Ntavelis' Cave is located on Mt Penteli, 15 km northeast of Athens. the whole mountain is litteraly made from marble and in antiquity there was a quarry which today is out of use. From this mountain were quarried the marbles that were used to build Parthenon.

             Ntaveli's Cave took its name from an infamous outlaw of the 19th century who used to hide there. His name was asociated with lots of dark rumours. Inside and close to the entrance there is a tiny byzantine church that is said to be built on top of an ancient temple. It is built inside the cave's wall so as to have only the front side built normally. Further inside there is the entrance to an underground tunnel system that is said to span underneath the whole Attica! There have been many attempts to chart it but all of them were unsuccesful due to mysterious events that are mentioned below. It is said that one of the tunnels leads to a great hall with a small lake and an ancient temple dedicated to god Pan.

             The whole story about the Cave's "ubnormal phenomena" begane around the 70's. The local people would claim to have seen "weird lights" during the night, "strange movements of shadowy beings" and lots of strange objects. Since then many curious visitors have been there to investigate the area, some of them disappeared for ever! Some were simple people that curiosity or ignorance led them there and others were reknowned scientists of various fields. All of them, even though they managed to add to the mystery of the place, were unable to shed some light. There are extensive reports of more "weird phenomena".

             Scientific research showed that there are strong abnormalities in the magnetic field near the entrance there is a strong ozon smell and many equipments such as cameras or other measuring instruments behave in a strange way or they do not function at all. In many cases photographes taken there show a weird mist that the people who took the photograph had not noticed. In some other cases there is only a globe of mist that covers only the face of the person that gets photographed while the rest of the picture is clear. There have been photographs that acctually show the camera and the hands of the person that takes the photograph! As if the photograph has been taken by the eyes of the photographer and not the camera itself! All over the cave there are strangely shaped rocks and there have been found lots of ordinary objects such as food cans or bottle openeres that had no reason to be there. In some other cases these objects are reported to be on places that is impossible for humans to reach. A young couple visited the cave and took some pictures of the place. On the background of one of the pictures there was a strangely shaped rock that resembled a lot like the two of them! They would swear they had not noticed it for as long as they were there. A group of campers reported a strange activity in the cave during the small hours of the night and the passage of some strange humanoid creatures with long pointy ears!

             If the situation had ended there it would have been rather easy to attribute most of the legend to the vivid imagination of the people but then the Air Force became involved. The whole area was closed to the public for a few years and a intensive secret tunnel excavation begine. The official explanation for the works taking place in Ntavelis' Cave was that it was a top secret project of NATO! After a few years the works stoped suddenly and the tunnes were left abandoned. The people that visited the place right after it had became open once more observed three strange things about the working area. One was that the tunnels were not leading anywhere and they looked rather irrational and with no purpose. The other was the large number of boxes with medicines abandoned near or inside the tunnels. The medicine was against cancer or mental deseases and many of the people working to this project died a few years later from cancer. The third and probably most weird thing was a set of footprints on the concrete that was covering the floor of one of the tunnels. Apparently they were formed when the concrete was still wet. At a first glance they looked like the footprints of a young child around five years old that stopped suddenly right in front of the wall that was the dead end of the tunnel. It was as if the person that made them steped inside the wall! And as if that was not weird enough when scientists took a plaster copy of them realised they had only four fingers and they were more pointy at the bottom! Until today no explanation has been given not only for the footprints but even for the tunnels.

             Since 1985 the area has been used as a source of energy for many New Age groups and there are evidents that Black magic ceremonies take place there. The whole cave entrance is filled with marks and symbols and there have been found lots af remnants of animal sacrifices. On top of the cave entrance and on a very steap almost vertical cliff hangs a weird little doll. Once people took it down with the help of the special forces since the spot it was located was almost inaccesible but the next morning they found an identical one hanging at the exact spot. Who were these people that managed to replace the doll at that inaccessible spot in one night and why it was so important to them that they risked their life to do that?

             Of course the questions the place rises are more than these but nobody has managed to provide a sound explanation yet. There have been lots of relevant documentaries in the Greek TV and lots of discussion in the mass media but Ntaveli's Cave still remains in darkness...