Scientists flatly refused to open the mysterious capsule. Time capsules are being opened all over Russia: how Soviet residents saw the future
In 1917, capsules with messages to descendants, laid in the second half of the last century, were recovered. The letters contain instructions to future generations to take care of the country, be proud of the exploits of their ancestors and make the dreams of the youth of the 20th century come true.
Found immortality
Two time capsules with messages to descendants were removed from a concrete stele at the Rostock monument in Penza on Tuesday. Representatives of three generations of city residents laid the first capsule on November 6, 1967. Another one was laid there, in a concrete stele near the Rostock monument in 1977. The text of these messages was kept secret.
"Hello, our dear descendants! We extend to you the hand of spiritual unity and kinship. In your deeds we have gained immortality. We live in the beating of your heart, in the smiles of your children, in your dreams and thoughts... We are calm about our tomorrow, we believe in future, we believe in you,” one of the letters says.
As the Penza administration told RIA Novosti, the audio recording of the 1967 message to descendants was stored in a capsule shaped like a matryoshka doll, but the film in it could not be restored, so the recording was reconstructed using the text of the message found there. It was written on rubberized paper and was well preserved. There were no problems opening the 1977 capsule. It was sealed in a vacuum glass tube. The document has not gotten wet and is well preserved.
After the solemn announcement of messages from the past, historical evidence was transferred for eternal storage to the Penza State Museum of Local Lore.
So that everything is fine
Two more time capsules were recovered in Krasnoyarsk. One of them was opened at the Krasnoyarsk Technological College of Food Industry. It was founded by students of this educational institution in November 1967. The message describes the achievements of the Soviet people and gives wishes to the youth.
Another capsule, more than 40 years ago, was placed in the wall of the building that now houses the administration of the Central District of the city. About 150 people signed the text.
As part of the "Bridge of Generations" project, young people laid a new capsule - for the youth of 2038, when the Central District of Krasnoyarsk will celebrate its centenary.
Duty and responsibility
The time capsule, laid by Komsomol members of the passenger carriage depot in 1967, was opened in Irkutsk by workers of the East Siberian Railway. Veteran railway workers who were present at the laying of the message 50 years ago were invited to the event.
Girls and boys of the 1960s spoke in their message about how “through selfless work they daily increase the power of the state,” as well as their understanding of duty and responsibility to future generations.
Continuing the tradition, depot workers laid a new time capsule for the next 50 years.
Cherish traditions
The time capsule, intended for descendants from students and teachers of Vilin School No. 1, Bakhchisaray district of Crimea, was solemnly opened 48 years after it was laid. The message was placed in a glass liter jar, walled up in the wall of the school hall.
Hundreds of village residents, representatives of the Crimean government and the Bakhchisarai region gathered at the solemn ceremony. The right to get the capsule was granted to State Duma deputy Anatoly Aksakov, who was in the third grade at the Vilinsk school when the message was laid, and to senior pioneer leader Svetlana Leontyeva, who participated in the creation of the time capsule.
“Currently there are 1,018 people studying in our school, of which 160 are Komsomol members and 460 pioneers. There are 54 excellent students, and 288 people are studying for grades four and five. We express our love for the Motherland in work and study,” the message says.
The students of 1969 told themselves, almost half a century older, how many trees they planted during cleanup days, how they honor the memory of the Crimean partisans, and how they opened a Lenin museum at school.
“We express our hope that you, the generation of 2017, will make our dreams of the most just communist society come true. Take care of the traditions won by our fathers and grandfathers,” the message says.
Aksakov told RIA Novosti that it was no coincidence that the village workers preserved the message, which was perfectly preserved - the state farm was one of the richest in the region, where vegetables and fruits were grown and preserved.
The ceremony participants decided to continue the tradition and lay a new capsule for the descendants of 2067 with their wishes, among which the main ones were wishes for peace and prosperity, as well as a story about how difficult the years of change turned out to be for the village residents at the time of the change of centuries and eras. The message to descendants specifically mentions the historical referendum on March 16, 2014, which led to the annexation of Crimea to Russia.
Store and multiply
Residents of Kursk retrieved a time capsule laid 50 years ago with an appeal to their fellow countrymen who will live in the 21st century. The authors of the message devoted a significant part of it to the achievements of the country and the Kursk region since the day of the revolution.
