- Joined
- Oct 28, 2013
- Messages
- 63
Hi everyone! I used to be a member here years and years ago under a different name, and now I'm back to share more weird tales. For some reason strangeness seems to find me wherever I go. I apologize for the length of this particular story.
In March 2010 I made a trip with some friends to Nepal. We parted ways in Pokhara, which is several hours’ drive from Kathmandu and a popular tourist area. Most people visit Pokhara as a departure point for trekking, climbing, and extreme mountain sports, as it provides access to the Annapurna range of the Himalayas.
From Pokhara proper one can travel up into the foothills to a place called Sarangkot, or “Sunrise Point”. Tourists usually spend the night or arrive before dawn, to watch the sun rise perpendicular to the Annapurnas, from a well-situated vantage point which offers spectacular unobstructed views across the valley and directly onto the mountain range. You have to climb for several hours to reach this place, or take a taxi up as I did.
I arrived about an hour before dawn and found my way to a tea house with a viewing point in the rear. As it was cold, there were fewer tourists than I expect is usual, and the tea house had no other customers. I sat in the small yard in the back, which was open to the mountains, set up my camera, and waited for dawn while sipping chai and watching some chickens hunt around the property.
The sunrise is absolutely breathtaking. It rises toward one end of the valley, and as the sun rises higher, it progressively lights each of the peaks of the Annapurnas one by one, with a fiery orange glow, somewhat like lighting a row of candles one after another. As the Annapurnas are so high (6k-8k) they are perpetually snow-covered and so reflect the golden sunlight beautifully.
I was shooting with a 70-300mm lens at full zoom, directly across the valley (a distance of perhaps 20 km across to the mountains?) and capturing each of the peaks as it was lit by the sun. While I was shooting Annapurna III, I noticed something moving in the frame. Near the summit, I watched what appeared to be a reflective object dart back and forth, flashing in the sun. The object must have been at least 10 m across or a bit larger for it to have been visible to me through my lens. However, it was too small to be seen with the naked eye.
My first thought was that someone was flashing a mirror, but I quickly discarded that notion as it would have been impossible for any living thing to be atop Annapurna III. The object was about 100-200 m from the summit (I might be off by a bit, hard to estimate), and that would put it at an elevation of about 7400 m (the summit is at 7555 m). Nothing can survive for long at that altitude, not even animals, so those peaks are desolate. Even though there are climbers who make that ascent they don’t do it very often, and even so would not be doing it before or at dawn.
The motion of the object strongly suggested to me a kite attached to the side of the mountain by a tether and moving back and forth or in a circular motion. Its movements were short and quick, and it darted back and forth in a small area, flashing as if its surface were changing angles relative to the sun. So that made it look to me very much like a kite on a windy day. I couldn’t see any structures on the side of the mountain, which would be pretty much impossible anyway, so it doesn’t seem to me that it would have been a weather balloon or similar device. It was, however, highly reflective, either white or silver, much more brilliant than the surrounding snow. Perhaps it was giving off light, but it seemed more reflective as the light was the same golden color as the sunlight. I’m sure it must have been blowing in the wind – the wind was so strong snow could be seen coming off the peaks at times.
I did see some small aircraft in the valley a short time later, but they were at a much lower altitude, close by, and were quite recognizable as small planes, difficult to mistake for anything else. They apparently take tourists out over the valley. They didn’t look anything like the object on the mountain. It would be highly unlikely that what I saw was any kind of aircraft given its motion, size, and position.
As the object was moving relative to the mountain, that would indicate it wasn’t an artifact of my camera or lens. I didn’t see anything like it on any of the other peaks.
I watched the object for a long time, until the sun fully rose and I finally left the tea house to make my descent back to Pokhara. I also captured photos of it, though they aren’t much help in identifying the object. Even at full resolution the object is too small to be seen with any detail. However if you’d like to see the object, I have included a photo with the object circled in red.
To this day I can’t find anything online or in any literature to help me solve this mystery. No one I’ve talked to has ever experienced or heard of anything similar, and I haven’t read any similar stories about Annapurna or any other mountain range, nor does anything I read shed any light on what the object might have been. I would really appreciate any thoughts or ideas as this will probably haunt me until I die. In some ways I’d be happy to let it remain a mystery, but it does nag at me in my idle moments.
