Back in ’97, this mysterious dude, Mel Waters, dialed in to a radio show, saying he stumbled upon this crazy never-ending pit. He insisted it could bring animals back from the dead. Thing is, there’s no official proof or record of this Mel’s Hole anywhere.
Back on February 21, 1997, Art Bell was running the show on his late-night radio gig, Coast to Coast. This program, pulling in up to 15 million night owls at its height, was all about spooky stuff and conspiracy theories. So, you know, most calls didn’t ruffle Bell’s feathers.
But on that day, a caller going by Mel Waters rang in with a crazy tale — and set off a decades-long hunt for a spooky happening that got dubbed Mel’s Hole.
In his story, “Waters” said there was this never-ending pit on his land in Kittitas County, Washington. He claimed it had some mystical properties, like bringing dead animals back to life. But even though the guy sounded like he knew his way around Kittitas County, and probably lived nearby, digging into it showed no trace of a “Mel Waters” ever being around. Plus, they couldn’t find any proof that the mysterious hole was real.
But he kept dialing into the show, spilling the beans to Bell a grand total of five times from 1997 to 2002. And each time, the stories about Mel’s Hole got weirder and weirder.
After that fifth call, he vanished from the scene and was never heard from again.
The Secrets Of Mel Waters’ Bottomless Pit
Mel Waters made his initial call to Art Bell’s show, reealing that there’s this mysterious hole, of who-knows-how-deep, right there on his property in Kittitas County. That’s this little rural spot in central Washington.
According to KEPR TV, he tried to figure out how deep the hole went by attaching a roll of Lifesavers candy to a fishing line. His thinking was, if there was water down there, the Lifesavers would dissolve. But even after going down 80,000 feet, Waters insisted he hadn’t reached the bottom, and the Lifesavers were still holding up just fine.
And here’s the kicker – he mentioned that this hole had some real oddities. No echoes bouncing around, and critters were steering clear of the place like it gave off bad vibes.
“I brought the dogs with me.” Waters said. “They wouldn’t go anywhere near the damn thing.”
He threw in another wild one – a black beam supposedly coming out of the hole, as per the Seattle Times. Stick a portable radio close, and it starts playing shows and tunes from way back. And if you hold metals near the opening, they supposedly change into something else entirely.
Here’s a head-scratcher for you: Waters claimed his neighbor chucked a dead dog into the hole, and lo and behold, it showed up later, kicking and alive.
As things unfolded, Waters started saying Uncle Sam got curious about the hole. In a rundown of Mel Waters’ calls, he spilled that government folks pushed him off his turf after he told his story, throwing him a hefty $250,000 each month to rent out the place.
The Mel’s Hole Mystery Deepens
Mel Waters dialed up Bell’s show again in ’97, once in 2000, and then twice in 2002. At first, folks thought he was legit because he sounded smart and careful, but as time went on, his tales just got more and more unbelievable.
He said when he started talking about the hole, his wife up and vanished, and his land magically vanished from satellite views.
He threw in another tale too, saying when he visited a Basque settlement in Nevada, he stumbled upon another one of these strange holes with supernatural vibes. Just like the first one, this pit seemed to have no end, and critters wanted nothing to do with it.
While messing around with the second hole, the Basque folks decided to drop a bucket of ice down there. Supposedly, the hole turned the ice into this lukewarm, burnable stuff that wouldn’t melt and could keep on burning for months.
Now, here’s the real eye-opener: Waters spilled that he and the Basque crew decided to drop a sheep into the second hole just to see what would go down with a living critter in there. When they hauled the poor sheep back up, it was a goner — but it had sprouted this giant, throbbing tumor.
So, as the Basque folks sliced open that tumor, according to Waters, what popped out was an 18-inch creature that kinda looked like a seal, but with surprisingly human-like eyes. As Waters locked eyes with this thing, he claimed it shot him a look full of the deepest understanding. After that, he said the Basque folks decided to toss the creature back into the hole.
Mel Waters dropped one last bombshell on Coast to Coast in December 2002. In this report, he spilled that the government got wind of the second hole, snatched away the ice that wouldn’t stop burning, and he had a hunch someone was tailing him. He also mentioned the Basque crew had let him in on the creature making return visits to their village after they tossed it back in the hole. Apparently, it was trying to give them a heads-up about the risks tied to the never-ending burning ice.
