Mystery of the Elongated Skull

As a new discovery is unearthed, the puzzle gets even bigger for the elongated skulls of the ancients. A video has recently surfaced online featuring what claims to be a very strange find - elongated skulls - in Russia. The skulls have been reportedly discovered in burial mounds by archaeologists digging in a forest, near the southwestern Siberian city of Omsk.

Scholars at the Omsk Museum of History and Culture don't have a conclusive answer as to the origins of the skulls, but they have dated them and concluded that they're at least 1,600 years old.

'This really shocked and even frightened people, because the skull's shape was unusual for a human,'' said Igor Skandakov, director of the Omsk Museum of History and Culture.

They go on to say that the most likely explanation is that ancient communities deliberately deformed the skulls of infants, by applying force to the skull through a head press. What their intentions were, is not clear. Speculation is that the ancients believed elongated skulls would increase their mental abilities.

"It's unlikely that the ancients knew much about neuro-surgery," stated archaeologists Alexei Matveyev, "but, it's possible that somehow they were able to develop exceptional brain capabilities."

For years now, there've been people inclined to believe that the strange skulls belonged to aliens who visited our planet ages ago, and influenced ancient cultures. "There are myths about gods who descended from the heavens and who had elongated heads. They were very special and were revered," said Skandakov.

Read complete story at http://www.thirdeyeconcept.com/news/index.php?page=386

Mystery Pyramid Built by Newfound Ancient Culture?

Several stone sculptures recently found in central Mexico point to a previously unknown culture that likely built a mysterious pyramid in the region, archaeologists say.

Archaeologists first found the objects about 15 years ago in the valley of Tulancingo, a major canyon that drops off into Mexico's Gulf Coast.

Most of the 41 artifacts "do not fit into any of the known cultures of the Valley of Tulancingo, or the highlands of central Mexico," said Carlos Hernández, an archaeologist at Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History in the central state of Hidalgo.

Many of the figures are depicted in a sitting position, with their hands placed on their knees.

Some have headdresses or conical hats with snakes at the base, which could represent Ehécatl-Quetzalcóatl, the Aztec god of the wind. One figure shows a man emerging from the jaws of a jaguar.

The sculptures are also made of flat stucco—a combination of fine sand, lime, and water—and painted blue or green to the give the appearance of jade.

All of the artifacts date to the Epiclassic period between A.D. 600 to 900. Some Mexican and foreign archaeologists have said the sculptures weren't ancient and thus false, Hernández said.

"But by linking all the characteristics that make them different, [such as their location in Tulancingo and time period], allows us to say that they should be considered as a product of a different culture [called Huajomulco]."

The culture is named after an area in Hidalgo.

Baffling Pyramid

Some of the artifacts were also found near the mysterious Huapalcalco pyramid in Hidalgo, whose origin has been a source of debate among archaeologists.

The pyramid's proportions, along with smaller structures that were painted black and white, do not correspond to the Toltec or Teotihuacan cultures of the same area and time period.

The Teotihuacan people, who lived from 400 B.C. to A.D. 700, constructed one of the largest pyramid complexes in the pre-Hispanic Americas, which refers to cultures that lived on the continent before the Spanish conquest of the Western Hemipshere.

The Toltecs, who came afterward, were made up of several groups of South Americans that together formed an empire famous for its artists and builders in the Teotihuacan capital of Tula from A.D. 900 until the 1100s.

The pottery found at the site—rough, cylindrical vessels that are gray and reddish-brown in color—is also not familiar to experts.

Based on the artifacts' discovery near the pyramid,"it is likely that the Huapalcalco pyramid has been built by people from this new culture," Hernández said. Thomas Charlton, an archaeologist at University of Iowa, has worked in the state of Hidalgo.

He said that ample evidence—including the new artifacts—links a new pre-Hispanic culture to the Huapalcalco pyramid. "It's a reasonable hypothesis [that] near the Valley of Tulancingo, there is a site that looks like it existed between the fall of the Teotihuacan and the beginning of the Tula [Toltec]," Charlton added.