“From the storming of Winter Palace to the assault on space, from Aurora to Venera-4, from a starving, bast-footed, horseless province to an order-bearing region with its rapidly developing industrial and agricultural potential,” this is how, in particular, the letter describes the past half-century of Soviet power.
Trials and victories
Stavropol youth laid a capsule with a message to descendants in 1967 next to the monument to the commander of the Great Patriotic War, a local native, Army General Joseph Apanasenko.
Addressing future generations, residents of the Apanasenkovsky district from the mid-twentieth century spoke about the trials that befell their native country, about its restoration in the post-war years, about the first space victories, about fellow countrymen - heroes of labor who contributed to the well-being of the Motherland.
“You and I have a lot in common. We are like-minded people in our desire to make the world more beautiful, richer, happier. You have inherited from us enduring values - love for life, for people, a sense of justice. We are confident that you will sacredly preserve these values,” noted in the message.
Sometimes, instead of solemn greetings from the past, gloomy messages are found in the capsules. From strange prophecies to corpses: today we will tell you about the most unusual and creepy finds that were discovered in time capsules by the inhabitants of the “bright future”.
Classmates
"I'm Dead:" A chilling letter from a ghost boy
In the summer of 2016, during construction work at a school in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a time capsule laid in 1968 was discovered. The glass bottle contained letters from elementary school students. This has been practiced throughout the country for many years. As a rule, schoolchildren's letters contain many fantasies about the future. For example, about flying cars.
However, this time the content of one of the messages attracted close attention. Judging by the signature, it was written by a boy named Greg Lee Youngman. However, information about him has not yet been found. There is no information about such a student in the school archives. The text looks even stranger and more frightening:
“I'm dead. I go to Montgomery School. This is the old name of the school. I was born in 1900. But now I'm dead. My favorite pastime is scaring the police. I play the guitar. It's a board with strings, if you don't know. I am 10 years old. See you later, savages."
The scary message could have been a dark joke from one of the students. Local journalists tried to find the mysterious boy or those who knew him, but their search was unsuccessful.
Gloomy greetings from psychiatrists of the past
In 2015, on the grounds of an abandoned mental hospital in Indiana, USA, workers stumbled upon a time capsule left by psychiatrists in the 1950s. Inside were films recorded by doctors back in 1958. In the footage, experts from the last century talked about the bright prospects for electroconvulsive therapy, and also reflected on how to effectively treat psychosis through artificial insulin shock.
Of course, it is easy to understand the desire of psychiatrists of that time to share their experience with colleagues from the future, but in modern times such treatment methods cause nervous tremors and only confirm the difficult path of development of psychiatry.
Bomb-shaped time capsule causes commotion in Manhattan
And this surprise from the past has completely harmless content, although it has a frightening form. It was discovered in early July 2017 during renovation work in Manhattan. Emergency services and sappers were called to the scene, and nearby buildings were evacuated. Soon, however, experts established that the found object, which looked like a bomb from the Second World War, did not pose any danger. As it turned out, a time capsule with a message to descendants was camouflaged as a bomb. More than 30 years ago, it was buried in the ground as a joke by the owner of the then popular Danceteria club.
In the 80s of the last century, Danceteria was one of the iconic places in New York. Stars such as Madonna, Billy Idol and Duran Duran performed there. Entrepreneur John Argento, the former owner of the club, admitted that in 1985 he bought a dummy bomb in a New York military supply store, collected “messages to the future” from club visitors in it for three weeks, and then buried it in front of the establishment.
“It was kind of a joke. We thought someday someone would dig this thing up and think it was an unexploded bomb. They buried it and forgot - they went to another party.”
The police carefully examined the contents of the capsule (only letters and photographs were found inside) and then handed it over to the ex-owner of the nightclub.
“The Islamic threat and the rise of China”: an Australian wrote very truthful prophecies for fun
In the summer of 2017, a Sydney woman accidentally found a “letter of time” under the tiles in her bathroom wall. A plastic capsule, which contained photographs and a letter with amazing prophecies, was walled up in the wall 22 years ago by a former resident of this house. The contents of the letter quite accurately described many global events in the modern world.
