January 7, 2026
Cave clocks and comment wars
Michel Siffre: This man spent months alone underground – and it warped his mind
Brave or bonkers? Internet fights over cave guy who ‘lost time’
TLDR: Michel Siffre lived 63 days alone in a dark cave, revealing that humans have an internal body clock and helping launch chronobiology. Commenters sparred over whether the isolation warped him or he was already predisposed, with skeptics calling it “one datapoint” and others praising a wild, pioneering experiment.
Michel Siffre, a French geologist, dropped his watch and descended into a glacier cave in 1962, living alone in total darkness for 63 days. When he reemerged, he’d inadvertently proven our bodies keep their own time, kickstarting the field of chronobiology (the study of biological clocks). Now nearly 80, he still buzzes with energy in his souvenir-stuffed Nice apartment, crediting the space race for inspiring his underground odyssey.
Online, the reactions are pure chaos. A loud skeptic camp says this is one datapoint and asks whether the cave warped Siffre’s mind, or if you have to be “pretty bent” to go down there in the first place. The receipts crowd dropped an archive link. Others clap back: he’s a legend who did what ethics boards won’t allow today.
Meanwhile, jokesters turned the darkness into memes: “I also lived without time during the pandemic—thanks, Netflix,” and “My brain warps after three hours in a windowless meeting room.” One viral quip summed it up: Man loses watch, discovers time. Whether you call Siffre brave or bonkers, the thread agrees his cave stunt changed how we understand our inner clock. And yes, people debated space travel and sleep, Science, skepticism, and snark collided.
Key Points
- •In 1962, Michel Siffre lived alone for 63 days in the Scarasson cave, 130 metres underground, without external time cues.
- •The expedition shifted from glacier study to the first investigation of human response to time deprivation, suggesting an internal body clock.
- •Siffre’s findings contributed to the rise of chronobiology as a major research field.
- •He cites the space race as a key inspiration, noting Yuri Gagarin’s flight and interest in long-duration mission effects.
- •Siffre now lives in Nice, where his apartment reflects his lifelong energy and exploratory pursuits.