In 1997, Art Bell , a famous radio and television announcer, on his radio show “ Coast to Coast ” – in which he talked about mysteries and unexplained facts – received a fax from a certain Mel Waters claiming to know about the largest hole in the world .
Since it was a curious fact and relevant to the program, Bell decided to air it the next day.
Mel Waters specified during the phone call that this enormous hole was located on his property in Ellensburg, Washington . He recounted that for decades, all kinds of waste, dead animals, furniture, broken appliances, and more had been dumped into that hole, all without ever finding a bottom. Waters, now obsessed, tried to study it and measure its depth. One day, he equipped himself with 15 miles of fishing line, attached a weight to the end, and lowered it into the well. When he reached the end of all 15 miles of line, he still hadn't reached the bottom.
This hole, later renamed Mel's Hole , had become famous over time, and so others attempted to measure and study it. New researchers, along with Mel Waters, attempted, as an experiment, to lower a live sheep into the bottom of the well using the lever of a Jeep, taking care not to hurt it. But when it reached the bottom, the rope was pulled forcefully and shaken. In panic, they tried to retrieve it as quickly as possible, but by then all that remained of the sheep was a pile of deformed flesh . After this event, the well became extremely famous, and people from surrounding towns came to see it.
A few days later, Mel Waters updated Art Bell, explaining that soldiers with heavy equipment had surrounded the hole and cordoned off the area , building concrete walls. Mel also recounted that, on his deathbed, he wished he could be thrown into the well because he knew of a neighbor's dog that had been thrown into the hole after his death and had been seen alive again a few days later.
Some curious listeners of the Coast to Coast program tried to find information about Mel Waters, but no one found anything about him ; he wasn't listed in the phone book, and there was no mention of him in the Ellensburg land registry. He didn't exist, and he didn't own any property. Later, even the authorities said they knew nothing about this hole. Some curious people decided to search for Mel's well themselves, using the Terra Server website (the predecessor of Google Earth) and noticed that a darkened section of the area was visible.
Today, Mel's Hole is visible on Google Maps. A famous geologist named Jack Powell believes that the enormous sinkhole near Ellensburg sparked people's fantasies and inspired this story. However, a great deal of mystery remains surrounding a story that—officially— has yet to be explained naturally.