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MYS423: A man calling himself Mel Waters phoned into Art Bell’s Coast to Coast AM in February 1997 with an extraordinary claim: there was a bottomless pit on his property near Ellensburg, Washington — nine feet across, allegedly more than 80,000 feet deep, ringed by a stone retaining wall. People in the area had been throwing trash into it for decades. It never filled up. There was no echo. Dogs refused to come within 100 feet. And a neighbor swore his dead dog had come back to life after being thrown in.

Over the next five years, Mel Waters would appear on Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell three more times. Each time the story expanded: armed soldiers and hazmat-suited figures seized access to his property and threatened him; the government bought him out with a multi-million-dollar annuity and relocated him to Australia; he woke up in a San Francisco alley twelve days later with IV marks on his arms; and he found a 1943 Roosevelt dime — a coin that cannot exist, since Roosevelt didn’t appear on the dime until after his death in 1945.

Then came a second hole in Nevada, also about nine feet across, lined with metal as far down as the eye could see. And the experiments: a bucket of ice lowered in that refused to melt but radiated heat. A sheep lowered on a rope, brought up with its organs replaced by gel and a tumor — and inside that tumor, a living, eighteen-inch creature with flippers and human eyes, still alive.

Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli trace all four of Mel’s appearances on Coast to Coast AM — from the original 1997 call through his 2002 sign-off — and examine the Mel’s Hole mystery from the faith and reason perspectives. What does geology say about a hole that deep in the volcanic rock of central Washington? What did reporters find when they searched land records for any trace of a Mel Waters? And when thirty people with GPS units, metal detectors, and a local guide who claimed personal knowledge of the hole hiked Manastash Ridge, what did they find? The Mel’s Hole legend is one of the stranger chapters in American paranormal folklore — and this is the full story.

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Links for this episode:

• “Mel’s Hole” (Wikipedia)
• “Mel’s Hole” (Grokipedia)
• Mike Johnston, “Getting to the bottom of Mel’s Hole” (Ellensburg Daily Record, March 31, 2012)
• John Zebrowski, “Expedition seeks paranormal pit” (The Seattle Times, April 14, 2002)
• Brian Dunning, “Falling into Mel’s Hole” (Skeptoid #156, June 2, 2009)
• Audio archive of original Mel Waters Coast to Coast AM appearances
• “Mel Waters” guest page, Coast to Coast AM

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Chapters:

• 0:00 – MYS423
• 0:13 – Intro
• 2:42 – Mel’s first call (Feb. 21, 1997)
• 5:01 – Neighborhood dump
• 6:50 – Measuring with fishing line
• 9:14 – Stone retaining wall
• 10:48 – No echo and spooked dogs
• 11:50 – The dead dog that came back
• 13:06 – Native American connection
• 14:00 – Second call (Feb. 24, 1997)
• 17:04 – Government arrives
• 19:26 – The black beam of llight
• 20:27 – Third call (April 2000)
• 22:00 – Australia relocation
• 23:38 – Twelve days missing
• 27:02 – 1943 Roosevelt dime
• 32:37 – Final call (January 2002)
• 32:51 – Nevada hole
• 35:06 – Ice experiment
• 38:36 – Lowering the sheep
• 40:12 – Seal-like creature
• 44:08 – Basque elder and second dime
• 45:23 – Mel goes off-grid
• 49:44 – After Mel
• 51:21 – Thank you to Patrons
• 51:54 – Sponsor: Transformed – The Legend of Rising Eagle
• 52:35 – Sponsor: Rosary Army and School of Mary
• 52:58 – Theories
• 53:20 – Reason Perspective
• 1:04:27 – Faith Perspective
• 1:07:42 – Bottom Line
• 1:08:58 – Further Resources
• 1:09:37 – Mysterious Feedback: #412 The Earling Exorcism
• 1:15:10 – Your mysterious feedback
• 1:15:48 – Thank you to Oasis Studio 7
• 1:15:53 – Jimmy’s YouTube channel
• 1:16:31 – Next Time: Joseph Williamson’s Tunnels
• 1:16:57 – Mysterious World store
• 1:17:05 – Get your Mysterious merch
• 1:17:13 – Show notes
• 1:17:21 – Become a Patron
• 1:17:29 – Sponsor: The Grady Group
• 1:17:49 – Outro

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