15 Unbelievable Places that Actually Exist

you may think these images are from the movie avatar or perhaps some other distant earth-white planet it's hard to believe these places exist on our own planet here are 15 unbelievable places that actually exist number 15 underwater waterfall mauritius mauritius is known for its idyllic beaches and crystal clear sea but there's an unbelievable phenomenon at the southwest corner of the island that appears to be an underwater waterfall despite how it looks this isn't actually a flowing region of water but instead an optical illusion that happens because of the sea floor structure the island sits on

an ocean shelf which is no more than 500 feet deep at the edge of the shelf however it soon plunges down to depths of almost two and a half miles and what you're actually seeing in the underwater waterfall is not water falling down into the abyss but particles of sand that are being pushed over by the current number 14 glowworm cave new zealand new zealand is one of the most scenic countries in the world but beyond the peaks of the mountain ranges the deep valleys and the glaciers are a series of caves that seem to

have come straight from a fairy tale the reason for this is because they're home to glow worms which are the larval forms of a species of fungus gnat that are endemic to the country known locally as tty which means projected over water the bioluminescence that's produced in the insects abdomens is designed to attract prey and happens as a result of a chemical reaction between a luciferase enzyme and a molecule of luciferin it creates one of the most stunning sights that you can see in the natural world and makes for a magical boat ride through the

cavern when thousands of the glow worms are active number 13 tianzi mountains china china tianji's mountains in the hunan province are some of the most unusual mountain formations in the world covering an area of around 17 000 acres they're made from quartz sandstone and first began to emerge from the earth about 400 million years ago the subsequent erosion of the rock has created these skinny mountains which reach a peak of 3976 feet and are named after the legend of a farmer who led a revolt against an oppressive regime who called himself the son of heaven

when the mountains are covered in mist there's something mystical about them and it's no surprise they were the inspiration for mountainscapes in movies like avatar and are one of the most popular tourist destinations in the region [Music] number 12 grand prismatic spring wyoming usa the stunningly colorful grand prismatic spring is in yellowstone national park and is the largest hot spring in the us it's bigger than a football field at about 370 feet wide and with a depth of at least 160 feet you could fit a 10 story building inside it the spring is fed through

a crack in its floor through which as much as 560 gallons of water is released into it every minute its normal temperature is 160 degrees fahrenheit and it's because of this that it's surrounded by such vibrant rings the color is created by the presence of microbes that live in hot environments and depending on the time of year you'll see reds oranges yellows greens and blues number 11 monterrarima venezuela we're so used to seeing natural formations that have irregular shapes that it seems almost impossible for something to have a rigid design to it monte roraima in

venezuela isn't your ordinary mountain though and its 12 square mile summit is surrounded by 1300 foot tall cliffs almost in a square shape it's actually on a tri-point border between venezuela guyana and brazil and has long been part of local beliefs the paymon and capone people believe it to be the stump of a giant tree that once bore all the fruits and vegetables in the world and the seemingly unscalable cliffs have inspired a number of stories including the lost world by sir arthur conan doyle and paradise falls from the movie up number 10 lake redba

senegal on the northwest coast of africa about 18 miles northeast of the senegalese capital dakar is a lake like anything you'll find elsewhere in the world called lake recba it has an extremely high salt content and this provides ideal conditions for duna laela salina algae to thrive which are bright red colored and make the water appear to be pink this unusual hue is far more prominent during the region's dry season between november and june and the effect is accentuated by the magenta bushes that grow around its shores the lake is an important economic center too

with thousands of people who rely on retrieving and selling the salt deposits as well as fishing the waters catches here don't quite match up to what's possible in other lakes however because to survive in such salty water the fish only grow to around one quarter the size they would do elsewhere [Music] 9. red beach panjin china china is a country that's full of incredible geographic sites but there's perhaps none as surprising as the red beach in panjin it's around the mouth of the penjin shanghai sea river where the soil is so alkaline that very few

species of plant can grow one that does particularly well is the suede salsa which has a deep red color and is why the region looks so remarkable it was once thought that mars was red because it was covered in crimson plants and if that were true the beach at panjin is surely how it would have appeared with so many plants growing on the shores the red beach is the largest wetland area in the world and together with the largest reed marsh in asia which is also there the whole region is a protected area of natural

