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Last week, this column took a look at the weird disappearance of evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, who was missing for about a month back in the summer of 1926. Eighty-four years later, people still wonder what really happened to her.
But can an entire lake vanish almost overnight? Apparently, that very thing happened only three years ago in a remote section of Chile and scientists and researchers are still trying to find out why. The Bernardo O'Higgins National Park is located in the southern Andes Mountains of Chile. It is that South American country's largest protected area and contains numerous high mountains and glaciers. Due to its rugged geography and remoteness, few tourists venture into the area. It can only be reached by boat or helicopter.
Inside this national park, a five-acre glacial lake once existed. Rangers at Bernardo O'Higgins National Park last saw the lake in March 2007. When they returned to the site just two months later, they were shocked by what they found.
The entire lake was gone. All of the water and its contents were missing. Instead, the rangers found a 100-feet-deep crater in late May where the lake previously existed. They found only a few large pieces of ice that used to float atop the water, according to the story by the Associated Press. "The lake had simply disappeared," said Juan Jose Romero, head of Chile's National Forest Service for that region. "No one knows what happened."
In addition, the river that once flowed out of the lake was reduced to a small stream. A group of geologists and other experts were sent to the area to investigate and find out what made the lake vanish. One theory holds that the water disappeared through cracks in the lake bottom into underground fissures. But experts cannot explain why any cracks would have appeared because no earthquakes were reported in the area prior to the lake's disappearance, Romero told the AP.
In July 2007, scientists announced they were able to come to the conclusion that the disappearance occurred as a result of climate change.
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