Sinkhole Collapses Beneath National Corvette Museum, Swallowing Eight Cars [VIDEO]

A sinkhole collapsed beneath the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Ky. early Wednesday, taking eight valuable automobiles with it.

The National Corvette Museum reports that it received a call from their security company in the predawn hours Wednesday alerting them that motion detectors were going off in the museum's Skydome wing.

The commotion was caused by a sinkhole, estimated to be 40 feet across and 25-30 feet deep. No one was in or around the museum at the time of the sinkhole collapse, the museum reported.

Museum spokeswoman Katie Frassinelli said, "The hole is so big, it makes the Corvettes look like little Matchbox cars," according to CNN.

Of the eight cars the fell into the sinkhole, six were donated to the museum by Corvette enthusiasts, and two were on loan from General Motors. The museum is about a mile from the General Motors Bowling Green Assembly Plant where the Corvette is built, according to The Indianapolis Star.

The museum reports the following cars were taken by the sinkhole:

-- a 1962 "Black Corvette"
-- a 1984 PPG pace car
-- a 2009 ZR1 "Blue Devil"
-- the 1992 white "1 Millionth Corvette"
-- a 1993 ruby red "40th Anniversary Corvette"
-- a 2001 Mallett Hammer Z06 Corvette
-- the 2009 white "1.5 Millionth Corvette"
-- a 1993 ZR-1 Spyder

The museum unofficially estimated that the damage to the building and the Corvettes is millions of dollars, according to CNN.

This is the first major US sinkhole collapse of 2014, however sinkholes collapse with regular frequency across large potions of the US, notably Florida, where the soft limestone bedrock can give way with little notice. Last year a man was killed in Florida after a sinkhole opened beneath his bedroom, and vacationers at a Disney resort had to evacuate their hotel after a sinkhole ruptured, causing the building to collapse.

According to the US Geological Survey, a sinkhole is an area where the ground cannot drain water externally, forcing the water to seep down beneath the earth. Over time the water erodes underground rock formations until one day they collapse suddenly, taking down everything above them.

Areas most prone to sinkholes are Florida, Texas, Alabama, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee and Pennsylvania.