Hi, it's Mike Chen.
Brazil is a tropical paradise and home to some of
the best foods in the world.
Known as the largest country in both South America and
Latin America, the nation boasts a beautiful culture and stunning
scenery.
Brazil is home to the iconic Christ the Redeemer statue
in the all inspiring Cocovado and Sugarloaf mountains.
Travelers and explorers will find a wonderful slate of fauna
such as the giants, anteaters, several varieties of sloths, armadillos,
otters, and even capybara in the country.
However, Brazil also seems to have something mysterious going on
under the surface.
A network of mysterious tunnels.
Geologist Henrik Theodore Frank stumbled across the tunnels while driving
on the National Novo Hamburger Highway.
What actually caught his attention was a hole of around
3 feet were 1 meter in diameter.
At a construction site, he discovered that the hole actually
led to a complex underground tunnel.
Upon exploration, he found that the tunnel is about 70
centimeter, were 2.5 feet high and a few meters in
length.
With what appears to be scratches on the walls.
But what's really interesting about this is that these underground
tunnels appear to have been in existence for over 10,000
years.
Moreover, it seems hundreds of these tunnels actually exist all
over Brazil.
The state of Rondonia alone has a large complex of
600 meters war around the 2000 feet long tunnels and
there are at least 2000 boroughs that have been found
around the country as well.
Many of the locals and even experts in the area
know where these tunnels came from.
War who made them.
However, tests show that these tunnels are not man made
in origin.
Theodore Frank told the National Geographic that.
I noticed that it was a tunnel about 70 meters
high and a few meters in length.
The interior was full of scratches.
When I got home, I looked for an explanation on
the Internet, but I did not find anything.
Urban legends point towards various historical and even supposed mythological
origins of the mysterious tunnels.
Some say the tunnels were created by Indians, Jesuits, slaves
or even revolutionaries.
Others believe that the tunnels are giants and hills were
even made by bears.
There are even those who point towards a great mythological
serpent that may have used the tunnels as his home.
Regardless, geological evidence alone proves that the tunnels were not
created by Brazilian natives.
The Indians who lived in Brazil even before the Europeans
arrived did not use iron and therefore had no means
to dig through the hard rocks around the tunnels.
And according to Frank, there is no natural geological process
known to man that can produce some of the features
of the tunnels.
These include the circular or elliptical cross sections that branch,
rise and fall around the area.
Not to mention the geographic distribution of the tunnels open
yet another mystery to scientists.
For instance, the tunnels were only found in the southern
part of Brazil, particularly in the states of Rio Grande
del Sol and Santa Catarina, while claw marks were found
on the tunnel walls.
Frank added that animals such as bears may not even
be the creators of these tunnels.
Prehistoric animals such as giant armadillos or possibly mega sloths
may have been able to make these tunnels.
Fossils of these sloths found in South America suggest they
may have adapted to the area's environment and developed digging
skills.
Giants armadillos, though shorter than sloths, may also have the
skills necessary to dig these tunnels as well.
The grooves along the ceiling may in fact be marks
the animals have left whenever they pause or stop working.
But there are those who argue that there are no
exact indications that these animals actually lived in the country.
Also, the sheer size of the tunnels cannot possibly be
made by any kind of giant armadillo or sloths, at
least ones that we know of.
For example, the giant armadillo, the largest existing member of
his family, weighs between 65 and 90 lbs and is
native to South America.
However, its Burrows are only about 16 inches in diameter
and only up to 20 feet long, leading some researchers
to conclude that it must have been dug by an
extremely big creature that we have yet to discover.
There is one other explanation.
Frank eventually sent photographs of the tunnels to Marcelo Rastero
of the Brazilian Society of Speediology, and he introduced the
notion of paleo burls, or tunnels that are excavated by
living organisms in any geological age.
Examples of these organisms are worms in the Cambrian era,
mollusks in the Mesozoic era, more rats in the Pleistocene
era, but these are all organisms that have lived millions
of years ago.
And to add to this mystery, these tunnels can actually
be found all over the world, Frank said.
Similar caves can be found in countries such as Uruguay,
Paraguay, Chile, Bolivia, and Argentina.
And of course, Paleo Burroughs is just another theory, and
as of today, researchers really have no solid evidence as
to what, who and how these tunnels were created.