Dropa Stones Mystery

This find has intrigued me for years and I thought I’d share the story, in case you haven’t heard of the Dropa Stones.

From the paranormal.about.com site:

In 1938, an archeological expedition led by Dr. Chi Pu Tei into the Baian-Kara-Ula mountains of China made an astonishing discovery in some caves that had apparently been occupied by some ancient culture. Buried in the dust of ages on the cave floor were hundreds of stone disks. Measuring about nine inches in diameter, each had a circle cut into the center and was etched with a spiral groove, making it look for all the world like some ancient phonograph record some 10,000 to 12,000 years old. The spiral groove, it turns out, is actually composed of tiny hieroglyphics that tell the incredible story of spaceships from some distant world that crash-landed in the mountains. The ships were piloted by people who called themselves the Dropa, and the remains of whose descendants, possibly, were found in the cave.

Dr. Tsum Um Nui felt the smooth face of the disk with the palm of his hand. "What could this disk possibly be?" he wondered. He knew of its recent history; how it was discovered in 1938 by a Chinese archaeologist in a cave high in the Himalayans, along with 715 similar disks; how buried nearby were skeletons of a strange tribe of people averaging only a little over four feet high; how it was found that each disk was inscribed with a tiny groove that spiraled around its face, and that the groove turned out to be an unknown hieroglyphic. He also knew how the disks, as remarkable as they were, had been simply labeled along with other finds of the expedition and stored away at Beijing University for 20 years. During that time, others had attempted to decipher the strange inscriptions, but without success. Perhaps now, in 1962, he could. The professor painstakingly transcribed the characters from the disk to paper. The writing was so small he had to use a magnifying glass to see it clearly. But the stones were old -- perhaps 12,000 years old, it was estimated -- and much of the hieroglyphics were difficult to make out or had been worn away by time and the elements. As he worked, many questions nagged the professor. How did these primitive people fashion these precise stones? How did they manage the almost microscopic writing? Who were they and what was the purpose of these hundreds of stones? Once the characters were transcribed, Dr. Tsum Um Nui began the arduous task of trying to decode its message. Eventually, he began to make progress. A word emerged. Then another. A phrase became understandable, then an entire sentence. He had broken the code. He discerned that the messages on the stones were written by a people who called themselves the Dropa. But what they were saying to him 12,000 years later made no sense. What the Dropa had written must have been one of their cultural myths, or was part of some prehistoric religious ceremony. Or was it? When he had completed the translation as much as he could, the professor sat back in his chair in disbelief. The story the Dropa related was nothing short of astounding. How would his colleagues react? How might the world react if this story was true? The professor wrote up a paper on his findings and presented it to the university for publication. Their reaction was swift and emphatic: the paper would not be published. The Academy of Prehistory expressly forbade him to publish or even speak of his findings. The world, the academy decided, should not know about the Dropa and their fateful journey to Earth.

Dr. Tsum Um Nui's findings were eventually published, however. Just two years later, he published the paper entitled, "The Grooved Script Concerning Spaceships Which, as Recorded on the Discs, Landed on Earth 12,000 Years Ago." By some accounts, the academy relented and gave permission to the professor to publish the paper, and by other accounts he published it despite the official ban. In either case, his translation and his theory were met with ridicule by the archaeology establishment. The translation was just too shattering to be taken at face value or as an historical account. It just could not be true. It would change everything we know about our history and humankind's place in the universe.

What the Stones Reveal

The Dropa disks tell the story of a space probe from a distant planet that crash-landed in the Baian-Kara-Ula mountains of the Himalayas. The occupants of the spacecraft -- the Dropa -- found refuge in the caves of the mountains. Despite their peaceful intentions, the Dropa were misunderstood by members of the Ham tribe who were occupying neighboring caves and who hunted down the aliens and even killed some of them. A translation of one of the passages says: "The Dropa came down from the clouds in their aircraft. Our men, women, and children hid in the caves ten times before sunrise. When at last they understood the sign language of the Dropa, they realized that the newcomers had peaceful intentions...."

The stones go on to say how the Dropa were unable to repair their disabled spacecraft and could not return to their home planet, and so were stranded on Earth. If that's true, have their descendents survived?

Today, the isolated area is inhabited by two tribes of people who, in fact, call themselves the Dropa and the Han. Anthropologists have been unable to categorize either tribe into any other known race; they are neither Chinese nor Tibetan. Both tribes are of pygmy stature, adults measuring between 3-foot-6 and 4-foot-7 with an average height of 4-foot-2, and body weights of 38 to 52 pounds. They are yellow-skinned with thin bodies and disproportionately large heads, corresponding to the skeletal remains found in the caves in 1938. They have sparse hair on their bodies and have large eyes that are not Asian in aspect, but have pale blue irises.

Supposedly, there also is an ancient Chinese tale that might bear-out the Dropa's claims. The tale relates the story of a small, slender, yellow-skinned people who descended to the Earth from the clouds, and who were shunned by everyone because of their ugliness.

