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Speaker 1: Have you ever wondered, like, what's the absolute limit of

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human exploration? You know, we always look up at the stars,

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we look out to the vast oceans, but what about

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going down, not just into caves or mines, but like

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miles and miles beneath the ground we stand on.

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Speaker 2: It's a fascinating question, isn't it This primal urge to explore,

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to push the boundaries of what we know? And today

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we're going to delve into a story that touches on

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this very curiosity.

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Speaker 1: A tale that's kind of a twisted mix of scientific ambition,

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the lingering paranoia of the Cold War, and a sound

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well some say it came straight from the Abyss itself.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to our deep dive, where we're going to dissect

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the story of the will to.

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Speaker 1: Help this supposed super deep drilling project that supposedly unearthed

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something truly extraordinary.

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Speaker 2: Now, for those of you who like to get to

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the bottom of things quickly and efficiently, our goal today

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is really drilled down into the facts and the fiction

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surrounding this very compelling narrative.

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Speaker 1: So to understand the story, we need to take a

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trip back in time to the Cold War. It wasn't

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just about you know, nuclear weapons and military might, right.

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Speaker 2: It was this underlying tension that permeated almost every aspect

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of life, and that included science.

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Speaker 1: It was a race for knowledge, a race for technological superiority,

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and both sides, the US and the Soviet Union, were

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determined to outdo each other absolutely.

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Speaker 2: I mean think about Operation paper Clip in the US

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and Operation also Vacant in the Soviet Union.

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Speaker 1: Both of these were essentially covert operations to recruit German

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scientists after World War Two.

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Speaker 2: It just goes to show how much emphasis was placed

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on scientific and technological advancement during that period.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and of course the space race is a prime example.

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Speaker 2: Sput nigarrein the moonlanding.

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Speaker 1: These were huge milestones that captured the world's attention.

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Speaker 2: But there was another, less publicized race going on at

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the same time, a race to the center of the Earth.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so the US had Project.

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Speaker 2: Mohole, ambitious plan to drill through the Earth's crust under

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the ocean floor.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, off the coast of Mexico.

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Speaker 2: Unfortunately, it faced a lot of fun problems and logistical nightmares,

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and it was eventually abandoned.

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Speaker 1: The Soviets on the other hand, had the Cola Super Deep.

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Speaker 2: Warhole situated on the Cola Peninsula way up in the

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Arctic Circle.

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Speaker 1: And they managed to drill down over twelve kilometers that's

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almost seven and a half miles deep.

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Speaker 2: And incredible feet of engineering.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely, and these were the public projects, right, But the

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story we're about to discuss suggests that there may have

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been other, far more secretive endeavors going on behind the

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Iron Curtain.

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Speaker 2: And this is where the legend of the Well to

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Hell takes hold.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty nine, right in the midst of a

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rapidly changing Soviet Union, a story emerged about a secret

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drilling project somewhere in Siberia.

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Speaker 2: Now the claim, attributed to an anonymous whistleblower, was nothing

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short of extraordinary.

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Speaker 1: They claimed that Soviet scientists had drilled so deep that

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they had broken through into well, for lack of a

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better term, hell itself.

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Speaker 2: I mean, you hear something like that and you have

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to wonder, is it just a spooky story or is

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it something more too?

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Speaker 1: And this is where doctor dimitri Osakoff enters the narrative.

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Speaker 2: According to the story, doctor Osikov and his team were

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working on this ultra deep drilling project in Siberia when

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their drill bit, after reaching an astounding fourteen point four

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kilometers that's over nine miles down, suddenly went haywire.

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Speaker 1: They had hit a massive, unexpected cavern.

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Speaker 2: Can you imagine the shock They had punched through solid

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rock and into what seemed like a void.

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Speaker 1: It's like something out of a Jules Vern novel.

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Speaker 2: And what happened next is even more bizarre. When the

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drill bit was pulled back up, it was glowing red hot.

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Speaker 1: Glowing red hot. That's insane.

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Speaker 2: Now we know that the Earth's temperature increases as you

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go deeper, this is the geothermal gradient, but at that

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depth fourteen point four kilometers, it should have been hot,

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but not red hot.

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Speaker 1: So what are we talking about here? What kind of

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temperatures would cause metal to glow like that?

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Speaker 2: Well, to get something that hot, you need temperatures well

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over a thousand degrees celsius. It just doesn't make sense geologically.

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Speaker 1: So either the story is completely fat fabricated, or something

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truly unexplainable happened down there.

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Speaker 2: And it gets even stranger. The crew on the surface

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started hearing these bizarre noises coming from the borehole.

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Speaker 1: Noises like what.

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Speaker 2: At first, they thought it was just equipment malfunctioning, so

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they shut everything down, but the sounds persisted. They were

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coming from the depths of the Earth.

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Speaker 1: Okay, now this is starting to sound like a horror movie.

