There are a lot of things in the world that we don’t quite understand. And there are some things that we’d probably be better off not knowing about.

Case in point, a 400ft-deep hole in the sea.

With most of the world’s oceans being unexplored by humans, it’s no wonder it gives some of us the heebie-jeebies.

The Great Blue Hole is located 60 miles off the coast of Belize.

The rim rises up out of the Caribbean Sea, so it’s not hard to miss either.

This hole was made famous by French explorer and naval officer Jacques Cousteau.

Cousteau was a groundbreaker in the field of oceanography, being the co-inventor of the self-contained underwater breathing apparatus (SCUBA). He also produced some of the world’s first underwater documentaries and wrote books on his incredible findings.

Cousteau’s grandson Fabien would continue his grandfather’s legacy by journeying down the giant hole in 2018.

He made this journey alongside Richard Branson, travelling in two submarines.

As you might imagine, a 400ft pit isn’t the most welcoming and hospitable place. At around 300ft, they discovered a layer of hydrogen sulfide.

Below that point, the water was dark and devoid of life. But there was more to come.

When the explorers finally made it to the bottom, they made a disturbing discovery.

There was some rubbish lying on the ground, including a two-litre plastic bottle, as well as a long-lost GoPro.

The GoPro contained some shots from a holiday. Usually seeing someone’s vacation snaps would be enough to inspire envy, but in this situation, it’d be enough to send a shiver down your spine.

However, that’s nothing compared to the two bodies also sitting down there.

They made a disturbing discovery (VW Pics/Contributor/Getty)

These were explorers who had gone missing on a previous expedition.

While the living explorers determined it’d be best to leave the corpses put, they did inform the Belize government. The hole was also filled with a series of caves, filled with hanging stalactites – mineral formations found on the ceilings of caves.

Visualise a stone icicle and you’ll have a clearer idea of what they look like.

At any rate, they form in caves above water level so seeing them down below was rather unusual.

This indicated that this hole had once been on dry land.

Writing on the Virgin website, Branson reflected: “The Blue Hole is made of a complex system of caves that once formed on dry land. It is proof of how oceans can rise quickly and catastrophically.

“Sea levels were once hundreds of feet lower. 10,000 years ago the sea level rose by about 300 feet when a lot of ice melted around the world. At 300 feet down you could see the change in the rock where it used to be land and turned into sea.”

He said it was ‘one of the starkest reminders of the danger of climate change [he’s] ever seen’.

Archaeologists have made a huge discovery in finding the remains of a person that is believed to be from ‘year zero’.

The uncovered grave was one from 2,000 years ago, which belonged to a Roman soldier named ‘Flaccus’, who is believed to have lived around 0AD.

They discovered his remains in the Netherlands, which also brought more attention to the civilisation’s overwhelming presence in the region, and in fact the world, at that time in history.

They worked the soldier’s name out after finding the name ‘Flac’ carved into an unearthed bowl that was in the grave itself.

Sharing the discovery on the official Municipality of Heerlen Facebook page, Jordy Clemens, Heerlen’s council member for culture and heritage, released a statement on the team’s discovery.

“Today, evidence was found of Roman habitation in the time of Emperor Augustus. A unique discovery that not only teaches us more about our past, but also shows how unique the story of Roman Heerlen is for the Netherlands,” Clemens wrote.

After analysing the gravesite, researchers deduced that Heerlen’s first settlement would have been around the Augustan era from around 0 to 20 AD.

This gravesite was discovered in the midst of excavations at Raadhuisplein, the town square in Heerlen, near a couple of historical roads in Via Belgica and Via Traiana.

It was found to be an important location in the middle of a Roman settlement named Coriovallum, according to archaeologists.

Cariovallum was known for its Roman bathhouse, which is also the oldest stone building in the whole country, built in approximately 40AD.

Not only that, but the building also had a restaurant and library, which points towards the area being a multi-purpose building and a place of meeting in Roman times. They really were ahead of their time, weren’t they?

A bronze skin scraper, four plates and a bowl were found in the grave with Flaccus (Municipality of Heerlen)

Archaeologists further explained that their findings would give us some new insights into the history of the city, adding: “Never before have we found a Roman grave from this period with a name.”

As well as Flaccus, they found a bronze skin scraper, four plates and a bowl in the grave, managing to trace the pottery back to ancient Italy

In the past, digs in the area have uncovered nothing more than pottery shreds, not proving the presence of a settlement as these items could have been left behind during travel.

