Massive Suburban Pittsburgh Sinkhole Reveals...

Seven feet underneath a crumbling Dormont, PA (suburb of Pittsburgh) parking lot, three TWELVE FEET WIDE by FIFTY THREE FEET LONG, concrete boxes (the size of a mobile home--with 8 foot thick walls)!

pittsburgh.cbslocal.com...

Now I know there IS a "official" sinkhole thread...but this is UNIQUE in that these "mystery" boxes are underneath and NO ONE knows what purposes they serve; how or when they were placed; or who put them there.

Dormont Borough officials can not find any building permits; no "old timer" has come forward to say "I saw those huge boxes of concrete poured. The County (Allegheny) also has no record of the structures or no reason for the fortress like structures being built. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania also has no knowledge. Speculation runs from "storm/fallout shelters" "storage vaults" storm water "boxes" (but again NO similar box anywhere else that any local governing body can list to say "see they're all over the place (they are NOT ). Again those who keep and record maps, building permits, etc have NO idea why these boxes exist.

Anyone else's community have anything remotely similar?

reply to post by Glinda


My guess. JUST A GUESS

When the roads were being built, they probably knew that the ground in that area was weak and could not support traffic. So, they put these concrete boxes under ground in the hopes that the road could support the weight of the traffic that would be traveling on it. It obviously worked for a long time until recently, when the thing caved.

Just a guess.

reply to post by Glinda


Jimmy Hoffa...found...again....

What an interesting mystery...my imagination runs wild.

Des

Ancient Mafia burial site?

Very interesting.

I was thinking something along the lines of support also. PA is a heavily coal mined state, near Pittsburg though, I am not sure.
Sink holes are so common in PA, maybe it was an experiment to support the road, or whatever is there.

Contents: Jimmy Hoffa, some gold from fort knox, and the complete project blue book files...

There was a big sink hole in middle of the road behind Soumi College in Hancock MI a while back. They dumped piles of sand down it and it just went down. They finally stuffed a bunch of cars down the hole to block it and then filled it. It was an old mineshaft tunnel that collapsed. There is caving ground around this neck of the woods. Not really sink holes but mine caveins. There were plenty of mine blasts when I was a kid too, where caving in tunnels leave out a big rumble and boom.

I think of this everytime someone here mentions strange booming. These old mine shafts are all around in areas of the country where there was mining going on over the last three to four hundred years..

reply to post by skepticconwatcher


Roadway support makes alot of sense, but there is no public record of such a massive foundation project, and from what has been reported (here locally) these are hollow "rooms" except they are not attached to any building (current of previous.). The land above became used as a parking lot many, many years ago (early 1950s). Property deed research hasn't yielded any clues either (from media reports).

also being covered here www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by Destinyone


My imagination ran wild as well.

A sinkhole in early spring in SW PA--pretty expected (freeze thaw cycle/ shale/ sandstone geology). But huge (they are 12 feet by 53 feet by 8 feet boxes--hollow w/8 foot thick walls) found in said sinkhole is the stuff that makes someone like me just imagine just about anything. Guess that's why I read ATS.

reply to post by rickymouse


SW PA is heavily undermined. Every house I have ever lived in has HAD to be covered by mine subsidence insurance. PA real estate is unique, as landowners are NOT the holders of the mineral rights below. Because we are so heavily mined (with mines dating back thru the early 1800s) the first option in any cave in would be "mining maps." From the local TV stations reporting (the link above in the original post was the most info filled) that area is NOT undermined. But...

As some of our mines date to the early 1800s and most early coal miners here were immigrants for whom English was a second language (and more than likely never learned to read & write) its easy to wonder if measurements and documentation of coal seams etc were 100 percent accurate. The US Bureau of Mines in Pittsburgh has tens of thousands of maps though, and this area of Dormont (the south hills of Pittsburgh) isn't undermined (supposedly). So "stable" was the land that a HUGE municipal pool is blocks away. And the pool complex records building records indicate that the "vault" area has nothing to do with the pool at all.

reply to post by generik


Honest I DID do a search but didnt find any thread

Cool to learn that there are other Yinzers on ATS though!

reply to post by Glinda


the thread title wasn't helpful in your search. which why you wouldn't have found it in a search

i will ask what i asked in the other one tho. any idea what was on this site prior to the pool and parking lot? it seems that these have been around a long time since they figure no one would have a clue as to what these are. seems to be reinforced concrete not sure how long it has been used but could help t least with age estimating it.

i would also love to find out what that "black sludge" is made up of, could also be helpful in figuring out what this was

reply to post by Glinda

PA real estate is unique, as landowners are NOT the holders of the mineral rights below.

PA real estate is NOT unique in that regard. In fact that is common practice ALL OVER THE WORLD; not absolute, but COMMON. Surface and Mineral rights are two different things, and in most states it is quite complicated.

In Texas, the rule has changed many times, originally, a land grant was for surface rights, and did not include mineral rights unless specifically mentioned on the grant. This was from Spanish colonial times right up to the late 19th century at least. There are now a variety rights for different minerals. In Arizona, it is equally complicated.

In Australia, the Crown owns all mineral rights, period. Surface rights owners have very little recourse when a developer wants to access the property to exploit the mineral rights underneath.

I will not go on and on. I'll just point out that anyplace that has mineral rights and surface rights tied as a matter of course is 'unique', not the opposite.

reply to post by Glinda


I talked to an old mine inspector from Ahmeek. He told us of a time when a man in his garden saw the ground cave in and a man with a helmet stuck his head out the hole. This is odd only because the miners were over two miles from where they were supposed to be and they were supposed to be over a thousand feet deep. Nobody really knows where those old mining veins go, their directional equipment didn't work well back then..

One might wonder if someone along they way was paid per cubic foot of concrete used

The area is along Banksville road and is a valley. I have lived in the area all my life and would assume the boxes where used to trap water that runs through the area. Most likely they will find out it was an old sawmill or something. Mine entrances are found all over the area but are usually found up on the sides of the hills. Banksville road runs downhill until it meets Sawmill Run Road so go figure...

Interesting. Glinda's common point here, is no records can be located from anyone, to verifiy or confirm any-thing.
Sounds like the OP has exhausted all normal means of verification, and is coming up empty handed, and that brings to mind something else I find suspicious.

When no info can be found...and no-one compnay, person, public record or memory can attest to the construction or placement of such a thing(s)...I smell GOVERNMENT.