WEBVTT 00:00:00.560 --> 00:00:04.700 They say if you stare into the abyss long enough 00:00:04.700 --> 00:00:08.839 Well after a while that abyss starts staring 00:00:08.839 --> 00:00:12.660 back But what if that abyss weren't some far 00:00:12.660 --> 00:00:16.100 -off idea? What if it was sitting right there 00:00:16.100 --> 00:00:20.120 in your own backyard? Way out yonder in the cold 00:00:20.120 --> 00:00:23.739 misty hills near Ellensburg, Washington There's 00:00:23.739 --> 00:00:27.559 a spot folks whisper about a hole so deep they 00:00:27.559 --> 00:00:30.859 say it'd swallow the sea so dark it had snuffed 00:00:30.859 --> 00:00:33.759 out starlight, and stranger in anything you'd 00:00:33.759 --> 00:00:37.579 ever hear told around a campfire. A fellow by 00:00:37.579 --> 00:00:40.899 the name of Mel Waters claimed he found it, and 00:00:40.899 --> 00:00:45.179 the moment he spoke up, he disappeared. Was it 00:00:45.179 --> 00:00:48.140 the government snatching him up, aliens dragging 00:00:48.140 --> 00:00:52.520 him off, or something older and meaner? Tonight, 00:00:52.880 --> 00:00:55.119 we're taking a slow walk to the edge of that 00:00:55.119 --> 00:00:59.429 hole, into the dark belly of the unknown. This 00:00:59.429 --> 00:01:04.510 here's the story of Mel's Hole. Welcome to Kentucky 00:01:04.510 --> 00:01:08.349 Melodies America's Scariest Stories, where we 00:01:08.349 --> 00:01:11.969 bring you ghostly legends, spooky haints, and 00:01:11.969 --> 00:01:14.870 bone -chilling tales from all over this great 00:01:14.870 --> 00:01:17.909 land. These stories will have you looking over 00:01:17.909 --> 00:01:21.090 your shoulder all night. So pull up a chair, 00:01:21.469 --> 00:01:24.409 dim them lights, and let's dive into the eerie 00:01:24.409 --> 00:01:28.599 and unexplained. Now, if you ain't never heard 00:01:28.599 --> 00:01:31.920 the name Art Bell, let me sit you down and tell 00:01:31.920 --> 00:01:34.400 you about the fella who turned the dead and not 00:01:34.400 --> 00:01:38.780 into a doorway for the dead, the lost, and the 00:01:38.780 --> 00:01:43.180 downright unexplainable. See, back in the late 00:01:43.180 --> 00:01:47.400 80s, there was this old desert rat out in Pahrum, 00:01:47.599 --> 00:01:51.640 Nevada, a loner with a voice like midnight thunder, 00:01:52.359 --> 00:01:55.549 by the name of Art Bell. He weren't no suit and 00:01:55.549 --> 00:01:59.090 tie radio man broadcasting from some fancy city 00:01:59.090 --> 00:02:03.590 station. Nah, sir. He was coming at folks from 00:02:03.590 --> 00:02:06.430 a double wide trailer sitting smack in the middle 00:02:06.430 --> 00:02:09.689 of the Mojave, surrounded by nothing but sand, 00:02:09.969 --> 00:02:15.729 sky, and maybe a UFO or two. Art, he didn't talk 00:02:15.729 --> 00:02:18.509 about the news or the weather like them daytime 00:02:18.509 --> 00:02:22.310 talkers. He opened his lines to them that seen 00:02:22.310 --> 00:02:26.050 things. felt things, stuff most folks would be 00:02:26.050 --> 00:02:29.370 too scared to whisper at the dinner table. He 00:02:29.370 --> 00:02:32.750 had guests rambling on about aliens poking around 00:02:32.750 --> 00:02:35.930 their barns, black -eyed kids knocking at bedroom 00:02:35.930 --> 00:02:39.270 windows, Bigfoot sightings and foggy hollers, 00:02:39.710 --> 00:02:42.849 time travelers, shadow people, and the government 00:02:42.849 --> 00:02:45.750 sticking its fingers in places it didn't belong. 