Top 10 Most MYSTERIOUS Places on Earth
top 10, list, top 5, most mysterious places on earth, mysterious place in the world, mysteries, unsolved mysteries, mysteries of the world, Area 51, aliens, UFO, extraterrestrials, Stonehenge, Easter Island, Nevada, Bermuda triangle, Nazca lines, island of the dolls, north sentinel island, Michigan triangle, Lake Michigan, sea monsters, Sentinelese, Peru, Julian Santana Barrera, Alaskan triangle, stony Tunguska river, devil’s sea, shipwrecks, Siberia, Russia, USA, United States, America,
Script written by Nick Roffey.
These places prove that there are more things in heaven and earth than we can currently explain. Welcome to WatchMojo.com and today we're counting down our picks for the top ten mysterious places on Earth.
For this list, we're looking at real places cloaked in secrecy, and/or that are associated with the unknown or the unexplained.
Spanning the vast south-eastern reaches of the Alaskan wilderness up to its mountain ranges, an unusual number of hikers, boats and planes vanish without a trace. In fact, the state of Alaska has not only twice the American national average of people reported missing, but also the lowest statistics for people found. Is it the unforgiving weather, wild animals, immense uncharted terrain, or something more sinister? The indigenous Tlingit people tell stories of a shape-shifting being called Kushtaka, meaning “land otter man”, who mimics the screams of children to lure unwary travellers to their deaths. Others blame Bigfoot, or propose that the area is a “vile vortex” like the Bermuda Triangle, linked to electro-magnetic aberrations.
In 1908, an explosion 1,000 times greater than the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima tore through the air over Siberia. Witnesses reported a column of bluish light as the sky seemed to split in half and catch fire. The blast sent a shockwave that knocked people off their feet and flattened 770 square miles of forest, toppling an estimated 80 million trees. When the first expedition arrived to investigate, native guides would not enter the impact zone, fearing people they called “the Valleymen”. While scientific consensus attributes the blast to the explosion of a meteorite in mid air – leading some to blame natural gas or even a collision with alien spacecraft.
This is a region of the Pacific Ocean that’s south of Japan in which several ships have disappeared, notably the Japanese research vessel Kaiyo Maru No 5 in the early 1950s. Sailors have reported problems with electronic instruments and sightings of unmanned ghost ships. American author and linguist Charles Berlitz made the area around Miyake Island famous with his book "The Dragon's Triangle" in 1989. Although authorities claim the Kairo Maru was destroyed by natural forces while the crew was investigating the eruption of an underwater volcano, Berlitz attributed the incident to unknown supernatural forces – and even blamed the Dragon’s Triangle for the disappearance of aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart.
As you navigate this creepy island just south of Mexico City, thousands of small unblinking eyes watch your passage. The island is actually man-made, dating all the way back to the floating gardens of Aztec times. As legend has it, owner Julian Santana Barrera found a little drowned girl in the canal and a doll floating close by, which he hung in a tree as a sign of respect. But shortly following this act, he started to hear whispers, footsteps, and screams following him in the dark. Santana Barrera spent the next half century hanging dolls to pacify the girl's spirit. When he died in 2001, his body was eerily found in the same spot he had found the drowned girl.
Some 2000 years ago, hundreds of complex geoglyphs were carved into the desert sands of southern Peru. Composed of over thousands of lines, the geometric figures and animal and plant designs cover arid plateau south of Lima that’s more than 50 miles in size. How were such complex designs created without aerial technology? Why did these people create shapes in the soil that are only visible only from the air or hilltops? While scholars claim the lines were constructed using simple surveying equipment, others conjecture the use of hot air balloons, or speculate that the lines were once alien airfields. Various other uses have been proposed from religious symbolism, to astronomical calendars, to irrigation, but their ultimate purpose remains unknown.
An isolated indigenous tribe has lived on this island in the Bay of Bengal for an estimated 60,000 years. Fringed by perilous reefs, the island is difficult to reach, and boats that do land are met with a hail of arrows. As a result, little is known about the Sentinelese. Their language is unclassified and population estimates range from 50 to 400. During one failed expedition, as tensions rose between locals and anthropologists cornered on the reefs, some of the indigenous women made off with warriors and proceeded to have sex on the beach. What are the beliefs and customs of the Sentinelese? What do they think of our metal ships and flying machines?
Often compared to the Bermuda Triangle, this region in Lake Michigan is the site of numerous maritime and aviation disasters. Particularly notorious is the strait linking Lake Michigan and Green Bay, known as Porte des Morts or “Death's Door”, which is littered with shipwrecks thanks to hidden shoals and unpredictable winds. The most famous incident was the crash of Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 2501 in 1950, which killed all 58 passengers and crew – and was the worst airline accident to happen in the United States to that point. Only light debris and human body fragments were recovered, although mass burial sites were recently discovered in local cemeteries. Annual searches for the wreckage continue.
