We don’t even need to go searching for signs of aliens to find incredibly bizarre and unexplainable objects and events in outer space, from a ‘black widow’ pulsar that’s devouring its own mate to a lonely rogue planet doomed to wander alone for all eternity. Now that we’ve witnessed 2017’s much-hyped total solar eclipse, which crossed the entire United States for the first time since 1918, let’s take a look at some other amazing astronomic phenomena that remain mysterious to science.

The Black Widow Pulsar

Officially known as Pulsar J1311-3430, this pulsar weighs as much as two suns, yet it’s only about the size of Washington D.C. It’s getting heavier because it’s feeding on its ‘mate,’ a normal star, stripping layers away from it with its powerful beam. Eventually, it will devour it. (Image via NASA)

The Boötes Void

Discovered in 1981 by astronomer Robert Kirshner and his team, the Boötes Void is a massive expanse of empty space about 700 million light years from Earth. The largest known void in the Universe, it measures an incredible 250 million light years in diameter and contains just 60 galaxies, which is incredibly sparse for its size. It should contain bout 10,000. Astronomers aren’t sure why the void exists, though some theorize that supervoids are caused by the intermingling of smaller voids. (image via Wikipedia)

Gamma Ray Bursts

The most powerful explosions in the universe, gamma ray busts are usually associated with the collapse of a massive star an the birth of a black hole (how metal.) These bursts of high-energy light typically last a minute or less, and occur every couple days. (Image via NASA)

Lonely Rogue Planet

This wandering planet known as CFBDSIR2149 separated from its parent star and wanders around the universe alone. Astronomers believe that it’s just one of billions of such ‘castaway planets,’ which are ostracized from their solar systems during their formative years when other plants’ orbits are establishing themselves (image via European Southern Observatory)

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Eclipsing Belief 8 Rare And Amazing Astronomic Objects Events

A stone monument with instructions for apocalypse survivors, lurking ominously in a field in rural Georgia.  A castle comprised of stones that each weigh several tons, built with stunning precision by a single man – using no heavy equipment. These and five more strange and dazzling attractions are scattered throughout America, inspiring conspiracy theories, head-scratching and a whole lot of open-mouthed awe. From unexplained archaeological sites to bizarre modern creations, all of these mysterious man-made wonders of America are awesomely weird.

The Georgia Guidestones, Georgia

(images via: stephanie alice rogers)

Deep in the rural countryside of northeast Georgia is a mysterious stone monument intended for survivors of an apocalypse. Designed and commissioned in the late 1970s and early ’80s by an organization that never identified itself, the Georgia Guidestones warn those who would attempt to rebuild civilization to do so with care – in eight languages, including Babylonian Phoenician, Ancient Greek and Egyptian hieroglyphics.

“Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature. Guide reproduction wisely – improving fitness and diversity. Rule passion – faith – tradition – and all things with tempered reason. Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts. Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court. Avoid petty laws and useless officials. Balance personal rights with social duties. Prize truth – beauty – love – seeking harmony with the infinite. Be not a cancer on the earth – leave room for nature – leave room for nature.”

Why did they choose the unremarkable location of Elberton, Georgia? Why is the monument designed to track astronomical events like solstices? What is in the time capsule buried deep beneath the soil on the site? We may never know. The vaguely eugenic language of the monument and the strange circumstances of its creation have given rise to conspiracy theories involving everything from the New World Order to secret Satanic societies, with some speculating that a powerful international organization plans to decimate world population levels. The monument has been repeatedly vandalized, mostly with Christian-themed graffiti. The markings seen on these photos, taken in 2009, have since been removed. Get the whole story about the Guidestones at Wired.

Coral Castle, Florida

(images via: wikimedia commons)

How is it possible that one man managed to move all of these massive hunks of sedimentary rock into a sprawling stone structure, all by himself? Latvian ‘eccentric’ Edward Leedskalnin spent over 28 years building the Coral Castle in Homestead, Florida, after he was jilted by his 16-year-old fiance. Leedskalnin originally built the castle in Florida City, which is the southernmost city in Florida that’s not on an island, but actually moved the whole thing 10 miles up the coast in 1936 to preserve his privacy. He worked on it until his death in 1951, and it’s now a public attraction.

