Many Indian readers would have read the recent Yahoo news story on some 100 sightings of "UFOs" in the Ladakh region near Pangong Tso Lake. ("Mystery sighting spooks soldiers" http://in.news.yahoo.com/mystery-sighting-spooks-soldiers-.html )
Pangong Tso lake (locally pronounced as Banggong Co)
The territory falling under the disputed Indo- China border, we cannot remain complacent with a justification that those are indeed UFOs and have nothing to do with security issues. But what caught up my attention in that report was the reference to a UFO sighting in another region nearby in the year 2004 by a team of scientists and geologists. That story was published in Indiatoday.in on November 2, 2012. It can be read here (entire report reproduced below)
The location was a glacier with a name that proves that it was quite known to ancient people of our country and named suitably. The glacier is known as Samudra Tapu. On the plateau of Samudra Tapu is situated a lake called Chandra Taal- again a mythical name. There are indeed Puranic stories linked to this lake that celestial nymphs used to descend to this lake on moonlit nights and play in the waters.
The scientists did seem to have witnessed one such play by a mysteriously looking white object in Samudra Tapu in 2004. This object was 3 to 4 feet high with a cylindrical head and 2 balloon type attachments. It was visible for 40 minutes and came near them as close as 50 metres and then rose up steeply and disappeared in the air. One important observation was that its color changed to black when sun light fell on it.
The "UFO" sighted by scientists in Samudra Tapu.
Reading this, my immediate thought was what shape Samudra Tapu has. I browsed the net and my guess was right as I found Samudra Tapu glacier in triangular shape!
Regular readers of my post must be aware of the connection I showed between unknown forces and triangular shapes in my article:- Kali Yantra in crop circles of Europe!
When I checked the shape of the glacier, it was an astounding figure of the triangle – the female Yoni – a symbol of Kali!
Samudra Tapu Glacier, Chandra Sub Basin, Western Himalayas
http://www.indiawaterportal.org/node/18317
A scientific study of this glacier showed variation in heat / temperature felt in different parts and layers of this glacier.
See the map below. Note the triangular shape of the glacier.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0034425710000374
a) Samudra Tapu glacier located in the Chenab basin, Himachal Himalayas. ASTER image (a false colour composite with band combination, R = shortwave infrared band, G = red band, and B = green band). (b) The inset shows a detailed view of the distribution of supraglacial cover types such as ice (light to dark blue), mixed ice and debris (bluish-black), valley rock (bright red) and debris (dark red). The inset also shows inability of the optical data in accurately classifying debris cover as supraglacial or periglacial along the glacier boundary. DEB = debris cover, SGD = supraglacial debris, VRK = valley rock, and MID = mixed ice and debris.
The mythical names of this place and the Moon's lake situated here give some good leads in understanding what all those nymphs and the UFOs are about.
Samudra in Samudra Tapu means Ocean. AIT researchers must take note that a high glacier in the Himalayas had been named as Samudra!. Where does Samudra come in the high Himalayas? The clue lies in Tapu of Samudra Tapu. Tapu (तपु )means burning hot. Samudra Tapu means 'the ocean that is burning hot'!
Before exploring the mythological connection, let me point out that all oceans of the world are burning indeed! When the sun shines hot over the oceans, the oceans indeed feel the heat and let out fumes. These fumes rise up and form as clouds.
Just imagine what the first man would have thought about the clouds. At some time of the day he would have seen the clear sky. After some time,he would see huge masses in white or black in the sky and moving at will. He might have thought of them as some 'UFO' (to use today's language) that suddenly make appearance from nowhere and start roaming in the sky.
The sighting of the "UFO" at the Samudra Tapu is similar to that. It must be noted that such sightings in that region and in other places like Ladakh have happened at the time of the year when sun would be shining in the latitudes near them. In other words, the heat trapped or felt by the water bodies and the snow in the Himalayan region would have resulted in evaporation which I am not sure if the scientists have studied in such high and snowy altitudes.
The change of colour of the UFO and also of the glacier and the waters of the Chandra Taal can as well be the result of the chemical composition of that region and the waters. How that would affect the evaporation process and the behavior of the evaporated water molecules in a cold environ might also give some clues on the sighting of the UFO.
