Could it be that the modern fiery balls observed on the surface of the Moon today [11] are distant descendants of the legendary Evoly? It is interesting to note that a large number of "fiery balls" were observed by pilots from Germany, Japan, the USA, and England. Most of the pilots considered these objects as secret enemy weapons and referred to them as "ghost fighters" in their reports. After the war, reports of such encounters greatly decreased* and persistently shifted into the category of UFO stories.
* The strange, very short-lived wave of such observations seems analogous to the story of the mysterious radio echo fixation from 1927-1929, known as the Stermer Paradox, perceived by some researchers as signals from extraterrestrial intelligence. A large number of recorded reports of human "encounters" with "fiery balls" in the second half of the 20th century in the USSR were compiled by the Siberian researcher M. Dmitryev. However, after his death, this data is practically inaccessible.
Possibly, some additional information about fiery balls is available in the unique database of the early 20th-century American researcher Charles Fort, in his book "The Book of the Damned." (A heavily abridged version of C. Fort's "The Book of the Damned," St. Petersburg, 1997)
Currently, modern science does not deny the fact of observing strange lights and fiery balls. However, it explains their origin through purely natural processes - unusual atmospheric conditions, luminescence, burning of marsh gases or the glow of radioactive "vapors," observations of ball lightning passing by, or traces of a disintegrated meteor.
In modern mythology (a subfield of ufology [15]), fiery balls are considered as specific means of transportation, piloted or unmanned flying devices of a highly developed civilization. They are also identified as: "Critters" - beings living in clouds in electrical fields with a frequency of 7-20 Hz, sometimes simply called "sky fire predators" [16]; "Red ghosts," energetic "birds" - living at an altitude of 30-90 km [17]. It is deemed necessary to mention another interpretation of the appearance of fiery balls: Fiery Balls - a creation of "skilled" individuals. "According to the beliefs of the inhabitants of the northwest of our country, flying fiery balls are a type of magical curse. Such balls, shimmering in all the colors of the rainbow, are created by sorcerers with the power of their 'will.' (Here, fiery balls are the product of ancient, almost forgotten technology.) They direct it towards a person and the ball, dispersing over their victim, causes dangerous illnesses."
The mentioned Samara ethnographer K.I. Serebrenitskiy tends to believe that fiery balls (fire serpents) are, in general, a kind of secondary, quite rarely observed form of human existence. "A chain is traced: human + something, leading to death in a particular form, transforming the human first into a sorcerer, and then into a fiery ball." It is commonly believed that the number of observations of Letuns (fiery balls) has significantly decreased in recent years. It is likely that the last observation is accurate, although not entirely precise due to the specific nature of perceptual changes. (But this observation is completely valid for ball lightning manifestations. It is difficult to say what this is connected to.) However, in the case of stories about Fire Serpents, we may be dealing with a vivid example of replacing the old Letun image with modern UFOs and UFO pilots, demonstrating a classic (adjusted for the era) style of behavior.
The Quest for the Tale Over a number of years, a group of historians and local lore experts from Samara tried to collect and verify these stories. We ourselves did not see the "fiery balls," unless you consider the observation of a mysterious "swarm." On August 15, 1990, around 10 p.m. (local time), I (I. Pavlovich), along with several of my companions, observed a group of fiery balls flying over the Zhiguli mountains. A large single ball with a small tail was followed by nine smaller balls flying in a row of three, shimmering with bright and long tails. Reports of sighting this group between 10 p.m. and midnight (local time) came from a fairly large area, from different districts of Samara, the village of Yermakovo, the village of Novodivichye, the town of Sergeevsk, and so on. What was it? It is impossible to say today.
Most of the stories were rather vague. For example, quite a few Fire Serpents were seen in the second half of the 20th century in the area near the settlement of Askuly on the Samara Bend. In 1974, people even shot at them with rifles. From the mass media, it is known that on June 21, 2001, a large fiery ball was seen in the vicinity of the village of Kinel-Cherkassy, and on May 24, 2002, the village of Verkhnie Belozerki was "visited" by a group of fiery balls. They broke windows and set trees on fire. The more intriguing fiery balls for us, capable of turning into humans, were quite frequently seen in the northeast of the Samara region. In 1984, a group of historians and local lore experts from Samara decided to investigate one of the stories about the Fire Balls somehow connected to the local Shikhan mountain.
Translated from the Mordovian language, the name Shikhan means Oath.
On that mountain, there are lakes. They never dry up, even during the most severe droughts. There resides an ancient Water Spirit. By performing a specific Ritual, one can beseech it to bring rain during dry summers or scatter clouds in excessively wet ones. Before the revolution, many people used to visit those lakes for "praying." The place where the Spirit "dwells" was marked by a "special stone." Offerings such as bread, salt, honey were left on it. According to folklore, there were some ruins nearby the lakes. The local residents, following the established tradition of the Middle Volga region, called them "Stepan Razin's Earthwork."
