Previously: Carazi, Child Of The Void.
Type: UL (Unexplained Location).
Period/location of origin: Unknown; subject, known as the “Mystery Cave,” was first documented on an early Angelfire website titled Ted’s Caving Page circa 2000-2001. At the time, subject’s location was not made public, although it has since emerged that Ted the Caver’s “Mystery Cave” is, in fact, a cave sometimes referred to as the Interstate Cave or Freeway Cave within the Timpanogos Cave network in Utah.
The part of this cave network dubbed the Mystery Cave was, per Ted the Caver’s online caving journal, initially discovered some decades prior to 2000, although the cave itself is obviously much, much older than that.
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Appearance: Subject appears to be a series of passages, caves, and crawlspaces located within a specific cave running beneath a highway.
The cave must be rappelled down into, accessed from a ledge about 15 feet down from the surface. Past the entrance, there are several large rocks, followed by a drop of about 50 feet, which must again be traversed by rope. This drop can be narrow — three to four feet in diameter at its tightest points — though it can also widen out as much as 10 feet in diameter.
This drop marks the last drop within this path through this cave system. Upon reaching the bottom, a “room” of about six feet by six feet may be found. From this room leads a passage of about 10 feet in length; the passage has a particularly low ceiling, which necessitates crawling to pass through. The “room” to which the passage leads offers four routes to follow, each about 100 feet in length; two lead to dead ends, and two lead to pools of water.
Of these four routes, the route at the far right — accessed via a large, 10-foot arched opening — may be followed on foot for some time before the ceiling lowers enough to necessitate crawling. The ceiling does, however, eventually begin to rise again. This passage eventually leads to a short drop-off, which may be traversed to access another passage about 75 feet in length. At the end of this passage is a pool of water, as well as a wall with a three-foot indentation in which is located a hole, roughly three feet from the ground, about the size of an adult fist.
If widened, the hole reveals a further passage — long, narrow, lined with a variety of unusual rocks and crystal formations — beyond the “dead end.” (Please note the wall is approximately three to five inches thick and may require some work to get through.) One extant report of the single target to locate subject terms this passage “Floyd’s Tomb” (see: Additional Notes), although it should be noted that this moniker is colloquial — that is, the invention of the target — not “official” in any sense of the word.
The passage continues for about 160 feet, during which time it grows taller and wider, allowing for easier traversal. At the end of this passage is another “room” with a ceiling height of about 15 feet, in which may be found a large, round rock. This “room” also reportedly bears pictograms on its walls depicting what look to be humans standing below an unknown symbol.
Another passage, again with a large, arched entrance, leads out from the far end of the “room.” This passage extends at least 30 feet, although it is not known what may or may not be through or beyond it; this area remains unmapped and undocumented.
There may be one additional passage behind the large, round rock, as well; this passage, however, is not always visible, depending on the positioning of the rock. Again, it is not known what may or may not be through or beyond this passage; this area also remains unmapped and undocumented.
There may or may not be a… resident living somewhere within the Mystery Cave.
Although at least one possibility has been proposed, it is not definitively known who — or what — this resident may be.
Modus operandi: Subject may not necessarily have a modus operandi, in that it in and of itself does not appear to be a sentient entity; should targets venture into it, however, they may see, hear, feel, or otherwise experience any or all of the following:
- Wind blowing down the passages, particularly within Floyd’s Tomb;
- A near-constant low rumbling sound;
- Other, odder sounds, such as rock scraping against rock;
- Pets and/or other animals behaving strangely (e.g. more fearful than usual) if brought to subject;
- A feeling of being watched, especially in Floyd’s Tomb and beyond;
- And/or communications devices malfunctioning, especially in and beyond the room with the pictograms and round rock.
It should also be noted that targets who venture into subject may come out… changed, afterwards. They may begin to suffer from poor sleep quality and/or insomnia due to frequent and extremely vivid nightmares. They may begin to feel high levels of anxiety or an inexplicable sense of foreboding. They may also begin to experience odd occurrences in their own homes, including but not limited to:
- The sounds of disembodied footsteps;
- Shuffling noises;
- Creaking doors;
- The appearance of strange shapes and shadows;
- The presence of indistinct figures or entities; etc.
Target will be unable to determine whether these odd occurrences are hallucinations or not. Indeed, it is not known in general whether they are hallucinations or not.
It may be difficult for friends and/or loved ones of targets to determine precisely what has changed for target, however. Target will likely be unwilling to discuss what they saw or experienced, and may become reclusive, withdrawing from social situations, ceasing to clock in for work, and/or choosing to vacate their homes with no notice or warning.
Targets may, in fact, choose to disappear from their lives entirely. In at least one case, this disappearance was immediately preceded by target’s decision to revisit subject for one last exploration.
In this instance, however, target was not heard from again.
It is unclear what, precisely, may have befallen target.
All that is known is that target did not return.
Containment: Containment was broken when the hole was widened. It has not since been restored.
Additional Notes: Subject first gained notoriety as the subject of the Ted’s Caving Journal website, an Angelfire website that documented the exploration of subject by the target Ted between the dates of Dec. 30, 2000 and May 19, 2001.
