In the ancient myth, sleep triumphed against all of the wind, rain and sun, and took the title of "Sultan", no one can beat him.

Sleeping Sultan, and his throne in the village of Kalachi, 300 miles from the Kazakh city of Astana, where the residents suddenly fall into fits of sleep for days on end, unable to get up or wake up;

He even called the village the "sleeping village".

What is her story?

sudden onset of sleep

In the spring of 2013, sleeping sickness first struck 8 different people from the village of Kalachi of 640 people over one weekend, and when they woke up days later they didn't remember anything at all, according to Mentalfloss. ).

The residents started falling asleep one by one, no matter where they were or what they were doing, then suddenly fell into a complete slumber.

Viktor Kazachenko was driving out of the village to the nearest town on some errands, but he never got there.

After 4 days he woke up, to find himself in the hospital, he had fallen into a sudden fit of sleep while driving, yet he was not surprised, it was not the first time for him.

Laughing, Kazachenko tells The Guardian that his nap occurred before and he slept for 3 days straight.

And like the 152 cases that contracted the mysterious disease;

Kazachenko suffered from debilitating symptoms such as dizziness, nausea, severe headaches, memory loss, and high blood pressure, which persisted for six weeks after the accident.

152 cases of sudden sleep attacks in Kalachi village (Pixabay)

Popular interpretation of the phenomenonظاهر

Over the course of two years, scientists, doctors and officials were baffled by what was happening as they tested increased levels of radiation, carbon monoxide and radon, and the buildup of salts of heavy metals that can be toxic.

They conducted more than 20,000 laboratory and clinical tests, in air, soil, water, food, animals, building materials, and on the population themselves, and believed they had developed a mass psychosis.

In the absence of confirmed scientific facts;

Many residents speculated that the source of the problem was an abandoned Soviet-era uranium mine on the village's doorstep.

The Krasnogorsky mine, attached to the village of Kalachi, was once home to miners who were sent from Russia and across the Soviet Union to extract uranium for Soviet nuclear weapons and power stations, but it became a deserted area after it closed in the 1990s.

The government's solution to the problem

With the spread of speculation and the absence of truth and the continuation of sleep, officials had no choice but to transfer the residents from “Kalachi” and resettle them in other nearby villages and give them new homes and jobs. Indeed, more than half of the village’s residents moved amid the resistance of others and their refusal to leave their homes and village, according to “B”. BBC" (BBC).

The disease, dubbed "sleepy hollow", affected animals, children and adults alike. Children witnessed nightmarish hallucinations, winged horses, snakes in their beds and worms eating their hands.

Because of their continuous sleep, they dropped out of school, and their families were at the forefront of families that chose to leave the village for fear of their children.

Science triumphs over the population

After more than 700 days of research and investigation to find out what is happening in the village of the sleepers, the Kazakh government came out and announced that the mystery had been solved.

The researchers concluded, according to "The Guardian" - after analyzing the results of medical examinations of all residents - that the cause of sudden sleep is high levels of carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons in the air.

The government explained that despite the closure of the uranium mines;

The level of carbon monoxide is still high in the village air with a lack of oxygen, and this is the real cause of sudden sleeping sickness in that village, as its residents have already predicted.