In short
Podcast Episode Notes: The Great Big Yarn of Mel's Hole
Episode Overview
- Podcast Title: Stuff You Should Know
- Episode Title: The Great Big Yarn of Mel's Hole
- Description: The episode dives into one of the most bizarre urban legends stemming from the Coast to Coast AM radio show, hosted by Art Bell. It revolves around a mysterious hole in the ground in Washington State, featuring claims of unusual properties and events surrounding it.
Key Characters
- Josh and Chuck: Hosts of the podcast, guiding the discussion.
- Mel Waters: The individual claiming to own the mysterious hole in Washington.
- Art Bell: The original host of Coast to Coast AM, known for discussing paranormal phenomena.
Background on Coast to Coast AM
- Established in the 1980s, gaining popularity for its exploration of urban legends and the paranormal.
- Art Bell hosted until 2002, and the show continues with George Noory.
- Bell's format included live calls, allowing people to share their strange stories.
The Legend of Mel's Hole
- Location: Ellensburg, Washington.
- Description: Mel claims to own a hole on his property that looks like a well, about nine feet in diameter, lined with stone.
- Unusual Properties:
- Doesn't fill up despite people dumping various objects (dead animals, appliances, etc.).
- Objects dropped into the hole do not create sound, implying extreme depth.
- Witnesses reported a "black beam" emanating from the hole.
Mel's Claims About the Hole
- The hole reportedly has historical significance, known to locals and indigenous peoples as "the devil's hole."
- Mel asserts that he has gathered various accounts from neighbors, adding authenticity to his story.
- Claims of strange occurrences:
- Objects, including a WWII gun found near the hole, exhibited otherworldly properties (silently fired, could change radio stations).
Integration of Skepticism
- Chuck and Josh express skepticism regarding the veracity of Mel's claims but acknowledge that he presents his story credibly.
- Mention of local lore about a bottomless hole adds depth to the legend.
Subsequent Developments
- Mel's life becomes intertwined with the government after he begins to investigate the hole.
- Claims of military personnel blocking access to his property and subsequent offers for leasing land.
- The government's interest in Mel's property raises more questions and speculation.
The Second Hole
- Introduction of a second hole with similar properties discovered by Mel, associated with local Basque people.
- Reports of bizarre phenomena, including "eternal ice" and a sheep that, when lowered into the hole, emerged cooked and without internal organs.
- Discovery of a creature resembling a "fetal seal" with human-like eyes during the dissection of the sheep.
Conclusion of the Story
- The legend of Mel's Hole becomes a cultural touchstone, spawning expeditions, online speculation, and further urban myths.
- Many attempts to track Mel Waters and the hole yield no concrete results, casting doubt on the original story's validity.
- Despite the skepticism, the tale remains popular and continues to generate interest.
Key Takeaways
- Cultural Impact: Mel's Hole serves as a fascinating example of modern folklore, blending the paranormal, urban legend, and community engagement.
- Skepticism vs. Belief: The episode illustrates the tension between storytelling, belief in the extraordinary, and the importance of critical thinking.
- Enduring Fascination: The ongoing interest in Mel's Hole reflects broader societal themes around mystery, the unknown, and the human propensity to seek out stories.
Final Thoughts
- The discussion wraps up with reflections on the nature of urban legends and the allure they hold for both storytellers and listeners.
- Chuck and Josh emphasize the engaging nature of Mel's story, despite its dubious authenticity, showcasing how legends evolve over time in public imagination.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.
0:31app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:01John Polk story on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
1:19Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and Jerry's here too. And this is a, well, yeah, an episode of Stuff You Should Know. I have to say, I'm fairly excited about this one. Oh, good. I'm so glad. I couldn't tell because sometimes you're just like, this is so stupid when it's... Oh, it is. Okay. Well, yeah, but you're not excited about how stupid it is. So I'm glad. I'm really glad to hear that because I am too. No, I mean, I'm excited in that it is completely preposterous and silly, but in the fun tinfoil hat paranormal sort of way that those are fun. So maybe we should start over again because I feel like we've really like released a spoiler here that this is probably just a story, a yarn.
2:06I was going to save that for the end. And what we're talking about, actually, the way that we're approaching it is one of the most interesting stories, legends, modern urban legends, to come out of a show, a radio show that was well known for producing all sorts of urban legends and amazing stories, Coast to Coast AM. That's right. Its host was Art Bell. He himself, along with his wife, claimed that they had their own UFO encounter in the mid-90s. And the show started out in the 80s, was syndicated in 93. And it was not, you know, it sounds like sort of a very niche thing, but it actually became very popular.
2:49And Art Bell became a very famous radio host. Yeah, he was in ratings for a while there. I'm guessing the early to mid-90s. He was just behind Rush Limbaugh and Dr. Laura Schlesinger. That is up there as far as radio hosts go. And he started to retire in 2002. He finally did host his last episode in 2010. But the show continues on. Host George Neury took over full time in 2002. He's still doing it. And the whole premise of the show was that you would fax Art Bell, or now George Neury. I don't know if he still has a fax, but definitely Art Bell. You would send him a fax and basically say, hey, I've got this crazy story.
3:33and if it was, you know, interesting to him or he thought he wanted to know more about it or his audience would, he would give you a call and you guys would have a conversation. He would interview you on the phone, live, on air and then eventually people could call in and ask you questions. That was pretty much the format of the show. Yeah, and in this case of Mel, Mel Waters and his hole and don't worry, it's not going to be anything like that. No, Jerry was like, oh, this could go so many different ways. You guys. This was five conversations on this show over the span of five years. Again, the guy's name was Mel Waters, and he lived in Ellensburg, Washington, kind of right smack dab in the middle of Washington state.