887 monolithic stone statues watch over this remote Pacific island. Carved by the Rapa Nui people as early as 1250 CE, most of these silent sentinels line the coast with their backs to the sea. What compelled people to build and transport such giant figures, some of which weigh over 80 tons? While oral histories recount that the statues walked into place of their own volition, scholars have proposed various theories, including that they were moved by rocking their bases back and forth. Scholars speculate that the statues represent deified ancestors, but the island's stone guardians could not protect the Rapa Nui people, whose population has been greatly abolished by deforestation, European diseases, and Peruvian slavers.
This is the name given to a ring of standing stones around five thousand years old that are surrounded by hundreds of ancient burial mounds in Wiltshire, England. Scholars have debated the significance of Stonehenge for decades. How did prehistoric people transport the giant stones, some from hills 150 miles away? Hypotheses include long tracks of logs, sleighs on greased tracks, and, of course, aliens. Let's not forget Merlin. Or giants. Opinions also differ as to the site's function. Was it a burial site, a place of healing, or an astronomical observatory? According to Royal College of Art researchers, the bluestones have “unusual acoustic properties,” ringing when struck, which was often associated in ancient cultures with mystical properties.
Before we reveal our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.
Pluckley, England
Dulce Base, New Mexico, USA
Aokigahara [aka Suicide Forest], Japan
US air force facility . . . or storehouse for extra-terrestrial technologies? Located deep in the Nevada desert, this remote research installation has been used as a test site for experimental aircraft and weapons, with the dry bed of Groom Lake providing an ideal airfield. But the secrecy around the site and a string of alleged UFO sightings have stimulated allegations that the base houses crashed and reverse-engineered alien spacecraft, and even alien collaborators. While sceptics suggest the UFOs were reflections of light on the broad fuselage of aircraft such as the Lockheed U-2, people claiming to be former employees report having worked hand-in-four-fingered-grey-hand with extra-terrestrial engineers in a vast underground facility.
Do you agree with your list? Are you captivated by the questions posed by these places? For more strange and mysterious top 10s published every day, be sure to subscribe to WatchMojo.com.
Top 10 Most Mysterious Places on Earth
These places prove that there are more things in heaven and earth than we can currently explain. Welcome to WatchMojo.com and today we're counting down our picks for the top ten mysterious places on Earth.
For this list, we're looking at real places cloaked in secrecy, and/or that are associated with the unknown or the unexplained.
# 10: The Alaskan Triangle [aka Alaska’s Bermuda Triangle]
Spanning the vast south-eastern reaches of the Alaskan wilderness up to its mountain ranges, an unusual number of hikers, boats and planes vanish without a trace. In fact, the state of Alaska has not only twice the American national average of people reported missing, but also the lowest statistics for people found. Is it the unforgiving weather, wild animals, immense uncharted terrain, or something more sinister? The indigenous Tlingit people tell stories of a shape-shifting being called Kushtaka, meaning “land otter man”, who mimics the screams of children to lure unwary travellers to their deaths. Others blame Bigfoot, or propose that the area is a “vile vortex” like the Bermuda Triangle, linked to electro-magnetic aberrations.
#9: The Stony Tunguska River [aka Podkamennaya Tunguska River]
In 1908, an explosion 1,000 times greater than the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima tore through the air over Siberia. Witnesses reported a column of bluish light as the sky seemed to split in half and catch fire. The blast sent a shockwave that knocked people off their feet and flattened 770 square miles of forest, toppling an estimated 80 million trees. When the first expedition arrived to investigate, native guides would not enter the impact zone, fearing people they called “the Valleymen”. While scientific consensus attributes the blast to the explosion of a meteorite in mid air – leading some to blame natural gas or even a collision with alien spacecraft.
#8: The Devil's Sea [aka Dragon’s Triangle & ‘Pacific Bermuda Triangle’]
This is a region of the Pacific Ocean that’s south of Japan in which several ships have disappeared, notably the Japanese research vessel Kaiyo Maru No 5 in the early 1950s. Sailors have reported problems with electronic instruments and sightings of unmanned ghost ships. American author and linguist Charles Berlitz made the area around Miyake Island famous with his book "The Dragon's Triangle" in 1989. Although authorities claim the Kairo Maru was destroyed by natural forces while the crew was investigating the eruption of an underwater volcano, Berlitz attributed the incident to unknown supernatural forces – and even blamed the Dragon’s Triangle for the disappearance of aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart.