Now coming to the names, the Chandra Taal seems to contain the secret. It must be Chandra Tal not Chandra Taal. Chandra Tal - चन्द्र तल - ( in Tamil சந்திரனது தளம்) means the surface of the Moon. This lake is crescent shaped like the moon on the head of Lord Shiva. It is situated on the plateau of the range where Samudra Tapu glacier is present. On one side of it is situated Kunzum range. On the other there is Mulkila mountain.
Analyzing the names of mountains here, Kunzum must be Kanjam ( कंज) which has a number of meanings – but all connected with Samudra manthan and creation story of the Puranas. Kanjam means amritha – the nectar. It also means lotus, produced from water, produced from head, hair, food of the Gods etc.
The Mulkila mountain must be originally called as Mulika (மூலிகை in Tamil) mountains which means mountain of herbs. The water of the Chandra Taal comes from below and not fed by melting snow. This lake is a cirque formed at the head of the glacier by erosion. The color of water of Chandra Taal keeps changing throughout the day from reddish to orange to blue to emerald green as day passes. This is perhaps due to the herbal plants growing in the region of the Lake and the kind of chemical components released from deep levels from which the water is springing up into the lake.
All these put together make me say that that the Samudra Tapu was formed millions of years ago when the Himalayas rose up by closing in on a sea that was there. It was like a Samudra Manthan – the churning of the sea. The first born was the Halahala poison which was consumed by Lord Shiva. The mountain range of Himalayas being identified with Shiva shows that the initial harmful ejections when the mountain was rising were trapped within the mountains.
The name justifies that the glacier Samudra Tapu was created by the burning of the oceans when Himalayas rose. Another reasoning could be that the remnant ocean or glaciations that were formed through ages of cold climate in that altitude trapped heat within itself. That also could have given rise to the name as Samudra Tapu.
The Moon, Amritha, and Dhanvantari rose from that churning. Similar names are found in this region with the crescent lake being called as the Chandra Taal (Chandra Tal) on the head of the Mountain (Shiva). (There is a Chandra river also in this region). The Mulika (herbal) mountain is also situated there as Dhanvantari, the God of medicine. The Kanjam (kunzum) – amritha is also situated there. The Mulika (herbs) and Kanjam go together. These two together with Chandra Taal make the Samudra Tapu a complete picture of the Puranic narration of Samudra Manthan. I think it is worth researching the nearby areas for other names connected with Samudra Manthan.
These names show that this area had been visited by ancient people of Bharat or the rishis. They had known the millions old geological history of this region either by intuition or by a tradition of oral stories which show that this region (and the earth) was peopled for very long which today's science cannot comprehend.
Now coming to the UFO sightings, the triangular formation always comes accompanied with unknown and abnormal forces. Perhaps the closed sides of the triangle keep sending the forces or energies dashing on each side of the triangle and make powerful whirls. I may be saying this in a crude way, but triangles do seem to have a connection to growth of energies. Even the triangular shapes within our own body exhibit this nature. The heart, the ovary, the birth-path, the nose, the face – all these have triangular shapes and are known for high energy levels.
The Pangong Tso Lake mentioned in the beginning of this article also has a shape which if closed on one side would form a triangle.
http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Asia/India/North/Jammu_and_Kashmir/Ladakh/photo463129.htm
There may a number of locations on the high altitudes of the Himalayas where such unsual sightings are possible. If such a location has a water source or conencted with water in some form, it is highly probable that the naturally occuring transformations may be mistaken as UFOs. The many narrations of Puranas on celestial nymphs visiting these places could have been just a case of these "UFOs" in play!
- Jayasree
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From
Samudra Tapu, a de-glaciated valley in Himachal Pradesh. A 12-km, eight-hour trek from Chandratal, it is approachable only via a 180-km deep trek from Batal, the nearest roadhead on the Manali-Leh highway. Kaksar, 70 km away, is the nearest inhabited town.
Tucked away high in 15,000-ft glaciated mountains, Chandratal, the only sacred lake in the Lahaul-Spiti district of Himachal Pradesh , has for long been steeped in mythology. Legend has it that the crescent-shaped pristine water body is an abode of fairies who descend on Earth on moonlit nights. But the glacier-bound uninhabited terrain has come to be associated with an equally incredible tale doing the rounds in India's top space and defence establishmentsâ€"the sighting of an unidentified flying object or UFO at the Samudra Tapu region, a deglaciated valley at an eight-hour trek from Chandratal.
