The Valley of Seven Deaths: Why are people going mad and dying here?
In India, in its northernmost part, right at the foot of the Himalayas, there is a mountain gorge that frightens the locals. People have stopped going there, and visitors are not told the exact location of the mysterious gorge. There is even an official ban from the state authorities to keep the coordinates of this gorge a secret. A moratorium is also imposed on any expeditions to that area. The reason is a great number of inexplicable human deaths.
The story of the Valley of Seven Deaths began in the spring of 1856 when a local hunter accidentally wandered here. He was caught in a violent storm and had to find a place of refuge from the raging elements. What was his surprise when in one of the caves, where he was going to wait out the weather, there was a skeleton of a man in military uniform? In a bag that lay beside the skeleton, the hunter found a notebook with notes. But as he himself could not read, he decided to show his find to someone knowledgeable and took it with him. At home, however, he had completely forgotten about the notebook, which had lain for almost 50 years.
Until another Indian explorer, who was also a treasure hunter, got hold of it. He realized he had the diary of an English captain, who had learned from the locals about the hidden treasures in the valley and decided to find them.
The legend was as follows. The place where the infamous Valley of the Seven Dead is now located was once the capital of the possessions of a rich and unconquerable raja. He was so powerful that he easily conquered more and more land. He had seven sons who were very proud of their father’s success and challenged the supreme god Shiva. For this, the god at first destroyed the seven impudent brothers and their troops with a flaming arrow, and then – and the rest of the city. The luxurious capital sank deep under the water, and all that was left in its place was a deep lake. That’s where the treasure is kept.
The British captain searched long and fruitlessly for any trace of the once rich city. And by some miracle he finally found a mountain gorge, beyond which there was a valley and a lake. On the other side of the body of water, the captain noticed some ancient ruins. He decided to stay in the valley for the night and, in the morning, build a raft to take him across the lake. When the captain awoke in the morning, he found complete loneliness – all his soldiers had gone somewhere, although their belongings remained on the shore. It was as if they had gone swimming and never returned.
The captain approached the water and was horrified to see in the depths the reflection of a terrible devilish face, which, hypnotizing, called out to him. By an effort of will, the captain turned his gaze away from the lake and rushed for his life. But on the way, he felt ill: his body was literally burning due to the high temperature. When he reached the cave, the man died.
A desperate treasure hunter, who had read the Englishman’s diary, gathered an expedition and set off in his wake. This happened in 1902. But after a while, a strange man in tattered clothing, with numerous burns all over his body and mad eyes, was discovered in the local village. This unfortunate man turned out to be the treasure hunter of the raja. He was taken to a hospital, where he died a few days later.
Then the government intervened. It sent a scientific expedition to find out all the details of the accident in the valley. It turned out that there were a large number of poisonous snakes in the area. But those fortunate enough to return told of a strange, wandering fire that had scorched their comrades. This expedition was followed by another. But they, too, almost all died: the survivors recalled that when they descended to the lake, people began to whirl around and fell to the ground dead.
In 1919 a final attempt was made to explore the terrible valley. The group consisted of climbers wearing gas masks. It was they who managed to get to the opposite shore of the lake, where the ancient ruins were. But as soon as the people without gas masks reached the top of the rock, they jumped for joy, and then they all jumped into the lake at the same time.
After that, the Indian authorities imposed a ban on visiting the Valley of Seven Deaths. Scientists believe that the lake emits nerve gas, which has flammable properties. But there is also a hypothesis that 25 thousand years ago, there was a war of ancient civilizations, which resulted in a powerful nuclear explosion.
