Pengam – The famous scientist has been missing for 41 years, but the mystery of his disappearance has never been revealed. For more than 40 years, people have tried to analyze this event from various angles, even at the expense of sensationalism and news gimmicks, but its true side has always been mysterious, and perhaps the information we get is only the tip of the iceberg.
Who is Pengam? The disappearance of Peng jiamu has been sealed for many years now, and most people now know very little about it, and when the name Pengammu was mentioned at that time, everyone knew it.
Peng Jiamu was originally named Peng Jiamu, a native of Panyu, Guangdong. Obviously, the meaning of the name given to him by his parents was to hope that his family would be harmonious and his life would be peaceful. He studied in the war-torn years, but with extraordinary perseverance and superhuman talent, he entered the College of Agriculture of Central University (the predecessor of the current Nanjing University).
After liberation, Peng Jiamu entered the Institute of Biology of the Shanghai Academy of Sciences with profound knowledge, specializing in the plant virus industry and becoming an expert in this field. In 1956, the state sent him abroad to study MRI, but Peng Jiamu was now interested in going to the northwest and other places for field investigation, and even sent the letter to the table of Guo Moruo, then president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, to show his determination. Guo Moruo was impressed by his ambitions and approved his request. Peng Jiamu then changed the word "family" to "Kamu" to show his determination to study to the end.
Pengam at work
So what is so appealing to Pengam?
It's Lop Nur and the place known as the "Sea of Death", which, from the satellite cloud map, is a palpitating giant ear. For this place, China has long been recorded in ancient times, as early as the Warring States Period in the "Classic of Mountains and Seas" has been described, but at that time, Lop Nur was still a vast smoke wave, a vast ocean. The mysterious ancient country of Loulan rises by the lake and creates a splendid civilization.
Ear of the Earth
Since the Eastern Han Dynasty, with the unrestricted demand for water resources by neighboring countries, the water level of Lop Nur has dropped rapidly, the environment in the lake has deteriorated rapidly, and patches of poplar forests have died. As time went on, Lop Nur was swallowed up by the Taklamakan Desert, leaving the lake without water, leaving a thick salt shell that soon became barren. Since there was no one to live, after the founding of New China, the research base for China's nuclear bomb was set up here. The production of mushroom clouds adds a touch of mystery to Lop Nur .
Due to the harsh environment, inaccessible people, coupled with the mysterious disappearance of the ancient country of Loulan, Lop Nur has become a place of pilgrimage for explorers and researchers at home and abroad. Among them, there are many foreign scholars and explorers on the study and description of Lop Nur, due to the limitations of understanding, there are inevitably some fallacies, which makes Peng Jiamu feel helpless and unconvinced in the review of materials - as the territory of China, Lop Nur research, foreigners are even earlier than us.
Secret Lop Nur
But it is not easy to study and explore Lop Nur . In the Eastern Jin Dynasty, there were monks who recorded that there were "many evil spirits" in Lop Nur and ordinary practitioners "died when encountered". In modern times, the unthinkable has also been endless.
In 1900, the world-famous explorer Sven Hedin discovered the ancient city of Loulan near Lop Nur, but on the way back, his camel caravan full of relics and two servants were buried in the sand sea, while he himself escaped and was saved by the passing Rob people.
In 1949, an airplane lost contact in Shanshan County on the eastern side of the Turpan Basin. The strange thing is that the plane that originally flew in the northwest direction suddenly changed course and flew due south, and finally the Lop Nur plane was destroyed and killed.
In 1950, a soldier of a certain unit of our People's Liberation Army mysteriously disappeared, and thirty years later, his body was found more than 100 kilometers away from the place of disappearance...
As for the explorers who came here, there were countless more who died here. But as a scientist with the mission of exploring the frontier, Pengam has long put his own safety aside. In 1957, Pengam was diagnosed with a malignant tumor, and many believe that he was no longer able to work in the field. But after several years of brief treatment in Shanghai, Peng Jiamu was miraculously discharged from the hospital, despite the persuasion of his relatives and friends, and embarked on the road to explore Lop Nur.
On March 5, 1964, Pengam began his first intimate encounter with Lop Nur . The expedition took more than 20 days, and Pengam and his research team did not enter the hinterland of Lop Nur and only collected some water samples around Lop Nur for testing.
