The Bermuda Triangle is a triangular area of water going north up the US eastern seaboard, south west into the Caribbean and east as far as the Azores. It is alleged that ships and planes disappear mysteriously in this area.
It was first mentioned in articles in the early 1950s, with Fate Magazine joining in. It became world famous following books by Vincent Gaddis and Charles Berlitz.

 The area is the busiest shipping area in the world.

So is it expected that 1,000+ ships and planes could disappear? Lawrence David Kusche argued, in 1975, that disappearances are not greater, the numbers exaggerated by sloppy research.
Well publicised disappearances – such as Flight 19, where a training wing of fighters disappeared in Dec 1945, followed by the plane sent to find them – added to the mystery. The USS Cyclops disappeared in 1918, taking 300 crew with her.

There are many theories.

They include UFO activity, leftover tech from Atlantis and the tormented souls of black slaves thrown overboard. Ivan Sanderson suggested magnetic vortices around the world where warm and cold air meet.
Gas hydrates on the seabed could also play a part, releasing methane in large quantities. Rising to the surface, water would go frothy, buoyancy would fail and a boat would sink. Rising into the air, methane could ignite a plane engine. Wreckage hits the bottom, water disturbance eases and silt covers the evidence.

There are survivors.

They speak of faulty compasses, equipment malfunction, loss of horizon, banks of fog and more. But all these events are common. What could be unusual is congregation leading to a single event.
We all experience such congregations. They are called coincidence. They have inevitability, and coincidences build upon coincidence. So could it be possible that such coincidences could coincidentally happen in a specific location?

 The Bermuda Triangle could be statistically inevitable to occur.

But coincidences often have a helping hand from the human mind. Consider: the triangle is a media creation. Disappearances may have happened before the 1950s, but they had no meaning in terms of a mystery.
Now they do. And like a curse, knowing you are in the area could have an effect upon behaviour. Innocuously, it makes you give meaning to a normal event and relate it to the mystery. And in deadly ways, it could affect your reaction to such an event, making disaster inevitable.
The Bermuda Triangle could be vital to understanding the nature of disaster. Often, we describe disasters through human error or congregation of events leading to the disaster. But as in the above idea, it could be coincidence and feelings of inevitability they produce that lead to disaster.
In chaos theory we know of the butterfly’s wings causing a hurricane. A tiny event can build up to cataclysm. Maybe it is time to forget ridiculing the Bermuda Triangle and see it as an opportunity to study processes that could lie behind ALL disasters.

© Anthony North, March 2009

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Nepenthes tenax - Creptomundo Rat Eating Plants

A rare new species of plant that eats small rats has been discovered at the tip of Cape York.

Pitcher plants, otherwise known as flesh-eating plants, grow throughout Cape York but now a new, larger species that grows like a vine has been discovered.

The new species has been called “Tenax”.

James Cook University ecologist Charles Clarke and a colleague found the new species at a swamp near the Jardine River, but exactly where is a secret.

“They are quite vulnerable,” he said.

“They are only found in a few small areas and if we broadcast the location then there are people out there who would take advantage of that.

“There’s a lot of interest in pitcher plants from Australia, even from people outside of Australia.

“And while people often associate these things with New Guinea or Borneo or Sumatra, the fact that there’s more species here is actually very exciting.”“Rat-eating plant discovered in Cape York,” Australian Broadcasting Corporation, January 22, 2008.

Nepenthes tenax (Latin: tenax = tenacious) is a lowland species of tropical pitcher plant native to northern Queensland, Australia. It is the third Nepenthes species recorded from the continent, and its second endemic species. N. tenax is closely related to the two other Australian Nepenthes species: N. mirabilis and N. rowanae.

N. tenax grows to a height of around 100 cm with pitchers rarely exceeding 15 cm. The stem is usually self-supporting. In its natural habitat, it is sympatric with N. mirabilis and N. rowanae. Two natural hybrids involving these species have been found.

