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 Location: Mount Baigong, Qinghai Province, China.  Grid Reference: .

 

      Baigong Pipes: (Reported 'Metal pipes' and 'Pyramid').

The Baigong Pipes are reported to be associated with a �pyramid� about 50 to 60 metres (160 to 200 feet high) built on 'Mount Baigong'. The front of the �pyramid� is reported to contain three caves. The mouths of the two smaller caves have collapsed. Only the largest cave, which is 6 metres (18 feet) high, can be entered (1),(2). Two Baigong Pipes have been reported from the largest cave. One of these is described as being 40 cm (16 in) in diameter and preserved as a reddish-brown �half-pipe�. Within the same cave, another pipe-like feature of similar diameter was also found. �Dozens� of upright pipe-like features, about 10 to 40 cm (4 to 16 inches) in diameter, were also found protruding from Mount Baigong above the largest cave.

 

(Image of the Baigong Cave and Surrounding 'Pyramid')

 

   Mount Baigong ('Baigong' means 'Mount')

It should be immediately noted that the word 'Baigong' means 'Hill' in the local dialect, so it isn't worth looking for 'Mount Baigong' on any map. In addition, there is absolutely no evidence of a pyramid anywhere, the 'pyramid' is actually an escarpment by Toson Lake.

Near the foot of an escarpment (Mt. Baigong) by Toson Lake lie three caves, the largest and most accessible some eight meters high by six meters deep. Inside, spanning from the roof to the back end of the cave, runs a pipe 40 cm in diameter. Another one roughly the same size runs into the earth from the floor, with just the top protruding.

Additional Baigong Pipes were found on shore and within Toson Lake, which lies 80 m (260 ft) from the mouth of the largest cave. On the beach of Lake Toson, about 40 m (130 ft) from the mouth of the largest cave, apparently flat-lying, hollow, pipe-like features were found. These reddish-brown pipe-like features range in diameter from 2 to 4.5 cm (0.8 to 1.8 inch) and have an east-west orientation. Another group of pipe-like features, presumably vertical, either protrude from or lie just below the surface of the lake.

(Note the 'Alien Grey' head in the water)

Associated with these pipe-like features are "rusty scraps" and "strangely shaped stones". Analysis of the "rusty scraps" by Liu Shaolin at a local smelters reportedly found that they consist of 30 percent ferric oxide and large amounts of silicon dioxide and calcium oxide (1)(2). Many other iron pipes can be found scattered on sands and rocks. They run in an east-west direction with a diameter between 2 and 4.5 centimetres. They are of various strange shapes and the thinnest is like a toothpick, but not blocked inside after years of sand movement. Stranger still is that there are also some pipes in the lake, some reaching above water surface and some buried below, with similar shapes and thickness with those on the beach.

   

The cave entrance: (Left), Surrounding 'Stones' (Right).


The Discovery:

The pipes were first discovered by a group of U.S. scientists on the trail of dinosaur fossils, who reported them to the local authorities in Delingha. They were ignored until a report, possibly one of six made, by Ye Zhou, appeared in the "Henan Dahe Bao" (河南大河报 Henan Great River News) in June of 2002. Soon after, Quin Jianwen, a local official, discussed the pipe-like features with journalists of the Xinhua News Agency on June 16, 2002. The local government has promoted the pipe-like features as a tourist attraction with road signs and tourist guides. 

In 2002, expeditions to study the Baigong Pipes were reportedly planned. Anonymous (2002a, 2002b) reported that a group of nine Chinese scientists were to visit and study them in June 2002. A group of researchers from the Beijing UFO Research Association were making preparations to visit and study these pipe-like features. This group was to be composed of 10 experts, 10 journalists, and film team from CCTV (China Central Television). (3)

 

 News Article: Chinese Scientists to Head for Suspected ET Relics.

DELINGHA (QINGHAI), June 19, 2002 (Xinhuanet) -- A group of nine Chinese scientists will go to west China's Qinghai Province this month to closely examine the relics thought by some to have been left by extraterrestrial beings (ET).  It will be the first time scientists seriously study the mysterious site near Delingha City in the depths of the Qaidam Basin, according to government sources with the Haixi Mongolian and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, where Delingha is located.

The site, known by local people as "the ET relics", is on Mount Baigong about 40 kilometres to the southwest of Delingha City. On the north of the mountain are twin lakes dubbed as the "lover Lakes", one with fresh water and the other with salty water. The so-called ET relics structure is located on the south bank of the salty lake. It looks like a pyramid and is between 50 to 60meters high. At the front of the pyramid are three caves with triangular openings. The two smaller caves have collapsed and are inaccessible but the cave in the middle is the biggest, with its floor standing two meters above the ground and its top eight meters above the ground.

This cave is about six meters in depth. Inside there is a half-pipe about 40 centimetres in diameter tilting from the top to the inner end of the cave. Another pipe of the same diameter goes into the earth with only its top visible above the ground. Above the cave are a dozen pipes of various diameters which run into the mountain. All the pipes are red brownish, the same colour as that of surrounding rocks.

Scattered about the caves and on the bank of the salty lake area large number of rusty scraps, pipes of various diameters and strangely shaped stones. Some of the pipes run into the lake. According to Qin Jianwen, head of the publicity department of the Delingha government, the scraps were once taken to a local smeltery for analysis. The result shows that they are made up of 30 percent ferric oxide with a large amount of silicon dioxide and calcium oxide. Eight percent of the content could not be identified. "The large content of silicon dioxide and calcium oxide is a result of long interaction between iron and sandstone, which meansthe pipes must be very old," said Liu Shaolin, the engineer who did the analysis.