Pengam is on an expedition
On October 16 of the same year, China's first atomic bomb was successfully tested at Lop Nur . Therefore, some people speculated that Pengam found a good content of "heavy water" in the process of Lop Nur's investigation. And "heavy water" is an indispensable substance for the manufacture of nuclear weapons.
On November 15, 1979, at the age of 54, Pengam once again set foot on the mysterious land of Lop Nur at the age of 54. This time, as a consultant for the crew of the Sino-Japanese co-production of "Silk Road", Peng Jiamu accompanied the crew as a guide and did a scientific investigation at the same time. During the inspection, he once lamented that foreigners have written quite a lot about Lop Nur, but the Chinese people are still very unfamiliar with it, and if the Chinese people do not explore in depth, the right to speak will fall into the hands of foreigners.
So on 2 May 1980, Pengam and the expedition re-entered Lop Nur again, but this time he never returned.
On May 2, 1980, Peng Jiamu and his party drove straight to the Malan base of the People's Liberation Army. All the supplies of the expedition team are replenished here. Officers and men at the Maran base warmly welcomed them and gave them a radio station.
At this time, except for Pengam, the other expedition members had only seen Lop Nur in some literature, and had never set foot here. Moreover, although the team members are experts in plants, animals and hydrology, they have never met before, and they are not very tacit in cooperation.
Pengam Expedition Team
The State equipped the expedition with three vehicles. Pengam and some of the scientists rode in one of the cars, the second pulling the radio equipment, and the third pulling water gasoline and dry food. The driver masters also came to Lop Nur for the first time, and in the face of such a harsh geographical environment, individual masters also had resistance and contradictions with Peng Jiamu, who was the leader of the group.
The environment in Lop Nur is indeed harsh, the lake is full of sandy "fake Gobi", cars and people encounter such terrain will be trapped in this, can not extricate themselves, a careless, missing people are minutes of the matter. At the center of the lake, there were hard salt shells everywhere, and by noon the temperature reached 50 degrees Celsius, so hot that the team members had to hide under the car.
With the lessons of the past, Peng Jiamu instructed everyone to be at least two people in a small group, otherwise they should not act rashly.
After a full week, the expedition team finally crossed from the basin of Lop Nur to the center of the lake, and then to the basin on the other side, and successfully crossed Lop Nur. This was the first time that humans had truly crossed Lop Nur and everyone on the expedition was overjoyed and bought lamb from a nearby Milan farm to celebrate the successful conclusion of the expedition. Many people are already looking forward to returning to Urumqi along the wide asphalt road to meet their wives and children.
Peng jiamu was also particularly excited, and the notebook he carried with him was finished. But as he flipped through the notes he had written, new ideas came out of his mind.
Peng Jiamu believes that this expedition is very successful, and at present, the north, south and west lines of Lop Nur have all been visited, and if you can use this motivation to explore the eastern line of Lop Nur that you have never been to, you can fully understand Lop Nur.
But as soon as this idea was proposed, everyone acted very cold. On the one hand, to put it bluntly, this was unplanned, and many of the team members greeted their families, and this operation disrupted many people's plans. On the other hand, the length of the eastern line of Lop Nur is longer than that of crossing Lop Nur, and everyone has just suffered from Lop Nur and has not eased up, and many people privately think that this is too risky.
However, Peng Jiamu, the leader of the expedition team, has already reported his inspection plan to the Xinjiang branch. Just when everyone was arguing endlessly, the Xinjiang Branch came with a telegram: "Agree to this inspection, but pay attention to safety!" ”
Despite the resistance, the expedition team embarked on a journey under pengam's encouragement. Pengam did not know where he got a map of the former Soviet Union. He pointed to a place called Kumukuduk in this picture and told everyone that there was a spring here.
But as everyone knows, this picture has been made a long time ago, and Kumukuduk means "manhole" in the local area. Such a huge and friendless Lop Nur waters have disappeared, how can there be water in this place? This map painted a large pie for the expedition.
By less than a third of the way through, the expedition had consumed nearly half of its water and gasoline. But what was even more desperate was that when the expedition took 7 days to reach Kumukuduk, it was found that there could be no water in this place, and the trip was not yet halfway through.
