The Arctic is one of the most important issues in current politics. However, not all players in this region are known even to intelligence services. Various sources point to the activity of an unknown but powerful force that operated in Arctic long before us.

Knowledge Leak

Amazing knowledge of the prehistoric Arctic is noticeable in ancient geographical maps. This tradition is already visible in the first globe of the Earth, created by Martin Behaim in 1492 (Fig. 1).¹ South of the now non-existent lands (glaciers), M. Behaim depicted a huge internal “frozen sea.” Such a vast reservoir actually existed on the West Siberian Plain, but 50–60 thousand years ago.² The lake was more than twice the size of the modern Caspian Sea and was the result of an ice dam blocking the flow of rivers. According to paleogeographic data, this lake did not exist during the Last Glacial Maximum, about 20 thousand years ago. 

The same pre-last glaciation is also indicated by a now non-existent large island that M. Behaim (Fig. 1) and O. Fine (Fig. 2) depicted further east in the Arctic. There, in the sea, off the coast of Chukotka, ice sheets have repeatedly formed, reaching a thickness of more than a kilometer.³ However, this icy landmass was absent during the Last Glacial Maximum. Therefore, it remains necessary to search for the origins of Behaim’s and Fine’s insights in more ancient realities that existed 50–60 thousand years ago.

The peaks of the now underwater Lomonosov Ridge near the pole have eroded into flat tables due to surface glaciers about 140 thousand years ago.⁵ The ancient Arctic population during the Ice Age had neither the reason nor the opportunity to make their way across the deadly and lifeless icy desert to the distant pole. However, islands at the pole are shown on maps by J. Ruysch (1507), O. Fine (1531, arrowed in Fig. 2), G. Mercator (1569 and 1595), and others. Moreover, the polar mountain Meru has become firmly established in the sacred geography of Hinduism and Buddhism.

An Arab scholar, al-Beruni (973–1048 AD), described the Arctic geography, which he found in the sacred books—the Puranas of hot India.⁶ In particular, the ancient book Vayu Purana tells of a polar mountain, Meru, surrounded by four other mountains. This geography is similar to the depictions of polar lands on the aforementioned old European maps, as well as to the modern reconstruction of the ice sheets of the prehistoric Arctic in Fig. 2.

The question arises: who mapped the Arctic all the way to the pole at a time when people could only create local plans of their immediate surroundings? Obviously, this was only possible for those who knew how to measure and, most importantly, record the coordinates of many geographical points—or simply photograph vast areas. Of course, these methods were far beyond the capabilities of prehistoric hunters. Therefore, we are dealing with a leak of knowledge from those who possessed non-human capabilities.

Mysterious Kingdom

Indeed, ancient texts mention non-human presence in the Arctic. In particular, the ancient Chinese collection Shan Hai Tszin (before the 1st century BC) notes a “Demon Kingdom” (Book 12:2) or “a kingdom of Great Darkness” around “a mountain called the Abode of Darkness” (Book 18:6a), somewhere in the northern lands.⁷ The Persian Iskandarnamah(12th to 14th centuries AD) also describes the “Land of Darkness,” where “for four months, they [travelers] had not seen the sunlight or the moonlight, or their own faces, and had not been able to tell the night from the day.”⁸ This is a clear signature of the Arctic region with its polar night lasting up to half a year.

The analogue of the Chinese toponym “Abode of Darkness”⁷ for the associated mountain was the Persian toponym “Kaf Mountain.”⁸ The geographical term “Mountain Kaf” was noted in the collection of Arabian tales 1001 Nights (nights No. 489, 496, 657, etc.).⁹ This toponym is often confused with the Caucasus. However, it was stated in night no. 658 that the Mountain Kaf is very distant; it was accessible only “after traversing fifty years’ journey.” Of course, this is an exaggeration, but it is very strange for the real Caucasus, which is adjacent to Iran, where the early collection The Thousand Stories (Hezār Afsān) was formed by the 10th century.