Greg Wilkinson wrote his message on Easter Sunday 1995. First, he told the details of his biography and indicated the state of affairs and the cost of everyday goods at the time of writing the letter, and then moved on to predictions for the future.
According to his forecast, in the future China was to become a semi-democratic state, reach the level of a superpower and become the main partner of the United States. Interestingly, in 1995, China was inferior to many countries in terms of economic size, but has now risen to second place in the world. Greg's predictions include wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He also wrote that growing Islamic radicalism will become a global problem that will escalate into a major war that will end only “when both sides understand that their God does not want it to continue.”
Journalists managed to find Greg Wilkinson, who is now 61 years old. According to him, after writing the letter, he argued with his wife when it would be discovered. He himself was inclined to believe that the letter would be found closer to 2060, while his wife pointed to 2020.
Greetings from Auschwitz: a message from death camp prisoners
In 2009, during construction work to destroy one of the buildings that were part of the Auschwitz concentration camp system, a bottle with a note signed by seven prisoners was discovered. The bottle was walled up in the wall of a building that housed warehouses used by death camp guards during World War II.
The note, written in pencil on a label from under a bag of cement and placed in a glass bottle, gives the names of the prisoners - six Poles and one Frenchman, their personal numbers and the location - the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Auschwitz.
“All between the ages of 18 and 20,” says the note, which was handed over to the museum of concentration camp prisoners.
In 1940-1945, Auschwitz-Birkenau was Hitler's largest concentration camp, where people were exterminated en masse. The exact number of deaths in Auschwitz is still unknown, since before the advance of the Red Army, the Nazis destroyed all documentation of the camp, and before leaving Auschwitz they carried out mass executions of prisoners.
It is believed that millions of people died in the camp: some were tortured and poisoned in gas chambers, others died of starvation and as a result of medical experiments.
Peter Pan's Dead Brothers
In 2010, an American woman discovered a travel trunk in the basement of her apartment building in Los Angeles that looked as if it was at least 80 years old. At first the woman was very happy, but when she opened the time capsule, her enthusiasm immediately waned.
Inside were newspapers and other junk from the 1930s, several books about the adventures of Peter Pan, a fan club membership card for this wonderful children's story, and several Peter Pan-themed souvenirs. However, the most “vivid” contents of the box turned out to be the embalmed bodies of two babies, wrapped in newspaper.
The most interesting thing is that the name Janet M. Berry was stamped on the box, which is strikingly similar to J. M. Berry, the name of the author of everyone’s favorite book. This discovery caused a great stir, the police even conducted a DNA analysis. However, experts have not identified any relationship between the writer and the corpses in the basement, so the origin of “Peter Pan’s dead brothers” still remains a mystery.
Strange sticky discovery in the garden: curse or blessing?
In 2016, a Reddit user from Costa Rica dug up a strange object in his backyard that appeared to be a tightly sealed metal container. At first he thought it was money, drugs, or a simple message to descendants from people who once lived here. But when he opened the vessel, it seemed to him that he was in some strange horror film. The container was filled to the brim with a sweet-smelling, thick, sticky liquid in which the photograph was floating.
Many Latin Americans believe in brujeria, a special form of magic that uses natural elements. Therefore, the Costa Rican was sure that his find was connected with some kind of magical ritual. When the owner of the house arrived, he told his tenant that the woman in the photograph lived in this house about 15 years ago. He also suggested that she was the victim of damage or a curse. Then they decided to immediately burn the strange find.
However, some commenters on the Reddit post said that it may not have been damage at all. Judging by the sweet smell of the contents in the jar, it could be honey, and the ritual itself was carried out more as a blessing, with the goal of “sweeening the life” of the couple depicted in the photograph.
Preserved Parisian apartment like a time capsule
This next message from the past is different from the rest. This is a spacious apartment in Paris, full of dusty personal belongings, exquisite furniture and works of art, that has stood untouched since 1939. When looking at this interior, you get the impression that a time machine has transported you to another era.
The owner of the apartment, a French actress, fled Paris at the very beginning of World War II and never returned there again. For 70 years she continued to pay the rent for the apartment, but did not tell any of her relatives about it. Relatives learned about the abandoned housing after the death of a woman at the age of 91.