4:20and he said, I have a hole on my property. This property I don't live at right now because there was some snow damage to the house there. So I live in town in an apartment or something. But on this property that I own, which is nine miles outside of Ellensburg, which is also rural, you know, in and of itself. He said it's up on the Manitash Ridge and it's a very strange hole. Yeah, it's not your average hole for sure. A hole in the ground. Yes, thank you for saying that because there's some people out there who are so twisted they still didn't understand what kind of hole we're talking about. We're talking about a hole in the ground.
5:03It looks like a well. Sure, but way more different than a well. But yes, you could liken it to a well because it's about nine feet in diameter. The first 15 or so feet down, it was stone, right? So it was lined with stone. That's very well-like. Then there was soil. Then it turned into rock. And it had about a three-and-a-half-foot barrier wall around it to keep people from just walking right into it. Yeah, very well-y. Yeah. And Mel hadn't built that wall. The previous owner had. But one of the things that makes this story so interesting, it caught the attention and imagination of so many people.
5:41It's super out there, but if you listen to Mel, he comes off essentially as perplexed as you do. You know, he's like, this hole's been here since the dawn of time, apparently. And he's, you know, just kind of learned about it since he bought the property. And he has lots of questions about it. He's just reporting the stuff that he's learned. Yeah, exactly. He doesn't come across as the usual sort of tinfoil hat type. Not at all. No, not at all. And I'm sure, you know, you listen to the stuff as well. And so we can both verify that he comes across as credible, even to our sort of skeptical ears.
6:13For sure. But like you said, he said it had been there a long time. The previous owner said it was there when he got there. Supposedly it had been around since maybe the dawn of time. European settlers apparently knew about it. The local indigenous people avoided it. They said it was cursed. Locals called it the devil's hole. And here's, that's all well and good. Well and good. But here's where it gets interesting in that the properties of the hole and the things that surround the hole are really interesting according to this story. First of which is, he's like, hey, people have been dumping stuff in this hole for as long as I know.
6:55There's probably like 20 people that come around. They dump in dead livestock. They dump in appliances that don't work. There's a weekly truckload of old tires that get dumped in there. And this thing has never, ever filled up. And when you drop stuff in it, you can't hear anything. Yeah. Okay, it's pretty strange. I mean, but you could also chalk it up to just an exceptionally deep hole in the ground. Agreed. The thing is, is there's even stranger properties to this hole. One of them is actually kind of hard to wrap your head around. A neighbor saw a black beam shooting out of the hole skyward.
7:34And I think it might have even been at night. But it was so black and absorbed so much of the light around it that it stood out at night. A beam of blackness, not a beam of light, a beam of basically a void shooting out of the hole. And I mean, if you ask your average hole expert, they're going to tell you that is unusual behavior for any hole. Yeah. As Spinal Tap would say, it was none more black. I pictured the smoke monster from Lost, personally. I hadn't started Lost, but thanks for that. You're going to get around to it any day. Now I'll be on the lookout for the smoke monster. Uh, we also should have mentioned that, um, apparently, um, nothing echoed when you screamed into it.
8:17Um, but those previous things you could explain, I guess, by it just being so deep, you know, because an echo is created by hitting a bottom and bouncing back. So I don't, I don't really know if every deep, deep hole will echo back, but all that can kind of be explained that the black beam coming out, uh, is very, very strange and cannot be explained. And that's where it starts to go kind of truly weird. Yeah. So he also, he was reporting information that he gathered from neighbors, you know, as this hole started to pique his interest. He wanted to learn more about it. And one neighbor said that there used to be stones lined up around the edge of it.
8:54And I guess that reminded Mel of Stonehenge. And he showed his neighbor a picture of Stonehenge. He said, yep, it was exactly like that, except it didn't have the stones, the lintels going across the top, laid down on top. And it's exactly that kind of detail that added credibility to Mel's story. None of it was whole hog. Yes, it looked exactly like Stonehenge. Chew on that. It didn't have the stones at top. Just little alterations like that that he would concede just kept it from just being totally unbelievable and eye-rolly, I think, is what I'm trying to say. Yeah, unless you just attach this to it, said his elderly neighbor.
9:36Yes, right. Or his nephew comes up later. He mentions his nephew, but his nephew never gains a name. It is very much like that for sure. I think I would have been much more intrigued if there had been a photograph of any of this. But anyway, there wasn't. There was also, it gets a little stranger, there was a gun, a World War II era Walter P38, which was a German gun intended to replace the German Luger pistol. and he, as we'll learn, Mel was a gardener and worked in medicinal herbs and things. So while he was digging around, he found this gun buried and when he went to shoot it, and this is where I have a few questions.
10:17Apparently the gun shot silently. I wonder what that means. I wonder if it didn't make any sound at all or if it just sounded like it had a suppressor on it No. Or if it just, you know, the actual, like, movement of the physical movement of the gun didn't even make a noise? Mm-hmm. As I took it, it didn't make any noise whatsoever. But as bizarre as that sounds, it had even stranger properties, too. That's right. If you put this gun down by radio, it becomes a time travel machine because the radio would all of a sudden start playing just random radio broadcasts from different places and different times.
10:59Apparently, if you moved your hand away from the gun, the station would change and you had to hold very still to stay on the station. And if you stayed still for long enough and stayed on the station long enough, it would produce a sound that was, quote, out of time. Okay. Now, just bear this in mind, too. If you haven't listened to Mel's poll, I encourage you to go listen. There's, like, it's five hours long. Like, all of this unfolded over five years across five calls. Like, Mel is not aware of what questions he's going to be asked by Art Bell. He's not aware of what questions the callers are going to ask him.
11:34As far as we know. And if you listen to him, like, this does not sound rehearsed or scripted or anything like that. So even setting aside like the idea that this is possibly real and just taking it like a story, this guy was one of the best storytellers in the history of the world if he's just making all this up as he goes along basically. Yeah, which made me think it was perhaps set up and shady. No, Art Bell wouldn't have been involved in that, no. How do you know? You know Art Bell? He was a credible host. Okay. For sure. Okay. I think that's why people loved him so much. Like, he wasn't going to get caught up in something like that.
