Many of our readers may have already heard of the late night radio show Coast to Coast AM, a show which often deals with mysterious topics of discussion, such as the paranormal, conspiracies, aliens, etc. Guests have included the psychic Sylvia Brown, Bigfoot hunter Loren Coleman, UFO and cattle mutilation expert Linda Moulton Howe, and George Lutz of Amityville fame… yeah…you know, that type of crowd.
And with that type of crowd, you can expect anything to happen on that show!
One night in February 1997 a caller who said his name was Mel Waters (possibly not his real name) called in and told about owning a property in a rural area of Washington state, somewhere on Manastash Ridge, near Ellensburg. And on this property, he said, there was literally a bottomless pit, which was surrounded by a stone wall. The stone wall was said to be about three and a half feet thick and go down into the earth for about fifteen feet. No sound comes from the hole, and no echo comes out either. The local people all knew about the pit, and there were very strange things going on associated with this bottomless pit. The hole has been there for as long as people can remember. Local people would throw garbage down the hole to just get rid of their unwanted stuff. One day Mel wanted to attempt to measure the hole, so he tried to measure it with 80,000 feet of fishing line but he gave up on trying to measure the depth of the hole, perhaps believing it must be deeper than the 80,000 feet. (Or did the fishing line just maybe hit the bottom and pile up the way string will do?)
Soon after Mel called into the radio show, he then claimed the property was “seized by the government,” or, he was given a “buyout.” According to Mel himself, while driving toward his property he was greeted by heavily armed, uniformed military men and men dressed in civilian clothing also. The men claimed that he would not be allowed to access the property, and they claimed that an airplane crashed on the property. Mel said that he saw “no smoke” or evidence of any crash. He then said that later he was given a very good amount of money for his land. Supposedly “they” made him a generous offer – $250,000 a month for use of this property with the mysterious deep, dark hole in the ground! However, he was never given any explanation as to why “the government” wanted the land with the deep mysterious hole, whether it was important to national security, or if the hole represented some sort of threat to public safety.
Mel did not specify the exact location, but he claimed that people in the area can sometimes see a beam of black light that would come out of the hole. He also claimed that if you have a radio turned on near the hole, you can hear old time radio broadcasts. And that animals, especially dogs, are afraid to go near the hole but one time a dead dog was put down the hole and later the dog was seen alive! Metals allegedly change form in the hole. And now some even said that the hole was the center of a “Top Secret Government Project” involving an “underground alien base!”
Eventually, Mel said that the money given to him by “the government” allowed him to move far away from it all – to Australia, where he became involved in wombat conservation.
A Native American Shaman called Red Elk, also known as Gerald Osborne, lived in the same area as the deep, dark pit, and he said that his own father took him to this location and showed him this hole. Red Elk would not ever lead anyone to the exact location of Mel’s Hole, but while he was alive, he claimed to know where it was and he claimed to know all about it. (He passed away in 2015.)
Red Elk said that there are “aliens down there.” The aliens don’t like the weather on our planet, so they live underground. He had been to this hole many times, he said. He believed that the government works with these beings. He also warned us, “Don’t go there!” Or you might disappear.
A local geologist named Jack Powell believes the legend of the bottomless pit is possibly based on an old goldmine shaft that is near Ellensburg. Jack Powell doesn’t believe that it’s possible for a hole to be as deep as Mel claims, as the deepest mine shaft in the world is 12,672 feet deep and the deepest known cavern is 7,188 feet deep. He believes that Mel may have been inspired by the old mineshaft nearby, and believes that Mel probably just made the whole story up. If so, we don’t know what Mel’s motive may have been.
Whether Mel made up this strange tale or not, his mysterious hole has become a legend, a myth, a dark fairy tale that many people still believe in, and still search for. Many people who have heard of Mel’s Hole have gone out looking for this mysterious place but so far, none but Mel himself, Red Elk, “the government,” and maybe the aliens who live down there, know where it is.
If you want to know more about this mysterious deep, dark paranormal pit of nothingness, check out these resources:
1. Hill, Sharon A., “Unfathomable Legends,” Fortean Times (FT412) December 2021. (FT is your go-to source for all things spooky and mysterious).
2. AW Video, 2004, on Mel’s Hole, can be seen on Youtube (entertaining and informative).
3. Hayden, Christopher, Mel’s Hole: An Endless Mystery, 2017 (An interesting book, but has no bibliography. Many of the claims in this book are hard to believe, also).
4. Johnston, Mike, “Getting to the Bottom of Mel’s Hole,” Daily Record News, March 31, 2012.
