About 120 miles east of Albuquerque, there's a tiny oasis known as the Blue Hole. This spring-fed sinkhole, about 80 feet wide and just as deep, is frequented by divers eager to cool themselves from New Mexico's dry heat. According to rumor, a group of divers visited the Blue Hole "some time ago" and, upon surfacing, discovered that one of their group was missing. Six months later, the body of the missing diver appeared -- but not in New Mexico. It was discovered, the story goes, in Lake Michigan, which is more than a thousand miles away.
If the story is true, then this tunnel would be one of the world's longest underground waterways. According to the Washington Post's Andrea Sachs, the Blue Hole receives 3,000 gallons of fresh water per minute through its limestone floor, and the cave system below the Blue Hole stretches for 200 miles to the south, all the way to Texas. Moreover, Mike Poucher, cartographer for the National Speleological Society Cave Diving Section waxes mysterious when he says, "How far does it go? No one knows." So potentially, the lengthy tunnel story could be true...
...until you talk to Mike Spilde, UNM's cave geologist, who emphatically kills the idea of a trans-continental tunnel. He claims it "would require a continuous rock stratum capable of supporting caves to be present all the way from New Mexico to the Great Lakes, which there isn't." Maybe you just don't know everything, Spilde. Furstratingly, he goes on to say that "The body would have to swim upstream to get to the Great Lakes." Okay, well, Spilde's killjoy statements notwithstanding, I can't find any news about the alleged diver that traveled all the way to Lake Michigan, which substantiates the tale's urban legend status. But it sure makes for a fascinating story. Can't wait 'till the "I dove beneath the entire US" video shows up on YouTube!
