Monument Older Than Stonehenge Found in Lake Michigan

Bright Side

You won't believe this, but divers found something wild at the bottom of Lake Michigan—a stone circle that's older than Stonehenge. Yep, apparently the Midwest has been holding onto ancient secrets this whole time. It was discovered by accident while researchers were scanning the lake floor for shipwrecks (plot twist!). The stones are arranged in a circle, and one even has what looks like a carving of a mastodon on it. No one's 100% sure who built it or why, but it's clear it dates way back. Makes you wonder what else is hiding under those Great Lakes, right?  Credit: Mesolithic canoe: By Carolien Bijvoet/sketchfab, https://skfb.ly/oosBY WHS_Mendota Canoe: By Wisconsin Historical Sciety, https://whs.photoshelter.com/galleries/C0000myp9MBnjA44/G00002Bb5iWlqWbw/I0000XvdeNglyKoY/2022-WHS-Mendota-Canoe-2-069-jpeg WHS_Mendota Canoe 2 - 039: By Wisconsin Historical Sciety, https://whs.photoshelter.com/galleries/C0000myp9MBnjA44/G00002Bb5iWlqWbw/I0000HKYqYg7ksWY/2022-WHS-Mendota-Canoe-2-039-jpeg Mendota Canoe 2 - 043: By Wisconsin Historical Sciety, https://whs.photoshelter.com/galleries/C0000myp9MBnjA44/G00002Bb5iWlqWbw/I00005PDU2M_KEZ4/2022-WHS-Mendota-Canoe-2-043-jpeg Wisconsin Historical Society: By RAHurd, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21846998 Manta Point: By CheeseAndJamSandwich/sketchfab, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, https://skfb.ly/o8rtX CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0: Men Scryfa Standing Stone: By CISMAS/sketchfab, https://skfb.ly/XY6y Coolineagh ogham stone: By oghamin3d/sketchfab, https://skfb.ly/oRWKX Stonehenge: By Alex_design/sketchfab, https://skfb.ly/oUouN La Grande Hermine: By Arqueomodel3D/sketchfab, https://skfb.ly/oJvEF Portofino wrecked Airplane: By robertmasiboda/sketchfab, https://skfb.ly/oyGxK Wreck Varese: By holger.buss/sketchfab, https://skfb.ly/oWQx8 Pesse canoe: By Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands/sketchfab, https://skfb.ly/pr9pJ Marinette Historical Society Dugout Canoe: By sschroeder2/sketchfab, https://skfb.ly/oIK9Z Buried Anomaly: By NOAA's Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary/sketchfab, https://skfb.ly/pq9z8 Druids' Stone: By megalith archive/sketchfab, https://skfb.ly/6VLE7 Megalith in Evora: By Ye Myat Lwin/sketchfab, https://skfb.ly/o6VoU Huly Hill Stone Circle: By readonlymemories/sketchfab, https://skfb.ly/KuDP Stonehenge Spiral Variation: By Sereib/sketchfab, https://skfb.ly/oPvJo Animation is created by Bright Side.  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/   Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV   Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Our Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightside Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en Telegram: https://t.me/bright_side_official   Stock materials (photos, footages and other): https://www.depositphotos.com https://www.shutterstock.com https://www.eastnews.ru ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.

Transcript

00:00Hey, you've heard of Stonehenge. Of course you have.

00:04Big rocks mysteriously mounted in circles on a plane in England by, you know, somebody.

00:11But what if England's Stonehenge is only a replica of another monument,

00:16and its builders just crossed the Atlantic and copied what someone had already done elsewhere?

00:22Well, it turns out researchers found another Stonehenge underneath the waters of Lake Michigan.

00:30This lake is a hotspot for woo-woo unexplained things.

00:33A bunch of disappearances, plane crashes, and now this!

00:38An ancient underwater monument that looked strangely enough like Stonehenge.

00:43We couldn't help ourselves and needed to dive deep into the story.

00:49A ring of massive stones arranged in a way that felt all too familiar.

00:54They saw two circles, an outer one and an inner one, sitting 40 feet below the surface.

01:02But this wasn't just a random pile of rocks.

01:05These stones had been placed there purposefully by human hands.

01:10And by doing some further research,

01:12they discovered that they were staring at a structure that's over 9,000 years old.

01:17Think about it.

01:18This Stonehenge beneath Lake Michigan predates the pyramids.

01:24It predates Stonehenge itself by about 4,000 years.

01:28All of this information was enough to startle scientists at Northwestern Michigan University.

01:34But that was before they found this out.

01:38One of the stones had a carving, a faint but clear petroglyph of a mastodon.

01:43Mastodons kind of look like the ancestors to our modern-day elephants.

01:48But they have been extinct on planet Earth since 10,000 years ago.

01:53So, whoever built this underwater Stonehenge needed to be alive at the same time these creatures roamed our planet.

02:00This discovery raised many questions among scientists.

02:04I mean, why on Earth would they go through all this trouble to lay rocks at the bottom of a lake?

02:10Well, first things first.

02:11Scientists believe that Lake Michigan had much less water back then than it does now.

02:17Second, it could have something to do with ancestral practices of First Nation people.

02:23There's one theory from a professor of the University of Michigan.

02:26He suggested that the stones formed a kind of prehistoric hunting trap.

02:31He believes that early hunters used the circular formation as a drive lane to herd large animals like the mastodons from the rock carvings we were just talking about.

02:42Once they got these huge animals into a tighter circle, they could be more easily hunted.

02:47But not everyone's convinced by this theory.

02:50Some believe the circle probably had a deeper spiritual purpose.

02:55According to local Native American tribes, like the Hanishinaabe, stones are more than just rocks.