But by this time, only half a barrel of dirty water remained for the expedition, and gasoline could no longer support the return of the entire convoy. Pengam led his team to dig down at the spring marked on the map, but how could it be possible to dig out the water in Lop Nur which had dried up for hundreds of years. The players are now in danger of their lives! After intense discussions with the team, Pengam finally agreed to call for help at the Maran base.
Although the telegram was sent, Pengam was still not dead set on finding water, and mobilized everyone again. He believes that transporting water by plane is too expensive, and it is best to find water on the spot. But the team members were discouraged by the wind and sand and the heat, and they did not want to take this risk with him. In a fit of rage, he got out of the tent and left everyone to return to the jeep to study the map.
At 11:00 a.m. on June 17, the Maran base finally called back, asking the expedition team to stand by and that necessities such as water and oil would be delivered on the 18th and 19th.
The comrades who received the telegram immediately went to Pengam and wanted to tell the good news at the first time. But strangely enough, there was no sign of him in the jeep, but there was an atlas on the seat of the jeep that was opened, and there was a note on it that said: I went to the east to find the well. Peng 17/6 10: 30
A note left by Pengam
This note was identified as Pengam's own handwriting. But there is a significant alteration in the whole sentence, which is to change 16 to 17 when writing the date.
At this time, the temperature of Lop Nur reached more than 50 degrees Celsius, and it was undoubtedly dangerous to find water sources at this temperature. Thinking of this section, the team members hurriedly began to look for it separately.
Pengam left a trail of footprints to the east, which was the only proof of the expedition's search for Pengam. They drove and walked along the footprints, 10 kilometers from the starting point, and finally found the place where Pengam had rested, where a piece of sugar paper was thrown. He was obviously tired, sat here for a moment to rest, ate a coconut candy brought from the Maran base, and continued to head east.
Just when the players thought they would find Pengam immediately, his footprints suddenly disappeared. Until the sky slowly darkened, the expedition team still did not find any trace of Pengam. The players had to admit the fact that he was indeed missing.
The place where Pengammu disappeared
The team members who returned to their original locations were not dead-hearted, lighting a bonfire in the dark of night and firing a signal flare every once in a while, hoping that Pengam in the distance would be able to find his way back by following the light, but in the end there was no news.
On 18 and 19 June, helicopters arrived over Lop Nur and brought water and supplies to the expedition. At the unanimous insistence of the team members, the pilots flew at an ultra-low altitude 20 kilometers east of the camp. After searching over and over again, all that was possible was disappointment, and Lop Nur refused to hand over Pengam.
After the expedition team was out of danger, the Xinjiang Military Region dispatched a large number of aircraft to conduct a dragnet search centered on Kumukuduk. Subsequently, a small detachment of local soldiers and civilians conducted a detailed search on the ground in Lop Nur and finally returned without success.
From the end of July to the beginning of August of the same year, the state organized another large-scale search operation. The military region not only used a large number of aircraft for aerial observation, but also transferred well-trained police dogs from Nanjing, Shanghai, Shandong and other places to conduct large-scale comb-like screening.
Police dogs are used to search for Pengam
I wanted to expect these police dogs with extremely sensitive sense of smell to make a breakthrough in the search and rescue work, but as a result, these police dogs entered Lop Nur and were confused. The hot weather and harsh natural environment made these guys lose their spirits, and some police dogs even refused to get out of the car. On August 2, after a meticulous search, the Xinjiang Military Region also had to admit that it had not found any clues about Pengjiamu.
At this point, the search for Pengamu has taken nearly a month, the area has reached more than 4,000 square kilometers, and theoretically, Pengjiamu has no possibility of survival. Therefore, the search and rescue team erected a small monument at the pengam exit point to commemorate the unfortunate death of pengam.
Explorers commemorate Pengam
The time came to the middle of October, when the news of Peng Jiamu's disappearance gradually precipitated, a so-called "news" from Hong Kong introduced Peng Jiamu to everyone's vision.