Important clues are the historical and geographical realities that underlie 1001 Nights. In particular, the enemy leader Barkan retreats with his army to the Mountain Kaf, to the Blue King (night no. 658).⁹ The most suitable candidate for the position of “Blue King” seems to be the head of the “Heavenly State” (Täŋri El), i.e., the Kyrgyz Khaganate in the 7th–13th centuries.¹⁰ The Tatar-Mongol Kok Horde, which replaced the Khaganate, was called similarly—the “Blue Horde.” Note that the famous founder and first king (khagan) of this Kyrgyz state had the native name “Bars-kan,”¹¹ which is consonant with the name Barkan from the Arabian story. The initial region of the Khaganate was the Khakass-Minusinsk basin in the upper reaches of the Siberian Yenisei River—indeed, far from Arabia.

The Siberian address of the Kaf Mountains is confirmed by Kalmyk folklore, which was collected in the 1660s by the Turkish traveler Evliya Çelebi (hereinafter Chelebi). Old geographical maps show two areas of Kalmyk habitation: in the Caspian steppes (still accurate today), and slightly to the east of the lower reaches of the Yenisei River, not far from the Arctic Circle in Siberia (Fig. 3). The North Siberian area played an important role in the worldview of the Kalmyks as a sacred place of their ancestors. Chelebi wrote: “It is known that the Kalmyk people, once every seventy to eighty years, like Iskander, go to the Wall of Yajuj and Mount Kaf.”¹²

The route to the Kaf Mountains traditionally passed through sea ice: “Reaching the sea, Alexander walked over the water as one would walk on land. He reached the Kaf Mountain and conversed with an angel” (Jami’s version of the Iskandarnamah).⁸ Analogously, Evliya Çelebi wrote:

“The Nogai people know that not far from the Moscow country, in a place called the Sea of Darkness in the Great Quran [i.e., the Arctic Ocean], where there is ice, Iskandar [i.e., Alexander] the Great passed through the icy sea, heading for the Wall of Yajuj. The Kalmyk people cross the icy sea for seventy days and seventy nights, in the light, as if at dawn. In the bright places located at the base of this world, where grass grows and waters flow, the Kalmyks walk on their horses for seven days and seven nights, and at the foot of Mount Kaf they arrive at their Kaaba.”¹²

An indicative sign of Mount Kaf is the persistent reference by medieval authors to its mineral wealth, including precious metals and stones.^{8 9 12} Summarizing the above-mentioned indications, it is possible to reconstruct the route of the Kalmyk pilgrims (Fig. 4) and identify the Kaf Mountains with the western end of the Putorana Mountains,¹³ the location of the richest polymetallic ores near the Russian city of Norilsk.¹⁴

The Putorana Mountains (latitude 67–70°) are a zone of Arctic rocky deserts with small areas of glaciers. Temperatures there drop to –53 degrees Celsius. Frequently, terrible Arctic squalls blow through the region. As a result, the Putorana Mountains were—and remain—uninhabited. Nevertheless, the tradition did not consider the Kaf Mountains uninhabited, but believed that their mysterious inhabitants were non-humans: demons, genies, or angels.^7-9 In the old days, the neighbouring Nenets (obsolete: Samoyed) people had a legend that to the east of the Ob River (where the Putorana region is), “wonderful people live, they can only be seen from afar, but if you come closer, they disappear, and where—no one knows, apparently they go into the ground.”¹⁵ To the east, the Nenets on the Yenisei River also believed in the underworld and its strange-looking inhabitants: “One has not an arm, another has not a leg, and another has only half a head.”¹⁵ In ancient Chinese geography (before the 1st century BC), there is a similar motif: “the kingdom of the Armless,” somewhere in the “overseas North” (Shan Hai Tszin, Book 8:1).⁷

Ultrasonic Weapons 

The Pope’s ambassador, Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, travelled to Mongolia in 1245–1247 and recorded an interesting story about how Mongols were defeated in a battle with strange beings who “live in the earth, under mountains” in a remote country where a sunrise occurs at a certain time of year—i.e., in the Arctic.¹⁶ The battle occurred after a month’s journey by the Mongolian army from the lands of the Kyrgyz, who roamed the upper reaches of the Yenisei River. During the battle, many warriors died from the “terrible noise,” from which they could not protect themselves even by plugging their ears.¹⁶ This 13th-century incident is strikingly similar to the mass death of Kalmyk pilgrims three hundred years later, as reported by E. Chelebi:

