On February 21, 1997, a man who identified himself as Mel Waters addressed the late-night radio show Coast to Coast with Art Bell with a very strange story. Waters said his property, located about 14 kilometers (9 miles) west of Ellensburg, Washington, has a hole that appears to have no bottom. Waters told the homeowner that locals threw their garbage into the pit (the first thing to do when an anomaly of scientific interest is discovered) but that the pit was never filled.

He stated that while researching the subject, he obtained a ridiculous amount of fishing line to hang over the hole to measure its depth.

“I brought the dogs with me as usual… they didn’t want to get close to the damn thing,” he said in an interview, adding that “if I tried to take them there on a leash, they would just start digging.” their feet and they don’t want to go near the hole.” .

He stated that after lowering the line he reached 24,000 meters (80,000 ft) before reaching the bottom.

The crust of the Earth on land is variable. It is about 30 kilometers (19 miles) thick on average, but can reach 100 kilometers (62 miles) below mountain ranges. If Waters’ claim were true, the hole would go deeper into the Earth’s crust than any man-made hole has ever penetrated the Earth.

This title belongs to the Kola ultra-deep well, located on the Kola Peninsula in northwestern Russia. The deepest leg of the drilling in the project, which lasted from May 24, 1970 until the collapse of the Soviet Union, reached 12,263 meters (40,230 ft) below the surface.

It seems unlikely that someone would stumble upon a deeper hole and no one would know about it, but Waters’ strange statement didn’t end there. According to him, the hole had other mysterious properties, including the ability to raise dogs from the dead. The demonstration said that one of the local residents threw a dead pet into a hole, but later the animal reappeared alive with the hunter. The dog, who has been through a lot, has not been able to return to his “master”.

Among other strange claims, it was also claimed that old music was being played on radios placed near the hole and that metals kept near the hole were turning into other substances.

An urban legend spread and others also claimed to have seen the hole, but none specified its exact location. Of course, this is probably because the legend is meaningless. Waters claimed the government forced him to rent the land where the hole was located without explanation, which provided him with money to move to Australia.

The investigation revealed that Waters did not have any records in the region and that his wife did not work at the university where he allegedly purchased the line. People searched for the hole itself but were unable to provide any evidence of its existence.

Most likely a hoax or a retelling of an urban legend, the hole cannot exist as described, even before we get to the “and it brings dogs back from the dead” aspect.

Asked about the hole by local filmmakers, Washington State Department of Natural Resources geologist Jack Powell told the Daily Record News, “Geologically and physically the hole can’t be that deep.” “It will spontaneously collapse under the influence of tremendous pressure and heat from the surrounding layers.”

Powell believes that the legend originates from a local gold mine whose entrance was in one of the local fields and the shaft was about 27 meters (90 ft) deep. Even though it is deep, it cannot be called bottomless.