In the winter of 1997, a phone call to a late-night radio program sparked an urban legend that gripped audiences across the United States. A man identifying himself as Mel Waters described an anomalous pit on his rural property with impossible physical properties.
Millions of listeners tuned in to hear bizarre details about a supposedly bottomless void located in Washington State. The unexpected broadcast triggered immediate public interest and initiated a wide-scale search for a mysterious location that completely defied the established laws of geology.
The Initial Coast to Coast AM Broadcast
On February 21, 1997, the paranormal radio show Coast to Coast AM received a call from Waters. He claimed to own a piece of land on Manastash Ridge, located near Ellensburg, Washington. According to his specific account, a retaining wall surrounded a circular pit measuring exactly 9 feet (2.7 meters) in diameter.
Waters stated that locals routinely used the shaft as a massive garbage dump, throwing in household trash, old appliances, and even dead livestock. Despite the constant volume of discarded debris, the pit never filled up, and dropping items into the dark void produced absolutely no sound of impact.
The 80,000-Foot Fishing Line Experiment
To determine the precise depth of the anomaly, Waters told the radio host that he conducted a rudimentary experiment. He attached a standard 1-pound (0.45 kilograms) lead weight to a heavy-duty fishing line and lowered it directly into the shaft.
He claimed to have spooled out an astonishing 80,000 feet (15.1 miles or 24.3 kilometers) of line without the weight ever touching the bottom. Waters also reported other unusual phenomena, such as a localized beam of black light emitting from the pit and local dogs refusing to approach the edge under any circumstances.
Government Seizure and Relocation Claims
In subsequent radio appearances over the following years, the caller expanded his narrative. He announced that heavily armed federal agents had cordoned off his property and forced him to leave the area entirely.
Waters stated the government paid him a sum of $250,000 to relocate to Australia, and he alleged that the land was deliberately removed from all local topographical maps. These broadcasts prompted fans of the show to travel directly to Kittitas County to locate the restricted military zone and the impossible geological formation.
Geological Investigations and Final Findings
Local authorities and professional geologists conducted formal investigations into the broadcasted claims. The Kittitas County auditor office reviewed their historical archives and found no public records of anyone named Mel Waters ever owning property in the specified region.
State geologist Jack Powell evaluated the structural claims and concluded that a hole of that extreme depth is physically impossible. The immense subsurface pressure and heat of the Earth would cause an unreinforced shaft to instantly collapse upon itself. The location of the pit was never found, and the radio broadcasts were officially classified as a fictional urban legend.