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Deep underground, encased by the rolling hills of North Virginia, lies a subterranean paradise and musical marvel. The Luray Caverns boast the most extensive cave system in the eastern United States, but for the millions of visitors who flock there each year, it’s not just the beautiful rock formations that reel them in. These natural walls also house the eerie vibrations that emanate from the world’s largest musical instrument. Locked away, deep in the labyrinthine passages of the Luray Caverns, is The Great Stalacpipe Organ. This instrument is a natural wonder that brings a new meaning to “rock music”. The...

An elite Spanish mountaineer just emerged from a cave after nearly a year and a half alone underground, telling supporters she didn’t want to come out because “I hadn’t finished my book.” Beatriz Flamini, 50, who spent 500 days — and two birthdays — in isolation about 230 feet below the ground outside of Granada, returned to the surface Friday, unaware of the Ukraine war, the end of COVID-19 restrictions and the death of Queen Elizabeth II. “When they came to get me, I was asleep,” said Flamini, whose underground stay was planned to end on her 500th day. “I...

Part of the adventure in luring your friends out to the high desert terrain in Northern California, where a valley floor spills from the northern backside of Mount Shasta, is that precious moment when they look at you as though you’ve led them into danger. Having discovered Pluto’s Cave from a map, I was prepared for some sagebrush whacking. What I wasn’t prepared for was that reaching the trailhead required navigating a maze of dusty roads. The cave is considered an easy hike — no serious spelunking experience necessary — and located less than 20 minutes from Interstate 5. Pluto’s...

240 rescuers...from at least eight teams across the U.K. brought up the 40-year-old man on a stretcher Monday to the entrance of Ogof Ffynnon Ddu, also known as the Cave of the Black Spring, 54 hours after he fell. “The caver was very unlucky here. He’s an experienced caver, a fit caver. And it was a matter of putting his foot in the wrong place,” said Peter Francis, the spokesman for the South and Mid Wales Cave Rescue Team. “He wasn’t in a dangerous part of the cave, it’s just something moved from under him.” The cave system is located...

DELRAY BEACH, Fla. (WFLA) – A Florida woman who was reported missing on March 3 was rescued from a storm drain Tuesday, authorities said. The unidentified woman, believed to be in her 40s, was found naked and trapped in a storm drain in Delray Beach. Someone passing by heard her cries for help and called 911, officials said. Firefighters responded and removed the storm grate, lowered down a ladder and lifted the woman to safety. “She was unable to stand up,” Delray Beach Fire Rescue spokeswoman Dani Moschella told WPLG. “She didn’t have any clothes on. She was very dirty....

A series of tracks created roughly 14,000 years ago has revealed stunning new insight into the ways ancient humans explored dark, potentially treacherous cave systems during the Stone Age. Researchers say at least 180 hand and footprints line the clay-rich floor of Italy’s cave of Bàsura in the famous Toirano caves, indicating ancient humans crawled barelegged through low tunnels as they searched for food and even explored for fun. The group that left behind these tracks thousands of years ago included a total of five individuals, from adults to children as young as 3 years old, who navigated the dark...

Rescuers resumed preparations on Tuesday for a third rescue operation deep into a cave complex in northern Thailand to free four remaining boys and their soccer coach in a race against time and monsoon weather. Four more of the boys were carried on stretchers out of the labyrinthine Tham Luang cave on the Myanmar border on Monday, bringing to eight the total number brought out so far after two rescue pushes in successive days. The head of the operation, Narongsak Osottanakorn, said rescuers had learned from experience and were two hours faster in bringing the second batch of survivors out...

Jacob Goldberg, who is still inside the cave rescue site, has this footage of divers arriving at the cave site, to be mobbed by reporters. Reporters and all those not directly involved in the rescue operation have been banned from entering the site, and those already inside have been give until 9am to clear out.

MAE SAI, Thailand (AP) -- Their skinny faces illuminated by a flashlight, the Thai soccer teammates stranded more than a week in a partly flooded cave said they were healthy on a video released Wednesday (July 4), as heavy rains forecast for later this week could complicate plans to safely extract them. The 12 boys and their coach are seen sitting with Thai navy SEALs in the dark cave. The boys, many wrapped in foil warming blankets, take turns introducing themselves, folding their hands together in a traditional greeting and saying their names and that they are healthy. The video,...

On 23 June, 12 boys and their coach went to explore a cave after football practice in northern Thailand. Nine days later, all 13 have been found alive.

The frantic efforts to rescue a dozen boys and their soccer coach after a heavy rainstorm flooded the entrance to a popular cave in Thailand were complicated Tuesday by muddy floodwaters as Thai Navy SEAL divers entered the muddy chambers, according to a top official. Rain has continued to fall in the area, which has stymied attempts to pump out water from the cave area. The cave complex extends several miles and has wide chambers and narrow passageways with rocky outcrops and changes in elevation. Still, officials have said they are hopeful the boys found a safe space away from...

