Local anomalies. Russia

Scientists have not been able to determine who leaves marks on pine trees arranged in the form of a regular geometric shape

These days, residents of Uktus try not to walk in the park of Foresters of Russia by the road leading to Koltsovo. Traces of creatures unknown to science were found here.

On the centuries-old pines, someone is gnawing the bark. Closer to the rhizome along the entire circumference of the tree, it is stripped to a height of up to forty centimeters. And not with an axe and not with a scraper: transverse, not longitudinal traces of either teeth or some kind of mechanical device are clearly visible.

Damaged trees (21 of them have been counted so far) are scattered throughout the forest, there are no traces of cars near them. So, it was either a man on foot (why?), or an animal that is not found in our forests, or an unidentified flying object that leaves no traces on the ground.

The most "earthly" version: someone decided to turn pine trees into dead wood, so that they could be cut down for firewood with impunity. But, firstly, residents of the private sector located next door were the first to sound the alarm, informing the forestry department. Secondly, even one pine tree with a diameter of more than half a meter and a height of several tens of meters is enough to heat the stove for more than one year. And somehow it's not our way: to wait a few years until the tree withers, and only then cut it down without breaking the law.

The footprints on the pines cast doubt on the "human" version. Standing near the "gnawing", I imagined how I would remove the bark from the tree myself. I would have taken an axe and cut her from top to bottom at chest height. It hardly occurred to anyone to take a rake and drive them around the base of the trunk until the bark falls off.

The version with the animal also disappears immediately. In the city large wild animals do not go in herds. Especially in places where dogs are walking, and there is a busy highway.

A local homeless man, Vitya, who treated his girlfriend to vodka at a forest fire, is scared:

- I saw the tracks, zemelya, oh I saw! I thought - goats, so there are only two of them here in the district, they can't do this. And I don't know how the traces appear. Yesterday morning Anka and I woke up - another pine tree was gnawed. And we didn't hear anything at night.

Ulyana Sergienko, who was walking with two sheepdogs, also cannot explain the strange phenomenon:

- Yes, I see that there are more and more such trees, but I have never seen them gnawed. Recently, dogs have begun to behave differently - sometimes suddenly their tails are tucked up and they don't leave me. This has never happened to them.

Even Vladimir Kuvaldin, an engineer of forest protection and protection (he has already submitted an application to the police) cannot find an explanation:

- In thirty years of working in the forest, I have not seen such a thing. None of the tools can do this. At first I thought that they were illegally extracting oleoresin. But to do this, you do not need to remove the bark around the entire tree. In addition, the trunk is torn apart, which there is absolutely no need for the miner to do. I also thought that some healer was collecting pine bark for treatment. But she's lying here, under the trees.

There are no axe marks. The furrows from a very sharp and thin tool are clearly pronounced. I don't understand what they were tearing up. How much damage have I seen in my whole life - both from equipment and from hooligans, but this is the first time. Maybe aliens? I don't see any reasonable explanation. Even if animals that we have never seen appeared in the forest, they would gnaw everything in a row. And here from one pine tree to another - 20-30 meters and more. All trees are damaged within a regular triangle with a side of 600 meters.

Now the employees of the Chkalovsky police department face a difficult task: to find and neutralize violators who do not leave traces, can remain invisible in a relatively crowded place and silently cut trees.

Specialist's comment

Alexey ABATUROV, General Director of Ural-Kosmopoisk LLC:

- In our area, there have never been such phenomena in my memory. Something similar was found in other regions, in Bashkiria, for example. Basically, people prefer to write off these incomprehensible injuries to animals. Although sometimes locals believe that there was no "chupacabra" without it.

In the near future we will go to the place to study everything in more detail, then it will be possible to draw conclusions.

Oksana PONOMAREVA ,

Alexander BELYAEV,

Maria SOSNINA