Leedskalnin, who claimed that magnets helped to cure him of terminal tuberculosis, shifted each of the several-ton megalithic stones into place, carving some into shapes like moons and planets. Altogether, the castle consists of 1,000 tons of stone including walls, sculptures, furniture and a tower. The stones fit together with no mortar, using just their own weight to keep them together, and the craftsmanship is so precise that no light passes through the joints.  The entire collection of Leedskalnin’s creations survived a direct hit from Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

So how did he do it? A few local teenagers claimed that they watched him move the stones as if they were as light as helium balloons. Leedskalnin refused to reveal his methods, saying only that it was easy once you know how. He hinted that his methods were supernatural, stating that he had discovered “the secrets of the pyramids.” Experts believe that he used traditional methods like block and tackle, a system of pulleys.

The House on the Rock, Wisconsin

(images via: alistair, chrisL_AK 1 + 2)

This might just be America’s most bizarre attraction. Absolutely jam-packed with crazy, The House on the Rock is a massive complex with dozens of themed rooms full of creepy dolls, statues, automated musical instruments, Christmas themed decor, and dusty, dilapidated knick-knacks of all kinds. Located north of Dodgeville, Wisconsin, the house and gardens were designed by Alex Jordan, Jr. beginning in 1923. As the story goes, Jordan drew out the plans for the first building, Villa Maria, and excitedly showed them to famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who replied “I wouldn’t hire you to design a cheese crate or a chicken coop.”

There’s doubt as to whether this story is true for various reasons, but it’s fun to imagine that Jordan took that as a challenge, producing a crazed complex combining beautiful gardens and interesting architecture with incredibly surreal interiors. The house sits on Deer Shelter Rock, a natural column that’s 60 feet tall, and features a cantilevered ‘Infinity Room’ with a glass cut-out in the floor, jutting out 218 feet into a ravine.

The House on the Rock is also home to the world’s largest indoor carousel, a 200-foot model of a fanciful sea creature, a huge collection of Santa Clause figures and many, many more exhibits. New attractions are still being added today.

The Underwater Pyramids of Wisconsin

(images via: vinzcha)

Conspiracy theorists will tell you that the lost pyramids of Rock Lake, Wisconsin are evidence of paranormal or extraterrestrial activity – some even calling it ‘Atlantis in Wisconsin’. Archaeologists will tell you that they’re the remains of Native American architecture that have since become submerged. Whether you’re in the former camp or the latter, these underwater structures are intriguing.

At least three pyramid-shaped structures are known to be on the bottom of Rock Lake, though nobody seems to have captured them clearly on camera, perhaps due to the murkiness of the water. It seems that the mounds may have been built by the Azatlan natives at a time when the water levels were lower, as there are similar mounds on dry land in nearby Azatlan State Park. Sonar scans in the 1980s allegedly showed a number of unusually shaped structures, and the water was clear and low enough in the 1990s to confirm that they were man-made.

America’s Stonehenge, New Hampshire

(images via: nikisublime)

‘Stonehenge’ is a bit of a misnomer for this site in New Hampshire, as it doesn’t consist of monoliths like the famous monument in England, but rather stacked stones. And it may not be quite as mysterious as its namesake, but it’s still pretty interesting. Nobody knows quite how this archaeological site might have been created, or when, or by whom. Theories range from the practical to the bizarre, from experimental land-use practices of farmers in the 18th and 19th centuries to ideas about pre-Columbian origins. Some of the rocks are arranged to match up with astronomical events like solstices.

Also known as ‘Mystery Hill’, America’s Stonehenge is currently open to the public as a free tourist attraction. The first notice of it appeared in a print of the 1907 History of Salem, New Hampshire, which referred to it as “Jonathan Pattee’s Cave. He had a house in these woods 70 years ago; took town paupers before the town farm was bought. This is a wild but beautiful spot, among rough boulders and soft pines, about which the most weird and fantastic tale might be woven. There are several caves still intact, which the owner used for storage purposes.”

William Goodwin, who purchased the property in 1937, was convinced that there was a much stranger explanation for the stones. He believed they were proof that Irish monks lived there long before Christopher Columbus arrived in what would become America. Others see similarities to Phoenician architecture. Carbon dating has been unable to distinguish between possible Native American activity in the area, and the activities of the farmers.