On October 11, a Hong Kong newspaper headlined a message from the United States on the other side of the ocean, and a scholar named Zhou Guanglei in the United States claimed that he had met Peng Jiamu at a restaurant in the United States on the evening of September 14. But Pengam didn't seem to know him and turned away.
Hong Kong newspapers published pengjiamu's news
This "Zhou Guanglei" claimed that he and Peng Jiamu had been friends for at least thirty years and had no reason to admit their mistakes. For a time, various newspapers in the world rushed to reprint it, and the Western media took the opportunity to speculate, and public opinion was in an uproar.
In response to this rumor, the Chinese Academy of Sciences once again joined forces with the Xinjiang Military Region from November to December 1980 to launch a large-scale search and rescue operation. This operation was larger than the previous two, and the Xinjiang Military Region organized 4 corps to participate in the operation. However, after a month-long dragnet investigation, Pengam's news is still like a stone sinking into the sea.
The information of the so-called "Zhou Guanglei" was also investigated. Peng Jiamu's wife said that she had never met this friend of "thirty years of friendship", and all indications showed that this "Zhou Guanglei" was purely fictitious. To this end, the People's Daily also had to debunk the "Zhou Guanglei" incident on its page.
In 1981, the state awarded Peng jiamu martyrs the title of martyr, and memorial services were held in both Shanghai and Xinjiang. But since then, because of the mysterious attributes of Lop Nur itself associated with Pengam, various speculations and legends have been formed. What mysterious viruses say, aliens say, cross talk, etc., make people feel that they are reading science fiction for a while, and then they have turned to the fantasy channel, and the following only says something slightly more reliable.
One of the speculations is that Pengam fell into a swamp. But those familiar with the geography of Lop Nur know that there is not a drop of water in Lop Nur now, and the bottom is a hard salt shell, and even planes can land in the middle of the lake, which is obviously untenable.
There is also speculation that Pengam was eaten by wild beasts. This theory was formed because during the fourth search and rescue, officers and soldiers found wolf dung in the Dunhuang generation. Around Pongamkuduk, where Pongam was missing, there were indeed a handful of yellow sheep, hares and camels. But as predators, wolves are basically impossible to go to such a bad place to prey, and this speculation is unlikely.
Some suspect that Pengam was captured by American or Soviet agents. They believe that Pengam was the first person to cross Lop Nur and had some precious information about Lop Nur that attracted the attention of the United States and the Soviet Union, so Pengamu was abducted and mysteriously disappeared.
This argument ignores the distance between the two countries and Lop Nur and the temperature of Lop Nur usually as high as 50 degrees Celsius. Air Force officers and men once found a line of footprints in the air to the east, but disappeared after reaching the hard salt shell, and later confirmed that they were Pengjiamu's footprints. In addition, no other human beings have been found.
There is also a theory that is full of conspiracy theories, that is, the "teammate killing theory" that has been more popular since 2012.
On April 13, 2006, a news article was published on Xinhuanet that a dry body had been found in Lop Nur . At this time, all the people in Shanghai and Xinjiang who cared about Peng jiamu began to speculate whether this dry corpse was Peng Jiamu, and whether the mystery of Peng Jiamu's disappearance that had been sealed for many years was about to come to light.
In fact, this dry body was not found in 2006. The remains were discovered by local herders in 2005. At that time, due to the age of the Pengam incident, the herders had not yet mapped the corpse to Pengam and almost lost it.
Dry corpses found in Lop Nur
The corpse quickly became a hot spot for those concerned about Pengam's whereabouts. After careful observation and testing, the examinees were divided into two groups and obtained two very different results.
Some people believe that from the perspective of height, shoe size, and age, this dry corpse has the physical characteristics of Pengjiamu, which should be Pengjiamu.
Opponents argue that this is definitely not Pengam's body. The reason is that some of the details of the remains do not match Pengam's appearance before his death. In addition, when the dry body was found, there were several pieces of ore next to it, presumably the victims of the prospecting. The most convincing point of this claim is that the site where the body was found is more than 20 kilometers from the place where the footprints of Penga wood disappeared. With a high temperature of more than 60 degrees and only a jug of water, it should not be realistic to hike such a long distance in Lop Nur with only a pot of water.
Indeed, but observing the corpse from the appearance does not seem to be certain. Everyone pinned their hopes on the authoritative technology - DNA assay.
