What it is
The Dropa (or Dzopa) stones are said to be 716 stone discs found in caves in the Bayan Har mountains, a remote range on the Tibetan Plateau in China's Qinghai province. The story holds that each disc, roughly 30 cm across with a hole in the middle, carries a double spiral groove filled with microscopic symbols. According to the tale, the writing records the crash of an alien craft about 12,000 years ago.
In the usual telling, a Chinese archaeologist named Chi Pu Tei found the discs in 1937 or 1938, along with small skeletons with oversized skulls. Decades later, a scholar named Tsum Um Nui supposedly deciphered the grooves at a Beijing academy, learned they described stranded visitors called the Dropa, and was mocked into exile in Japan.
None of this has been confirmed. The earliest printed version is a 1962 article in a small German vegetarian magazine, credited to a writer no one has traced and citing a news agency that left no record. The named Chinese scientists, the academy and the discs themselves have never been documented outside ancient-astronaut literature.
The Dropa stones matter to this site because they show how an ancient-alien story can grow on its own. Each retelling added details: cobalt content, electrical properties, museum sightings, a novel. They are a case study in how a claim can become 'common knowledge' with no object behind it.
The ancient-alien case
In The Alien Disks (S12E15), Ancient Aliens presents the Dropa stones as a record written by visitors who crash-landed in the Chinese mountains and could not return home. The show links the discs to reports of small, large-headed skeletons found in the same caves.
Giorgio Tsoukalos argues on the episode that mainstream archaeologists avoid artifacts like these out of fear, because studying writing that describes alien visitors could damage their careers (S12E15). In this view, the lack of stones in museums is a sign of suppression, not absence.
The show also suggests that Chinese authorities seized the discs and the remains, and that the story of Tsum Um Nui's ridicule and exile shows what happens to scholars who break ranks. Supporters of the theory add that local legends of small, unusual people in the region could be a memory of the crash survivors.
Writers in the genre also point to Ernst Wegerer's 1974 photographs of two discs in a Chinese museum as proof that the objects once existed. German authors Hartwig Hausdorf and Peter Krassa reported that when they asked at the Banpo Museum in 1994, they were told the discs had been destroyed on orders from above. Later retellings add that the discs are rich in cobalt and show a strange vibration, as if they once carried an electric charge.
What archaeologists say
Historians and skeptics say the Dropa stones are a hoax or a piece of fiction that escaped into the nonfiction shelves. The 1962 magazine article is the earliest source, and its author and its cited news agency have never been traced. No Chinese archaeologist named Chi Pu Tei and no scholar named Tsum Um Nui appear in any academic record, and critics note that 'Tsum Um Nui' does not even follow Chinese naming patterns. The Beijing institute said to have studied the stones has not been shown to exist.
No museum has ever been shown to display the discs. Wegerer's photographs, the main piece of physical evidence offered, appear to show ordinary bi discs: ancient Chinese ritual discs of jade or stone with a central hole, which are well known and have nothing to do with aliens. The real Dropa (Drokpa) are Tibetan herding people, not a stranded alien race.
Even well-known UFO researcher Jacques Vallée has called the tale a hoax. Jason Colavito sums up the state of play plainly: the stones have never been shown to exist outside the writings of ancient-astronaut authors. What does exist is a clear paper trail of magazine articles and books, each adding new details.
Timeline
- 1937–1938 (claimed)Chi Pu Tei's expedition supposedly finds the discs and small skeletons in Bayan Har caves; no record of the expedition exists.
- 1962A German vegetarian magazine prints the first known account, citing a Tokyo news agency that cannot be traced.
- 1966Vyacheslav Zaitsev retells the story in the Soviet magazine Sputnik, adding claims of cobalt and odd electrical behavior.
- 1960s–1970sItalian writer Peter Kolosimo and others spread the tale in popular books on ancient mysteries.
- 1974Austrian engineer Ernst Wegerer says he saw and photographed two discs at the Banpo Museum in Xi'an.
- 1978David Agamon publishes Sungods in Exile, presented as fact; its author later called it satire.
- 2017Ancient Aliens opens The Alien Disks (S12E15) with the Dropa story.
Still unanswered
- Who actually wrote the 1962 German article, and where did its author get the story?
- What exactly did Ernst Wegerer photograph at the Banpo Museum, and do the original photos survive?
- Did the story begin even earlier, in a Soviet magazine around 1960, as some critics suggest?
- Why has the tale persisted for more than 60 years with no disc ever produced?
Did you know?
- The first printed version of the Dropa story appeared in a German vegetarian magazine, not a science journal.
- A 1978 'nonfiction' book on the Dropa was later described by its own author as satire.
- Round stone and jade bi discs with central holes were made in China for thousands of years, which may explain the look of the 'Dropa' photos.
On Ancient Aliens
- S12E15 The Alien Disks Opens with the 1938 Dropa discovery story and Giorgio Tsoukalos's claim that archaeologists avoid such finds out of fear.
Episode numbers follow Wikipedia's episode list; History and some reviewers number a few seasons differently.
Visiting
Getting there. The Bayan Har range lies on the high Tibetan Plateau in Qinghai province, China; there is no known find site, and the area is remote, high and hard to reach.
What you can see. There are no Dropa stones on public display anywhere. The Banpo Museum in Xi'an, where Wegerer said he saw two discs, is a real Neolithic village museum but does not show them.
Tip. If you want to see what Wegerer probably photographed, look for jade bi discs in Chinese art collections at major museums.
Sources
- Wikipedia – Dropa stones en.wikipedia.org
- Bad Archaeology – The Dropa (or Dzopa) stones badarchaeology.com
- Jason Colavito – Review of Ancient Aliens S12E15 'The Alien Disks' jasoncolavito.com
- Wikipedia – List of Ancient Aliens episodes en.wikipedia.org
- Ancient Origins – The mysterious Dropa stones: fact or fiction? ancient-origins.net
Research notes: what we could not confirm
- Only one Ancient Aliens episode (S12E15) was confirmed to cover the Dropa stones; the old entry's S1E1 'The Evidence' could not be confirmed.
- The old entry said Zaitsev's Sputnik article appeared in 1967; Wikipedia gives 1966.
- Bad Archaeology traces the story to a Soviet magazine article around 1960, earlier than the 1962 German piece; this conflict was not resolved.
- The role of Peter Kolosimo in spreading the story rests on Colavito's review; his specific books and dates were not checked.
- The Hausdorf and Krassa account of their 1994 Banpo Museum visit comes from secondary retellings (e.g. Ancient Origins); it was not checked against their own books.
- The show's exact wording about Chinese government seizure of the discs was not confirmed from a transcript.
- The exact year and route of the claimed expedition vary between accounts and cannot be checked because no records exist.