H.P. Lovecraft visited ‘Mystery Hill’ in the 1920s or ’30s, and used it as inspiration for his story “The Dunwich Horror.”

Art at the Denver International Airport, Colorado

(images via: enkrates, vasenka, denver international airport)

Nearly every airport has murals, statues and plaques, but most of us are too harried to take a good look. The next time you pass through Denver International Airport in Colorado, you’re going to want to lean in and examine some of the things that are painted on the walls. They’re downright bizarre – and some might even say they’re frightening.

Why, for example, does one of the murals depict a gas-mask-wearing, gun-wielding Nazi soldier looming against a destroyed landscape, surrounded by grieving women holding apparently dead children? The soldier’s sword is even piercing a dove, the symbol of peace. In the midst of a utopian-looking scene with people from various nations are the ends of swords and other weapons partially covered in flags. Another mural shows dead kids in coffins. It’s not hard to see why some people find them disturbing enough to weave fantastical explanations involving the Illuminati and an intentional reduction in world population levels.

And it’s impossible to miss another strange piece of art at this airport: the giant blue horse statue that rears up on its hind legs on the roadway approach to the terminal. Dubbed ‘Blue Mustang’, the sculpture inspired reactions of shock and horror when it was unveiled in 2008. The 32-foot-tall horse has demonic-looking red eyes and creepy black veins all over its body. This statue actually killed its creator, Luis Jiminez, when a portion came loose and hit him while he was working on it.

Furthermore, the runways are shaped like a swastika, and a Masonic capstone mentions the ‘New World Airport Commission’, an organization that doesn’t seem to exist. It’s certainly enough to make one wonder just what the designers of the airport and its decorations were thinking.

The World’s Tallest Treehouse, Tennessee

(images via: stephanie alice rogers)

Said to be the world’s tallest treehouse at 97 feet in height, Minister Horace Burgess’ sprawling creation in Crossville, Tennessee is quite a sight to behold. Scraps of wood are nailed on with seemingly no rhyme or reason, overlapping in chaotic explosions of lumber.  From the ground you can glimpse the pinnacle, topped with a spiky parapet, above the very highest branches of the oaks that are nearly swallowed by the structure. A 12-foot-diameter, 80-foot-oak serves as the main support, with six additional trees included as well.

The treehouse was made almost entirely from salvaged scrap materials by Burgess himself – acting, he says, on the will of god. “I built it for everybody,” he told USA Today. “I was praying one day, and the Lord said, ‘If you build me a treehouse,  I’ll see that you never run out of material.'”

Clearly, running out of material has never been a problem. Burgess is in his 19th year of working on the treehouse, and continues to nail wood onto it today. The treehouse has ten floors and features a sanctuary with pews, an altar and a podium. The sanctuary is also used as a basketball court. Stained glass windows, paintings and various odd art installations litter the maze-like interior along with graffiti, dirty mattresses and other signs of habitation. Burgess sometimes allows homeless people to take shelter inside.

Burgess estimates that he has used 258,000 nails on the project, and spent about $12,000. He keeps it open to the public for free, and it gets about 400-500 visitors each week.

Math isn’t just mysterious because the majority of us find it so difficult to understand – it’s also the basis of the universe, giving us clues to physical phenomena like the motion of gases in the atmosphere and the way that physical particles interact with each other amid all the possible variables in three-dimensional space. In math, some of the world’s brightest minds have found bizarre and amazing patterns (and have even turned them into crop circles). Then there are the problems that mathematicians can lose themselves in for years – problems with answers that are so complex, they reach numbers with billions of digits. Solutions to 7 such problems come with a $1 million prize, though it takes years for a judging panel of mathematicians to even determine whether a proposed answer is correct. Care to try your hand?

The Ulam Spiral

Sketching in your notebook when you’re bored in class or at a meeting isn’t always a bad thing – it might just help you discover one of math’s greatest mysteries. That’s exactly what happened when mathematician Stanislaw Ulam doodled on scratch paper during a scientific meeting, writing down rectangular numbers in a spiral with the number 1 at the center. Circling all the prime numbers – numbers that are only divisible by 1 and themselves – Ulam was surprised to note that they formed diagonal lines. Seemingly simple, yet still unexplained, the Ulam spiral is sometimes seen as an example of inherent order in the universe.

