Nope, sorry.
It's a pingo that had its ice plug popped out by gas pushing up from below.
I know, I know, I also wish it were Cthulhu, but pingos are pretty cool too...
They're a feature in the tundra, where ice builds up under the layer of earth on top of permafrost and forms a thing that is, essentially, a big ice-pimple. When the permafrost is covering the world's largest natural gas field, I guess they also occasionally pop like pimples too.
But what both of these do look like is the work of a pingo - a natural geological process that experts have theorized formed the first hole after the initial on-site investigation. According to the British Society for Geomorphology, pingos occur when elevated temperatures cause rising ground water to build and push a mass of ice towards the surface. Once the ice pops like a cork from a Champaign bottle, it melts away, leaving a very deep hole and ice water.
Still, that doesn't mean that experts should simply ignore the accounts of excited locals, no matter how fantastical they may seem. A bright flash? An explosion? It's possible considering the second hole discovered is relatively close to a huge natural gas extraction plant.
Pingos
~
Or how about this cheery thought:
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[1] And the fifth angel sounded the trumpet, and I saw a star fall from heaven upon the earth, and there was given to him the key of the bottomless pit. [2] And he opened the bottomless pit: and the smoke of the pit arose, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened with the smoke of the pit. [3] And from the smoke of the pit there came out locusts upon the earth. And power was given to them, as the scorpions of the earth have power: [4] And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, nor any green thing, nor any tree: but only the men who have not the sign of God on their foreheads. [5] And it was given unto them that they should not kill them; but that they should torment them five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion when he striketh a man.
I just can't really picture Stan being imprisoned under Siberia, for some reason, but what the hell... maybe...
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