Baigong Pipes

Baigong pipes, pipelike formations found near the town of Delingha, Qinghai province, China. Although numerous theories have been proposed concerning their origins, including paranormal explanations, many scientists believe they are the fossilized casts of tree roots.

The pipes were found in 1996 by Bai Yu, a Chinese writer (or, in some reports, an archaeologist), when he was exploring a remote part of the Qaidam Basin. In an escarpment called Mount Baigong, he spotted what seemed to be a carved triangular cave opening near a saltwater lake called Toson Lake. Thinking that the cave was human-made, he went inside, where he saw what appeared to be an array of metal pipes rising from the floor and embedded in the walls. He observed more pipes protruding from the surface of the hill as well as along the shores of the lake. When he sent samples of the pipe material to a government laboratory for testing, the laboratory reported that 92 percent of the material consisted of such common minerals as ferric oxide, silicon dioxide, and calcium oxide but that 8 percent of it was of unknown composition. Thermoluminescence testing in 2001 established that the pipes long predated human habitation in the area. To some, this strongly suggested the possibility that the pipes were evidence of the presence of a previous extraterrestrial civilization in the area. The formations came to the attention of Western paranormal enthusiasts (who classified them as “out-of-place artifacts”) through articles published by China’s Xinhua News Agency describing a planned scientific investigation of the phenomenon and mentioning the exterrestrial theory.

Chinese geologists visited the site in 2001 and made further observations. They found that the pipes varied widely in size and shape and that they were largely composed of carbon and pyrite cements, all naturally occurring as a result of geological processes. Other explanations for the pipes were proposed. One theory was that uplift of the Plateau of Tibet left fissures in hard sandstone into which magma was forced, and chemical effects of subsequent geological processes resulted in the appearance of rusty iron. However, there was no evidence of ancient volcanoes in the area, and this theory was discounted. Another more promising explanation suggested that the same fissures filled with iron-rich sediments during flooding of the area, and this sediment hardened into pipelike structures of iron pyrite. This theory comported with the area’s geological past.

However, the theory that the scientists found most likely (according to a 2003 article in Xinmin Weekly) was that the pipes were fossilized casts of tree roots. Two American researchers, Joann Mossa and B.A. Schumacher, had studied similar cylindrical structures found in soils in southern Louisiana and concluded, in an article published in 1993 in the Journal of Sedimentary Research, that processes of pedogenesis and diagenesis had resulted in mineral elements forming around tree roots, the interiors of which rotted away, leaving the hollow pipelike cylinders. The Qaidam Basin had been a subtropical area with plentiful vegetation in an earlier age, and atomic emission spectroscopy revealed organic plant matter within the material making up the pipes. Therefore, Chinese scientists accepted this as the most probable theory to account for the Baigong pipes. However, not all investigators, in China or elsewhere, agreed with that explanation.