Ted and his friend, who he identified only as “B,” went caving at subject, which Ted termed “Mystery Cave,” shortly before the New Year, at which time they ventured as far as the passage Ted chose to name Floyd’s Tomb. During this caving trip, they discovered the hole in the cave wall previously described in Appearance and made a plan to return to widen the hole and see what lay beyond it.
The moniker “Floyd’s Tomb” refers to cave explorer William Floyd Collins, who, on Jan. 30, 1925, became trapped within a narrow passage inside a cave located in what would later become Mammoth Cave National Park. Despite extensive rescue efforts, Collins was unable to be retrieved in time to save his life; his remains were discovered on Feb. 16, 1925.
Collins’ unfortunate end occurred in Kentucky, rather than Utah, where subject is now known to be located. As such, it should be noted that this reference is, as Ted wrote in his Dec. 30, 2000 journal entry, more about the relative feeling of being inside the Floyd’s Tomb area of the Mystery Cave, as opposed to historical fact.
Ted and B returned to subject at the end of January 2001 to begin work on widening the hole. They utilized a DeWalt cordless drill equipped with masonry bits along with two sledge hammers, several bullpins, and a variety of other such tools to carry out this work, which continued until March. At one point, B brought his dog with them as they completed this work; however, due to the dog’s uncharacteristic distress in and around subject, B did not bring the pet along a second time.
By early April, the hole had been widened enough to become traversable. Ted became the primary explorer of the newly-accessible passage and everything that lay beyond it. What is known of subject’s layout is known primarily due to Ted’s documentation. (See: Appearance.)
On April 20, however, a third party member, who Ted identified only as “Joe,” came with Ted and B on their exploration of the newly-opened area of subject. During this caving trip, injury caused Ted to abandoned his own efforts at exploration, leaving Joe the only to traverse down the passage.
It is not known what Joe experienced during this trip — only that it seemed to have been traumatic, and that it changed him irrevocably. (See: Modus Operandi).
On April 28, Ted also experienced something traumatic while exploring subject, and, following the incident, began to experience a number of the ill effects noted in Modus Operandi. On May 19, 2001, he wrote that he had finally been able to get in touch with Joe, and that the two of them had made plans to return to subject one last time to get to the bottom of what was going on there.
They did not return home from this trip.
The remaining mysteries from the Mystery Cave — including what may have been living within it — have not been solved.
Of course, there is also this: “Ted” is now known to be one Ted Hegemann, who has since gone on record as saying that the events recorded at the Ted’s Caving Journal website are fiction inspired by his actual, otherwise uneventful caving trips into the Mystery Cave.
Hegemann has spoken about the creation of the tale and the reality of the cave several times, including at the now-defunct National Speleological Society forum in 2004 and in an interview with writer Nick Botic at his YouTube channel in 2020. The forum post is unfortunately no longer accessible at its original source, though its text has been preserved at this blog.
Per Hegemann, the original trips he and B — named in the forum post as Brad — made to the Interstate Cave occurred between Dec. 30, 1999 and Feb. 24, 2000. These trips encompassed locating and widening the hole at the Floyd’s Tomb area within the cave and traversing the passages thence revealed. The idea of the online caving journal had initially come up as a way for Hegemann to keep friends and family informed about their work and what they discovered as they went.
Then Hegemann began to think that it would be entertaining to “embellish the story a little,” as he put it, and spent roughly a year developing the version of the tale that would become known as Ted The Caver. He estimates that it was April 2001 when he posted the first few pages to the Ted’s Caving Journal Angelfire site, after which he began to publish the remaining pages in real time. The photos included in the story were photos he took during his actual explorations of the cave circa 1999-2000.
Hegemann also took this opportunity to clarify that a version of the story that had begun floating around the internet shortly after the publication of the Ted The Caver story — “The Fear Of Darkness” — was not his work, and indeed appeared to have borrowed heavily from his story. As such, “The Fear Of Darkness” should not be considered canonical to the Ted The Caver story.
In any event, a map does now exist of the Interstate Cave that serves as the setting for the Ted The Caver story; viewers will note that the layout is slightly different than that described in the story, which may be chalked up to Hegemann’s note that, in addition to fictionalizing the events of his explorations, he also altered the layout of the fictionalized version of the cave to better serve the narrative.
Recommendation: Interstate Cave is not open to the general public; access requires a Special Use Permit from the Utah Department of Transportation.
It is, however, NOT recommended that one attempt to visit.
Just in case.
Resources:
“Creepy Story!” thread at the National Speleological Society forum. (Archived.)
“Creepy Story!” text preservation.
The TRUE Story Of Ted The Caver at YouTube.
Gated Caves Of Utah information.
Timpanogos Cave National Monument at the National Park Service.
Creepy Things That Seem Real But Aren’t: The Cave. (Archived.)
Tragedy At Sand Cave (Floyd Collins information) at the National Park Service.
Living Dark: The Story Of Ted The Caver. (Film adaptation of Ted The Caver.)
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[Photos via Bruno van der Kraan/Unsplash; RuggyBearLA, Ken Lund/Flickr, available under CC BY 2.0 and CC BY-SA 2.0 Creative Commons licenses]
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