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In Search of the Death-Worm
A Real-Life Graboid? By Nick Redfern
September 13, 2008
As someone who spends pretty much his entire life chasing, investigating, and writing about mysterious beasts and diabolical monsters, I have to admit that I have come across some extremely wild and far-out stories in my time – and that’s putting it mildly!
But, the one strange creature that fascinates and intrigues me perhaps more than any other, is the aptly- and intriguingly-named Mongolian Death-Worm.
Now you might very reasonably ask: what on Earth can be so deadly about a mere worm? Well, I’ll tell you. And it has absolutely nothing at all to do with the sort of worm you might find in your back-yard.
Rumored to inhabit the sands of Mongolia’s harsh Gobi Desert, this particular worm is said to be a lean, mean, killing-machine of electrifying proportions. And I do mean that quite literally.
Local legend among the tribal folk that inhabit the region tells of a fearsome, writhing, worm-like beast – five-feet in length and bright red in color, no less – that has the ability to kill its prey by spitting a mouthful of sulfuric acid in their direction. Nice!
And if that fails to work, the Death-Worm can also render its victims dead via electrocution, and in much the same way that an electric-eel will give you one hell of a shock when the mood takes it.
At least, that’s all according to the legend!
But is it really feasible that the desolate sand-dunes and sprawling valleys of the Gobi Desert are home to a monstrous beast that sounds like a particularly lethal combination of the “Graboids” from Tremors, the acid-blooded extra-terrestrials from the Alien movie-franchise, and some nightmarish thing conjured up from the depths of H.P. Lovecraft’s dark imagination?
Well, amazingly and bizarrely, the answer to that controversial question could very well be: yes.
Known throughout the Gobi Desert as the Allghoi, which graphically translates as “Blood-filled intestine worm,” the legendary creature has been the subject of countless myths and tales for decades, if not for centuries even.
It was in 1926, in the pages of his book On the Trail of Ancient Man, that Professor Roy Chapman Andrews – the long-rumored inspiration for Harrison Ford’s character in the Indiana Jones movies – first exposed the exploits of the creature to the West; although he admitted that after hearing stories of the Death-Worm at a meeting of Mongolian officials, “none of those present ever had seen the creature, but they all firmly believed in its existence.”
Dr. Karl Shuker, a British-based author and investigator of mysterious animals, says that “during the 1960s a single death worm had killed an entire herd of camels when they unsuspectingly plodded across an expanse of sand concealing one of these dreaded beasts lying beneath the surface.”
And bringing matters more up to date, in June 2003, adventurer Adam Davies traveled to Mongolia to try and resolve the mystery for himself – something that got him arrested by the local armed forces as a suspected Chinese spy. Such is the typical day-to-day life of a gung-ho monster-hunter!
Although Davies did not find definitive, hard evidence for the existence of the killer-critter, he concluded in his new book Extreme Expeditions that “the habitat and remoteness of the area are consistent with a creature of this kind…and the vast and remote areas where it is said to live might explain why it has remained unknown to science.”
Admittedly and inevitably, the lack of firm evidence to support the idea that the Mongolian Death-Worm is a creature of reality rather than one purely of mythology, is troubling to those of us who search for real-life monsters.
And it’s this same lack of hard evidence that leads to hoots of derision from the skeptics and the debunkers who think we’re all nuts.
It’s worth noting, however, the words of the aforementioned Roy Chapman Andrews on this same issue:
“If the faith in its existence was not so strong and widespread, and if everyone did not describe the animal exactly the same way, I would believe it to be an idle myth.”
As for me, having dug deeply into the strange controversy of the Mongolian Death-Worm, I like to think that in an increasingly sterile world, the creature really is out there, forever slithering amongst the sands, happily frying, dissolving and devouring everything and everyone that crosses its path, and all the time remaining blissfully oblivious to the fact that on the other side of the world monster-hunters like me are debating its very existence.
And in view of all the above, maybe it’s time for Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward to resurrect their characters, Val and Earl, from Tremors and head off to the Gobi Desert…
Nick Redfern is a full-time monster-hunter and the author of four books on the subject: Three Men Seeking Monsters; Memoirs of a Monster Hunter; Man-Monkey; and his new book: There’s something in the Woods.
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