AI Summary
5 min readIn November 1993, a drilling site worker in a remote, cold location found an old technical logbook hidden behind a section of wet drywall in a bunkhouse. The logbook contained a journal written thirty years earlier by a man named Jack Hutchinson, who had been stationed at the same site with a monitoring partner named Vladislav—a retired deep earth isolation miner from Ukraine. What Jack recorded over several months in 1990 and 1991 is a strange, self-contained story of an accidental discovery, a descent into the earth, and a revelation that redefines what it means to go home.
The Discovery of the Hole
Jack and Vlad were tasked with monitoring drilling equipment and releasing pressure from waste storage tanks. Vlad, a small, pale man with enormous hands and feet, was a veteran of an incredibly dangerous profession: deep earth isolation mining, where men worked alone at depths most people couldn't survive. He was loud, crass, and utterly unafraid. But soon after arriving, Vlad began acting strangely. He disappeared for four days without explanation, then returned and started sleepwalking—standing motionless near a pressure tank, muttering something in Ukrainian that Jack transcribed as "Yarrozumio." Vlad later dismissed it, but the behavior escalated. One night, Vlad failed to release pressure from a tank, causing a massive blowout that exposed a fifty-foot-wide crater in t
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What you'll learn
- 1 (01:32) **Setup: A Remote Drilling Site and a Mysterious Logbook** - The narrator describes his isolated job at a cold, remote drilling site and explains he found an old technical logbook hidden in the bunkhouse wall, written by a man named Jack thirty years prior.
- 2 (03:07) **Jack's Log Begins: Introducing Vlad, the DEI Miner** - Jack's first entry introduces his monitoring partner, Vladislav, a retired "deep earth isolation miner" who is small, pale, and has enormous hands and feet, hinting at his unusual nature.
- 3 (05:53) **Vlad Disappears and Returns with Strange Behavior** - Vlad vanishes for two days during a storm, then walks back without explanation, subsequently acting "weird," including sleepwalking and staring at the ground near a pressure tank.
- 4 (09:26) **The Tank Explosion and the Revealed Crater** - A pressure tank blows out due to Vlad's neglect, creating a massive crater and exposing a large area of earth, but Vlad remains unconcerned about the damage.
- 5 (11:05) **The Discovery of the Iron Lid** - Vlad sleepwalks to the crater, digs, and uncovers a square, hand-hammered iron manhole cover with crude markings, including a star, pickaxe, diamond, and a St. Andrew's cross with a human figure.
- 6 (15:03) **Opening the Lid and the Descent** - The next day, Vlad and Jack use heavy tools to pry open the 300-pound lid, revealing a deep, narrow hole with a perfectly hand-chiseled stone ladder.
- 7 (18:48) **First Descent: The Pictographs and Living Quarters** - Vlad and Jack descend 150 feet and find a living chamber with crude wooden frames, clay cups, and walls covered in unidentifiable pictographs and text.
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Show Notes
How far would you be prepared to descend into the unknown?
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