00:02:46.409 --> 00:02:50.250 And Buddy, by the time the early 90s rolled around, 00:02:50.610 --> 00:02:53.780 Art Bell had a whole nation listening. farmers, 00:02:54.219 --> 00:02:57.900 truckers, late shift nurses, insomniacs, and 00:02:57.900 --> 00:03:00.919 folks with too many ghosts in their attic. They 00:03:00.919 --> 00:03:03.539 all tuned in while the rest of the world slept. 00:03:04.620 --> 00:03:07.819 Coast to Coast AM became a lifeline for the strange 00:03:07.819 --> 00:03:11.379 and the scared. It was like a digital campfire 00:03:11.379 --> 00:03:14.680 in the dark, drawing in folks who felt like something 00:03:14.680 --> 00:03:17.979 ain't right in this world, and they needed someone 00:03:17.979 --> 00:03:21.710 who'd believe them. But out of all the tales 00:03:21.710 --> 00:03:25.569 ever told on them airwaves, and Lord knows there 00:03:25.569 --> 00:03:28.889 was thousands, there was one that cracked through 00:03:28.889 --> 00:03:32.629 the static like a voice from the void. A story 00:03:32.629 --> 00:03:35.349 that made even the most skeptical folks lean 00:03:35.349 --> 00:03:38.009 in, hold their breath and start to wonder if 00:03:38.009 --> 00:03:40.650 maybe the devil does have a back door somewhere 00:03:40.650 --> 00:03:45.469 out in them, Washington Hills. That story came 00:03:45.469 --> 00:03:49.250 from a man called Mel Waters, and what he said, 00:03:50.120 --> 00:03:53.599 Well, it chilled the bones of every man, woman 00:03:53.599 --> 00:03:57.919 and beast who heard it. Now, it was on a cold 00:03:57.919 --> 00:04:02.539 February night, back in 1997, when a man named 00:04:02.539 --> 00:04:05.900 Mel Waters first rang up Art Bell's radio show. 00:04:06.539 --> 00:04:10.580 His voice weren't rushed or excited, nah, it 00:04:10.580 --> 00:04:14.099 was slow, matter of fact, like he was just sharing 00:04:14.099 --> 00:04:16.699 something he'd lived with a long while and figured 00:04:16.699 --> 00:04:20.209 folks ought to know. He said he had himself a 00:04:20.209 --> 00:04:23.649 patch of land out yonder near Ellensburg, Washington. 00:04:24.290 --> 00:04:28.329 Kittitas County, to be exact. Real quiet place. 00:04:28.790 --> 00:04:32.310 Pine trees, thick as thieves, them long mountain 00:04:32.310 --> 00:04:35.050 shadows stretching like fingers, and the kind 00:04:35.050 --> 00:04:37.670 of silence that presses on a man's ears like 00:04:37.670 --> 00:04:42.550 cotton. And on that land, tucked back past where 00:04:42.550 --> 00:04:45.930 the fence posts rot and the deer trail disappears, 00:04:46.709 --> 00:04:52.220 was a hole. Now ain't no well ain't no mine shaft 00:04:52.220 --> 00:04:56.639 Just a dang hole Round as a silver dollar near 00:04:56.639 --> 00:04:59.720 nine feet across Rimmed with a ring on old stones 00:04:59.720 --> 00:05:02.319 and rusted metal like it was once marked for 00:05:02.319 --> 00:05:06.160 something Maybe something sacred or something 00:05:06.160 --> 00:05:10.300 cursed Mel didn't dig it said it was there long 00:05:10.300 --> 00:05:13.819 before he ever laid claim to that ground Old 00:05:13.819 --> 00:05:16.120 -timers in them parts had known about it for 00:05:16.120 --> 00:05:19.790 decades maybe longer, but they didn't talk much 00:05:19.790 --> 00:05:23.970 on it. Just called it The Hole, like even giving 00:05:23.970 --> 00:05:26.670 it a real name might wake something that's best 00:05:26.670 --> 00:05:30.930 left sleeping. He said animals wouldn't go near 00:05:30.930 --> 00:05:34.670 it. Dogs would whimper if they got too close. 