12:12People might call up and pull his leg. He even asked Mel once, like, are you pulling my leg? I really don't think he was the kind of person who would set something like that up. He didn't need to. People would call in, and he could just be the credible guy asking questions. And, like, he didn't need to set it up. People would just do it anyway. No, I know. I'm just saying if it was unearthed, like, the greatest hoax Art Bell ever pulled this funny trick, like, you would say, like, well, that's not possible because Art Bell would never do something like that. No, I mean, if there were irrefutable evidence that he had done it or he admitted to doing it, of course.
12:49I mean, I'm not insane. Okay. That's what I'm saying is you just never know. You never know whether I'm insane or not? I always know that you're not. Oh, thanks, man. I'm just casting a skeptic's eye on this. I understand. I don't mean to berate you for that. I was just arguing in favor of Art Bell. No, Art Bell would never do this. I had no idea I felt this passionately about Art Bell and his integrity. I didn't know that either. All right, so moving on. The hole apparently, and these were stories that even Mel said could be apocryphal, but he said a neighbor said that they threw their dead dog into the hole, and that same dog with the same collar and tags was alive in the woods later on.
13:34So it brought this dog back to life. Yes. Very pet cemetery-ish. Yeah. But other dogs wouldn't go near the hole. They were scared of it. He said his own dogs wouldn't go anywhere near the damn thing was his quote. Yeah. And Art Bell jumps on this. He's like, wait a minute. If this thing is able to resurrect things, have you ever considered, you know, being thrown in there? Or I think he said if you're ever diagnosed with a terminal disease, would you jump in yourself? And already 10 steps ahead of him, Mel said, it's actually in my will. that I'd be thrown into the hole after I die. Of course.
14:08Why not? Give it a shot, you know? Yeah. So, Chuck, I say we take a break here, and we'll come back and talk about some of the tests that Mel applied to the hole to try to get to the bottom of it. Ah, nice pun. Thank you. We'll be right back.
14:45New year, new goals, and in this economy, a better money plan is more necessary than ever. I am Matt. And I'm Joel. We are from the How to Money podcast, and every week we help you to spend smarter, save more, and make sense of what's going on out there. If you want 2026 to be the year you finally feel in control of your money, we're here to give you the tools and advice to help you make it happen. Listen to How to Money on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Dr. Priyanka Wally. And I'm Hari Kondabolu. It's a new year, and on the podcast Health Stuff, we're resetting the way we talk about our health.
15:20Which means being honest about what we know, what we don't know, and how messy it can all be. I like to sleep in late and sleep early. Is there a chronotype for that or am I just depressed? We talk to experts who share real experiences and insight. You just really need to find where it is that you can have an impact in your own life and just start doing that. We break down the topics you want to know more about. Sleep, stress, mental health, and how the world around us affects our overall health. We talk about all the ways to keep your body and mind inside and out healthy. We human beings, all we want is connection.
15:59We just want to connect with each other. Health stuff is about learning, laughing, and feeling a little less alone. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there, this is Dr. Jesse Mills, director of the Men's Clinic at UCLA Health and host of the Mailroom Podcast. Each January, guys everywhere make the same resolutions. Get stronger, work harder, fix what's broken. But what if the real work isn't physical at all? To kick off the new year, I sat down with Dr. Steve Poulter, a psychologist with over 30 years experience helping men unpack shame, anxiety, and emotional pain they were never taught to name.
16:37In a powerful two-part conversation, we discuss why men aren't emotionally bulletproof, why shame hides in plain sight, and how real strength comes from listening to yourself and to others. Guys who are toxic, they're immature, or they've got something they just haven't resolved. Once that gets resolved, then there comes empathy as in compassion. If you want this to be the year you stop powering through pain and start understanding what's underneath, listen to The Mailroom on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows. Stuxnet. Who? Stuxnet. Say it one more time.
17:13Stuxnet. I don't know what that is. You know what Stuxnet is. Is that in this? Stuxnet. Stuxnet. It's a great name. You got a question? Stuxnet. That's the name of it. It's a great name. All right. Stuxnet with an X. Did you mean that pun? Yeah, I did. And I feel ashamed. You shouldn't. That was a good, that's quality pun. And neither one of us are super into puns, but that was a really good one. Very clever. Well, I actually did the whole like arching point too, as I said it, which really punctuates a pun. It sure does. It punctuates it. That was good too. Thanks. So I think I said before the break that Mel started figuring out ways to investigate this.
17:54First of all, he wanted to know how deep it was. Yeah. And it turns out that Mel was what he calls pretty close to a professional shark fisherman, or at least he used to be. Yeah. So that means that he had on the property a lot of really heavy, sturdy shark fishing reels. Anyone who's seen Jaws knows that those are sturdy reels. Yeah. He also had a ton of line, like a lot of line. And so he tied a one-pound triangular or pyramidal weight to the end of a line, and he started slowly paying it out. And we should back up a little bit because he used the line differently the first time. He tied a roll of lifesavers to the end of it once and then paid it out 1 ,500 yards.
18:40And when he brought it back up, the lifesavers were intact, indicating to him that even 1 ,500 yards down, he hadn't hit the water table. Yeah, I would have used a sponge, but that's just me. Oh, that's a good one. That's a great one. Thanks. So back to the line. After the Lifesavers thing, he started just paying out line using his shark reel, right? Yes, and he goes down over 15 miles, about 80 ,000 feet into the hole, allegedly not hitting the bottom. and Art Bell, noted trusted radio host, said, yeah, you know, you might want to call a university or something. Like they would probably want to look into this and research this.
19:21And Mel was like, hey, that's funny. My wife works for a local university here. I don't think he said the school, but didn't people surmise online? It was probably, what would it have been, Central Washington? Is that a university? Yeah, Central Washington. Yeah. Yeah. And so anyway, he said, I've been talking to my wife and she's been talking to the university and apparently they're pretty interested. And then callers started calling in saying things like, hey, you should use a sponge. Well, they didn't say that, but they should have. But they said, hey, we have ideas on how to find out how deep this is.
