Does This Footage Prove That 164-Year-Old Mummified Lama Was Wandering Around the Museum?

(Getty Images)

The remains of a lama, which are still remarkably preserved 92 years after his death, has defied the laws of science. A religious leader in Russia has claimed that the mummified monk was moving around the museum where he is kept—“This is not a joke, that’s for sure.”

Russian Buddhist Lama Dashi-Dorzho Itigilov passed away in 1927 when he was 75 years old. His body showed no signs of decomposition even after being exhumed three times: once in 1955, again in 1973, and yet again in 2002.

According to Dailymail, in 2002 when the lama was investigated by scientists and pathologists, the remains were found to be “in the condition of someone who had died 36 hours ago.” The amazingly well-preserved body remains free of visible decay and sits in the meditative “lotus position” with both feet folded on top of the thighs, and has remained so, even to this day. As per accounts from the observations, the muscles and inner tissue, soft joints, and the skin remained unmarred.

This cross-legged corpse is kept in a glass case on the second floor of the Palace of Khambo Lama Itigilov, near Ulan-Ude in Siberia.

However, in October 2016, a local religious leader claimed the lama’s mummified body was caught wandering around the second floor of the museum at night. The fuzzy CCTV image shows a grainy figure in camouflage dress, sitting on the carpet.

Lama Damba Ayusheev, the head of the Buddhist association in the Republic of Buryatia in Siberia, claimed nobody was around at the lama’s chamber at the time of the sighting, which occurred at 8:05 p.m.

“I see a figure of a man on the shot, as you do, and I know precisely there could not be anyone in the Palace of Khambo Lama Itigilov at this time,” he told The Siberian Times.

“The lama is in five or six meters down the hall on his throne, and this place [where the man stands] is at the front door.”

A day later, after the first sighting, another CCTV image showed the grainy figure sitting close to or on a sofa. “I was taken aback by this image, though somewhere in the depths of the mind I imagined such a possibility, but I still was not ready to see this,” Ayusheev added.

Ayusheev uploaded the images on Facebook. “This is not a joke, that’s for sure,” wrote Ayusheev, who refuted claims that the figure was a security guard holding two plastic bags.

A spokesman for the Buddhist association, Tubden Baldanov, concurred with Ayusheev that the lama had moved. He said it might be the lama’s spirit calling for world peace.

©Shutterstock | saiko3p

“The fact that he appeared in camouflage ... We do not know. Maybe it’s some kind of sign,” he said.

“Maybe he says something? Perhaps, that the international organizations should work on peace?”

So, what do you think about this slightly eerie phenomenon? Do you believe that the mummified body of Lama Dashi-Dorzho Itigilov was wandering around the museum in 2016—89 years after his death—and did so in a bid for world peace?