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Central sun

As far as a hypothetical central sun is concerned, an analogy can perhaps be drawn with the external sun. The theory that the sun is powered exclusively by thermonuclear reactions faces serious problems, the main one being that the sun only produces about a third as many neutrinos as the model requires. The fact that the sun undergoes periodic fluctuations in output and size is also difficult to reconcile with thermonuclear theory [21].

    To account for the neutrino shortage, it has been proposed that electron-neutrinos from the sun change into muon-neutrinos and tauon-neutrinos on their way to the earth, these two neutrino 'flavours' being more difficult to detect. In June 2001 the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) in Canada announced that it had confirmed this theory. However, the only way to truly confirm it would be to make neutrino measurements at the sun and at several points between sun and earth. Since the experiments in question only involved measurements on earth, the joyful acceptance of the SNO's pronouncements by other mainstream scientists merely confirms how uncritical and unprofessional they can be when orthodox theories are at stake [22].

    Harold Aspden is one of the scientists who rejects the hypothesis that the sun derives its power from fusion of colliding protons in its allegedly super-hot interior. He argues that gravity close to the sun's surface squeezes hydrogen atoms so close together that they ionize. And since the gravitational interaction between two free protons is 1836 times greater than that between two free electrons, the net repulsion of the protons in the sun's interior balances gravitational forces and prevents further compaction. As a result the sun has a uniform mass density and temperature that is insufficient to trigger fusion - 'and if it were,' says Aspden, 'the sun would have been blown to pieces long ago'! He continues:

The energy the sun radiates is sustained because free electrons recombine with protons and when they do, this imports energy from the quantum underworld (the aether) to get those electrons back into their quantum state orbits. The sun's energy is not fusion energy but simple energy drawn from the aether by gravity squeezing hydrogen atoms close together to cause ionization. [23]

    Paul LaViolette argues that the cores of both planets and stars produce what he calls 'genic energy', because they are supercritical regions of space where photons draw energy from the underlying ether. He argues that 15% of the sun's energy could be supplied by genic energy, while the rest comes from nuclear fusion. He shows that the sun and low-mass stars (red and brown dwarfs) have the same mass-luminosity relation as the four gas giants (Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus), suggesting that they are powered chiefly by the same energy generation mechanism. He maintains that genic energy can account for 73% of the earth's entire thermal output, including all of the core heat flux. This would render unnecessary the current speculations that this heat comes from the gradual release of heat trapped since primordial times, or from the gradual solidification of a molten core, or from radioactive decay [24].

    Jones et al. have proposed that cold nuclear fusion might be an important source of the heat emanated by the earth [25]. They argue that the fusion of deuterium and hydrogen deep within the earth would explain the high levels of helium-3 found in rocks, liquids, and gases from volcanoes and in active tectonic regions of the earth's crust. They point out that Jupiter radiates twice as much heat as it receives from the sun, and suggest that the excess heat could come from cold fusion in Jupiter's core, which is believed to consist of metallic hydrogen together with iron silicates. LaViolette argues that while cold fusion might be feasible for planet-sized bodies, stars would exhaust their deuterium supply within a few million years due to their much higher luminosities, so that cold fusion does not explain why the planets share a common mass-luminosity relation with lower main-sequence stars.

    That there may be unrecognized sources of radiation deep within the earth is shown by the phenomenon of 'anomalous cascades' -- huge showers of nuclear particles that have been measured in a deep mine coming from the sides and even from below. Neutrinos are the only known particles capable of penetrating the entire earth to create the upwardly directed showers, but ordinary neutrinos from the sun do not seem to have enough energy to produce them [26].

21] Don Scott, 'The electric sun', http://www.users.qwest.net/~dascott/Sun.htm.

[22] Don Scott, 'Sudbury Neutrino Observatory report: an analysis', http://www.users.qwest.net/~dascott/Sudbury.htm.

[23] Harold Aspden, 'Tapping nature's energy source', aetherometry.com/aspden_tapping_nature's_energy_source.

[24] Paul LaViolette, Subquantum kinetics: A systems approach to physics and cosmology, Alexandria, VA: Starlane Publications, 2nd ed., 2003, pp. 189-204; Paul LaViolette, Genesis of the Cosmos: The ancient science of continuous creation, Rochester, VE: Bear and Company, 2004, pp. 318-27 (http://www.etheric.com).