"We know that there's an occupation [from this time] near Tulancingo.

"After the Teotihuacan, there were all sorts of smaller states throughout Mexico. It's part of the cycle after the fall of an empire."

Creative Era

Michael Smith, an archaeologist at Arizona State University, agreed.

"The notion that there would be an independent culture in [the Epiclassic] period is not surprising at all," he said.

"It was a very creative period, with rich development."

Future excavations of Huapalcalco should solidify the link to a new pre-Hispanic culture, and help archaeologists glean clues about this lost time, Hernández said.

"The [Epiclassic] period is considered a time of dynamic development—new trade, cities, and development," said Arizona State's Smith, "but one we don't know much about."

For more unsolved mysteries

Skeleton of 12,000-year-old shaman discovered buried with leopard, 50 tortoises and human foot

The skeleton of a 12,000 year-old Natufian Shaman has been discovered in northern Israel by archaeologists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The burial is described as being accompanied by "exceptional" grave offerings - including 50 complete tortoise shells, the pelvis of a leopard and a human foot. The shaman burial is thought to be one of the earliest known from the archaeological record and the only shaman grave in the whole region.

Dr. Leore Grosman of the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University, who is heading the excavation at the Natufian site of Hilazon Tachtit in the western Galilee, says that the elaborate and invested interment rituals and method used to construct and seal the grave suggest that this woman had a very high standing within the community. Details of the discovery were published in the PNAS journal on November 3, 2008.

What was found in the shaman's grave?

The grave contained body parts of several animals that rarely occur in Natufian assemblages. These include fifty tortoises, the near-compete pelvis of a leopard, the wing tip of a golden eagle, tail of a cow, two marten skulls and the forearm of a wild boar which was directly aligned with the woman's left humerus.

A human foot belonging to an adult individual who was substantially larger than the interred woman was also found in the grave.

Dr. Grosman believes this burial is consistent with expectations for a shaman's grave. Burials of shamans often reflect their role in life (i.e., remains of particular animals and contents of healing kits). It seems that the woman was perceived as being in close relationship with these animal spirits

Method of burial

The body was buried in an unusual position. It was laid on its side with the spinal column, pelvis and right femur resting against the curved southern wall of the oval-shaped grave. The legs were spread apart and folded inward at the knees.

According to Dr. Grosman, ten large stones were placed directly on the head, pelvis and arms of the buried individual at the time of burial. Following decomposition of the body, the weight of the stones caused disarticulation of some parts of the skeleton, including the separation of the pelvis from the vertebral column.

Speculating why the body was held in place in such a way and covered with rocks, Dr. Grosman suggests it could have been to protect the body from being eaten by wild animals or because the community was trying to keep the shaman and her spirit inside the grave.

Analysis of the bones show that the shaman was 45 years old, petite and had an unnatural, asymmetrical appearance due to a spinal disability that would have affected the woman's gait, causing her to limp or drag her foot.

Fifty tortoises

Most remarkably, the woman was buried with 50 complete tortoise shells. The inside of the tortoises were likely eaten as part of a feast surrounding the interment of the deceased. High representation of limb bones indicates that most tortoise remains were thrown into the grave along with the shells after consumption.

The recovery of the limb bones also indicates that entire tortoises, not only their shells, were transported to the cave for the burial. The collection of 50 living tortoises at the time of burial would have required a significant investment, as these are solitary animals. Alternatively, these animals could have been collected and confined by humans for a period preceding the event.

Read complete article at http://theunexplainedmysteries.com/skeleton.html

Unexplained Mysteries - Judgement Day

Judgement Day Theories
The end may be near, but exactly how near is the sticky question. As millennium fever swept the globe, party planners and doomsdayers alike were fixated on the year 2000. Meanwhile, Judgment Day sticklers have been obsessing over the fact that there never was a "year zero," and therefore A.D. 1 plus two millennia equals 2001. But pinpointing Armageddon isn't quite that simple. When it comes to end times, there are as many proposed dates as there are fates (Rapture or Tribulation? Fire or Flood? Demons or Pleiadeans?).

