The Castle of Giants: Paranormal Mysteries of the Šumava Mountains

A podcast or friend of mine, Michelle, gave me a skeptical look one time when I mentioned crop circles that were made by aliens. Well, she said, a friend of mine used to make them, and it got picked up by a reputable channel and they thought it was real. Now, I never knew how to feel about crop circles, to be honest with you, I always thought aliens would have a better way to communicate with us instead of making circles in large fields, unless it meant something more like an alien spacecraft leaving that pattern behind after landing on it or something. But then I started learning about these cases, and some of them opened up at least some level of curiosity, for example, a nearby strange light in the sky right before the crop circle appeared, or animals suddenly the acting strange around the time of the discovery. But it turns out that's just the start, at least for the Schumaba region in the Czech Republic. There people spoke of giants, translucent figures, objects floating in the sky, and legends that all seem to point to the possibility that there's something from another planet visiting them. So today we're going to go to the Czech Republic to explore the Schumava region and look at its historical, archaeological and paranormal phenomena. My name is Edwin, and here's a horror story. Our story begins at about one thousand meters above sea level on a mountain ridge known as Valley, near the village of Popelma. Now there existed a pureistoric hill fort, Aubrihrad, also known as Giant's Castle. They date this back to sometime between the seventh and fourth centuries b C. And one of the most important signs of Celtic settlement in Bohemia. But what makes it so special is that it's the highest archaeological monument in the entire Czech Republic. Now, I'm not too familiar with Celtic culture, except for when research calls for little snippets of stories here and there. But I feel like I'm by a sleeping giant of culture, stories and an entire universe of roots that we see today just about everywhere for us here, I'll tell you something real quick. The end of Harvest festival that marks the start of winter and begins at sunset on October thirty first. Well, we all know what day that is and everything from gains a trigger treating the pumpkins we do today. It all comes from Gaelic Heltic festival. But all right, so these structures were intricated with the natural rock formations and they were impressive, but there was something very strange about it all. If it was built as a fort, why was it so deep within wild mountains? It didn't even seem to have any strategic advantage. Also worth noting is that the side that was most difficult to get to was heavily fortified, and yet the part where intruders could easily get in was left undefended. It really made me wonder what were they trying to protect themselves from. Excavations in that area have not found everyday objects like pottery shards, animal bones or the like. But they did find a stone block that was shaped like a stool, which is believed to be a sacrificial altar. And it's this fact alone that makes people believe that maybe Julius Caesar was right when he said that the Celtics were barbarians because they would get together in the wilderness to do rituals and ceremonies. But I don't know. I think we're oversimplifying it. I did find some information that supports my theory that maybe this castle was more of a symbolic barrier between the spiritual world and ours, but that also opens up a whole other world of ideas. Because the stones are so large, there exists legends that giants once lived there and build a castle. The thing is, there is a well known story that supports it. Local inhabitants found huge three meter bones that glowed, bone that had belonged to these giants. The people used them to make a footbridge across the Losnitza stream, and then that bridge was also said to glow at night. Multiple people confirmed the story as it was passed down to them, all describing the exact same thing. When it was investigated, they found that if the bones had existed, they may have been dinosaur bones. The glowing could be attributed to bacteria or phosphorus. And still there are no definitive answers. And yet I found more information about the giants and shoe map that seemed to support the existence of giants, where they say that giants lived there long before people settled into the valleys and on the slopes, that they were hideous and monstrous and built strong castles from rocks and boulders on the shoe map of peaks. Here's where it gets even more mysterious. The castle was mysteriously demolished by an unknown force. Some say that it was miners searching for gold in the thirteenth century. Then there's another story out there, what about aliens. That it may have been guarded by extraterrestrials, used as a type of refuel station or a place to gather energy, something potentially linked to the region's gold deposits, radon and uranium. And it's those alien theories that are connected to many more, and it's really where our story begins. Most of the stories about UFO sightings happened during the former Iron Curtain era in the nineteen eighties, although we have some recent encounters too. But let's start with the Libno region incident. In nineteen eighty five, at the lookout post that's Vati Thomas, the Air Defense Department reported a foreign object landing near Vankova. The alert had come from a young soldier on pH two fifty two who saw orange lights landing from the sky. Dozens of soldiers and border guards with dogs went out there to search. The radar on Kopek, though, was shut down, and two other radars in the area registered absolutely nothing. They found nothing out there. The anonymous witness had reported strange flashes and translucent objects in the sky in the shape of airplanes without wings, and wasn't the only time they had actually been seen from spring to summer in nineteen eighty five in that area from Novapek to Volari from Svonkova, however, there were also unseen by radars, so fighter jets were scrambled to identify them, and during that same encounter, which happened on the first week of summer the holidays in nineteen eighty five, at around eleven at night, the air defense system reported that an aerial vehicle had taken off from the same area. So everyone kept searching, but then it had to be called off because there was nothing out there except for one thing. What was left was a circular area of almost no vegetation about six meters