More than a year after a five-member team of glaciologists and geologists had a 40-minute encounter with a balloon-shaped object straight out of The X-Files, the incident continues to baffle a section of the Indian scientific community. Both Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the army are aware of the matter which figured even in Parliament last year when the minister of state with the Prime Minister's Office had, in a written reply, confirmed the ISRO report on the UFO sighting.
It was the penultimate day of a week-long expedition undertaken by Ahmedabad-based Space Application Centre (SAC) of ISRO on September 27, 2004. The team comprising three SAC scientists and two geologists had pitched camp in the valley some 17,000 ft above sea level. They were studying the Chandra basin glacier using satellite data. Around 6.45 a.m., as the scientists were preparing to leave their tents, one of the porters spotted a white object on top of an adjacent mountain ridge, and screamed: "Sir, the snow man is coming."
Anil Kulkarni, a senior ISRO scientist who has been mapping glaciers for a quarter century, and his team members saw what appeared to be a robot floating a few inches above the ground, approaching the camp along the mountain slope. Kulkarni and his co-researcher, geologist Sunil Dhar, pulled out their digital cameras and began shooting the object even as the team raced towards the mountain to investigate.
The oblong object, between 3 and 4 ft high, kept moving down the slope towards the team. It had a cylindrical head with two balloon-type attachments, a body, hands and two legs. It seemed to be walking, planting and pacing its steps like a human being, recalls Dhar. It seems when the object reached the lower edge of the hill, 50 m away from the stunned scientists, the team members excitement alarmed it. It stood still for a few seconds, turned and started a steep 70-degree ascent towards the ridge top. By this time, apparently due to the rays of the rising sun, its colour had changed to black. Soon it changed to white again, hovered above the camp for five minutes before noiselessly receding into a white dot in the sky. Ever since 1947 when businessman Kenneth Arnold sparked off a worldwide UFO mania reportedly spotting flying discs, thousands of fake sightings have been reported from across the globe. It would have also been easy to write off the Samudra Tapu sighting as a mistaken aerial phenomenon except that it was observed and reported by a group of scientists willing to stick out their necks and reputations to swear by what they saw.
From the photographs, the UFO looks like a bunch of balloons caught in a mountain draft, but an SAC report claims the object displayed complex manoeuvrability. It is a riddle beyond human perception, says Dhar who, along with Kulkarni, has contacted robotic labs across the world to determine what is technologically possible in unmanned flying vehicles. It didn't look like a man-made object, adds geologist Rajesh Kalia. Even more incredible is the photographic evidence.among the first in India for a UFO sighted on the ground. of the experience classified as a close encounter of the first kind in common UFO parlance. Was it an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) on a cross-border spy mission or an extraterrestrial being? Or was it simply a helium-filled weather balloon which had lost its way? The jury is still out.
The scientists circulated the account of their close encounter in ISRO, army headquarters, Snow and Avalanche Study Establishments (SASE), an affiliate of Defence Research and Development Organisation which runs weather monitoring stations in high altitude regions, and among district authorities in Kullu. The army and SASE are the only agencies stationed in high altitude areas.
I thought it was a helium balloon, but Kulkarni's description indicates an object with ahead-of-age technology, says R.N. Sarwade, director, SASE.
Perplexed, the scientists are now wondering if it could be something man-made. But there is no known matching technology yet in the civilian realm to explain the mysterious object we saw so up close, says Kulkarni. Over the past year, Kulkarni and Dhar have been critically examining their sighting to deconstruct the object technologically, contacting top robotic laboratories in the US, Germany and Sweden. Kulkarni has shared his report with the director general of military operations. Efforts to demystify the Samudra Tapu UFO sighting have made little headway, given the sheer high altitude, heavy snow cover and peculiar weather conditions which render the snowbound region virtually inaccessible for both air and ground expeditions.
But the quest for demystifying the sighting has not stopped. One way to understand the mysterious object is to undertake more expeditions in the area, says Dhar. But the question is whether the object will ever be sighted again? Unless the sighting is repeated, it will remain a puzzle, says Kulkarni. Till that happens, this is an enigma scientists may have to live with.