However, in the wake of past doomsday embarrassments (the world didn't end in the year 1000, and the hoopla over the 1987 Harmonic Convergence turned out to be the spiritual equivalent of 8-track tape), few latter-day prophets are willing to stick their necks out and name a drop deadline. "What the prophets try to do is make predictions and leave the fulfillment vague," explains Stephen D. O'Leary, a millennial scholar at the University of Southern California. The most successful millennial prophets remain "strategically ambiguous," he says. He prophets who do get specific tend to be the more marginal ones."

It's no surprise that the Internet, a haven for marginal oracles of all strips, is home to millenarians who are bold enough to set a date. In fact, the Internet has assumed an important role on the end-times stage. "The Internet will be to the twenty-first century what the printing press was to the sixteenth," says medieval historian Richard Landes of Boston University, who, with O'Leary, cofounded the Center for Millennial Studies. Just as the printing press made apocalyptic tracts available to the public five hundred years ago, the Internet disgorges a vast literature of alternative doomsday scenarios.

"The Internet has increased the amount and the kind of information people have at their disposal to construct millenial scenarios," says O'Leary. "It also gives people a chance to try out different interpretations and prophecies in electronic discussion groups." In effect, he says, "the Internet provides a kind of social reinforcement," a public-address system for "people who might otherwise be relegated to the fringes as crackpots."

Well, in the lottery of multiple Armageddons, today's crackpot may turn out to be tomorrow's messianic seer. So how can the rest of us plan for the ultimate end and/or final beginning? The handy guide to doomsday chronologies is a good place to start, and a good place to determine if any of these are in fact true:

July 1999 (Nostradamus): This end date arrives in the summer of 1999 (just in time for that Prince song). Everybody's favorite sixteenth-century doomsayer was uncharacteristically specific when he prophesied that "in the year of 1999 and seven months will come a great king of terror from the skies…." Rather than interpreting that to mean Stephen King skydiving, latter-day pessimists are thinking nuclear missile strike. And the pessimists' tent is big enough for everyone: Everyone banking on the end of the world wants a piece of nuclear Nostradamus - New Agers, psychics, fundamentalist Christians, and Tom Clancy fans alike.

Read complete story at http://theunexplainedmysteries.com/judgement-day.html

Removed from Reality : Mysterious Disappearences

Teleportation has traditionally remained in the province of science fiction: Isaac Asimov’s “Pebble in the Sky” features a protagonist who steps out of a 20th century Chicago building to find himself in a dead, radioactive Earth of the far future. Non-fans are aware of teleportation and its perils from the events in the 1950’s classic “The Fly” and its sequel. Even generations raised on Star Trek’s apparently seamless transporter units know that teleportation entails risks.

Is instantaneous – though unwilling – abstraction from one location to another possible or merely the stuff of fantasy and hearsay? Recent scientific advances in the field of teleportation have given a smattering of dignity to what until recently was dismissed as “crankery”. In 1993, a group of scientists of international repute stated that teleportation, far from science fiction jiggery-pokery, was theoretically possible. This opened the door to a number of experiments in this direction, none of them, however, involving the translation of solid objects, much less living ones. For the time being, science has restricted itself to experimental demonstrations of teleportation using “trapped ions” and laser beams. Possible applications for these research endeavors include long-range quantum communications, but no transporter rooms a la Star Trek, since the scientific principles at work suggest that the original must be destroyed in order for teleportation to work.

But what about events of teleportation that do not involve any inconvenient machinery? Sudden, unexpected transportation to “somewhere else” is without a doubt one of the most terrifying things that could conceivably happen to anyone. Imagine yourself walking down a familiar street or driving along a road on the way to work or play when a sudden, unexplained force removes you from your surrounding reality to deposit you elsewhere: another city, state or even country, without any memory of how you got there or in many cases, how to return.

Gone for Good?

Mist-shrouded El Yunque has always been a source of mystery involving paranormal phenomena and more recently, UFOs. Dozens of individuals, largely weekenders and campers, have disappeared inexplicably from this mountain rainforest. A child disappeared while walking down a trail with its parents, and even rescue teams sent to investigate have been swallowed by this deceptive wilderness area. Forestry officials are quick to blame quicksand and unexplored sinkholes as the reasons for these evaporations, even when they occurred in areas far from where any of the aforementioned conditions would be encountered.