“Once upon a time, during Ozdemir Oglu (Turkish Grand Vizier of 1584–1585, who fought in Transcaucasia in 1578–79), the voice of the peoples beyond these mountains [Kaf or Putorana] was heard. Our grandfathers who were at the Kaaba, their horses and themselves had their heads split from this terrible sound, their horses and their brains flowed out through their ears, and all our grandfathers who were at the foot of that Shining Mountain died. Out of eighty thousand people, only forty people were saved, and out of five times one hundred thousand horses, five hundred horses were saved.”¹²

The described symptoms bring to mind the well-known property of ultrasound to rupture cell membranes (lysis).¹⁷ In such cases, the brain is able to turn into liquid from the leaked cytoplasm. However, ultrasonic weapons appear unearthly and exotic for the 16th century. Even today, only small hand-held ultrasonic cutters or ultrasonic cutting knives are in use.

Confirmation of the reality of the event reported by E. Chelebi is the discovery of ancient mass graves in the supposed area of the massacre. The tops of the Putorana Table Mountains, adjacent to the Talnakh district of the city of Norilsk, have the texture of a rectangular lattice of low lineaments and small pits measuring a few meters (Fig. 5, top). This particular pattern maintains its average orientation over a large area of approximately 5 x 6 km (Fig. 6). An important detail: the texture lineaments are approximately parallel or perpendicular to the direction of Mecca. For comparison, the same rectangular arrangement of graves oriented towards Mecca can be seen in the photograph of a Muslim cemetery from the 13th–15th centuries (Fig. 5, bottom), which was discovered in 2023 near the Azerbaijani village of Arakul.¹⁸

In the Islamic funeral rite, the grave must be perpendicular to the direction of the Kaaba in Mecca. The body is placed in the grave on the right side, facing Mecca. Therefore, the strange ground pattern of the Putorana Mountains is a Muslim cemetery. Its vast area (roughly 5 x 6 km) is sufficient for the burial of tens of thousands of pilgrims, whose deaths were reported by E. Chelebi. Note that the discovered Muslim cemetery cannot be modern, since there are no access roads. In some places, the cemetery has been excavated and destroyed by modern technology. Prisoners who built mining facilities during Stalin’s atheist dictatorship were buried without religious formalities at Mount Schmidt, south of Norilsk (26 km south of the discovered Muslim cemetery).

Prohibited Zone

The southern border of the cemetery is the Talnakh River. Notably, the name Talnakh comes from the native Dolgan word meaning “prohibition.”¹⁹ This name appears to mark the boundary beyond which the pilgrims met their deaths.

To the north of the cemetery, across the valley on the opposite mesa, some fortifications are visible—featuring a bastion, defensive walls, and a moat for protection from the south (Figs. 6a–c and 7). In the protected area, something resembling a flooded mine or quarry of a quasi-square shape, with a side of about 60 meters, is clearly visible (Fig. 6d).

Therefore, the findings reveal a closed, fortified zone. However, in ancient times, humans had no reason to fortify this territory, given the unbearable climate and the fact that the copper ore they needed was available directly on the surface more than 20 km to the south, where the Norilsk-1 and Norilsk-2 deposits were located.¹⁴ Nevertheless, the ancient prohibited zone was situated above the Talnakh deposit, which was discovered only in 1960. Now, beneath the ancient restricted area lies the Skalisty mine, where ore must be extracted from a depth of 0.7 to 2 km.²⁰

The real value of this area lies in its high-tech metals. Copper–nickel sulphide ore is mined there. Nickel forms the basis of most superalloys and heat-resistant materials used in the aerospace industry for power plant components. In addition to copper and nickel, the Talnakh deposit is known for its precious platinum and associated rare metals of the platinum group. In particular, ruthenium and rhodium play an important role in the aerospace and nuclear industries (for heat-resistant materials and neutron flux sensors). Associated cobalt is used in superalloys for wear-resistant parts of aircraft jet engines, turbines, accumulators, and more. In addition, the chemical element selenium—another byproduct of ore processing—is used in electronics and in extracting oxygen and hydrogen from water. All these uses were unknown to the ancient inhabitants, but the exotic metals may well have been of interest to the owners of the prohibited zone.

