The hunt for a small boy in Peru is on after a mysterious crack opened up in the Earth and swallowed at least one residence and stretched for three kilometers. Though a crack of this nature opening up amid massive amounts of seismic activity is nothing extraordinary, seismologists have reported there was no earthquake in the area during the time the crack opened up. And the mystery only deepens as more facts come out about this strange geological formation.
It looks like something from a post-apocalyptic wasteland. A massive gouge in the Earth that stretches for several miles and no one seems to know where it came from. In November of 2010 a similar incident took place with a massive crack appearing in Bolivia without seismic activity, but what witnesses reported as “fires in the Earth” sprouting up from an unknown source.
The official explanation is a subterranean fire similar to the fire that has been ravaging Centralia, Pennsylvania for years now. In Centralia’s case, however, a subterranean coal vein was accidentally ignited by workers who were attempting to burn trash on the road. But New Happiness, where the fiery cracks in the Earth were reported in November the explanation is natural gas.
So is the crack in Peru the same? Or is there a different explanation? The Earth has been acting strangely for several months now with what appears to be either more seismic activity or an increase in media coverage over Earthquakes due to increased awareness. But as these strange incidents become more mainstream every day, we can only begin to fathom what the cause could be in this most recent and peculiar case.
Other theories have been posited on the incident, including one involving the partial collapse of a massive area of underground tunneling around the area belonging to various unknown or clandestine forces. Of course these theories are largely speculation and cannot be confirmed without a thorough investigation of the area beneath the gouge in the Earth.
Perhaps one of the strangest elements of this story is how massive blocks of Earth can be seen in the crack left behind from the event. These blocks of Earth, while not necessarily or an extraordinary origin, look strange when littering the ground of the crack near the unbroken grasslands surrounding it. The scene is straight out of one of HP Lovecraft’s visions of a terror from beneath the Earth emerging to wreak havoc on those unsuspecting people on the surface. But what eldritch terror will we find lurking at the bottom of this mystery? Only with thorough investigation will we be able to tell. In the mean time it is simply unexplainable. We can only hope the child who went missing when it formed is found safe and returned to his family.