7.The Dropas

Sometimes called the Chinese Roswell, the story of the Dropas supposedly begins in 1938. In that year, Dr. Chi Pu Tei from the University of Beijing led an expedition to a cave system in the Baian-Kara-Ula region of the Himalyas. There, they found ancient graves of dwarvish primates with large heads, rather like the classic alien Grays, and several hundred stone disks with strange grooves and symbols. These disks had a hole in the center, so that they looked liked contemporary phonograph records.

A 1962 or 1968 Sputnik reported an experiment in which Dropa disks were played on a kind of turntable, and hummed. The disks were made out of cobalt and other metals. This is interesting, but doesn't tell us anything definite. I do not have access to a library of Sputniks. I have found sources that the story has definitively been found in either a 1968 or 1962 edition, sources that claim it actually appeared in a sensationalistic Russian magazine called Russian Times, and sources that claim no one can trace the original story. Various European magazines in the 1960s and 1970s mention the story, but claim a Russian or Chinese source for it.

Ernst Wegener, an Austrian engineer, photographed two of the alleged Dropas disks in the Banpo Museum in Xian. Many other photographs have since emerged which people claim are of the discs, but the discs themselves have disappeared from the Banpo Museum and elsewhere.

Later claims were made that the Dropa disks were somehow translated by a Dr. Tsum Um Nui and that they told a story of aliens who crashed twelve thousand years ago. The present-day Dropa and Kham tribes of the Baian-Kara Ula region are their descendants. Details are not given on how a disk in an unknown language could be translated without some equivalent of the Rosetta Stone.

Sun-gods in Exile published in 1979 tells the tale of the British archeologist Dr. Karyl Robin-Evans expedition in either 1947 or 1974, depending on which edition you read. He supposedly encountered a tribe of dwarvish Dropas in the Baian-Kara-Ula region. They told them they were indeed descended from aliens who arrived twelve thousand years ago in spacecraft.

A black and white photograph of Dropas, supposedly taken by Dr. Karyl Robin-Evans during his expedition, has been reproduced often. Naturally, it's kind of fuzzy and no one bothered to stand beside the dropas to show that they are dwarves. The photograph shows a pair of humans who may suffer from some deformity, but who don't look like extra-terrestrials.

The two books with the greatest amount of information are Erich Von Danikan's popular Chariots of the Gods and Sungods in Exile, supposedly by Robin-Evans. Both book gather together a lot of the information. Chariots of the Gods was once a best seller, but its many, many historical and scientific errors and unverifiable claims have been well- documented. Sungods in Exhile been revealed to be at least a partial hoax, a sensationalistic attempt to cash in on the 1970's interest in UFOs. The editor used a psuedonym, so he cannot be definitely identified. Likewise, investigators have failed to turn up any reference to Dr. Chi Pu Tei and Dr. Tsum Um Nui outside stories about their involvement with the Dropas. The Chinese have no record (at least, one they are willing to provide) of an expedition to Baian-Kara-Ula in 1938. Given the political turmoil of China at that time, it's a little difficult to see who would have funded such an expedition. On the other hand, if somebody had, there might not be any surviving record of it.

The mountain peoples who live in the Baian-Kara-Ula region are not stunted dwarves with big heads. They are full-size Asiatic people. A high number of dwarves have been found in nearby Sichuan, but they appear to be congential dwarves, their disorder possibly the result of exposure to harmful elements in the environment. In any case, they are dwarf human beings, not big- headed aliens.

In short, a lot of suspect information and unverifiable claims have found their way into the story of the Dropas. But given the span of time over which these claims have been made, I'm left wondering if something odd isn't buried in the mess.

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