Certified Diver Ben McDaniel Enters Cave — Never Surfaces

On August 18, 2010, 30-year-old Ben McDaniel arrived at Vortex Spring, a privately owned freshwater cave diving site in Ponce de Leon, Florida. He signed in, rented tanks, and entered the water. He never came out. Cave owners confirmed he passed through the grate at the cave entrance — a grate that requires removing one's tank to slip through, into a section of the cave with a posted warning that only the most experienced divers should enter. Two of the world's top cave divers, conducted at the owners' request, searched the system over multiple dives, penetrating more than 400 feet past the warning sign into a silted, completely lightless passage. They found nothing — no body, no equipment, no human remains. The owners subsequently welded the grate shut, preventing any further independent search. How a diver enters a physically enclosed underwater cave system and leaves no trace has never been explained. Some theorize Ben staged his own disappearance. Others believe he is somewhere in the cave, in a passage no one has yet reached. He has never been found.