Decemystery (2023) 27: The Tajikistan Cloud Monster

 

Just a quick FYI: That image has nothing to do with today’s story, directly anyway. I simply went with it because I didn’t want to use my S-tier Microsoft Paint skills today.

Anyways, greetings! Welcome back to my blog, the little place where I ramble on for thousands of words about something weird I found on the Internet and share with you! Given that this is one of two ongoing Decemysterys, that means I’ve been posting daily. That also means I’ve been sitting on my bed for months now, typing and subsequently making my carpal tunnel worse. Ah, but that’s beside the point; no, you’re likely here to read about something strange.

Lucky for you, I have a never-ending supply of weird stories. After all, I spend most of my time reading about strange happenings from around the world; it’s one of the few things I do day in and day out. So, for today’s serving of Fortean goodness, I present to you the story of The Tajikistan Cloud Monster! Come along, dear reader; it’s time to dive into the world of alien sightings once more!

Decemystery (2021) 23: The Signal of Isla Han Samar

Today’s story is yet another one from the Forteana Map. It, much like the story of the “Elevator Riddle”, has virtually nothing on it. However, I opted to still cover it for two reasons. The first is that I wanted something else that was rather easy to cover (I stand by the excuse I gave when talking about the Elevator Riddle: I’ve had a rough year, please cut me a break). The second is that it doesn’t appear that anyone—not even Dead Rabbit Radio—has talked about this story. So, I figured it could be fun to be the first person to cover it.

At least, I believe I’m the first person to have covered it. If I’m not, I feel silly for missing whoever did. They didn’t appear in either Google or Bing’s search results, no matter how many times I tried to look up information on this story.

Ah, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start from the beginning. This is the story of the Signal of Isla Han Samar.

Decemystery (2021) 8: The Bashkortostan Creature

Russia’s a hotbed for sightings of mysterious creatures. Dire wolves, mammoths, and aliens are but a few of the enigmas that have been seen over there. Though above all else, the nation is known for a ton of sightings of hairy hominids. Many of them come from Siberia, though Russia as a whole is no stranger to seeing the infamous Yeti. Sure, the Yeti itself may be from Himalayan folklore officially, but the name is used to describe more or less any snowy mountain-dwelling Bigfoot.

Anyways, for today’s story, we’re headed over to Russia to investigate something known as the Bashkortostan Creature. This is something you might be familiar with if you’re a bit fan of mystery-centric YouTube channels or happen to watch the Travel Channel show “Paranormal Caught On Camera”. It’s a rather famous video from the mid-2010s that managed to make the news. So come along, dear reader! It’s time to put on our winter clothes and investigate a Yeti!

Decemystery (2021) 7: The Jetpack Men of Kazakhstan and Los Angeles

Jetpacks are really fun to think about. You strap ‘em on and with the press of a button, you can take off into the sky and fly around. It’s almost like you’ve got wings, except you need not flap them to keep soaring. Nay, you just hold that button down and rise up. Finally, short people can reach the top shelf at the local Wal-Mart!

In real life, jetpacks do exist, but their usage is rather limited and as far as I’m aware, they aren’t something you can easily purchase. A quick Google search yields that a JB10 Jetpack, made by the Jetpack Aviation Company, costs a staggering $290,000 over here in the United States. Meanwhile, their JB11 Jetpack has a starting price of #340,000. So I guess if you’re filthy rich, you could buy one, but I doubt it’ll come in much use in your day-to-day life.

With that said, jetpacks would have quite a bit of use in the military and certain other fields. After all, having an aerial advantage over your land-restricted enemy would be amazing. Though again, I don’t believe there’s ever been a scenario where a jetpack unit has been deployed into a warzone. Hopefully one day, I can hear about how Delta Force defeated some bad guys while dabbing through the air.

I digress; let’s get to the point. While jetpacks are a reality, but not to the full extent that your favorite piece of entertainment media may showcase, there have been some weird encounters with folks using jetpacks. In fact, there are two stories from two areas—at two separate times in history—involving “Jetpack Men”. So come along, let’s talk about the Jetpack Men of Kazakhstan and Los Angeles.

Mystery: The Pokémon Incubus

Minor content warning: brief mentions of rape.

Okay, so, get this: I’ve discovered this thing called “not working constantly”. It’s a really novel concept where I don’t sit around on my bed, staring at a blank Google document, trying to force myself to write for hours on end before inevitably having a mental breakdown. I know, really incredible; I am truly ahead of my time and am far more enlightened than the Dalai Lama.

In all seriousness: I’ve actually finally decided that maybe not writing when I don’t feel like I can (whether it be due to feeling under the weather or just not really desiring it) is, in fact, a good idea. This has opened up a whole slew of new possibilities for me, like playing video games and enjoying some time to myself so I can recuperate from writing.

So in short, I’m making progress in living a healthier life!

