Name That Trauma :: Reader Bigwig on a Crazy Crater and Cursed Kids

Hi Aunt and Unc….

I was hoping one of you trauma-ites may be able to piece this one together..

This harkens back to the late ‘70s early ‘80s, and reminds me of a NIGHT GALLERY re-run, although I can't put a name on the episode(s), nor can I find it when I search. I think there were multiple short stories told in the same hour or half hour. Of course we may have watched a few shows back to back as kids staying up too late for our own good and there is a chance they are unrelated.

What makes this difficult is the trauma comes from the story I know the least about.

Trauma Story: Creepy Smoke-filled Hole

The show is in color.

There is a hole in the ground, in a field. It's spring or summer, and there's a big tree nearby. The hole is bigger than a grave…maybe about 20 feet in diameter. The hole is filled with a thick smoke/haze, like dry ice, which fills it to grass line. You have no idea how deep it is. It is in the tall grass, and no one knows what's at the bottom of it, although awful sounds can be heard. . I think a kid finds it, and goes back to tell someone.

A man either climbs down and back up, or falls in, and when he gets out he is wide-eyed, babbling, and certifiably insane.

That isn't the end, but it's as far as I got that fateful night….I'd love to know where I can see this through to its conclusion, now that I am all brave, and have the option of a pause button. If it helps, the entire vignette was about this hole, it's not part of a larger story.

If it is helpful, I remember more about the short that preceded this one, although The Hole had me terrified far more, since I didn't stay up to find out what was in it, or perhaps we never found out, making it even worse.

Precluding Story: Doomed Teens

A group of teens are somehow privy to the prognostication of a fortune teller, or gypsy. Maybe they are cursed by her. Her enigmatic foreboding (paraphrased) statement is, "One by land; two by air." Two of the three guys in the group are killed, one in a land related death, the other is involved in some death at the airport. The girlfriend of last remaining kid is frantic as she hears the news, and rushes to her boyfriend's home. Landlady/Mom says she just missed him; he's going……skydiving!

Can anybody help me out?

Reader Bigwig

UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Extra special thanks and a round of high fives are in order for eggplantq who knew that Reader Bigwig was talking about 1973's ENCOUNTER WITH THE UNKNOWN.