The Dropa Stones

Summary

The story runs that in the late 1930s an archaeological expedition found a stone disc about 300 millimetres across in caves in the Bayan Har mountains of northwest China, with 716 more found later, and that a translation of their grooved writing told of an alien spacecraft that crashed there twelve thousand years ago.

It first appears in the July 1962 issue of a German vegetarian magazine, credited to a writer of whom no trace can be found and to a news agency that, if it ever existed, has left no trace. The archaeologist named in it has no records. The translator’s name does not appear to be a real Chinese name. The academy said to have published the translation never existed. The best-known book on the subject was described by its own author as a hoax.

What is documented

Where it starts. The earliest known publication is an article titled, in translation, "UFOs in ancient times? The hieroglyphs of Bayan Kara Ula", in the July 1962 edition of Das Vegetarische Universum, a German vegetarian magazine. It is credited to a writer named as Reinhardt Wegemann and attributed to a Tokyo news agency called DINA.

Neither credit can be traced. Bad Archaeology finds no trace of Wegemann outside the story as published in the magazine, and says of the agency that "if the agency ever existed, it has left no trace". The same story, under the same byline and from the same agency, was republished in UFO-Nachrichten, a German UFO magazine, in July 1964.

How it spread. The Belgian UFO organisation BUFOI published a French translation in its March to April 1965 newsletter. A Russian translation followed in 1967, and Vyacheslav Zaitsev condensed it for the English-language Soviet magazine Sputnik under the title "Visitors from Outer Space", in July 1967. Jason Colavito traces the route from there to the mass market: nearly all of the article’s evidence, he writes, "is reproduced point for point" in Erich von Däniken’s Chariots of the Gods of 1968.

What the Sputnik version says. Zaitsev’s text, as Colavito reproduces it, gives 716 discs, cites a report on "Groove Writing Relating to Spaceships which, as Recorded on the Discs, Existed 12,000 Years Ago", and says that the discs contained "a large amount of cobalt and other metals" and "vibrate in an unusual rhythm". It names a "Peking Academy of Pre-History". No laboratory and no report behind those statements is identified in any source the Registry retrieved.

The names in the story have no records. In Bad Archaeology’s words, "there are no records of an archaeologist named Chu Pu Tei", the discoverer the story names, and "Tsum Um Nui does not even appear to be a genuine Chinese name", for its translator. "There has never been a Beijing Academy for Ancient Studies", the institution said to have published the translation.

The photographs, and what they show. In 1974 an Austrian engineer, named as Ernst Wegener or Wegerer, photographed two discs at the Banpo Museum in Xi’an. Bad Archaeology judges that the photographs "appear to be genuine, but they merely show stone disks" with a central hole and double spirals, of the kind "known as Bi discs", a known form of ancient Chinese ritual object.

One circulated image contradicts the story outright. A photograph, not Wegener’s, shows a disc propped on a chair, "clearly with a diameter much larger than the 300 mm claimed by the story".

The book is an admitted hoax. Sungods in Exile: Secrets of the Dzopa of Tibet was published in 1978 by Neville Spearman, credited to a Dr Karyl Robin-Evans and edited under the name "David Agamon". A 2004 search of Oxford University’s catalogues, Patrick Gross reports, found no trace of Robin-Evans. The real author, David Gamon, described the book in Fortean Times as a satire and his "favourite hoax".

No disc can be examined. No source the Registry retrieved places any of the 716 in a museum. By 1994, Bad Archaeology records, the two discs photographed at Banpo had disappeared, and so, it is alleged, had the former curator. Bad Archaeology sees "no mystery about a curator no longer being in post after twenty years".

Leading explanations

The story is a fabrication that grew by republication (established as to origin). The account traces to a single 1962 magazine article whose author and source agency cannot be traced, and it acquired its authority by being republished and translated through the 1960s rather than by acquiring any evidence. Bad Archaeology’s assessment: "In short, the details permit us to dismiss the story as science fiction."

The photographed objects are bi discs (widely accepted). The two discs photographed in 1974 match a well-known form of ancient Chinese ritual object with a central hole, unrelated to the story.

The discs are a record of a crashed spacecraft (rejected). No disc has been produced for examination, no excavation record appears in any source the Registry retrieved, and every person named in the account is untraceable.

Current status

Debunked. The chain of publication is traceable and it ends in a magazine article rather than in an excavation. The author credited with that article cannot be found, the news agency credited as its source has left no trace, the archaeologist, translator and academy named in it have no records, and no disc has been produced for examination. The photographs that circulate show bi discs, ancient ritual objects of a known type. The best-known book about the subject was described by its own author as a hoax. Production of a single disc that can be examined, with a documented excavation history, would change this record.

Last reviewed: November 2026. Records are provisional. Where the evidence changes, the entry changes. Found an error? Tell us.