[25] S.E. Jones et al., 'Observation of cold nuclear fusion in condensed matter', Nature, vol. 338, pp. 737-40, 1989; 'Rocks reveal the signature of fusion at the centre of the earth', New Scientist, 6 May 1989, p. 30.

[26] 'Particle shower sprays upward', Science News, vol. 118, p. 246, 1980.

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Surtsey

Surtsey is a new volcanic island off the south coast of Iceland that was created in 1963. The island grew quickly, within 4 days it was more than 1,970 ft. long and 197 ft. high. Eighteen months later, green plants where found growing on it. By 1968, it was home to 40 species of insects and birds.

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Lake Baikal

Lake Baikal is the deepest lake on Earth, holding 1/5 of the planet's fresh water. As India continues to barge northward, Baikal may one day become a new ocean which will split Siberia apart.

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Deep drilling springs surprises

How much faith can be put in the theories concerning the composition and density of rocks at different depths? The only place where the accuracy of scientific models can be tested directly is in the uppermost few kilometres of the crust. Although oil companies have drilled as deep as 8 km on land, they drill in sedimentary basins. The igneous and metamorphic basement, which averages 40 km thick and makes up most of the continental crust, has rarely been sampled deeper than 2 or 3 km.

    The deepest borehole drilled for scientific purposes is located on the Kola Peninsula near Murmansk, Russia, in the northwestern part of the Baltic Shield. The drilling of the main borehole began in 1970, and a final depth of 12,262 metres was reached in 1994. The drilling of this and other deep and superdeep wells has produced one surprise after another, and the findings have been extremely embarrassing for earth scientists [1]. One scientist commented: 'Every time we drill a hole we find the unexpected. That's exciting, but disturbing.' And a science reporter remarked: 'Kola revealed how far from truth scientific theory can roam.'

    At the Kola hole, scientists expected to find 4.7 km of metamorphosed sedimentary and volcanic rock, then a granitic layer to a depth of 7 km (the 'Conrad discontinuity'), with a basaltic layer below it. The granite, however, appeared at 6.8 km and extends to more than 12 km; no basaltic layer was ever found! Seismic-reflection surveys, in which sound waves sent into the crust bounce back off contrasting rock types, have detected the Conrad discontinuity beneath all the continents, but the standard interpretation that it represents a change from granitic to basaltic rocks is clearly wrong. Metamorphic changes brought about by heat and pressure are now thought to be the most likely explanation.

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Most earth scientists believe that, as well as having a high density, the earth's core, unlike the mantle, must be metallic in order to generate the geomagnetic field. According to the dynamo theory, fluid motion in the earth's outer core moves conducting material (liquid iron) across an already existing, weak magnetic field and generates an electric current. The electric current, in turn, produces a magnetic field that also interacts with the fluid motion to create a secondary magnetic field. Together, the two fields are stronger than the original and lie essentially along the earth's rotation axis.

    The main characteristics of the geomagnetic field include short-term and long-term fluctuations in intensity, reversals of polarity at irregular intervals (ranging from tens of thousands to tens of millions of years), the 11° offset between the geomagnetic axis and spin axis, and the drift of the magnetic poles around the geographic poles in an estimated period of several thousand years. Scientists assume that the dynamo theory can explain these features, though a detailed understanding is lacking. There are competing dynamo models, and a great deal of fudging is required to get the numerical models to reproduce some of the features of the actual magnetic field [1].

    To explain the offset between the earth's geomagnetic axis and the spin axis, some scientists maintain that the earth's overall field may be a combination of a central, dynamo-created dipole field, aligned with the rotation axis, and several variable dipole fields located in the outermost portions of the core. But other scientists argue that there is no physical mechanism to generate dipoles near the core's surface [2]. Some planets have even greater and more puzzling tilts between their magnetic and rotation axes: 46.8° in the case of Neptune, and 58.6° in the case of Uranus.

