The Depths

In 1976 a new roll coaster was unveiled in Kings Island amusement park in Mason, Ohio. The roller coaster was called ‘The Depths’ and was at the time the longest roller coaster ever built; and it was only to be operated during October to celebrate Halloween. Having an ‘annual’ coaster was the park’s latest idea of a holiday gimmick to keep attendance up during the chilly autumn season.

Their big promotion and tagline for the coaster was: ‘While in the Depths no can hear you scream’.

What made this coaster stand out more than the others, wasn’t just it’s incredible track length, it was the ingenious aesthetics that brought on sheer fright during the ride. Built in a relatively wooded section of the park’s property allowed the thick tree branches to create the illusion of an out of control car careening into nothingness, while being isolated from the other rides about the feeling loneliness.

The roller coaster was wooden with a 180 foot drop that dove down at an 80 degree angle, and to add to the excitement the track at the base of the drop actually descended into a tunnel built in the ground hidden beneath the rest of the tracks. In the tunnel lights would flash on and off, illuminating horrific murals and threats painted on the dark concrete walls of the tunnel. After exiting the tunnel the coaster raced along on the ground, just inches above the forest floor as a speaker blasted the sounds of painful wails of people being tortured or frightened to near insanity. The tree branches were littered with hanged bodies dripping with blood, the bodies just out of reach of the coaster’s cars.

The next hill took the riders 90 feet into the air and crawled at 20mph along a flat stretch of track for another 100 feet, Along this stretch mutilated corpses of people from all ages, races and bother genders were on display. No two corpses depicted in the same manner of death or dying as another.

The corpses were hanged, beheaded, drowned, dismembered, decapitated, bludgeoned, shot, stabbed, crushed, burned, rotting from illness and other various forms of tragic death.

After passing through the gauntlet of death the coast dips down the hill and hits three tight turns before entering a second tunnel, also underground. The tunnel also depicts murals of violence and vulgarity, but like the gauntlet bodies line the walls. But these bodies aren’t dead, they’re being tortured!

Just as no two forms of death were repeated, no two forms of torture were doubled. The bodies on display were covered in spiders, snakes, bees and other horrific creatures; while other bodies were lit on fire, trapped in a small box, submerged in a tank of water, bound in chains, needles and dirty syringes stuck into their flesh, covered in blood and one with a gun in his mouth.

The coaster continues it’s remaining 200 foot journey is completed with tight turns, bunny hill drops and rises all the while loud painful wailing continues to haunt the darkened forest and track.

The car pulls back into the station and the guests were escorted from the loading platform back to the main park. Many of the park employees noted that guests were physically ill after the ride and would get sick or even pass out. When asked about the ride most of the passengers didn’t want to speak, they wanted to leave the park immediately. Those who did talk about their experiences mentioned feeling incredibly depressed and angry, never wanting to ride the coaster again.

Two weeks after being opened the coaster was shut down for three days after a passenger managed to wriggle out his safety harness and jump from the still moving car after the second tunnel.

The coaster was only reopened for another week before it shut down permanently and sealed off from the public and park employees. One of the former park guests had returned home and taken her own life. She left a note claiming that she couldn’t sleep anymore, that her nightmares were so intense and haunting that suicide was apparently her only way out.

When the park closed for the winter the roller coaster was quickly dismantled, all advertisements and souvenirs relating to the roller coaster were destroyed and never to be mentioned again by employees or officials. The park was also legally forced to pay an undisclosed amount to other former guests who were suffering from mental angst.

Old news footage of the roller coaster and a few photographs still survive to this day. Several of the guests seen in the photos look genuinely upset and traumatized. Even to this day those who survived ‘The Depths’ and those who were at the park during the coaster’s brief life still don’t like to speak about their experiences.