This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Cheb1337 on 2024-10-09 21:33:12+00:00.
Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania 2024
The excavation has gone smoothly these past three weeks, but today we’ve encountered something so strange that it warranted the creation of this entry you’re presently reading. As of this moment I’m not sure whether or not to officially publish these finds, as I fear for the repercussions it may produce and I do not wish to tarnish my professional legacy.
The reason I’m even writing this entry to begin with is to keep a personal record of these recent events while they’re fresh in my mind, but I also intend to post it anonymously to the internet where it will likely be swept away and disregarded as a hoax or urban legend. I’m fine with that, I just need to get it off my chest. I know it’s not rational or even a good idea to share this with strangers, but I just need to tell someone. Maybe someone will know what is going on. Until I have fully decided on whether or not to publish, I will keep this as anonymous as I can.
I’m a paleoanthropologist at an esteemed university in the States, and I’ve been leading a small excavation team here in Tanzania at one of the oldest sites of hominin occupation in the world; Olduvai Gorge. Our excavation site was located on the eastern stretches of the gorge, in a particularly hilly area, as scouted by our surveyors. They chose this spot due to the presence of a series of small and seemingly undiscovered rockshelters hidden away behind thick shrubbery and debris. It is nothing short of a miracle that they were able to be located by our team. Over these past weeks we have found here an abundance of lithic assemblages, most of them consisting of Oldowan scrapers and cores, but we also found a pair of Acheulean handaxes and a few bifacial points. Deep in one of the rock shelters we even unearthed the partial remains of what is most likely an Australopithecine upper skull, though further osteological analysis is pending.
All seemed to be going well until today, when my lunch break was interrupted by one of my students. I will refer to him as Edward. He came rushing over from the easternmost rockshelter, nearly stumbling over all the pebbles and sticks in his way as he hurried down the hill toward the tents, calling my name.
I rose from my seat to greet him, fearing that some sort of accident had happened.
“What is it?” I anxiously inquired. I had never seen him this upset.
“You gotta come check this out. Right now!” He replied enigmatically and ushered me to follow him.
I went with him up the hill and into the mouth of the rock shelter. Immediately I noticed what all the fuss was about. Deep in the innermost end of the rock shelter, past all the excavation tools and equipment, where there had previously been a solid rock wall, there was now a small opening.
“I saw this small hole next to this big rock, and I just kept digging and digging and I moved some more rocks and I —”
“Oh, okay. You should have notified me sooner.” I said, cutting him off as I ventured deeper into the shelter, toward the gaping hole. I feared that, in his eagerness, he may have disturbed an important context.
“—but the thing is, I looked inside it, you know with my light and whatnot, and I saw these, uh…things. You better take a look”
I crouched down beside the hole and searched my pockets for my flashlight. The opening seemed big enough for someone to crawl into, and as I turned on the light, the shining beam illuminated a massive cavern on the other side, probably big enough to stand in.
“Remarkable” I uttered.
“Shine your light at the far end walls. Do you see them?” Edward probed.
I did as he had asked me, and as my light moved across the dusty volcanic rock walls of the chamber, I laid my eyes on something that made my heart skip a beat. First believing it to be merely a trick of the light, I stuck my head deeper into the opening to get a better view.
“You see them, don’t you?” Edward’s voice echoed behind me.
Lost for words, I began crawling through the opening, eagerly disregarding any health and safety precautions one would be wise to employ when venturing into such undiscovered cave environments. I heard Edward calling out to me as I did so, begging me to be careful. I scraped up my arms and legs in the process, and as I emerged on the other side I was completely covered in dust, which I promptly brushed off my rugged clothes as I stood up.
On the far end wall were a series of rough carvings onto the rock. Carvings in the Latin alphabet. Carvings in English. The whole wall was full of them, as if it was a page in a book. Behind me I heard Edward grunting and shuffling as he made his way through the opening to join me in my astonishment. I scanned the rest of the cavern with my light and saw that the inscriptions continued on the other surfaces and walls of the chamber. Not only that, but I noticed a series of strange artifacts scattered about, seemingly undisturbed for millennia. Among them were several aforementioned Oldowan stone tools and a ring made of mostly pure gold judging by its pristine condition, as well as some bones randomly strewn around.
My immediate thoughts were that the cave must have been used in modern times, perhaps recently. I hadn’t yet actually read the content of what was scribbled on the walls, but even still, something about that explanation immediately felt off. The strata next to where the opening had been was undisturbed and had naturally accumulated for millions of years. I should know because I monitored it closely yesterday when we started digging in that part of the rockshelter. I realize some of you reading this might not be familiar with stratigraphy and thus not fully understand why this would be an issue when regarding the date of the inscriptions, but those well acquainted with the law of superposition should know exactly why this shouldn’t be possible. If you don’t, I urge you to google it. But to make a long story short however, the law of superposition states that geological layers accumulate over time, and that under normal circumstances, the layers that are the oldest are those found further down.
Now, assuming the entrance we came in is the only entrance into the cave, and taking into consideration the opening was buried under a dozen stratigraphical layers, it means that it was last sealed around a million years ago at the earliest.
Everything about this was strikingly anachronistic, but I saw no other explanation. There seemed to be no other way to enter the cave, and there was no sign of a previous collapse.
“What is this, Edward?” I asked him, who was now full of dirt and standing beside me. “Are you pulling my leg here? Is this some kind of elaborate joke?”.
“No sir, I promise.”
“It shouldn’t be possible then” I said pacing back and forth.
“Yet, evidently it is.” he somewhat snarkily replied. I ignored him.
My pacing took me around a slight bend in the cave and I noticed a heap of what looked like different chunks of various metals. Some seemed to be nearly reduced to dust as a result of deterioration over time, while others looked pretty much to be in pristine condition, although not as shiny as they once probably were. There were also snake-like lines in the sandy floor of the cave with traces of heavily oxidized copper encompassed within them. Had these once been wires? If they were ever covered in plastic, as most wires today are, it must have broken down millennia ago, leaving no trace. Quite remarkable.
“Doc, you should see what’s written on these walls”. Edward’s voice echoed around the bend.
“Just a second.” I replied, carefully observing the strange assemblage and analyzing it as best as I could. I had never seen anything like it in my life. Was this a machine?
“Woah, like you really need to come right now.” Edward again urged me.
I emerged from behind the bend to see what all the fuss was about, and when I did I noticed the dusty visage of Edward looking pale as a ghost.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, looking at where the beam of his flashlight was illuminating the inscribed wall.
“Read what it says!” Edward urged me. And so I did.
In the following section of this entry I will recount word for word what was inscribed on those walls. Where there is significant erosion or other obstruction of the text, I have filled in the gaps. From what I interpreted to be the beginning, the upper left corner, it read as follows:
“Upon arrival, the machine broke down almost instantaneously. I am the only living Homo Sapiens in the world, and there won’t be another like me for at least 2 million years. There is an overwhelming hopelessness to it all. There is no hope for me, I have accepted it. These things… these devils…have left me no other choice than to seal myself into this… this tomb. I can hear them at night, digging and scratching.”
Thus read the first section of the text. Beneath it the next one read:
*“My name is Bill Hartnell and I was born on the 29th of September 2029 in Exeter, England, and this is my full story. I’m stuck in here for the foreseeable future, so I might as well tell my tale in as much detail as I can. I’ve got nothing better to do to pass my remaining time. Apologies if I don’t get to finish it. Writing on this wall is somewhat tedious however, so I will be concise, forgive me. I studied Quantum Mechanics at Exon and graduated with my PhD in 2058. The machine I built subsequently took me 10 years to complete and was o…
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