A Hole in a Hill

Michael yelled down into a hole his head was hovering over, laying flat on his belly.  When he didn’t hear an echo, he pushed up onto his elbows with a confused look on his face.  He thought back to the basic science classes in his past which might have covered a lack of echo in a cave, but couldn’t recall any.  Nobody ever called Michael an idiot, but nobody could call him a genius.  He liked to think of himself as practical, rational, useful, and handsome, but most people would disagree with half of those descriptors.  

He glanced over at his parked ATV, the lone man made object in a vast, and mostly flat grassland.  The ten foot hill he was lying on was the only real high point for miles.  Michael was about to hop on his ATV and forget about the hole in a hill with no echo, when he remembered gravitational acceleration.  He didn’t remember the exact gravitational constant, so he pulled out his phone to check the internet for a free fall calculator.  No signal.  Not a huge surprise, way out as Michael was.  

Grabbing a loose stone off the ground, he returned to his prone position over the hole and dropped the rock.  He counted in his head, waiting to hear the rock hit the bottom of the hole.  By the time he got to fifteen, it was a deep hole.  When he got to twenty-five, he must have done something wrong.  “Maybe a bigger rock?” he thought.  Getting back up to his feet, he began the search for a stone.  After no time at all, Michael found one he judged to be around twenty-five pounds, something large enough to make a big enough noise.  He trudged back up the hill and held the stone out above the hole and dropped it.  Again, he counted to twenty-five without hearing what he suspected would be a thunderous noise from the bottom.  

“Gotta be one hell of a deep hole,” he muttered quietly to himself. “Someone will wanna hear about this!”  

On the long ride back to his dusty old ranch, he thought about who to call.  He decided a geologist might have a passing interest, and when he got home, looked up the state university a couple hours away.  Luckily, Michael lived in oil country, and the local university had a geology department.  There weren't any phone numbers on the website, but there was an email address for the dean of the geology department: Dr. Raymond Rockfort.  

He began typing a message.

 “Dr. Rockfort, I’m a couple hours down the road from you and have a bit of a mystery on my hands.  While out riding on my property, I found a small rocky hill with a hole in it.  I took a closer look, and couldn’t see a bottom.  I dropped a rock down it, and after twenty-five seconds, I didn’t hear anything.”  

He opened a new tab to find a free fall calculator, and entered twenty-five seconds into the field.  10,054ft.  “That can’t be right” he thought, “nearly two miles?”  He finished up the email anyway, “If this is of any interest to you or anyone in your department, please call me.”  He left his digital signature and phone number, clicked send, and decided to make himself a sandwich.  

Dr. Raymond Rockfort was sitting in his office when Michael’s email chirped on his phone.  He pushed back from his desktop monitor, rubbed his eyes, and used the interruption to stretch his legs.  He grabbed his cell phone off the charger, and decided to get more coffee.  The email’s subject line read, “Geological mystery two hours to your south.”  Rockfort rolled his eyes and walked out of his office.  His TA was sitting in the lounge grading papers.  “David, how goes the grading?”  

“Well, I think it's safe to say, we don’t have the next Charles Lyells in this batch.”

“I just got an email from a local with another geology mystery,” Rockfort said while refilling his mug.

“Gold or oil?”

“I don’t know, I just read the subject line.  What’s your bet?”  He set down the coffee and pulled out his phone to read the email.

”Gold.  I bet it's gold.  It's always gold.”

“Huh, not gold.  Says he has a very deep hole in a hill.  Dropped a rock down there and counted to twenty-five without hearing the impact.”

“Twenty five seconds?  Let’s see, that’s--10,000 feet?  That’s one hell of a hole!”

“He can’t be right.  Sinkholes don’t get that deep.”

“A blowhole from an aquifer?”

“It would be the first I’ve heard of.  Tell you what, email the grad students.  Maybe we can do a full survey, turn it into a lesson.”

“You really think this is something?”

“Probably not, but it’s been too long since we’ve been in the field.  After you’ve emailed the grads, go check out the truck.  I don’t want any surprises in the field like last time.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

Two weeks later, Michael heard the rumble of a large truck coming up his dirt road.  Out on the porch, he saw two trucks followed by a much larger military looking six wheeled behemoth.  The convoy pulled to a stop, and out of the first truck came an older, grey haired man with leathery skin.  He introduced himself as Dr. Rockfort.

“My grad students are eager to take a look at your little mystery hole.”

“It’s a twenty minute ride over some undeveloped land.  I hope that beast there will make it.”

“Don’t worry about Shelly, she’s a mean bitch.  Six wheel drive.  She’s been over rougher terrain than this.”

