Alyoshenka

Alyoshenka (Russian: Алёшенька, diminutive of the Russian male first name Alexey) or the Kyshtym Dwarf is believed by many to be a prematurely born female baby with many deformities found in the village of Kaolinovy, near Kyshtym, Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia in May 1996. Subsequently, the remains were lost. Only photos and videos of the corpse survive. Various supernatural and mystical speculation arose; sceptics regard the information about its existence as nothing more than urban legends.

Discovery

A small human foetus, Alyoshenka was found by an elderly woman, Tamara Vasilievna Prosvirina. The fetus had an unusual appearance, giving rise to rumours of its extraterrestrial origin. The local population readily supported this rumour, collecting fees from reporters for interviews – at least two Japanese companies (Asahi TV and MTV Japan) made documentaries about the remains.

Physical appearance

Alyoshenka was a greyish foetus about 25 centimetres (9.8 in) in length. Its hairless head had a number of dark spots. The eyes were large, occupying most of the face. It breathed through a small nose below the eyes.

Later incidents

Somewhere between a few days to a month after the discovery, Tamara Prosvirina was admitted to a hospital or psychiatric hospital (details vary on this) for treatment, and in some accounts the remains were passed to the local militsiya (police) by a neighbour. In most accounts once the body was given to authorities in order to get DNA testing it "disappeared" and Prosvirina's family was unable to retrieve it from authorities. In 1999, Prosvirina was killed in an car accident in an attempt to escape from the hospital.^[1]

Speculation

Little is known about what happened to the remains, and accounts of Alyoshenka's death and appearance vary greatly. A local ufologist claimed that the corpse was taken away by a UFO inhabited by members of Alyoshenka's species. Some sceptics hold that it was bought by a wealthy collector of curiosities. A doctor from the local hospital who had allegedly seen the corpse reported that it corresponded to a normal 20- to 25-week human foetus, born prematurely. It could have lived for several hours, but not several weeks, contrary to Prosvirina's claims.^[2]

Testing

Some say that according to genetic experts at the Moscow Vavilov Institute of General Genetics, DNA analysis of the clothes Alyoshenka was wrapped in revealed no evidence that "he" was extraterrestrial. Other accounts hold that there was evidence of a DNA mixed with the human that was not able to be identified but was organic in nature. It was also tested for radiation, and did not show high radiation levels. On 15 April 2004, the scientists made an official statement that the "Kyshtym creature" was a premature female human infant, with severe deformities. However, other experts and eyewitnesses said it could not have been a human as there were too many differences (up to 20 were counted) in the skeleton that varied from a human being, especially in regard to the skull. Bendlin decided initially that this was the mummified remains of a child and took it to Dr Irina Yermolaeva for analysis.

She stated that it wasn’t a hoax in that it was a genuine mummified body that was once living tissue. Her conclusions though were that it was a premature child that was deformed, something which could be attributed to the far reaching fall-out of the 1957 Kyshtym Disaster.

However Bendlin's clinical assistant, Lyubov Romanowa, who herself had seen many deformities in children stated that "they had never seen anything like this", and that she believed that it was "not of human origin."

She said the differences were just too many, twenty were made note of in all, not least of which the amount of bones on the head that consisted of four in total that had sharp edges which were "completely different to a human being"^[3]

See also

• Atacama skeleton
• Kosmopoisk
• Human–animal hybrid

References