Nexus - 0403 - New Times Magazine-pages

Page Content (OCR)

THE 'HOLE’ TRUTH? adio audiences in the USA were Rees recently by the mystery of "Mel's hole", an alleged bottomless pit, somewhere near Ellensburg, Washington. When radio talk show personality Art Bell received a fax from a man purporting to have the world's deepest hole on his property, Bell took it to the airwaves. Bell, who hosts the nationally syndicated "Coast to Coast" program that airs on 328 radio stations across North America, is no stranger to the bizarre. His program regu- larly features topics that delve into the fringe, whether it's alien abductions, aster- oids or crop circles. During Bell's Friday night show, a man identifying himself as "Mel Waters" recounted the story of a seemingly bottom- less pit on his private property along Manastash Ridge, which runs south of Ellensburg. He claimed that he, like previ- ous property owners, had been dumping trash into the nine-foot-wide hole for years. "People have been throwing their trash in the well for decades: furniture, household trash, dead cows, building debris, you name it," Mel told Bell. "The hole never filled up, so I got curious—actually, obsessed—and began trying to measure the depth of the hole." Using fishing line and a one-pound weight, Mel claimed to have fed 80,000 feet of line—or 15 miles' worth—into the hole and said he still didn't hit bottom. Because the fishing line only had the strength to hold 20 pounds, he said he wouldn't stay open. The horizontal forces couldn't go any deeper for fear of snapping _ of the Earth are very strong and they would the line, since its cumulative weight was at close it off." 17 pounds. Bell said that he, too, may never know On Monday, Mel returned to Art Bell's _ the truth about Mel's hole, but such is the program with an update: the military had nature of talk radio. seized his property Saturday, moved heavy (Source: Written by Wendy Harris, Yakima equipment onto it and surrounded it with Herald-Republic, 26 February 1997) cement barriers. "There were armed soldiers," he said. TV SIGNAL IN TIME-SPACE WARP fill his wish of having his body tossed into becomes of old radio and TV pro- the well after he died. He said he had grams that are sent out into space decided that's how he wanted to go after 24 hours a day? Do they just fade out and hearing the legend of the dead hunting-dog __ vanish, or do they keep travelling through Mel then wondered if he'd be able to ful- H= you ever wondered what that was dropped into the pit. space forever, perhaps to be picked up by Listeners called in with ideas to help creatures on other planets? explain Mel's anomaly. But perhaps the Possibly some of the weird sounds that greater mystery is: "Who's Mel?" we hear are really programs (or commer- Soap Lake resident Richard Dawe, who __cials) from other planets. It's true that sci- heard the broadcast, tried to track down _ entific listening posts have put on tape Mel and his property. And, as the Yakima some mighty odd sounds from space which Herald-Republic confirmed, there is no might be from some sort of intelligence telephone listing for a Mel Waters, nor do somewhere. Some make no sense at all Kittitas County records show any such per- (perhaps those are the commercials). son owning property along Manastash In the early days of television, some sets Ridge or elsewhere in the county. retained a picture long after a program was County emergency officials said they knew over. Even today, words from a commer- nothing about Mel's hole, except from what cial linger after the advertisement has left they'd learned from reporters' questions. the screen, and occasionally another chan- Even if Mel's hole does exist, it can't be _ nel's picture will appear for a few seconds. as deep as he claims, according to Steve But what about pictures that mysteriously Reidel, a Richland geologist who teaches at appear long after the program has finished? Yakima Valley Community College. In September 1953, many television "Technologically, it's a feat beyond screens in England suddenly carried the humans," he said. "No one has ever drilled identification card and call letters of TV a borehole that deep. Geologically, it station KLEE in Houston, Texas, thousands of miles across the Atlantic. The image stayed on the screen long enough for sever- al viewers to take pictures of the remark- able occurrence. TV usually fades out after about 150 miles unless helped along with electronic devices and relay stations. In 1953 this was not possible. Even today, transatlantic programming is just begin- ning. What really startled the TV world was the fact that when the British broadcasting engineers contacted KLEE in Houston to tell them of the unusual event, they learned that the station had been off the air for three years. Since that time, no KLEE identification card had been shown. Where had the picture been for three years? Why did it only appear in England, and how did it get back from wherever it had been? (Source: Dennis Ballard, Anchorage, Alaska, USA, phone +1 (907) 277 8957) wouldn't stay open. The horizontal forces of the Earth are very strong and they would close it off." Bell said that he, too, may never know the truth about Mel's hole, but such is the nature of talk radio. (Source: Written by Wendy Harris, Yakima Herald-Republic, 26 February 1997) Soe ill 70 * NEXUS APRIL - MAY 1997 ee