    Even assuming that an outer core of liquid iron exists, there are major problems with the dynamo theory. Joseph Cater writes:

Scientists are somewhat vague as to how a magnetic field could extend 2,000 miles beyond an electric current. It requires a very powerful current to produce even relatively weak magnetic effects a very short distance above the flow. The electrical resistance of iron, at the alleged temperatures of the core, would be staggering. A steady flow of electricity requires constant potential differences. How are such potential differences produced and maintained in this hypothetical core?
    The magnitude, width, and depth of such currents would have to be unbelievable to extend the magnetic field even a small fraction of the distance required, and the EMF [electromotive force] required to produce it would be even more incredible. Where could such an EMF come from? So far, scientists seem reluctant to explain this, especially since these currents are confined to a ball and would therefore follow closed paths. [3]

    V.N. Larin questions whether a mechanism exists to maintain strong electric currents in the earth's interior during its entire evolution, and argues that the very existence of active convection in the core is dubious. If convection is of thermal origin, then the source of heat in the iron core is incomprehensible. Another possibility is radioactivity, but no mechanism is known which might have segregated radioactive elements together with iron and nickel. Some scientists think that the heat source of convection may be the ongoing growth of the core. In this case, the heat would come from the potential energy of heavy particles settling in the gravity field, but this is unlikely to have lasted several billion years [4].

    An alternative theory has been proposed by J.M. Herndon, who suggests that the earth's magnetic field is largely produced by electric currents generated by a self-sustaining nuclear fission reaction in a uranium (and thorium) subcore at the centre of the earth, having a density as high as 26 g/cm³ [5]. However, the existence of such a subcore is entirely hypothetical.

    Given their belief in the generation of magnetic fields by convection currents of electrically conducting liquid iron in a planet's core, scientists were puzzled by the discovery that the Moon and Mercury had significant magnetic fields, since the Moon's core is believed to be entirely solid and Mercury's core nearly so. Venus is believed to have an entirely liquid core and was expected to possess a strong magnetic field, but no significant self-generated field has been detected. The magnetic fields of Jupiter and Saturn are believed to be generated by electric currents within a layer of liquid metallic hydrogen inside them, while the fields of Neptune and Uranus are thought to be produced in their superheated liquid mantles -- but all this is little better than guesswork [6]. Clearly the present dynamo theory cannot explain the magnetic fields detected around some asteroids.

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Point Pleasant, West Virginia

Mothman and all the bizarre activity and high-strangeness that accompanied it back in the late 1960s put Point Pleasant on the paranormal map. Although things seem to have calmed down in Point Pleasant in recent decades, the Mothman event, chronicled by John Keel in his book The Mothman Prophecies (which later became a film), stands as one of the most peculiar and multi-layered episodes in the annals of paranormal phenomena. So many odd things were taking place that a list of them looks like an entire season of "The X-Files":

• Sightings of the Mothman creature itself by more than than 100 witnesses - a tall, headless beast with glowing red eyes and huge bat-like wings.
• UFO sightings.
• Men-in-black appearances. Arriving black cars, these weird men mumble codes and bits of strange languages. They try to drink jelly and have difficulty using knives and forks.
• Phantom phone calls.
• Electrical disturbances to such devices as TVs, telephones and a police radio.
• Eerie predictions and spontaneous prophecies, some of which were oddly out of sync.
• Missing time.
• Animal mutilations.
•  
• Mental telepathy.
• Strange coincidences and repeating numbers.
• A missing, possibly dead dog.

The Bridgewater Triangle - Massachusetts

This paranormal area was first defined by researcher Loren Coleman in his book Mysterious America. The Triangle encompasses an area of about 200 square miles and includes the towns of Abington, Rehoboth and Freetown at the points of the triangle, and Bridgewater, West Bridgewater, North Middleboro, Segreganset, Dighton, North Dighton, Berkley, Myricks, Raynham, East Taunton, and Taunton inside the triangle. Central to the area is the mysterious Hockomock Swamp, which the Native Americans called "the Devil's swamp."

