From Joseph
Trainor
UFO ROUNDUP, Volume 5, Number 1
Volume 5, Number 1
http://ufoinfo.com/roundup/
1-9-00
Like Mount Shasta in California
...
Mount Moncayo in northern Spain has a legend of strange caverns underground, complete with glittering cities.
And some of these
tales have much in common with contemporary reports of alien abduction.
Mount Moncayo is on the border of the Spanish provinces of Castilla and Aragon,
located about 100 kilometers (60 miles) west of Zaragoza and 200 kilometers (120
miles) northeast of Madrid. The mountain is 2,332 meters (7,695 feet) high and
looms over the nearby city of Soria.
The people of Soria have many stories about strange disappearances on the
mountain. One of these took place in the early Nineteenth Century, after the
Napoleonic wars (my date of 1815 is a guesstimate--J.T.), and it involved a
shepherd in his 20s named Gregorio Murillo.
Murillo "following some stray of his flock, penetrated into the mouth of
one of those caves whose entrances are covered by thick growths of bushes and
whose outlets no man has ever seen."
"Going on along that cavern, he had come at last to vast subterranean
galleries lighted by a fitful, fantastic splendour shed from the phosphorescence
in the rocks, which there were great boulders of quartz crystallized into a
thousand strange fantastic forms. (my emphasis-- J.T.) The floor, the vaulted
ceiling and the walls of those immense halls, the work of nature, seemed
variegated like the richest marble; but the veins which crossed them were of
gold and silver, and among those shining veins, as if encrusted in the rock,
were seen jewels, a multitude of precious stones of all colors and sizes."
"No noise of the outer world reached the depth of that weird cavern; the
only perceptible sounds were, at intervals, the prolonged and pitiful groans of
the air which blew through that enchanted labyrinth, a vague roar of
subterranean fires furious in their prison (my emphasis--J.T.), and murmurs of
running water which flowed on not knowing whither they went."
"The shepherd, alone and lost in that immensity, wandered I know not how
many hours without finding any outlet, until at last he chanced upon the source
of a spring whose murmur he had heard."
"This broke from the ground like a miraculous fountain, a leap of
foam-covered water that fell in an exquisite cascade, singing a silver song as
it slipped away through the crannies in the rocks."
"About him grew plants he had never seen, some with wide thick leaves, and
others delicate and long like floating ribbons. Half hidden in that humid
foliage were running about a number of estraordinary creatures, some of them
manlike, some reptilian, or both at once (my emphasis--J.T.)"
"There, darting in all directions, running across the floor in the form of
repugnant, hunchbacked dwarves (aliens?) scrambling up the walls, running along...So
there they were keeping stored up in heaps all manner of rare and precious
things. There were jewels of inestimable worth; chains and necklaces of peals
and exquisite gems, golden jars of classic form, full of rubies; chiseled cups;
armor richly wrought; coins with images and superscriptions that it is no longer
possible to recognize or decipher...And all glittered together, flashing out
such vivid sparks of light and color that it seemed as if the whole hoard were
on fire."
Immediately Murillo dipped his hands into the mounds of jewels, gasping as the
cool stones trickled past his fingers. And then he paused, the short hairs on
the back of his neck bristling. He experienced a sudden sense of dread, of a
lurking doom that was growing closer and closer.
All at once, he heard the pealing of the bell in the monastery of Nuestra Senora
del Moncayo. "On hearing the bell, which was ringing the Ave Maria, the
shepherd fell to his knees, calling on the Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ."
"And instantly, without knowing the means nor the way, he found himself on
the outside of the mountain, near the road that leads to the village, thrown out
on a footpath and overwhelmed by a great bewilderment as if he had just been
startled out of a dream." (my emphasis--J.T.)
Disoriented, Murillo stumbled back down the mountain road to Soria. "When
he came back to the village, he was as pale as death; he had surprised the
secret of the gnomes; he had breathed their poisonous atmosphere, and he paid
for his rashness with his life. But before he died he related marvelous things."
It's a shame the townspeople did not keep more accurate contemporary records of
this strange incident. I wonder--did he die of "breathing their poisonous
air?" Or did the shepherd die of radiation sickness brought on by his
exposure to those strange giant crystals in the heart of Mount Moncayo? (See
Romantic Legends of Spain by Gustavo Adolfo Becqer, Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.,
New York, N.Y. 1909, pages 199 to 202.)
