In mid-July 2014, a mysterious hole in permafrost, spotted by helicopter pilots in the Yamal region of northern Russia, captured the world’s attention. Reindeer herders reported a second hole some days later, and still later a third Siberian crater was found. Weird explanations ranged from meteorites to stray missiles to aliens, but by late July a team of scientists reported that they had measured unusually high concentrations of methane inside the first crater, which is now known as B1. The journal Nature published a story on its website on July 31, 2014 featuring those findings, and many accepted the unsettling idea that an explosive release of methane, related to global warming, caused the craters...until February 2015 when the Siberian Times reported more craters in Siberia. A Russian scientist speculated that there may be “20 to 30 craters more.” The report of more craters has led scientists to offer a different, simpler explanation for them, one that is still related to global warming, but does not involve a powerful and explosive methane release.
Siberian Times wrote on February 23, 2015 that:
Examination using satellite images has helped Russian experts understand that the craters are more widespread than was first realized, with one large hole surrounded by as many as 20 mini-craters...
Moscow scientist Vasily Bogoyavlensky – deputy director of the Moscow-based Oil and Gas Research Institute, part of the Russian Academy of Sciences – called for “urgent investigation” of the craters. He was quoted in Siberian Times as saying:
We know now of seven craters in the Arctic area. Five are directly on the Yamal peninsula, one in Yamal Autonomous district, and one is on the north of the Krasnoyarsk region, near the Taimyr peninsula.
We have exact locations for only four of them. The other three were spotted by reindeer herders. But I am sure that there are more craters on Yamal, we just need to search for them … I suppose there could be 20 to 30 craters more.
Carolyn Ruppel, chief of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Gas Hydrates Project, told EarthSky this week (March 9, 2015) that an explosive release of methane is not a likely explanation for the craters. It’s true that, in Siberian permafrost, large deposits of methane gas are trapped in ice, forming what is called a gas hydrate. Methane remains stable and frozen at certain temperatures, but as the permafrost warms, and its internal strength decreases, it may be less able to withhold the build-up of sub-surface gases, and thus a release of methane is possible.
But, Ruppel told us:
Generic methane hydrates in permafrost settings are normally not stable above about 200 meters depth. The craters are far shallower than that, so tapping into dissociating methane hydrate is probably unlikely.
She and other scientists are calling on a simpler explanation, related to mounds of earth-covered ice in the Arctic and subarctic known as pingos.
National Geographic reported on February 27:
A pingo is a plug of ice that forms near the surface over time and has a small mound or hill on top.
When an ice plug melts rapidly — as many have been, thanks to unseasonably warm temperatures in Siberia over the past year — it can cause part of the ground to collapse, forming a crater.
That can’t be the whole story, since ejected rocks that have been found around the rim of the craters, suggesting some sort of explosion.
Carolyn Ruppel told EarthSky:
This part of Siberia does have a lot of methane in terms of underlying conventional gas deposits. So it is possible that these craters are somehow tapping into some migration pathway for those gas deposits…
More generically, permafrost and thawing permafrost are sometimes associated with significant methane. Methane can be trapped as free gas in permafrost for a long time. Gas ‘kicks’ have been observed in relatively shallow boreholes in the Yamal Peninsula in the past, and these are not an unusual occurrence in such settings. Furthermore, thawing permafrost makes carbon bioavailable to microbes that can then produce methane.
So finding methane in these settings is not too big a surprise.
She said rocks may have been ejected upward when methane-containing natural gas – stored in the permafrost but kept under pressure by the weight of the pingos – suddenly released in the warmer temperatures as the pingos collapsed and made the craters. That’s a less dramatic scenario than the original idea, which was that methane in and of itself exploded upward forcefully enough to create the giant holes.
Methane, as you may know, is a powerful greenhouse gas, more powerful than carbon dioxide. It has the potential to accelerate global warming rapidly via a feedback loop. In other words, scientists have said, as climate warms, methane is being released into the atmosphere both from permafrost and from the Arctic seafloor. This expelled methane increases temperatures more rapidly than carbon dioxide would by itself. The warmer temperatures cause more methane to be released and thus more warming; hence, the feedback loop.