Experts described all the property in the apartment, among which many personal items were found, such as hairbrushes and letters. In addition to them, other interesting objects were discovered: a life-size stuffed ostrich or Mickey Mouse. The media dubbed the unusual apartment a “time capsule.”
“It feels like we are in Sleeping Beauty’s castle, where time stood still more than a hundred years ago,” admitted auctioneer Olivier Chopin-Janvy, who conducted the opening of the apartment.
Everything around was as if frozen - at one moment the experts seemed to have stepped into the past. The air was filled with dust and there were cobwebs everywhere. A heavy dressing table and curtains, huge mirrors covered in curlicues, ornate armchairs - all this takes you not even to the beginning of the 1940s, but to the beginning of the 20th century.
Eyes and nails in a teapot: greetings from the Japanese at Expo 70 Capsule
In 1970, electronics giant Panasonic built a teapot capsule in the Japanese city of Osaka that was supposed to remain sealed for 5,000 years. The main container was filled with a layer of inert argon gas to protect the contents, but project leaders also built a second, “control” capsule that would be periodically opened, inspected and cleaned to help keep the project alive.
The first discovery of one of the world's most famous time capsules already took place in 2000, and the rest will occur at intervals of 100 years. In total, each capsule contains a cargo of 2,098 culturally significant objects. If the two capsules from recent world history survive until their planned discovery date of 6970 A.D., their future owners will find a vast collection of films, seeds and microorganisms, as well as the glass eyes and blackened fingernails of survivors of the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
Do not open until 2957: Time capsule found at MIT
The time capsule, which the authors of the message asked to be opened no earlier than 2957, was discovered on the MIT campus. The sealed glass container was buried in 1957 and forgotten until now. The capsule was discovered by workers who are building the new MIT.nano building. Inside is a letter to the people of the next generation, plus historical artifacts, including experimental samples of electronic components that laid the foundation for modern electronics.
According to university officials, the container is one of the last eight time capsules that were hidden at different times (usually the “sending” of the capsule to the future was timed to coincide with a specific event). The reason why this particular capsule was lost is not surprising, since more significant things are forgotten, documentation, archives, and artifacts are lost. For example, in 1939, MIT hid a capsule to commemorate the installation of a new cyclotron. It was planned to open 50 years later, in 1989, but it was simply forgotten. A little later they remembered the capsule, but it was too late, since the burial place of the capsule was covered with 16 tons of reinforced concrete.
As for the current discovery, this capsule was put into storage on June 5, 1957 by MIT President James R. Killian and electrical engineering professor Harold "Doc" Edgerton. The professor was one of the pioneers of ultra-slow motion photography. The “launch” of the capsule coincides with the opening of the Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE), a computer center with an IBM 704 mainframe and a nuclear science laboratory. Unusual for this capsule is the expected opening time. Instead of 50 or 100 years, it was planned to open the capsule after 1000 years.
The capsule's structure is similar to the Westinghouse Time Capsule, which was buried in 1939, with a planned discovery date 5,000 years later. To protect it from the effects of time, a metal capsule covered with glass on the inside was shaped like a torpedo and filled with nitrogen. True, the MIT capsule is somewhat smaller than its relative, and it was also decided to abandon metal in favor of glass. The sealed glass cylinder was created at the RLE Glass Blowing Lab. After filling the capsule, argon was pumped into it and sealed.
Inside the capsule is a letter from the president of MIT explaining the contents. In particular, the document states that the capsule contains papers and memos designed to tell something about the state of science, technology, education and MIT itself to descendants.
Also inside is a container of synthetic penicillin, an empty tonic bottle, then-issued First National Bank of Boston coins, and a sample of carbon-14. The carbon isotope is included so that if the cylinder does crack, the age of the find can be estimated, even in the distant future.
Another interesting artifact is the cryotron, an obscure electronic device invented at MIT in 1950. A cryotron is a controlled active resistance that uses in its operation the phenomenon of the dependence of the temperature at which superconductivity occurs on the strength of the magnetic field. The advantages of the cryotron are its small dimensions and very low control power. The disadvantages of the cryotron are the need for deep cooling and relatively low power output. The cryotron consists of a superconducting rod (eg tantalum) placed in a vessel of liquid helium and surrounded by a control wire winding (eg niobium). By changing the current through the control winding, you can change the magnetic field strength and transfer the current-conducting rod from a superconducting state to a normal state and back, thus changing its resistance in a nonlinear manner.