Full Article: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2002-06/19/content_448113.htm

 

 

Alternative Hyptothesese:

So, how are we to understand the presence of these pipes if they are not man-made (or alien-made). The first thing scientists turned to are geological processes in order to satisfactorily explain them. The Chinese have put forth several such hypotheses, including one involving the seepage of iron-rich magma into existing fissures in the rock.

A 2003 article in Xinmin Weekly described how this might work. Fractures caused by the uplift of the Qinghai-Tibet plateau could have left the ground riddled with such fissures, into which the highly pressurized magma driving the uplift would have been forced. Assuming this magma was of the right composition that, when combined with the chemical effects of subsequent geological processes, we might very likely expect to see such rusty iron structures in the local rock. But evidence of this has never surfaced, and the Chinese dismissed this theory. They also noted that the Qaidam oil field would not be able to exist if there were active volcanism in the area as recently as 150,000 years ago.

It was their next theory that has apparently led to a satisfactory scientific explanation, and this theory involved the same hypothesized fissures in the sandstone. But, instead of being filled with iron-rich magma, the fissures could have been washed full of iron-rich sediment during floods. Combined with water and the presence of hydrogen sulphide gas, the sediment could have eventually hardened into the rusty metallic pipe-like structures of iron pyrite found today. This theory was not fantastic, in part because there was no logical reason why the sandstone might happen to be laced with pipe shaped fissures. But the idea of flooding did make sense, given the geological history of the Qaidam Basin.

Three years before information was released about the cave at Lake Toson, researchers Mossa and Schumacher wrote in the Journal of Sedimentary Research about fossil tree casts in Louisiana. They found cylindrical structures in the soil, thermo-luminescence dated from 75-95,000 years ago. The chemical composition of the cylinders varied depending on where and when they formed and in what type of soil. The authors found that these were the fossilized casts of tree roots, formed by pedogenesis (the process by which soil is created) and diagenesis (the lithification of soil into rock through compaction and cementation). The result of this process was to create metallic pipe-like structures, which by comparing the descriptions offered by researchers, appear to be a perfect match for the Baigong Pipes.

Similar pipe-like structures have been found in the Jurassic sandstone of the South-western United States, as well as in Citronelle formations in Louisiana. Researchers have concluded that they were formed through natural processes.

 

The "Navajo Pipes": Natural concretionary pipe-like features, which are quite similar to the Baigong Pipes, occur in the Navajo Sandstone and other sandstones of South-western United States in the form of hematite "pipes". Hematite also occurs as other masses of diagenetic "ironstone" that exhibit a wide and amazing range of bizarre shapes, which can be described as both "strangely shaped stones" and "rusty scraps". For example, strangely shaped stones, pipe-like features, and other concretionary masses have been observed and described from the Navajo and other Jurassic sandstones within Utah and adjacent states. Brenda Beitler notes the presence of hollow "sub-horizontal planar strata-bound pipes" and "vertical pipes", which have been created by the precipitation of hematite within the Navajo Sandstone. (4) In addition, the bleached sandstone seen in the picture of the cave entrance is typical of sandstones, in which natural pipe-like features have been found (4)(5) The pipe-like features are the result of natural self-organization processes, which occur during the precipitation of iron oxides within sedimentary rocks.

The reported composition of the rusty scraps, 30 percent ferric oxide and large amounts of silicon dioxide and calcium oxide, is consistent with the hematite masses found in the Navajo and other Jurassic sandstones in Utah and elsewhere in the Southwestern United States. The ferric oxide and large amounts of silicon dioxide is what a person would expect iron oxide cemented sandstone to consist of. Calcite and other carbonate cements and concretions are typically associated with the hematite masses in the Navajo and other sandstones and sedimentary rocks.
(4)


The "Louisiana Cylinders": Cylindrical structures very similar to the Baigong Pipes have also been found protruding from outcrops of Pliocene Citronelle Formation in the Florida parishes of Louisiana and in older Pleistocene fluvial sediments within South-central Louisiana. These structures are as much as 70 cm in diameter and 100 cm in depth. Detailed studies of these cylindrical structures found that they were created by the formation of ironstone rims around tap roots of pine trees by soil forming processes.
(6)

Arguments against the 'Tap-root' theory are that the pipes appear to be straight and not curved. Also, they appear to be empty tubes.

(Prehistoric China)

(OOPArts)

(Anomalous Artefacts)

 

References:

1). "Chinese Scientists Head for Suspected ET Relics", Xinhua News Agency (2002-06-19). Retrieved on 20 November 2006.
2). Li, Heng (2002-06-25). "Mysterious Pipes Left by 'ET' Reported from Qinghai", People's Daily Online. Retrieved on 20 November 2006.
3). Lusby, J.; Wan A (July 18- July 31 2002). "1998 Discovery of Millennia-Old Spacecraft Launch Pad in China?", City Weekend.
4). "Chinese Scientists Head for Suspected ET Relics", Xinhua News Agency (2002-06-19). Retrieved on 20 November 2006.
5). Li, Heng (2002-06-25). "Mysterious Pipes Left by 'ET' Reported from Qinghai", People's Daily Online. Retrieved on 20 November 2006.
6). Lusby, J.; Wan A (July 18- July 31 2002). "1998 Discovery of Millennia-Old Spacecraft Launch Pad in China?", City Weekend.

 

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