It's empty 🙁
Follow-up on the mystery box:
Yes, it was a box of sorts. Well, it was 4 stone slabs forming the sides, and 2 slabs capping them. The top slabs weren't in fact that heavy, just totally stuck in the roots of the trees that had grown around them.
My friends and I hacked the roots with axes (great for the edges, this...), then we managed to lift the top slabs, and the sides immediately collapsed in - along with the sand around them.
It was basically an empty space with water at the bottom. Maybe 10" of empty space and 5" of water.
We tried to remove and sift sand from the bottom, to see if maybe there were some small objects mixed in with the sand, but no: there was a big fat nothing in there. After a while, we stopped as this - now fairly deep - hole isn't shored up and is collapsing inward as fast as we're digging it up.
There we have it. I still don't know what this whole constructions was really for.
One colleague of mine at work figured it might have been a hidden munition cache for the resistance during WW2 (this area saw heavy fighting during the war). But if it was, there wasn't a single cartridge in there - and probably never was, as no resistance fighter in their right mind would have dug up the ammunition, then rebuilt the entire cache empty.
It wasn't a well, as it's much too shallow. It wasn't a cistern. And if it was a simple natural cooler, why was it built atop a hidden cache in the ground?
Because one thing is clear: the cache at the bottom was deliberate and was definitely not meant to be found. I'm convinced of this.
It's a mystery alright, but one that will forever remain mysterious I guess. And it's boringly empty. So it fits right in the Dull Men's Club after all 🙂
Now I have to backfill the hole, but not before I put the stone slabs back in with a bottle in the middle and a message for the next curious person who digs them up. It'll probably say "Hi there! I found nothing too!" or something similar 🙂
Sorry everybody who got worked up! It was a nothingburger after all.
https://giraut.github.io/360_photography/it_is_empty.htmlOpen linkView original on piefed.social
13 replies
Now that's a properly dull ending. Was still a fun ride, though.
That message would make prime trolling material. Just imagine digging a bottle with a message inside, and then that's what it says. Hehe
Obviously you didn't dig down far enough. I smell a new Oak Island money pit in the making...
Maybe try a métal detector before filling it up?
I suppose I should try, just in case something is buried even deeper somehow. But we haven't found anything at all in all the sand we sifted. So it's unlikely.
Well, I did run the metal detector over the hole, and in the water, as well as over the tailings: nothing. Not a peep from the detector.
This is a really freaking cool picture and viewer.
Thanks! - for the picture 🙂
The viewer is Pannellum, made by Matthew Petroff: he's the one to thank for that.
A nice story nonetheless! Thanks for sharing :D.
Maybe someone was just preparing and happened to have 6 Square flag stones lying around. They might have wanted a place to cache valuables in case of, whatever. Never got used
That would be logical if it didn't take several hours to open up,. This cache was put there, bricked up, a cooler put on top of it and buried deep underground without any way to access it quickly.
Maybe a metal detector could help?
I missed this post, glad it had a resolution of sorts in the end.