interest it's home to more than 260 different species of birds and more than 400 species of other types of animals including the rare red-crowned crane and black mouth gulls before we move on be sure to subscribe to top fives with notifications on number eight the crooked forest poland deep within a forest near the town of grafino in poland is a phenomenon that has confused researchers and visitors alike ever since it was first discovered called the crooked forest there are an estimated 400 pine trees that have for some reason grown very differently to normal it's thought

that they were planted during the 1930s when the region was a part of germany and after emerging from the ground like usual they bent towards the north for several feet before growing upwards again it's not known why this has happened and why it's something that only these 400 trees have done there's a couple of theories the first is that it's the result of human design perhaps because of a tool that was used when they were first planted or the alternative suggestion is that they were all subject to a freak weather event such as a snow

storm while they were young in their development no records exist to support either theory however so it's quite possible we'll never know for certain number seven stone forest madagascar madagascar is usually thought of as a place with an unparalleled amount of biodiversity but its geographical features are equally impressive the stone forest which is within the singy deba marahan national park began life hundreds of millions of years ago as a lagoon limestone deposits formed on the bed and due to tectonic activity were lifted above the water surface as the lagoon receded more limestone was revealed and

was worn away by the monsoon rains over the following millennia this combined with groundwater erosion that formed caves that subsequently collapsed has left a series of towers with canyons between them which has resulted in the largest such formation in the world its name means where one cannot walk barefoot and that's an apt warning these pillars some of which are up to 2 600 feet high are sharp enough to easily cut through flesh or equipment so have to be traversed with the utmost of care [Music] number six lake baikal russia lake baikal which is in southern

siberia is the largest known freshwater lake in the world which contains almost a quarter of our planet's non-saline surface water at 5 387 feet deep it's the world's deepest lake and is also thought to be the oldest after forming around 25 million years ago as you'd expect there's a wealth of plant and animal life in the region and it supports countless villages and tribes but the thing that's particularly amazing about this place is what happens when it freezes over because it's formed in a valley it's exposed to freezing winds that blow across its surface and

this leads to the creation of unbelievable ice structures that are hard to believe form naturally methane bubbles are often trapped in the ice small particles are blown together frozen melted and re-frozen to join into unusual shapes and rocks can even be seen sitting on their own icy pedestals at the right time of year this is one of the most serene and awe-inspiring places on earth and well worth a visit if you get the chance [Music] number five richard structure mauritania also known as the eye of africa the rich structure is a strange formation in the

desert rock near the small town of oidane in mauritania the inverse dome is 25 miles in diameter and has exposed various layers of rock that appear like concentric rings it's one of the easiest natural structures to see from space but amazingly it's very hard to see from ground level and if you were there you'd probably be unable to notice anything different about it from the surrounding land quite how it was formed has been the subject of scientific debate ever since it was first discovered in the 1930s the first assumption was that it's an impact crater

from a meteorite but the lack of evidence of any superheated rocks has ruled this out instead it's been formed by millions of years of erosion of softer rock that was probably deposited during a time when the region was underwater quite why this happened in such a circular fashion is still unclear there are ridges and valleys that follow the concentric lines of the richat structure and evidence has been found that humans have lived here for hundreds of thousands of years ancient artifacts have been on earth that date back to the stone age such as tools and

spears strangely however none have been found at the center of this depression which also discounts any possibility that this was a prehistoric mine of some sort with such delicate rock there are calls to make the structure a protected site to ensure it can be studied for years to come and hopefully reveal some of the secrets as to how this strange place came to be [Music] number four fly geyser nevada usa fly geyser looks like it would be at home on an alien planet but amazingly it's only about 20 miles north of the town of gerlock

in nevada although you might think this to be a natural formation it actually is the result of human activity when a well was drilled in 1916 with a view to irrigating water due to the geothermal activity in the region the water was close to boiling point so the well was abandoned but a calcium carbonate cone began to form around the opening a second hole was dug in 1964 by an energy company but the water wasn't hot enough for their needs so they abandoned it too and the structure that formed around it is what we see

