1936 — M. K. Rosenfeld in his
The Ravine of the Almases incorporates the creatures into the plot of
an otherwise routine adventure novel. Rosenfeld had heard of the creatures
during a trip across Mongolia in the 1920s.
1937 — Dordji Meiren, an associate of Professor
Zhamtsarano, reports seeing a carpet made out of a hide of an Almas, being
used by lamas at their monastery in ritual ceremonies. He also declares
that Almas sightings decreased significantly in number in the later decades
of the 19th century, suggesting that they were engaged in a westward
migration to escape encroaching civilization.
1941 —
A Russian unit fighting the Germans in the Caucasus near Buinakst is asked
by some partisans to look at an unusual prisoner. According to the unit's
commander, Lt. Col. Vargen Karapetyan, the captive 'man' was naked, hairy, and covered with lice; he
obviously didn't understand speech and appeared to be dim-witted, blinking
often; he was evidently afraid, but made no attempt to defend himself when
Karapetyan pulled hairs from his body. He was kept in a barn, because, as the partisans
explained, in a heated room he stank and dripped sweat. Not wanting to get
involved,
Karapetyan told the partisans to do what they wanted with the prisoner. A
few days later he heard that the prisoner had escaped, but according to a
later report made by the Ministry of the Interior in Daghestan, the 'wild man' had been executed as a deserter
after being court-martialed.
1957
— Alexander Georgievitch Pronin, a hydrologist at the Geographical
Research Institute of Leningrad University on a expedition to the
Pamir Mountains for the purpose of mapping glaciers,
sees a figure standing on a rocky cliff about 500 yards above him and
the same distance away. Initially surprised by seeing someone at a known
uninhabited area, Pronin subsequently
realized that the creature was not human. It resembled a man but "it was
very stooped, with long forearms and covered in reddish grey hair."
Pronin reported seeing the creature again three days later, walking
upright.
1963 —
Ivan Ivlov, a Russian pediatrician, sees a family of manlike
creatures consisting of a male, female and a small child, standing on a
mountain slope. Ivlov observed the creatures through field glasses for some time before they
vanished behind a jutting rock. Ivlov's Mongol driver also sees the creatures and
assures him they are common in the area.
1964 —
Russian historian Boris Porshnev visits the place where Zana had
reportedly lived. Several centenarians (Caucasus people are noted for
their longevity) claimed to have known her and to have attended her
funeral. Dr Porshnev also meets a couple of the alleged descendants (her
grandchildren) of the wild woman, and wrote of the episode:
"From
the moment I saw Zana's grandchildren,
I was impressed by their dark skin and negroid looks. Shalikula, the
grandson, has unusually powerful jaw muscles, and he can pick up a
chair, with a man sitting on it, with his teeth."
During the
next few years, Porshnev
and a colleague tried to find Zana's remains in the Genaba (the family
name of her descendants) graveyard, and although they found the vaguely
Neanderthaloid bones of what they speculated was one of her children, they
never discovered the remnants of the Almas herself.
1969-1980 — British anthropologist and
archaeologist Myra Lesley Shackley researches into alleged residual
Neanderthal populations in Mongolia, but finds no hard evidence of their
existence. Nonetheless, in her book
Still Living? (1983) she
speculates that the Almas are a relict population of Neanderthals, and
offers a vivid account of 1963's Ivan Ivlov encounter with a family of these
creatures. She also mentions a Tibetan medicinal book in which drawings of
Almas appear, noting that "the book contains thousands of illustrations of
various classes of animals (reptiles, mammals and amphibia), but not one
single mythological animal such as are known from similar medieval European
books. All the creatures are living and observable today."
1972 —
An unnamed Russian doctor met a family of Almas, according to British
anthropologist Myra Shackley, who adds that their "very simple
lifestyle and the nature of their appearance suggests strongly that
Almases might represent the survival of a prehistoric way of life, and
perhaps even of an earlier form of man. The best candidate is undoubtedly
Neanderthal man."
1980
— A worker at an experimental agricultural station operated by the
Mongolian Academy of Sciences at Bulgan, encounters the dead body of a
strange humanlike creature:
"I approached and saw a
hairy corpse of a robust humanlike creature dried and half-buried by
sand. I had never seen such a humanlike being before covered by
camel-colour brownish-yellow short hairs and I recoiled, although in
my native land in Sinkiang I had seen many dead men killed in
battle. ... The dead thing was not a bear or ape and at the same
time it was not a man like Mongol or Kazakh or Chinese and Russian.
The hairs of its head were longer than on its body" (Shackley 1983,
p. 107).
1985 —
Maya Bykova, an assistant to Dr Boris Porshnev (yes, the same one from
1964) at Moscow's Darwin Museum, is
reported to have actually observed a hominoid of unknown identity, a creature
nicknamed by the ethnic Mnasi people as Mecheny, or "marked," because of the the whitish skin
patch seen on its left forearm, the only part of its body not covered by red-brown hair.
1991 — Soviet scientist Gregori
Patchenkoff claims that he encountered and observed for six minutes a
strange apelike creature. This large primate walked upright, was between 5
feet 8 inches and 6 feet tall, and had its body covered with long reddish
fur.
1992 — Dr. Marie-Jeanne Kofman, a Russian
anatomist and mountain climber, heads a team of French and Soviet scientists in an attempt to
confirm the existence of Almas. She had studied them for over 30 years, and
believed they were nomadic, omnivorous and shy creatures, living in the
mountains at heights of 8,000 to 12,000 feet, from which they sometimes
descend to raid crops. Dr. Kofman collected more than 500 eyewitness
accounts, including descriptions of Alma families, children and adults
specimens. However, she came empty handed from this expedition, just
managing to find inconclusive footprints, droppings and hairs.
