Near the ghost town/tourist trap of Fayette in the Upper Peninsula, there is an area called Burnt Bluff. Within that area is a place that is best accessible by boat: Spider Cave.

Also known as Burnt Bluff Cave, it is part of a limestone cliff that looks like it may have been man-made by an ancient tribe. But no, it's all-natural.

Spider Cave was formed 4000 years ago and contains evidence of ancient people. Inside are four pictographs scrawled on the walls, including one of a man hovering over a giant spider with an umbilical cord sticking out of his gut (see photos in the gallery below).

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Thanks to harsh weather over the years, the pictographs are fading and recently,  only two of the spider's legs are visible, the rest covered by lichen and salts.

It is believed there were approximately 165 caves that were originally used as dwellings sometime around 1200 B.C.. When the cave was excavated in 1963, archaeologists produced a good many artifacts.

The Burnt Bluff area was purchased in 1947, and was advertised as a tourist attraction, luring people to the mysteries of Spider Cave with the pictographs on the cave walls. The State of Michigan took ownership in the 1970s, and the cave is now part of Fayette Historic State Park. But it is closed to the public.

Spider Cave, a/k/a Burnt Bluff

MORE MICHIGANIA:

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The Cheese Cave in Leelanau County

Bear Cave: Buchanan, Michigan

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