Cushman

[lilwoodhippie]

Anyone know anything about Blowing Cave and The Shaver Mystery? Now thats something Id like to see pictures of.

[White Rabbit]

[Sertile]

I suuuure have. I'm all over that kind of shit. I did a bit of digging on the Shaver Mystery a while back and came up with some pretty interesting stuff. I actually managed to track down the widow of one of the old-school hollow earth researcher guys who first explored the Blowing Cave, and she gave me copies of a lot of his old files. I've got maps, diaries, old letters and magazine articles he wrote. It's pretty heavy stuff. And yes, I even spent a couple of days last summer personally exploring the Cushman Blowing Cave. What is it you'd like to know, exactly?

If it's pictures you're after I've got a couple I can post, but my camera's not so good when it comes to taking pictures in the dark, so they're all of the outside of the cave. I've got copies of some really old ones the one guy took that show you the insides of the cave, but I don't have anything to scan them with.

I can tell you right now there's no such thing as a secret passageway or an underground city or a lost civilization or monsters or anything else down there. It makes for a good story, but it was all (not surprisingly) a hoax. However, if you're looking to do some good caving I HIGHLY recommend it. Blowing Cave's one of the best I've ever been in. It's 1.4 miles long and the mouth of the cave is five stories high. There's a really big breakdown area toward the entrance, which is where the tunnel's supposed to be, an underground lake/river about half way through, and a lot of mazelike tunnels toward the back.

If you actually want to go looking for the Teros I can tell you exactly where to go. In fact I encourage it, and I'd love for you to prove me wrong. All I'm saying is don't get your hopes up.

[thetrio]

Ive never even heard the story of this. Is it some kind of Ted the caver mystery? I would like to know the urban legend surrounding it if you get a chance.

[Sertile]

Ted the Caver was just some idiot who never finished making his own website, and everyone said "My, how positively mysterious!"

The Shaver Mystery came out of the pulp fiction magazines of the 40's (Amazing Stories, specifically), and were a series of quasi-fictional sci-fi/fantasy-themed short stories set in a kind of underworld, populated by the Teros and their evil counterparts, the Deros. Mr. Shaver claimed his stories were based on fact, a "secret history" of the earth, and a kind of mythos sprang up around his work. Shaver's publisher, Ray Palmer, had a lot of people believing it at the time, some of which lasted into the 70's and 80's.

A few such adherents claimed to have found a way into Shaver's mythical underworld during a series of trips undertaken during the 60's and 70's, with the Blowing Cave as their portal, and their story came to light in the early 80's when a man named Marcoux began to write about it. Marcoux explored the cave fruitlessly and that was pretty much the end of it, but he brought a lot of fantastic legends to light, and did some interesting research.

A couple of good references would be "The Deep Caverns of Cushman, Arkansas" and "The N! Chronicles, by the Mysterious 'L'"

http://www.angelfire.com/ut/branton/cushman.html
http://www.softcom.net/users/vtown/nchronicles.html

[Tubro]

Is this on private property? I am a member of the National Speleological Society, and if I got caught and somehow it got back to them, I would most definitly get the boot. Trespassing in storm drains and old buildings is another story and thats all fine with me, just not in natural caves. I have no moral problem with it, just "I" can't do it without possible consequence.

I know where this is on a topo map, but what markers are there to find it?

Thanks,
Tubro

[Sertile]

Hey Turbro, welcome to UO!

I honestly can't tell you who owns the Blowing Cave for sure, but it doesn't appear to be on private property. I'm fairly certain it's public land. At least, the people of Cushman treat it as such.

There's a road leading up to the cave, clearly labelled "Blowing Cave Rd." complete with street sign, that literally runs directly into the mouth of the cave. It's a dirt road, and it actually degenerated into a narrow trail shortly before reading the cave, but there's an area where you can park and walk the rest of the way in.

The road and the nature of the road, coupled with the lack of signs or fences, make me think this is either public property or the land that time forgot. There was absolutely nothing to make me think I shouldn't be there.

It's also frequently and freely visited by the locals, and we met a couple of college kids camping out there the night we went.

Inside the cave you'll find cables bolted to the walls and steep inclines as climbing aides, which I'm under the impression were placed there by the city of Cushman in order to make the cave safer. Legend has it a couple of people died there sometime in the last century, but the cave entrance is far too large to seal (5 stories), so other precautions had to be taken.

I don't think your NSS membership will be in any danger from the Blowing Cave, and I highly recommend going.