The Old Man Of Crater Lake: Mysterious Tree Trunk That Defies The Laws Of Physics

Cynthia McKanzie – MessageToEagle.com – Nature has a funny way of telling us there is still a lot we don’t know about the world around us.

The Old Man of the Lake is a mysterious tree trunk that has defied the laws of physics for 120 years. Floating in Crater Lake, the deepest lake in the United States, one can say the 30-foot long tree trunk is not very eye-catching at first sight, but it has sparked the imagination of many people nevertheless.

Crater Lake

Crater Lake – Image credit: NASA

 It was discovered in 1896 by Joseph Diller, a geologist and explorer who extensively studied Crater Lake at that time. Diller was fascinated by the Old Man of the Lake and described it as ‘a spectacle, curious enough to excite the imagination.” The first written account of the Old Man appeared in 1902, the year Crater Lake was named a national park.

 

The Old Man’s curious behavior resulted in several scientific studies. The tree trunk can travel miles in a single day. One day it can be close to the shore and the newt day it’s in the middle of the lake.

In the 1930s, the government commissioned a study of his movements.  In their “log of the log,” Rangers observed the Old Man move more than 60 miles in less than 3 months. This was not a very good idea though.

 

In the 1980s, Mark Buktenica, an aquatic ecologist for the National Park in Southern Oregon was part of a submarine exploration of Crater Lake.  To avoid running into the Old Man out in the water, they tied him up on the shore.  Bad idea!

“It wasn’t long after he was tied up that a storm blew in,” Bucktenica recalled, “and the surface of the lake got too rough for us to deploy and recover the submarine.”

When it started to snow in August, superstition got the best of the scientists. “Our senior scientists went out quietly one evening and released the Old Man from his bondage,” he said.

And wouldn’t you know it, the weather cleared up right afterward! 

What is truly intriguing about the Old Man of the Lake is that the tree trunk has been floating upright ever since, standing about 1.2 meters (4 feet) tall above the surface. “You would think that the 4-foot above the water would act as a little sail, but sometimes he’ll move all the way across the lake against the wind,” Buktenica said.

The Old Man Of Crater Lake: Mysterious Tree Trunk That Has Defied The Laws Of Physics For 120 Years
The Old Man of the Lake

Though the Old Man of the Lake has been floating in Crater Lake in southern Oregon’s Crater Lake National Park for at least the past 120 years, carbon dating suggests that it is at least 450 years old.

Crater Lake has been the subject of Native American legends and several spooky stories. A Native American legend tells that an epic battle occurred one night in southern Oregon 7,700 years ago.

Standing atop Mount Mazama, spurned by the daughter of a local chief, Llao, god of the underworld, spit magma and shot superheated steam miles into the sky. Skell, the god of the world above, fought back by pitching pyroclastic fireballs from California’s Mount Shasta, blowing the massive summit of Mount Mazama to bits.

The Old Man Of Crater Lake: Mysterious Tree Trunk That Has Defied The Laws Of Physics

By dawn, Llao was driven back underground; Skell honored the victory by filling the massive caldera with water, creating Oregon’s Crater Lake.

Since then, strange stories have hovered above the area like a chilly Northwest fog. People have spotted ghostly campfires on uninhabited Wizard Island, and visitors to Crater Lake Lodge still tell stories of eerie occurrences in the night.

 

See also:

Mysterious Stone Of The Sky God: Krishna’s Butter Ball Defies All Laws Of Physics

Wood Wide Web: Secret Communication Of Trees

Pobiti Kamani: Bulgaria’s Unique Millennia-Old Stone Forest Surrounded By Legends And Inhabited By Desert Reptilians

Crater Lake is some 592 meters (1,943 feet) deep, making it the deepest in the United States, and the ninth deepest lake in the world. What makes Crater Lake different is the fact of how relatively empty it is. According to the US National Park Service, fish are not native to the lake, and the species that exist there now were introduced between 1888 and 1941.

Six species were originally introduced, but only two have survived: rainbow trout and kokanee salmon.

Crater Lake’s clean, cold water is responsible for preserving the tree trunk in such good condition, but why does it defy the laws of physics?

 

Scientists think the higher density of the submerged part is keeping it balanced. Basic physics states that a floating object of uniform density will always have its center of mass as being higher than its center of buoyancy. That means a long log will float with its axis in a horizontal orientation, and a short log will float vertically. 

The Old Man is 9 meters long (30 feet) with a diameter of about 61 cm (2 feet). This suggests it should be floating horizontally, but it doesn’t. Instead, it floats vertically?

Why this is the case remains unknown. There are some theories. One possibility is that when the tree slid into the lake more than a century ago, rocks had become tangled up in its roots, but there are no rocks there now. So, it seems the theory does not explain the Old Man’s behavior.

krishnas butterball
Krishna’s Butter Ball is enormous granite precariously perched on a stone escarpment.

 

All across the world, there are a number of natural formations that defy physics. Another example is an intriguing structure that can be found in India. Known as Krishna’s Butter Ball, or the mysterious stone of sky god this 250-ton rock stands on less than 4 feet base. How is it possible?

Maybe Albert Einstein was right when he said: “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.”

Written by Cynthia McKanzie – MessageToEagle.com Staff Writer