It is worth mentioning that Stepan Razin in the Volga region is a collective image and has very little to do with his historical prototype. Stepan Razin, the leader of the uprising in the Volga region, was executed in Moscow in 1671. In local tradition, Razin is a sorcerer, a werewolf, a powerful wizard, the owner of a flying boat (hidden in one of the mounds).
After the revolution and the civil war, people practically stopped visiting the mountain (due to the fruits of enlightenment, prohibitions, and cultural revolution). Sacrifices ceased, and the "angry spirit" flooded the lakes, turning them into swamps. Wild boars settled on the mountain, attacking anyone who disturbed their domain.
Presumably, in the book "Legends, Folklore, Tales" edited by the well-known researcher N.A. Krinichnaya, there is a mention of the Volga Shikhan mountain: "We heard from the old-timers that Shikhan Mountain is not natural, but built by human hands from wild stone. It is hollow inside. If you knock on its Side with a crowbar, Shikhan will hum like an empty barrel or drum, and inside it will hiss like a snake." On May 28, 1984, I (I. Pavlovich) and a group of like-minded individuals set out in search of this mountain. In this article, we will intentionally not provide exact geographical coordinates, following the general rules of safety techniques for "communicating" with eager but unprepared audiences about such places.
...The steppe. The boundless steppe stretched from horizon to horizon. We were driving in a "GAZ-66" truck, and the kilometers happily passed under the wheels. What mountain? Why is it here? - doubts plagued us. But there it was, a dome-shaped vault covered with forest. It felt like we were facing a glacial moraine. The ice tongue brought tons of stones (many fragments of quartz) here and melted away. However, according to experts' views, the glacier never reached these lands. The dosimeter clicked at 20-30 μSv/h, practically normal. In legends, it was said that Shaitan had "sealed" the mountain, "closed" the caves.
A preliminary examination indeed suggests the presence of some large voids in the mountain. We found several narrow crevices in the hillside, filled with clay and large stones that appeared melted.
We attempted to explore the summit of the mountain. It was a swamp. Thick thickets, traces of boars and ticks. All of this hindered our search, and we were limited by time. Local residents (inhabitants of surrounding villages) refused to accompany us to the mountain, citing their (clearly exaggerated) fear of boars. That time, we were unable to complete the entire planned research program - to reach the "prayer stone" and inspect the "ruins." They still await their "discoverers." Surveys of local residents suggested that the "Spirit" had left these places. They even told us how it happened: "Shaitan flew away! He flew away! His appearance was like a man, his head - all fire, with fiery tails around." Such a description of Shaitan placed him in the same category as the aforementioned Fire Serpents. According to local folklore, the "fiery Shaitan," entering into love affairs with village women, fathered quite a few children of "snake lineage." Although most of these children did not live long (died in infancy), some lived to a ripe old age. According to one version of local beliefs, it was they who banished their "father" Shaitan and then went into the mountain, where they slept...
Interestingly, similar "ideas" about the possible merging of humans and fire snakes are quite common in modern theosophical literature. It even claims that the emergence of representatives of the Third Race - the Lemurians, occurred thanks to the "merging" of the latter Evolves and the first cold-blooded ones, giving rise to the Atlanteans and modern humans.
Such stories were also typical for the northwest of our region. Therefore, in 1994, we directed our next expedition to the northwest of the Samara region, where beliefs about Fire Snakes have also been preserved. On this trip, we were accompanied by a representative of the Samara Historical and Ecological Association "Volga," ethnographer Kirill Serebrenitsky.
It is hard to believe that in our industrial age, relatively close to the "ring" of major cities, there is a practically untouched corner of wild nature. Locals lovingly call it the Volga Alps. These are darkly beautiful, truly fairy-tale places. Incredibly mysterious and surprisingly silent, not even birds are heard. Only owls hoot at night. And to climb up to the sky, above the low hills, the rock outcrops, a legacy of long-gone epochs.
