Peng Jiamu, head of a Chinese Academy of Sciences expedition to Lop Nur, left a note — "I am going east to look for a well" — and walked out alone, never returning. The state dispatched nearly 100 aircraft sorties, dozens of vehicles, and thousands of people in four large-scale searches covering over 4,000 square kilometers, finding nothing — no body, no belongings, no footprints. It remains the largest unsolved case in Chinese scientific expedition history.
Account
Peng Jiamu, head of a Chinese Academy of Sciences expedition to Lop Nur, left a note — "I am going east to look for a well" — and walked out alone, never returning. The state dispatched nearly 100 aircraft sorties, dozens of vehicles, and thousands of people in four large-scale searches covering over 4,000 square kilometers, finding nothing — no body, no belongings, no footprints.
Remains the largest unsolved case in Chinese scientific expedition history.
Contested
⚠️ Official conclusion: Death by misadventure (lost in the desert). Popular theories — alien abduction, entry into a dimensional rift, teleportation, defection — are unsupported. In 2007, a possible dried corpse was found but DNA comparison was negative.
Sources
- Xinjiang branch of the Chinese Academy of Sciences archives
- Xinhua News Agency coverage (1980)
- The Mystery of Peng Jiamu's Disappearance