00:05:34.930 --> 00:05:39.490 Deer gave it a wide berth. And birds, well, they 00:05:39.490 --> 00:05:43.269 just flat out refused to fly over it, like there 00:05:43.269 --> 00:05:46.449 was something wrong with the air above it. Heavy. 00:05:46.699 --> 00:05:51.399 Mean, but here's where it gets real spooky. Mel 00:05:51.399 --> 00:05:55.139 claimed that hole ain't got no bottom. Said he'd 00:05:55.139 --> 00:05:58.199 tried measuring it himself, dropping down reel 00:05:58.199 --> 00:06:00.959 after reel of fish in line with a one pound weight 00:06:00.959 --> 00:06:05.319 tied on the end. He let out 80 ,000 feet of line, 00:06:05.800 --> 00:06:10.860 15 miles, give or take, and still, that weight 00:06:10.860 --> 00:06:15.920 never touched nothing. No clink, no splash. No 00:06:15.920 --> 00:06:19.759 nothing. Just a heavy stillness, like the earth 00:06:19.759 --> 00:06:22.100 had been hollowed out and left to whisper secrets 00:06:22.100 --> 00:06:26.319 into the void. That hole weren't just deep. It 00:06:26.319 --> 00:06:31.000 was impossible. And Mel, well, he was only just 00:06:31.000 --> 00:06:36.100 getting started. Mel, he wasn't no fool. He weren't 00:06:36.100 --> 00:06:39.160 looking to stir up trouble or spin yarns. He 00:06:39.160 --> 00:06:41.279 just couldn't make sense of what he had sitting 00:06:41.279 --> 00:06:46.180 out behind his barn. So, one day, he got to testing 00:06:46.180 --> 00:06:49.360 that hole. Took himself a sturdy old fishing 00:06:49.360 --> 00:06:52.759 pole and tied on a one pound weight, just like 00:06:52.759 --> 00:06:54.980 he was trying to catch something swimming down 00:06:54.980 --> 00:06:58.139 in the belly of the earth. He started lowering 00:06:58.139 --> 00:07:02.740 that line down slow, reel after reel, like he 00:07:02.740 --> 00:07:04.959 was dropping it into the throat of the world 00:07:04.959 --> 00:07:10.939 itself. Ten thousand feet, twenty, forty, eighty 00:07:10.939 --> 00:07:17.660 thousand feet. That's 15 miles, 15, and the line 00:07:17.660 --> 00:07:21.600 just kept going. Never once tugged, never went 00:07:21.600 --> 00:07:25.199 slack, never so much as tickled the bottom. He 00:07:25.199 --> 00:07:27.319 said it was like lowering a line into nothing. 00:07:27.939 --> 00:07:31.360 Ain't natural, ain't even possible, far as any 00:07:31.360 --> 00:07:34.660 man knows. Now Mel wasn't the only one using 00:07:34.660 --> 00:07:39.240 that hole. The locals, well, they'd been tossing 00:07:39.240 --> 00:07:42.769 things down there for years. Old refrigerators, 00:07:43.029 --> 00:07:45.850 busted lawn mowers, barrels of God knows what. 00:07:46.790 --> 00:07:49.670 One fella even dumped a whole Chrysler in there, 00:07:49.949 --> 00:07:53.629 or so the story goes. Folks used it like a dump, 00:07:54.110 --> 00:07:56.949 but what got him uneasy was how nothing ever 00:07:56.949 --> 00:08:02.009 made a sound. No thud, no echo, not even the 00:08:02.009 --> 00:08:05.689 faintest clatter bouncing back up. It was like 00:08:05.689 --> 00:08:08.850 the earth just swallowed it