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Speaker 2: You know. It's interesting because one of the goals of

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the actual coal a super deep borehole was to study

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the Earth's crust using specialized microphones to record seismic activity.

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Speaker 1: So basically, they were listening to the Earth's heartbeat.

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Speaker 2: Exactly so, according to the legend, the team at this

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Siberian site decided to lower one of these microphones down

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into the hole.

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Speaker 1: To see if they could capture these strange sounds.

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Speaker 2: Right, and these microphones are designed to a stand extreme

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heat and pressure, but this one's supposedly overheated and malfunction

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within seconds.

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Speaker 1: But not before capturing something truly terrifying.

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Speaker 2: The sounds of human screams and suffering echoing up from

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this superheated cavern nine miles below.

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Speaker 1: Oh my god.

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Speaker 2: And what makes this part of the story so chilling

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is the visceral nature of the sounds. It wasn't just

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random noise. It was like the sounds of agony and torment.

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Speaker 1: It's like they had tapped into some kind of subterranean nightmare.

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Speaker 2: Doctor Azakov, the lead scientist, is even quoted as saying

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that they could discern thousands, perhaps millions, in the background

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of suffering souls.

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Speaker 1: It's as if they had inadvertently drilled into some kind

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of infernal realm, a literal hell beneath our feet.

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Speaker 2: And as if the horrifying sounds weren't enough, the story

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takes an even more fantastical turn.

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Speaker 1: Wait, it gets worse.

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Speaker 2: Well. Later that night, a plume of gas is said

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to have erupted from the borehole.

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Speaker 1: Okay, that's not unusual, right, gas eruptions happen.

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Speaker 2: Sure, but this wasn't just any gas eruption. It allegedly

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took the shape of a giant bat or a winged demon.

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Speaker 1: A demon.

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Speaker 2: Come on, and within this gaseous apparition, three words supposedly materialized.

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I have conquered.

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Speaker 1: This is going from unsettling to completely unbelievable.

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Speaker 2: Right, It's like the storytellers were taking every element of hell,

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fire and damnation and throwing it into the mix.

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Speaker 1: I can only imagine the pandemonium at the site.

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Speaker 2: According to the account, the entire job site descended into chaos.

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Speaker 1: People were panicking, fleeing, and then the story gets even

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more conspiratorial.

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Speaker 2: Right, the medical staff on site received a call allegedly

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from the KGB.

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Speaker 1: The KGB, what did they want?

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Speaker 2: They ordered the medics to administer a powerful sedative to

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everyone present. Sedative, Yeah, one that was specifically designed to

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erase short term memory.

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Speaker 1: They wanted to wipe everyone's memories of what they had

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seen and heard.

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Speaker 2: That's the claim. Anyway, the story goes that one of

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the medics later broke their silence and revealed what had happened.

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It's like something out of a spy thriller.

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Speaker 1: So for years, the story of the Siberian Well to

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Hell circulated mostly as an urban legend.

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Speaker 2: Passed around in hush tones on the Internet and late

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night radio shows.

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Speaker 1: But then in nineteen ninety eight, something happened that gave

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the story a whole new level of notary.

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Speaker 2: V Art Bell, the host of the paranormal radio show

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Coast to Coast AM, claimed to have received an email.

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Speaker 1: Art Bell that guy was a legend. He loved all

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things strange and mysterious.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely so. This email claimed that despite all attempts to

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debunk the story. It was absolutely true. The sender said

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that their uncle had a friend who worked at the BBC.

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Speaker 1: Oh so, now the BBC is in fulve right, And.

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Speaker 2: This friend supposedly had a copy of the actual audio

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recording from the Siberian borhole.

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Speaker 1: And of course, Art Bell, being Art Bell, played this

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audio on his show.

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Speaker 2: He gave his listeners a very strong warning about the

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disturbing nature of the content before playing it, but of

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course that only made everyone more eager to hear it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, forbidden knowledge and all that. So what did this

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audio sound like?

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Speaker 2: It's difficult to describe. It's this chaotic mix of distorted sounds,

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guttural noises. Some people say they can hear human screams

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and whales.

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Speaker 1: It sounds terrifying.

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Speaker 2: It is quite unsettling, and the fact that it's so

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ambiguous only adds to its power.

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Speaker 1: People can project their own fears and interpretations onto it exactly.

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Speaker 2: But here's the thing. We have to ask ourselves, where

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did the story actually originate. It's easy to get caught

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up in the sensationalism, but we need to trace it

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back to its source.

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Speaker 1: So who did the digging?

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Speaker 2: A radio host named Rich Bueller, who worked for the

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Christian publication Christianity Today, became fascinated by the well to

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health phenomenon. He was getting so many questions about it

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from listeners that he felt compelled to investigate.

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Speaker 1: So he reached out to the Trinity Broadcasting Network.

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Speaker 2: TBM right, a Christian television network that had given a

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lot of airtime to the story, and they were adamant

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that it was true.

