Obscure Occurrences : Operation Sunray

 Bulgaria is no stranger to conflict. Ever since the Thracian tribes united to form their nation, the Bulgarians have been locked in a never-ending cycle of invasion and uprising. The unremarkable village of Tsarichina is located approximately twenty miles northwest of Sofia, the Bulgarian capital. Up until thirty years ago, it was a place that was unknown even to a majority of the Bulgarian population. But things changed on the 6th of December 1990, when a large military force descended on the settlement, cordoning off a sizeable tract of farmland in the process. Codenamed “Operation Sunray”, the project was commanded by Colonel Tzvetka Kanev.

 The Bulgarian Ministry of Defence announced that the aim of the endeavour was to locate a treasure trove that was believed to be buried in the village. For centuries, rumours had circulated around the region that Samuel, the Bulgarian Emperor, had buried a huge cache of gold near the village before going into battle with the Ottoman Empire. It was now Colonel Kanev’s task to locate and recover the lost fortune.

(Source: Wikimedia Commons)

 Once the site was secured, Kanev ordered his men to begin digging a large shaft deep into the earth. The work proved problematic as in addition to the risk of flooding from a nearby underground lake, all the electrical equipment that the soldiers had brought with them began to malfunction. Excavators and power tools failed to operate properly, forcing the men to use pickaxes and shovels. At a depth of approximately 6 metres, the workers suddenly encountered a thick layer of stone, which they were unable to penetrate with hand tools. Explosives were used to eventually break through this barrier before a mysterious spiral passageway was discovered underneath it, that wound its way deep underground.

Paranormal Phenomena

 As the first squads of soldiers tentatively set off into the tunnels, the excavation site was suddenly plagued by unexplained phenomena. Almost immediately, a number of the infantrymen guarding the compound reported seeing inexplicable figures and creatures, moving around just beyond the perimeter fences. Sometimes these were described by witnesses as seven-foot-tall monsters, while in other instances as tiny figures that were hardly more than a foot in height. Furthermore, along with the inexplicable failure of the site's vehicles and machinery, radio equipment also malfunctioned. For the duration of the project, it proved impossible to transmit radio communications into and outside of the compound. Eventually, a telephone landline was laid from the nearby village into the command post, but the operators often complained that they could hear strange voices whispering in the background of their telephone calls.

 As time passed and military personnel ventured deeper along the spiral corridors, reports of unidentified flying objects filled the region. Although the individual descriptions of these crafts varied somewhat in appearance, all were reported to be brightly illuminated and seemed to emit flames as they travelled across the sky.

 In June of 1992, a local resident named Elka was awoken by the sound of her dogs barking outside the property. She opened her front door, before observing three shadowy figures, pacing across the land from the direction of the excavation site. They quickly disappeared into a nearby tree line, only for a brilliant white light to then rise up into the sky and disappear. After Elka reported the matter to Colonel Kanev, a team of his men located a circular patch of burnt ground in the zone where she reportedly witnessed the object. In the days that followed both Elka and the soldiers who had been sent to her address experienced feelings of extreme exhaustion, that confined them to their beds.

 In the later hours of 27 November 1991, Traicho Kolev, a villager, had been nearing his home when he suddenly found himself underneath a bright light source, whose rays were being projected down from the sky above him. He blacked out, and when he awoke the following morning, he found himself in the village of Meshtitsa, 40 miles to the south of where he had been walking. Strangely, the man remembered nothing of the previous few hours.

End of the Mission

 After two years of exploration, the rifleman exploring the tunnels beneath Tsarichina found their path blocked by a huge slab of concave lens-shaped polished stone. When they eventually broke through this entry point, they found themselves in a circular chamber where the stone walls had been polished to a mirror-like lustre. And at the far end of this room, the skeletal remains of a towering creature seemed to have been fused into the rock. Colonel Kanev himself was present as his men tried to traverse the chamber, noting with interest that at certain points in the wall, strange symbols which resembled hieroglyphs were visible just underneath the stone surface. When the soldiers reached the centre of the room, they were prevented from crossing by some form of invisible barrier.

 An unseen force hurled a young soldier across the room, crashing him into one of the chamber walls before he motionlessly slumped to the ground. Soon afterwards, the sound of gunfire filled the confined space. Colonel Kanev watched in amazement as his men fired rounds into the mist shielding the thing that was buried in the wall in front of them. The bullets entered the haze before halting mid-air and falling harmlessly to the ground. Amidst the pulsating sounds, another of the soldiers was inexplicably thrown across the room like a rag doll by an invisible hand and stray rounds from his weapon struck at least two other members of the group. Within moments, the sound of the gunfire was replaced by the screams of the wounded, causing the commanding officer to order a retreat.

 The soldiers darted their way back up to the surface, along a network of spiralling corridors which were never intended for human usage. While moving the wounded to the front of the party, Colonel Kanev pressed his hand to the smooth cold stone of the corridor wall before feeling an intensifying steady vibration. A faint green light had started to creep along the floor of the narrow tunnel behind them along with the thrumming sensation. The psychic who had accompanied them was screaming at him, saying that they should never have come to this cursed place, that none of them would make it back to the surface alive. Ordering two riflemen to take her away and ignoring the pleading expressions on the faces of the two soldiers he now ordered to act as their rear guard, he began his pursuit to the surface.