all, like it was 00:08:08.850 --> 00:08:13.480 hungry. But the strangest thing, and I mean bone 00:08:13.480 --> 00:08:16.120 -crawling strange, was what happened with the 00:08:16.120 --> 00:08:20.279 neighbor's dog. Now, this old fella had a hound, 00:08:20.620 --> 00:08:23.600 faithful as the day is long, but it had gone 00:08:23.600 --> 00:08:28.540 and died. Natural, far as he could tell. Instead 00:08:28.540 --> 00:08:31.680 of burying it, he figured he'd send it off down 00:08:31.680 --> 00:08:36.080 the hole. Maybe it was convenience. Maybe he 00:08:36.080 --> 00:08:39.139 didn't want the coyotes digging it up. Who knows? 00:08:39.480 --> 00:08:44.179 So he tosses a dog in. Couple days later, he's 00:08:44.179 --> 00:08:46.879 out walking the ridge at dusk when he sees something 00:08:46.879 --> 00:08:50.559 moving in the tree line. At first, he don't think 00:08:50.559 --> 00:08:55.399 nothing of it. Just a shadow, maybe a fox. But 00:08:55.399 --> 00:08:59.179 then, it steps into the light. It's his dog. 00:08:59.759 --> 00:09:03.799 Same coloring, same limp in the back leg, same 00:09:03.799 --> 00:09:06.259 little nick on the ear where it had tangled with 00:09:06.259 --> 00:09:10.250 a raccoon the summer before. But that dog, it 00:09:10.250 --> 00:09:14.070 looked at him different, like it knew him, but 00:09:14.070 --> 00:09:16.809 didn't want to know him, like it had come back 00:09:16.809 --> 00:09:20.289 wrong. It turned and patted off into the woods, 00:09:20.870 --> 00:09:24.690 tail low, ears back, and it never came near the 00:09:24.690 --> 00:09:28.289 house again. That was the moment Mel said he 00:09:28.289 --> 00:09:32.110 knew. This weren't no ordinary hole, weren't 00:09:32.110 --> 00:09:35.769 just deep or weird. There was something down 00:09:35.769 --> 00:09:39.870 there, something alive. something ancient, and 00:09:39.870 --> 00:09:44.970 maybe something evil. Now, right after Mel went 00:09:44.970 --> 00:09:48.309 on air with Art Bell, spilling them secrets about 00:09:48.309 --> 00:09:52.210 the hole and all them unnatural goings on, things 00:09:52.210 --> 00:09:56.549 started shifting, and not in a good way. He said 00:09:56.549 --> 00:09:59.850 it began subtle, vehicles he didn't recognize 00:09:59.850 --> 00:10:03.169 parked up along the tree line, black trucks with 00:10:03.169 --> 00:10:06.679 no plates. Folks snooping around his fence line, 00:10:06.940 --> 00:10:09.580 taking pictures, leaving boot tracks where no 00:10:09.580 --> 00:10:13.240 boots ought to be. And the wildlife? It went 00:10:13.240 --> 00:10:16.539 dead silent, like the whole forest was holding 00:10:16.539 --> 00:10:20.240 its breath. Then, just a few days after that 00:10:20.240 --> 00:10:24.360 broadcast, the men in black showed up. Not the 00:10:24.360 --> 00:10:27.500 funny kind from the movies, neither. These fellas 00:10:27.500 --> 00:10:30.879 were sharp as razors, dressed head to toe in 00:10:30.879 --> 00:10:35.309 black suits, dark glasses, earpieces, like they 00:10:35.309 --> 00:10:38.210 walked right out of some alphabet agency's nightmare 00:10:38.210 --> 00:10:43.870 playbook. Cold, no emotion, no names. They told 00:10:43.870 --> 00:10:47.590 Mel, right to his face, that he was trespassing 00:10:47.590 --> 00:10:50.809 on federal property. Said the land he'd called 00:10:50.809 --> 00:10:54.649 home for years was now classified, a secured 00:10:54.649 --> 00:10:58.629 site. No room for debate, no chance to argue. 