Warning: This article contains discussion of suicide which some readers may find distressing.
Terrifying footage of a 400 ft deep ‘glory hole’ that people have been ‘sucked into’ has been doing the rounds online and it is ‘plaguing nightmares’.
One TikToker shared clips of the man-made sinkhole and has left a lot of viewers feeling uneasy.
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Located in Napa County, California, the Monticello Dam is the seventh largest man-made lake in the state and was constructed between 1953 and 1957.
Known online as WhyJordie, the content creator posted a video recently which details how the sinkhole is used to prevent flooding and an overflowing of the lake.
However, getting too close to the hole can prove to be deadly.
In the clip, she explains: “I’m gonna have nightmares about it, people have gotten sucked in by the way and they have unfortunately lost their lives.
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“This is just terrifying.”
The video prompted a lot of people to take to the TikTok comment section to share their reactions to the hole, with one user writing: “I'm glad that it can control flooding, but at the same time why would they put it so close to the road?”
Another said: “I’m like terrified of sinkholes AND have submechanophobia so this is too much.”
And another joked: “It's called the glory hole lol.”
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Even though it’s a pretty scary view, and the thought of being sucked into a water vortex as a possibility if you get too close, viewers were still stunned by its ‘hypnotic’ views.
A comment on a clip of the hole on YouTube read: “As a person who is scared of water and height, I find this so terrifying.”
Another said: “This is so f***ing hypnotic.”
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And a third person added: “This is the best video of the Glory Hole that I have seen. Awesome.”
Emily Schwalen is the only known person to have died from the spillway drain after being caught in the current and was tragically swept down the pipe in 1997.
Reports at the time vary, and it is unclear if the incident was an accident or a suicide.
One account in SFGate reports Emily managed to desperately hold onto the rim for about 20 minutes before eventually falling to her death.
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For obvious reasons, swimming near the glory hole has since been prohibited, and recreational use of the lake has been declining since 2008.
At its peak popularity, 1.3 million visitors used to visit the lake each year but now it’s around 400,000.