19:56And also, if this is as deep as you say, it's like twice as deep as the Marianas Trench. And even though this wasn't in the show, it's also twice as deep as the deepest hole, which is Rush's Kola super deep borehole, which is just a little over 40 ,000 feet. So this is double that. Yeah, it was cute. So we're talking, I don't know if we even said this or not. This whole thing started in 1997. So when that caller calls up with the information about the Marianas Trench, he says that he went and consulted his encyclopedia. Very cute. Yeah, it is super cute. So, yes, this would far and away be the world's deepest hole.
20:34And it's an impossible hole in that sense. We'll get a little more into that. But that essentially was the first call. And we've peppered in some stuff from other calls. But that's the basics of the hole and what Mel said he had done so far. Some of the listeners that called in were like, you should put temperature sensors and lower those down and maybe a video camera. Yeah, radar. Surely radar can come into this somehow. And Radar was like, leave me out of this. And essentially, like I was saying, that's the first call. So the first call happens. And then a week later, Mel Waters appears again on Coast to Coast AM.
21:10And he has like very distressing news this time. That's right. He said, all right, I went back to the property, and I couldn't get back on. It was blocked off by military personnel, and they said, you can't come on your own property. He said there was a plane crash, and you can't come on. And Mel was like, there wasn't any plane crash. Like, I would have known about this. I don't live too far away. It would have made noise. I would have seen smoke. There was nothing indicating that there was a plane crash. Give me the person in charge. and they trotted out somebody not in military fatigues, which is very X-Files-y.
21:47Anytime there's somebody in charge wearing a suit with the military, it's very X-Files-y and very bad news. Yeah. Mel turned into a bit of a Karen there. Yeah. So this person, whoever it was that wasn't in military garb, was in an X-Files suit. Smoking a cigarette probably. Probably. Says, so what's the problem? and Mel says, this is my property. I want to get onto my property. The guy in the suit said, that's not going to happen. And this isn't necessarily your property. And if you want to go ahead, that's fine. But I'll bet we could very easily find a drug lab on your land and then there'd be a whole bunch of problems for you that you don't need if you'll just turn around and leave.
22:28Yeah, that really got to Mel for sure. He was spooked to say the least. Yeah, as he should have been because he did have a lab on the property. He was not cooking drugs, but like I mentioned earlier, he was into medicinal herbs and plants and things like that that he would source from northern Nevada, that, you know, traditional herbs and things that had been used by Native Americans for, you know, eons. And he said, I do have a lab here, and they could probably frame me pretty easily. So I'm not sure what to do. He also learned around the same time that the predecessor to, I guess, Google Earth was something called TerraServer, where they had just satellite, aerial satellite images of the Earth.
23:07He was like, my property's blocked out on that thing now. Yeah, and Art Bell, he did his research because he's very reliable and trustworthy. And he found a server, a TerraServer image and found like this is, yeah, you can't see his property. I think it's on Google Maps today. Laura, Dr. Claw helped us out with this. And she points out that there's a nearby military installation. It's called the Yakima Training Center. It's an Army Training Center. But it also includes an NSA listening station. And that's not conspiracy theory. That's the Seattle Post intelligence are reporting that there's an NSA listening station there.
23:44That in and of itself could block out a large segment of the central Washington, I think, on Terra server. Yeah, I also saw, and this is on Reddit, and since this is all bunk anyway, we might as well just mention stuff like this. But there were dudes on Reddit that were like, you can see where Google Earth has cloned images and overlaid them over the spot where the hole should be. Yeah. I mean, it's not the most incredible part of all this, is it? Oh, no. That's that's that's coming. Yeah. I mean, I hope we are in agreement on the most incredible part and it's not a silent gun or a silent hole.
24:25We'll see. I'm not exactly certain what you're talking about. So I'm excited. Oh, come on. You know. All right. We'll get there. Okay. So there was a couple other things that Mel said had happened since he was first on and had caught the attention of the government who had now taken over his land. He had a buddy who was a trucker and his buddy told him that he delivered a huge quantity of fiber optic cable to a warehouse in Ellensburg. And in the late 90s, fiber optic cable had no business whatsoever being anywhere near Ellensburg, Washington. Another friend told him he delivered a truckload of instruments from the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, one of the national labs.
25:06And in and of itself is spooky, especially pre-millennium, when everything the government did was super spooky. And that those were delivered to that same warehouse in Ellensburg. So fiber optic cables and Lawrence Livermore Laboratory instruments suddenly amassing in Ellensburg. A little coincidental with the government taking over his land. That's right. And you know how he found this out? His trucker buddy told him so. Right. A couple of other details there. Apparently, the workers at the warehouse were, all of them were Israeli, according to this trucker, unnamed trucker. And if you're just wondering, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory is responsible, generally responsible for the safety and security of America's nuclear arsenal.
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25:58Okay. Yep. Great. That's what they do. Sure. So there was a bit of like an upside to all this. And like, again, Moe was really distressed that he wasn't allowed on his land and that he had been threatened and intimidated. But he also was like, you know, this is my private property. My rights are being trampled on. So he was quite happy to find that shortly after the government took over his land, they did write by him and then some. His real estate agent contacted him. Apparently, he was the type to have a real estate agent on retainer. And they said, Mel, I've got great news for you. You have an anonymous offer to lease your land indefinitely for a quarter of a million dollars a month.
26:40Yeah. How do you feel about this? I mean, that's incredible. And he said, you know, this is on the third call by now. He was like, yeah, I took the deal because I'm in Australia right now, buddy. And I'm getting rich here off the U.S. government or, you know, whatever, unnamed Lisee or Liseor. Which one would that be? So he would be the Liseor. They would be the Lisee. They would be the Lisee. As far as car commercials have taught me. Yeah. So Art Bell, and we believe everything he says, He said that, hey, Mel is definitely in Australia. I've gotten emails, I guess, that were.au or something. But somehow he was able to verify that Mel was in Australia.