 The main party had only travelled a short distance further when they heard more gunfire echoing up the tunnel behind them. The sound quickly stopped before they resumed their journey. Eventually, the path ahead was illuminated by daylight and the air grew much cooler. The party staggered out to the open, and the orderlies and medics rushed forward to assist them. Simultaneously, the colonel shouted for the engineers to seal up the tunnel entrance, only to be told that the machines were not working. As the two tanks guarding the site perimeter were also malfunctioning, explosive charges had to be brought forward.

 The psychic was still shouting at the colonel, cursing him for ignoring her advice and that of Baba Vanga. Although he considered shooting the woman to silence her, he motioned for one of the orderlies to sedate her. Immediately afterwards, the charges were detonated, burying the bodies of the soldiers with whatever had killed them.

Aftermath

 All records of the operation were later hidden from public records. It was estimated that the whole endeavour had cost the Bulgarian Government in excess of 20 million dollars, with nothing to show for it other than a legacy of confusion and misery. With no official records to explain what took place deep in the ground beneath Tsarichina, commentators have been forced to piece together the events from the testimony of some of the surviving members of the excavation.

 One of those interviewed was Colonel Kanev himself, from whom the descriptions of both the spiralling tunnel network and the central chamber that housed the unknown being have been obtained. Kanev conceded that he and his men had been guided to the location by a group of psychics and remote viewers who described something buried just underneath the surface there, which was designated by the military as Object Number One. He went on to relate how a number of his men had died following exposure to a mysterious bacterium, and how others had somehow been teleported around the site, their lifeless bodies subsequently found fused within the rock itself.

 Eli, one of the aforementioned remote viewers, spent years after the project trying to draw support for a further expedition to the location. She explained how the entity that dwelt within the buried object was one of mankind's oldest ancestors, and that it had been trying to guide people to its location for thousands of years. She also claimed that Hitler had searched in vain for the entity for the duration of World War II, invading Russia in the hopes of securing it. She also claimed the creature had somehow shown her visions of the future.

 Eli describes how she wrote down these visions in four journals before they were confiscated by the Bulgarian army. The books allegedly contained descriptions of vessels that travelled through space by harnessing the power of the Sun and clothing worn by soldiers that had the power to repel bullets, directing them back at the guns that had originally fired them.

 Another source of information about operation sunray came from the writings of Military Professor Delcho, whose daughter Marina was attached to the expedition due to her psychic abilities. He claims that prior to her departure for the mission, Marina was contacted by the famed prognosticator, Baba Vanga, who warned her not to disturb whatever creature dwelt beneath Tsarichina.

(Source: Wikimedia Commons)

 Marina worked closely with Colonel Kanev throughout the project and accompanied him down into the tunnels. After returning from the site, she took her life by jumping from the roof of a tall building.

 Following the closure of the site, a team of researchers from the University of Sofia camped out near the town. They intended to conduct scientific tests which might explain what the army had been searching for and why they had invested so many resources into the expedition. They spent a total of twenty days out in the field, scanning for a variety of anomalies. By the end of the first week, they had recorded multiple sightings of UFOs and one mystifying incident where their equipment had been picked up by an invisible entity.

 Eventually, after an unknown craft flew in low over their campsite, projecting a beam of light onto their campfire and causing it to burn wildly, they decided to abandon their tests and return to the safety of the capital.

Theories

 So, what is it that remains hidden away under the surface of this Bulgarian landscape? Eli maintains that it is a creature from long before the time of mankind, possessing boundless psychic powers and determined to manipulate humanity into freeing it from its confinement. Others believe that what the army located was in fact a downed spacecraft. Their actions at the site had activated some form of distress beacon or transmission which caused other extra-terrestrial beings to come to its aid.

 The significant degree of variance reported in the shape and size of the entities and flying craft that were observed by witnesses lay the foundation for a third, more intriguing theory. Some believe that Tsarichina is yet another example of an inter-dimensional portal, where realities collide, allowing the inhabitants of other domains to enter and roam freely amongst us.

 The wide range of markedly different incidents during the course of the operation may also suggest a more rational explanation. Over the two years that the project was underway, a large number of military staff would have found themselves temporarily stationed at the site. Influenced and affected by the myths and rumours that had been circulated by their predecessors, new personnel would already have been on edge upon their arrival. Working in such an isolated and stressful environment could have made their minds interpret mundane experiences as paranormal encounters.

Conclusion

 Despite all of the reported incidents and a large number of alleged witnesses, there has been no photographic or video evidence of what took place. Although this might well be the work of the military, one could never deny the possibility of the events being the workings of overactive imaginations.

 Operation Sunray has been confined in the clouds of mystery and we might never learn the truth of what took place. The events remain firmly lodged in the consciousness of both the Bulgarian people and the scientific community as a whole. While the original mission was a failure in all senses, it has given birth to inexplicable stories that would surely never die.