Experts took samples from the dried corpse's hair and remaining skin for DNA analysis. But on the DNA of Peng Jiamu's son Peng Hai, an unexpected thing happened - Peng Hai refused to provide samples!
This makes people think. Some speculated that Peng Hai must be hiding something. The various abnormal circumstances before Pengam's disappearance made people even more suspicious.
Finally, along with this doubt, an article called "Exposing the Inside Story of Peng jiamu's death" came into being in the Internet world. The article proves from all aspects that Pengam's disappearance is related to the team members, and even infers that the team members killed them.
The note left by Pengam with obvious traces of alteration became the so-called "evidence" of the article's large book.
Pengam had developed cancer before the expedition and was in an advanced stage. Based on this fact, the article speculates that Pengam has the determination to bury Lop Nur on this trip and wants to make some breakthrough investigations. During the expedition, Pengam and the members of the expedition team quarreled constantly about the decision, which in the author's view also became the inducement for "murder" Pengam.
Pengam once made a rule in front of the team members: to go out on a mission, there must be more than two people, but he did not abide by his own rules and went alone to find water. According to the expedition, before Pengam disappeared, everyone had hunted a wild camel with firearms. This also became a suspicious point described in the text.
The article believes that in addition to the note written by Peng jiamu himself, the other so-called facts are all oral accounts of the expedition team members, which is not credible in itself. The author of the article describes a thrilling "novel plot":
On June 16, Pengam and some members of the expedition team clashed over whether to ask their superiors for help. Pengam believes that using helicopters to airlift water and gasoline is too expensive for the country. The team members believed that Peng Jiamu had reached the end of the cancer, died generously during the inspection, and could still have the title of martyr, but there was no need for everyone to die with him.
After writing the note, Pengam decided to go to the water source, and some members of the expedition team clashed with him and shot him. To cover up the evidence, the expedition changed the 6 of the note to 7 and added a passage to the contents of the telegram to hunt wild camels with guns.
Seeing this, we have to admire the author's "meticulous" logic ability and imagination ability. But none of this is possible.
Regardless of the members of the expedition team, they are all excellent scientists of the country and have trustworthy character. From some of the rhetoric in this article alone, the logic is very loose. The article said that because Pengam thought that it was too expensive to transport water by plane and insisted on finding water sources on his own, one or more people in the scientific expedition team conspired to kill Pengam. Because of the killing of Pengam, it reduces a person's drinking water consumption. In fact, the base sent water to the scientific expedition team the day after the call back, indicating that the communication between the scientific expedition team and the base was smooth, and it was no problem to ask the base for help to solve the water source, and it would not be necessary to kill in order to reduce a person's drinking water consumption.
As for the reason why Peng Hai refused to provide DNA, it is also reasonable. Because after his father disappeared, Lop Nur kept finding dry bodies. Peng Hai also asked the expert who extracted his DNA: What is the probability that the dry corpse you found is my father? The uncertain extraction of DNA can only cause endless pain to Pengam's family, because they have encountered so many things.
Where does Pengam's soul return? This seems to have become an unsolvable puzzle. But according to camel riders who often walk this route, there is a terrain called "Earth Sea" in the Gobi Desert, not far from pengam's missing place. Like a swamp, there is a layer of epidermis on the surface, and grass grows on it, but underneath it is a deep, bottomless ditch, and people sink into it and disappear. Pengammu most likely fell into the "earth sea"...
Of course, this is only an explanation, no matter what, Pengam should have sacrificed Lop Nur in his heart before he died, which is also his long-cherished wish. Under the guidance of Pengam and other previous explorers, China's research in Lop Nur has finally reached the forefront of the world.
In front of the monument of Pengam
Lop Nur is once the "Sea of Death" is giving off its splendor. On the one hand, with the efforts of our archaeologists, the veil of Lop Nur civilization has gradually been lifted. On the other hand, after years of development, Lop Nur has become a huge potash fertilizer base in China.
As a biologist, Peng Jiamu once said that he would use his body to give xinjiang land a little more organic matter. In this sense, he has done it, his soul will always exist in the hot land of Xinjiang, and his dedication to science will always remain in our hearts.