27:26And Mel also is like, and here's the other thing, is like the government took care of all this. They did all the paperwork. They got my dogs over here. The Australian government was cooperating, and they were in on it. And I'm in Australia now, and I'm doing my medicinal herb growing here to great effect. Yeah, and we should say also, we've been to Australia for tour, and it is not an easy country to come into. They make you jump through lots of hoops. So it's another suspicious thing, too, I just want to point out. But we didn't have the government doing all the legwork for us. Exactly. That's what I'm saying.
27:59Like, he did. Like, that's not Australia's normal MO is what I'm trying to say. Yeah, that's not nothing, as they say. One other thing that he tossed out there is that, so he was using his medicinal herbs to cure people. He also did some gratifying work rescuing wombats. Just threw that out there as an aside. I thought that was a nice touch. And then there's one other thing, too. Remember the magical gun that made no sound and then played radio broadcasts from other times and eras? I do. He took that to Australia with him. Probably also another hard thing to do for the average person. And he used it as a security deposit for his place that he rented.
28:41He gave it to his landlord, his security deposit. I don't know why he would have needed to do that if he was getting a quarter. I don't either. Maybe he hadn't gotten the first lease payment yet. Maybe. That's the weird—well, that's not the weirdest part, obviously, but that's the part that makes the least just logical sense, was why would he be like, here, just—you like old World War II guns? Maybe the guy did. Maybe that was it. Well, supposedly, whether he did or not, the man's son got in touch with Mel and was like, I don't know where my father is. he disappeared and he took that weird gun with him.
29:12And before they disappeared, he had become obsessed with the thing. Yeah, and they never heard from him again. No, as far as I know. And also the man's son was never named, nor was the man, the landlord. Yeah, keeping with the story. Right. All right, so Mel goes back to the States to visit some family. He did not show for an appearance on Coast to Coast in late 1999. And he was like, yeah, you know why, buddy? Art, he said, because I was questioned after an altercation on a bus. And I was transported back to Olympia, Washington. Or I was told I was going to be transported back to Olympia, Washington.
29:55But instead, I woke up almost two weeks later. Twelve days later, I just awoke with no memory of anything that happened in a rough part of San Francisco. And now today you just call that San Francisco. No wallet, no ID. I had adhesive on my arm, like residue from where I clearly probably had an IV. And brother, my back teeth are gone. That would be so distressing to be like, I'm missing teeth and I have no recollection of them being taken out. It's distressing when you know it's coming and it happens. Yeah, good point. I can vouch for that. Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, did you get knocked out, I guess, when you had yours removed?
30:35Oh, sure. That's the best part. Okay. Okay. Yeah, but I can imagine knowing it's coming would be more distressing. That usually is. They say anticipation is the worst part of just about any experience, right? I don't know. That's what I heard. Okay. So regardless, Mel's now missing a couple of teeth. He's also down, in addition to missing his ID and wallet, his belt buckle, which sounds kind of, what's the word I'm looking for? Innocuous? Yes, Chuck. That's exactly the word I was looking for. Sounds innocuous as far as details go, but this belt buckle was a special belt buckle that he had made himself.
31:12He was also a craftsman in addition to a grower and maker of medicinal herbal tinctures. And this belt buckle contained a dime, a very special dime, a 1943 dime with Franklin Delano Roosevelt's bust on the side, just like the dimes we had today. The problem is that dime shouldn't have existed. Yeah, the Roosevelt dimes didn't start until 1946 after FDR died. He was still alive in 1943. So those don't exist. They even did some searching on the Internet. The only thing I could find was apparently they're 1949 dimes that people have sort of etched the 9 to look like a 3. Because I saw a picture of one, I was like, that looks like a 1943 Roosevelt to me.
32:00But other people said, like, no, that's been made, it was a 9, made to look like a 3. But at any rate, those dimes don't exist. I mean, I guess it's possible that it could have been some kind of a counterfeit thing. But he said that a couple more things about this dime, that it could not be photographed. So it clearly wasn't the dime I saw on the Internet. And also, if you walk 15 feet away, it goes invisible. And it's not just my eyesight because I know what you're thinking. Yeah. So he also took one of those dimes to a coin dealer. And I guess while it was in the coin dealer's possession, the Treasury Department showed up and confiscated it.
32:42Just like that. They were there. Yeah. And he was using these dimes like pretty innocently. I saw the belt buckles were World War II themed. So one was a like he had three coins. One had a bust of Churchill. One had a bust of FDR. And I think the other one was a bust of Stalin. and he's like, oh, this FDR dime will work perfectly. Like, apparently he hadn't realized that they were special dimes. He just dug them up on his property, which I think should have raised a red flag right away that they were special dimes if they were something he dug up on his property. Yeah, he said he found them in a red envelope on his property, these impossible coins.
33:17So I say we take another break, because when we come back, we are definitely going to get to the craziest part of this whole story.
33:30What? Yeah. What? What? What? Yeah.
33:45What? Satisfaction. New year, new goals, and in this economy, a better money plan is more necessary than ever. I am Matt. And I'm Joel. We are from the How to Money podcast, and every week we help you to spend smarter, save more, and make sense of what's going on out there. If you want 2026 to be the year you finally feel in control of your money, we're here to give you the tools and advice to help you make it happen. Listen to How to Money on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Dr. Priyanka Wally. And I'm Hari Kondabolu. It's a new year, and on the podcast Health Stuff, we're resetting the way we talk about our health.
34:24Which means being honest about what we know, what we don't know, and how messy it can all be. I like to sleep in late and sleep early. Is there a chronotype for that or am I just depressed? We talk to experts who share real experiences and insight. You just really need to find where it is that you can have an impact in your own life and just start doing that. We break down the topics you want to know more about. Sleep, stress, mental health, and how the world around us affects our overall health. We talk about all the ways to keep your body and mind, inside and out, healthy. We human beings, all we want is connection.