The Twin Prime Conjecture

“There are infinitely many primes p such that p + 2 is also prime.” This is the gist of the Twin Prime Conjecture, an open number theory that has never been adequately solved. Twin primes are two prime numbers that differ from each other by only two numbers – 5 and 7, 11 and 13, 29 and 31 and so on. Could you just keep on identifying those twin primes forever and ever? It’s hard to say – both numbers in the largest known twin prime possess an astounding 100,355 decimal digits.

The Collatz Problem

Also known as the 3n + 1 problem, the Collatz Conjecture was posed by L. Collatz in 1937. If you’re not a mathematician and don’t quite get the explanations offered by math sites like Math World, Wikipedia’s version may be simplest: Take any non-negative integer n and if it is even, divide it by 2 to get n/2. If n is odd, multiply it by 3 and add 1 to get 3n + 1. The conjecture is that no matter what numbers you choose, you’ll eventually be left with just 1, no matter how many times you have to repeat the process to get there. A visual demonstration of this problem showing the path for all numbers up to 865 shows an interestingly artistic binary tree.

The Goldbach Conjecture

(image via: wolfram demonstrations)

Goldbach’s Conjecture is easy enough to follow: every even number greater than 2 is the sum of two primes – for example, 6 = 3 + 3, 8 = 3 + 5, and so on. But do you have the patience and the understanding of mind bogglingly large numbers to prove that it’s true? A $1 million prize was offered to anyone who could between 2000 and 2002, and it went unclaimed – and still hasn’t been solved.

Geospatial Profiling

(image via: london horror tours)

Can math help catch serial killers? Criminal justice professor Kim Rossmo says that a mathematical algorithm that he developed can detect patterns in locations where attacks take place and use that pattern to find the killer’s residence. Called ‘geospatial profiling’, this method has even been employed by the military to find insurgency bases. It’s not exactly unexplained, but still a pretty amazing real-world application of patterns in math. Rossmo has even applied it to the unsolved Jack the Ripper case in London, though the results were impossible to verify.

The Riemann Hypothesis

Some experts say the Riemann Hypothesis is the most important unsolved problem in pure mathematics. The problem deals with the distribution of zeroes in relation to Bernhard Riemann’s ‘Riemann zeta-function’, an analytic number theory that can produce a never-ending sequence of numbers. This formula is so complex that many people (including this typically right-brained writer) fail to grasp it – suffice to say that the world’s brightest mathematicians have been unable to solve it, and that might have something to do with the fact that  computer-based calculations have counted at least 100 billion zeroes.

Kepler’s Conjecture

(image via: the paper boy)

What arrangement would produce the densest packing of three-dimensional balls of the same size? This question originated with Sir Walter Raleigh as he mused about the number of cannonballs in a stack, and has led to a problem that still confounds mathematicians. Johannes Kepler, a colleague of Sir Walter’s assistant Thomas Harriot, concluded that the best arrangement is that used by fruit sellers and known as ‘face centered cubic packing’, in which each sphere in the top layer rests within the ‘holes’ of the layer below.  No one has been able to improve upon that arrangement or prove that it’s true, but a solution could help physicists understand the structure of crystals.

P Versus NP Problem

Want $1 million in cold hard cash? All you have to do is beat all the mathematicians in the world to solving the P vs. NP Problem. The Clay Mathematics Institute, which is offering the prize, describes it thusly: “Suppose that you are organizing housing accommodations for a group of four hundred university students. Space is limited and only one hundred of the students will receive places in the dormitory. To complicate matters, the Dean has provided you with a list of pairs of incompatible students, and requested that no pair from this list appear in your final choice.” Sound sort of like an SAT question, right? But what you don’t get from reading that paragraph is that the total number of ways in which you could pair up 100 students from that 400 exceeds the number of atoms in the known universe. It would take one hell of a genius computer programmer to solve it.

The Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer Conjecture

(image via: wikipedia)

We’ll have to take the Clay Mathematics Institute’s word for the amazingness of the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer Conjecture, a numerical investigation of elliptic curves which “asserts that the size of the group of rational (abelian) points is related to the behavior of an associated zeta function near the point s=1”. You have to have a background in complex mathematics to even begin understanding let alone explaining this problem in a way that makes any sense at all – good luck with that.

