Devil’s Kettle: The waterfall from where water keeps disappearing

Have you ever had the opportunity to see a waterfall live? No, it doesn’t necessarily have to be the Niagara Falls. There are so many in India itself. For instance, The Seven Sisters Waterfall in Sikkim is a popular tourist attraction, while the Dudhsagar Falls in Goa is no less famous. Whichever be it, these cascades with water flowing down steep gorges are a sight to behold. But have you ever heard of a waterfall from where water keeps disappearing mysteriously? Wondering what are we talking about? The answer is the Devil’s Kettle. The name itself is no less intriguing, isn’t it? Come, explore this American waterfall. 

Devil’s Kettle: A bird’s eye view 
First things first, where is the Devil’s Kettle located? It is situated inside Judge C.R. Magney State Park near Grand Marais in Minnesota’s North Shore, almost a mile inland from Lake Superior. Now comes the strange part. At the edge of the Devil’s Kettle, there’s the Brule River that splits in half. Okay, so where does the water go? Well, one half flows over a cliff and then plunges into a pool below, much like any other waterfall, while the other half flows into a hole in a volcanic rock (made up of rhyolite, that is harder than granite).  

Wait, what’s so puzzling about this? It turns out that the water goes particularly nowhere from here, almost as if it completely vanishes. Are you wondering what we are wondering? How’s this even possible? The water has to come out somewhere. Well, that’s the part that has left people perplexed for years. In fact, over time, locals, tourists as well as experts have dropped many objects, including GPS trackers just to see where they end up. Guess what? They were never found again. Interestingly, the unusual name ‘Devil’s Kettle’ also originated from here, a cascade that has no ending, almost like a kettle that never fully fills up. 

How does the water in Devil’s Kettle end up vanishing? 
For years, experts have tried to unlock the mystery behind the disappearing water in the Devil’s Kettle. Some of the most popular theories include, the water flows back into its origin river, aka Brule River. Others suggest that the water flows all the way into Canada. There’s also another theory, perhaps the most popular, that says, it follows into an underground tunnel that in turn flows into Lake Superior.  

However, finally, in 2017, a team of hydrologists solved the mystery, once and for all. Guess what they did? They first measured the flow of water at the top and then at the bottom of the waterfall. Do you know what they discovered? That there was no difference as such between the two measurements. Okay, what does this even mean? This simply means that the water doesn’t really disappear into the hole, rather it re-emerges into the river from somewhere secret, presumably the underground. Well, that does solve the puzzle! However, a question that still remains unanswered is what happened to the objects that were dropped into the hole along with the water? The experts have tried to explain it by saying that either the items disintegrated midway thanks to the powerful recirculating currents, or the water’s enormous force keeps them submerged, until they are farther downstream.