35:02We just want to connect with each other. Health stuff is about learning, laughing, and feeling a little less alone. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there, this is Dr. Jesse Mills, director of the Men's Clinic at UCLA Health and host of the Mailroom Podcast. Each January, guys everywhere make the same resolutions. Get stronger, work harder, fix what's broken. But what if the real work isn't physical at all? To kick off the new year, I sat down with Dr. Steve Poulter, a psychologist with over 30 years experience helping men unpack shame, anxiety, and emotional pain they were never taught to name.
35:41In a powerful two-part conversation, we discuss why men aren't emotionally bulletproof, why shame hides in plain sight, and how real strength comes from listening to yourself and to others. Guys who are toxic, they're immature, or they've got something they just haven't resolved. Once that gets resolved, then there comes empathy and some compassion. If you want this to be the year you stop powering through pain and start understanding what's underneath, listen to The Mailroom on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows. Stuxnet. Who? Stuxnet. Say it one more time.
36:16Stuxnet. I don't know what that is. You know what Stuxnet is. Is that in this? Stuxnet. Stuxnet. It's a great name. You got to quit saying Stuxnet. That's the name of it. I know. It's a great name. All right. Stuxnet with an X. All right. So we're back. and this is when we start to talk about a second hole. Yeah. Because on a subsequent call into AM Coast to Coast, Mel said, because I've been on your radio show and people are like familiar with me in this hole now, this whole hole, he said, I've now been made aware of a second hole thanks to the native people there in Nevada. They got in touch with members of the Basque community there and apparently there is still a robust Basque community because sheep herders from the Pyrenees moved there in the late 19th century.
37:03And they're still there today, which is great. But this Basque hole, as it's called, was very similar to Mel's hole. It was nine feet in diameter. This one had an actual metal collar around it starting a couple of feet off the ground and had a metal lining the hole as far as you could see down into it. And local Basque people was like, yeah, that hole's been around since the 19th century. and dogs won't go near it. They're scared of it. And we've seen a black beam come out of this thing. He's like, another black beam? That's nuts. Yeah, and that's not the craziest part. We're getting there. Just wait.
37:41Yeah, now I know what you're talking about. I mean, come on. So I think it's what I'm about to say, that that metal collar around the hole somehow was never hot to the touch, but the local Basques had figured out that if you put your tent against it, it would heat your tent. in the winter. Okay. Is that it? Is that what the weirdest part was that you were talking about? Are you being coy? Mm-hmm. Okay. I can't tell if you just are blanking or if you're just messing around with it. No, I really couldn't think of it earlier, but now I know just what you mean. The closer we get to it. Mm-hmm. I love this.
38:16We never have this kind of true suspense on this show, I feel like. Mm-mm. I feel like I should be doing like a finger drum roll for the next minute. So it's keeping your sleeping bag warm. It's keeping your tent warm. um mel uh he did a few things he dropped a wrench in it uh or i guess he dropped it on the metal it didn't make any sound yeah like the last one uh then they got some ice because they were like this thing has weird heat properties so let's let's drop some ice down in there in a in a pot and see what happens because if it gets hotter or something then we'll know it has some weird or some i guess legitimate heat properties and the ice came back it was unmelted and when they put this potted ice over a fire to melt it, that ice eventually caught on fire.
39:03Yeah, it put out its own heat, too. Yeah, via the fire. Right. So one of the Basque people who was involved in all this is like, hey, this eternal hot ice is probably a pretty good idea. I'm going to take it home and put it in my wood stove. Yeah, good idea. Yeah, it's a great idea. The problem is one of the strange properties of this eternal heat ice was that it dried everything around it. So much so it sucked all the moisture out of everything that this poor Basque man's cabin crumbled into basically dust because the eternal ice just being in his wood stove had sucked all of the moisture out of the wood so that it just couldn't stand up as wood any longer.
39:47Yeah, that stove collapsed along with the rest of the cabin. So that's not the weirdest part. Well, the stove actually basically burned a hole, and now it's like five feet into the ground that's made it that far. Yeah. Pretty nuts. But that's not the craziest part. You ready? Yeah. Dear listener, so this part is also a little awful because it involves killing an animal. I know. We should mention that people at some point suggested, like, why don't you throw a cat down that hole, Mel's hole? A Bengal cat. See if you can hear it crying. And stand-up guy Art Bell was like, no, we're not doing anything like that.
40:25That's what I'm saying. I know. That's why. Exactly. So they did have a sheep, though, at the bass hole. And they tried to bring the sheep around it. The sheep freaked out. So they said, all right, you're getting in the crate. And we're doing this the hard way. They lowered the sheep down 1 ,500 feet. It stopped making any sounds. They brought the sheep up. And it was dead. so they dissected it and it was cooked from the inside out, evidently. So they had a nice mutton dinner and gained immortality. Yeah. No. I'm going to let you take this, buddy. Oh, really? Thanks, man. The craziest part. Here we go.
41:04So while they're dissecting it, they quickly found out that the sheep was missing its internal organs. They just weren't there anymore. But in the internal organs place was a giant tumor. They're like, well, we've already come this far with dissecting. We might as well dissect the tumor. And when they cut the tumor open, they found that there was what looked to be what you could describe closest would be a fetal seal. But the fetal seal had human eyes. And even crazier than that, the fetal seal like opened its eyes and started looking around at all of the Basque people in Mel who were there standing over it, agog and amazement.
41:41Yeah. So this thing was 18 inches long. It was connected by an umbilical cord. And we should also say that stuff you find on the internet now, some of that stuff maybe has been added since 1997 because there's a lot of, you know, bunk out there. Uh, but I saw it was connected by an umbilical cord, detached itself. And like you said, we're just kind of walking around, hanging out with people. Uh, apparently they thought this thing was like, I want to go back into the hole. So they put it on the metal collar. It looked at them, gave them a nod, and took the dive. The fetal seal with human-like eyes.