That potential has not gone away. But, in the midst of thinking about that possibility, the news that giant holes in Siberian permafrost are not being blasted out by an explosive methane release is comforting.
Siberian Times reported a total of seven mystery craters in Siberia in February 2015, with one scientist speculating on the possibility of “20-30 more.” Meanwhile, other scientists are suggesting that the craters are formed not by explosive methane release, as was previously suggested, but by another, less dramatic mechanism, the rapid melting of ice plugs known as pingos, due to unseasonably warm temperatures in Siberia over the past year.
But this is holes and craters are not an unknown phenomenon.
I came across the following article from Pravda in March 2004 while researching sources on ultraterrestrial underground habitation. This may be related to the 'cookie cutter' phenomena that is occasionally reported even though this situation doesn't quite match those other discoveries. There have been other terra firma related anomalies as well. I have posted different scenarios for you to compare and make your own conclusions:
Ufologists suppose, aliens land on Earth to take ground samples
One morning shepherd Pyotr Malinkin took his cows out to the pasture as usual. Having gone five kilometers into the field the man was shocked to find a huge hole in the ground six meters in diameter. The pit was not on the spot the day before, it appeared overnight. The shepherd said the animals were scared to approach the hole, they did not eat the grass nearby. Specialists of the Labyrinth public group to study anomalous phenomena went to examine the wonder in the field.
Local elderly women confirmed the large hole had appeared in the field indeed. They said the hole had a perfect round shape, as if someone took a huge lump of ground with a cup. Local townsfolk built a fence around the hole not to let curious people and cows fall down in it. The hole became a local place of interest: people come to see it and picnic nearby, others take photographs against its background.
As it turned out, the pit was not round, but oval. It does not look like an excavator pit: there are no bucket tracks on its walls, nothing is seen on the meadow around either – the ground is even. The pit is smooth and vertical inside. There is some water on the bottom of the 4,5-meter deep pit.
Specialists of the above-mentioned Labyrinth group believe the hole probably appeared as a result of UFO’s activities: aliens landed their spaceship on the meadow to take ground samples. However, ufologists failed to find any evidence to prove the landing of an extraterrestrial spacecraft. Ufologists also proposed the ground hole appeared as a result of a rare inexplicable natural phenomenon. An identical phenomenon occurred ten years ago in the Ryazan region, when a huge crater reminiscent of a shell-hole appeared in the ground near the Sasovo village. Nobody was able to explain the appearance of the pit. Such hole appeared before in the Rostov and Tula regions of Russia.
Local townsfolk told Labyrinth ufologists there was a larger ground hole two kilometers far. It appeared decades ago. Elderly people say village residents used to sacrifice sacks of grain throwing them in the hole to pacify ‘something’ under the ground. During the Soviet years they used to throw branches and stones in the hole, but they never managed to cover it. Ufologists tried to find the pit, but they could not find the mysterious pit – numerous trees and bushes have grown in the field.
Local people said there was another mysterious object in their countryside. They said there is an ‘angry spring’ on the stream nearby. When a person comes to the spring to take some water, it starts ‘boiling.’ If one starts talking near the spring, the water in it boils harder and harder. There used to be a church on the spot where the spring appeared. Legends say the church went under the ground when Napoleon’s army was advancing in the region in 1812.
The Kaluga region is located on limestone soil. Ground waters can dissolve such soil, creating limestone caves, the vaults of which may tumble down at times. This can be an explanation how the village church went under the ground. It is not ruled out mysterious holes appear for the same reason – the ground was probably sucked in a limestone cave. These holes, ufologists believe, are of the terrestrial origin, although it is hard to explain why the walls of the pits are perfectly smooth and even. - Pravda
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Click for video
Weird news report from 1984 near Grand Coulee Dam in Eastern Washington:
No one can figure out how, but a chunk of earth weighing tons was plucked out of a wheat field, as though someone used "a giant cookie cutter," and put down, right side up, 73 feet away. "All we know for sure is that this puzzle piece of earth is 73 feet away from the hole it came out of," said Greg W. Behrens, a geologist with the Bureau of Reclamation at Grand Coulee Dam.