Paranormal activity in the Triangle include:

• Low-flying UFOs. The first UFO sighted over Bridgewater was in 1760, and was described as a sphere of fire that was so bright it cast shadows in broad daylight. Another was sighted on Halloween night in 1908, appropriately by two undertakers. Dozens more UFOs have been seen in the vicinity from the 1960s through to present day.

• Sightings of Bigfoot. The hairy hominid has been seen many times around Hockomock Swamp. In April, 1970, the creature allegedly picked up the rear of a police squad car, much to the surprise of the two officers inside.

• Thunderbird sightings. Witnesses claim to have seen a giant bird or pterodactyl-like flying creature with a wingspan as great as 12 feet.

• A large phantom dog with red eyes was seen killing two ponies. The witness, the ponies' owner, said the beast ripped their throats and was almost as big as the ponies themselves.

• Assorted strange or out-of-place creatures, including black panthers, giant turtles and snakes as thick as tree trunks.

• Cattle mutilations.

• Indian curses. According to one tale, the Native Americans had cursed the swamp centuries ago because of the poor treatment they received from the Colonial settlers.

• Ghosts. Visitors have experienced such haunting activity as the smell of smoke when there is no fire; a bonfire atop a rock that mysteriously vanished and ghostly voices in Algonquin tongue. There may also be a redheaded phantom hitchhiker who terrorizes motorists on Route 44.

• Spook lights have been seen on a number of occasions

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Sedona - Arizona

Sedona has become a kind of Mecca for New Age seekers, psychics, UFO hunters and explorers of the unexplained, and was the site where the "harmonic convergence" of 1987 was celebrated. It's been called the "New Age Disneyland of karmic consumerism."

Strangeness reports include:

• "In recent years, Sedona has become known as the site of frequent UFO sightings," says Loy Lawhon, About.com's former Guide to UFOs. "The objects seen most frequently there are the 'ball of light' type UFOs rather than those that resemble metallic craft."
• Site of the alleged Sedona Vortex - an interdimensional portal or doorway between our dimension and some other, or to a higher level of consciousness. (There's a lot of money being made by guided tours, seminars, psychic readers and the like surrounding these vortexes.) Bigelow Ranch - Uintah Basin, Utah

• This 480-acre cattle ranch in central Utah was so plagued by UFOs and other strange phenomena that its one-time owners, Terry and Gwen Sherman, were eager to get rid of it. A willing buyer was found in Las Vegas real estate tycoon Robert T. Bigelow because he was intrigued by the mysterious goings-on. He brought in a team of investigators and set up arrays of surveillance equipment to find out what was taking place. Some have dubbed the ranch "the strangest place on Earth."

• Here's just some of what was going on:

• • Unexplained cattle mutilations, and cattle that just disappeared. Ten of the Sherman's cows reportedly vanished.
  • UFOs "the size of football fields." And in 1980, a rancher claimed to have seen a 40-foot silver sphere on the ground of what later became the Sherman ranch.
  • Terry Sherman claimed to have actually seen aliens come out of one UFO. "It was a human type, over seven feet tall, decked out in a totally black uniform and very huge, very heavyset," he reported.
  • Interdimensional portals that were seen to open in mid-air. The Shermans said they saw lights emerging from these doorways.
  • Floating balls of light, one of which might have toasted the family dogs. The Sherman's three dogs vanished after chasing a ball of light. A circular burn mark was found on the ground near where the dogs were last seen.
  • Gwen Sherman was supposedly chased by several red balls of light while driving home one night.

  Links:

• • Deseret News article
  • UFO Shadow Man Bigelow And The Utah Ranch From Hell

  Big Thicket - Hardin County, Texas

• The Big Thicket spreads across East Texas and Southwestern Louisiana, and may be home to a host of paranormal phenomena and earthly anomalies:

• • Ghost lights, some of which have been known to disable automobile engines and seem to exhibit intelligence. This light can be found along Black Creek near the old ghost town of Bragg in eastern Texas. The Big Thicket Ghost Light has been described as starting as a pinpoint of light among the swamp trees that grows to the brightness of a flashlight, then dims and fades away. Its color has been likened to that of a pumpkin.
  • Phantom primitive Indians who allegedly have attacked people.
  • Howling, ape-like wildmen. They "wander the deep woods at night, and occasionally even the town margins and suburbs, howling like banshees," says author Rob Riggs.
  • Unexplained fireballs that streak through darkened skies.