00:10:58.970 --> 00:11:02.230 Next thing he knows, he's handed a document offering 00:11:02.230 --> 00:11:06.250 him a lease buyout. Real official looking. Typed 00:11:06.250 --> 00:11:08.750 in all them fancy legal words that make your 00:11:08.750 --> 00:11:13.090 head hurt. And here's the kicker. Not long after, 00:11:13.330 --> 00:11:16.789 Mel gets shipped off to Australia. Just like 00:11:16.789 --> 00:11:21.909 that. No trial, no press, no nothing. One day, 00:11:22.049 --> 00:11:25.779 he's poking around in a mysterious hole. Next, 00:11:26.039 --> 00:11:28.759 he's half a world away with no answers and no 00:11:28.759 --> 00:11:33.460 land to call his own. And then, just like the 00:11:33.460 --> 00:11:37.919 hole, Mel went silent. Folks that remembered 00:11:37.919 --> 00:11:41.419 his call wondered what had happened. Some thought 00:11:41.419 --> 00:11:44.639 he got paid off. Others figured he was buried 00:11:44.639 --> 00:11:48.019 in the desert somewhere. For a long spell, the 00:11:48.019 --> 00:11:51.960 line went dead. No more Mel. No more talk of 00:11:51.960 --> 00:11:54.879 the hole. But just when folks started thinking 00:11:54.879 --> 00:11:58.360 the story was over, that's when Mel came back. 00:11:58.779 --> 00:12:04.279 He resurfaced in 2000 and again in 2002, calling 00:12:04.279 --> 00:12:07.120 in to Art Bell's show like a voice coming back 00:12:07.120 --> 00:12:11.740 from the grave. But this time, Mel didn't sound 00:12:11.740 --> 00:12:17.120 right. His voice was scratchier, slower. You 00:12:17.120 --> 00:12:20.059 could tell he'd seen some things. And the tale 00:12:20.059 --> 00:12:23.539 he told, well... it was about to get a whole 00:12:23.539 --> 00:12:29.100 lot stranger and a whole lot darker. Now, by 00:12:29.100 --> 00:12:31.639 the time Mel popped back up again, he weren't 00:12:31.639 --> 00:12:35.559 in Washington no more. Nope, he'd wound up in 00:12:35.559 --> 00:12:38.700 Nevada near a tight -knit Basque community out 00:12:38.700 --> 00:12:42.940 in the desert flats, dry land, strange land, 00:12:43.539 --> 00:12:46.600 land where the wind don't carry right and even 00:12:46.600 --> 00:12:50.710 the stars seem to look the other way. Mel said 00:12:50.710 --> 00:12:54.309 he got wind of something familiar, too familiar. 00:12:55.090 --> 00:12:57.190 The locals whispered about a spot they didn't 00:12:57.190 --> 00:13:00.750 go near, a place even the wild dogs avoided. 00:13:01.370 --> 00:13:03.529 Sounded like the same kind of thing he'd found 00:13:03.529 --> 00:13:07.629 back on his own property. Sure enough, nestled 00:13:07.629 --> 00:13:10.250 out there past the scrub and sun -cracked earth 00:13:10.250 --> 00:13:14.529 was another hole. But this one, this one was 00:13:14.529 --> 00:13:18.399 different. It didn't just sit there like a mouth 00:13:18.399 --> 00:13:23.179 waiting to be fed. No, sir. This one was active. 00:13:24.240 --> 00:13:26.799 Mel said sometimes late at night when the desert 00:13:26.799 --> 00:13:30.240 was dead still, you'd see it emit something unnatural, 00:13:30.799 --> 00:13:33.919 a black beam of light. Now I know that don't 00:13:33.919 --> 00:13:37.039 make sense. Light's supposed to shine, right? 