The inventor of the cryotron, Dudley Allen Buck, believed that his system would significantly reduce the size of computers. He believed that thanks to miniaturization and printed circuit boards, the computer that took up an entire room in 1957 could in the future be contained in a volume equal to the volume of a briefcase, and the power consumption of this system would be similar to the power consumption of a Christmas garland ball.
In the last century, there was an amazing fashion among people for the so-called “time capsules” - small boxes and containers with various things and letters to the future, buried in the ground or poured into concrete, which distant descendants should have discovered many decades after the “authors” of the capsules themselves will end up in the ground.
But what happens when, instead of solemn “hellos” from the past, truly dark ghosts are discovered in time capsules? Below are the most unusual and creepy finds that were discovered in time capsules by the inhabitants of the “bright future”.
Shock therapy
There is no doubt that the past of such a wonderful branch of medicine as psychiatry is shrouded in rather dark, and at times downright sinister, shadows. But you must admit, in the 21st century of Prozac and Xanax, it was quite scary for psychiatrists to disassemble a time capsule with films from their colleagues from back in 1958, who talk about the bright prospects of electroconvulsive therapy and the possibility of treating psychosis with artificial insulin shock. A capsule with such interesting contents was found by workers at the site of an old abandoned psychiatric hospital in Indiana. And although the very desire of doctors from the 50s to brag about their advanced treatment methods to their descendants is quite understandable and justified, when thinking about these tapes, a shiver involuntarily runs through, and an explosive mixture of shots from “Candyman” and “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” pops up in my head. .
Peter Pan's Dead Brothers
The manager of an apartment building in America was pleasantly surprised when, during renovations in 2010, she discovered a strange sealed box in the basement that looked like it had been there for at least 80 years. However, as soon as the woman opened the container, the joyful excitement of being able to look into the distant past with her own eyes abruptly turned into powerful vomiting. Inside this time capsule were several books about Peter Pan, a fan club membership card for this wonderful children's story, and the embalmed remains of two newborn babies, wrapped in the Los Angeles Times newspaper. The most interesting thing is that the name “Janet M. Berry” was stamped on the box, which is strikingly similar to “J. M. Berry” - named after the famous author of everyone’s favorite book. However, experts have not identified any relationship between the writer and the corpses in the basement, so the origin of “Peter Pan’s dead brothers” still remains a mystery.
Ghosts of the Nuclear Sun
Another time capsule with dark and tragic contents was opened in 2000 in Japan. In 1970, the Japanese sealed two time capsules that were supposed to lie untouched for five thousand years, however, one of them had to be opened for technical reasons in the first year of the 21st century. Inside the capsule, truly terrifying findings were discovered - glassy eyeballs and blackened nail plates of victims of the nuclear explosion in Hiroshima. After opening and checking the contents, this terrible capsule was carefully reburied as a grim warning for future generations, if, of course, humanity is lucky enough to live to see the year 6970.
Maniac Collection
Sometimes gloomy messages are left for posterity not only by scientists and historians, but also by some much more sinister individuals, if, of course, this random find discovered in one of the American forests can be considered a “message” at all. Recently, one “treasure hunter”, who decided to comb the territory of a national park with a metal detector, came across a buried rusty box, in which completely innocent things were found, leading to completely dark thoughts. Inside the “capsule,” a whole collection of women’s items and clothing with traces of blood, carefully wrapped in plastic, was found. Among the “exhibits” were numerous photographs of different girls taken from a great distance, skirts and dresses, plush toys, jewelry and mobile phones manufactured in 2003. At the moment, the police are investigating the contents of the strange cache.
A very personal stash
And finally, to tone down the negative note a little, we will delight you with a funny rather than a scary story. Construction workers carrying out major renovations to a dormitory at the University of Illinois were surprised to discover numerous time capsules buried on campus by local students. While most of them contained the usual touching letters and souvenirs for posterity, the contents of one such capsule certainly raised more questions than answers. Honestly, we are all very interested in what motivated the person who decided to pass on two boxes of lubricant for anal sex to future generations.