  Big Thicket - Hardin County, Texas

• The Big Thicket spreads across East Texas and Southwestern Louisiana, and may be home to a host of paranormal phenomena and earthly anomalies:

• • Ghost lights, some of which have been known to disable automobile engines and seem to exhibit intelligence. This light can be found along Black Creek near the old ghost town of Bragg in eastern Texas. The Big Thicket Ghost Light has been described as starting as a pinpoint of light among the swamp trees that grows to the brightness of a flashlight, then dims and fades away. Its color has been likened to that of a pumpkin.
  • Phantom primitive Indians who allegedly have attacked people.
  • Howling, ape-like wildmen. They "wander the deep woods at night, and occasionally even the town margins and suburbs, howling like banshees," says author Rob Riggs.
  • Unexplained fireballs that streak through darkened skies.

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THERE ARE MANY places around the US that seem to be focal points of high strangeness - vortexes of bizarre sightings, unexplained encounters and eerie events. Reports gathered over the decades have bestowed reputations on these locations as places you might not want to travel alone, or at least tread carefully. The interesting thing about most of these areas is that they are confluences of a variety of phenomena, from ghosts and monsters to Bigfoot and UFOs. Following are a handful of them, and the strange things seen there.

The Superstition Mountains - Arizona

This mountainous area in south central Arizona didn't get its name for nothing. And white men weren't the first to note its bad vibrations; the Apache Indians called it the Devil's playground.

Among the reported strangeness are:

THERE ARE MANY places around the US that seem to be focal points of high strangeness - vortexes of bizarre sightings, unexplained encounters and eerie events. Reports gathered over the decades have bestowed reputations on these locations as places you might not want to travel alone, or at least tread carefully. The interesting thing about most of these areas is that they are confluences of a variety of phenomena, from ghosts and monsters to Bigfoot and UFOs. Following are a handful of them, and the strange things seen there.

The Superstition Mountains - Arizona

This mountainous area in south central Arizona didn't get its name for nothing. And white men weren't the first to note its bad vibrations; the Apache Indians called it the Devil's playground.

Among the reported strangeness are

• An entry into a subterranean world. Those who claim to have penetrated the tunnel tell of the remains of ancient structures and a spiral staircase that leads down into the bowels of earth. Some say Reptilian humanoids have come out of these portals.
• Time and dimensional shifts. Mary Sutherland relates her weird experience of "apportaton" at Apache Junction.
• Spirit faces in the rocks.
• A legend that the mountains were once guarded by a race of pygmies.
• Location of the famous "Lost Dutchman" mine.
• Site of the Circlestone medicine wheel, 6,000 feet up in the mountains - "an artifact that could be as important as England’s Stonehenge," according to some researchers.
• During the '50s, '60s and '70s, numerous UFOs were sighted around Flat Iron and Bluff Springs Mountain, which is adjacent to Circlestone. In 1973, two campers reported seeing a UFO land and then take off from the Circlestone area.

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The interior of the Earth, some believe, is home to strange races of technologically advanced beings. Who are they and where are the hidden entrances to their subterranean cities?

Many readers of the paranormal and the unexplained are familiar with the theory that the Earth is hollow. The idea is based on the ancient legends of many cultures that say there are races of people - entire civilizations - that thrive in subterranean cities. Very often, these dwellers of the world beneath are more technologically advanced than we on the surface. Some even believe that UFOs are not from other planets, but are manufactured by strange beings in the interior of the Earth.

Who are these strange races of beings? How did they come to live inside the Earth? And where are the entrances to their underground cities?