today it has a number of openings which the water shoots five feet high out of and the entire structure is currently between 25 and 30 feet tall various platforms and pools have also been created across 74 acres the water's unusually high silica content and the presence of algae that thrive in the conditions are responsible for the multi-colored deposits that have solidified around it and because it's heated to a temperature of around 200 degrees fahrenheit it produces quartz something that usually takes 10 000 years to happen in other geysers even though there are a couple of

other geysers nearby that have been formed in a similar way none are as large or as impressive as the fly geyser is therefore one of a kind and something you won't see anywhere else in the world number three nike mine mexico what's the biggest crystal you've ever seen well however large you thought it was it's nothing compared to what a team of miners discovered near naika in chihuahua mexico in 1910 a cavern was found at a depth of 390 feet which has become known as the cave of swords and to their astonishment it was full

of gypsum crystals that were up to three feet three inches long ninety years later another mining crew took things a step further when they were drilling a new shaft and found the giant crystal cave which itself was 980 feet beneath the surface this cave had once been flooded with hot water which allowed minerals to deposit in crystalline structures the largest of the crystals to have been seen was 39 feet long 13 feet wide and thought to weigh as much as 55 tons which makes it the largest one ever to have been found conditions in the

cave aren't exactly inviting to people though with temperatures reaching 136 degrees fahrenheit and a 99 humidity humans can only be in there for up to 10 minutes without full safety equipment even if you were prepared for this it's not possible to visit the cave currently after a robber tried to steal a crystal and ended up suffocating and dying it was shut permanently and allowed to refill with water in the hope that the crystals can be preserved and continue to grow until improved methods of exploration become available number two the gates of hell turkmenistan not only

is the existence of the gates of hell and turkmenistan hard to believe but the way it was formed is perhaps even more difficult to believe if you had visited this place near the village of devasa 50 years ago it would have looked just like the surrounding karakum desert with sand stretching out in every direction you look in the 1970s the country was part of the soviet union and the authorities were on a campaign to identify all areas of natural resources that could be mined and used to support the growing population in 1971 geologists arrived in

the area and believed the ground below to contain a cavern that was full of oil so they set up a test rig to drill down and take further measurements but soon found there to be a large pocket of gas just beneath the surface now there are no official russian or took men records of what happened next but according to the sources close to operations at the time the ground collapsed beneath the rig and swallowed the drill as well as several top soviet scientists the remaining researchers were now faced with a problem they could detect large

quantities of methane being released from the hull they had just created and believed this to be a possible health hazard their calculations suggested that the best way to deal with it was to burn the gas and that it would run out within a few weeks it was then decided to throw a grenade into the hole and the gates of hell was born someone calculated it wrong because since that day almost 50 years ago the hole is continually burned the crater is now approximately 230 feet across and 66 feet deep and is filled with fires boiling

mud and ferocious orange flames plants have often been drafted to try and extinguish it for good especially considering it's sat above one of the largest natural gas deposits that are anywhere on earth but such is the scale of the problem that no one yet has found an adequate solution now it's one of the most popular tourist sites in the country it's become an area of biological research because of the organisms that have been found to be living in the center of the crater it may perhaps burn out one day like the scientists in the 1970s

thought it would but based on current progress it could be several more decades before it even seems to begin slowing down is a small tributary river that feeds into the guayabero river of colombia but due to its unique plant life it's also commonly referred to as the most beautiful river in the world the fast flowing water passes through a region that's on the edge of the amazon rainforest the andes and the eastern lanos and is almost perfectly clear the riverbed has numerous holes and dips in it because of the way the rocks caught in the

current erode the bedrock and this has produced the ideal locations for a species of plant called macarena clavigera to grow during the summer months it takes on a gloriously red hue and also provides shelter for other species to grow that adds yellows greens blues and blacks into the mix it's no wonder that this place is also affectionately known as the liquid rainbow and is so unusual that many visitors still can't believe that it's real even when they're standing right next to it subscribe to top fives for more and check out some of our other popular

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