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Speaker 1: They claimed to have gotten the story from a reputable

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Finnish scientific publication called a Meno Sastia.

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Speaker 2: They presented this as proof that the story had been

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vetted by the scientific community.

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Speaker 1: But there's a catch, isn't there there is?

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Speaker 2: Rich Bueller dug a little deeper and discovered that Amno

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Sastia wasn't a scientific journal at all. What it was

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a small evangelical Lutheran magazine, not exactly a bastion of

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scientific rigor.

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Speaker 1: Oh boy. So what did Demnosastia say when they were

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confronted about this.

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Speaker 2: Well, they admitted that one of their staff members had

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written the story based entirely on their memory of having

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read it in another magazine sometime in the past. And

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this other magazine it was a publication known for accepting

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reader's submissions on all sorts of topics, including the paranormal.

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There was no fact checking, no verification process whatsoever, so it.

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Speaker 1: Was basically hearsay piled upon hearsay.

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Speaker 2: And each retelling of the story likely added more embellishments

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and exaggerations.

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Speaker 1: It's like a game of telephone gone wrong exactly.

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Speaker 2: But the most revealing part of the story is what

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happened next. A Norwegian teacher named Ogden Rendon heard the

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original TBN broadcast about the Well to Hell.

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Speaker 1: He must have been skeptical.

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Speaker 2: He was. He couldn't believe that a supposedly credible news

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outlet would present such an outlandish story as fact, So

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he decided to conduct an experiment.

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Speaker 1: An experiment, what kind of experiment?

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Speaker 2: When he returned to no he found a completely ordinary,

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boring newspaper article. He then sent this article to TBN,

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but he included a fake translation.

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Speaker 1: A fake translation.

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Speaker 2: Yes, the fake translation was full of sensationalized details that

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fit perfectly with the Well to Hell narrative.

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Speaker 1: He was trying to see if they would just accept

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anything that confirmed their biases exactly.

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Speaker 2: And amazingly, TBN took the bait. They incorporated these fabricated

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details into their ongoing coverage of the Well.

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Speaker 1: To Hell story without even bothering to verify the translation.

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Speaker 2: It was a brilliant yet somewhat disheartening demonstration of how

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easily misinformation can spread, especially when it confirms pre existing beliefs.

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Speaker 1: So the image of the batwing demon and all those

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dramatic details were essentially a product of this teacher's prank.

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Speaker 2: It's a stark reminder that even sources that appear authoritative

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can fall victim to sensationalism and a lack of proper

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fact checking.

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Speaker 1: So the Well to Hell's story is basically a hoax.

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But what about the audio that Artbell played. If it

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wasn't from a real borehole, where did it come from?

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Speaker 2: Well, the audio has also been debunked. Really, it's believed

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to be a carefully edited and looped segment taken from

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the soundtrack of the nineteen seventy two Italian horror film

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Barren Blood.

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Speaker 1: Barren Blood. So they took sounds from a horror movie

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and passed them off as genuine evidence of Hell.

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Speaker 2: It's ironic, isn't it.

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Speaker 1: It's more than ironic. It's kind of sad that people

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would go to such lengths to perpetuate a hoax.

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Speaker 2: Well, I think it speaks to the power of belief

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and the human need to make sense of the unknown.

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Speaker 1: So the Well to Hell's story is a fabrication, a.

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Speaker 2: Compelling one, but a fabrication.

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Speaker 1: Nonetheless, it's a shame because the real story of deep

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drilling projects like the Cola Super Deep Borehole is fascinating

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enough on its own.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely, they didn't find any demons or screaming souls, but

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they did make some significant scientific discoveries, like what they

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found fossilized plankton at incredibly deep levels, suggesting ancient microbial

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life far below the surface. They also discovered large amounts

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of mineralized water trapped within the rock.

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Speaker 1: For me, so the real discoveries, while maybe not as sensational,

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are far more meaningful.

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Speaker 2: They give us insights into the Earth's history, its composition,

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and the potential for life in extreme environments.

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Speaker 1: So we've gone from a terrifying tale of a Siberian

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hellhole to the fascinating reality of scientific exploration.

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Speaker 2: It's been quite a journey, and I think it highlights

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the importance of critical thinking and healthy skepticism.

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Speaker 1: Especially in this age of information overload. We need to

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be able to discern between fact and fiction, to separate

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the genuine from the fabricated exactly.

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Speaker 2: And I think the story of the Well to Hell

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serves as a valuable reminder that even the most compelling

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stories can sometimes be nothing more than elaborate hoaxes.

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Speaker 1: So to our listeners out there, keep questioning, keep exploring,

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and never be afraid to dig a little deeper to

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uncover the truth.

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Speaker 2: And remember sometimes the most fascinating discoveries are the ones

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that are grounded in reality, not in sensationalized fiction.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us on this deep dive. Until next time,

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keep those minds curious.