Agharta

The Network. One of the most common names cited for the society of underground dwellers is Agharta (or Agartha)  with its capital city of Shamballa. The source for this information, apparently, is The Smoky God, the "biography" of a Norwegian sailor named Olaf Jansen. According to Agartha - Secrets of the Subterranean Cities, the story, written by Willis Emerson, explains how Jansen's sloop sailed through an entrance to the Earth's interior at the North Pole. For two years he lived with the inhabitants of the Agharta network of colonies who, Emerson writes, were a full 12 feet tall and whose world was lit by a "smoky" central sun. Shamballa the Lesser, one of the colonies, was also the seat of government for the network. "While Shamballa the Lesser is an inner continent, its satellite colonies are smaller enclosed ecosystems located just beneath the Earth' s crust or discreetly within mountains."

How and Why They Went There. The many cataclysms and wars taking place on the surface drove these people underground, according to Secrets: "Consider the lengthy Atlantean-Lemurian war and the power of thermonuclear weaponry that eventually sank and destroyed these two highly advanced civilizations. The Sahara, the Gobi, the Australian Outback and the deserts of the U.S. are but a few examples of the devastation that resulted. The sub-cities were created as refuges for the people and as safe havens for sacred records, teachings and technologies that were cherished by these ancient cultures."

The Entrances. There are allegedly several entrances to the Kingdom of Agharta throughout the world: 

• Kentucky Mommoth Cave, in south-central Kentucky, US.
• Mount Shasta, California, US - the Agharthean city of Telos allegedly exists within and beneath this mountain.
• Manaus, Brazil.
• Mato Grosso, Brazil - the city of Posid supposedly lies beneath this plain.
• Iguaçú Falls, border or Brazil and Argentina.
• Mount Epomeo, Italy.
• Himalayan Mountains, Tibet - the entrance to the underground city of Shonshe is allegedly guarded by Hindu monks.
• Mongolia - the underground city of Shingwa allegedly exists beneath the border of Mongolia and China.
• Rama, India - beneath this surface city is a long lost subterranean city, they say, also named Rama.
• Pyramid of Giza, Egypt.
• King Solomon's Mines.
• Dero Caves, ?.
• North and South Poles.

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According to an article entitled in the Fall 1985 edition of Search magazine, a high-ranking but unnamed Naval officer told of the discovery of a huge network of tunnels under portions of the west coast of the U.S. He said that U.S. nuclear submarines had explored some of these tunnels, which are accessible just off the continental shelf, and had followed them inland for several hundred miles. Here are more highlights of this incredible claim:

• What is being passed off as the San Andreas Fault are actually large, unsupported chambers that are in the process of collapsing.
• A well-known U.S. Nuclear submarine lost its way in one of the passages and was never heard from again. (Two U.S. nuclear submarines have disappeared under mysterious circumstances - the U.S.S. Thresher and the U.S.S. Scorpion.)
• Some of California is actually floating on the ocean. When oil companies began pumping oil from beneath the city of Long Beach, it began to sink - up to 26 feet before the pumping was stopped.

More and More Tunnels

The above story was written up in a long article called "The Underground Empire," which reveals many more details. It also offers these other fascinating accounts:

• A couple from Bishop, Calif. discovered a circular hole in the ground while exploring for petroglyphs. They climbed down the hole which bottomed out to a horizontal corridor. On one of the walls was carved a face out of the mouth of which poured water. Suddenly the water started to gush out of the face and from other openings, and the couple was forced to abandon the tunnel. Later, both recalled that they heard music down there.
• In West Virginia, workers found some caverns with strange hieroglyphics written on the walls. They also claimed to gear faint voices and what sounded like machinery coming from beyond the walls of the cavern.
• Two men searching for bat guano (which has some value as fertilizer) at the foot of Mount Lassen found a deep cave. They followed it inside for a mile or two and noticed that the floor was worn smooth, as if it had been used for a road. Eventually they met three strange "men" who asked if they are "surface people," and then took them deeper in the cave on an electromagnetically powered hovercraft. The story gets stranger from there.
• Travelers Ferdinand Ossendowski and Nicholas Roerich claim to have discovered a subterranean society below central Asia, which they referred to as Agharta or Agharti. They say it is home to 20 million people, and their civilization extends throughout all the subterranean passages of the world.
• A 12-man speleological team broke into an ancient tunnel system in northern Arkansas and encountered the inhabitants of the subsurface world.
• Exploring another cave in Arkansas, just north of Batesville, explorers found a tunnel illuminated by a greenish phosphorescence where they met a race of beings who stood 7 to 8 feet tall and had bluish skin. The beings, who have advanced technology, told the explorers they are the direct descendents of Noah.

