The story behind this photo.
It is a statue of Neptune. According to a number of websites, like this one, it is guarding an underground ballroom. The site linked—and many others—are showcasing a number of other photographs of the secret room under a lake in Witley Park in England.. The site has gone viral, as they say.. It is being shared across the internet and people are making their typical sarcastic and somewhat but not really humorous short lived comments about the images featured.
But that’s the internet. A place where news cycles get spun and news stories constantly get recycled.
On this most recent burst of news articles, it all started on REDDIT—things mostly do, either REDDIT or 4CHAN. In this case, a user posted the images of the under water ballroom and …viola.. sent around the globe.
But now this message appears on REDDIT where the image was once hosted:
Hi, folks, I’m the guy who first posted this to /r/interestingasfuck , and it kind of spread from there.
Since then, I received a very polite email from the son of the couple who lives on this estate asking that I please take the post down. They suffer several break-ins on their property whenever information about this room hits the internet, and he’s worried both for their safety and the curious people coming to find the room. Not only is the lake an obviously dangerous place to poke around, the couple also has several firearms close at hand because break-ins are such a problem, and he is worried that someone is going to end up shot because his parents are so scared.
You’re free to do as you please, of course, but I have removed my
post. It’s probably too late to do much good, but it’s something we can
do to help
Perhaps even more interesting, if you follow through to the FLICKR account where the images were first (first?) posted in the year 2008, this message appears:
Since my visit, I have been informed by a number of sources that the ballroom is now also locked and alarmed. I don’t need to point out that breaking into a locked premises is breaking and entering and is illegal; it’s also against the generally accepted urban exploration rules (somewhere here: www.forbidden-places.net/why.php).
Due to the above, please don’t contact me for access details as I won’t provide them.
I also suggest against visiting Witley as you will have a long walk around the lake only to be confronted by a padlock. If you get spotted wandering about private properly with bolt croppers, expect to be arrested.
I get this feeling, regardless of what the owner of the property hopes for, this newfound internet exposure is only going to lead to further attempts at break ins..
I grew up in Centralia, and still live close by at this point in my life adventure. For decades now, tourists and sight seers have been coming by the town to look for any bit of history or smoke filled mountains from the underground fire that they can. Often they walk away confused and disjointed—you can hardly see evidence of a burning fire, they don’t know that until they get there. I also think that it’s probably best all of the houses besides the few with residents are gone. If not, they’d be broken into by people, things stolen.. valuables trashed. Memories bashed.
Even Chernobyl has looters and people who don’t care too much about radiation, and instead just want to get a piece of nuclear history.
In the matter of the house under the lake: The property owners will not have to face even more news coverage as these images are one again passed around. They must cringe when they turn browse the Net..
No comments:
Post a Comment