Spirits. Russia

Novgorod region, Valdai district, Lake Velya, summer 1981.

In 1981, an amazing case happened to me and my friend Sevka, or rather, we saw an extremely unusual phenomenon.

Sevka is a distant relative of Grandfather Kolya and Baba Vera, with whom I usually lived in the summer in Klimovo. For a couple of years in a row, he also came to the village for holidays. Sevka was four years older than me, I was just a kid then – I was 8 years old. We went fishing together with him.

We gathered once on Duplenskoye Lake, this is part of the Valley in the north-east of the lake, to put "mugs" on a pike. We sailed on the lake on the "kutka" - this is such a wooden boat, more like a large trough. And accidentally discovered a narrow channel. We, curious as all boys, naturally could not help but study the new route and decided to find out: where does it lead?

Perhaps it was then, after swimming out of a narrow channel and seeing the lake spread out in front of me, that I decided to build a house here, which I did after 27 years…

When the river ended, a fantastic landscape opened up to our eyes. We then took our breath away from the unfolding picture – it was so majestic. We didn't even know that Lake Velje was so huge and beautiful. Up to this point, we fished only in a small "Hollow" and in a "Puddle". Sevka and I were unbearably eager to study our discovery — the Big Lake called for exploring it in all its details. But, by that time, it was already getting dark, the sun had set, in theory, it was necessary to go home and Sevka resolutely turned the "kutka" towards the bayou.

And then, we saw something incredible, fantastic. When we swam back into the river, then in one of the backwaters, in the air, above the water, the "eye" clearly loomed. It was a bright green color and seemed to hang over the very surface of the water. It was about fifty meters across. In addition, there were several more arcs inside it, and the most amazing thing was a circle that looked like a pupil. We were literally stunned.

 If this "eye" had blinked then, I think we would have died of fear. To be honest, we were so terrified that we rushed towards the house with all our strength, working furiously with the oars. Having put the "kutka", we hurried home through the dense forest. It was completely dark. I was holding on, as I remember now, to Sevka's shoulder, he was walking ahead. We didn't have a lantern, a narrow path meandered between ancient fir trees. Suddenly, a thunderous sound, vaguely resembling human speech, filled the night forest around. Our heart sank into our heels. It began to seem that we were in some other, fantastic and hostile reality. The "Green Eye" did not leave our heads, our legs were shaking with fear, but we continued to move forward. But when, to all the horror we experienced, some lights flashed among the trees in the distance, we thought that this was the end – we were lost.

And then, the villagers came out to meet us with shouts and curses, along with my parents, who organized the search for two boys who did not return home on time. You can imagine our joy and relief – our terrible journey is over. I remember when we were brought to the village, they poured us with Sevka "on the first day". We especially got it from Grandfather Kolya, for the mugs that we threw on the lake. But at that moment, the most important thing for us was that we got home safe and sound, having experienced an incredible adventure. Then, it turned out that somewhere far away at a military missile base, some commands were given into a megaphone, which we took for otherworldly voices. And the will-o'-the-wisps were just lanterns in the hands of the villagers who were looking for us in the night forest.

But there has been no explanation for the "Green Eye" we have seen so far. Perhaps it was some kind of phosphor glow, because the places in this channel are swampy, or maybe there is something completely different hidden there, unknown to either man or modern science. Who knows what the ancient forest conceals. I think if I had been older then, at 81, maybe I would have had the courage to linger and take a closer look at what was happening. But now, I can only hope that I will be lucky enough to see this inexplicable phenomenon at least once.