Scientists now believe that the "Cookie Cutter Phenomenon" is caused by two seismic events intersecting, creating constructive interference, and ejecting out a small chunk of earth.
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Strange Happening - Scientists are baffled by big 'mystery hole'
Two articles on the Washington state 1984 event:
No one can figure out how, but a chunk of earth weighing tons was plucked out of a wheat field, as though someone used "a giant cookie cutter," and put down, right side up, 73 feet away. "All we know for sure is that this puzzle piece of earth is 73 feet away from the hole it came out of," said Greg W. Behrens, a geologist with the Bureau of Reclamation at Grand Coulee Dam. The displaced slab, mostly soil held together by roots, is about 10 feet long and 7 feet wide. Its thickness varies from 2 feet at one end to about 18 inches at the other. The shape and thickness of the piece exactly match the hole that was left behind, just like a piece in a jigsaw puzzle, though it was rotated about 20 degrees. There are no marks to indicate machines were used, the Seattle Times reported Friday, and the land is fairly flat. "You'd think that, whatever the cause, the chunk would have traveled in a straight line," said Don Aubertin, director of mining for the Colville Indians, whose reservation is near the site. However, a scientist "found where pieces had dribbled from the chunk as it moved. The dribblings traced an arc from the hole to where the chunk was found." The site is on a farm in north-central Washington operated by Fred Timm and his sons. Two of the sons, Rick and Pete, discovered the displaced earth Oct. 18 while rounding up cattle in an area known as "haystack rocks," where huge boulders were left by a glacier that covered the area thousands of years ago. The Timms believe the chunk was moved sometime after mid-September, when they harvested wheat in that field. There was a small earthquake in the area during that one-month period, at 8:24 p.m. Oct. 9. It measured 3.0 on the Richter scale of ground movement, and its epicenter was about 20 miles southwest of the displaced earth. However, University of Washington scientists ruled out the possibility that the quake somehow could have moved the chunk. The work of a meteorite also has been ruled out. "There was no sign of impact," Aubertin said. "The hole was not a crater. It had vertical walls and a fairly flat bottom. It was almost as if it had been cut out with a giant cookie cutter." But even that couldn't have left such a hole, he added, because roots from plants in the piece that was moved still dangled from the walls of the hole, indicating they were torn apart rather than cut. Behrens wondered if bedrock could have focused the earthquake's seismic waves on the displaced chunk.Focusing can occur, said UW geologist Stephen Malone, but it could not provide enough energy.
Washington State's Mystery Hole
Fred Timm owns a farm on the Colville Indian Reservation in northeastern Washington. Nothing notable had happened on the farm for a month during the wheat harvest which had begun in mid-September of 1984. However, a small earthquake, 3.0 on the Richter scale did occur on October 9, 1984, at 8:24 p.m. But that event was far away, 20 miles to the southwest of the Timm farm.
So what was the explanation for the mysterious hole that Fred Timm's sons, Rick and Pete, found on October 18, 1984? Rick and Pete were on horseback that day rounding up cattle for their father. They were next to a wheat field on the Colville Indian Reservation north of the Columbia River when they spotted something. Approaching closer, they saw a hole in the ground. The hole was 10 feet long and 7 feet wide and roughly pear-shaped. The north end of the hole was about one-and-a-half feet deep; the south end was two feet deep. Curious, the men dismounted and studied the hole and then looked around on foot. Seventy-three feet northwest of the hole was a huge chunk of earth shaped like the hole. The chunk of earth had been deposited largely intact with a counterclockwise rotation of about 20 degrees in relation to the hole. There was a scattering of fingernail-size soil particles, like "dribblings," occasionally found on the ground across the 73-foot distance.