42:19Yeah. And so later on, Mel's here witnessing all this stuff. And he's in contact, obviously, with his Basque friends from that point on. And he said that later on, they told him, like, the fetal seal had come back up several times. And they'd learned that if a boombox was near, they could communicate with the fetal seal. But when somebody grabbed an old two live crew cassette and tried to record over it, nothing was recorded. Okay. They better had some basking tape over those square holes, you know. I forgot about that part. Yeah, absolutely. But what about Mel's cancer? It went away, buddy. Thanks to the basque hole, I guess.
42:58He had apparently pretty aggressive terminal esophageal cancer, and it was just gone. And so they started calling this thing the tumor seal because of that. Yeah, which is a horrible name for any organism, but there you go. So if you come across something called the tumor seal on the Internet, that's what they're talking about. This strange seal-like creature with human eyes that healed Mel's esophageal cancer. That's right. So since the beginning of the Internet, and this was, I mean, seemingly coincidentally kind of around the birth of the Internet, the story grew and grew and grew, of course.
43:35just like a little fetal seal will one day become a sea lion. Oh, is that right? Seals and sea lions aren't different? No, but this is a magical story. So that's what happens in this case. Especially if it has human-like eyes. So Mel Waters apparently doesn't exist. They have looked. There apparently are no records of Mel Waters in the county of which he supposedly resided. There was no wife that worked at Central Washington University. Go Wildcats. by the way. Go Wildcats. It was obviously somebody from around there because they had a lot of knowledge of the area. So whoever was pulling off this hoax was clearly a local.
44:16But there was no Mel Waters as far as anyone can tell. No, but one of the interesting things is that in the real world, in the Ellensburg area, apparently there is a local rumor superstition about a bottomless hole somewhere in the area. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure that was the leaping point for this story. Had to be. But Mel really took it and ran with it. And so, I mean, this caught Coast to Coast AM listeners' attention and enough that they went out and actually looked for the hole. There was an expedition that was mounted in 2002. 30 people makes it an official expedition. Yeah. It was led or it included a guy named Gerald Osborne.
45:01Yeah. Gerald Osborne went by Red Elk. Uh-huh. He didn't, he very wisely didn't claim ancestry or heritage to any particular indigenous tribe in the area. Instead, he said he was an intertribal shaman, which means he was white. Yeah. And he's not to be confused. He's not to be confused with Gerald Red Elk, who's a legitimate Navajo, who was a Navajo code talker in World War II from Montana. Yeah, thanks for stealing that name. Exactly. So he was, the reason he was on this expedition is he said, I've been to this whole numerous times. My father took me there for the first time all the way back in 1961.
45:38I'm a huge asset to your group. As a matter of fact, why don't you guys just carry me around? I'm that much of an asset to this expedition. Did he really say that? No, but I could kind of see it. Nothing in this story would surprise me, so you can literally dupe me with anything at this point. Right. And by the way, R.I.P. Gerald Osborne, a.k.a. Red Elk, he did pass in, I think, 2017 maybe. Okay. R.I.P. He claimed that a huge spacecraft would appear and hover over that hole and that the government had a very small underground base there, obviously underground. there's a legit geologist named Jack Powell from Washington State Department of Natural Resources who seems like the lone, maybe one of the lone skeptics aside from me apparently saying like, hey, this hole's not possible.
46:27Josh Clark is even going to say this one day on a very popular podcast. This hole would collapse on itself because of all the pressure and heat from the area around it. It's just, you just can't have a hole that deep. It's impossible. Yeah. They were like, stop saying impossible. He's like, fine, but you get my point, right? He said, and that fishing line wouldn't have made it or your lifesavers or anything else wouldn't have survived that depth. No. And he did concede, like, this area was carved out by volcanic activity eons ago. So it is possible that there are, like, a lot of really, really deep holes that may even be, for all intents and purposes, as far as human scale is concerned, bottomless.
47:05Yeah. But what this guy is describing could not possibly exist. And this area is also just riddled with goldmine shafts. In fact, I think I might know the particular goldmine shaft outside of Ellensburg that inspired this guy, this Mel Waters. Yeah, not you. You're playing the role of Jack Powell. Yeah, that was me doing my Jack Powell impression. He and I sound just alike, just like me and Mark Ruffalo. Right. Oh, people said that? Yeah, I get that a lot. Oh, I've never thought about that. Someone said you talked like someone the other day. Mike Birbiglia. Yeah, I think they might be the first person to say that.
47:46I've heard that. Yeah. And then I think, yeah, I think that's it for voice lookalikes or soundalikes. Same Muppet each other. Love that. I will never, ever forget that. I hold that deal to my heart. You should. All right. So Powell said, as Josh just play acted, let's go to this gold mine shaft that I know about. Like, I bet this is it. It's near the Manistash Ridge. I think it said Manitash earlier. It's Manistash. I think it's Manastash. Oh, well, I mean, it depends on which side you live on. Yeah. Nevada, Nevada. Yeah, exactly. Tomato, tomato. But he took them there, the group of whole, you know, Mel's Whole Enthusiasts.
48:24And they were like, nah, you duped us. There's no way this is Mel's Hole. It's too normal, basically. It's not doing anything weird. You lying geologists? Yeah, exactly. That's funny. So these people, they were undeterred. They were like, we are so, we're going to balk so hard at your suggestion that this pithing thing is Mel's Hole, that just to spite you, we're going to go on and form the Seattle Paranormal Society. So there. Yeah. Like, we're all here together. Right. We should call ourselves something. Yeah. So they did. So they did. Yeah. And here's another just little addendum. In 2012, apparently, like a local library historian said, you know, the files on Mel's Hole are not in my library anymore.
