62: Sounds from the Hell | The Siberian Drilling Project that went Very Wrong
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Hey, it's your buddy AJ from the Y-Files. And Hecklefish. Right, and Hecklefish. We just wanted to tell you that if you want to start a podcast, Spotify makes it easy. It'd have to be easy for humans to understand it. Will you stop that? I'm just saying. Spotify for Podcasters lets you record and edit podcasts from your computer. I don't have a computer. Do you have a phone? Of course I have a phone. I'm not a savage. Well, with Spotify, you can record podcasts from your phone, too.

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you to hurry up with this stupid commercial. I got a packed calendar today. I'm sorry about him. Anyway, check out Spotify for Podcasters. It's free, no catch, and you can start today. Are we done? We're done, but you need to check your attitude. Excuse me, but I don't have all day to sit here and talk about Spotify. Look, this would go a lot faster if you would just let me get through it without...

When the drill reached 14.4 kilometers, it had broken through solid rock and into a large cavern. That wasn't supposed to be there. From the surface, scientists could hear something coming from the hole. They lowered down an instrument array, including a microphone.

There was air in the cavern, nine miles beneath the surface, but it was mostly toxic gas. And the air temperature was over a thousand degrees. None of this made sense. They turned on the microphone. What they heard caused most of the crew to quit on the spot. For the few that remained, it only got worse. They called it the well to hell.

When the Allies won the Second World War, they quickly scrambled to claim their share of the Nazi resources. Gold, weapons and oil were highly prized, but no resource was as valuable as the Nazi scientific community. The United States launched Operation Paperclip,

which brought over 1600 Nazi scientists, engineers and technicians to the US for government employment. The Soviets had Operation Oseviakim, where over 2500 scientists were recruited by the Soviet Union.

- Recruited. - Abducted. - Thank you. - This influx of talent kicked off a scientific rivalry that would last the next half century. Nuclear technology was, of course, a priority for weapons and for energy. The most high profile competition was the space race. The Soviets were the first to launch a satellite into orbit, the first to land an object on the moon, the first to put a human in orbit, and the first spacewalk. The United States had its own list of firsts, the big one being the first man on the moon.

Faked. Not this again. No impact, Crater. The shadows don't line up. Pictures use the same backdrop. You can't get through the Van Allen radiation belt. You want more? I can't do this today. If you think the moon landing was real, I have a few NFTs to sell you. Okay, whether the moon landing was real or fake...

These achievements pushed both countries to explore further and higher than ever before. It also pushed them to explore deeper, a new competition, the race to the center of the Earth. The American program was called Project Moho. The first borehole was drilled in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Mexico in 1961, but

But the program suffered from poor management and lack of funding. The Russian drilling program was more focused. They chose a location on the Kola Peninsula for their hole. The Kola Superdeep borehole penetrated one-third of the way through the Earth's crust, over 12 kilometers down. And these are the public projects.

The Soviets also had a secret drilling project. The world finally learned about it when a whistleblower came forward in 1989. He claimed that buried deep beneath the earth was hell. Actual hell? Actual hell. He said the Russians accidentally discovered it deep beneath Siberia. And he said there was proof. To those who discounted the Siberia sounds from Hell's story, it is true, and I for one wish it wasn't.

In 1989, Dr. Dmitry Azakov and a group of scientists were working on a borehole drilling project in Siberia. When the drill reached 14.4 kilometers or nine miles deep, the drill bit started rotating wildly. It had somehow broken through solid rock and into a hollow area under the Earth's crust.

This cavity wasn't supposed to be there. When the drill returned to the surface, it was literally glowing red hot. This also was unexpected. The temperatures at these depths should be about 100 degrees, 150 degrees at most.

Instruments were reading temperatures of over 1100 degrees. Dr. Asikoff said it seems like an inferno is in the center of the earth. The next discovery, according to Dr. Asikoff, was the most shocking and caused some people to leave the project. At the surface, they heard strange sounds coming from the hole. At first, the engineers thought it was their equipment, so they shut down all the machinery, but...

the sound was still there. Part of the research done at the site was recording the sound of the movement of the Earth using specialized microphones. So they lowered one of these microphones into the hole. Even though it was designed to operate at high temperatures, it overheated in just a few seconds. But a few seconds was enough to prove the sound was definitely coming from the Earth's interior.

And it was unsettling. Nine miles below the surface, in a superheated cavern, they heard humans screaming in pain. Dr. Azikov is quoted as saying, We could hear thousands, perhaps millions, in the background of suffering souls screaming. Hopefully, that which is down there will stay there.