A 19-year-old man who spent 60 hours locked alone inside a gated southern Indiana cave says he feels lucky to be alive. Indiana University freshman Lukas Cavar was on a spelunking trip to Sullivan Cave when he became separated Sunday afternoon from 12 other members of the university's Caving Club. Cavar is an enthusiast of spelunking, the exploration of caves as a hobby. When he eventually reached the cave entrance, Cavar found club members had padlocked its gate, unaware that he remained inside.

If you listened much to Ted Cruz over these last furious months, you heard him talk frequently about “the abyss,” as in what this country was teetering on the edge of. If you listened to him over these last furious hours, you heard him mention the “yawning cavern of insecurity” that motivates Donald Trump and other bullies. Cruz should take up spelunking. He’s obviously fascinated by unfathomable depths, and with his loss in Indiana on Tuesday, his candidacy for the presidency is finished, giving him a whole lot of extra time. A new hobby is definitely in order.

A Boy Scout troop leader was mauled by a bear after he and three Scouts stumbled upon the animal in northern New Jersey on Sunday, the Rockaway Township Police Department said. The three Scouts accompanying him were unharmed, officials said. The Boy Scout leader, Christopher Petronino, took the three Scouts to a cave at Split Rock Reservoir in Morris County, which is about 25 miles west of New York City. The 50-year-old had known about the cave since the 1980s but had never witnessed a bear using it before, according to CNN affiliate WCBS. When Petronino entered the cave Sunday...

Many people have Thansgiving traditions. One of our neighbors has the Thanksgiving tradition of getting drunk and running over our mailbox. Last summer, I cemented in our mailbox and used heavy pipe. Cut his car in half this Thanksgiving like Grandpa using the electric knife on the turkey. When the cops pulled him out of the left half of the car, he was yelling at them that he'd never win the race with a pit crew as slow as them. One of our family traditions is that I do the Thanksgiving grocery shopping. I feel it's part of the manly...

This statement isn't new, but for years anthropologists, archaeologists and historians of art understood these artistic manifestations as purely aesthetic and decorative motives. Eduardo Palacio-Pérez, researcher at the University of Cantabria (UC), now reveals the origins of a theory that remains nowadays/lasts into our days. "This theory is does not originate with the prehistorians, in other words, those who started to develop the idea that the art of primitive peoples was linked with beliefs of a symbolic-religious nature were the anthropologists"... This idea appeared at the end of the XIX century and the beginning of the XX century. Up until...

New investigations at an iconic cave site on the Channel Island of Jersey have led archaeologists to believe the Neanderthals have been widely under-estimated.Neanderthals survived in Europe through a number of ice ages and died out only about 30,000 years ago. The site at La Cotte de St Brelade reveals a near-continuous use of the cave site spanning over a quarter of a million years, suggesting a considerable success story in adapting to a changing climate and landscape, prior to the arrival of Homo sapiens. New investigations at an iconic cave site on the Channel Island of Jersey have led...

Jerusalem Burial Cave Reveals:Names, Testimonies of First Christiansby Jean Gilman JERUSALEM, Israel - Does your heart quicken when you hear someone give a personal testimony about Jesus? Do you feel excited when you read about the ways the Lord has worked in someone's life? The first century catacomb, uncovered by archaeologist P. Bagatti on the Mount of Olives, contains inscriptions clearly indicating its use, "by the very first Christians in Jerusalem."If you know the feeling of genuine excitement about the workings of the Lord, then you will be ecstatic to learn that archaeologists have found first-century dedications with the names...

It may have taken Michelangelo four long years to paint his fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel,but his earliest predecessors spent considerably longer perfecting their own masterpieces. Scientists have discovered that prehistoric cave paintings took up to 20,000 years to complete. Rather than being created in one session, as archaeologists previously thought, many of the works discovered across Europe were produced over hundreds of generations who added to, refreshed and painted over the original pieces of art. Until now it has been extremely difficult to pinpoint when prehistoric cave paintings and carvings were created, but a pioneering technique...

A close up of one of the stalagmites analyzed in the study. Credit: Jud Partin When Georgia Tech Assistant Professor Kim Cobb and graduate student Jud Partin wanted to understand the mechanisms that drove the abrupt climate change events that occurred thousands of years ago, they didn't drill for ice cores from the glaciers of Greenland or the icy plains of Antarctica, as is customary for paleoclimatolgists. Instead, they went underground. Growing inside the caves of the tropical Pacific island of Borneo are some of the keys to understanding how the Earth's climate suddenly changed - several times -...