If you got this far, hats off to you and thank you for reading.
In March 2010 I made a trip with some friends to Nepal. We parted ways in Pokhara, which is several hours’ drive from Kathmandu and a popular tourist area. Most people visit Pokhara as a departure point for trekking, climbing, and extreme mountain sports, as it provides access to the Annapurna range of the Himalayas.
From Pokhara proper one can travel up into the foothills to a place called Sarangkot, or “Sunrise Point”. Tourists usually spend the night or arrive before dawn, to watch the sun rise perpendicular to the Annapurnas, from a well-situated vantage point which offers spectacular unobstructed views across the valley and directly onto the mountain range. You have to climb for several hours to reach this place, or take a taxi up as I did.
I arrived about an hour before dawn and found my way to a tea house with a viewing point in the rear. As it was cold, there were fewer tourists than I expect is usual, and the tea house had no other customers. I sat in the small yard in the back, which was open to the mountains, set up my camera, and waited for dawn while sipping chai and watching some chickens hunt around the property.
The sunrise is absolutely breathtaking. It rises toward one end of the valley, and as the sun rises higher, it progressively lights each of the peaks of the Annapurnas one by one, with a fiery orange glow, somewhat like lighting a row of candles one after another. As the Annapurnas are so high (6k-8k) they are perpetually snow-covered and so reflect the golden sunlight beautifully.
I was shooting with a 70-300mm lens at full zoom, directly across the valley (a distance of perhaps 20 km across to the mountains?) and capturing each of the peaks as it was lit by the sun. While I was shooting Annapurna III, I noticed something moving in the frame. Near the summit, I watched what appeared to be a reflective object dart back and forth, flashing in the sun. The object must have been at least 10 m across or a bit larger for it to have been visible to me through my lens. However, it was too small to be seen with the naked eye.
My first thought was that someone was flashing a mirror, but I quickly discarded that notion as it would have been impossible for any living thing to be atop Annapurna III. The object was about 100-200 m from the summit (I might be off by a bit, hard to estimate), and that would put it at an elevation of about 7400 m (the summit is at 7555 m). Nothing can survive for long at that altitude, not even animals, so those peaks are desolate. Even though there are climbers who make that ascent they don’t do it very often, and even so would not be doing it before or at dawn.
The motion of the object strongly suggested to me a kite attached to the side of the mountain by a tether and moving back and forth or in a circular motion. Its movements were short and quick, and it darted back and forth in a small area, flashing as if its surface were changing angles relative to the sun. So that made it look to me very much like a kite on a windy day. I couldn’t see any structures on the side of the mountain, which would be pretty much impossible anyway, so it doesn’t seem to me that it would have been a weather balloon or similar device. It was, however, highly reflective, either white or silver, much more brilliant than the surrounding snow. Perhaps it was giving off light, but it seemed more reflective as the light was the same golden color as the sunlight. I’m sure it must have been blowing in the wind – the wind was so strong snow could be seen coming off the peaks at times.
I did see some small aircraft in the valley a short time later, but they were at a much lower altitude, close by, and were quite recognizable as small planes, difficult to mistake for anything else. They apparently take tourists out over the valley. They didn’t look anything like the object on the mountain. It would be highly unlikely that what I saw was any kind of aircraft given its motion, size, and position.
As the object was moving relative to the mountain, that would indicate it wasn’t an artifact of my camera or lens. I didn’t see anything like it on any of the other peaks.
I watched the object for a long time, until the sun fully rose and I finally left the tea house to make my descent back to Pokhara. I also captured photos of it, though they aren’t much help in identifying the object. Even at full resolution the object is too small to be seen with any detail. However if you’d like to see the object, I have included a photo with the object circled in red.
To this day I can’t find anything online or in any literature to help me solve this mystery. No one I’ve talked to has ever experienced or heard of anything similar, and I haven’t read any similar stories about Annapurna or any other mountain range, nor does anything I read shed any light on what the object might have been. I would really appreciate any thoughts or ideas as this will probably haunt me until I die. In some ways I’d be happy to let it remain a mystery, but it does nag at me in my idle moments.
If you got this far, hats off to you and thank you for reading.