Non-Human Activity

Some kind of ore processing could have taken place there. Around 1608, the merchant Luka Moskvitin and his reconnaissance team traveled along the Pyasina River to the area of the future Norilsk. A summary of his missing report survives in a retelling by the Dutch merchant Isaac Massa: “They [Moskvitin’s crew] remained all this time in the [Putorana] mountains, from which, as they often saw, flames of fire rose. They brought from there a small amount of sulphur and samples of stones, so that, apparently, there are rich ores in these mountains.”²¹

The assumption of industrial activity is supported by Chelebi’s report on “a huge dome, reaching the top to the heavens, made of bronze, like a green emerald, and it has absolutely no doors or pipes,” which was the Kalmyk shrine Kaaba at the foot of Mount Kaf.¹² This colossal metallic construction had “windows made of thick iron on its four corners,” through which pilgrims saw amazing creatures, as well as some levitating boxes: “None of them are tied to the sides in any way, neither by ropes nor by chains. They hang in the middle, under a high dome, at the height of four people.”¹²

According to Chelebi’s informants, the Kaaba emitted a glow: “At this Kaaba of our Father there is no night, here it is light all the time… and at night there it is as if it were day, although the moon and the sun rise… Since there is no darkness, it is as if it is day all the time.”¹² Moreover, the Kaaba allegedly exercised some kind of climate control in its vicinity: “In this steppe [near the Kaaba] there is never winter, snow or rain.”¹²

Surprisingly, these incredible properties find parallels in earlier northern Russian sources. In particular, a 15th-century North Russian text, On Unknown Men, reports of a lake [Lake Pyasino?] beyond the West Siberian Ob River: “…and over that lake there is a wondrous light and a great city stands over the same lake, but there is no settlement on it.”²² Note that it took a century before small forts appeared there. In a letter from the 14th century, Archbishop Vasily of Novgorod informs Bishop Feodor of Tver that a paradise had been found on the high mountains near the distant northern seashore, where “the light was self-shining,” although there was no sun, but “the light was multi-part, brighter than the sun.”¹⁵

According to reports from Kalmyk pilgrims, in the Kaaba they saw either glowing angel-like beings or demonic characters, such as a huge black dev-ifrit (cursed jinn) or a terrible “witch.”¹² The inhabitants of the Kaaba predicted the future and gave advice. In fact, they controlled the natives, whose “minds were clouded.” Evidence of such supervision can be found in a number of historical sources. In particular, the Persian author Rashid al-Din Hamadani, in his work Compendium of Chronicles from the early 14th century, wrote about the Uryankat tribe (one of the Kalmyk ethnonyms):²³ “They also say that genies appear to them on all occasions and talk [to them]… it is common knowledge that genies talk to them.”²⁴

It is noteworthy that this was not an imaginary journey to ancestors or spirits, as practiced in the shamanism of other peoples, but rather that the genies appeared to the people themselves. The horrible but all-knowing old woman seen in the Kaaba could be the source of the prophetic cult of the “golden old woman” (zolotaya baba) among the peoples of northwestern Siberia.²⁵

Control from the Kaaba was exercised only by prior invitation, but unauthorized behaviour by the natives was punished with weapons—as was the case during the massacre of 1578–1585. Then “our [Kalmykian] grandfathers, having arrived at the foot of the Shining Mountain, climbed up these golden and silver mountains to see the peoples who were there.”¹² However, almost all unwanted tourists who entered the restricted area were killed. Such defense of forbidden territory may explain the strange gap in Taimyr archaeology from the 12th to the early 17th centuries.²¹

Who Could It Be?

