Urban legends come from all around the world. And when they happen in non-English speaking

countries, the version we get is usually boiled down to just the most sensational aspects

that the translator decided to share. Today we're going to look at one from Central Asia,

a former island in the now dry, Aral Sea, said to be the source of countless paranormal

events. Barza Kelmas. That's coming up next on Skeptoid.

You're listening to Skeptoid. I'm Brian Dunning from Skeptoid.com. The Legend of Barza Kelmas.

Travel with me now to the plains of Central Asia, to these seemingly endless expanses of

sand and brush and wind. Formerly, sunken beneath the now dry, Aral Sea, these

wastes are now the domain of Wildboro and Antelope. Here and there, a low prominence rises

above the desert floor, and one of these was once the uninhabited island, named Barza

Kelmas. It was the largest island in the Aral Sea, measuring 23 by 7 kilometers, and

being a barren spot in a now non-existent lake in one of the most barren parts of the world,

it would never have been particularly noteworthy. Were it not for one of the most astounding

collections of paranormal and unexplained phenomena said to have taken place there? Everything

from tyrannodons to missing time to vanishing populations has been associated with the

island, and today we're going to find out how much of it is true and what the source

for the rest of it might be. The Aral Sea itself is a lake on the border

between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. It's an endoreal sink, meaning a low spot that water

drains into and that has no outlet. For about 20,000 years it was the fourth largest lake

in the world, kept full by the rivers that flowed into it. Since the 1800s, it had an active

fishing industry taking advantage of its rich populations of both native and imported

fish species. But in the 1960s, the Soviet Union decided that it needed agriculture, more

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