#7: Island of the Dolls [aka Isla de las Muñecas]
As you navigate this creepy island just south of Mexico City, thousands of small unblinking eyes watch your passage. The island is actually man-made, dating all the way back to the floating gardens of Aztec times. As legend has it, owner Julian Santana Barrera found a little drowned girl in the canal and a doll floating close by, which he hung in a tree as a sign of respect. But shortly following this act, he started to hear whispers, footsteps, and screams following him in the dark. Santana Barrera spent the next half century hanging dolls to pacify the girl's spirit. When he died in 2001, his body was eerily found in the same spot he had found the drowned girl.
#6: The Nazca Lines
Some 2000 years ago, hundreds of complex geoglyphs were carved into the desert sands of southern Peru. Composed of over thousands of lines, the geometric figures and animal and plant designs cover arid plateau south of Lima that’s more than 50 miles in size. How were such complex designs created without aerial technology? Why did these people create shapes in the soil that are only visible only from the air or hilltops? While scholars claim the lines were constructed using simple surveying equipment, others conjecture the use of hot air balloons, or speculate that the lines were once alien airfields. Various other uses have been proposed from religious symbolism, to astronomical calendars, to irrigation, but their ultimate purpose remains unknown.
#5: North Sentinel Island
An isolated indigenous tribe has lived on this island in the Bay of Bengal for an estimated 60,000 years. Fringed by perilous reefs, the island is difficult to reach, and boats that do land are met with a hail of arrows. As a result, little is known about the Sentinelese. Their language is unclassified and population estimates range from 50 to 400. During one failed expedition, as tensions rose between locals and anthropologists cornered on the reefs, some of the indigenous women made off with warriors and proceeded to have sex on the beach. What are the beliefs and customs of the Sentinelese? What do they think of our metal ships and flying machines?
#4: The Michigan Triangle
Often compared to the Bermuda Triangle, this region in Lake Michigan is the site of numerous maritime and aviation disasters. Particularly notorious is the strait linking Lake Michigan and Green Bay, known as Porte des Morts or “Death's Door”, which is littered with shipwrecks thanks to hidden shoals and unpredictable winds. The most famous incident was the crash of Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 2501 in 1950, which killed all 58 passengers and crew – and was the worst airline accident to happen in the United States to that point. Only light debris and human body fragments were recovered, although mass burial sites were recently discovered in local cemeteries. Annual searches for the wreckage continue.
#3: Easter Island
887 monolithic stone statues watch over this remote Pacific island. Carved by the Rapa Nui people as early as 1250 CE, most of these silent sentinels line the coast with their backs to the sea. What compelled people to build and transport such giant figures, some of which weigh over 80 tons? While oral histories recount that the statues walked into place of their own volition, scholars have proposed various theories, including that they were moved by rocking their bases back and forth. Scholars speculate that the statues represent deified ancestors, but the island's stone guardians could not protect the Rapa Nui people, whose population has been greatly abolished by deforestation, European diseases, and Peruvian slavers.
#2: Stonehenge
This is the name given to a ring of standing stones around five thousand years old that are surrounded by hundreds of ancient burial mounds in Wiltshire, England. Scholars have debated the significance of Stonehenge for decades. How did prehistoric people transport the giant stones, some from hills 150 miles away? Hypotheses include long tracks of logs, sleighs on greased tracks, and, of course, aliens. Let's not forget Merlin. Or giants. Opinions also differ as to the site's function. Was it a burial site, a place of healing, or an astronomical observatory? According to Royal College of Art researchers, the bluestones have “unusual acoustic properties,” ringing when struck, which was often associated in ancient cultures with mystical properties.
Before we reveal our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.
Pluckley, England
Dulce Base, New Mexico, USA
Aokigahara [aka Suicide Forest], Japan
#1: Area 51
US air force facility . . . or storehouse for extra-terrestrial technologies? Located deep in the Nevada desert, this remote research installation has been used as a test site for experimental aircraft and weapons, with the dry bed of Groom Lake providing an ideal airfield. But the secrecy around the site and a string of alleged UFO sightings have stimulated allegations that the base houses crashed and reverse-engineered alien spacecraft, and even alien collaborators. While sceptics suggest the UFOs were reflections of light on the broad fuselage of aircraft such as the Lockheed U-2, people claiming to be former employees report having worked hand-in-four-fingered-grey-hand with extra-terrestrial engineers in a vast underground facility.
Do you agree with your list? Are you captivated by the questions posed by these places? For more strange and mysterious top 10s published every day, be sure to subscribe to WatchMojo.com.
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