The Timm family contacted Don Aubertin, director of mining for the Colville Indian Tribe. Aubertin, thinking the hole had been caused by a meteorite strike, contacted Bill Utterbach. A geologist retained by the Colville Indians, Utterbach examined the area and said about the hole: "It had vertical walls and a fairly flat bottom. It was almost as though it had been cut out with a giant cookie cutter." The estimated weight of the chunk of topsoil was 3 tons! But the massive "divot" of soil did not appear to have been cut out of the ground. There was no sign of shearing of the soil. Dangling from the walls of the cavity were roots of vegetation, not cut, but torn. The block of earth did not appear to have been dragged or rolled. Something manmade would have been needed to lift the chunk and transport it, but there were no machinery marks on the ground. Greg Behrens stepped forward. A geologist with the United States Bureau of Reclamation at Grand Coulee Dam, he examined the block of earth and the local geology. He noted that the site of the hole was over a glacial basin about 100 feet by 150 feet formed by strata that had sagged during the melting of an ancient ice pack.
Behrens wondered if the earthquake of October 9 had triggered concentric surface waves, which converging, could have ejected the soil. Stephen Malone of the University of Washington, chuckled. The 3.0 quake, 20 miles southwest of the hole, had been four miles below the surface of the earth. Malone said that if the quake displaced the earth, " it would be the most dramatic and obvious thing ever reported that I'm aware of." It was "very, very unlikely" that an earthquake was the culprit. Behrens admitted that his idea was stretching it. Although focusing of seismic waves does occur, "nothing this large has been documented." He felt most geophysicists would reject his idea. So he looked for other explanations: A freak tornado ripping out the block. No, no swirling of vegetation evident. A complex freezing action causing the block to be lifted up and moved by strong winds. No, the temperature was warm at the time. A gas explosion, like methane. No, no methane in the area. A meteorite ripping the block out. No, the hole did not resemble a crater, and the block was not shattered. Clever people using a large crane excavating the block out; or people freezing the ground, excavating the block out, and sliding it 73 feet; or a helicopter to lift the mass out. H'hhmm; no, extremely expensive with no profits. As Behrens said, "Mr. Timm is quite reserved and wishes no notoriety from all of this. The area is so remote that it would never become a tourist trap."
Perhaps not unexpected was the UFO theory. Behrens came across stories of UFO sightings from local residents. One person talked of a farmer who found a circular burned area, 30 feet in diameter, near his combine as if something had set down and scorched the ground. The Aerial Phenomena Research Organization had a report of "a meteor" in the vicinity of the hole on October 13. Local residents told Behrens that at the time of the earthquake they had felt an extreme air shock with it, much more than a sonic blast. The residents had felt ground motion after the air blast. A roar described as an approaching freight train preceded the blast with the doppler effect afterwards. Curiously, in 1979 Bruce Kaliser, Utah state engineering geologist, while doing a routine field check following a 3.5 earthquake near the Utah-Idaho border, was alerted by farmers to a mysterious hole outside Portage, Idaho. The hole was shaped like a cross and entirely undisturbed. It was about 14 feet in diameter. Each arm had two furrows, and each arm had cracks parallel to the furrows, radiating out from the center of the cross. The Idaho slab, unlike the Washington slab, was broken into pieces. To date, no one has explained the "mystery hole" of Washington. Some type of rare earthquake-related phenomenon, or what?
The Cookie-Cutter Phenomenon seems to be the ultimate fortean anomaly, it cries out for some kind of simple, rational explanation, but on further consideration it's baffling in a very thorough way.
