Cities And Memory

"The Message is built upon a popular urban legend which has circulated for years about what was recorded when Russian scientists drilled a nine mile hole into the ground in Siberia, lowered microphones into it and recorded what they heard. This legend is known as the Siberian Hell Sounds or Well to Hell.  "Art Bell, an American broadcaster who hosted a show called Coast to Coast AM about the paranormal and other phenomena during the 1980’s to the early 2000’s, popularised this myth by replaying a tape many times on his show. This tape was the alleged recording captured by the Russian scientists - a cacophony of wild human-like screams. The recording is now in the public domain via the Internet Archive.  "In the late 90s, a friend of mine in the United States, knowing that I was a collector of aural oddities, sent me a cassette tape he recorded of one of Art Bell’s radio shows in which Bell introduces the so-called Siberian Hell Sounds recording to a talk back caller to the radio station.  "In approaching T