Anyways, when it comes to video games, I’ve been playing a ton of Pokémon ROM Hacks, so I’ve been going through Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, and even Unova (well, that is until the game froze and I couldn’t progress). It’s been a ton of fun, and quite frustrating. Though mostly fun.

At the same time, however, it’s also been kind of a bummer. While I’ve been having a lot of fun, I’ve found myself really unable to write. This is mostly because none of the stories I had in mind really struck the right chord with me. Sure, I wanted to write about them, but nothing I wrote really struck me as “worthwhile”. When I set out to cover something. I always want it to be entertaining and not flat, boring, and unengaging. So for a brief while, I found myself feeling really bummed out.

Well, that is, until I remember a certain story.

Just yesterday, I remembered something that I saw on the good old Paranormal World Wiki. It was a story involving Pokémon and I thought it fit with my recent bingeing of the series. So, let’s take a look at the Pokémon Incubus.

Decemystery (2020) 9: Nepalese Dragon

Dragons are really diverse creatures of legend. There are good dragons, bad dragons, dragons with wings, dragons without wings, big dragons, and little dragons. Some of these dragons can breathe fire, while others breathe ice. In some stories, they can also breathe lightning! I’ve also heard of some that bring life and hope, while others bring death and misery.

Dragons are super cool in that regard and I believe that if I were a dragon, I’d live in a cave and never leave it, instead devoting my time to sleeping and stomping on anyone who got within a 35,000 mile radius of my hidey spot.

I guess that makes me one of the bad dragons then, but who cares. Today’s story has to do with a dragon that can’t fly, barely moves, yet is said to reside in the forests of Nepal. It’s never been found in spite of it being really slow. It goes by two names, but I’m going to use the first name I saw for it: the Nepalese Dragon.

Mystery: J376

This story is dedicated to my close friend Seriff Pilcrow. While this isn’t everything he likely desired it to be, I nonetheless did my best given the circumstances that have transpired around this one write-up. Thank you for everything, bud. I greatly appreciate your assistance.

This story’s cursed. I swear on a Bible, it’s cursed. Every time I try to write about it, something bad happens. Don’t believe me? Let’s take a look at the track record for it.

September 2019: I suffered a terrible nightmare about my ex-girlfriend that led to me contemplating grabbing my father’s service handgun and shooting myself in the head.

November 2019: A group of friends that I frequently hung out with got into a major argument. I played the mediator for weeks (this began around the time as the event mentioned above too) upon weeks and I finally broke down from the constant fighting and bickering. The two groups fractured and I was forced to abandon my plans for last year’s Decemystery. I ultimately scrapped this story because of how stressed I was; how I managed to not miss a single day of Decemystery 2019 is beyond me, but I consider it an act of God (and my sheer unbridled will to not fall behind on my work, though at what cost, I’ll never know).

January 2020: My acid reflux began to flare up extremely badly and I was forced to take time off; this did ultimately lead to me deciding to make the megalist of 500 conspiracy theories. This is also the only time that anything good came from this nightmarishly awful mystery.

March 2020: I suffered from a severe depressive episode due to my Yellow Lab dying; I scrapped covering it as a surprise for a friend of mine.

May 2020: I ended up having a complete and total mental breakdown in the middle of the month the week I’d begun to work on it once more. I’m still recovering from the breakdown because it was triggered by a year’s worth of pent up emotional distress and anger; the end result was five separate suicide attempts, losing a close group of friends I’d made four months ago, and being diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

July 2020: The day I started to cover this, I nearly had a breakdown due to the regret I’ve experienced due to the above mentioned breakdown. This culminated in a terrifying 3-hour-long mood swing where I became lucid to my desires to slit my wrists with razor blades and repeatedly contemplated other methods to end my life.

Lucky for me: seven is one of my lucky numbers. So on this seventh attempt, we’ll be covering J376.

Mystery: Fleshgaits

I’ve been waiting for this day for a very long time. It’s finally time to cover Fleshgaits.

Mystery: The Arzamassian Monster

Today’s story is going to be a super short one because I’ve been extremely busy today. Apologies for all of those that are disappointed, but I promise that there are stories this month that will be much longer and much more fascinating. So anyways, today’s tale is one that will take us back to the year of 1719. It’s known as the Arzamassian Monster and it will send us to the land of Russia. Let’s dive bomb into this enigmatic story!

Mystery: Kitsune

Woof.

Let’s take a trip over to Japan. Land of Godzilla, Gundam, and creepy ghost girls. It’s a fascinating location historically and culturally—the latter of those two being the central focus of today’s mystery. I’m sure most of you have likely heard of the Kitsune. If you haven’t, it’s a nine-tailed fox that has become something of a peculiar “waifu” to many who fall into the category of being a furry or a weeb, though you need not be either to appreciate the creature of legend. Now, given my pension for saying that legends had to have come from somewhere, it stands to reason that the Kitsune would fall into that category, right? Well, let’s take a gander at just that.

Mystery: The Tunguska Event

Aerial view of the Tunguska blast site nowadays.

