When secret underground locations are finally uncovered after hundreds or thousands of years
it's always a bit of a thrill.
But sometimes, even after we've found them, these places still refuse to give up their
secrets.
Ancient cities, gruesome vaults and doomsday bunkers all sit side by side deep inside the
Earth in this, our list of seven mysteriously secret underground locations.
Number 7: The
Edinburgh Vaults Edinburgh is one of the most beautiful cities in Britain, with its mixture
of medieval and Georgian buildings complimented by the spectacular sight of Edinburgh Castle
looming over them.
Oh, and there's Scott Monument, which totally looks like it was ripped straight out of Mordor.
But beneath the streets lies a different story, specifically under the 18th Century South
Bridge, for here lies a series of tunnels and vaults with as dark a history as you'll
find.
The South Bridge Vaults were originally used as storage space and workshops for local businesses,
but when they flooded the businesses left, and in their place came the slum dwellers.
Within a short time the city's poorest had turned this underground world into a red light
district, with its damp, dark rooms offering up sex, opiates and illicit booze.
Sounds romantic.
Families lived here too, despite their being no water, light or sanitation available, and
it goes without saying that crime was rife down in the Edinburgh Vaults.
The most gruesome criminal tale from the vaults involves the notorious serial killers Burke
and Hare.
This pair murdered at least sixteen people over ten months in 1828, selling the bodies
on to a famous Doctor for public dissection.
We believe that many of Burke and Hare's victims were taken in the dark of the Edinburgh Vaults,
with some corpses even being stored down here to avoid police detection.
So you won't be surprised to know that this place is also a haven for paranormal activity,
with BBC sound engineers once recording a series of eerie voices echoing throughout
the vaults - voices which to this day have no known source or explanation.
Number 6: The Central Park Bunker Is there a giant underground city hidden beneath New
York's Central Park?
According to one conspiracy theory yes there is, with this vast, subterranean structure
said to have been constructed in the 1860's.
Its original purpose was to act as a refuge for the Union government if the tide of the
Civil War had started to turn, but the bunker, which was carved out of a
pre-existing cave network, was left unfinished after the Confederacy were beaten.
However, during the First World War the bunker was reportedly completed and expanded to a
network of 300 acres, before being enlarged further to its present day size of 700 acres.
Those who believe in the bunker's existence say it resides 300 feet below the park, comprising
of hospitals, dormitories, roads and even an underground lake.
And as well as providing shelter in the event of feces hitting the fan, this complex apparently
hosts a litany of classified secrets too; as you'd expect for a secret compound hidden
300 feet below the ground.
Hmm, I wonder if Friends ever did an episode in there called The One Where Joey Had His
Throat Slit For Knowing Too Much?
Number 5: Avaris In 2010 a team of Austrian archaeologists using radar technology managed
to find a city lost for over 3,000 years...Avaris.
Avaris is an old Egyptian settlement which once served as the summer capital for the
Hyksos people, who were a group of Asian invaders who ruled Egypt for a century.
Found in the North-eastern region of the Nile Delta, Avaris is now the site of the modern
city of Tell el-Dab'a, but Avaris' ruins still prevail, and since its identification there
have been several fascinating finds in the area.
Once such discovery involved an underground temple which had remained sealed for three
millennia, and inside, as well as Egyptian and Hyksos artefacts, we found the walls adorned
with Minoan paintings.
This finding came in addition to other evidence proving that the Minoans had a significant
presence in Avaris.
And, if you've seen our recent video on mysterious hieroglyphs, you'll know that this is pretty
exciting, as the Minoan Linear B language has still to be deciphered.
Will we find a Rosetta Stone style object in Avaris one day?
Who knows?
Oh, and in one final call-back, do you remember our video from last month on the scariest
archaeological discoveries?
More specifically the entry that told of sixteen ceremonially severed hands being found by
archaeologists inside an ancient underground palace?
Well that was in Avaris too.
Seems like a pretty interesting place.
I wonder what else we'll find.
Number 4: The Erdstalls Erdstalls are a strange type of tunnel of which thousands can be found
scattered across Europe, and to this day we still don't know precisely what their purpose
was.
