Mel's Hole - A Bottomless Pit In Central Washington (Part 1)

On February 21st, 1997 a man named Mel Waters brought the story of his bottomless pit to the radio audience of Coast To Coast A.M. The host of the show Art Bell received a 5 page fax (the 90's remember!) from Mel just a few days earlier, and was instantly intrigued. Art invited Mel to appear on the broadcast and explain more about this 'mystery hole' on his property.

Mel Waters resided in a small town in the center of Washington state called Ellensburg. He owned a piece of property just outside of the town, located on the "Manastash Ridge". On this property Mel describes a hole or 'well' that had been around for as long as he, and the previous owner of the property can remember. Mel described the hole as being 9 feet in diameter, and had a rock retaining wall appearing a few feet above and below the ground. His dogs would not have anything to do with the hole, and birds would never fly over and land onto the wall.

Mel spoke about how he and the locals of the town would use this pit as a trashcan. Old refrigerators, used tires, tv picture tubes, deceased pets and livestock all found there way into this bottomless pit. Over time though Mel started to wonder......"Why isn't this filling up? Why don't I ever hear anything hit bottom?"

It was at this point that Mel began his 'scientific adventure' of lowering fishing line down into the hole, with a 1lb weight attached at the end. Mel started by lowering 1500 yards (4,500 feet) of line down into the well. When the line still had tension, and hadn't reached bottom, Mel came up with a new plan. By utilizing an old shark fisherman's trick, he attached a roll of life savers to the line and lowered it into the hole. He knew that if there was water in the hole, then the life savers would slowly melt. Over a period of time Mel brought the line back up and the life savers were in exactly the same shape as when he put them on originally.

It was then that the hole started to become more of an obsession to Mel. He continued purchasing fishing line in bulk quantities, lowering a few more thousand feet of line down when he would visit the property. By the time Mel had contacted Art about his bottomless pit, he had lower 80,000 feet of line down it, and he still hadn't reach bottom. 80,000 feet.....15 miles of line was lowered into the hole, and the line was still tight without any slack.

After explaining his story of the hole and some other strange occurrences regarding it, Art opened the phone lines and had callers like you and I ask questions concerning the hole. Some of the callers volunteered to be lowered into the holes themselves, and would report back with their findings. Other callers questioned Mel's legitimacy, or that with so much line being lowered into the hole....the actual weight of the line would continue to cause it to fall.

The interview ended and Mel continued lowering fishing line into the hole right....?

WRONG!

Stay tuned for part two.....where just a few days after coming onto Coast to Coast, Mel's property was seized by the government and was prevented from ever visiting his property again!