Dragons are the UFOs of China

For most of us, we grew up thinking that dragons are just mythological creatures. But for a significant group of people, particularly in the northeastern region of China, they believed in its existence. In fact, they claimed to have seen it in person. There was even an image in the newspaper in 1944 of its bones.

UNVEILING THE ORIENT PODCAST EPISODE 01: CHASING DRAGONS

I’ve recently started a podcast with a group of friends, focusing on unraveling myths, explore untold stories and bridging gaps between past and present, east and west, over a highly diverse range of topics. Yes, they’re really random things from gemstones, jewellery to metaphysics, feminist ideology to sustainable practices, you name it!

The first episode has just been released and I thought it’s opportune to close the year with a story that makes you wonder if dragons could be real after all.

Click to be directed to the Spotify link to listen (we’ll be updating it on a weekly basis) and it will be like a box of chocolate–You never know what you’re gonna get with each guest and each topic.

In the event you are a more text person (like me!), I’m still going to blog about it here! So here we go!

CULTURAL BACKGROUND

Dragons are an important part of Chinese culture. While some academic proposed that it must’ve been the remnant of totem worshipping of ancient Chinese tribes, many in the northeastern region of China begged to differ. Perhaps as part of the strong Shamanistic culture of northeast China, a good number of Chinese believe that Dragons do exist and there were often occasional stories of dragon sightings!

There is a common folk belief/saying that snakes will turn into dragons after thousands of years of spiritual cultivation and practice. I will go into that transformation another time in greater detail or you can click on the link and see the gist of it. But first, let’s talk about this interesting episode in recent history with seemingly good record of dragon sighting (completed with an image!).

WHAT HAPPENED IN 1943

In early July that year, there were stories and accounts of people in a small City (Yingkou, 200km away from Shenyang) that beside a river some 30km away in a small county (Tianzhuangtai), a real, living Chinese dragon was spotted. So the villagers started using reeds to build shelters for it, and carried buckets of water to pour on its body to keep it cool. EVEN the monks in the nearby temples started chanting mantras on a daily basis to kind of offer some protection or spiritual support for it. 

And guess what happened? In just a few days, after a thunderstorm, the dragon miraculously disappeared. 

Those who saw it described it as:

• Looking exactly like the Chinese dragon in paintings
• Having 4 claws
• Having scales
• Having two whiskers
• Having huge eyes that are protruding out
• Measured about 10+m

You’d have thought that it’d just end there, with all the hearsays.

WORD OF MOUTH

Then, a month later on 11 August, Chinese newspaper “Shengjing Times” 盛京时报 which was a newspaper started by a Japanese man 中岛真雄 Nakazima Mi neo in 1906 in Shenyang/Mukden (northeast China), reported that a few weeks earlier on 28 July, what was believed to be a Chinese dragon appeared in the very same city that I mentioned earlier—Yingkou. In the report, it was mentioned that amongst the reeds in a swampy area, a farmer spotted a huge white skeleton of about 10m, and reported it to the local authorities and the police went down to investigate. 

The skeleton was said to have:

• 2 horns/antlers of about 1.3m long
• At around 80cm, there’s another white bone that popped out (like the branches of the antlers)

They’re waiting for expert opinion on this. Over 2,000 people had come to have a look at the bones since.

On 12 August,  another article reported that someone spotted this huge carcass on the deck of a ship along the riverbend. It’s flesh and skin were already gone by the time of discovery, and the police were guarding it. They emptied the area to allow people to visit and have a look, and by the time the reported went over which was 5 hours later, there were so many people that they blocked the path and 3 policemen were stationed to maintain order. 

The “Dragon”’s body odour filled the air (shot up to heaven) LOL

On either side of its head, there were three horns/antlers, and its spine is about 3 inches wide with ribs at its side. The ribs each measures about 5-6 inches long and the tail is a board shape white tail bone.

The entire body is made up of 28 sections of bones, each measurs about 30+cm and the entire body is around 10+m long.

Someone said where the original “Dragon” was found, there was a really long trail that was believed to be dug out by its claw when it landed. It measured around 7m wide and 15m long. There was very clear flaw marks at the side of the trail. Although its skin and flesh were gone, one could still see its muscles and bones.

PIC OR IT DIDNT HAPPEN

Until this point, I’m like ok, pic or it didn’t happen right? And it could be anything. All the titles of the articles were claiming that it’s a dragon, but it could be anything.

And then 2 days later on 14 August, there was this image that accompanied another report on another Dragon sighting.

It went like this:

A dragon’s bone was found on the shores of this place in Yingkou, and the 6th division police have transported it to somewhere else to let the public view it. It attracted a huge crowd and the news spread far and wide. 

Its muscle and flesh have decayed, leaving only its bones.

Whether or not it’s a dragon’s bone, it’s anyone’s guess.

A high school professor went to view it yesterday, and he is of the opinion that it is an unevolved dragon called Jiao dragon. Again, referencing the previous mention of the belief that snakes evolve into dragon and one of the stages was a Jiao dragon (snakes will turn into dragons after thousands of years of spiritual cultivation and practice).

