Reminds me of a food storage cellar. The type used to lower and keep buckets of apples, potatoes, and other assorted long term seasonal food crops. I have seen some where they could store a few buckets. They would reach the buckets with either a hooked rod or a rope with a hook on it, so that they could raise and lower the desired bucket.

Though I am just speculating.

Hmmm...Looks like ash. Quite possible it was used to incinerate bodies. Would be interesting to run DNA on the stuff.

thread bookmarked..

Also you say weird shit has been happening and gave up telling people... What exactly is happening ?

ProjectNaked - last activity 2.5 hours ago

he's still alive

It could have been a primitive septic tank for a bathroom. They were still using outhouses back then. The dark flaky material on the bottom is certainly consistent with dried up sewage.

I just noticed something that possibly adds to my above post.

Is that a pipe just above the hole?

Yup sure looks like a pipe.. I'm with you on this one..

You say that room was added on - that's an important clue...

Based on what you posted along with what others here have speculated, my guess is it's an old cesspool.

Ron

Not sure if you have thought about this but there are several odd things about this hole in the ground.

1. The obvious, Why would someone build a room onto a house to cover what can only be described as a well?

2. Then the room wasn't good enough so then they had to hide the opening by making a trap door that allows for it to be hidden from view. You did say that you had never seen or even been told that it was there right? You found it by accident right?

3. Whatever made those marks didnt just scratch once and make perfect marks. It is concrete not butter. And even if it was soft or crumbly you would not get those perfect looking scratches. They had to be gouged again and again in the same area to get them to look the way they do.

4. Now for me, this is the creepy part. The bones.. Now I would be willing to consider maybe that an animal was kept down there and maybe caused the damage. But if the animal had died down there the bones would be all together and NOT scattered about. So either something was being feed down there or someone decided to through their left overs down there which I find most unlikely. That would be a bizarre behavior that most certainly would be repeated and there would be more bones.

That alot of weird shit. I would definitely call the police. They will do all the work for you and figure it out if there is anything to it. If there isn't no big loss, your tax dollars at work for you.

Call the police for thorough investigation...

By looking at the entrance, and the pipe, it could have been a cistern

like this one

The pipe could have been to collect rain water from downspouts..

I go with the septic tank theory.

In my view, do NOT get the authorities involved until such time you actually observe something that truly requires their attention, such as finding human bones - so far you've mentioned only seeing small animal bones - nothing illegal about that.

Calling the authorities, unless absolutely necessary, will likely create far more problems for you.

My suggestion is to cover-over the hole ... or better yet fill it in with sand / gravel, etc to reduce the chance of someone else someday accidently finding / falling into it.

On a related note, if you / friend plan to go down into it, be sure to use a rope (ideally a safety harness) secured by another person when decending down into it; wear gloves and old clothes that can be easily discarded if need be - from the pics, the hole looks relatively beneign and of little danger, but you indicate the floor may not be solid and could hiding something else, so again, safety is critical when exploring it.

Good luck - let us know what you find - post more pics, etc if anything exciting turns up.

Ron

What has hapened to you???
Its all gone quiet

{Insert Twilight Zone theme here}

:)

hummmm ask the cops....lol thy might knw

my money is on that it was a pit to burn garbage in

http://larastravels.com/europe_2007/lassie_2.jpg

What's that Lassie?

<ruff, ruff>

Timmy's fallen in a well?!?

<ruff, ruff>

Take us there girl...

ADG

I'd believe the scratches were made by an animal and not by human (based on the animal bones seen on the photos).

age old septic tank maybe?

101 frights

Cistern is a distinct possibility.

One other would be:

A fat-bellied cast iron stove for heating or cooking.

A house I lived in up north had a similar set up. There was a concrete chamber at the foot of the original unit so, during a vicious blizzard, you could dump the old ash into the chamber below and reload wood without having to go out into the cold.

The scratches, therefore would be from the shovel or whatever tool was periodically used to empty the cooled ash refuse from the chamber.

One more possibility, that I have actually seen in real life.

The stove idea would also account, possibly, for the bones.

If it was too cold to clean the stove properly, for days on end, the residents would also need a place to store the remains of meals and other items until they could dispose of them.

Hell, one winter in Nebraska, 1975 I believe, I lived in a house that was so snowed under we literally opened the door one morning to a wall of snow.

The whole damn house was buried. We had to use shovels to dig a tunnel out, placing the snow we moved in a bathtub to drain. It was FIERCE.

I'd rather deal with the weather in Florida during hurricane season than return to that.

you win the prize :thumbsup (there is no prize, sorry)

Turns out it was a cistern but why it was built over and not filled in is the mystery. We went down into the hole and let me tell you it was creepy. Armed with a shovel, I started to dig around and found the concrete floor to be 1-2 inches thick. After breaking through that layer, I continued to dig about 2ft down but found nothing out of the ordinary. At this point I began to worry about collapse and we gave up. The conclusion I am coming to it the pit was possibly used for alcohol storage during prohibition or "hooker storage" :)

I have left a few items in the hole for the next explorer which are sure to get a rise out of them.

And that concluded the journey to the center of the pit

What kind of items did you leave behind? :1orglaugh

Looks like a good place to set up a hydro operation that yields roughly 1lb a month.... or your own indoor in ground pool/jacuzzi

haha.. thanks for hte final update.

thank god it was just htat..