- Things can get weird out in the wilderness.
From the depths of the oceans up to the moon, we have seen more of planet Earth than ever in human history. Yet, we ultimately understand very little of what we’ve encountered.
Many natural phenomena still remain mysterious and unexplainable. We’ve taken a look at the collection of some creepy occurrences before, but that was by no means an exhaustive list.
So, we figured we’d revisit this subject. This time, however, we’re focusing on just plain odd things that no one can fully explain — although some of them certainly are unsettling.
Here are another 7 odd and unexplained phenomena from nature.
1. Fairy Rings
In our last list, we mentioned the fairy circles of Namibia and Australia. However, there’s another kind of circular formation associated with fairies that appears in Europe.
Fairy rings are strange formations where a bunch of mushrooms grow in a more or less perfect circle. They’re so unusual that in virtually every place where they appear, people tell strange stories of the supernatural taking place within their fungal confines.
To this day, we do not fully understand how mushrooms form a fairy circle. Sure enough, there are fungal mycelia (i.e., the mushroom “roots”) forming the circle, but no one can explain why they happen to grow that way.
Maybe it’s fairies.
2. Singing Dunes
From the Sahara to the Californian coast and arid western China, people visiting or living in deserts have heard a strange hum emanating from the dunes surrounding them. The sound resembles that of an enormous swarm of bees or perhaps a pipe organ.
Known as singing dunes or singing sand, the noise can be surprisingly musical. However, the oddly intentional sound sure doesn’t make the singing any less unsettling.
Considering that the sound seems to appear when the wind picks up, it’s pretty obviously somehow the result of sand getting blown around. How exactly it happens and why it sounds so musical is anyone’s guess, though.
3. Catatumbo Lightning
The Catatumbo River runs into Lake Maracaibo in northern Venezuela, with the two bodies of water forming a swampy area where they meet. Above this marsh rages a seemingly never-ending thunderstorm.
For nine hours almost every night, intense lightning activity takes place over the swamp. Lightning flashes can occur up to 40 times per minute.
It’s suspected that humidity, winds, and atmospheric pressure — combined with methane emissions from the swamp — form the perfect storm (pun intended). Humidity certainly plays a role, as the lightning died down for three months in 2010 during a drought.
Yet, ultimately, a conclusive explanation for the eternal thunderstorm continues to evade scientists.
4. Patomskiy Crater
Deep within the forests of southeastern Siberia sits the Patomskiy Crater. This strange rock formation rises to 130 feet and is about 160 feet in diameter.
And nobody knows how it came to be.
The thing certainly looks and is called a crater, but there’s no indication that it actually is one. It was generally believed to be a meteorite crater, but no one’s ever found any of a meteorite impact at the crater.
It could also be the result of a volcanic or gas eruption but — once again — there’s no obvious sign of such activity in the area. To make things even weirder, the Patomskiy Crater is only an estimated 300 years old.
5. Earthquake Lights
Earthquakes are horrible enough as is, but earthquake lights make them even more terrifying. Earthquake lights are unexplainable light phenomena in the sky that may appear before, during, or after a quake strikes.
People have reported seeing these lights for hundreds if not thousands of years, with the first confirmed reference coming from Japan in 869. Still, there’s no explanation for why or how the lights occur.
Some researchers suggest ionized oxygen released from the moving earth causes the lights, while others believe they’re the result of static electricity. Even others believe the lights don’t exist at all and people simply imagine them.
6. Ball Lightning
Everybody knows what ball lightning is. It’s a spherical, strangely moving ball of light that sometimes appears during thunderstorms and can behave in erratic and unexpected ways.
However, it remains unknown how ball lightning forms — or if it even exists in the first place. The phenomenon is so rare and brief that there are scant few reliable accounts about them, never mind scientific evidence.
Over the centuries, scientists have theorized that ball lightning could be anything from vaporized silicon to floating plasma or tiny atoms forming essentially a natural battery. And then there’s the hypothesis that there is no ball lightning and all accounts are simply a case of hallucinations or psychosis.
It says something about how elusive ball lightning is when one explanation for them is that you’re crazy if you see one.
7. Skyquakes
We all know the earth can quake, but did you know the sky can do it too? That said, when a skyquake happens, there’s a lot less shaking and much more unexplainable, ominous noise.
A skyquake manifests as loud, booming noises that seemingly come from the sky itself. Those who have heard them have described them as sounding like cannon shots, blaring trumpets, or grinding metal.
We have reports of skyquakes stretching back centuries, so we can be pretty sure that they do not originate from modern machinery or technology. Other theories include meteorite or gas explosions, distant earthquakes or avalanches, or resonance from solar flares impacting Earth’s magnetic field.