Because of the high amount of rainfall this summer, it was washed into the river with the water flowing down, and it got stuck in the shallow muddy mushland, and died of extreme dehydration.

Later on a report mentioned the bone has been donated to the local school as a specimen for future research.

There was also another report in August that year, that mentioned that on 28 July, 10am, just beyond the shores of a small county, there was suddenly a huge dragon that was circulating in the air, as if it was going to drop down. It tried with all its might to fly up, and it was such a violent struggle to fly upwards that it knocked down 3 boats that were on the river, and destroyed a large portion of a building owned by a Japanese company, causing over 9 deaths and even derailed a stationary train.

DEBUNKING THE MYTH IN 2004

So it kind of ended there. Word on the street gave the conclusion that it was all dragons until 2004.

In 2004, an old man who was a butler for a rich family donated the ‘dragon bone’ that his female master gave to him as a parting gift in 1941, to the museum. According to the mistress, this was one of the dragon bone pieces that was on display at Yingkou. This attracted quite a bit of media attention and the Chinese government, quite determined to debunk the myth with science, produced a few documentary or TV series that tried to explain all the supernatural stories that happened.

The Chinese government’s official TV station produced several documentary and investigative series on this great dragon mystery. Each time they tried to explain it away with science, they received a lot more questions and people expressing their discontent on how unconvincing these explanations were. Eventually, they settled with an episode that gave a more open ended interpretation, to the satisfaction of everyone.

The first time the CCTV tried to explain it with science, they concluded that it is likely to be a whale bone. Specifically the Baleen Whale. It went with the usual story of how whales got washed up to the shallow part of the water, and it got stuck there when the tide subsided and it became the myth of 70 years. They explained 

1. WHALE BONE
   that the people misplaced and mis arranged the bones of the whale resulting in the image that we saw in the 1934 news report. 
2. ANCIENT BULL FOSSIL
   Another researcher who was featured looked at the image and suggested that it could be the fossil bones of an ancient bull. 
3. MAMMOTH TUSK
   While another suggested it could be that of a mammoth, with the two horns being the tusks instead. 
4. WILD HORSE FROM 10,000 years ago
   Then another scientist took the bones donated by the old man for some kind of analysis and concluded that it was the fossil bones of a wild horse that existed some 10,000 years ago.

YOUR CRITICAL THINKING SKILL ACTIVATED

If you were the audience, what would you think of the few proposed explanations?

1. WHALE
   1. No claws
   2. No Antlers/horns
   3. A Baleen whale has over 50 vertebrae, this only had 28. Unlikely to be misarranged to miss out so much bones.
2. BULL
   1. Not that long
3. MAMMOTH
   1. The horns/antlers were obviously growing from above the head, not from the mouth, according to those who sighted it
   2. The researcher who proposed this saw the image of the ‘dragon bone’ and dismissed his own guess, because the shape didn’t match that of a mammoth as well.
4. WILD HORSE
   1. Not that long

In addition, all of them were not seen to be able to fly.

You’d have thought that the state media has spoken so everyone should just shut up. Then, there were 3 old folks who saw the bones when they were little, and they were really vocal with their disbelief!

They mentioned also other details on their memory of the sighting. Some of the onlookers mentioned that the saw scales scattered around and there were two basket full of scales that were gathered at one of the incident sites.

They also mentioned that the antlers/horns were clearly integrated with the skull bone, not like some random bone that were just put into any random hole on the skull. They also mentioned that none of the bones on the whale look like antlers, so where would they find the antler-like bones to put on the skull?

They recalled that the day that they sighted the dragon, it was a gloomy day, and the dragon appeared to be grey in colour, flying and moving in the air like how snakes slither. It looked exactly like in the painting with bull-like head, two antlers, two long whiskers, four flaws like crocodile, and tail like the carp fish.

MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS

Of course there are other mysteries, like why were scientists thinking that they were all fossils? When there were reports of the bones being newly decomposed (the 14th August with picture report). And how did the 10,000 year old wild horse bone end up being there? I mean that could be explained by that the lady who gave it to the old man possibly got cheated by whoever sold it to her. I am not sure if any carbon dating was done or if that’s possible.

And there’s also the question, what happened to the bones on display? 

It was a tumultuous time, with the Sino-Japanese war so it could possibly have been lost or went into some private collection as do most precious things during such times.

There were also some people who questioned the intention of the newspaper in reporting it, because it was a Japanese-established newspaper based in China with the purpose of collecting intelligence for war and other matters.

In addition, after so many years, recollections and accounts of such occurrences would’ve been unreliable.

Some even brought up an off-tangent but interesting point: Of all the 12 zodiac signs in Chinese culture, they had dragon which was arguably mythological but everything else were real animals that exist. So could it be, Dragons also exist and thus they were included into the 12 zodiac signs?

NON CONCLUSION

Just like UFO sightings, there is no answers although we would try to use logic and science to debunk some of the myths. It is a romantic idea to entertain that dragons do exist, and so do the many stages of evolution from snake to dragon.

If you really love the dragon, and wished it existed, well it does. At least in 1934, on the newspaper. And know that you are not alone.

Happy Year of the Dragon-Snake!