And that call turned out to be the final time anyone heard from Mel Waters.
The Quest To Find Mel’s Hole
Mel Waters wasn’t the only one swearing up and down that there was some kind of otherworldly hole in Washington State.
Gerald Osborne, a local shaman from Kittitas Valley who goes by the name Red Elk, said he’s been to Mel’s Hole multiple times since 1961 when his dad first took him there, as per the Daily Record. According to Red Elk, the hole doesn’t just lead somewhere underground; he thinks it’s a sneaky government spot and a hotspot for alien stuff too.
Back in 2002, Red Elk organized a crew to go hunt for that pit. He teamed up with a bunch of believers who connected on a chat site all about Mel’s Hole. They were convinced that uncovering this mysterious spot could hold the key to some big questions about the universe.
In an interview with the Seattle Times, expedition search coordinator Charlette LeFevre stated: “Every geologist in the world should be here. They need to pay attention to this.”
Sadly, the crew couldn’t track it down. Still, whispers about a mysterious hole in Kittitas County had been around way before Mel Waters spilled the beans on Bell’s show.
Jay Nickell, then 34 during the search, grew up in Ellensburg, the biggest town in Kittitas County. He shared that when he was a teenager, he and his buddies stumbled upon a hole that seemed a whole lot like Mel’s Hole. It was deep enough that you couldn’t see the bottom, and he swore no noise came back when they tossed rocks into it.
Someone working at a snowmobile dealership spilled the beans, saying the tale of a hole on Manastash Ridge has been common local gossip for ages.
“Lots of people talk about it,” the employee shared. “Could be something out there — but I’ve never seen it.”
Debunking The Legend Of Mel’s Hole
Loads of folks have tried to hunt down Mel’s Hole over the years, but the experts say the enchanting pit Mel Waters talked about isn’t just unproven — it’s downright impossible according to the laws of physics.
Jack Powell, a geologist at the Washington State Department of Natural Resources (DNR), pointed out that a hole as deep as Waters described “would collapse into itself under the tremendous pressure and heat from the surrounding strata.”
Powell caught wind of the hole when he tuned in to Bell’s show, and it caught his interest.
“It got my interest in a funny kind of way,” Powell said. “I knew Art Bell’s stuff is basically Sasquatch and UFOs and the like, but it was sort of entertaining.”
But the moment he heard Waters saying the hole went down 80,000 feet, Powell was sure it was all a sham.
He mentioned that the hole Waters was talking about was probably an old gold mine shaft Powell used to mess around with as a kid. Powell explained that this shaft, sloping into the ground, was likely about 90 feet deep, and at most, 300 feet deep.
The shaft sits on private property, all fenced up with barbed wire, and Powell mentioned it’s near the state DNR lands.
“I suppose this Mel Waters used the real hole as a kind of inspiration for making up his mysterious one on Manastash Ridge,” Powell said.
The Aftermath Of Mel Waters’ Calls
To this day, there’s still no proof that Mel’s Hole is real. And for some folks, it’s been more of a headache than a puzzle worth solving.
Milton Wagy, a historian at the Ellensburg Public Library, shared with KEPR in 2012 that right after Mel Waters made that first call to Art Bell’s show, the library phone was buzzing like crazy with stories and theories about the hole.
Then, the file on Mel’s Hole at the library vanished into thin air.
“It just disappeared, which lends itself to the mysteriousness of Mel’s Hole,” Wagy said. “Did Mel take it? Did it just kind of rise out of the locked file cabinet? You never know, there might be a hole out there.”
Red Elk still sticks to his guns, saying that hole is for real. But he’s done with interviews on the topic now, and he’s giving a heads-up that it’s probably better for us not to know where it is.
“Don’t look for [the hole]. Stay away. I have to say I’ve been burned by you guys, the media and all, many times with this Mel’s Hole. They make me out to be a liar. They say one thing and do something else,” Red Elk said in 2012. “The hole isn’t important. Just stay away from trying to find it. The government has it. It’s totally off limits.”
And as for Mel Waters, he’s gone radio silent since that last chat with Art Bell in 2002. Maybe the government caught up with him, or perhaps he was just a figment of our imaginations all along.