Read more at http://theunexplainedmysteries.com/removed-from-reality.html

Unsolved Mystery of Lizard Man

The Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp (also known as The Lizard Man Of Lee County), is a humanoid cryptid which is said to inhabit areas of swampland in and around Lee County, South Carolina.
Description
The Lizard Man is described as being seven feet tall, bipedal, and well built, with green scaly skin and glowing red eyes. It is said to have three toes on each foot and three fingers on each hand which end in long black claw-like nails. Davis sightingThe first reported sighting of the creature occurred on June 29, 1988, and was made by Christopher Davis, a 17 year old local youth, who is said to have encountered the creature while driving home from work at 2 AM. According to his own account, Davis stopped on a road bordering Scape Ore Swamp in order to change a tire which had blown out. When he was finishing up he reported having heard a thumping noise from behind him and to have turned around to see the creature running towards him. The creature is said to have tried to grab at the car and then to have jumped on its roof as Davis tried to escape, clinging on to it as Davis swerved from side to side in an effort to throw it off. After he returned home, Davis' side-view-mirror was found to be badly damaged, and scratch marks were found on the car's roof--though there was no other physical evidence of his encounter. “I looked back and saw something running across the field towards me. It was about 25 yards away and I saw red eyes glowing. I ran into the car and as I locked it, the thing grabbed the door handle. I could see him from the neck down – the three big fingers, long black nails and green rough skin. It was strong and angry. I looked in my mirror and saw a blur of green running. I could see his toes and then he jumped on the roof of my car. I thought I heard a grunt and then I could see his fingers through the front windshield, where they curled around on the roof. I sped up and swerved to shake the creature off.” In the month that followed the Davis sighting there were several further reports of a large lizard like creature, and of unusual scratches and bite marks being found on cars parked close to the swamp. Most of these are said to have occurred within a three-mile radius of the swamps at Bishopville. At the time, local law enforcement officials reacted to reports of the Lizard Man with a mixture of concern and skepticism, stating that a sufficient number of sightings had been made by apparently reliable people for them to believe that something tangible was being seen, but also that it was more likely to be a bear than a Lizard Man.

Read more at http://theunexplainedmysteries.com/lizard-man.html

Monsters From Scottish Folklore

FROM ghosts and goblins to sea monsters and cannibals, Scottish history is littered with tales of the weird and wonderful. While some Scottish legends have become much-loved parts of our culture, other stories have disappeared into obscurity over the centuries. Now Glasgow University is set to revive Scotland's folklore thanks to a new postgraduate course examining mythical creatures, superstitions, beliefs and the storytelling that kept them alive. Here's a look at just some of the myths and legends that got handed down through the generations.

MONSTER OF GLAMIS

Legend has it that the Monster of Glamis was a deformed member of the Bowes-Lyon family, who was kept in a secret chamber in Glamis Castle. The "monster" was alleged to be Thomas Bowes-Lyon, the eldest child of the Queen Mother's great great grandparents, who was born in 1821. Official records suggest the child died in infancy but, over the years, rumours spread of his survival. According to the story, Thomas had an enormous chest with his head running straight into his body and had tiny arms and legs.

BLUE MEN OF MINCH

These mysterious sea creatures lived in the stretch of water between the Isle of Lewis and the mainland. They looked like humans but had blue skin and would swim alongside fishing boats, making their way through that stretch of water trying to lure sailors into the sea. Legend had it they would also conjure up storms to wreck ships and that they lived in underwater caves, where they were ruled over by a chief. It was said fisherman could escape them if they were good at rhyming.

BRIGADOON

Although the idea of the village that only appears once every 100 years is now considered a Scottish myth, it actually has its roots in the mythical cursed German village of Germelshausen. It was this story that inspired composers Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe but, in 1947, a musical set in Germany was a no-no, so they relocated the musical in Scotland. So the story of the Scots village where the passing of a century seems no longer than one night became part of our national folklore, with tourists still asking guides where they can find it.