Yang-Mills Existence and Mass Gap

(image via: wikipedia)

The P Versus NP Problem isn’t the only unsolved mathematical problem currently drawing in lots of curious minds with a $1 million carrot. The Clay Mathematics Institute is also hoping that sum will lead to a solution to the Yang-Mills Existence and Mass Gap (and 6 other math problems as well). You’d have to prove that the quantum field theory underlying the Standard Model of particle physics (otherwise known as the Yang-Mills theory) is true, which is no easy task: it has to do with proving the existence of four-dimensional spacetime with solutions to the Yang-Mills equations as well as explaining a convoluted “mass gap”, which is the difference in energy between the vacuum and the next lowest energy state – are you lost yet?

Navier-Stokes Existence and Smoothness Problem

(image via: climate audit)

How do you accurately describe the motion of a Newtonian fluid in space while taking into account variables like kinetic energy? Using a mathematical equation to discover solutions to this question may seem like an abstract concept, but a smooth solution in three-dimensional space and time would actually help solve real-world questions about the phenomenon of turbulence and could even help with global climate models in climate change research. If you want to claim yet another $1 million Millenium Prize from the Clay Mathematics Institute, you’ll need to either prove or disprove this statement: “In three space dimensions and time, given an initial velocity field, there exists a vector velocity and a scalar pressure field, which are both smooth and globally defined, that solve the Navier–Stokes equations.” This problem is among the world’s least understood at a theoretical level, though it has been suggested that climate scientists are better suited to solving it than mathematicians, perhaps due to their more visually-oriented viewpoint.

Euler’s Identity Crop Circle

(image via: the independent)

The ‘Euler’s Identity’ math problem may not be unsolved or particularly mysterious to mathematicians, but combine it with a crop circle, and you’re sure to puzzle the heck out of the general public. In May 2010, a bizarre 300-foot pattern of circles and lines appeared in a farmer’s field in the English countryside, and was later determined to be Euler’s Identity. The creators of this crop circle made a possibly intentional mistake, however: mathematician Dr. John Talbot at University College London notes “One of the discrepancies is that one part of the formula translates as ‘hi’ rather than ‘i,’ which could be somebody’s idea of a joke.”

A lot of things can happen at sea – pirates, mutiny, murder and bad weather not to mention (if you’re so inclined) alien abductions, clashes with sea monsters and the mysterious workings of the Bermuda Triangle.  So perhaps it’s no wonder so many ships have turned up without their crew or passengers – but where’s the evidence of a struggle? From an unmanned ghost ship that’s been repeatedly spotted (and boarded) off the Alaskan coast to an apparent British crew kidnapping by a German submarine during World War I, these 10 abandoned vessels all share one thing: strange and seemingly unexplainable secrets.

Mary Celeste

(image via: wikimedia commons)

When it comes to describing the discovery of the apparently abandoned Mary Celeste in 1872, words like “spooky” and “unsettling” simply don’t cut it. This brigantine merchant ship was found in the Atlantic Ocean with its cargo and valuables completely untouched, packed with six months’ worth of food and water but not hide nor hair of a single passenger or crew member. Though its contents were wet and it was a bit worse for the wear, the ship was still seaworthy after being out for just a month. The fact that all reasonable explanations – from storms to piracy – seem to have been ruled out has spurred more outrageous theories of alien abduction or sea monster attacks. Today, the fate of the Mary Celeste remains one of history’s most famous and puzzling maritime mysteries – but this is far from the only story of its kind.

Carroll A. Deering

(image via: wikimedia commons)

Was it mutiny, piracy, Communists or a bizarre supernatural experience in the Bermuda Triangle that robbed the Carroll A. Deering of her crew? This five-masted commercial schooner was on its way back from delivering a load of coal from Virginia to Rio, and during a supply stop in Barbados, the first mate was arrested for making threats against the supposedly interfering and not-so-sharp-eyed captain but was released on bail and forgiven before the ship moved on toward its destination of Norfolk, Virginia.

