Researchers Finally Find Out Where The Mysterious Underground River In Minnesota Leads to
Human beings love mystery that piques their curiosity in an attempt to discover something extraordinary. A similar enigma plagued Minnesota’s Judge C.R. Magney State Park where one of the branches of the Brule River disappears into a hole without any other outlet in sight. Popularly known as the Devil’s Kettle, it occurs right after the river hits a massive rock and splits into two streams of water. Conspiracy theories have emerged with some suggesting that the water travels all the way to Canada while others theorize that it merges with Lake Superior, per a report by Minnesota Conservation Center.
At one point in the Brule River, one of the streams follows a conventional route into a waterfall and then flows downstream while the other plunges into a perceived deep hole and has been thought to be lost in an underground water tunnel. Park manager Peter Mott also had little idea about the route taken inside the Devil’s Kettle. "I've heard locals describe the possibility that this water splits at the waterfall and some of it flows into Canada. I've actually heard people suggest that it may flow somehow back into the Mississippi River,” he told MPR News in 2017.
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources decided to finally uncover the mystery behind Devil’s Kettle in 2016. They realized that underground tunnels were unlikely because of the hard rock land in Minnesota. Before the scientists had stepped in, park visitors and other curious people had first tried to solve the riddle. They threw in a range of objects, from as light as a ping-pong ball to GPS trackers and rumors have it that a car was also shoved into the hole, per VICE. This was done to identify the area where these objects may have resurfaced but that all was in vain.
The geologists examined the water flow of the Brule River in a bid to find out if it was the same before the split and after the main waterfall. The water lost would help them determine a possible channel or outlet. The results were enough to kill the enthusiasm of mystery seekers as the scientists found that the water flow remained constant with negligible shifts. The water flow above the Devil’s Kettle was recorded at 3.48 cubic meters per second (123 cubic feet per second) and 3.43 cubic meters per second (121 cubic feet) just below the waterfall following the big split. This minor difference was enough to suggest that none of the water was lost in Devil’s Kettle.
It was presumed to have penetrated deep cracks into the Earth forming a water tunnel, and almost immediately joined the rest of the river downstream. Mapping hydrologist Jeff Green said in an official statement, “In the world of stream gauging, those two numbers are essentially the same and are within the tolerances of the equipment.” He confirmed that the water is “resurging” in the stream below the Devil’s Kettle itself. Whereas, the high pressure of the water currents inside the plunge pool could potentially shred any given material or simply trap it under water until re-emerging on the surface, as explained by Calvin Alexander of the University of Minnesota. However, they could not determine the exact point where the water from the two splits merged into the Brule River.