In northwestern Yakutia in Siberia, in the basin of the Upper Viliuy River, there is a hard-to-reach area that bears the marks of a tremendous cataclysm that took place some 800 years ago, which toppled the entire forest cover and scattered stone fragments over hundreds of square kilometres. Distributed across this area are mysterious metal objects located deep underground in the permafrost. On the surface, their presence is revealed only by patches of weird vegetation. The ancient name of this area is Uliuiu Cherkechekh, which translates as "the Valley of Death".For many years the Yakut people have given a very wide berth to this remote area that has played and still plays a special, powerful role in the fate not only of civilisation but of the planet as a whole.The area in question can be described as a solid mass of swamps, alternating with near-impassable taiga, covering more than 100,000 square kilometres. Some fairly curious rumours have become attached to the area regarding metal objects of unknown origin located across its expanse.In order to shed light on whatever it was that, existing barely perceptibly alongside us, gave rise to these rumours, we had to go into the ancient history of this region to discover its beliefs and legends. We managed to recreate certain elements of the local palaeotoponymy and these matched in an astonishing manner the content of the ancient legends. Everything indicated that the legends and rumours were referring to quite specific things.