Lucia F.
Where is the Moon Cave? What is it like? Who made it and why? And…is it real at all? When it comes to Moon Cave, there´s actually not much we could state with certainty. There´s only one eyewitness who could be questioned – guerrilla commander Antonín Horák who has discovered, thoroughly investigated and described this weird place during the WW2. But Horák is just as mysterious, as his famous discovery…
Slovak National Uprising in 1944 was an armed insurrection organized by the Slovak resistance movement in an attempt to resist German troops that had occupied Slovak territory and to overthrow the collaborationist government. Many guerrilla troopers have been hiding in the lush Slovak woods trying to accomplish various missions – or at least trying to survive the war. One of them was Antonín Horák.
We don´t know much about his pre-war life but thanks to extensive notes in his war journal, we know many details about the discovery he made. And we also know that he was so attracted to it that he kept returning there again and again…
The cave he came across at first looked like any other cave – and, to be honest, there´s pretty much of them in Slovakia. However once he stepped inside, he knew in a minute that this is something special. The walls were so smooth and symmetric that Horák was sure it is not an art of nature. He described them as “glass-like” and their color was bluish black. He even tried to shot a bullet in one of them, but it just bounced off without leaving a single scratch on it. The mysterious cave was in the shape of giant cylinder and it was ending in a deep shaft in the shape of half-moon, which inspired Horák to nickname the place “Moon Cave” – although the name is also closely related to one of many theories about its origin and purpose…
Aliens or ancient architects
Yes, of course, the Aliens! Who else might have built something so strange, durable and unexplainable in the middle of nowhere?! Some of those who believe this theory think the cave was an extraterrestrials´ center for surveillance of the life on Earth; some are convinced Horák must have found a crashed alien spaceship wedged in the rocks. Others – including Antonín Horák himself – think the Moon Cave was built by some developed ancient civilization.
Could modern scientific methods answer these questions today? It is probable. The problem is nobody knows where exactly the cave is. There are some hints it might be somewhere between the cities of Stará Ľubovňa and Plavnica, rumors have been spread that it should rather be looked for in the area called Ždiar. The only person in the world who could tell – Antonín Horák – has mysteriously disappeared himself right after the war. And – what is even stranger – no contemporary attempts to identify him in the war archives were successful…
For many of those interested in this mystery, Horák´s disappearance simply cannot be a coincidence. Did he go one step too far into the area protected by secret services? Did he return to the cave and vanished in some secret underground dungeons? Possible scenarios are countless.
However, there´s even one more prosaic resolution. Someone signed as Antonin T. Horak published an article about the Moon Cave in one speleological magazine in the US after the war, which suggests that he simply emigrated without leaving any paper trail. But was this Horak truly who he said he was? Or was he just trying to make profit from the legend? And was there any Antonín Horák and Moon Cave at all…?
We might never know. But every now and then some curious hiker, adventurous historian or enthusiastic mystery lover tries to find the truth in the deep Tatra´s woods. Let´s hope one of them will sooner or later succeed. ..
What do you think?
