May 18, 2021, 1:14 pm | Read time: 4 minutes
At first glance, it looks like a rusty manhole cover. But beneath it lies not only a shaft more than 12 kilometers deep, but also a dark secret.
The ominous cover is located on the Kola Peninsula in northwestern Russia. More precisely, it is in an abandoned research facility about six miles southwest of the town of Zapolyarny and 100 miles northwest of the port city of Murmansk. Those unaware of what lies beneath the unassuming cover might overlook it. However, for those in the know, its sight can send chills down their spine. Beneath the cover lies a hole more than seven miles deep, not only the deepest hole on Earth but also surrounded by dark, eerie tales.
Drilling the Deepest Hole on Earth
The drilling of the super-deep hole was an ambitious Soviet project during the Cold War. The former USSR invested millions to drill deeper into the Earth’s crust than the U.S. had with its 31,441-foot-deep “Bertha Rogers” well in Oklahoma. Additionally, the drilling on the Kola Peninsula aimed to serve geological research with rock ages up to 3.5 billion years.
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On May 24, 1970, after years of preparation, the so-called “Kola Borehole SG-3” began. The original plan was for the drill to advance 49,000 feet toward the Earth’s center. On its journey into previously unexplored depths, researchers made several discoveries. They heard sounds that allowed them to predict seismic activities. Additionally, they encountered a moon rock-like substance at a depth of 9,842 feet and eventually gold at 19,685 feet. However, when the drill reached a depth of 40,230 feet in 1989, geologists made less pleasant discoveries: At this depth, the temperature was not the expected 212 degrees Fahrenheit but 356 degrees, complicating further drilling, as reported by “Spiegel Online.”
“We Drilled into the Roof of Hell”
Around the same time, rumors emerged worldwide that scientists on the Kola Peninsula had drilled into hell. After the drill bit reached a cavity with temperatures exceeding 1,832 degrees Fahrenheit and suddenly spun into emptiness, as reported, scientists lowered a camera and a microphone into the shaft. While the camera failed due to the heat, the microphone recorded for a short time. What the geologists heard on the recording left them breathless.
“We heard people screaming in pain, the voices of millions,” project leader Dr. Dimitri Azzacov reportedly said later. He claimed not to believe in God or heaven, “but now I believe in hell. We are convinced that we drilled into the roof of hell back then.”
Rumors About the Hell Drilling Spread Like Fire
A Norwegian teacher embellished the story and passed it on to the U.S. television network family Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN). Although TBN doubted the story’s truth, the network forwarded it to a Texas televangelist, who then spread the hell drilling tale across the United States, as “Spiegel Online” writes.
What the scientists reportedly heard from more than seven miles deep—human screams—was never sufficiently clarified. A toxic gas cloud, rumored to have shot up from the borehole, allegedly prevented further investigations.
So go the rumors. The claim that geologists heard human voices or similar sounds from the depths is considered “fake news” by Serge Shapiro, professor of seismology and geophysics at the Free University of Berlin, as he told TRAVELBOOK. Signals from seismic noise or mini-earthquakes, however, are indeed perceptible at such depths.
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The End of the Drilling Operations
The Kola Borehole was completely abandoned in 1992, and the drilling tower was demolished in 2012. Today, only the decaying former worker barracks and research labs, along with the rusty cover that conceals the deepest hole on Earth and a deep, dark secret, remain as reminders of the ambitious project.