The Disappearance Of Ben McDaniel | Vortex Spring | Cave Diving Gone Wrong

#cave #cavediving #cavestory #disappearance #disappeared #diving #accident

On August 18th, 2010, 30-year-old open water diver, Ben McDaniel, was last seen diving in the underwater cave at Vortex Spring in Ponce de Leon, Florida. Two days later, when a worker at Vortex Spring noticed that Ben's truck was still in the parking lot, the Holmes County Sheriff’s Office were called, and a recovery effort started. Despite nearly nonstop dives by more than 16 recovery divers over a 36 day period, no traces of Ben were ever found.

This video is the main reason why I started this channel. To me, the disappearance of Ben McDaniel is cave diving's greatest mystery. Ben went into Vortex Spring on August 18th, 2010... and was never seen or heard from again. And no traces of Ben were ever found inside of Vortex Spring.

In this video I breakdown the story of what happened before Ben's journey into Vortex Spring. I also break down the different theories that are circulating around Ben's disappearance.

The top 4 theories are:
1. Ben drowned in an unknown section of the cave, or inside of the fissure.
2. Ben Died and his body was removed as to not cause too much bad press for the spring.
3. Ben was murdered and his body disposed of.
4. Ben decided to fake his own death, and is still alive somewhere.

More than a decade later, the truth of what happened to Ben McDaniel still isn't known.

Disclaimer: I had tested positive for covid this week and was in the middle of getting symptoms while recording the video...so it's a little rough, but there was no way I was going to wait to post this story. I plan to make a longer video covering all of the different theories and all of the details I left out at a later time.

I would like to also thank the YouTube Channels deepswim and dcainret for the fantastic footage of Vortex Spring I was able to use; including some of Ben and the initial recovery efforts.

The footage used in this video come from the YouTube channels of:

dcainret:
   / dcainret  

deepswim:
https://www.youtube.com/results?searc...

Video of Ben McDaniel inside of Vortex Spring:
   • # 2 Lost  Diver Piano Room  

Video of the ROV:
   • Submarine ROV inside cave Vortex Spring  

Songs:
Emmit Fenn: Creep
Maksym Bubyriev - Conspiracy Theory Short Version B
Esther Abrami - No.8 Requiem

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00:00 – Intro

00:35 – Chapter 1: Ben McDaniel

04:17 – Chapter 2: Vortex Spring

11:04 – Chapter 3: The Search

17:27 – Chapter 4: The Search Continues

24:56 – Chapter 5: Lowell Kelly

27:49 – Aftermath