1330: Kola Borehole

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Kola Borehole
Tonight's top story: Lucifer, the Prince of Darkness, died in his home this morning at the age of [unintelligible rune]. Due to the large number of sharks inhabiting his former kingdom, no body could be recovered.
Title text: Tonight's top story: Lucifer, the Prince of Darkness, died in his home this morning at the age of [unintelligible rune]. Due to the large number of sharks inhabiting his former kingdom, no body could be recovered.

Explanation

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Transcript

[Megan and Hat Guy are sitting in front of their laptops.]
Megan: Ever hear of the Kola Borehole?
Hat Guy: No -- what's that?
Megan: A Soviet project to drill deep into the Earth's crust.
Megan: There's a hoax report claiming that their drill broke through into a superhot cavern, and when they lowered a microphone into the hole, they heard tormented screaming.
Megan: People say that's why the miners sealed the well and abandoned the project.
Hat Guy: Why would anyone believe that story?
Megan: I guess some people think Hell is literally an underground place.
Hat Guy: No -- I mean, why would the miners seal the opening? Why not just dig a canal connecting it to the ocean?
Hat Guy: Unless they like Hell.
Megan: ...If there's ever a war between Earth and Hell, I hope I'm on your side.
Hat Guy: You seem nice; you probably won't be.


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Discussion

Reminds me of the title text in #1218: Doors of Durin. Whimsye (talk) 06:21, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Surely this is a Dwarf Fortress reference. The Soviets breached the Happy Fun Stuff! 108.162.250.5 06:42, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Well, DF has that connotation, but both the real thing and the hoax are older than Toady's game, so perhaps not so much a reference to DF (although Black Hat does propose a typically DF-player solution... I hope he's prepared for FPS Hell from the flowing liquids). Randall knows about DF, of course.
(BTW, from that (first, factual event) page: "In 1983, the drill passed 12,000 m (39,000 ft), and drilling was stopped for about a year to celebrate the event." ...Russians!) 141.101.98.176 08:18, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Lakes and Oceans #1040 also mentions the Kola Borehole.199.27.128.70 09:03, 14 February 2014 (UTC)Nix

If Hell would be a physical place, I don't think Lucifer would still be ruling there. In next war between Heaven and Hell, the winners will be anime and/or computer games nerds. Both Heaven and Hell will lose. :-) -- Hkmaly (talk) 11:06, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

One may recall from the Divine Comedy that Dante's imagery of Hell is a negative-mountain-shaped abyss that starts widest at the surface of our allegorical planet and ends at a point far below the surface where Satan resides. The deeper you go, the narrower the abyss gets, like a cone, and the more heinous the sinners. On the other side of the planet there is a mountain made from all that earth God removed to dig the Inferno. The Saints (all those who are saved by faith from the other fate) progress up the mountain through Purgatory to reach Paradise. tbc (talk) 14:01, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

I remember reading about this in Dial the Truth ministries: http://www.av1611.org/hell.html Either way, in the war between Earth and Hell, I shall be in Heaven. Greyson (talk) 14:51, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

In the game terraria it is actually possible to dig a tunnel from the ocean to hell. I tried this but not enough water came through the tunnel to flood it.108.162.250.162 21:52, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

In Dante's Inferno, Hell is depicted as being a cold place since it is far from the warmth of the Creator. The modern hot version of hell is a byproduct of the fire and brimstone of the reformation period. 108.162.210.254 16:47, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

except that Dante is more modern than the "hot version of hell"! That one is mentioned in the bible in a few places, which is a bit earlier than Dante. The book of Revelations has rivers of sulphur, so not just hot but also smelly. Matthew's gospel refers to 'the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels'. He also mentioned a blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. There was a tale (Dave Allen maybe?) where Ian Paisley was preaching on that 'gnashing of teeth' text, and an old woman protested "but reverend, I don't have any teeth". The booming reply from the pulpit: "Teeth... will be provided!" 162.158.90.90 13:46, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

About the kola superdeep borehole being welded-shut - that seems to be actualy true. The wikipedia page on the borehole has a picture of it being welded shut, and the reference about the bore hole project being abandonded, an article in russian[1], says that it was welded shut in 1995. Could someone update that? --141.101.99.8 21:07, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Not only that, it was apparently capped with concrete as well [2] 141.101.89.217 12:54, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

When he says that she probably won't be on his side, I took it to mean that he'll be on his own side during the war, fighting against both Hell and Earth. Since she's nice, she probably wouldn't join him. 108.162.237.64 19:37, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

I took his comment in the final panel to mean that he is actually affiliated with hell and that somehow flooding Hell would release its contents rather than extinguish them. It was a very eerie thought that I'm sticking to. 108.162.222.185 12:48, 18 March 2015 (UTC) 21:37, 18 March 2015 (KST)

If there's ever a war between heaven and hell, my soul will be too busy exploring space to give a shit about it.

On a side note, I'd expect such sounds might actually have been "heard" in the chamber. Or it is theoretically possible. The sound of escaping hot gases, especially in chorus, would sound awfully similar to tormented screaming. So in a way, the sounds would sound similar.

Although in thinking about this one more deeply, another comic comes to mind as I freak out about the fact the scary magma chambers are RIGHT BELOW ME. I could easily walk the lateral distance separating me and them in a few hours. Or could scale a mountain with that distance in a day or so. Or in a few seconds using a lot of rocket fuel. But to go down that distance takes a lot more effort... hm. Of course there are always volcanoes.

Too busy thinking about space to worry about a war between hell and heaven. International Space Station (talk) 05:13, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

Just curious: what would realistically happen if the Kola Borehole was actually flooded with ocean water? The temperature at the bottom being 180 °C (according to Wikipedia), would it behave like a geyser?