Mysterious Strange Towers in the Desert

　　In the summer of 1957, Kerim, serving as a translator and guide, led a Sino-Soviet joint expedition team of eight people, including a Kazakh named Donggabaier who lived by the Erghe River in Jimusaer, and a Uyghur named Tarefu from Turpan. They rode twelve camels deep into the vast and boundless Junggar Desert for surveying. One day, they spotted a dazzling yellow mysterious object in the distance. As they approached, they realized that the towering yellow object was actually a cone-shaped tower resembling a pyramid. Intense beams of light shot out from the tower. The Soviets marked it on the map, then reluctantly left the strange tower and continued on their journey. About one kilometer further, the expedition members discovered a second tower, and even further ahead, yet another one. In total, they found five equally spaced strange towers, shimmering with mysterious rays like navigational beacons across the desolate and expansive desert.

　　After passing the magical strange towers, the expedition members continued northwest for some distance before coming across a red sand mountain stretching across their path. Upon reaching the red mountain, they decided to take a rest. At that moment, they noticed a fox darting past, leaving behind a faint glow as it nimbly slipped into a small black hole beneath the red mountain.

　　Kerim and 28-year-old Soviet explorer Mr. Ivanov, armed with shovels, walked up to the hole and began digging. After some digging, the sand above the hole started to pour down noisily. After a while, a large dark red iron door appeared behind the small hole, leading to an even bigger cave. The expedition members quickly gathered around. Then, with Kerim holding a long flashlight and Ivanov carrying a submachine gun at the ready, the two ventured into the cave. When they had gone nearly a hundred meters inside, in the dim light of the flashlight, they spotted a huge, glowing, writhing creature up ahead.

　　Ivanov promptly fired his submachine gun, unleashing a burst of bullets. As the gunfire echoed, they also heard a flapping, rustling noise growing louder. They couldn’t figure out what was happening. It wasn’t until they retreated back to the cave entrance that they understood. On their second entry into the cave, at the spot where Ivanov had fired, they discovered that he had shot and killed a giant python. The python’s head was shattered by the bullets, and its tail was almost severed. Ivanov used a knife to cut open the python’s belly, revealing it was stuffed with pigeon feathers and bones. It turned out the python had been feasting exclusively on pigeons. They called the others into the cave to help remove the python, but it was too heavy. After great effort, they managed to move it only slightly.

　　They left the red mountain and the mysterious cave, trudging through the vast, silent desert when they spotted in the distance large patches of lush green “vegetable fields,” with perfectly round “cabbages” growing vibrantly. The expedition members, amazed, rushed toward the field on their camels. But upon closer inspection, they realized they were all stones that closely resembled cabbages. Later, the team also discovered many other strange phenomena — for example, objects that looked from afar like neatly arranged dumplings, but were actually stones up close, with clear fingerprints visible in the clay. The members wanted to break them apart, but Soviet experts stopped them and carefully wrapped the stones to bring back to the research institute.