The ship was spotted when it hailed the Cape Lookout Lightship in North Carolina and a man with a foreign accent onboard told the lightship’s keeper that the vessel had lost its anchors. But the next time it was seen was when it ran aground in Cape Hatteras, North Carolina – the crew, their belongings, and the lifeboats all missing. The crew was never located, and the U.S. government has never come up with an official explanation, though they did consider foul play by rum runners or Communist pirates set on capturing American ships. Today, conspiracy theorists often use the Deering as an example of the mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle, despite the fact the ship was far away it by the time the crew disappeared.

Bel Amica

(image via: haunted america tours)

When a “classic style” schooner unlike any seen in Italy before was found off the coast of the island of Sardinia with no crew on board, it seemed like a repeat of the Mary Celeste – but this is no seemingly mythical tale from ages past. Spotted by the Italian Coast Guard in 2006, this ghost ship contained a half-eaten meal of Egyptian food, French maps of North African seas, a pile of clothes, a flag of Luxembourg and a wooden plaque bearing the name ‘Bel Amica’. Italian authorities found that the ship had never been registered in any country. Because the ship was misidentified as an antique in the press, a tsunami of public interest surrounded the case – but it was soon revealed to be a modern yacht belonging to a Luxembourg man who likely didn’t register it for tax evasion purposes.

High Aim 6

(image via: simplyscenes)

Murder, mutiny and rotting fish – the story of the High Aim 6 is a strange one. This Taiwanese ship was found drifting in Australian waters without its crew in 2003, though plenty of fuel and provisions remained onboard, along with the crew’s personal belongings and a hold full of stinky seafood. A forensic examination could find no sign of a struggle, and a search of 7,300 nautical miles turned up no clues – but 10 days after the ship was discovered, calls were still being made from Indonesia on the cell phone of the ship’s missing engineer. The only crew member ever tracked down claimed that the captain and engineer were murdered and the crew headed back to their homes, but no reason was ever given.

Jian Seng

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A lot of illegal activity goes on in the world’s oceans, from illegal fishing to human trafficking. So, when mysterious ships of unknown origin turn up, they’re automatically suspicious. The Jian Seng is just one such ship, spotted drifting into uncharted waters near Queensland, Australia in 2006, but once Australian Customs officials boarded the ship they couldn’t find evidence of recent human activity at all. In fact, the ship had been stripped, with its name and identifying features painted over, and contained nothing but a large amount of rice. Ultimately, since no owner could be found, the ship was intentionally sunken.

MV Joyita

(image via: fiji times)

The MV Joyita may have been an “unsinkable” ship, but she wasn’t immune to other problems. With 25 passengers and crew onboard, the Joyita disappeared in the South Pacific in 1955.  Five weeks after the ship was reported overdue, it was spotted off-course partially submerged and missing four tons of cargo including medical supplies, timber, food and empty oil drums. The radio was tuned to the international marine distress channel, the lifeboats were gone and blood-stained bandages were found. Some believe that the captain was injured or killed and that the passengers and crew felt they had no choice but to abandon the ship – but that still doesn’t explain the missing cargo.

Kaz II

(image via: wikimedia commons)

On April 15th, 2007, three men set out on a journey along the coast of Australia – and three days later, their ship turned up drifting toward the Great Barrier Reef with everything perfectly in place. Everything, that is, except for the men themselves, who were missing. Food was set out on the table, a laptop was open and still turned on, all of the boat’s emergency systems were fully functional and life jackets hung neatly on their hooks. Since the seas were choppy and none of the men were wearing a life jacket, it has been hypothesized that one of the men fell overboard and the others perished trying to save him.

Zebrina

(image via: wikimedia commons)

Yet another ship found without its crew was the Zebrina, a 3-masted sailing barge that left a port in Southern England in October 1917 with a cargo hold full of coal bound for Saint-Brieuc, France. When the ship was found in France aground and abandoned but in good shape two days later, it seemed that some kind of conflict related to World War I was to blame – like perhaps the threat of gunfire from a German submarine like the one pictured above. Did the U-boat that threatened the Zebrina force the crew onboard, and then retreat when it spotted an Allied ship nearby? Perhaps – some people believe that this hypothetical submarine was later sunken itself, hence the fact that Zebrina’s crew was never seen again.