Read more at http://theunexplainedmysteries.com/scot-monster.html

Unexplained Mysteries - Finding Extraterrestrial Life E.T.

Smart aliens might not even live on Earthlike planets Advanced ground and space-based telescopes are discovering new planets around other stars almost daily, but an environmental scientist from England believes that even if some of those planets turn out to be Earthlike, the odds are very low they'll have intelligent inhabitants. In a recent paper published in the journal Astrobiology, Professor Andrew Watson of the University of East Anglia describes an improved mathematical model for the evolution of intelligent life as the result of a small number of discrete steps. Evolutionary step models have been used before, but Watson (a Fellow of England's Royal Society who studied under James Lovelock, inventor of the "Gaia hypothesis") sees a limiting factor: The habitability of Earth (and presumably, other living worlds) will end as the sun brightens. Like most stars, as it progresses along the main sequence, the sun's output increases (it is believed to be about 25 percent brighter now than when Earth formed). Within at most 1 billion years, this will raise Earth's average temperature to 122 degrees Fahrenheit (50 degrees Celsius), rendering the planet uninhabitable. Four major stepsApplying the limited lifespan to a stepwise model, Watson finds that approximately four major evolutionary steps were required before an intelligent civilization could develop on Earth. These steps probably included the emergence of single-celled life about half a billion years after the Earth was formed, multicellular life about a billion and a half years later, specialized cells allowing complex life forms with functional organs a billion years after that, and human language a billion years later still. Several of these steps agree with major transitions that have been observed in the geological record.

Read more at http://theunexplainedmysteries.com/find-et.html

Can we really transplant a human soul?

The progress of medical science in the past 30 years has been so rapid that yesterday's miracles are tomorrow's commonplace procedures. So it has proved with heart transplants, which have become almost routine in hospitals around the world. Yet every once in a while a story emerges which should cause us all to sit up and take note that there is nothing "routine" or "commonplace" about such complex operations. The suggestion, highlighted again this week, that donor patients could not only be acquiring the organs but also the memories - or even the soul - of the donor is surely one such story. This bizarre possibility was raised by the inexplicable case of Sonny Graham - a seemingly happily married 69-year-old man living in the U.S. state of Georgia. He shot himself without warning, having shown no previous signs of unhappiness, let alone depression. His friends described it as an act of passion, not of reason. The case might have remained just an isolated tragedy were it not for the fact that Sonny had received a transplanted heart from a man who had also shot himself - in identical circumstances. To make things even more intriguing, shortly after receiving the heart transplant, Sonny tracked down the wife of the donor - and fell instantly in love with her. "When I first met her," Sonny told a local newspaper, "I just stared. I felt like I had known her for years. I couldn't keep my eyes off her." He spoke of a deep and profound love for her. It was instant and it was passionate. The kind of love where overwhelming passion seizes control of the mind and banishes reason. They quickly wed. The tragedy of Sonny Graham will, no doubt, be written off as mere coincidence. After all, there is surely no conceivable way that the memories, let alone the character of a donor, can be transplanted along with their heart. Virtually every doctor and scientist will tell you the heart is a mere pump. The seat of our mind, our consciousness, our very soul - if such a thing exists - lies in the brain.

read more at http://theunexplainedmysteries.com/human-soul.html

Unexplained Mysteries of UFO Conspiracies

One important area of Ufology concerns the conspiracy theories the field has produced. The most obvious is Roswell, but I won’t bother with the immediate incident in this essay. I write about it here. Yet it produced a tradition that is still going strong six decades later. Of course, this had to happen, what with a space-age extraterrestrial ‘them’ to replace the demonic, all topped off with inevitable sinister government practices.

