Apr 12, 2012
The door to Hell is in Turkmenistan
In 1971, Soviet geologists drilled into a cavern of natural gas near the Turkmen village of Derweze.
The ground gave way beneath their machinery, forming a 230-foot-wide sinkhole. In order to control the emission of gas from this new aperture between us and the underworld, they decided to burn it, expecting the fire to use up the fuel in a few days.
It’s still burning today.
(via Wikipedia, Good Names Gone)
* * * * *
… and they lowered microphones, and they could hear people screaming and teeth gnashing. / who else heard that stupid urban legend in youth group?
it’s actually real – Google the thing, before you call it an urban legend.
Wait, it’s on the internet? Well, then it must be true…
No, it isn’t real. Please provide a non-crazy website link to support your claim.
The pit is real. The screaming thing, not so much.
The screaming is real. The pit, not so much.
Google it yourself it is a hoax
I’m not sure where this ‘screaming’ thing comes from, I guess I never heard that one in Sunday school…
But the number of people questioning the existence of the gas pit is baffling… I was curious, so I looked it up. It took me exactly 5 seconds to find numerous articles about it, photos and even videos, all over youtube
(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derweze
(2) http://www.hoax-slayer.com/door-to-hell.shtml
(3) http://www.treehugger.com/clean-technology/geologists-accidentally-opened-the-door-to-hell.html
(4) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEjoga1yrn0
Etc, etc, etc…
The screaming has been proved a hoax, by digital sound analysis. Also, the original story places the events i Siberia, not Turkmenistan. Ambiguous location is the hallmark of the urban myth.
True, it was supposedly Siberia when i heard it too. But it would be way more plausible if they located it here.
that’s free energy! why aren’t they capitalizing on that? stick a bucket of water on top of that thing and let the steam turn the turbines!
You would think they could find a way to harness all that energy. There’s a place in Pennsylvania that is a similar situation, though I think that one is a coal mine.
That’s in Centralia, PA
I see the promotions for Diablo 3 have started.
Another source of global warming?
I’m wondering why I can’t see heat wave distortion above the crater? Photoshop?
I’m guessing the reason for the lack of heat wave distortion would be the lack of a difference in the air temperature between where the photos were taken from and the pit itself. If the photographer is in an area where the temperature is close enough to the areas being photographed, the distortion would be minimal, possibly non-existent.
The pit itself – that is, the natural gas deposit is real. Those who suggest that the supposed “ambiguous location” makes it an urban legend clearly have no grasp whatsoever on the American populace’s inability to learn geography. This began in the 70′s, when it was still the USSR. To the average American, USSR = Russia, which by the natural false equivalence that the American populace made and makes with Russia = Siberia means all places in USSR = Siberia. So, no urban legend for you.
The microphone/voices-and-screams part of it, though, clearly IS a hoax. So, points for that much.