WEREWOLF RADAR: Bottomless Blue Holes After 7 p.m.
By Jordan Doll
Blue. Is it the name of a mysterious oceanographic feature, or a shot challenge they are no longer allowed to serve at Señor Frogs? The answer is a resounding both! Probably!
The first kind of blue hole, the kind that doesn’t contain a shot of Windex for that extra kick, is sort of an underwater sink hole. They can be hundreds of meters deep, connect to vast underwater cave systems, and they just discovered a brand new one off the coast of Florida! Divers are calling the hole “Green Banana” because, well, divers are strange people who shouldn’t be allowed to name things, and a descent to explore the shaft (heh) is planned for later this month according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Blue holes are nothing new. For centuries they have fascinated and frightened us. The deep, vertical hollow truly looks like the burrow of some unspeakable, aquatic hellbeast, and the depth and darkness provide a very real danger of becoming lost, disoriented and winding up as the fateful subject of a Jimmy Buffet song. That sound fun? Huh? Smart guy? Twenty-thousand rum-soaked boomers singing about the single flipper they had to bury instead of your corpse!? Yeah, I didn’t THINK so!
Over the years any number of legends have wormed their way into and out of the blue holes. Everything from UFOs to a full on Sharktopus are said to traverse the holes, and there’s even a blue hole in the Dead Sea that is alleged to be haunted by the ghost of a Bedouin girl who dove in to escape an arranged marriage. But if it’s sheer terror you’re looking for, look no further than America’s overserved brother-in-law: New Jersey.
The New Jersey Blue Hole is located in the Pine Barrens surrounding Gloucester County, New Jersey. It is a deep crystal blue, standing in stark contrast to the tepid, boggy waters of every other lake in the region. Because of this it was once a popular swimming spot but has long been abandoned for several reasons, only most of them terrifying.
For one thing the hole is surrounded in what the locals call “sugar sand,” a fine, silty dirt that acts like quicksand, pulling those who get too near into the beckoning hole. The water itself is said to be bottomless and icy cold all year long, with phantom whirlpools that appear as quickly as they disappear. More than one person has drowned there, and more than one ghost is said to haunt those shores. There are even tales of swimmers crying out that somebody had them by the ankles, before being dragged under water and into local folklore.
Some of the wilder theories contend that the NJ Blue Hole is a tunnel left when a meteor struck the earth. And that the strange goings-on in the area are the result of a dimensional portal at the bottom of the pit. True believers will tell you that the Jersey Devil himself lives in the pit, and its bottomless nature is why nobody will everrrrrr find him so long as he finds his way back there after each bedevilment. There is little scientific evidence to support these claims.
In the time it would take us to tell all the stories that seem to come pouring out of blue holes the world over, we could literally buy a flight to New Jersey, rent a scuba tank and hop on in for a blue hole world tour. We dive into the New Jersey Hole, pop out in Malaysia for lunch and then once more down-and-up to Australia! This is assuming MY theory of all blue holes being interconnected is correct, which I’m fairly confident it is. Whaddaya say, readers? You go first.
Have questions about the paranormal?
Send them to werewolfradarpod@gmail.com or on Twitter: @WerewolfRadar.
It’s a big, weird world. Don’t be scared. Be Prepared.
Jordan is a standup comedian, writer and actor from Denver, Colorado. If he looks familiar it may be because you saw him in a couple of commercials or maybe even doing comedy on Viceland’s “Flophouse”. Or maybe you saw him performing at Just For Laugh’s Montreal, or the High Plains Comedy Festival, or San Francisco Sketch Fest; opening for the likes of TJ Miller, Rory Scovel or Brian Posehn. No? That’s cool, his tour schedule is right here on the front page so you never have to miss another show! Still not enough? Go ahead and follow his ever deepening social media addictions by clicking the buttons below. STILL NOT ENOUGH!?!?!? Well sorry … that’s really about it …
