A man who was tunneling for gold underneath his kitchen floor, chasing a literal dream he had that there was precious ore waiting for him, has died after falling into the hole.
João Pimenta da Silva, a 71-year-old Brazilian resident, plunged down the 130-foot shaft he had been excavating for the past year on Jan. 5.
Neighbours told local media João was prompted to begin digging after a “spirit” visited him in a prophetic dream and told him there was a bounty of buried treasure situated under his house.
Arnaldo da Silva (no relation) told O GLobo: “João had spent more than a year digging the hole and hired many people to do the excavating work.
“He began by paying 70 Brazilian Reais (about CA$19) a day when the hole was still shallow but the deeper he went the more the costs went up.
Arnaldo said João “sold everything he had in search of that gold,” including several pieces of real estate.
Photos shared to X (formerly Twitter) by the local fire department show a hole that descends as far as the eye can see.
The 2nd sergeant of the Minas Gerais Fire Brigade, Luís Filipe de Miranda, told the Estado newspaper that João was likely was an experienced excavator and would have had professional help.
He said that although the equipment used was “archaic” and “homemade,” the vertical tunnel cut was “perfect.”
“This tunnel looks like something alien, with the perfection with which he dug it: very small diameter, very perfect cylinder, 40-metres deep,” Miranda said.
Arnaldo told O Globo that he was uneasy with his neighbour’s plans and tried to advise him multiple times to stop the digging.
However, he said, in recent days João had started about looking for dynamite to blow up a rock that was hindering the excavation.
The fire department reported that João died after falling from the access seat – what they believe to be a repurposed child swing – into the well. O Globo reports he was working on removing mud and water when he died.
In all, João and his rotating team of helpers managed to dig a hole the equivalent of 12 storeys deep and about 90 centimeters in diametre before he died.