Death from the skies!

This is what seems to make tabloid headlines every few months. NASA or some other space agency (though it’s almost always NASA) supposedly says that there’s a “killer asteroid” headed our way in X years. When it hits, we’re all dead! Just like the dinosaurs before us, we will be wiped out by a giant space rock and there’s nothing we can do about it.

These claims are, of course, clickbait. No one from NASA has said that there is a dinosaur killing sized chunk of space rock that will crash into our happy little planet and make us all enter the Forever Box. Alas, we can’t let facts get in the way of some good clicks for sensationalistic journalism.

Still, that doesn’t mean that our rocky friends from space haven’t hit us before. Every year, a plethora of meteors strike Earth, but they’re either too small to do any damage or burn up as they enter our atmosphere. In other instances, they do land, but are unnoticeable or make for a good viral video because they light up the sky.

In some rare instances, they actually do some damage and kill a lot of life. One good example of this is 99942 Apophis, a 1,080 foot wide asteroid that caused a pretty big scare when it was said it may hit Earth in 2036. An asteroid the size of Apophis typically strikes Earth once every 80,000 years. It wouldn’t cause an extinction level event mind you, but folks on YouTube and tabloids would have you believe otherwise since they made it out to be a doomsday rock from the high heavens.

A comparison of the Empire State Building and Eiffel Tower to 99942 Apophis.

Nowadays, they say that Apophis has a 1 in 150,000 chance of hitting Earth on April 12, 2068. These chances are subject to change and given that’s not for another 48 years (rounded) as of the time of this writing, one can bet that it’s likely we’ll either be able to send Apophis to Mars, Venus, or just straight out of the Solar System. Or, even more likely, Apophis will whoosh by our planet and go on its merry way.

Though what if it didn’t? What if it—or another still sizable asteroid—were to hit us? What would the damage be like?

As I said before, there have been asteroids that have hit Earth. There have also been meteors and comets. The thing is: it’s very rare, but when it happens, people definitely know. The devastation can be tremendous and the loss of life can be unbelievable…

Unless it lands somewhere remote, where the loss of life is minimal and nobody really notices it. This is  the case of today’s story, which has become known as the Tunguska Event. While many have come to accept the theory that what caused this incredible event was a comet, some remain unconvinced. As such, we’re going to take a look and see if we can discover the truth behind it all. So let’s dive in!

Decemystery (2019) 27: Con Rit

A rendition of the Con Rit

A quick preface: this story was a request from a friend of mine. So, thank you dear friend. I’ve also renamed the blog to Limitless Possibilities as I don’t want to appear as though I’m the only one who’ll be writing on this blog. Anyways, let’s get on with the show. 

Centipedes and millipedes belong to the Myriapod family. They’re undeniably some of the creepiest creatures on Earth. Dozens upon dozens of legs all working in unison. Odd and/or dark coloration. Prone to invading your home space.

All things considered: they’re not what I’d call the most welcome house guests. There are some benefits to have the most common of these creatures—the house centipede—inside your home however. They prey upon insects and even spiders. So if you’re arachnophobic, but don’t mind the creepy crawly with dozens of legs, it’d be highly beneficial to have one or so.

Luckily for us as a species, there’s no centipede that can eat us…

Or can they?

Today, we’ll be looking at a possible giant centipede. Known as the Con Rit, this beast is said to inhabit the coast of Vietnam. So let’s dive into the waters once more and see if we can find ourselves the truth to this nightmarish creature.

Mystery: The City in the Sky

Going up to the spirit in the sky (spirit in the sky!)

It's where I'm gonna go when I die (when I die!)

When I die and they lay me to rest, I'm gonna go to the place that's the best!

And that place is the City in the Sky.

Mystery: The Man from Taured

*Looks at Butterfly* Is this Taured?

Reading like the start to a science-fiction novel, The Man from Taured is a brilliant tale that's somehow not a work of fiction. It happened, though exactly what the reality behind it is ranges from the outlandishly fantastical to the completely mundane.

Decemystery 23: The Disappearance of Robert Levinson

Levinson as seen in 2010.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the United States’ premiere law enforcement agency. It's likely people both in and outside the US have heard of at least one of the agency’s directors; J. Edgar Hoover and Robert S. Mueller being two of the most well known for very separate reasons.

However, while those two men may be known for separate reasons, the agents themselves remain the same when trained and hired. The FBI, like the CIA and NSA, are comprised of some of the most skilled and rigorously tested and trained men and women bar none. This, coupled with a plethora of other things, makes the disappearance of Robert Levinson all the more peculiar—and heartbreaking.

Decemystery 10: The Patomskiy Crater

Press C to Create Crater.

Russia is home to some very unusual mysteries. The Tunguska Event of of 1908 and the Dyatlov Pass Incident are probably two of the most famous; and both are stories I'll hopefully write about next year at some point. That said though, we’re here to talk about a significantly less malevolent mystery. One simply known as the Patomskiy Crater.