THE COOKIE CUTTER STRIKES AGAIN...FOUR TIMES...IN NORWAY
The divot from an Andøva moor Yes, the cookie-cutter phenomenon has left its mark again: more mysterious divots and holes in the ground. T. Jo nassen has sent us a study of the phenomenon published in Ottar, a publication of the Tromse Museum, in Norway. Even better, he has provided a translation, from which we quote a few paragraphs: "About 1 km SE of Skogvollvatnet (a lake), at Skogvollmyra (a moor), a slab of turf 5.2 m long and 1.8 m wide, has, in an apparently inexplicable manner, torn itself loose from its 'mother turf' and placed itself 4-5 m away. The slab of turf is completely undamaged and is placed with the right side up. The piece of turf has rotated 20-30 degrees compared to the original hole. The hole in the moor is absolutely even at the bottom, and the angle between the bottom and its walls is 90 degrees. The hole is 30-35 cm deep, and its edges are nicely cut. "From the hole there is a crack running westwards for about 6 m. Close to the hole this crack is somewhat widened, and one side of the crack twists itself 25-30 cm above the other. This twisting decreases as one gets further from the hole. The crack gradually subsides, and it is hard to tell exactly where it ends. "About 12 m NW of the hole there is an arched crack of about 15 m lying with its concave side towards the hole. It is plainest in the middle. Here the side closest to the hole has been twisted upwards about 15 cm. Here also the crack gradually disappears at both ends. There is an open hollow beneath the part which has been twisted upwards, about 30 cm below the surface. One theory has lightning creating a steam explosion from underground water. If this were the case, one would expect to find some fusion of the earth and more havoc wrought to the divot. "The slab of turf has an area of about 5 m2 and this should give a weight of between 1500-1700 kg."
Top image: The divot from an Andøva moor. Above image: One theory has lightning creating a steam explosion from underground water. If this were the case, one would expect to find some fusion of the earth and more havoc wrought to the divot
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Strange Holes Discovered in Krasnoyarsk Region
Residents of Novoselovo district in the Krasnoyarsk region have come across a mysterious phenomenon in the field. They discovered several tunnels of unknown origin in an area located some 100 meters away from the highway connecting the cities of Krasnoyarsk and Abakan, in the vicinity of the village of Kurgany, Siberian News Agency reports. There are about 10 holes in the field. Each hole has an entrance to a cave-like hollow place in the earth. Some of the tunnels are big enough for a person of medium height to stand up straight. According to one of the suppositions, all the underground passages are interconnected in a network. A few daredevils equipped with flashlights attempted walking across the tunnels.
Local residents have a number of theories to explain the origin of the tunnels. Some people believe the tunnels are the work of unidentified pranksters, others blame mysterious animals which reportedly dig holes in the ground. According to yet another theory, the tunnels may somehow be related to an earthquake that occurred in the area 3 years ago.
Krasnoyarsk scientists have not yet made any official statements as to the explanation of the phenomenon.
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Strange Hole Phenomenon
In Siberia, human groans heard from a super deep hole drilled on a plateau between the Aral and Caspian seas were recorded and sent to the Soviet Academy of Sciences for further studies. But researchers did not take the mystical phenomena seriously, and the record was lost.
Almost all religions of the planet say that there is some underground realm. At that, each religion has its peculiar description of the realm. Some elements of the description however are typical of all religions. First of all, the population of the underground realm consists of ‘masters’ and people who get there after their death. Second, people get under the surface in the form of shadows, souls and others known today as clots of information and energy fields. Third, the ‘masters’ and sometimes the souls posses unique information about the past and even about the future. To obtain this information one has either to send his soul to the underground realm like Siberian shamans do, or help the shadows become visible and audible for some time. In ancient Greece there were special rituals involving obligatory blood shed.
Esoteric experts state that the bloody rituals were first of all connected with the unique energetic and informational saturation of blood. Attempts to obtain the information possessed by the ‘masters’ of the underground world were taken in all epochs and even in the modern time.
Russian researcher Nikolay Rerich was the first to organize an expedition to the legendary area of Shambala inhabited by wise ‘teachers’ and concealed from people’s eyes under the Himalayan Mountains. He successfully conducted the expedition and brought a message from the ‘teachers’ especially for the Soviet Government. Gleb Bokiy from the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs (earlier the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission) also planned an expedition to the mysterious Shambala. The preparation was controlled by the Commissariat Head Felix Dzerzhinsky. When the latter died financing of the project was stopped. It is known that Germany’s Waffen SS of the Third Reich also organized expeditions to Shambala. The structure and objectives of the organization resembled so much those of the mystical orders that existed in Germany before WWII. The organization, as well as the orders, wanted to keep it secret that creatures with superhuman power existed deep under the surface.
