Mel's Original Fax to Art Bell in February, 1997.
Dear Art,
I'm writing to you to see if I could get some help from you or your vast listening audience. I live in rural eastern Washington near the Manastash Ridge. On our property, there is a hole. Like the previous owners, and the owners before them, we've been throwing our trash into the hole. Apparently the hole has been there as long as anyone can remember. At first, I thought it was an ancient well. Anyway, the hole is 9 feet, 9 inches in diameter. There is a stone retaining wall around it and we put a steel door on top to keep anyone from falling into it. As I said earlier, people have been “throwing their trash into the well for decade.” Furniture, household trash, dead cows, building debris, you name it. The thing is, I noticed the hole never filled up. So I got curious, actually obsessed, began trying to measure the depth of the hole. I emptied three fishing reels of about 1500 yards of monofilament trying to determine the depth. Soon I was buying fishing line in bulk. So far, I've sunk about 80,000 feet of line into the hole without reaching bottom. My wife works at a local university with a geology department, we hope to get some professional scholarly help in determining the depth of the hole. As far as I can tell, there's nothing else particularly strange about it except for two other things: Dogs refuse to get within 100 feet of the hole, birds won't sit on the retaining wall or metal door. Another strange thing is there's no echo when you yell into the hole. Indeed, I've never heard anything hit bottom when tossed in. We once tossed in an old refrigerator and we never heard it hit bottom, no crash, splash, or crunch. I hope your listeners can help with possible explanations. I'm wondering if this, based on my measurements thus far, might be the deepest hole on Earth.
Signed,
Mel Waters
I'm writing to you to see if I could get some help from you or your vast listening audience. I live in rural eastern Washington near the Manastash Ridge. On our property, there is a hole. Like the previous owners, and the owners before them, we've been throwing our trash into the hole. Apparently the hole has been there as long as anyone can remember. At first, I thought it was an ancient well. Anyway, the hole is 9 feet, 9 inches in diameter. There is a stone retaining wall around it and we put a steel door on top to keep anyone from falling into it. As I said earlier, people have been “throwing their trash into the well for decade.” Furniture, household trash, dead cows, building debris, you name it. The thing is, I noticed the hole never filled up. So I got curious, actually obsessed, began trying to measure the depth of the hole. I emptied three fishing reels of about 1500 yards of monofilament trying to determine the depth. Soon I was buying fishing line in bulk. So far, I've sunk about 80,000 feet of line into the hole without reaching bottom. My wife works at a local university with a geology department, we hope to get some professional scholarly help in determining the depth of the hole. As far as I can tell, there's nothing else particularly strange about it except for two other things: Dogs refuse to get within 100 feet of the hole, birds won't sit on the retaining wall or metal door. Another strange thing is there's no echo when you yell into the hole. Indeed, I've never heard anything hit bottom when tossed in. We once tossed in an old refrigerator and we never heard it hit bottom, no crash, splash, or crunch. I hope your listeners can help with possible explanations. I'm wondering if this, based on my measurements thus far, might be the deepest hole on Earth.
Signed,
Mel Waters