So, the question arises: who was this unknown force in the Arctic? Apparently, the described achievements and weapons went beyond the scope of terrestrial practice. Therefore, it is logical to assume that the masters were not from this planet. There are arguments in favor of this assumption.

It is worth paying attention to the ancient opinion that “behind the mountain Kaf are forty worlds, each one the bigness of this world forty times told … and Allah hath peopled them with angels that know not Eve nor Adam nor night nor day.”⁹ Apparently, this passage attempts to express the idea of the multiplicity of worlds and the habitability of the universe, where our own world occupies a modest place. This concept is surprising for medieval culture in its unexpected breadth of vision—one that Western science had not reached before the 17th century.

Interestingly, in pre-Islamic Arab astronomy, the constellation Cassiopeia was called كف Kaf or Kaff, i.e., similarly to the legendary mountains of the Kalmyk Kaaba. This name has survived to the present as Caph and denotes the star β Cassiopeiae.²⁶ In earlier times, the Tuvans (Uriankhai in Mongolian), in the south of Western Siberia, prayed daily to the five brightest stars of Cassiopeia and called two of them “father for every person” and “mother for every person.”²⁷ This relict of an ancient Siberian cult suggests the celestial nature of the divine Father of the Kalmyks, the creator of the Kaaba, and also the old woman from the Kaaba, who referred to the Kalmyks as “children” and controlled the reincarnations of their souls.

These mythical connections could have a real basis. In the constellation Cassiopeia, there is a star—Gaia DR3 510911618569239040—which passed through the Solar System, making a record approach to the Sun at 0.01 ± 0.04 parsecs approximately 2.47 ± 0.03 million years ago.²⁸ Remarkably, this event coincides with the appearance of the first humans (Homo rudolfensis and Homo habilis) on Earth, between 2.3 and 2.5 million years ago. This evolutionary jump also aligns with the fivefold genetic alteration in the influential brain protein SRGAP2C, a mutation genetically dated to approximately 2.4 million years ago.²⁹ 

These coincidences may not be accidental. During the flyby of the planetary system of Gaia DR3 510911618569239040 through the Solar System, what would otherwise be problematic interstellar travel may have been reduced to fully practicable interplanetary communication. And the evolutionary leap of hominids at this precise time suggests the possibility of artificial influence on the development of human ancestors.

Of course, further research is needed. However, the above-described findings in the Putorana Mountains are located in the operational area of the Norilsk Nickel company. This restricted area remains a “blank spot” for archaeology and tourists.

