What do you think about this?
In 1992, in a village in Zhejiang province in eastern China, a few farmers decided to pump out a pond they had always believed was bottomless. Days of pumping later, the water level dropped and revealed something no one expected. The pond was not a natural pool at all. It was the flooded mouth of an enormous man made cavern, carved by hand out of solid sandstone.
It was not alone. In the end at least twenty four of these caves were found beneath the small hill, each one a vast chamber with pillars, sloping walls, and ceilings cut with careful precision. The largest are the size of a cathedral. Every surface is covered in the same deliberate parallel chisel marks, millions upon millions of them, as if the stone had been combed. Together the caves represent the removal of nearly a million cubic meters of rock.
Here is the mystery. There is no record of them anywhere. Not a line in China’s vast and meticulous historical archives mentions who dug them, when, or why. There are no soot marks from lamps, no discarded tools, no inscriptions. A project this huge would have taken thousands of workers years to complete, and yet an entire civilization seems to have swallowed the memory of it whole.
Could it be that something so immense was built, used, and then deliberately forgotten, its purpose sealed underwater and out of every book?
An ancient quarry, a hidden storehouse, or something we have not guessed at all? What do you think the builders of Longyou were really making?
What do you think about this? On January 20, 1996, three young women in Varginha, Brazil, saw a four foot creature with oily skin and red eyes crouched by a wall. The army was in town that morning. A policeman said to have handled it died a month later. Cover story, or Brazil’s Roswell?
What do you think about this? In 1800 settlers at Conneaut, Ohio, opened a four acre burial ground in rows and reported skeletons over seven feet, jaws that fit over a man’s face, double rows of teeth. The graves were plowed under within a generation. Tall tale, or a people buried twice?
What do you think about this? The Iron Pillar of Delhi is six tons of forged iron from around 400 AD. It has stood outside through 1,600 years of monsoons and never rusted, thanks to a protective film from phosphorus rich iron nobody made again. Lucky recipe, or knowledge lost on purpose?
What do you think about this? North Sea trawlers pull up mammoth teeth, flint tools and a carved harpoon from 120 feet deep. Until 8,000 years ago that seabed was Doggerland, a forested land the size of Britain, drowned by rising seas and a tsunami. The lost land of every old story?
What do you think about this? In 1974 a Florida family found a polished 22 pound steel ball in burned brush. It hummed when a guitar played, rolled across rooms on its own and changed direction. Navy X rays showed objects inside, origin unknown. Valve ball, or something that landed?
What do you think about this? The Whaley House in San Diego was built in 1857 where a man was slowly hanged five years earlier. A baby and a daughter later died inside. Visitors report footsteps in empty rooms and a pressure on the throat where the gallows stood. Old house, or long memory?
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