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Fringey Mini: the gates of Hell are dimming · Journey to the Fringe

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  I feel like for those three weeks I was really
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  missing out on all the articles that I have been
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  collecting, so no choices for you. This one's
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  from the New York Times, which I just quickly
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  did a seven day free trial for so I could read
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  it to you. You're welcome. And it's titled, The
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  Gates to Hell are Dimming. that may not be a
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  good thing you guys also have to realize this
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  is such a huge deal because chelsea will inevitably
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  forget to cancel the seven day free membership
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  and she will be paying for the new york times
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  for a short period almost immediately i'm going
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  to forget well let's read the article It might
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  be the world's most baffling tourist attraction,
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  a roaring pit of fire the size of a soccer field
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  sitting in a barren desert. The Darvaza crater,
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  known as the Gates to Hell, lies deep in territory
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  of the isolated Central Asian nation of Turkmenistan.
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  Very hard to get into, apparently. Yeah, we did
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  an episode on it. It's super hard to get to.
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  Yeah, this is a follow up mini, by the way. The
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  crater has been burning for decades. Over the
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  years, it has become a core draw for adventurous
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  visitors and a puzzle for scientists and researchers.
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  It has even been the backdrop for a self -promotional
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  video by a Turkmen president. I'm surprised they
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  have those by how hard it is to get into Turkmenistan.
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  A Turkmen president? Yeah, exactly. No, like
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  self -promotional video. Like come visit Turkmenistan.
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  We have the gates of hell here. I think they
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  might be advertising to people from Turkmenistan
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  and or they're just trying to mislead people.
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  Maybe. Like it's It might be easy to get to,
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  but it's very hard. No, I mean, like they're
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  just telling people to come visit it and they
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  can never actually get there, but they'll buy
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  stuff while they're there. That does make something
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  a little bit more appealing to go visit, I think.
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  We have the gates of hell. You'll never come
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  see it, but try. You know what? Why didn't they
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  try that? You can't see these. Look at this.
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  They're so beautiful. It's really hard to get
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  to. Yeah, you would never get in. We don't even
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  want you. Turkmenistan, fuck off, the very famous.
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  Tourism catchphrase they came up with that would
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  make me want to visit it more actually I'd be
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  like who's telling me to fuck off you fuck off
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  Turkmenistan I'll come see you if I want to but
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  now the flames of the gates to hell appear to
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  be going out This is real bad for Turkmenistan
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  tourism is gonna be hit so hard by the people
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  who couldn't get there infrared imaging data
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  taken this year shows that the fires within the
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  natural gas crater are on the decline the intensity
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  of heat from the flames has diminished by more
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  than 75 % over the last three years according
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  to an analysis by Cat Studio a company that monitors
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  natural gas flares yeah 75 % three years at a
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  time when so many fires both real and metaphorical
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  have raged worldwide this should have been entirely
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  good news Turkmenistan's government has vowed
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  for years to extinguish the citing environmental
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  damage and harm to people's health. It turns
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  out that the story isn't quite so simple, but
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  first it helps to know more about the crater.
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  That was a really well -written article. There's
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  fires all over the place. It's global warming.
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  Why wouldn't you want to put a fire out? But
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  there's more. It's origin is mysterious. According
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  to local lore, Soviet geologists were drilling
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  for oil in the 1960s or 70s. Very vague. Yes.
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  Yeah, I was just going to say it's not that mysterious.
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  Like there's a natural gas leak and they lit
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  it and it just went longer than they expected.
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  Like we know that. Hold on, maybe it's more experience.
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  Because they didn't actually know how big the
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  reserve was. You're really making it less mysterious,
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  Taylor. Around the 60s or 70s, when they hit
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  a natural gas deposit in the Karakum desert,
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  the ground collapsed, creating an enormous pit.
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  The geologists set a fire in the crevice to curb
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  the emission of toxic fumes. They're making it
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  actually even less mysterious than you had even
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  made it. They figured the fire would burn out
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  in weeks. Instead, more than five decades later
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  a network of tunnels filled with gas continues
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  to fuel the flames quote the history is always
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  sketchy and quote said rich biel a Mongolia based
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  guide for koro tours who says he has visited
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  the site 30 times nobody quite knows what makes
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  rich why so special why has he been there so
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  much i know oh he's a tour guide oh okay i thought
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  if he was somebody who was told you can't go
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  there i know He was really showing them. But
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  the attraction for some is unmistakable. Quote,
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  it's a little like looking at a volcano that's
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  been opened, end quote he said. But it wouldn't
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  be. What? Isn't that what volcanoes are? Rich
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  Beale. But there's no lava in this, right? No,
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  there's just fire. Yeah. You're basically looking
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  at a giant barbecue. Yeah, this is different
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  than a volcano from what I'm putting together,
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  right? I have a feeling that Rich only knows
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  about, he's only ever had time in his life to
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  go to this place and has never had time to look
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  at a volcano. Volcano, yeah. That's what I'm
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  thinking as well. Because people said, hey, go
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  see a volcano. And he's like, nah. Rich Beal.
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  Nah. They said not to go see this. Yeah. He's
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  just trying to go to Turkmenistan as much as
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  he possibly can. He's never been anywhere else.
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  The Darvaza crater is difficult to visit. Foreigners
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  need a visa to enter Turkmenistan, a former Soviet
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  republic, and can only get one with a letter
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  of invitation. The government of Turkmenistan
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  did not respond to requests for comment, but
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  the site of - oh, but that's a different - What
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  - what do they want comment on? The site's going
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  damn? Probably about Rich Beale being there so
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  much. We don't talk about that. No comment on
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  Rich Beale. The site's about a four hour drive
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  from Turkmenistan's capital. This is all very
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  boring. Where is it about that it's going out?
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  The crater was also a backdrop for an unusual
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  piece of political propaganda. Blah, blah, blah.
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  Oh, Turkmenistan says it's tried to control the
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  gases leaking out of the crater in a 2025 publication
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  by the Turkmen Energy. forum an industry group
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  the government attributed a decline in flames
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  to two wells it drilled near the crater in 2024
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  okay they're just talking about how it came to
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  be not why it's going out i mean i thought it
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  was pretty obvious it's running out of natural
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  gas but i don't understand why it's bad yeah
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  it does say in the next paragraph data suggests
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  that the flames may have begun to dim before
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  the wells were drilled so we already knew that
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  so this is basically the end of the article Oh,
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  is it because they're harvesting the natural
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  gas now? It's hard to say. Okay, I feel like
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  that's what they were trying to say. The article
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  hasn't actually ended, but I feel like we...
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  This is a mini. It's best to assume at this point.
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  Yeah, exactly. This is a mini. read the whole
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  thing and know what's going on, that's not our
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  jobs. You guys got 48 hours. I'm not ending it
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  here, I'm just telling them they got 48 hours
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  at this point. Giving them a pre -warning. But
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  now, now I've ruined it so you guys do have 48
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  hours, go read it and tell us why it's bad.