Endnotes

1. W. R. Cumming, R. A. Skelton, and D. B. Quinn, Die Entdeckung Nordamerikas (München: C. Bertelsmann Verlag, 1972), 214.
2. J. Mangerud, M. Jakobsson, H. Alexanderson, V. Astakhov, G. K. C. Clarke, et al., “Ice-Dammed Lakes and Rerouting of the Drainage of Northern Eurasia During the Last Glaciation,” Quaternary Science Reviews 23 (2004): 1313–1332.
3. F. Niessen, J. K. Hong, A. Hegewald, J. Matthiessen, B. Stein, et al., “Repeated Pleistocene Glaciation of the East Siberian Continental Margin,” Nature Geoscience 6 (2013): 842–846.
4. Oronce Fine, Nova, et Integra Universi Orbis Descriptio (Paris, 1531).
5. M. Jakobsson, J. Nilsson, L. Anderson, J. Backman, G. Björk, et al., “Evidence for an Ice Shelf Covering the Central Arctic Ocean During the Penultimate Glaciation,” Nature Communications 7 (2016): 10365.
6. A. R. Biruni, India (Moscow: Ladomir, 1995), 230–234 (in Russian).
7. E. M. Yanshina, ed., Catalogue of Mountains and Seas (Shan Hai Tszin) (Moscow: Nauka, 1977), in Russian.
8. M. S. Southgate, trans., Iskandarnamah: A Persian Medieval Alexander-Romance (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978).
9. R. F. Burton, ed., The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, vol. 5 (Burton Club, 1885).
10. “Kyrgyz Khaganate,” Wikipedia, https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Кыргызский_каганат.
11. “Barsbek-Kagan,” Wikipedia, https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Барсбек-каган.
12. E. V. Bakhrevskiy, “Sacred-Geographical Representations of the Kalmyks in the 17th Century (By the Materials of ‘Evlia Chelebi’s Journey Book’),” Nomadic Civilization: Historical Research (Kochevaya Tsivilizatsiya), no. 2 (2023): 9–38, in Russian.
13. O. V. Arkhypov, “Lost History Attention Test,” Nexus (Australia) 31, no. 6 (2024): 41–45.
14. R. B. Galaov, E. V. Pelipenko, and S. S. Kolechko, “Mineral and Raw Materials Base of the Polar Division of Norilsk Nickel: History and Prospects,” Mining Journal (Gornyi Zhurnal), no. 6 (2015): 7–11, in Russian.
15. D. N. Anuchin, On the History of Acquaintance with Siberia Before Ermak. Ancient Russian Legend ‘About Unknown People in the Eastern Country’ (Moscow: O. O. Gerbek, 1890), 76 and 82, in Russian.
16. G. P. Carpini, History of the Mongols, in Rubruk: Journey to the Eastern Countries (Moscow: State Publishing House of Geographical Literature, 1957), 43, in Russian.
17. Z. Izadifar, P. Babyn, and D. Chapman, “Mechanical and Biological Effects of Ultrasound: A Review of Present Knowledge,” Ultrasound in Medicine & Biology 43, no. 6 (2017): 1085–1104.
18. Institute of Archeology, Ethnography and Anthropology; Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences, “A Medieval Muslim Cemetery Was Discovered in the Khojavand District of Azerbaijan” (Baku, 2023), https://caliber.az/en/post/azerbaijan-discovers-medieval-muslim-cemetery-in-khojavand.
19. E. M. Pospelov, Geographical Names of Russia: Toponymic Dictionary (Moscow: AST Astrel, 2008), 430, in Russian.
20. M. Sanina, “The Skalisty Mine Celebrates Its 20th Anniversary,” Ttelegraf, 2024, https://www.ttelegraf.ru/news/rudnik-skalistyj-otmechaet-20-letie/, in Russian.
21. V. V. Denisov, Chronology of Taimyr: Chronology of Historical Events of the Genesis of Taimyr and the Norilsk Region(Norilsk: APEX, 2009), 11, 22–23, in Russian.
22. A. I. Pliguzov, “New Copy of the Tale ‘On Unknown Men,’” in Research in Source Studies of Russian History (Before 1917) (Moscow: Institute of Russian History, Russian Academy of Sciences, 2001), https://www.vostlit.info/Texts/Dokumenty/Russ/XV/1480-1500/Skaz_cel_nezn/text1.phtml.
23. O. Mänchen-Helfen, Journey to Tuva (Los Angeles: Ethnographic Press, University of Southern California, 1992 [1931]), 180.
24. Rashid al-Din, Compendium of Chronicles (Sbornik Letopisey), vol. 1, no. 1 (Moscow–Leningrad: USSR Academy of Sciences, 1952), 157, in Russian.
25. “Golden Woman,” Wikipedia, https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Золотая_баба.
26. “Beta Cassiopeiae,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_Cassiopeiae.
27. V. P. Dyakonova, “Religious Ideas of the Altaians and Tuvans About Nature and Man,” in Nature and Man in the Religious Ideas of the Peoples of Siberia and the North (Second Half of the 19th – Early 20th Centuries) (Leningrad: Nauka, 1976), 268–291, in Russian.
28. P. A. Dybczyński, F. Berski, J. Tokarek, E. Podlewska-Gaca, K. Langner, and P. Bartczak, “Important Stellar Perturbers Found During the StePPeD Database Update Based on Gaia EDR3 Data,” Astronomy and Astrophysics 664 (2022): A123.
29. M. Sporny, J. Guez-Haddad, A. Kreusch, et al., “Structural History of Human SRGAP2 Proteins,” Molecular Biology and Evolution 34, no. 6 (2017): 1463–1478.