As we wait for the next development in the Church of Scientology's lawsuit against its former employee, Debbie Cook, we continue to think about something the church told ABC for its recent Nightline story on the case...

"In a letter to ABC News, a lawyer for the Church of Scientology flat out denies that the 'hole' exists, or that there was ever a place known as the hole'."

When this line was uttered during the Nightline program, an image of a letter was shown which indicated that it had come from church attorney Gary Soter.

Soter's second claim is some kind of semantic gamesmanship: at least half a dozen former Scientologists have come forward to speak publicly about -- or, in Debbie Cook's case, testify under oath to -- the existence of "the Hole," a frightening office-prison where 60 to 100 out-of-favor church executives were held day and night under guard, from at least 2004 to 2010.

Soter's first claim is more interesting. If "the Hole" no longer exists, we've been wondering where else such a large number of prisoners could be held at "Int Base," Scientology's 700-acre compound near Hemet, about 90 miles east of Los Angeles.

A few days ago, I heard from Gary Morehead -- his fellow former Scientologists tend to call him "Jackson," his codename when he was security chief at Int Base until 1997. Although it's been 15 years since he worked there, things change slowly at the base, and he's still very familiar with its grounds. So something new suddenly showing up there recently, he said, had him very curious.

He was talking about a visit made a couple of weeks ago by Jim Logan and Sinar Parman, two former base workers who returned to it for an emotional paying of respects to Ann Tidman.

[...much more in article link...]