Revealed hoaxWell to Hell Hoax (1989)

A 1989 Norwegian Christian newsletter reported that Soviet scientists drilling the Kola Superdeep Borehole had recorded the screams of the damned; the audio was later traced to the 1972 Italian horror film *Baron Blood*.

What's documented

The hoax originated in a 1989 issue of Trumpet, a small Christian newsletter published by Åge Rendalen in Norway. The article reported that Soviet scientists drilling the Kola Superdeep Borehole at Zapolyarny had drilled into a cavity, lowered a microphone, and recorded the screams of ‘the damned souls in hell.’ The story was picked up by the U.S. tabloid Weekly World News and then by the Trinity Broadcasting Network. The audio in circulation was later identified by skeptical investigator Rich Buhler in 1990 as having been lifted from the soundtrack of the 1972 Mario Bava film Gli Orrori del Castello di Norimberga (released in English as Baron Blood). Despite the 1990 exposure, the story continued to circulate in Christian radio broadcasts and on the early internet throughout the 1990s and 2000s and continues to be cited.

Notable & intriguing

The Kola Superdeep Borehole at Zapolyarny, Russia, drilled by the Soviet Ministry of Geology between 1970 and 1992, reached a depth of 12,262 meters — the deepest artificial point on Earth — before drilling was abandoned due to temperatures at depth reaching 180°C.

Soviet Ministry of Geology, Kola SG-3 borehole records; *Nature*, vol. 331, 1988
Rich Buhler, investigator for the Christian radio program *TruthOrFiction.com*, identified the 'screams of hell' audio in 1990 as having been lifted from Mario Bava's 1972 film *Gli Orrori del Castello di Norimberga* (English title: *Baron Blood*).

Rich Buhler, *Christianity Today*, July 1990; *TruthOrFiction.com*, archived 2002
The Norwegian Christian teacher Åge Rendalen later admitted to having co-fabricated the story; in a 1990 letter to *Aftenposten* he wrote that the hoax was intended as a parable about the gullibility of Christian media — and that the speed and uncritical acceptance of its uptake by *Weekly World News* and the Trinity Broadcasting Network had exceeded his expectations.

Åge Rendalen, letter to *Aftenposten*, 12 February 1990; Jan Harold Brunvand, *Curses! Broiled Again!*, W. W. Norton, 1990