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God is dead: but considering the state the species Man is in, there will perhaps be caves, for ages yet, in which His shadow will be shown. Friedrich Nietzsche
South Vietnam: A rainforest inside a cave. Professor Iain Stewart, How to Grow a Planet I: Life From Light, BBC 2012
Other than light, what else could fuel life? A clue came from underneath a rubbish dump in Romania. Here cave scientists stumbled across a biological treasure trove ... It was like a bubble trapped in rock until it was broken into. Nothing from the surface had got into it perhaps for millions of years. What they had found was a world as dark and isolated as Lake Vostok ... But these creatures were unlike anything he had seen before ... the cave was completely cut off from the surface. Nothing could get through; the scum was a thick microbial mat. This was the base of the food chain. But what were the microbes living on? ... In the absence of sunlight they were using hydrogen sulphide as their energy source. Horizon: The Lost World of Lake Vostok, BBC 2000
Hidden on the wild coast of South Africa where the Indian Ocean joins the Atlantic there is a cave. Today it is abandoned but once it teemed with life. For here tens of thousands of years ago some of our earliest ancestors lived. BBC Horizon: The Day We Learned to Think, BBC 2003
Perhaps the truth will be found in ancient cave drawings: the earliest evidence we have of a human search for something outside ourselves. When archaeologists began studying the stories our ancestors left carved in stones and caves, some people noticed images and artefacts that didn’t seem to fit with our assumptions of history. Many people found it difficult to explain images like these – depicting what appear to be men in spacesuits with helmets and antennae. Ancient Astronauts
A temple of the dead in the Yucatan, an underground city in Turkey, and a South American cave said to contain a treasure from beyond the stars: for centuries people have told tales of caves and tunnels deep inside the earth: subterranean passageways that lead to lands of gods and monsters. Could there be a surprising truth behind these legends? Ancient Aliens s2e4: Underground Aliens, History 2010
Deep in the caves of the American south-west ... Is it possible these underground creatures of Native American legend were actually alien visitors? ibid.
Gods descending to Earth, converging on the same haloed ground. A holy shrine built to mark the landing of a meteorite. And sacred caves where walls are lined with images of strange half-human creatures. Ancient Aliens s3e3: Aliens and Sacred Places, History Channel 2013
The result of contact with ancient space travellers? ibid.
Nepal 2007: The skycaves of the ancient kingdom of Mustang. There are over 10,000 of these man-made caves. Ancient Aliens s6e3: Aliens and Mysterious Mountains
Gateways to other dimensions. Hidden dwellings for strange beings. Secret vaults of cosmic knowledge. Since the dawn of man caves have been a source of great mystery. But could the darkest recesses of our planet really be hiding some mysterious power? And within their depths might we find evidence of extraterrestrial visitors? Ancient Aliens s9e1: Forbidden Caves
Hundreds of authors have jumped on this tradition and claim that it must now point to the location of the Ark – hidden by Jeremiah in some magical cave. Philip Gardiner, The Ark, The Shroud & Mary, documentary & book
I’m in a cave. Each one of those tiny lights is produced by the larva of a small insect called a fungus gnat as a way of attracting its prey ... One of the most magical illuminations in the whole of the natural world. David Attenborough, Life in the Undergrowth III: The Silk Spinners, BBC 2009
This is our planet’s final frontier. An inner world where only the most adventurous dare to go. Beneath our feet are countless miles of cave shafts and passages. David Attenborough, Planet Earth s4: Caves, BBC 2006
This is the biggest underground passage in the world ... It’s Deer Cave in Borneo. ibid.
The discovery of life that exists without drawing any of its energy from the sun shows us once again how complex and surprising the underground world can be. ibid.
How prolific this part of Borneo can be. That is can support all this enormity of bats ... What a marvellous place some animals think a cave is in which to live. David Attenborough
Beneath the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico lies another world. A labyrinth of caves. Carved by freshwater. An essential for life on Earth. Freshwater shapes the land and the creatures who live in it in the most surprising ways. David Attenborough, Planet Earth s3e4: Freshwater
… And you’ve reached the limit of where life exists. These often extreme places on our planet are often hard for us to reach. Indeed, this cave was only recently discovered. And it contains many surprises … Cave pearls and giant stalagmites … Underground rivers have carved this great passage through the limestone. Over five miles long and wide enough in places to accommodate a jumbo jet. And it is here in the cave’s furthest chamber that life can be found: translucent cave fish and shrimps. David Attenborough, Planet Earth s3e6: Extremes
The woods, and desert caves,
With wild thyme and gadding vine o’ergrown. John Milton, Lycidas, 1638
Caves were sacred places and used for burial. Oceans IV: Atlantic Ocean, BBC 2008
A mysterious cave known as the Cave of Letters; historians believe that 2,000 years ago this desolate cave was used as a hideaway by Jewish refugees escaping the oppressive rule of the Roman empire. But what actually happened here? ... What could the ancient letters and objects found here tell us about their plight? Nova: Ancient Refuge in the Holy Land, Richard Freund reporting, PBS 2004
It was an Israeli expedition in 1960 that made the Cave of Letters famous. ibid.
This find convinced Freund this cave was indeed occupied in the year 70 following the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. ibid.
Hidden three hundred meters beneath the surface of the Earth is a natural wonder. A place as deadly as it is beautiful. With searing temperatures and humidity at 100% a person could die here in just fifteen minutes. Nothing like these giant crystals has ever been seen before. The largest is more than half a million years old ... They are in a place called Naica in the centre of Chihuahua ... The cave is filled with crystals five times bigger than ever seen before. Giant Crystal Cave, National Geographic 2008
Some are eleven meters long weighing fifty-five tons. ibid.
These stunning pillars are made from the same mineral as plaster-board: gypsum. ibid.
Scientists have come back to this deadly cavern, filled with razor-sharp treacherous deadly crystals. Where the temperature is 45 degrees Celsius and the humidity 99%. Return to the Giant Crystal Cave, National Geographic 2010
The crystal cave is located in the tiny mining cave of Naica in the Mexican state of Chihuahua two hundred and fifty kilometres south of the US border. ibid.
An alien world right here on Earth. The cavern is as high as a two-storey building and the size of a football pitch. Some crystals are eleven metres long, weighing fifty-five tons. They are as high as telegraph poles. ibid.
A team with a radical new idea: to find ancient viruses that have been trapped in the cave. ibid.
The scientists have discovered the crystal cave is not the only marvel buried beneath the Earth’s surface ... Others seek to find another crystal cave. ibid.
They are five times longer than any others discovered. Gypsum takes a long time to grow and needs constant conditions of water and heat. ibid.
The gypsum clung to the cave walls and floor growing over time into a giant crystal cave. But the mystery remains whether this geological marvel is unique. ibid.
In 2008 [Professor Penelope] Boston found bacteria trapped in inclusions – tiny air pockets that formed when the crystals were growing. She reanimated the bacteria and brought them back to life. ibid.
The crystal cave is unforgiving on technology. ibid.
They know the crystal cave will soon be flooded, and this is their last chance to unlock its mysteries. ibid.
Behold! Human beings living in a underground den ... Like ourselves ... they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave. Plato, The Republic
That darksome cave they enter, where they find
That cursed man, low sitting on the ground,
Musing full sadly in his sullen mind. Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queen, 1596
For his sons carried him into the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, which Abraham bought with the field for a possession of a buryingplace of Ephron the Hittite, before Mamre. Genesis 50:13