World of the Bizarre

Man falls down 130ft shaft he dug under his house to look for gold

By T.K. Randall
January 11, 2024 ·  8 comments

Joao used a makeshift contraption to lower himself down the hole. Image Credit: Minas Gerais Fire Brigade The bizarre series of events began when 71-year-old Joao Pimenta da Silva of Brazil had a dream that led him to believe that there was a stash of gold hidden beneath his own house.

Curious to see if there really was gold down there, he began digging a hole in his kitchen floor.

Before long, his mission became something of an obsession that would ultimately claim his life.

"Joao had spent more than a year digging the hole and hired many people to do the excavating work," his neighbor, Arnaldo da Silva, told local media outlets.

"He began by paying 70 Brazilian Reais (around $14) a day when the hole was still shallow but the deeper he went the more the costs went up.""He ended up paying around ($100) to anyone who entered the hole and helped to remove earth. He had hit a large stone that appeared which was difficult to remove and there were rumors he had been talking about trying to get hold of dynamite."

By the time 12 months had passed, the hole in Joao's kitchen floor was 130ft deep.

The extreme danger of traversing the shaft would ultimately lead to his demise when, while attempting to climb out on January 5th, he slipped and fell to his death.

According to Luis Filipe de Miranda of the local fire department, Joao's equipment had been amateurish but the shaft he had managed to dig out was cut remarkably well.

"This tunnel looks like something alien, with the perfection with which he dug it: very small diameter, very perfect cylinder, 40m deep," he said.

In the end, no evidence of gold was ever found beneath the house.

Source: Mail Online | Comments (8)

Tags: Gold