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Anxiety-provoking adventure that induces claustrophobia
S
Oh. The video just… ends. No getting back out. Just cutting off the feed. Forever.
J
Some say he is still there today, looking for a way out.
S
Still riding the MBTA.
M
He never returned no he never returned
H
His wife comes every day to give him a sandwich, and will continue to do so until he eventually finds his way out of those caves.
A
Really wish this had ended with them seeing sunlight again. I feel upset now.
E
I mean the video was published, so we can assume they got back out or at least their recovery team did.
R
Or the cave had wifi
B
Found footage
M
Yeah a spooky soundtrack would have really sent that home
T
That looks nutty.
D
Andddd I’m lost.
J
I camped at Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky, years back. One of the volunteers was an old timer that had been all over that cave system and the ones in that region. They had this tradition of trying to “Rinky Dink” each other and the less experienced explorers. The goal was to lead someone through a section of the cave and lead them back around to that same spot and present it to them as somewhere they haven’t been to yet. The ultimate goal was to keep doing that over and over to see how long it takes them to notice. It seems like once or twice would be the limit, but it’s not as simple as just looping back on the same route. A chamber may have several exits/entrances along with multiple routes that loop back eventually. Not a game that I will be participating in any time soon.
C
Seems like a crying wolf situation where eventually they’ll actually take the wrong turn and actually be lost
J
I imagine it would be possible, but it wasn’t something you did as you were exploring new areas or places that you aren’t familiar with. Beyond experience and memory, they caves are mapped out and they carry them with them. They also have subtle markings to return to the exit. The “victim” would be someone who isn’t knowledgeable about that cave. He said that one particular example is almost hilariously obvious once the person realizes it or it’s pointed. He said it’s this very small chamber where you crawl into a smaller tunnel that only loops back to the chamber. He made it sound like it wasn’t just getting them lost, but also selling it so that they don’t notice. It was also about finding the places that would be good for this. Places that have very unique formations of landmarks would probably not be the best candidate for this. Also, if you know the early history of these caves, you had to be a bit crazy/brave to begin with as there was no specialized equipment and certain techniques were not widely disseminated. Floyd Collins is probably the most well known explorer of those caves. He preferred to explore by himself. He didn’t bother mapping out all of his discoveries. They say that 100+ years later someone would discover a new section that was nearly impossible to navigate. They will get to the end of that section only to find a few empty, rusty, bean cans. That was a sign that ol Floyd had been there way before they were. Floyd liked beans and he would spend days underground. That leads to the obvious conclusion that is why he only explored alone. Before Floyd and others, the native Americans had managed to get into places that seemed unimaginable long before settlers came to the area. They would hold a torch to the walls of the ceiling to draw with soot to keep track of their location some of those marks remain. They also carved into the rock. Even Floyd eventually ran out of luck and his tomb stone can be seen off the side of the road, on the way to the tourist center. If anyone is interested in the least, I would suggest checking it out. I don’t know how it works now, but I know in the past you had to plan ahead and make reservations, especially for some of the smaller group tours that are less frequent. The spots fill up pretty quickly.
W
Look kids, Big Ben!
B
and there’s Parliament… again.
C
On holiday, are you?
J
So is he? Still crawling to this day I hear.
B
What if your light fails in there? Are you just dead?
E
You always have two backups and make sure everything is charged before the trip.
K
Id bring glow sticks too. I know for a fact those will always work.
A
I wouldn’t be able to fit through the tunnels with the amount of backup lighting I’d carry
S
Um, what’s that? Oh this? It’s a portable light source that can rival direct sunlight on the equator. Don’t mind me.
J
Oh this? You mean my handy-dandy photon cannon.
Z
Seeing as light is just photons, aren’t all flashlights photon cannons?
J
Yes. And a table lamp is a stationary photon grenade.
M
And THIS is my *back-up* photon cannon.
H
I wouldn’t be able to fit through the tunnels if I was naked and covered in crisco.
W
Hopefully they aren’t expired
S
I just wouldn’t go
S
If you’re a responsible explorer, yes
P
I wouldn’t have backups as there’s no fucking way in a million years I’d be doing that
I
Also in a narrow and relatively linear cave like this, if you are truly out of light you can theoretically get out by keeping the wall to your right and always going right. It’d be much harder in a cave system with multiple levels and wide open areas, but one like the video should be fairly straightforward.
S
That was my strategy in the original Wolfenstein game!
T
Genius!
S
Get some jagged rocks to stab you in the face in the dark as you feel your way out of a flooded, subterranean hell hole. Some people got weird kinks.
E
Not a spelunker, but it looked like there were a few off-shoots. Not that I have a better solution other than not going into tiny caves, but wouldn’t that risk potentially going down side tunnels with with unknown hazards?
I
Yeah there is a risk, but if you go down an off shoot and it’s a dead end, but you keep the wall to your right, you will simply turn around and go back to the junction. And if you take a right, then you’re now going straight where you previously went right. Some risk has to be taken, cause otherwise you’re just gonna sit there and starve to death, unless you know rescue will be coming (in which case sit tight). It’s not a perfect method and it’d be done in a very last resort situation, but theoretically it will get you to the exit because you’ll never enter the same side passage twice.
C
The real survival method is to never go down to begin with. Source: Me
P
Can’t get lost in a cave while eating cheetos on my couch. Check mate spelunkers!
E
We always brought two lights, never went alone, and always told someone where we were going. Absolute worse case scenario where every single light fails, someone would come rescue us. I’ve never had even a single light fail.
D
so you’re telling me you willingly do this? how does one think this is a good and fun idea like what’s the origin story?
E
The cave in the video is a pretty shitty one. Crawling through tight spaces is tolerated if it gets you somewhere cool but it’s only a small part of a good cave. Most of the time we can easily stand and I’ve been in cave spaces large enough to fly a helicopter in.
R
The video perspective is kinda weird, I’ve seen it before tho and the camera man/woman isn’t crawling. It’s some old mining cave and its actually like an 8 foot tall ceiling.
C
Really? Ok, that I’d happily do. I like caves in general but no way could I do the extreme stuff
D
Now that sounds wicked. I’ve been in caves but never like, properly caving like that.
S
Hey you never know you might find something interesting like a cool looking rock, or a cave-dwelling creature with no eyeballs. Or a pocket of carbon monoxide.
K
There is a YT channel called Scary Interesting that can answer that for you. They have lots of stories about cave exploring or worse, cave diving gone wrong.
T
I’d be more worried about the water rising.
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