03:02They're living beings.

03:03They hold spiritual energy and represent a connection to the Earth and all living creatures.

03:09An elder from the Hanishinaabe community even suggested that these stones are sacred, placed there by their ancestors to honor the land and its creatures.

03:19Scientists are trying to study the stone formation in depth, like about 40 feet.

03:25But that's the problem, actually.

03:27The fact that it's underwater makes it super difficult, since they don't have the best technology.

03:34Traditional archaeological tools don't work as well when everything is submerged.

03:39But promising new technologies, like stereophotogrammetry, which literally means making 3D models of a site,

03:46are helping scientists study the stone circle more closely.

03:51Still, research is slow and expensive.

03:54So it's hard to know when this mystery will come to a close.

03:59As we said, Lake Michigan is a hot spot for unexplained phenomenon.

04:04Its lakebed is filled with shipwrecks, such as the Thomas Hume, a sturdy American schooner.

04:10It also collects debris from airplanes that have suddenly gone missing while flying the area,

04:15such as Northwest Airlines Flight 2501, that disappeared in the 1950s.

04:22Some people even call the area the Lake Michigan Triangle, suggesting paranormal activities,

04:29like what happens in the Bermuda Triangle, might be going on.

04:32The lake spans over 22,000 square miles, which means it's almost two-thirds the size of the country of Ireland.

04:40In 2024, scientists were able to access another one of Lake Michigan's mysteries,

04:47the wreck of the Margaret A. Muir schooner.

04:50This 130-foot-long sailing ship sank over 130 years ago.

04:56The discovery was announced just recently by the Wisconsin Underwater Archaeological Association,

05:03the WUAA, whose team found the shipwreck sitting 50 feet below the surface,

05:08just off the shores of Algoma, Wisconsin.

05:12Built in 1872, the Margaret A. Muir was a three-masted schooner,

05:16built to carry heavy cargo across the Great Lakes.

05:19Her final voyage started out as a routine trip.

05:23Loaded with bulk salt, the ship left Bay City, Michigan, heading for South Chicago, Illinois.

05:29But on September 30, 1893, things took a bad turn.

05:35Just as the Muir approached the town of Annapurie, now known as Algoma,

05:40a sudden storm hit.

05:41The ship began taking on water fast.

05:44The captain of the boat ordered his crew to abandon ship,

05:47and thankfully, they all made it to shore safely.

05:51For more than a century, the wreck sat undisturbed on the lake bed,

05:56its location a mystery.

05:57But thanks to a combination of historical research and high-resolution sonar,

06:03WUAA searchers finally found her in May of last year.

06:07The wreck is remarkably well-preserved,

06:10with parts of the deck and gear still visible.

06:12Well, just a few lakes over to the left,

06:16researchers uncovered another impressive thing.

06:19At the bottom of Lake Mendota, near Madison, Wisconsin,

06:22researchers found 11 ancient canoes.

06:25They believe the oldest of the canoes dates all the way back to 2500 BCE.

06:32Now, if you don't get why that's important,

06:35it's because you're thinking with today's head.

06:37If in a classic Midwest highway you see a bunch of pickups,

06:42then back in the ancient days, you see only canoes.

06:46They were the main mode of transportation for indigenous cultures.

06:50They were used to fish in deep waters,

06:52trade goods, and travel long distances.

06:54The reason why scientists were so excited with its discovery

06:59is because they had never found any proof of what canoes were being used for in this region back then.

07:05And to understand the local cultures that inhabited the area during this time period,

07:11they needed to have some information on that.

07:13This exciting discovery was announced by the Wisconsin Historical Society in May 2024.

07:21The first canoe, which they believe is around 1200 years old,

07:24was pulled from the lake in 2021.

07:27Then a second one was dug up in 2022.

07:31And now divers have found at least 11 more canoes

07:34along what would have been an ancient shoreline long since submerged.

07:38One theory is that these canoes were intentionally sunk

07:42to keep them from freezing or warping in winter.

07:45It's possible people stored them in the same spot for generations.

07:49Or maybe this is just a small part of a much bigger settlement.

07:54Historians do believe there could be an ancient village

07:57hidden under the water of the lake.

08:00Divers have already found stone tools like net sinkers used for fishing,

08:04but the village itself hasn't been located yet.

08:08The truth is, while the Great Lakes often steal all the thunder,

08:12scientists point out that smaller lakes like Mendota have stories too.

08:17The Wisconsin Historical Society is working closely with native nations

08:21to piece together more about the lake's history.

08:25You'll need to believe me when I say there is a third Stonehenge

08:29all the way under the waters of Lake Constant, Switzerland.

08:33I mean, think of it like Stonehenge's cousin.

08:37Archaeologists began to discover this back in 2015,

08:41when they found a line of 170 man-made stone cairns under the lake.

08:47Scientists say this was most likely the work of several villages,

08:51and that the cairn site was probably used for some collective purpose

08:54because, well, the formations are huge.

08:58Some of them are several dozen feet wide,

09:01and they can build up to six feet.

09:03The most amazing discovery so far

09:06is that the site dates back to around 5,500 years ago.

09:11So around the time the original Stonehenge was being built.

09:15Some of the facts that link them together

09:17are their construction dates,

09:19as well as the distinct characteristic of stone monuments

09:22built in a circular format.

09:25Scientists don't know much about this site yet,

09:27but, hey, I see a pattern manifested all over the world.

09:32Don't you?

09:35That's it for today.

09:36So, hey, if you pacified your curiosity,

09:38then give the video a like and share it with your friends.

09:41Or if you want more, just click on these videos

09:43and stay on the Bright Side!

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