“Well, okay then.  I just have to put some gas in my four wheeler, and you guys can follow me. Out there.”

Michael watched  the flurry of activity on his normally quiet property with passing interest at.  The grad students rigged up some sort of pulley system above the hole while pulling Shelly up close as the hill would allow.  He got up from laying on the ATV, and went in for a closer look.  Rockfort was overseeing his students attach some sort of device to the cable coming from the truck. 

“What’s the plan here doc?”

“They’re hooking up an array of three cameras pointed horizontally, giving us a nearly 360 degree field of view.  Another camera points straight down, it’s got a small radar scanner, and then it has temperature and climate sensors, to detect any air changes.”

“That’s a fancy piece of gear.”

“Also, 50ft up, we have another downward facing camera so we can see the whole thing.  We can watch the feed from Shelly.”

“How much cable did you bring?”

“5 miles’ worth.  We’ll get to the bottom of your hole.”

Michael forced a chuckle at the obvious pun.  He followed Rockfort around to the other side of Shelly, which was opened up revealing a suite of screens.  Rockfort pointed out which monitor corresponded to which camera, and which monitors showed the output from the sensors.  

“As you can see,” Rockfort explained, “it's 84 degrees with a light breeze.  Okay, lets begin lowering slowly.  I want to get a good look at the mouth of the cave.”  

Watching the monitors, Michael could see the legs of the grad students standing by the hole, and then their feet, and then stone.  The gray stone slowly faded to black.  Rockfort called for the lights to turn on, and David hit a switch, illuminating the rocks again.  

“Walls are rough, looks like normal basalt.  They are widening--40 feet wide now.  Now 50--60.  No bottom on the radar.”  David announced, reading from his various devices.  

Rockfort, looking at the cable length readout had them stop to affix the top camera, then leaned over to Michael, “The radar is small, it’s only accurate to 200 feet or so.  It’s more there so we don’t hit bottom and damage our equipment.  I designed all this myself, you know.  We normally use it on drill sites.”

“Top camera is attached, ready to proceed.” David announced.  

“Go ahead, slowly.”

“Quarter speed down.  Passing 60 feet now.  Walls have opened up to 100 feet wide.  Seems to be smooth now.  This can’t be right.  It’s a perfectly smooth cylindrical shaft, 100 feet wide.  Straight down, no deviation.”  He turned to face the Rockfort, a bewildered look on his face.  “ Professor, this is not a natural formation.  It can't be.”

Rockfort leaned over David’s shoulder to check the numbers.  He put his hand on David’s shoulder, and said, “Make sure you’re recording, and let’s go to full speed.”

“I’m always recording.  Full speed.  I’m givin her all she’s got, captain”

“Michael, what do you know about this property before you owned it?”

“It’s been in my family for five generations.  My granddad built the house with his own two hands.”

“500 feet now. Walls are still smooth.”  David announced

“What we have here is a perfectly smooth cylinder cut into the bedrock going straight down.  It doesn’t lean or tilt, not even one degree.  Do you understand what this means?  No geologic process made this.”

“So, what?  Alf?  Did Alf make it?”

“I couldn’t even begin to guess at how this came to be.”

“Passing 1000 feet.  No change in the walls, air pressure and temperature stable.”

“That can’t be right,” Rockfort said. “At that depth the temperature should be over 100 degrees.”

He double checked the data, to verify his TA was reading it correctly.  He stood back with his hand over his mouth and glaring at the depth meter.  All the grad students were now gathered around, watching in silence, as the only noticeable change was in the depth.  Even the camera images appeared still.  David’s depth announcements became more sporadic and the crowd started to wander off.  The depth kept growing, ticking away on the counter.  At four miles deep, the temperature started dropping.  

The speed of the descent also began to slow.

“Is something wrong with the spool? David go check.”

The TA,  rose up and disappeared in the truck.  Rockfort took David’s place at the controls to keep an eye on everything.  There was definitely a slowing in descent.  

“Shelly looks just fine.  No damage.”  David announced, reappearing out of the truck and taking his place back at the controls.

An alarm sounded, which David quickly turned off. 

“Bottom coming up.  That puts the depth at 22,965 feet 10.552 inches.  That is exactly seven kilometres.”

“Look at the speed of descent.  Looks like it’s slowing down enough it will come to stop right at the bottom.  That settles it.  Some outside force is slowing the fall.”  Rockfort said.

“What does that mean?  Why would it come to a stop?” Michael asked.

“Professor, look at the video.  There are tunnels down there at the bottom.”

“I have no idea, but whatever made this hole, might have made a way to catch anyone that falls.  What do you think Michael?  You called us.  You wanna take a jump?”