1925 Soviet "Almas" Wildman Shooting

Tadzhikistan, Russia
1925

The Pamir mountains, lying in a remote region where the borders of Tadzhikistan, China, Kashmir, and Afghanistan meet, have been the scene of many Almas sightings.

In 1925, Mikhail Stephanovitch Topilski, a major general in the Soviet army, led his unit in an assault on an anti-Soviet guerilla force (White Russian Army) hiding in a cave in the Pamirs. The Red Army troops searched the rugged terrain hearing tales of a beast-man who lived in the higher reaches of the soaring Vanch Mountains. They came upon a cave that looked to be a likely stronghold for their White Army enemies.

The commanding officer ordered his men to open fire into the cave's opening. To their shock, a wild hairy creature ran from the cave's mouth crying inarticulately into a hail of bullets. It fell to the ground, mortally wounded. Several minutes passed before the officer and his troops approached the stilled beast, sprawled out in the dirt before them, quiescent, lifeless.

One of the surviving guerillas said that while in the cave he and his comrades were attacked by several apelike creatures. Topilski ordered the rubble of the cave searched, and the body of one such creature was found. Topilski reported: "At first glance I thought the body was that of an ape. It was covered with hair all over. But I knew there were no apes in the Pamirs. Also, the body itself looked very much like that of a man. We tried pulling the hair, to see if it was just a hide used for disguise, but found that it was the creature's own natural hair. We turned the body over several times on its back and its front, and measured it."

"The body," continued Topilski, "belonged to a male creature 165-170 cm [about 5 1/2 feet] tall, elderly or even old, judging by the grayish color of the hair in several places. The chest was covered with brownish hair and the belly with grayish hair. The hair was longer but sparser on the chest and close-cropped and thick on the belly. In general the hair was very thick, without any under fur. There was least hair on the buttocks, from which fact our doctor deduced that the creature sat like a human being. There was most hair on the hips. The knees were completely bare of hair and had callous growths on them. The whole foot including the sole was quite hairless and was covered by hard brown skin. The hair got thinner near the hand, and the palms had none at all but only callous skin."

Topilski added: "The color of the face was dark, and the creature had neither beard nor mustache. The temples were bald and the back of the head was covered by thick, matted hair. The dead creature lay with its eyes open and its teeth bared. The eyes were dark and the teeth were large and even and shaped like human teeth. The forehead was slanting and the eyebrows were very powerful. The protruding jawbones made the face resemble the Mongol type of face. The nose was flat, with a deeply sunk bridge. The ears were hairless and looked a little more pointed than a human being's with a longer lobe. The lower jaw was very massive. The creature had a very powerful chest and well developed muscles. The arms were of normal length, the hands were slightly wider and the feet much wider and shorter than man's."

Source: Shackley, Myra, Still Living: Yeti, Sasquatch and the Neanderthal Enigma

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