In 1973, a man set out to investigate what had been called a bottomless well out in rural Arizona.

This supposedly bottomless body of water was near a town called Rim Rock.

Its name was Montezuma Well, but really it was more like a really deep sinkhole.

And it was big, it was 368 feet across.

And Montezuma Well had always been mysterious.

It was surrounded by plants, but no fish seemed to live in it,

and any fish people put into it died soon after.

Local Native American groups said that the well was a powerful place,

and some stories even said was the place where life itself had originated.

So one day in 1873 a military doctor named Captain

Warren Day decided to find out what was up with Montezuma Well for himself.

He gathered together all the rope he could find

and tied it into one long coil.

Then he paddled out to the center of Montezuma Well

and tossed the rope overboard.

The rope pretty quickly hit bottom.

They pulled it up and only 65 feet of it had gotten wet.

To save face and avoid the jokes back the fort, he made

sure to dunk the rest of the rope in the water and declared it bottomless anyway.

So, bottomless lake has a bottom.

Case closed.

Except.

...