00:13:37.700 --> 00:13:41.539 Make things visible. But this weren't like no 00:13:41.539 --> 00:13:45.240 flashlight or car head beam. This light was dark. 00:13:45.549 --> 00:13:50.509 It didn't brighten. It ate. A thick, syrupy blackness 00:13:50.509 --> 00:13:53.149 that reached skyward and seemed to pull the stars 00:13:53.149 --> 00:13:56.570 into it. The locals said they'd tossed injured 00:13:56.570 --> 00:14:00.509 animals into that hole. Things hurt bad, dying, 00:14:01.009 --> 00:14:04.590 beyond help. And not long after, those same critters 00:14:04.590 --> 00:14:07.509 had come crawling back out the brush, looking 00:14:07.509 --> 00:14:12.750 fine as frog hair. Healed. Stronger even. But 00:14:12.750 --> 00:14:16.590 they weren't right. They'd stare too long. They 00:14:16.590 --> 00:14:20.950 didn't bark or bleat no more. Just watched. Like 00:14:20.950 --> 00:14:23.970 they remembered being somewhere else. And maybe 00:14:23.970 --> 00:14:27.470 wishing they'd stayed. And then came the worst 00:14:27.470 --> 00:14:31.070 of it. Mel said he saw something coming up out 00:14:31.070 --> 00:14:35.330 of that pit. Not a shadow. Not a vapor. Something 00:14:35.330 --> 00:14:39.970 with form. He never described it fully. Couldn't, 00:14:39.970 --> 00:14:42.610 maybe. Just said it looked like it shouldn't 00:14:42.610 --> 00:14:46.690 be. like it was built wrong. It rose up slow, 00:14:46.929 --> 00:14:50.250 real quiet, and the second it did, everything 00:14:50.250 --> 00:14:54.250 went dead quiet. Not a single cricket, not a 00:14:54.250 --> 00:14:58.090 breeze, just silence, thick and heavy like water 00:14:58.090 --> 00:15:02.230 in your ears. Then came the blackouts, whole 00:15:02.230 --> 00:15:05.690 towns nearby, lights snuffed out like candles 00:15:05.690 --> 00:15:10.250 in a storm. Radios went to static, power grids 00:15:10.250 --> 00:15:14.259 fried, And when the lights did come back, folks 00:15:14.259 --> 00:15:18.279 felt different, nervous, cold, like something 00:15:18.279 --> 00:15:20.419 had been watching them from inside their own 00:15:20.419 --> 00:15:24.879 heads. Mel didn't stay long after that. He said 00:15:24.879 --> 00:15:28.259 that hole weren't just deep, it was hungry, and 00:15:28.259 --> 00:15:31.179 whatever it had spit out into the desert, it 00:15:31.179 --> 00:15:35.259 weren't done yet. Now, by the time Mel popped 00:15:35.259 --> 00:15:38.639 back up again, he weren't in Washington no more. 00:15:39.519 --> 00:15:43.289 Nope. He'd wound up in Nevada near a tight -knit 00:15:43.289 --> 00:15:47.409 bass community out in the desert flats. Dry land, 00:15:48.029 --> 00:15:50.990 strange land, land where the wind don't carry 00:15:50.990 --> 00:15:53.990 right, and even the stars seem to look the other 00:15:53.990 --> 00:15:58.389 way. Mel said he got wind of something familiar, 00:15:59.350 --> 00:16:03.690 too familiar. The locals whispered about a spot 00:16:03.690 --> 00:16:06.889 they didn't go near, a place even the wild dogs 00:16:06.889 --> 00:16:10.269 avoided. sounded like the same kind of thing 00:16:10.269 --> 00:16:14.509 he'd found back on his own property. Sure enough, 00:16:15.029 --> 00:16:17.769 nestled out there past the scrub and sun -cracked 00:16:17.769 --> 00:16:21.070 earth was another hole. But this one, folks, 00:16:21.629 --> 00:16:26.009 this one was different. It didn't just sit there 00:16:26.009 --> 00:16:30.149 like a mouth waiting to be fed. No, sir, this 00:16:30.149 --> 00:16:34.289 one was active. Mel said sometimes late at night 00:16:34.289 --> 00:16:37.100 when the desert was dead still, You'd see it 00:16:37.100 --> 00:16:40.440 emit something unnatural. A black beam of light. 