Strange Properties

In 1968, the Dropa stones came to the attention of W. Saitsew, a Russian scientist who re-published the findings of Tsum Um Nui and conducted tests on the disks that revealed some very peculiar properties. Physically, the granite stones contained high concentrations of cobalt and other metals -- a very hard stone indeed that would have made it difficult for the primitive people to carve the lettering, especially with such minute characters. When testing a disk with an oscillograph, a surprising oscillation rhythm was recorded as if, the scientists said, they had once been electrically charged or had functioned as electrical conductors.

Whatever their true nature, origin, or meaning, the Dropa stones present an intriguing puzzle for archaeologists and anthropologists. Were the Dropa truly visitors from some distant planet, or is their story merely a creation myth imagined by a primitive culture? If the latter is true, it adds one more such "myth" to the large number of stories from ancient cultures that claim their descendents came to Earth from the heavens. And if the former is true, the Dropa stones could represent the first recorded visit of an alien civilization to our planet. For now, the Dropa stones remain unexplained.

Descendants?


Photo above: Dzopas/Dropas Rulers: taken by Dr. Karyl Robin-Evans during his 1947 expedition. Shows the Dzopa ruling couple Hueypah-La (4 ft. tall) and Veez-La (3 ft. 4 in. tall)

Are there descendants of the Dropa still living?

By some stretch of the imagination, if we were able to interbreed with a race of supposed aliens, what are the chances we would genetically be able to procreate? Sure, we can produce a Liger (lion/tiger) but it can’t produce offspring—it’s sterile. But, considering this tribe was reported as 3-foot tall extraterrestrials, then it would be assumed that they interbred amongst themselves. You’d then have to guess there were enough original beings to breed for 12,000 years. Putting aside my skeptical and logical nature, I admit I’m also equally open to lots of explanations and supposition. Here’s what I’ve found out about the supposed descendants:

In November 1995, the Associated Press (AP) stated that some 120 “dwarfish beings” had been discovered in Sichuan Province, in a so-called “Village of the Dwarfs”. (Some skeptics cast doubt on the AP account, though it is easily verifiable. In fact, on 9 November 1995, the German publication Bild ran a report titled “Das Dorf der Zwerge – Umweltgifte schuld?” [“The Village of the Dwarfs – environmental pollution to blame?”] about the discovery.) The tallest adult in this village was three foot 10 inches (1.0 m 15 cm) tall; the smallest was two foot one inch (63.5 cm).

The location of the village is only a few hundred kilometers from the Baian-Kara-Ula mountain range. However, despite China’s becoming more open, this entire area including the village remains off limits to foreigners.

Hartwig Hausdorf, who has been on the track of the Dropa since at least the early 1990s, ponders whether in recent years the Dropa’s descendants might have abandoned the mountains and settled in the nearby lowlands— where they were “discovered” in 1995.

According to a report in Bild on 27 January 1997, a Chinese ethnologist claimed that the tribe’s dwarfism was due to a high concentration of mercury in the soil, which had poisoned their drinking water for several generations. The claim did not go unchallenged, however. Dr Norbert Felgenhauer of the Munich Institute for Toxicology argued that this theory is nonsense. He stated that such poisoning would result in immediate death, not stunted growth, and introduced as evidence the case of the Japanese town of Minamata, where in the 1960s many inhabitants died from mercury poisoning. He also noted that mercury was unable to change human DNA and hence could not be held responsible for causing an hereditary trait—one that was clearly apparent in this tribe.

Also reported: The isolated area is inhabited by two tribes of people who, in fact, call themselves the Dropa and the Han. Anthropologists have been unable to categorize either tribe into any other known race; they are neither Chinese nor Tibetan. Both tribes are of pygmy stature, and body weights of 38 to 52 pounds (14-19 kg). They are yellow-skinned with thin bodies and disproportionately large heads, corresponding to the skeletal remains found in the caves in 1938. They have sparse hair on their bodies and have large eyes that are not Asian in aspect, but have striking pale blue irises."

As if these dramatic reports aren’t enough, around the year 2000, crystal skulls were found in some caves in remote mountains. It took 2-years to retrieve 22 ancient crystal skulls, collectively known as THE BEIJING SKULLS, which possibly are linked to the Dropa. Three small Dropa disks have been recovered from the same cave where the crystal skulls were found.

The discoverer who is anonymous at this date states: "I am of the opinion now that the crystal skulls were used by the Dropa as radio transmitters/receivers to communicate with their home base, which could be many light years away from this planet, as well as to communicate with their mates who had also landed elsewhere on this planet. The stone disks were the ancient computer disks to record and save messages sent or received. The skull and the stone disk must work together to be effective just like our computers today. Without software our computer today is a dead machine. From the spiritual angle the skull and the stone disk will open up a new portal which will enhance the working of spiritualists. This is an insight I have received from my skulls."

Whether these reported crystal skulls were actually found or not is vague. It seems a bit coincidental that crystal skulls, something associated mostly with the Americas, were found there. It is a questionable mix of cultural influences. It’s like throwing everything paranormal into one soup pot. Why not just report a Bigfoot skeleton or skeletal remains of a Loch Ness Monster? This crystal skull report to me does sound like hokum, but I do believe the Dropa stones were found. They’ve been viewed and photographed extensively. What exactly they contained and the context in which they were found is secretive. It’s a shame such an amazing find was done in China. It’s unlikely the secrets of it will be exposed to the world any time soon. For now, we can only suppose what they were and what they meant.