In the geological past, a vast Tetis sea raged here, and the current rocks, the most durable rocks that formed ancient islands. Gloomy beliefs are associated with these places by local residents. Even today, they believe that evil spirits inhabit these rocks, forests, and swamps. And although no one dares to admit it directly, they fear these places and the beings they believe inhabit them. Although there is no one specifically to "confess" to, in the nearby settlements organized in the 1930s, as per Stalin's directives, only four houses are still inhabited, with a total of eight people, all Chuvash. It is known that by their own will, people did not settle here in historical times. Although it is unclear why. Abundant wildlife, untouched land, healing water... (The water from this mountain range is now widely advertised and sold under the name "Palace Water.") Kirill Serebrenitsky, working with the local population, found out that almost everyone who has spent a night on these swamps has seen wandering lights - a wandering evil spirit. They call it - Pata Kabusya. Another pronunciation of this name, preserved by the older generation, is Patavka-bus - "flying head" or "bird-head." Later, upon returning to Samara, Kirill Serebrenitsky specifically consulted with ethnographers from Cheboksary and found out that "patavka" is a completely unfamiliar and incomprehensible word in modern Chuvash language. The closest word to it is "pudovka" - meaning an old measuring bucket. So then, Pata-Kabusya is a kind of "Flying Head" in the form of an old measuring bucket. In the modern Chuvash language, the word "Patavka" is completely rare and incomprehensible. The closest word to it is "Pudovka." Then, Patavka-bus is a kind of "flying head" in the form of an old bucket. In the Chuvash language, "Bus" (Pus) means "source," "beginning."
According to local beliefs, Pata-Kabusya lives in a large mossy swamp, a strange relic from a long-gone glacial era. It is said that if someone died a violent death here and was not buried according to a certain ritual, Pata-Kabusya could appear: "A fiery ball flies in the form of a snake, with a thick head that gets thinner towards the tail. It flies straight into the village..." There, it allegedly exalted the deceased, then led the deceased around the surroundings and took them to its swamp. No one has seen the deceased after that. "Locals do not know why this sphere does this..."
In 1997, we were told that Patavka-bus "protecting its territory" destroyed a military helicopter, killing three crew members. On August 3, 1997, the "Mi-24" seemed to hit some sort of aerial sieve. The machine lost its horizontal speed component and vertically plummeted to the ground. The impact was so strong that a seismic jolt was detected 30-40 km away from the crash site. (Instances of such accidents in global practice can be counted on one hand. The machine was in working order. Systems were normal. Weather was good.)
Working in this area, we were able to uncover some intriguing details. For example, although fiery spheres usually appeared at night during dry summer storms, they could also appear in broad daylight. A blue sphere is young. A red sphere is old. The old ones are not dangerous. The spheres can move hills, change river currents, awaken springs. They extinguish forest fires. Sometimes, two spheres converge and start "crushing" each other, sometimes they shoot lightning at each other. It is interesting to note that in these areas, according to information from an anonymous storyteller, a certain Ritual took place, preventing Jupiter's explosion from the impact of Shoemaker-Levy comet debris. (See the magazine "Novy Vodoley" N 15-16, 21, 1996.) More detailed information will be presented in the third book of the study of modern mythology "Playing Shadows."
As mentioned before, according to ancient beliefs, "children" are sometimes born from the "cohabitation" of humans and Fire Snakes. They usually do not live long or... become sorcerers. And if Pata-Kabusya lived in the swamp, then his "children" or "speakers" with the snakes (including Stepan Razin) lived in the "Stone House". The Stone House - presumably a rock outcrop connected to an extensive network of caves that stretched for tens of kilometers, leading to the banks of the Volga River. "That place is cursed. Many wanted to know what was happening down there. They descended on ropes. Those who returned were terribly frightened, and those who were more foolish ventured deeper - they never returned. The levels in that 'House' (caves) are countless. If a person falls in, there is no way out for them... Sorcerers lived there, and maybe they still do today. We don't know for sure."
After questioning local residents, we headed towards these caves. We walked for about forty minutes through an old pine forest. Soon, the superficial layer of soil disappeared, revealing the underlying bedrock. Huge cracks split the massif, providing access to the depths of the earth.
Once again, a lack of free time prevented us from thoroughly exploring the entire area. We only found one deep cave from which a noticeable cold air emanated. Squeezing through a rocky crevice, we entered into a kind of underground well about three meters deep. The further path was "blocked" by a large sharp stone. Without excavation and removal of small obstructing rocks, it was impossible to go further. So, these caves are also waiting for their researchers.
Navigating through the twists of these cracks, we once again felt a barely discernible oily spirit. Indeed, while traveling through the remnants of these ancient islands, literally riddled with caves and extensive underground voids, one can believe in the "last representatives" of a long-gone world who are hidden "until the appointed hour".
These feelings blended well with the legends of the "sleepers in the hills" who once ruled these lands, now turned into swamps. But on a fateful day - as the legend goes, they will rise from these hills and regain dominion over the world.
