Read The Beasts that Hide from Man Online
Authors: Karl P.N. Shuker
The Beasts that Hide from Man (4 page)
However, certain amplifications and discrepancies regarding its morphology should be noted. Some of the nomads interviewed by Ivan and the other members of his expeditions have asserted that the death worm can grow up to five feet long, and that it bears darker spots or blotches upon its red skin, which is smooth and unsealed. Moreover, one elderly woman who claimed to have seen a death worm when she was a girl stated that “it was sort of bound into points at both ends.” This contradicts the earlier-noted description of the worm’s posterior end as terminating abruptly rather than tapering, and may even indicate that the creature bears one or more pointed projections at both ends.
Home to the death worm is the Gobi, one of the great deserts of the world. Encompassing an area of approximately half a million square miles, it spans roughly a thousand miles from east to west across southeastern Mongolia and northern China, extending from the Great Khingan Mountains to the Tien Shan. It stretches about 500 miles from north to south.
Located on a plateau ranging 3,000 to 5,000 feet in height, the Gobi consists of a series of shallow alkaline basins, and its western portion is almost entirely sandy. Notwithstanding this, it supports a thriving diversity of wildlife, and its grassy margins are inhabited by nomadic Mongol tribes living as shepherds and goatherds. Many significant dinosaur remains, including fossilised eggs of the ceratopsian
Protoceratops
, have been discovered amid this region’s vast expanse since the 1920s.
Whereas the word “desert” typically conjures up images of a hot, burning sandscape, this is in fact true only for certain deserts— those sited at low latitudes, such as the Sahara, caused by high-pressure air masses preventing precipitation. In contrast, the Gobi, of quite high-latitude location, is what is known as a cold desert, related to mountain barriers that deter moist maritime winds and thereby severely limit rainfall. The surface temperature in cold deserts can plummet so dramatically during the winter months that some of their fauna must remain beneath the surface of the sand in order to stay warm enough to survive, whereas others migrate to milder regions.
The first expedition took place during June and July 1990, the year’s two likeliest months for encountering the worm on the surface, rather than beneath, the desert sands. The team was comprised of the following Czech members: Ivan Mackerle, the leader; Dr. Jarda (Jaroslav) Prokopec, physician; George (Jiri) Skupien, photographer; and Zdenëk Kropác. Its two Mongolian members were Sugi, the translator; and Tschimed, the driver.
This was the first expedition ever launched specifically to search for the death worm. Even in Mongolia, it had remained largely unknown beyond its sandy seclusion—due in no small way to the country’s former communist government prohibiting entry into many areas near to the Chinese border, coupled with an absence of public transport and private off-road vehicles. Mackerle’s expedition chose to explore Galbin Gobi (around Khanbogd) and the areas extending to the west and southwest from Dalandzadgad, where it is reputed to exist. These regions included zones not previously visited even by Mongolian explorers.
The team had originally planned to entice some death worms out of the sand and into view with baited traps containing this species’ favorite food, but none of the nomads could tell them what that was. Consequently, they had no option but to attempt an alternative approach—luring the worms with very intensive ground-borne vibrations. The initial plan was to generate these vibrations with a specially created “thumper” featuring a heavy weight and spring, and driven by a battery-run motor. Eventually, however, they abandoned this in favor of an ordinary wooden log, which was forced down into the ground on several occasions to create a succession of vibrations emanating outwards beneath the sand. This approach was inspired by Frank Herbert’s classic science fiction novel,
Dune
, featuring a species of giant vibration-sensitive sandworm, the
shai-hulud
, inhabiting the desert planet Arrakis.
Unfortunately, neither the timing of their expedition during June and July nor their efforts to encourage their quarry’s appearance upon the surface of the sand via vibrational stimuli achieved success; they did not encounter the death worm. Even so, they did succeed in collecting a very considerable amount of anecdotal evidence and testimony from local people, which had not previously been made available to European scholars.
Expedition #2 occurred in June and July 1992, and comprised Ivan, Jarda, and George, plus Tschimed as their Mongolian driver, and also a local guide called Nerguj. This time the team explored other portions of the area west from Dalandzadgad, which seemed from locals’ accounts to offer a greater chance of success for encountering a death worm. They also interviewed lamas and shamans living close to the border with China, and set off several controlled detonations of explosives in the hope that the resulting shock waves traveling through the sands would induce any worms in the vicinity to emerge onto the surface. Sadly, however, the worms were not for turning—upwards, that is. Undeterred, the team filmed their search, which was broadcast as a 30-minute TV documentary entitled
Zähada Písecného Netvora
(“The Sand Monster Mystery”) by Prague’s Ceská Televize in 1993.
A third Czech foray—”Olgoj Chorchoj Expedition 1996”— spanned 14 days in June 1996. This did not include Ivan, but featured two of his acquaintances—Miroslav Náplava and Petr Horky—plus two other Czech team members. Unlike Ivan’s explorations, this one was not concerned solely with the death worm, so only a portion of the fortnight was allocated to seeking it. No firsthand sightings were made by the team, but they did obtain an interview with a local death worm eyewitness.
During Ivan’s field and bibliographical investigations, several significant and sometimes truly astonishing aspects concerning the death worm’s behavior and lifestyle were uncovered. These can be itemized as follows:
1) There is a high frequency of death worm sightings in areas sustaining
Cynomorium songaricum
. This is a cigar-shaped, poisonous parasitic plant locally termed
goyo
, found on the saxaul plant’s roots, which are also poisonous.2) One old woman, called Puret, claimed that when the worm attacks, it raises half of its body up through the sand, inflates itself, and secretes a bubble of poison from one end, ultimately squirting it forth in a stream at its unfortunate victim.