Schooner Jenny

(image via: history cooperative)

“May 4, 1823. No food for 71 days. I am the only one left alive.” The captain who wrote this message was still sitting in a chair with a pen in his hand when this message was found in his logbook a full 17 years later. His body, and those of the other 6 people onboard the British schooner ‘Jenny‘, had been preserved by the frigid Antarctic weather which had ensnared the ship in ice and led to their deaths.The crew of the whaling ship that discovered Jenny so long after this disaster buried the passengers – including a dog – at sea.

Baychimo

(image via: wikimedia commons)

Used to trade pelts for provisions in Inuit settlements along the north coast of Canada, the SS Baychimo was no stranger to harsh conditions. This 230-foot cargo steamer had just been freed from pack ice a week earlier when it got stuck even worse on October 8th, 1931, leading over half of its crew to abandon it while 15 remained to wait out the winter nearby in a wooden shelter that they built. When a blizzard struck on November 24, the ship was later found to be missing and assumed sunken… but it turned up three days later, 45 miles away. The crew gathered up the cargo and abandoned the ship, believing it wouldn’t survive the winter, but once again it did not sink. Over the next several decades, sightings of the Baychimo were reported all over the coast, and some people even boarded the ship. It was last seen stuck in ice off the Alaskan Coast in 1969. Did it finally sink? Maybe – or maybe it will turn up once again.

(images via: darkf666, qaz2008, paulboutros)

Did aliens try to send us a message in 1977? Is some mythical, nightmarish sea monster responsible for the bizarre ocean sound known as ‘The Bloop’? Could an enigmatic Russian radio signal be transmitting encoded messages to spies? The world is full of sounds, but some stand out, especially when they’re incredibly loud or simply unexplainable by science. These 8 sounds and signals are subjects of constant speculation between conspiracy theorists and scientists alike, but it’s possible that we’ll never know their origin or meaning.

The Bloop

Several times during 1997, a sound reverberated through the Pacific Ocean that has been a mystery to science ever since. Dubbed “the Bloop”, the sound rises rapidly in frequency over one minute and was loud enough to be picked up by multiple sensors located up to 5,000km apart. These underwater listening devices were put in place in an area known as the “deep sound channel” during the Cold War to detect and track Soviet submarines, and are now used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to monitor natural phenomena.

The NOAA says there’s no way the sound was man-made, and while it does sort of resemble a sound made by a living creature, there’s no whale in the world that’s large enough to produce a sound of such volume – not even gigantic blue whales. In fact, no creature that is ever known to have existed on this earth even during the time of the dinosaurs would be capable of creating The Bloop. Of course, that could only mean one thing: it’s the Call of Cthulhu! Coincidentally (or not), the sound was traced to a remote corner of the Pacific Ocean located within 500 miles of the lair of H.P. Lovecraft’s legendary sea monster.

The Hum

All over the world in places like Hawaii, New Mexico and England, every now and then people turn to each other and say, “What’s that humming sound?” It’s described as an irritating, persistent low-frequency sound that resembles the sound of a distant diesel engine idling and can often be felt as vibrations in the body. According to people who have heard it, microphones just can’t seem to accurately capture this noise. It’s loudest indoors, at night and on weekends.

On Big Island in Hawaii, the noise is attributed to volcanic activity, but the same certainly can’t be said in Kent, England or Taos, New Mexico. On the Washington State island of Vashon, annoyed residents report that the sound is getting louder. Is it electromagnetic? Supernatural? Tinnitus? Collective delusion? It’s virtually impossible to say.

Bizarre Booms

“Mistpouffers” – it’s a funny name for a series of bizarre booms that have been heard in waterfront communities ranging from Bangladesh to the Netherlands, typically described as a cannon sound or extremely loud thunder despite the absence of clouds in the sky. It’s frequently heard on calm summer days in the Bay of Fundy, Canada and has also been reported in Italy, Ireland, India, Japan, the Philippines, Ireland and in several U.S. States. These booms are no modern invention – the Iroquois explained similar noises to early white settlers as the sound of the Great Spirit continuing to shape the earth.

