Something Suspicious About the Chilean Miners

I am very glad that the Chilean miners are being rescued, and it's a credit to the country that they were able and willing to spend the money and time it took to find those men (after they had officially been declared dead) and to rescue them.  This is good news.  But there's more - and some parts of the story we will never truly know.

Mine shafts have a long history of strange activity.  In 1945, a a section of the Belva Mine (located in Pennsylvania) caved in and left many miners trapped.  They were frightened, but they soon noticed a door open in the cave and a man holding a lantern assured them that rescue was coming - and disappeared back into the door.  (No one ever comments on the nature of that door.  Did the trapped miners try to open it themselves?  Did the door blend in with the wall?  And no word on why the man wouldn't let them escape through his door - or bring them any food.)  There are many stories of such underground men being encountered by modern diggers - but no evidence, unfortunately.

There are also some very widely accepted stories about hidden tunnels all over the Earth.  This site lists U.S. military bases and their tunnels that lead to other bases in other states; I don't know if any of it is true, of course. But I do know that you can do an internet search for "hidden underground passages" and find something for just about every part of the world.  These tunnels are normally attributed to something far more ancient and mysterious than the government, however.

And, who can forget the Shaver Stories?  Richard Shaver published some stories about going underground and meeting with strange people called the "Deros" who were not so kind as the fellow who helped the Belva Miners in 1945 - instead they ate people.  His stuff was published as fiction, but written as if it were true.  He would maintain that it was true until he died, and this lead to a very enduring following.

So, we're left with a rather spotty legacy of miners seeing strange things and stories of underground caverns.  What does this have to do with the Chilean miners?  Probably nothing, but there are few loose ends in their story.

For starters, these men were in the in the mine for two whole months - that's the longest anyone has ever been trapped in a mine and survived.  We are told that they survived by rationing food and eating small bites every other day, and they even had some food left over when they were rescued.  Is it possible that they had some help?  The doctor who made contact with them was impressed at their level of comfort, and we've seen that they are rather cool-headed about the ordeal.

But what's really suspicious is the gag order these men have agreed to.  Before being rescued, these men were asked to sign an agreement saying that they would never talk about the first seventeen days they spent in the mine.  We are told that this is because of the secretes that they told: since they thought they would die, some of them told stories about having affairs and other things that were secret.  But, if this is being kept a secret, how could the press know about it?  And is it really necessary to make them sign something like this before rescuing them?  It's very odd.  Did they see something, or did they find something they were not supposed to see?  And could it have anything to do with why the Chilean government was so quick to claim that the men were dead and hold a funeral for them?

The truth is, unless one of these mens breaks their agreement, we'll never know what went on in that cavern before they were rescued.