Brazil is said to have many entrances to an underground world. Several people claim to have proof:

• Two explorers returning from tunnels near Ponte Grosse in Brazil say they spent five days in an underworld city inhabited by 50 adults and some children.
• The same two explorers found another tunnel entrance in Rincon and saw luminous flying saucers going in and out, and heard beautiful choral singing.
• An old man living near Concepiao told how he had visited a vast underground city where strange vehicles darted back and forth.
• An explorer looking through a tunnel near Rio Casdor met a beautiful woman who appeared to be about 20 years old, but told the explorer she was 2,500 years old.

Pretty far-out stuff, huh? There is, of course, no proof to verify any of these stories, and the explorers always seem to lose or forget where the exact entrance to these caves and tunnels are. Some of the stories may have a basis in fact, but most are certainly tall tales, exaggerations, or outright fabrications. But they fortify our fascination with strange caves and tunnels. They make me, at least, want to go exploring in them. And who knows what would be found!

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Mysterious TunnelsStrange tales of subterranean civilizations, cities and ancient technology

There is something fundamentally and primally mysterious about caves and tunnels. Maybe it's their darkness or the fact that they open into the very body of the Earth. They are invariably the subjects of adolescent adventure stories, such as the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew mysteries, and R.L. Stine's books. And they serve as backgrounds in exciting stories directed at older audiences as well, such as Jules Verne's A Journey to the Center of the Earth and the Indiana Jones films. Tunnels represent the unknown and touch the fears that reside deep in the primitive human subconscious.

I've come across several sites on the Web that tell what some believe are true stories of vast underground networks of tunnels. And they are no less mysterious and fantastic than those used as settings in the fictional tales mentioned above. It's not that the tunnels merely exist and are unknown to most people, it's what they contain, who built them, and why – and that takes us into the deepest recesses of the unknown.

People who claim to have first- or second-hand knowledge or experience with these tunnels make many astonishing claims: that they contain long-lost cities; that they are inhabited by advanced civilizations – perhaps the descendents of Atlantis; that they are bases for extraterrestrials and their flying saucers; that they are bases for secret government installations. The government no doubt has top-secret military installations deep within mountains and perhaps underground, but this, of course, is the least fantastic of the stories.

Here are highlights of some of the more extraordinary claims. Since these stories come without photos or any other kind of verification, consider them skeptically. In any case, they are fascinating.

Grand Canyon Mystery

The April 5, 1909 edition of The Phoenix Gazette carried a story entitled "Explorations in Grand Canyon." According to the article, a man named G.E. Kinkaid made an astonishing discovery while on an expedition, sponsored by the Smithsonian Institute, in the Grand Canyon. Among his findings:

• A mammoth chamber about 1,480 feet underground from which radiates dozens of passageways "like the spokes of a wheel."
• Several hundred rooms, some of which contain artifacts such as weapons and copper instruments of a kind that have never been known to be native to the Americas.
• A crypt containing mummies - all adult males - wrapped in a bark fabric.
• A shrine containing a Buddha-like idol sitting cross-legged with a lotus flower in each hand.
• Stone tablets on which are carved mysterious Egyptian-like hieroglyphics.

The article also mentions a legend of the Hopi Indians that says their ancestors once lived in an underworld in the Grand Canyon.

Crumf Burial Cave

In 1892, Frank Burns of the U.S. Geological Survey reported that he found strange coffins in the Crunf Cave along the southern branch of the Warrior River in Murphy's Valley, Alabama. The wooden coffins appeared to be hollowed out by fire, then chiseled with stone or copper tools. Each coffin was 7.5 feet long, 14 to 18 inches wide, and 6 to 7 inches deep. The lids were open on each empty coffin. The specimens were sent to the Smithsonian, which suggested the coffins might actually be troughs. In any case, the museum lost the artifacts.

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