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I found this suspicious claim on Facebook. Apparently some "scientists" recorded sound 15km under the surface and it sounds like ...hell.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSEBkmRQpG0

This is the claimed story of the video

In the 1980's a drilling team in Siberia drilled into hell and recorded it. Dr Azzacove was present and this is what he stated. "As a communist I don’t believe in heaven or the Bible, but as a scientist I now believe in hell," said Dr. Azzacove. "Needless to say we were shocked to make such a discovery. But we know what we saw and we know what we heard. And we are absolutely convinced that we drilled through the gates of hell!" Dr. Azzacove continued, ". . .the drill suddenly began to rotate wildly, indicating that we had reached a large empty pocket or cavern. Temperature sensors showed a dramatic increase in heat to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. We lowered a microphone, designed to detect the sounds of plate movements down the shaft. But instead of plate movements we heard a human voice screaming in pain! At first we thought the sound was coming from our own equipment. But when we made adjustments our worst suspicions were confirmed. The screams weren’t those of a single human, they were the screams of millions of humans!"

We already know that the story is not true, but what is the origin of this sound?

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Sklivvz
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    Possible duplicate of [Did Soviet miners drill a hole to Hell?](http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/19748/did-soviet-miners-drill-a-hole-to-hell) – Reinstate Monica -- notmaynard Dec 05 '15 at 23:17
  • @iamnotmaynard ah, good catch. The question is about the specific sound/video though, that's what being shared. I've had to drill down to find the supporting (debunked) story. – Sklivvz Dec 05 '15 at 23:22
  • I am hoping for some better evidence than [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWo6kTsoiv4) – Sklivvz Dec 05 '15 at 23:33
  • Ask ['OTG ministry'](http://otgministry.com/proof_that_hell_is_real) where they got it from. They placed it on Youtube. –  Dec 07 '15 at 07:55

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The April 24, 2012 episode of Skeptoid (#307) covers this. There are several claims as to the origin of the sound. The most popular (albeit not very well supported) is that it is a looped bit from a 1972 movie called Baron Blood. If you go to the Skeptoid page, about two thirds down, this is discussed.

So if we can't verify any part of the story, where did that audio recording come from? It turns out that there is a popular explanation for it. Many Internet sites assert that it is a looped and layered version of this audio clip from the really terrible 1972 movie Baron Blood

As stated earlier, this doesn't seem to stand up to scrutiny:

Personally I'm not convinced that the screams sound like the same ones; in fact, a side-by-side comparison serves mainly to convince me that Baron Blood is not the source of the audio. However, there's at least one really good YouTube video where a guy plays back selected samples from the Well to Hell audio proving that it is indeed looped.

There is also an audio clip from YouTube filmmaker moscowjade that you can listen to (I don't know how to embed an audio clip).

So, what is the sound? Well, this is addressed, but it's not conclusive. Emphasis mine.

Without any doubt, the Well to Hell audio played on the Art Bell show was created digitally by somebody looping and further processing some screaming sounds with a lot of background noise. That sound file, the only one known to exist from this story, is a hoax. There are zillions of recordings of screams and shouts and crowd noises for the hoaxer to have chosen from; whether or not he used Baron Blood is moot.

Suffice it to say that we may never really know what the origin of the sound is aside from saying that it was "created digitally by somebody looping and further processing some screaming sounds with a lot of background noise".

JasonR
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  • The fact that it's looped doesn't necessarily mean it's fake. There could be a time loop in hell. Of course, it also doesn't matter- the burden of proof goes the other way. The fact that it's been this many years and it remains a myth says all we need to know. – PointlessSpike Dec 11 '15 at 09:56