Mystery hole still draws interest

An unexplained phenomenon took place 35 years ago on a farm on a plateau west of Omak Lake in which a three-ton piece of earth was lifted out of the ground, landing some 73-feet away. It's still a mystery.

No signs of machinery were seen near the 10-foot by 7-foot hole, nor near the relocated piece of earth, which is said to have fit the hole like a jigsaw puzzle piece, like it was cut with a giant cookie cutter.

Greg Behrens, who worked as a geologist for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the Grand Coulee Dam, studied the location and was interviewed by KING5 news reporter Leslie Donovan for a segment that can still be viewed today on Youtube.

The video shows Behrens in a snowy field talking about the relocated chunk of dirt, which, although near Omak Lake, is described as being "near Grand Coulee, Washington."

"At first, I was rather skeptical wondering if someone was coming up here and playing a hoax," Behrens said in the video. "Being in such a remote area like this, the likelihood of it being discovered would be almost null to begin with. Looking around the area and seeing that there isn't any indication that man had done it, it's real intriguing."

Earthquakes are said to be capable of ejecting chunks of earth, and a 3.0 earthquake centered 20 miles from the mystery hole happened not long before the hole was discovered by sons of the farm owner, Fred Timms.

The earthquake theory was dismissed in the video, saying the chunk was too big and would require "a real shaker."

"Meteors leave craters but not holes," the video continues. "Where does this leave scientists?

The answer may come from something we don't understand. Behrens isn't ruling out the idea of an extraterrestrial cause."

"Hah!" Behrens told The Star in an email this week. "You know news people... she wanted to bait me into saying it was aliens.... which I couldn't rule out for the believers."

The video then goes from the field reporter to newscasters who joke about some guy named Jeff, who offered a theory that an earthworm caused it.

"I still think it was related to the earthquake," Behrens said. "There is a whole lot of energy released when an earthquake occurs. The area where this earth cookie popped out is in a basalt bedrock depression and was wet at the time. Best way to visualize this is to take an aluminum mixing bowl about 8-10 inches diameter. Fill it almost to the top with water. Now rap the top of it on the side with a wooden spoon. A concentric wave(s) will be generated and focus in to the middle, causing a droplet of water to be 'popped out'. A seismically generated surface wave could possibly do the same thing to a bedrock depression that is filled with a saturated soil deposit."

The video said the phenomenon attracted the attention of scientists from all around the country, and Behrens told The Star that it had attracted some other people, too.

"What was interesting after this hit the news is I got a call from some 'big boys' out of Washington D.C.," Behrens wrote. "Never did truly figure out what agency they were with, but they called me and said they would be out the next day for me to take them up to look at it. I said 'we got some snow today and probably can't get up there.' They replied, 'we are coming out and we WILL get up there.' Well, they showed up in a 4-wheel Drive Suburban and we made it up. They had a Geiger counter and some other instrument to scan the area with. I never did hear any conclusions from them boys!!! I truly think they were curious that it may have been some 'Star Wars' testing, or similar activity, that may have gone awry. And I commend them for investigating the situation. There are a whole lot of things we do that we, the general public, don't need to be privy to."

Asked to elaborate, Behrens said, "As for my beliefs that our government is doing things way beyond our need to know ..... I sure hope so! I'm for transparency in most things our government does but we/they need to hold some things close to our chest."

The Youtube video of the news report has over 162,000 views.