According to legend, in 1989 a team of Russian scientists who were operating under the direction of Dr. Azzacove drilled a hole that was nine miles deep in an unnamed place in Siberia before breaking through into a cavity. Intrigued by this unexpected discovery, they lowered an extremely heat tolerant microphone, along with other sensory equipment, into the well. They listened and recorded (purportedly) the tormented screams of desperate people. The second surprise was the high temperature that they discovered at the earth's center, which was over 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The conclusion was that they had opened a hole into Hell.

The story was first published in 1990 by the Finnish newspaper Ammennusatia, a journal published by a group of Christians from Leväsjoki, a town in Western Finland.

United States tabloids soon ran the story, and sound files—recordings of those alleged supplications from the damned—began appearing on various sites across the Internet. Immediately, the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TNB) discussed the sound clip on its evangelical channels, proclaiming that the clip was the ultimate proof of the existence of Hell.

Age Rendalen, a Norwegian teacher, heard the story on TBN while visiting the United States. Disgusted with what he perceived to be mass gullibility, Rendalen decided to augment the tale at TBN's expense. Rendalen wrote to the network, originally claiming that he disbelieved the tale but, upon his return to Norway, supposedly read a "factual account" of the story. According to Rendalen, the "story" claimed not only that the cursed well was real, but that a bat-like apparition (a common pictorial representation of demons, such as in Michelangelo's The Torment of Saint Anthony) had risen out of it before blazing a trail across the Russian sky. To perpetuate his hoax, Rendalen deliberately mistranslated a trivial Norwegian article about a local building inspector and submitted both the original Norwegian article and the English "translation" to TBN. Rendalen also included his real name, phone number, and address, as well as those of a pastor friend who knew about the hoax and had agreed to expose it to anyone who called seeking verification.

Unfortunately, the Trinity Broadcasting Network ran the story without contacting Renalden or the Californian pastor, and the false story of "Well to Hell hoax" appeared on television, radio, and in a large number of publications.

The real story is that the Soviet Union had, in fact, drilled a hole nearly eight miles deep, the Kola Superdeep Borehole, located not in Siberia but on the Kola Peninsula, which shares borders with Norway and Finland. Upon completing the borehole in 1989, some interesting geological anomalies were found, although they reported no supernatural encounters. Temperatures reached 180 °C (360 °F), making deeper drilling prohibitively expensive. The recording, however, was later revealed to have been a cleverly remixed portion of the soundtrack of the 1972 movie Baron Blood, with various effects added.

The best part is that you can actually get your copy of Hell Sounds today for just $12.99!