Azakov believed they drilled into hell itself. Half of the scientists immediately quit. Those who stayed at the job site were in for more of a shock. Later that night, a plume of gas burst out of the borehole and took the shape of a large bat or winged demon.

And in the gas, three words were written. I have conquered. The whole job site erupted into pandemonium. Then the medical staff received a call from someone we really don't know who. KGB. Probably. The medics were told to give everyone a type of sedative which would erase their short-term memories. The Soviets used drugs like this for victims in shock. This account comes from one of those medics who blew the whistle on the operation. Hey.

Yeah? Look, I don't want to spoil the mood or nothing. This is a good story. Thanks. Some history, some science, demons, eee.

Even Men in Black Erasing Memories. It has it all. I feel a but coming. But is there any proof of any of this? Well, what kind of proof would make you happy? A picture of the demon would be nice. We don't have that. Oh, well, any chance, and I know I'm asking a lot of you, any chance someone recorded all those screaming souls? Yep. A 17-second recording has been found. Whoa, okay. On with the show.

I'm not going to read the full article about the nine mile hole. I'm not going to do it. I'm just going to read the email that I got last night along with what I received. This horrendous sound. Now I've got a clean copy of it now and I warn you, this could scare you.

The story of the Russian well to hell circulated for years, and even though it was reported by a few major news sources who claimed it was real, nobody had actually heard the audio. Without evidence, it's pretty easy to dismiss this story as nothing more than an urban legend. But...

In 1998, Art Bell, host of the Coast to Coast AM radio show, received an email. The email said that there is an effort to discredit the story, but it's definitely true. His uncle had a friend at the BBC who had a copy of the recording. He attached the audio to the email. After giving his listeners fair warning, he played the infamous audio that was allegedly recorded from the hole to hell.

I warn you, what you are about to hear is very disturbing indeed. You know where we can score some Russian sedatives? I don't feel so good.

The Well to Hell is one of my all-time favorite urban legends. I first heard it on Art Bell's show. But how much of it is true and where did it come from? The story was first released by the Trinity Broadcasting Network. And TBN is a Christian network that operates television stations and publishes newsletters. In 1989, TBN ran the story Scientists Discover Hell in both print and on television.

The story was a hit. Rich Buehler, a radio host for Christianity Today, was getting so many calls about the story, he decided to track down the origin. When he contacted Trinity, they said the story was absolutely true. They double-double-dig!

They did. TVN said their source was the Finnish publication Amenusastia, which was, they said, a widely respected scientific journal. Was it? No. It was a small evangelical Lutheran magazine. So Rich Buehler contacted them. They said a staff member wrote the story from memory. Oh boy, journalism.

And that person remembered seeing it in a magazine where readers could submit any stories they wanted without sources or fact-checking. Oh, the New York Times? Uh, no, this was another Finnish paper. Ah.

The reader who submitted it read it in a Finnish newsletter that covered paranormal stories. Before that, the story was in another religious newsletter out of California, and on and on and on. The story was just hearsay and exaggeration, but the companies who published the story kept defending it. You sure this wasn't the New York Times? I'm sure. Yeah.

To make matters worse, a Norwegian teacher named Agen Rendauen heard the original TBN story when he was visiting California. He was so amazed that Americans were gullible enough to believe it, he conducted an experiment. He got back to Norway and found some boring newspaper article and sent it to TBN. But he included a fake translation. This is how the hole-to-hell story picked up the details about the demon.

It was a prank made up by someone just to see if TGN would fall for it. And they did. TGN didn't fact check, didn't do their own translation. They just saw a great story and ran with it. The media sure publishes a lot of intentional hoaxes, don't they? If they get clicks.

They sure do. Anyway, the story has been resurfacing every few years ever since. Sometimes the hole is in Alaska. Sometimes it's in Norway. Sometimes the demon is just a big bat. But that audio clip is always included, which adds a little extra eeriness to it. And no, those aren't the screams of millions of souls in hell. It's actually a layered and looped audio section from a horror movie. No, most people think it's from the 1972 B-horror movie Barren Blood.

As much as I love the whole to hell story, I think we can call this one debunked. These days, there aren't too many deep drilling projects still operating. As of now, the Kola super deep borehole in Russia is still the deepest at 12 kilometers.

Cola Superdeep has made some interesting discoveries, like fossilized plankton and huge amounts of mineralized water buried deep beneath the surface. But no demons? No demons. At least, not yet. But if they keep drilling, who knows what they'll find.

Thanks so much for hanging out with me today. My name is AJ. That's Hecklefish. This has been the Y-Files. If you had fun or learned anything, do me a favor and like, subscribe, comment, and share. That stuff really helps out a small channel like this. And until next time, be safe, be kind, and know that you are appreciated.

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