00:16:41.100 --> 00:16:44.580 Now, I know that don't make sense. Light's supposed 00:16:44.580 --> 00:16:48.840 to shine, right? Make things visible. But this 00:16:48.840 --> 00:16:51.759 weren't like no flashlight or car head beam. 00:16:52.659 --> 00:16:56.919 This light was dark. It didn't brighten. It ate. 00:16:57.519 --> 00:17:00.639 A thick, syrupy blackness that reached skyward 00:17:00.639 --> 00:17:04.130 and seemed to pull the stars into it. The locals 00:17:04.130 --> 00:17:06.549 said they'd tossed injured animals into that 00:17:06.549 --> 00:17:11.509 hole. Things hurt bad, dying beyond help, and 00:17:11.509 --> 00:17:14.509 not long after those same critters had come crawling 00:17:14.509 --> 00:17:18.170 back out the brush, looking fine as frog hair. 00:17:18.829 --> 00:17:22.769 Healed. Stronger even. But they weren't right. 00:17:23.309 --> 00:17:26.849 They'd stare too long. They didn't bark or bleat 00:17:26.849 --> 00:17:31.170 no more. Just watched. Like they remembered being 00:17:31.170 --> 00:17:34.289 somewhere else. and maybe wishing they'd stayed. 00:17:35.390 --> 00:17:39.089 After that mess in Nevada, Mel went dark again, 00:17:39.730 --> 00:17:43.329 didn't call, didn't write, like he'd been swallowed 00:17:43.329 --> 00:17:45.690 up by the very thing he was trying to warn us 00:17:45.690 --> 00:17:50.049 about. Then, out of nowhere, in the dead winter 00:17:50.049 --> 00:17:54.490 of 2002, Mel's voice crackled back across the 00:17:54.490 --> 00:17:59.029 coast to coast airwaves. But this time, something 00:17:59.029 --> 00:18:03.640 was different. He sounded tired. Real tired. 00:18:03.660 --> 00:18:06.940 Weren't just his voice neither. It was like his 00:18:06.940 --> 00:18:09.920 soul had been run through a wringer. He talked 00:18:09.920 --> 00:18:13.779 slow. Like every word was a weight dragging behind 00:18:13.779 --> 00:18:17.380 his tongue. He said he'd been gone for a while. 00:18:17.960 --> 00:18:21.519 Taken. Wouldn't say by who. Claimed there were 00:18:21.519 --> 00:18:25.500 gaps in his memory. Big ones. Weeks. Maybe months. 00:18:25.900 --> 00:18:29.660 Missing. His teeth were falling out. Hair thinning. 00:18:29.799 --> 00:18:33.259 said he was feeling cold even in the heat, like 00:18:33.259 --> 00:18:35.980 whatever he'd been near had stayed inside him. 00:18:36.819 --> 00:18:40.559 He remembered being hooked up to machines, cold 00:18:40.559 --> 00:18:44.339 metal touching bare skin, voices speaking in 00:18:44.339 --> 00:18:47.779 languages he didn't recognize, waking up places 00:18:47.779 --> 00:18:51.720 he didn't fall asleep in, blood drawn, fluids 00:18:51.720 --> 00:18:55.599 tested, dreams, dreams of lights blinking from 00:18:55.599 --> 00:18:59.579 beneath the earth and faces without eyes. Mel 00:18:59.579 --> 00:19:02.720 tried to warn folks, said them holes weren't 00:19:02.720 --> 00:19:06.299 natural, weren't even man -made, said they went 00:19:06.299 --> 00:19:09.900 through the world, tunnels maybe or veins in 00:19:09.900 --> 00:19:13.619 the bone of something older than time, and whatever 00:19:13.619 --> 00:19:17.940 was down there, it was watching, waiting, rising. 