Belize’s great blue hole is a popular tourist attraction in Belize, and is frequented by
many tourists and scubadivers, who venture both deep into the hole, and who partake in
helicopter tools to look at it from above.
The hole is very deep, so deep in fact that divers rarely venture into the network of
caves it connects to.
The ocean hides many mysteries, mysteries that cant be solved because we can’t access
certain parts of it.
But what if we could drain belize’s great blue hole?
What would we find?
That’s the question we’re asking right now on life’s biggest questions.
Hello and welcome back to life’s biggest questions, the channel that asks the fundamental
questions of life, and occasionally we answer them too.
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Blue holes are not uncommon in tropical waters.
But belize’s great blue hole is something special.
It’s the only sinkhole big enough that you can actually see it from space.
A popular UNESCO world heritage site, the hole is 980 feet across and around 400 feet
deep that formed more than 150 thousand years ago as a giant crater.
But since its formation, it has evolved into something quite different.
Jaques Cousteau once called it one of the best scuba diving sites in the world, and
The discovery channel said it was one of the 10 most amazing places on earth.
Toward the bottom of the hole, around 120 meters deep, there are stalactites that scientists
think may have formed during the last ice age.
The blue hole used to be a limestone cave hundreds of thousands of years ago.
Then, When sea levels started to rise, the cave flooded, creating the sinkhole we see
today.
That being said, the great blue hole is also one of the most mysterious palaces on earth
because of how inaccessible it is.
The deeper you go, the less oxygen there is, and the bottom of the hole is supposed to
be pitch back and essentially lifeless.
You can’t see them from the surface, but theres actually a system of over 10 caves
inside the hole.
What could be inside those caves?
We can’t find out because divers cant go deep enough.
Divers are deterred from diving too deep because of fears they might get trapped down there.
They are encouraged to always go diving with someone accompanying them to prevent anything
from happening.
During high tide, divers would be sucked down the hole, unable to get out.
But maybe there’s another explanation.
There’s a legend that exists to explain this phenomenon, the legend of the Lusca.
The lusca is supposedly a sea monster that has been seen in blue holes.
Speculation was further ignited when a large mass washed up on shore in 1896 in St Augustine
Florida.
The lusca is supposed to be very large, able to grow to up to 75 feet long, resembling
a giant octopus-shark hybrid.
Other descriptions report it as being a multihead monster, or a combination of a squid and an
eel.
Before a supposed ‘attack’ bubbles will appear on the surface of a sink hole.
Whether those bubbles are created by an ocean current, or the lusca, we might never know.
Most people think that the Lusca is a folk tale, but who knows.
Perhaps if we drained belize’s great blue hole we would find out that it really exists.
One things for certain though, belize’s great blue hole contains other horrors.
Other than the fact that it’s a hot spot for marine life like giant corals, reef sharks
and turtles, descend past 90 meters and there is no oxygen, no life and a thick layer of
toxic hydrogen sulphide.
Any life that happens to get trapped in this layer suffocate and die.
And during a dive into the hole, Fabien Cousteau, grandson of Jacques Cousteau as well as Erika
bergman said they found piles of bottles and bits of plastic.
So in case you havent guessed already it isn’t possible to drain belize’s great blue hole.
Because it’s part of a greater network of tunnels that are also connected to the ocean,
you would have to find the connecting parts, close them off from the ocean and then drain
the hole.
But its definitely fun to think about what would happen if we could drain belize’s
great blue hole.
What do you imagine might be hiding inside it?
Let us know in the comments.
For now I’m going to respond to some comments from my last video on this channel, What if
we drained the mariana trench.
Ren Kagami – If we drained the trench my dad who went to the grocery store 18 years
ago would be found.
That is quite dark.
Chason Brown – If we drained the trench, I would finally find my keys.
And I would finally find my dignity.
Casual Gamer – I learn more from this channel than school.
That is great but also worrysome.