in diameter. The area was said to look as if a very high temperature had acted there, but not an open fire. No insects were visible at the site. A year later, they went back to take radio signal measurements and the area showed that the pattern was still visible, noting that the radio station power decreased toward it. It became prohibited to talk about it, but there was speculation though that there was a type of Ermuda triangle effect there at Horni Plana, where it's said that one can pass into another dimension. The western border of Czechoslovakia was guarded heavily during the eighties and still or better yet, maybe that's why there were a number of very interesting UFO encounters that surface during the period. When you're keeping watch and are on high alert, you pay more attention to objects in the sky. Sometime of nineteen eighty three or nineteen eighty four, Major Mousil, a border guard officer, was on duty when suddenly he saw what he described to be a red glowing sphere that was moving silently at a low altitude near the signal fence. He kept his eyes on it as he watched it stop and then started up again. That completely ruled out the ball lightning. Explanation says it seemed to not pose a threat, though no weapons were used. In a separate occasion between nineteen eighty six and nineteen eighty seven, another border guard officer and his signalman kept seeing a strange object in the sky, something that described as orange light with a diameter larger than a large flashlight, and it was at waste height by behind the signal fence. The light had appeared silently, and it disappeared a few seconds later, leaving nothing behind. They went out looking for what it could have been, even with their best tracking dogs, but found nothing. In other instances, the officers had also described orange lights floating along the signal fence and then running across the meadow, but the incidents of strange light sidings continued, like the account from Bruna k in nineteen ninety one, who said that while they were being transported during a snowstorm, a beautiful phosphorescent green tinted light of a round shape about fifty meters in size appeared above their vehicle and followed them for about one hundred meters and then it disappeared. It was silent and the terrain was completely obscured by snow and fog. But not all of the sidings were lights. Some appeared to be physical objects, like the ones that two tourists near Sirtobo Lake in Shumava saw something that described as a steel gray oval ellipse with black dots that was flying silently and then rapidly changing speed. It then got faster, it slowed down, and then in tilted sideways before accelerating into the sky. This time it seemed to make a sound, though described as a fighter jet but smaller, flying at the level of the trees, but not above them. Now some say that the Shumava region is a very magical place with unique DNA. They say that it contains a large gold deposit in the bedrock, a raydon area, and a lot of energy sites. This might offer an explanation for the frequent UFO activity, maybe recharging their ships or maybe observing ancient celts Back then, perhaps a red is a magical place after all. When that beings from other dimensions or places in the universe are drawn to. Up until this point, we've talked about objects in the sky circling like curious observers, but now they're about to take shape literally. I was able to find one source for this, an interview with a professional driver in a documentary called World's Most Mysterious Places Places of Ritual. At the time of the recording, it had already happened more than twenty years ago when he used to live with his girlfriend in the lookout tower in the town of Sushitza in the Shumava region. It was early in the morning when he went downstairs to get to his car, and as he was approaching the open yard where he had the car parked, he saw mysterious tall beings that were standing above the ground, completely floating. So as he stood there frozen, the being suddenly disappeared and he rushed back inside. After a while, he went to his car and it wouldn't start, and he was surprised because this had never happened before, and so he pushed down the hill towards the village where he worked, and he kept trying to start the car as he was going down the hill, and he still couldn't get it to start until he reached the village. In fear of being thought of as a weirdo, he didn't tell his girlfriend about the incident until five days later. The thing is that the specific area where the lookout tower is is actually associated with a mysterious energy and the same place where all these other giants had been seen in the past and even recently actually found a case in July of nineteen ninety six where a camp beater saw three extremely tall, transparent yet clear and outline figures boundary of the camp he was working in. It used to always surprise me when people would mention with one hundred percent certainty that they've seen an alien, we never actually have photographic evidence of it. Now, I figure, with all the technology we have in our pockets right now, we should be able to capture something on camera right well. A former aircraft mechanic ran into an issue with this. He was in the Shamama region when he witnessed an event that to this day it is difficult to explain. He saw huge thirty meters blocks that were rotating over a small valley at night. He later described them as beautiful blocks of ice without thinking twice about it. He wanted to capture it on his cell phone as proof of what he was saying, but when he got home, the photos were gone. Some theories about this lack of evidence tell us that aliens may have mission control technology, where these civilizations have the ability to erase photos from cell phones and cameras. The mechanic remembered a weird silence during the sighting, followed by a sensation of the ground shaking like an earthquake, although without proof, few people believe the main incident, let alone the earthquake detail. But okay, so you can't take a picture of them. But what if, in a big if here we shoot at them. Now I'm not for this at all, right, but surely actual evidence like that would suffice as proof. Right Well, Frannik Plitz got an answer. He was at a neighbor's field shooting at wild pigs, and as he was near the edge of a tree line, he saw a flying saucer arrive and land directly in the middle of this field, one that was between two villages. Now, this man, maybe through instinct, grabbed the rifle and pointed at it, and just as he