Erdstalls have been seen in Germany, France, Austria, Scotland, Ireland and Turkey, and
some people even claim that many of these tunnels are linked
somehow, forming a vast underground network that stretches beneath the entirety of Europe.
We're not so sure that's entirely plausible, but then again, look at the secret Derinkuyu
underground city; we've been guilty of underestimating our ancestors before, and we'll sure as eggs
do it again.
The two leading theories regarding the purpose of the Erdstalls state that the tunnels are
either Middle Age constructs used for spiritual rituals, or that they're much older; perhaps
even 12,000 years old.
Experts believe that the earliest civilised humans might have used these secret passageways
as a safe space to hide from predators, wars and online opinions they disagreed with, but
until we find some sort of evidence, we're still firmly in the dark.
And speaking of which...Number 3: The Dark Star The Dark Star is a gargantuan limestone
cave system found inside the mountains ofsouthern Uzbekistan's Boysuntov Range, and as we begin
to explore more and more of it we're starting to realise that it may be home to the deepest
cave on Earth.
This title is currently attributed to the 2,197 metre deep Krubera Cave in Georgia,
but the Dark Star has yet to be fully mapped, and already reaches down to 858 metres as
it is.
Weirdly, this cave is both deep and high at the same time - just like Strange Mysteries
viewers - with many of Dark Star's passages residing 3,000 metres above sea level due
to their presence inside the mountain range.
Unfortunately, because of the cave's remote location and the political instability of
the region, only eight missions have taken place in this system since its discovery in
1984.
In this time just a handful of the caves inside Dark Star have been explored, and none of
them fully, but already we've found several underground lakes, freezing cold tunnels and
the spectacular Full Moon Hall - a 250 metre long chamber which has been described as a
natural geological time capsule.
Those who have explored the Dark Star say it's highly likely that this will prove to
be the deepest cave system on the planet, and if you want to get a sense of how it must
feel to go spelunking inside a vast mountain cave, some of Dark Star's explorers have nicknamed
it Earth's Underground Everest.
Number 2: Wicked Mountain Mount Yamantau is a peak within Ural Mountain range, and when
you hear what supposedly goes on in here you won't be surprised that its name literally
translates as Wicked Mountain.
Yamantau is believed to be the home of a secret Russian facility, and in addition to its bunkers,
storage facilities and vault of Russian treasures, it has been speculated
that this underground complex is also the base for the Dead Hand nuclear retaliation
system.
This Cold War-era system will automatically launch a series of intercontinental ballistic
nuclear missiles if its sensors detect that Russia is under a similar level of attack,
with the number of missiles kept here almost certainly in breach of arms limitation treaties.
We've known about this place since the 1990's, when aerial photography showed significant
building work in the region and the construction of the nearby closed town of Mezhgorye.
But while Russia has admitted the existence of this facility in the past, they've described
it as nothing more than a mining operation, with one Russian spokesman recently responding
with this ominous quote: “The practice does not exist in the Defense Ministry of Russia
of informing foreign mass media about facilities, whatever they are, that are under construction
in the interests of strengthening the security of Russia."
Number 1: The Portal to Ladytown You know what we could use in these trying political
times?
A good old fashioned underground cult - one with some kind of weird perversion or something,
that'd cheer everyone right up.
And if you're into that why not take a trip to Thailand, more specifically a region called
Phetchaburi Province three hours south of Bangkok.
Here you'll find the Khao Luang Cave, and once you've passed the entrance guarded by
monkeys - whose presence already makes it a worthwhile trip - you'll be greeted by this
astonishing underground temple.
This hidden place of worship was commissioned and added to by several Thai Kings, and you'll
find it adorned with various life-size statues of jolly old Buddha.
But the interesting part is that legend has it this cave was once inhabited by nothing
but young, attractive women; and the locals say that the ornaments on display are your
key to reaching the realm where these ladies reside today.
Virgins, you know what you must do.
And that's our list.
But if you want to find out more about that weird hand chopping ritual we mentioned in
Avaris, then shift your buns not a single inch and stick around for our video on seven
unsolved hieroglyphic mysteries.