We did not get to see any fiery orbs. But one night, we witnessed a rather unusual phenomenon. On a large clearing formed between two converging ridges of hills, we saw brightly burning blue lights. There were three of them, arranged in a triangular formation, and through binoculars, it was distinctly visible that they were elongated rhombuses with clearly defined edges. My companion Andrei and I stayed on the hill slope to adjust the movement. Meanwhile, four of our comrades armed with dosimeters headed towards the lights to try to determine their nature. Interestingly, the closer they got to the lights, the worse their visibility became. From the hill, we continued to clearly observe both the lights and the dark silhouettes of our companions. The blue light was so bright that my eyes teared up, and I had to pass the binoculars to my partner. As I wiped my teary eyes, something happened. They still could not see the lights. My partner Andrei, through the binoculars, saw a beam from one of the lanterns hitting one of the blue "rhombuses". Andrei claims that it instantly turned darker than the surrounding darkness of the night, almost as if it burst into flames in reverse, and the lights went out.
After a few minutes, they or similar lights appeared again, but much further away in the hills. We attempted to approach them once more, but the same story repeated itself. From a distance, the lights were clearly visible, but as we approached, they seemed to disappear. The dosimeters showed normal readings. Compass needles behaved normally. There was also no smell of swamp gas. So, this mystery also awaits its discoverer.
Some results of our research were presented in a series of articles published in 1995-2000 in the Samara newspaper "Novy Vodoley," the journal "Svet" No.1, 1997 (I. Pavlovich "Patavka-bus. Who is he?"), and the book "Legends of Volga Dungeons," Samara, 2001.
Who are the Fire Snakes? The most similar analog to the mythical Fire Snakes in appearance are Ball Lightning. Ball lightning is a luminous body that usually appears in the air during a thunderstorm and can reach sizes from two to three centimeters to several meters. [25] Its behavioral properties are so unusual that until recently many scientists leaned towards the idea that all stories about it were fabrications. But too many people have seen it - so its existence had to be believed. It is noted that ball lightning most often appears in areas of high tectonic stress. Professor Michael Persinger (Canada) suggests that changes in mechanical stress in certain types of rocky formations generate electric current. This current ionizes the column of air above the rock, twisting it around an axis. This is how ball lightning and UFOs are "born". According to numerous eyewitness accounts, bright luminous spheres (or other objects) with a visible diameter reaching the size of a full Moon are often observed over the Zhiguli Mountains. They move along complex trajectories and are capable of disappearing instantly. And it is not surprising, on the calm, "stable" Russian platform - this piece of land shows increased activity. The "Volga Alps" in general have a tendency to grow. Perhaps the "active energy" of these places can partly explain why by the beginning of the 20th century, adherents and keepers of practically all major secret and apocryphal teachings of Russia gradually gathered in these places.
Here a small digression is necessary.
After all, today we are striving to uncover the secrets of Ball Lightning, which "promises" humanity a new, compact source of energy. Perhaps some highly developed ancient civilization has already unlocked its secret, and the last keepers of forgotten knowledge are utilizing it today? Some researchers of the "unusual" at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries claimed that according to ancient views of human evolution on Earth, there were several rational Races that preceded humanity. According to their beliefs, the first Races did not have solid bodies but were "fiery clusters". Indeed, one can imagine a bubbling surface over the Earth where clusters of ionized gas intermix and collide at speeds of hundreds of kilometers per hour. Such collisions could lead to the formation of complex structures made up of various components. After some time, most of these formations will disintegrate, but not instantly, but having participated in various interactions with the environment. It is conceivable that a kind of "simplest being" could arise, capable of utilizing planetary and cosmic energy, initially to sustain its own existence. And then, to transition to higher and higher levels of orderliness. Gradually, it could learn to "think" through ordered electromagnetic impulses. It is assumed that with the emergence of even the simplest such systems, their evolution would proceed much faster than for chemical-biological beings. As the Earth cools, they would find themselves in increasingly adverse conditions. And perhaps Pata-Kabusa, like all Fire Snakes, are the last surviving relics of bygone eras, sheltered in specific energetic points of the planet. Today, they are limited in their abilities and require the "assistance" of other rational beings. It is possible that they indirectly "push" the development of human civilization in a specific direction (for example, towards the use of high energies and nuclear reactions). In our archive, there are many reports of observations of fiery spheres seemingly "sticking" to high-voltage power lines. They also "barge" over areas with the highest levels of radioactive waste pollution. Probably, for the first time after the "cooling" of the Earth's crust, people were able to somehow turn back time. Over two to three decades, the brightness temperature in the meter-wave range increased by millions of times. It is quite possible that in the coming decades our planet, as a source of radio emission fueling ball lightning, will surpass the Sun! And then humans will once again make Earth the realm of the Fire Snakes. Whether this will happen or not can only be proven by further research. In this regard, the vast expanses of Russia still remain largely "terra incognito" for the curious researcher capable of meticulous work.
