Nutty Putty Cave Incident

Submission 35,323

About

The Nutty Putty Cave Incident refers to a fatal incident that took place in 2009 in a hydrothermal cave near Utah Lake in Utah during which a spelunker exploring the cave became stuck in a narrow dead end and subsequently died 28 hours later after rescue attempts failed. A subject of several popular YouTube videos, in November 2023 the incident inspired jokes and social media discussions following a viral X / Twitter post.

Origin

On November 24th, 2009, a man named John Edwards Jones and three other cavers entered Nutty Putty Cave near Utah Lake in Utah with the purpose of finding and passing "The Birth Canal," a tight but navigable passageway located inside the cave. During the expedition, Jones mistook an unmapped passageway for the entrance to The Birth Canal. Jones attempted crawling through it before getting himself stuck in an upside down position inside a vertical fissure 10 by 18 inches wide. The rescue efforts which involved setting up a sophisticated rope-and-pulley system failed, and Jones succumbed 27-28 hours later after suffering a cardiac arrest due to the strain on his body.^[1] Jones body has not been recovered, and the entrance hole to the cave has been sealed with concrete.

The history of the incident drew significant attention in the early 2020s, as several videos about it received millions of views on YouTube. On June 28th, 2021, YouTube^[2] channel Real Horror posted a 15-minute-long video about the incident that received over 7.7 million views in two years (shown below, left). On August 7th, 2022, YouTuber^[3] Zach D. Films posted a YouTube short about the incident that garnered over 33 million views in one year (shown below, right).

On November 10th, 2023, YouTube^[4] channel FatalBreakdown posted a video about the incident that received over 3.2 million views in three weeks.

Spread

Starting in mid-2023, X / Twitter morbid curiosity-themed accounts such as @Morbidful and @CreepyOrg posted about the incident: for example, a post made by X^[5] account @Morbidful on July 4th, 2023, received over 3,200 reposts and 27,000 likes in five months.

On November 29th, 2023, X^[6] account @Morbidful posted a diagram of how John Edward Jones was stuck in the Nutty Putty Cave (shown below), with the post garnering over 29,000 reposts and 309,000 likes in two days.

The viral spread of the post was followed by memes and jokes about it on X. For example, on November 29th, 2023, YouTuber Justin Whang quoted the post with a reference to the Saddam Hussein's Hiding Place meme, with the post accumulating over 250 reposts and 5,000 likes on X^[7] in two days (shown below, left). Later that day, X^[8] user @godisangryatme quoted the post, with another joke. The post gained over 4,200 reposts and 42,000 likes in two days (shown below, right).

The Nutty Putty Cave incident remained a viral subject on X in the following days.

Saddam Hussein's Hiding Place

Saddam Hussein's Hiding Place refers to a 2003 illustration by the BBC that depicts Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's hiding place in which he was found and captured. In June 2021, the illustration went viral following a tweet comparing it to a rented apartment, with humorous edits of the image following in late June 2021.