10 Unbelievable Facts About Mel’s Hole

There is a bottomless hole in the ground about 9 miles (14.5 kilometers) west of Ellensburg, Washington. At least, that’s what a man who called himself Mel Waters claimed existed on his property when he called in a popular paranormal radio show in 1997. People still talk about the mysterious well, which is now known simply as ” Mel’s Hole”.

This seemingly endless hole had already puzzled the locals for decades. When Waters introduced him to the public, he captured the interest of curious minds everywhere and quickly became an urban legend. While some listeners doubted his often outlandish claims of him, others were enthralled and wanted more. Decide what you believe about the legend after reading 10 statements Waters made about Mel’s endless hole.

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10 waters called a paranormal radio show

On February 21, 1997, a man calling himself Mel Waters telephoned a well-known late-night radio show featuring paranormal stories called “Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell.” At the time, Coast to Coast AM was the most popular place to discuss all things paranormal, weird, and unexplained. It was the perfect audience for Waters to tell his story. He captivated Bell and listeners with his stories of a seemingly bottomless hole on his property that possessed mystical qualities. Local legend said that he was cursed.

The first settlers nicknamed it “The Devil’s Hole”. Waters declined to give the exact location, saying only that he lived in Kittitas County, Washington, in a region adjacent to Manastash Ridge. In two follow-up calls, in April 2000 and January 2002, his stories became even more extreme. There was no way of knowing at the time that Mel’s Hole would continue to capture public attention for years to come.^[1]

9 waters tested the depth with fishing line

Waters, his neighbors and the previous owners regularly used the mysterious hole as a natural garbage dump. They dumped household waste, furniture, and construction debris in it for years, but somehow it never filled up. Eventually, Waters became curious about the depth of the hole. In his first call to the radio show, he described an attempt to test the depth of the hole using a large amount of fishing line—approximately 80,000 feet (24,384 meters), to be exact.

Waters claimed that the line had not yet reached the bottom. For reference, the deepest cave in the world is 7,257 feet (2,212 meters). According to the general guidelines of the United States Geological Survey, the amount of fishing line Waters used would reach “about a quarter of the way through the Earth’s crust at its thickest point.”^[2]

8 The Hole Brought A Dog Back To Life

Author of the photo: Wikimedia Commons

But the fishing line was just the beginning. In a statement reminiscent of Stephen King’s 1983 horror novel (and the 1989 film of the same name), pet cemetery, Waters described a case in which his neighbor dropped the body of his deceased pet in the hole. The owner got the shock of his life when he saw his dog alive and well in the nearby woods just a short time later.

They recognized the dog because it was wearing the same collar. But the dog showed no signs of recognizing his owner and did not respond to his calls. While it may be a more desirable outcome than the one the grieving pet owner saw in King’s tale, Waters’ claim was more than enough to both terrify and captivate listeners.^[3]

7 Certain Items Act Strangely Near Mel’s Hole

In another claim, Waters revealed that Mel’s Hole had strange effects on some everyday objects. Art Bell and his listeners hung on to every word as Waters mentioned the strange things that metal items and portable radios began to do when near the opening of the 9-foot (2.7-meter) diameter hole.

He claimed that metals mysteriously transformed into other metals or substances whenever he held them near the entrance. Waters also recounted a case in which he took his radio to the pit and set it to his favorite radio station. But instead of music, the radio played strange, unknown voices and programs and music from the past.^[4]

6 More Unexplained Circumstances At Mel’s Hole

Author of the photo: Wikimedia Commons

Waters described many of his well experiments, each one seeming to produce a more disturbing result than the last. In one of his final calls, Waters described how he lowered an ice cube 1,500 feet (457 meters) and when he picked it up, he noted that the ice was warm but not melting. He said that it had become a flammable substance.

Warm ice wasn’t the only time his experiments defied the laws of science. When he yelled towards the hole, he claimed that he had no echo. There was also no sound after large trash items such as refrigerators or television CRT tubes were thrown into the well to confirm that they had bottomed out.^[5]

5 A sheep went down the hole

One of Waters’ most disturbing claims involved lowering a live sheep into the hole at about 1,500 feet, as he did in the ice bucket experiment. The sheep squealed and kicked its way down, then suddenly fell silent. When Waters picked it up, he discovered that the animal had been cooked. The sheep had also developed a strange lump which, to his horror, began to move. He opened it and found a “fetal seal” which he said was looking at him with “intelligent, human-like eyes”. Waters added that the creature miraculously cured his cancer. [LINK 2]. He jumped back into the hole, but local sheepherders later saw him and claimed that he radiated a “benevolent presence”.

This chilling story may explain why Waters’s dogs refused to come within 100 feet of the hole and why the birds never landed on its stone retaining wall or metal cover.^[6]

4 A strange light radiated from the hole

The many strange occurrences Waters recounted on Coast to Coast AM weren’t limited to the items he stuffed into the hole. Sometimes, mysterious things would also come out. Waters described a disturbing report from one of his neighbors that he had seen a beam of light “blacker than black” coming out of the cursed pit. He explained it as light from a flashlight casting a beam of solid black instead of the standard shade of white. Black is easily one of the more sinister colors that could come from a mysterious well, as it is often associated with evil, death, and emptiness.^[7]

3 The federal government seized the land

The conversation about Mel’s hole eventually got big enough for the federal government to find out about it. As Waters recounted in a later call, he was heading towards the hole one day when a man in a suit approached him and told him that the area had been closed off due to a plane crash. The man told Waters that he was no longer allowed near the well. Waters described seeing men in bioprotection suits standing behind him.

Soon after, the government leased the land and gave him a generous amount of money to vacate the property. Waters accepted the money and moved to Australia. The addition of a government conspiracy significantly increased interest in the urban legend.^[8]

2 The waters returned two years later

Author of the photo: Wikimedia Commons

In one of his last calls, Waters claimed that he had returned to Washington two years after moving to Australia, despite being warned by the government not to return. He said police officers took him off a bus and left him on the streets of San Francisco two weeks later. He had IV marks on his arm, was missing several teeth, and had no recollection of what happened. Waters managed to continue to his hometown, but sensed that menacing strangers were stalking him. He was told that the government had seized the land from him and he discovered that the region had been erased in an early mapping system called TerraServer.

But that was not the end of Waters’ story. He said that he found an almost identical hole in the badlands of Nevada. This one had a metal ring that extended to the ground instead of a brick lining, but his experiments on the site produced similar results.^[9]

1 Mel’s Hole is still discussed today

The conversations about Mel’s bottomless holes have remained surprisingly constant since her radio show calls all those years ago. The urban legend has been the topic of many chat groups, such as Above Top Secret, in 2005. In 2007, more people started talking about the legend on the Sheffield Forum. In 2008, a tribal healer known as Gerald R. Osborne, or “Red Elk,” kept the legend alive when he claimed to have seen UFOs flying over the well. He even suggested that it was an underground UFO base.

A Daily Record Facebook poll asked people whether or not they believed Mel’s Hole was real in 2012. Some people on Reddit shared the coordinates of possible locations and tried to form a group to find it in 2018. As recently as 2022, it was he was featured on a podcast called Astounding Legends in May and an article on Grunge in November. Like Mel’s Hole, this urban legend may never end.^[10]