3) Puret also claimed that anything contacted by this deadly fluid turns yellow instantly, and looks as if it had been corroded by acid. However, it loses its potency from the end of June onwards, and meeting the worm then does not always result in death.
4) Ivan and his team repeatedly heard claims from the nomads that the death worm can kill people by touch, too (and sometimes even when several feet away). While camping near a monastery, the team was informed by their on-site guide, Khamgalagu, hailing from Khanbogd, about a local boy who had accidentally touched a death worm that had found its way into a box in his parents’ campsite and had concealed itself within it. The boy died instantaneously — as did his parents when they attempted to kill it.
5) During Ivan’s first expedition, his team’s interpreter, Sugi, recalled an incident from his childhood when a party of geologists were visiting his home region. One of the geologists had been idly poking the sand with an iron rod when suddenly, without any warning, he dropped down onto the ground. His horrified colleagues raced over to him at once, but he was dead. As they peered at the sand that he had been prodding, however, it began to churn violently, and out of it emerged a huge fat worm—an
allghoi khorkhoi
. Yet the man had not touched this deadly creature directly, only via the metal rod.6) The team also spoke with Yanzhingin Mahgalzhav, a nature ranger from Dalandzadgad, who affirmed (as did Puret) that during the 1960s a single death worm had killed an entire herd of camels just south of Noyon, when they unsuspectingly plodded across an expanse of sand concealing one of these dreaded beasts lying beneath the surface.
Not surprisingly, the Gobi nomads greatly fear this apparently lethal creature and take great care not to draw close to it if they happen to encounter one unawares.
The hypotheses generated by Ivan and his colleagues from the above data are exceedingly thought provoking. For example: they consider it possible that the reason for the death worm’s close association with the
goyo
plants is that it obtains its venom from them, or from the roots of their host, the saxaul. Even more extraordinary, if true, is the prospect that the death worm can kill by electrocution. Although a highly radical proposal, which I shall discuss fully in Part 2 of this chapter, it could certainly explain the instantaneous deaths attributed to this worm of people who have touched it or camels that have unsuspectingly trodden upon it. Moreover, assuming Sugi’s anecdote is true, electrocution undeniably offers an effective mechanism by which someone could die instantly even after having touched the worm not directly but with an iron rod — an excellent electrical conductor.
Although Ivan Mackerle is unquestionably the most famous of the Mongolian death worm’s investigators and chroniclers today, he is by no means the first. A comprehensive chronology is presented in my
Fortean Times
article, whose most significant entries are as follows.
The earliest specific reference to the death worm that I have so far obtained is an excerpt from
On the Trail of Ancient Man
(1926), written by the eminent American paleontologist Prof. Roy Chapman Andrews. This book concerns the American Museum of Natural History’s famous Central Asiatic Expedition of 1922 to the Gobi, led by Prof. Andrews, in search of dinosaur fossils. In order to obtain the necessary permits to venture forth into the Gobi, Andrews needed to meet the Mongolian Cabinet at the Foreign Office.
When he arrived, he discovered that numerous officials were in attendance for their meeting, including the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Mongolian Premier himself. After Andrews had signed the required agreement in order to obtain the expedition’s permits, the Premier made one final but very unusual and totally unexpected request:
Then the Premier asked that, if it were possible, I should capture for the Mongolian government a specimen of the
allergorhai-horhai
. I doubt whether any of my scientific readers can identify this animal. I could, because I had heard of it often. None of those present ever had seen the creature, but they all firmly believed in its existence and described it minutely. It is shaped like a sausage about two feet long, has no head nor legs and is so poisonous that merely to touch it means instant death. It lives in the most desolate parts of the Gobi Desert, whither we were going. To the Mongols it seems to be what the dragon is to the Chinese. The Premier said that, although he had never seen it himself, he knew a man who had and had lived to tell the tale. Then a Cabinet Minister stated that “the cousin of his late wife’s sister” had also seen it. I promised to produce the
allergorhai-horhai
if we chanced to cross its path, and explained how it could be seized by means of long steel collecting forceps; moreover, I could wear dark glasses, so that the disastrous effects of even looking at so poisonous a creature would be neutralized. The meeting adjourned with the best of feeling.
Call me a cynic, but I have the distinct impression that Prof. Andrews did not take the death worm too seriously. In any event, he certainly didn’t succeed in finding one, which is probably no bad thing—bearing in mind that he had planned to pick up with steel forceps a creature that had allegedly killed a fellow geologist who had prodded it with a metal rod!
During the 1920s, the American Museum of Natural History sent forth several additional Central Asiatic Expeditions to Mongolia and China, and in 1932 a major work,
The New Conquest of Central Asia
, was published, documenting all of them, with Prof. Andrews as its principal author. The first volume in the series
Natural History of Central Asia
(edited by Dr. Chester A. Reeds) contained a brief section titled “The Allergorhai Horhai”:
At the Cabinet meeting the Premier asked that I should capture for the Mongolian Government a specimen of the
Allergorhai horhai
. This is probably an entirely mythical animal, but it may have some little basis in fact, for every northern Mongol firmly believes in it and will give essentially the same description. It is said to be about two feet long, the body shaped like a sausage, and to have no head or legs; it is so poisonous that even to touch it means instant death. It is reported to live in the most arid, sandy regions of the western Gobi. What reptile can have furnished the basis for the description is a mystery!I have never yet found a Mongol who was willing to admit that he had actually seen it himself, although dozens say they know men who have. Moreover, whenever we went to a region which was said to be a favorite habitat of the beast, the Mongols at that particular spot said that it could be found in abundance a few miles away. Were not the belief in its existence so firm and general, I would dismiss it as a myth. I report it here with the hope that future explorers of the Gobi may have better success than we had in running to earth the
Allergorhai horhai
.
