Good evening. I'm calling from Moscow. I'm a zoologist, been one for almost thirty years now, and I need to tell you about something that happened to me back in August of 1991. Something I saw in the Caucasus Mountains that I still can't fully explain. I was part of a research expedition studying wildlife in the Kabardin-Balkar region. Beautiful country out there, rugged mountains, dense forests, the kind of place where you feel like anything could be hiding just beyond the treeline. We'd been documenting bear populations, tracking migration patterns. Standard fieldwork, you know? I'd done it a hundred times before in different parts of Russia. Nothing prepared me for what I was about to see.
It was late August, around midnight. I couldn't sleep, too hot in the tent even with the mountain air. I decided to take a walk, clear my head. There was this old barn about fifty meters from our camp, near the village of Neutrino. The locals used it for storing hay, keeping a few horses. The moon was bright that night, nearly full, so I could see pretty well without a flashlight. I was walking past the barn when I heard something inside. Not horse sounds, something different. Deliberate movement, careful. My first thought was maybe a bear had gotten in, so I moved closer to the entrance, slowly, trying not to make noise. There was a gap in the wooden boards where I could see inside without being seen. What I saw through that gap, I'll never forget it.
There was a creature in there with one of the horses. Standing upright, completely bipedal, about six feet tall, maybe a bit taller. Covered head to toe in hair, this grayish color, like the bark of a poplar tree. The moonlight coming through the barn roof lit it up pretty clearly. It wasn't a bear, I know bears, I've studied them for years. This thing was standing on two legs as naturally as you or I would stand. The head was the strangest part. Cone-shaped, with what looked like a sagittal crest running along the top of the skull. sagittal crest is unusual in primates - Patrick' The face was human-like in some ways but not in others. Small nose, flatter than ours. No chin to speak of. The neck was thick and short, shoulders massive. And the arms, they reached almost to its knees when it stood straight.
[ Story continues in the full game... ]