49:06They disappeared. And there's no way some crackpot stole them. Right. They're definitely not under a placemat at my house where I forgot them. Yeah. So there were, again, like there are people out in the real world who are trying to track down Mel's Hole for one reason or another. And Mel. And Mel. Yes, exactly. And one of the places that became like a clearinghouse online for continued information about Mel's Hole was the Northwest Museum of Legends and Lore. They actually claimed to still be getting email updates from Mel and Mel's nephew. So you know that they were like, that was an arcane reference right there, Mel's nephew.
49:45I think it legitimized everything. And they actually may have been receiving information from somebody claiming to be Mel's nephew. Eventually, though, even they, the Northwest Museum of Legends and Lore, were like, nuts to this. And based on the date of their last post, they seem to have given up the ghost in 2003. Yeah, it may have had something to do with they said, hey, Mel's nephew, he's coming to our hang. He's coming to the Northwest UFO Conference on Memorial Day. And then they said, oh, well, it turns out he didn't make it. He got in a car wreck. But he'll keep us posted about whether he's going to make it to the conference after all.
50:22Exactly. So you said that there's so much crud on the Internet now about this that it's just kind of to me, it took like a really interesting, cool, self-contained thing that didn't need to be expounded upon. And yeah, just 2020s Internet eyes did, which means it just got dumb. And so there's tons of like I read one article where somebody was like, this may be a Lazarus pit. and I looked up Lazarus Pit and it only exists in the DC comic universe. Yeah. So that probably is not a very credible website. And then also there's this YouTube video from just this past March. And this is what's amazing about the internet.
51:05Somebody made a YouTube video that claimed that Elon Musk, because he's like the head of technology in the world apparently, sent a special drone, a special high-tech drone made for tough places, they said, down into Mel's Hole. And we'll get to what he came up with in a second. But if you go and search that, there are offshoot videos, videos about that that are treating it like news. So there's tons of YouTube videos talking about this drone footage that Elon Musk found. And essentially he found what was at the bottom of it, and he did not like what he found according to this YouTube video. Yeah.
51:45Legend has it, it was a cave painting of a cyber truck. I think he would have been gratified with that. Or he would have been like, wow, those things really are ugly. Yeah. So, no, they quoted him in this video. There's something down there, something we don't get. We aren't ready for what's at the bottom. And that tracks. So, I mean, it still just keeps going on and on. Some people of a 2017 video went to a location that someone on Reddit said was Mel's Hole. They're like, it's not Mel's Hole. So there are people still looking for Mel's Hole out there. But to me, you don't really need to go much beyond the actual original story.
52:25It's perfect as is. Yeah, it's fun radio theater. Yeah. Yeah, and that's our assessment that it is theater, Chuck. I think that's where we both land, right? I mean, that's where I am. I hope you're there. If not, we've got to end this show. I'm solidly right there with you. Okay, good. Well, since we're standing right next to another shoulder to shoulder, cheek to jowl, and all that stuff, I think that means it's time for a listener mail.
52:52I thought, so relieved, I thought you were about to say we have to jump into that hole together. Never, never. We like our lives. That's true, but maybe it would be like Joe vs. Volcano, and it would just spit us right back out, like Tom and Meg. That was such a good movie. Loved it. All right. Here is a follow up to Project 100 ,000. Hey, guys, just listened to the episode. Was impressed with your coverage, like always. In the topic of a lack of men for Vietnam, for the Vietnam War, my mind is flooded with thoughts of the secret war. My people, the Hmong people, were recruited as guerrilla troops to assist the U.S.
53:28in the jungles of Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. Many of the troops were children, including my great uncle. Good Lord. Very few spoke English and agreed to participate on the premise that they would be brought to live the American dream after the war was over, but very few made it over. Most were stranded and then hunted as traitors to their countries. In fact, my mom was born in a concentration camp in Laos, and she's only 42 years old right now. Oh, God. Most of us live in Minnesota, California, and Wisconsin now, but many of us still have family living back home where the conflict has seemingly fizzled out.
53:58I've always wondered what happened overseas to the ones who didn't make it out of the camps, and how or if my people have restored their villages, but the topic is still raw. I think it'd be a great topic to look into for an episode, a short stuff, or just for your brain bank. And that is Warmly from Melody, who apparently listens to us from the long drives between Chicago and Minneapolis. Nice. Thanks a lot, Melody. I definitely not heard about that, and I think that's a great corollary to Project 100 ,000, huh? Totes. Yeah, I think that might even deserve its own episode, too. We'll have to dig into it.
54:33If you want to be like Melody and blow our minds and depress us simultaneously, we love that kind of thing in a weird way. You can send it via email to stuffpodcasts at iheartradio.com. Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
55:04Hey, it's Joel and Matt from HowToMoney. If your New Year's resolution is to finally get your finances in shape, we've got your back. Prices, they're still high, and the economy is all over the place. But 2026 is the year for you to get intentional and make real progress. That's right. Yeah, each week we break down what's happening with your money, the most important issues to focus on, and the small moves that make a big difference. Kick off the year with confidence, listen to How to Money on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm John Polk. For years, I was the poster boy of the conversion therapy movement, the ex-gay who married an ex-lesbian and traveled the world telling my story of how I changed my sexuality from gay to straight.
55:50You might have heard my story, but you've never heard the real story. John has never been anything but gay. but he really tried hard not to be. Listen to Atonement, the John Palk story on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Dr. Priyanka Wally. And I'm Hari Kondabolu. It's a new year and on the podcast Health Stuff we're resetting the way we talk about our health. Which means being honest about what we know, what we don't know and how messy it can all be. I like to sleep in late and sleep early. is there a chronotype for that or am I just depressed? Health stuff is about learning, laughing, and feeling a little less alone.
56:33Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.
From the publisher
One of the most bizarre stories to emerge from the cult radio show Coast to Coast AM – and that’s really saying something – isn’t about UFOs or bigfoot, but a mysterious hole in the ground with some very unusual properties. Top that, History Channel!
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