Flaccus’ grave gave researchers eye-opening evidence that there was a Roman presence in the region, as they further explained: “It is a unique find because it is not only the oldest Roman grave in Heerlen but also because no name was known there before.”

The world’s largest ever ‘blue hole’ has been discovered, but we don’t know what’s at the bottom because we haven’t made it down there yet.

In Chetumal Bay, just off the coastline of Mexico and Belize, there is an incredibly deep blue hole.

First discovered in 2021, researchers initially thought it was 900ft deep,

It seemed to come so close, and yet so far to matching the depth and majesty of the 990ft deep Sansha Yongle Blue Hole in the South China Sea.

However, new measurements of the Taam Ja’ Blue Hole found that it was actually 1,380 feet deep which allow it to greatly surpass its rival and take the top spot.

From rising to new heights to plumbing new depths, the next step for researchers would be to reach the bottom of this hole.

Writing in a study which was published on Monday (29 April) in Frontiers in Marine Science, the experts explained how they discovered that the Taam Ja’ Blue Hole was even deeper than expected.

They wrote: “On December 6, 2023, a scuba diving expedition was conducted to identify the environmental conditions prevailing at the TJBH.”

As part of their experiments they used something called a conductivity, temperature and depth (CTD) profiler, a gizmo that uses probes to transmit information about water through a cable.

What they found was that the blue hole they were exploring was deeper than they thought and deeper than any ever found before in the world, and we still haven’t reached the bottom.

It’s the deepest ever blue hole, that we know of at least. (Frontiers in Marine Science)

What they did manage to learn was a layer of water below the 1,312 mark resembled the Caribbean Sea, leading researchers to wonder if there was a series of tunnels in the hole which was connecting it to the sea.

We don’t even know if there’s even more depth to this hole than we now think, as the CTD profiler can go down to depths of 1,640 feet but stopped at 1,380.

Whether this means it could go no further or that the cable wasn’t going down as far as it possibly could, we don’t know.

As for what blue holes are, they’re underwater caverns and sinkholes which tend to have different layers of water in them.

Remarkably deep, exploring them holds a certain level of fascination as it seems humans can’t see a big hole without wondering what’s at the bottom.

Sometimes expeditions into the holes find the bodies of divers who ran into trouble while exploring.

While diving through an endless blue ocean may sound pretty idyllic for some, one diver has revealed the scary reality of doing so after she went through the ‘Great Blue Hole’

The diving hotspot is 60 miles off the coast of Belize and in the warm waters of the Caribbean Sea, but a staggering 400ft deep below.

It’s become a hotspot for divers wanting to explore but as one diver, shows it’s not necessarily all it’s cracked up to be and has some quite scary things to find.

Posting a video to TikTok, a diver who goes by the handle @fueled.by.donuts took her followers with her as she sunk into the sea and headed into the Great Blue Hole.

In the video, she dives down as far as 130 feet deep, and points out the different sites including stalactites as well as some gigantic examples of marine life that create a very dangerous reality for hopeful divers.

Huge sharks are seen swimming by as she explores, and while it isn’t certain what type of shark they are, tiger sharks – which are responsible for many deaths – are native to Caribbean waters.

Yet it’s not necessarily off putting as some are still keen to explore the Great Blue Hole for themselves one day, as many commented: “Wow I need to go try” and: “Oh I have to dive this sight”.

The diver is not alone in being amazed by the Great Blue Hole and what she found down there, as many others have also headed into the huge space to explore.

However for some, they were met with rubbish such as plastic bottles, old forgotten cameras and much more sinister discoveries.

A crew diving once discovered two bodies in the hole, believed to be divers who had gone missing in the great cavern.

Virgin founder Richard Branson has also explored the Great Blue Hole, and been left shocked at the effects of climate change on the planet and seas.

Alongside his crew, they found a large series of caves which were home to hanging stalactites – but scientists didn’t think it was possible for stalactites to form beneath the surface of the water.

The discovery points to the theory that the caves were once on dry land and in fact have been sunk as sea levels rise.

Branson highlighted how disturbing this discovery is for the state of the planet in a post on Virgin.com, as he wrote: “The Blue Hole is made of a complex system of caves that once formed on dry land. It is proof of how oceans can rise quickly and catastrophically.

“Sea levels were once hundreds of feet lower. 10,000 years ago the sea level rose by about 300 feet when a lot of ice melted around the world.

“At 300 feet down you could see the change in the rock where it used to be land and turned into sea.”

Branson also described the scene as ‘one of the starkest reminders of the danger of climate change [he’s] ever seen’.