Door to Hell: Soviet Flames

In the 1970's the Soviets discovered a natural gas field. They thought that it was the site of an oil field, but they were quickly chased off by poisonous gases. These people though,"Hey, poisonous gas? Let's set it on FIRE! maybe later, it will burn off, and we will be able to continue looking for OIL!!!" The crazy thing is not as much that they did it, but that it is still burning. It has been over 40 years, and that thing is still alight. Some people decided to call it the Door to Hell. More recently, George Kourounis was the first person to set foot at the bottom of the crater, and collected some microorganisms.

Here is what it looked like. Amazing, right?