Mel's Other Hole in Northwestern Nevada

This image was drawn for one of my many appearances on "Coast to Coast AM" radio show over many years with the late Art Bell, George Noory, George Knapp, Mike Seigel, Whitley Strieber, Barbara Simpson and Ian Punnett. Art died on the weekend of my birthday in 2018. I think this render was completed around 2008 or 2009 using pens, inks, markers and Prisma pencils. It's been repeatedly published in numerous periodicals around the world.

Lex Lonehood posted it on the "Coast" website as well as new art any time went on the air with Art, George, or any of their relief hosts. I've been unbelievably fascinated with the story of Mel's first hole in Washington State. Mel's Hole is, according to an urban legend, an allegedly "bottomless pit" near Ellensburg, Washington. Claims about it were first made on the radio show Coast to Coast AM by a guest calling himself "Mel Waters."

The legend of the bottomless hole started on February 21, 1997, when a man identifying himself as Mel Waters appeared as a guest on Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell. Waters claimed that he owned rural property nine miles west of Ellensburg in Kittitas County, Washington that contained a mysterious hole. According to Waters, the hole had an unknown depth of at least 80,000 feet. He claimed to have measured its depth using fishing line and a weight, although he still had not hit bottom by the time 80,000 feet of line had been used.

He also claimed that his neighbor's dead dog had been seen alive sometime after it was thrown into the hole. According to Waters, the hole's magical properties prompted US federal agents to seize the land and fund his relocation to Australia.

Waters made guest appearances on Bell's show in 1997, 2000, and 2002. Rebroadcasts of those appearances have helped create what's been described as a "modern, rural myth". The exact location of the hole was unspecified, yet several people claimed to have seen it, such as Gerald R. Osborne, who used the ceremonial name Red Elk, who described himself as an "intertribal medicine man... and who told reporters in 2012 he visited the hole many times since 1961 and claimed the US government maintained a top secret base there where "alien activity" occurs.