In 1978, a boom heard on Bell Island off Newfoundland in Canada was powerful enough to damage homes. While some may still believe that it was caused by supernatural phenomena and a recent History Channel special questioned whether secret electromagnetic pulse weapons tests could be the culprit, the cause is still a mystery.

In May 2010, bewildered Pennsylvania residents contacted the local paper about a “big boom”. “I heard the boom, and my closed, wooden front door rattled just a little bit,” Kim Owen told the Sun Gazette. “I didn’t think much about it until a friend, who lives several blocks away, posted a note on Facebook asking if anyone had heard a loud boom.”  A similar noise in 2001 later proved to be caused by a meteorite crashing through the earth’s atmosphere.

It could be that these sounds are all caused by meteorite impacts, but other natural causes are possible as well including gas escaping from vents in the earth’s surface or underwater caves collapsing.

The ‘Slow Down’ Sound

Recorded on May 19th, 1997 – the same year as ‘The Bloop’ – this unexplained sound is seven minutes long, slowly descending in frequency toward the end. Known as the ‘Slow Down’ sound, it was loud enough to be heard on three sensors at a range of nearly 2,000km. Nothing like it has been heard ever since, and its origin remains unexplained, landing it on the NOAA’s short list of strange unidentified noises picked up by their undersea microphones.

Quacker

(image via: wikimedia commons)

During the Cold War, as Soviet Navy ballistic missile submarines patrolled the North Atlantic and Arctic Ocean, they kept hearing the strangest sounds: what they described as “quacking”, the Russian version of our own onomatopeotic “ribbit” of a frog. The sounds were heard whenever the subs passed certain areas of the sea and seemed to be coming from a moving underwater object. However, nothing registered on sonar.

The Soviets believed at the time that they were hearing some kind of secret U.S. Technology and interpreted the sounds as a somewhat frightening threat. Today, scientists believe the sounds may have come from marine life like giant squid, which – lacking rigid internal skeletons – might not show up on sonar.

The Spooky Sounds of Saturn’s Rings

They’re eerie and otherworldly, exactly the kinds of bizarre noises you would expect to hear in a sci-fi film – but they’re actually real recordings from another planet. The Cassini spacecraft began detecting these auroral radio emissions from Saturn’s atmosphere in 2002, which have natural rising and falling tones similar to those emitted by Earth. The NASA recordings have been compressed and compiled into this single spooky track, and it’s all too easy to imagine all kinds of things within them, from alien speech to a spacecraft taking off.

The UVB-76 Buzzer

It seems like a mystery worthy of LOST – a strange repeating radio signal from Russia, punctuated by occasional cryptic messages in Russian. Short, monotonous buzzing tones have been emitted 25 times per minute, 24 hours a day since 1982, and nobody knows exactly why. Perhaps it’s used to transmit encoded messages to spies, or signal the status of some undercover military installation. Or, maybe it’s just related to high-frequency Doppler weather radar.

The voice messages transmitted by this signal, which have occurred only three times in 1997, 2002 and 2006, have all been numerical in nature. One features a Russian male voice saying “”Ya ? UVB-76. 18008. BROMAL: Boris, Roman, Olga, Mikhail, Anna, Larisa. 742, 799, 14.”

On Sunday, June 6th, 2010, a commenter on Slashdot wrote, “Tinfoil hatters around the world are abuzz that UVB-76, the Russian shortwave radio station that has been broadcasting its monotonous tone almost uninterrupted since 1982, has suddenly gone offline. Of course no one knows what the significance of this is, but best brush up on your drills just in case.”

The ‘Wow’ Signal

Did aliens try to contact us with an interstellar signal detected in 1977? The strong narrowband radio signal picked up by The Big Ear telescope of Ohio State University lasted for a total of 72 seconds and matched the expected signature of an interstellar signal, prompting Dr. Jerry Ehman to circle the signal on a printout and write “Wow!” beside it.

There’s no question that the signal originated from outside of our solar system, and in fact, its origin has been pinpointed as somewhere beyond the constellation Sagittarius. It was picked up by only one of the Big Ear’s two detectors and was never heard again despite close monitoring, but all “rational” explanations put forth by skeptics have been proven wrong, from satellite transmissions to space debris collisions.

The Wow! Signal is still the only confirmed sound received from deep space that could possibly be an intentional signal sent by entities unknown.