The creatures employed meditation and self-discipline to gain power over the natural phenomena and attain the level of Gods. When Adolph Hitler, who as some researchers believe possessed extrasensory capabilities, came to power he supported the idea of a Hollow Earth and even made it official. Russian researcher of the occult magic of fascist Germany Sergey Zubkov states that race clearing in the Third Reich and organization of secret societies were meant to help the mysterious ‘masters’ out from under the surface for active participation in reorganization of the world.
SS even had a special structure for collecting mystical information of the secret societies that at that time existed in Germany and employed the information for researches aimed to create a mystical weapon for solution of war problems. The organization sent expeditions to Tibet and the Himalayas.
The first expedition searching for Shambala started in 1931. The expedition failed to discover the way to the underground world but it brought lots of Tibetan manuscripts to Germany which proved that the ‘mysterious’ masters actually existed under the surface. Later, the organization sent even more expeditions to the area. Who are the mysterious creatures living under the surface and where could they come from? President of the Association of Engineer Biolocation Vladimir Khlopkov is absolutely sure that some sentient beings live under the surface. Ten years ago, he conducted some kind of a brain storm of the planet’s interior.
The most experienced operators of the Association used biolocation frames to find the traces of intellect under the surface. The researchers said that they found out intellect at the depth of 200 kilometers under the surface. Khlopkov explained it was a strong intellect but alien to humans. It is clear that albuminous bodies cannot survive under the huge pressure of rocks and terribly high temperatures under the surface. It is highly likely that the discovered intellect is concentrated in some informational and energy clusters. Later, Vladimir Khlopkov discovered several places on the planet’s surface where the intellect probably got out on the surface.
One of the areas was in the town of Zelenograd very close to Moscow. Biolocation operators came across strange formations there during ground tests and at first called them “traces of UFO landing”. When studied closer the traces revealed coincidence with a deep break that geophysics also discovered there. Every evening operators observed a strange biological field creep out from the break and move at a speed of 90 cm per second towards Zelenograd. Little by little the field filled up the whole of the town. In some time, the field began to withdraw at the same speed back to the deep break. The entire of the cycle took about 3.5 hours. Khlopkov said that the field was reading the information in people’s memory.
In the Russian republic of Khakassia, there is the Kashkulakskaya Cave, the name means ‘the cave of a black devil’, in the Mountains of Kuznetsky Alatau. For many years, researchers from the Novosibirsk Institute of Clinical and Experimental Medicine of the Academy of Medical Sciences regularly came to the place to study the strange phenomena that occurred to people staying in the cave for a long period of time. Visitors of the cave were at regular intervals gripped with horror that made them rush to the exit. At that, those people had optical hallucinations that were the same with all people: they saw an elderly man wearing a shaggy horned cap and with his eyes sparkling.
Researchers fixed high-precision magnetometers and other appliances outside and inside of the cave; they compared the indications of the devices with the emotions experienced by people in the cave. It turned out that bursts of a higher magnetic field fixed with the devices coincided with the moments when people felt nervous. At that, devices fixed outside the cave precisely on its outline registered no changes at the time when there was a magnetic storm inside of the cave.
Some researchers participating in the experiment supposed that they came across some kind of a radio-range beacon complying with a strange program and sending signals vertically up, right into the cosmos. May it be so that the mysterious creatures living under the surface came from the space and used the signals for communication with other beings that stayed there in their home? - bdtips.com
Sources:
english.pravda.ru
science-frontiers.com
Dybwik, Dagfinn, and Møller, Jakob J.; "Phenomenon in an Andøya Moor - An Insoluble Mystery?
knowledge.co.uk
Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth
ourhollowearth.com
Earth: An Intimate History
SiberianTimes.com
EarthSky.com
World of Wonders: The Most Mesmerizing Natural Phenomena on Earth
thelivingmoon.com
bdtips.com
Inner Earth: A Search for Anomalies : A Catalog of Geological Anomalies