did that, he heard the weapon shatter. The flint in it stopped working, and the rifle was not going to work anymore. Without much else to do, he leaned the rifle against the pine tree and watched it as it flew away. On an interview of the documentary, he later says that he felt completely hopeless, that there was no way he could have defended himself against them. Another case I found was an environmental expert who was cycling during an evening in mid July through the Sumaba regions when he suddenly sends a strange, tense, calmness. He saw a thing that resembled a bracelet of red lights. The light seemed to come from a window or plates. He got on his bike and rode home, getting into bed, hiding under the covers, trying to decipher what he had just seen, playing it over and over in his mind. In another incident, a group of about twelve people were walking on a Saturday afternoon when they noticed a herd of about one hundred cows all grouped together, looking intently in a specific direction. Because of this unusual behavior, they looked in the same direction and saw a strange black graphite diamond shape floating about six feet in the air. It hovered, rose up slowly, and then disappeared over the horizon. The group reported feeling no fear and no emotion, though they were in shock at what they were seeing, and none reached for their phones to try and record it. They described it as a very pleasant feeling and also felt very calm. When I heard of this incident, I thought of the cash landrum case in the United States, where they describe a very similar object. Some say that these flying objects, though, have a type of anti gravity propulsion system inconsistent with their are dynamics, so they can make any shape they want. They could also move instantaneously in any direction at any speed. Could it have been a drone? The witnesses are convinced that it was not, and that it was from alien origin, and when asked later about it, they all claim to believe that UFOs exist. Now, if you've listened for a while, you know I love a good alien citing story and these are no exception. But as I love of folklore, I just have to bring this up. Do you remember the translucent figures I told you about the ones that were set to be aliens? What if they weren't from out of this world? Because in Slavic folklore there's a spirit known as Aleshi, the guardian of the forest. Now they say that he can grow as tall as the trees or shrink down to the size of a blade of grass, where his skin blends into the bark and his beard and hair are tangled with moss. He loves to confuse people and make them walk in endless circles around the forest. People of the Shamava region used to speak of hearing strange laughter or whistling in the woods at night, along with the feeling of being watched. But maybe, just maybe, these tall, translucent figures were somehow blending into the trees, making it look translucent. Now it's that old forest guardian reminding us whose territory this really is. Or maybe it's the other way around, and the aliens were somehow perceived to be a creature that protects the forest. Either way, something we're not familiar with is out there, and if we all catch glimpses of it every once in a while. Before my skeptic friends out there, here's a theory you might like. These unusual magnetic anomaies somehow link with ufaux hotspots as we know them, which might have something to do with the goal uranium and raydon deposits in Shumava. But along with that radon may have health effects that might cause the locals to experience dizziness, visions, or hallucinations. Is this why we get so much strange witness testimony? If that isn't enough, we can just go with the government conspiracies, especially back then with the Iron Curtain secrecy. Everything having to do with experimental aircraft, spy technology, and paranoia from the Cold War. But whether it's Cold War secrecy, strange geological energies, or spirits of the forests, maybe visitors from the stars. It's hard to explain the strange disappearances of people in the area over the centuries, those who at the same time were thought to have been taken by the spirit of the forest. You can believe that these were actually hallucinations, but a group of people seeing the same things at the same time the same place. So what do we do with all this? A region where giant bones glow in the night, where castles crumble by unknown hands, and where soldiers swear they saw lights that did not show up on the radar. Those placers were campers and hikers, sea translucent beings in the forest, and where even the lakes are set to hold whispers of drowned spirits. No matter how many science backed, unproven theories exist, these stories have repeated for generations, long before planes were even an idea in our minds. It makes me think that maybe there is something magical about the Shumava Mountains, perhaps something dark that waits in the shadows and shows up only when it wants to be seen. I often think back on those crop circles because they were also seen in that area and also reported in many new sites and local talk. But maybe we humans make the patterns in the fields and in our stories. To explain what we can't understand, we have to at least be open that maybe some of these circles, some legends, and some encounters are real. So here we are again from the Shamabar region, by the forests and the valleys the dark lakes, walking alone. We look in the distance and see a glowing light that hovers and slowly vanishes in the horizon. The sign maybe that we're not alone in these mountains, just like we can't be the only ones out here floating in the vast open space that is a universe. This episode of Horror Story was written by me Edwin Kowarubias, with research from interviews in the documentary from World's Most Mysterious Places, as well as contributions from the website from the Czech Republic. Jensco dot Cz. Our newsletter subscriber has got a heads up about this episode as I was researching it, So if you want to be a part of it too, just tell me your email in the form on my website horror story dot com, and I'll keep you updated too about what happens around SCARYFM. It's free and I send it out once a week. You can opt out whenever anyway, Thank you all for your support. It has been quite a ride this year so far, and I can't believe we're getting closer to the best season of the year already and I can't wait. Anyway, if you tap follow already, I'll be back next week with another story. Thank you very much for listening. Keep it scary everyone, See you soon.