MAJESTIC-12
In December 1984 a package was sent to movie producer and Ufologist Jaime Shandera containing a black and white film of an eight page document dated 18 November 1952. A briefing paper concerning ‘Operation Majestic-12,’ the paper concerned the setting up of a twelve man committee encompassing intelligence, the military and science following the Roswell crash. Attached to the paper was a memorandum signed by President Truman authorising the committee. The validity of this document has obviously been called into question, especially as Truman’s signature is identical to another. This is suspicious. No two signatures can ever be the same, suggesting the signature is a copy. Since that initial package, a trickle of documents have been received by Ufologists, claiming Majestic-12 is a reality. However, as such documents are always photographed, no analysis can be done on ink, etc, to prove validity. Hence, retrospective history has been called for, with researchers looking into the known lives of supposed committee members such as James Forrestal and General Nathan Twining to see if their lives fitted the facts.

THE AVIARY
A further area of ‘proof’ of Majestic-12 came from what became known as the Aviary, a number of informants in the inner circle given codenames such as ‘Condor’ and ‘Falcon’ by Ufologist Bill Moore. Such informants first began contacting Moore in 1979. Researchers Paul Bennewitz and Shandera also became involved in the Aviary. Again, whether the informants are really within the inner circle, whether their information is real or disinformation, or whether the researchers are being subjected to a hoax is difficult to tell.

DULCE, NEW MEXICO
One of the most incredible claims within Ufology began to circulate in the early 1980s with the revelations of ex- security officer Thomas Castello. Under the supervision of Majestic-12, he claimed to have worked in a secret underground facility near the small town of Dulce, New Mexico.A joint government-alien biogenetic laboratory, it was staffed by humans and some 20,000 aliens, mostly greys, but also a reptilian species who had been on Earth for millenia.

Read more at http://theunexplainedmysteries.com/ufo-conspiracy.html

Unexplained Mysteries of Ghostly Orbs

Tens of thousands of ordinary people around the globe are reporting mysterious spheres of light known as ORBS, which have started appearing on their digital photographs. A few scientists are taking this phenomenon seriously and incredibly claim to have found evidence of beings from other dimensions..

The world’s first conference on the Orbs Phenomenon recently took place in Sedona, Arizona - where several scientists controversially stated that orbs, spherical or circular objects that are appearing on digital pictures - demonstrate good evidence of ‘other worldly’ life forms. Their conclusions, if correct, could have huge implications for the way we view our universe and our part in it. Dr. Klaus Heinemann, a former research professor at Stanford University and researcher in materials science for NASA, the American space agency says ‘ There is no doubt in my mind that the Orbs may well be one of the most significant ‘outside of this reality’ phenomena mankind at large has ever witnessed’.

Heinemann’s fascination with Orbs began in September 2004, when he noticed a pale but clearly defined small circle of light on several pictures that his wife had taken at a gathering of spiritual healers ‘ When I first saw the spheres, like thousands of people I presumed they were due to dust particles, flash anomalies, water particles and so on. But I was sufficiently intrigued, that I quickly returned to the room in which the pictures were taken in the hope of finding a rational explanation. None was forthcoming. ‘

As a scientist with considerable experience in sophisticated microscope techniques which examine down to atomic levels of optical resolution, Heinemann decided to try and discover the cause of the mysterious circles. He and his wife began taking hundreds of digital photographs at random events to see what happened.

Apparently, high definition digital technology can enhance the appearance of something that would otherwise at very low contrast, not previously have appeared on older type cameras hence why Heinemann states that we are now witnessing this new phenomenon. Absurd though it may sound, Heinemann quickly realised that if he asked the orbs to appear on his pictures, he claims they appeared more regularly especially at spiritual gatherings.

Read complete artcile at http://www.theunexplainedmysteries.com/ghost-orb.html

Unexplained Mysteries of Unit 731

In the midst of continuous denial by important members of the Japanese government individually or collectively that Japan was an aggressor in World War II, the planned exhibition of the Smithsonian Institute to commemorate the end of WWII in Asia has turned into an unusually fervid debate, with which an interest in discussing and writing on Japan's wartime atrocities has been aroused. Most prominent among numerous writings on the subject is "Japan Confronting Gruesome War Atrocity" penned by Nicholas D. Kristof and published inNew York Times on March 17, 1995.