00:19:18.720 --> 00:19:21.099 That was the last time anyone ever heard from 00:19:21.099 --> 00:19:25.019 Mel Waters. No more calls, no more sightings, 00:19:25.480 --> 00:19:28.769 no trace. Some folks say he's buried out in that 00:19:28.769 --> 00:19:32.130 desert. Others claim he's still alive, hiding, 00:19:32.710 --> 00:19:35.009 watched by men in black suits with dead eyes 00:19:35.009 --> 00:19:39.569 and colder hands. And a few, just a few, say 00:19:39.569 --> 00:19:42.950 he never existed at all, just a ghost on the 00:19:42.950 --> 00:19:46.869 airwaves. But the hole, the hole is still out 00:19:46.869 --> 00:19:51.349 there, out in Washington, out in Nevada. Maybe 00:19:51.349 --> 00:19:53.890 more of them spread across the land like rot 00:19:53.890 --> 00:19:58.259 beneath the skin of the world. No signs, no fences, 00:19:58.740 --> 00:20:01.200 just waiting for the next poor soul to stumble 00:20:01.200 --> 00:20:05.660 too close. Or maybe listen too hard late at night 00:20:05.660 --> 00:20:10.920 when the radio hums just right. Now, maybe, just 00:20:10.920 --> 00:20:15.619 maybe, Mel's Hole never existed. Maybe it was 00:20:15.619 --> 00:20:18.920 all just smoke and stories, a tale cooked up 00:20:18.920 --> 00:20:21.539 by a man who spent too much time listening to 00:20:21.539 --> 00:20:25.130 the wind out west. But I'll tell you something 00:20:25.130 --> 00:20:28.529 true, folks. Whether that hole was carved in 00:20:28.529 --> 00:20:31.990 the dirt or in the mind, it done tapped into 00:20:31.990 --> 00:20:36.470 something ancient. Something deep. A fear that 00:20:36.470 --> 00:20:39.809 lives down in all of us. Same place we hide the 00:20:39.809 --> 00:20:43.049 dreams that make us wake up sweating. It's the 00:20:43.049 --> 00:20:46.609 fear of the unknown. The kind that makes you 00:20:46.609 --> 00:20:49.210 stop in your tracks when you find a cave you 00:20:49.210 --> 00:20:52.910 ain't never seen before. Makes the hair on your 00:20:52.910 --> 00:20:55.890 neck prickle when you peer into a well and can't 00:20:55.890 --> 00:21:00.049 see nothing but pitch. Makes you whisper instead 00:21:00.049 --> 00:21:03.549 a speak, like maybe something's listening from 00:21:03.549 --> 00:21:07.990 down below. Mel's hole don't gotta be on a map 00:21:07.990 --> 00:21:12.210 to be real, cause stories like that, they plant 00:21:12.210 --> 00:21:15.170 seeds, and once they take root in your head, 00:21:15.650 --> 00:21:19.460 you start seeing holes everywhere. You ever stood 00:21:19.460 --> 00:21:22.619 at the edge of something dark and felt it staring 00:21:22.619 --> 00:21:27.680 back? Yeah. Maybe the story's real because we 00:21:27.680 --> 00:21:32.400 believe it. Or maybe, just maybe. It was never 00:21:32.400 --> 00:21:37.279 a hole at all. Maybe it was a doorway. So come 00:21:37.279 --> 00:21:40.079 back to watch the next one with us here at Kentucky 00:21:40.079 --> 00:21:43.700 Melody if you dare. And just remember, that hole's 00:21:43.700 --> 00:21:47.140 still out there, waiting, watching. so don't 00:21:47.140 --> 00:21:49.759 go poking too deep where the dark runs thick. 00:21:50.359 --> 00:21:53.000 I'll see y 'all in the next one, if something 00:21:53.000 --> 00:21:54.700 don't drag me down first.