The article has given us a detailed account of the most shocking, heinous, cruel crime the civilized world has ever known: Japanese Unit 731 used human beings for vivisection in order to develop biological weapons. Equally unbelievable is that the United States has covered up the crime in exchange for the data on human experiments, an act utterly ignoring international laws and human justice. What a great irony to the lofty ideal of democracy and the so-called "American civilization" of the 20th century! The shock created by Kristof's article has been felt primarily in the U.S. and a few Western countries. However, as early as 1949, the Soviet Union held a week long trial at Khabarovsk of the Japanese war criminals for biological warfare. Among those tried, 12 people were associated with 731, including General Yamada Otozo, Commander-in-Chief of the Kuantung Army, Lt. Gen. Ryuiji Kajitsuka, Chief of the Medical Administration, and Lt. Gen. Takaatsu Takahashi, Chief of the Veterinary Division, both in the Kuantung Army; Maj. Gen. Kiyoshi Kawashima, longtime head of Unit 731's production department; Maj. Gen. Shunji Sato, head of Unit 731's Canton branch; and Lt. Col. Toshihide Nishi, Major Tomio Karasawa, Maj. Maso Onoue, Lt. Zensaku Hirazakura, Senior Sergeant Kazuo Mitomo, Corporal Norimitsu Kikuchi, and Private Yuji Kurushima, all of Unit 731.

The entire proceedings of the trial were published under the title "The Trial of Former Servicemen of the Japanese Army Charged with Manufacturing and Employing Bacteriological Weapons" by Foreign Language Publishing House, Moscow, 1950. Since 1940, in Chinese theater, Ishii Shiro had led his Unit 731 to engage in biological warfare by attacking Ningpo, Chinhua, Chuchou of Chechiang province (during the Japanese-Soviet war at Nomonhan, Mongolia in the summer of 1939, Unit 731 was dispatched to the front to make bacterial assault). To retaliate the U.S. air raid of Tokyo led by Col. Doolittle in April 1942, from which over 60 U.S. airmen were rescued in Chechiang area, Japan launched a largescale mopping-up campaign, in which several hundred men from Unit 731 and its subsidiary Unit 1644 of Nanking took part. Early in November 1941, Unit 731 dispatched an airplane to spread bubonic plague at Changte, Hunan, which was verified by Dr. E. J. Bannon of American Presbyterian Church hospital at Changte. The event was well known to American and British intelligence agencies at Chungking and besides the Chinese government had fully informed the American and British government of it through its ambassadors Wellington Koo at London and Hu Shih at Washington. Chinese authorities had long learned that Japan used biological warfare against China and had repeatedly appealed to international communities for help.


Before making their escape at the time of Japanese surrender, Japanese in Unit 731 set free scores of thousands of infected rats that caused widespread plague in 22 counties of Heilungchiang and Kirin provinces that took more than 20,000 Chinese lives. As the plague was well publicized in newspapers and periodicals, many Chinese became aware of Japan's employing biological warfare in China during the war. While the Korean was raging, North Korea and China accused the United States of using biological warfare that rekindled the public interest in probing Unit 73 1. Among thousands of Japanese prisoners of war (POW) repatriated from Siberia, some belonged to Unit 73 1.

Together with those Japanese POWs then detained in China, they were tried in a special court at Shenyang (Mukden) in June 1956. Strikingly one of them was Ken Yuasa, the doctor mentioned in Kristof's article in the New York Times. Some others under trial included important members of Unit 73 1: Major Hideo Sakakihara who was in charge of Hailar branch of Unit 731 (there were four branches under Unit 731: Hailer, Sunwu, Linkou, and Mutanchiang), Dr. Yataro Ueda, Yukio Yoshizawa, Masauji Hata, etc. and also police affairs chief of the Kuantung Army Mibu Saito as well as many captains of Kempeitai (military police) who were responsible for providing Unit 731 with victims for vivisection (their oral and written testimonies were reprinted in a book entitled Chemical and Biological Warfares published by Chunghua Book Company in 1989).

Read more at http://theunexplainedmysteries.com/unit731.html