When you think about it, there are lots of good reasons to avoid the great outdoors,
like the fearsome power of sudden storms or, y'know, bugs and mud or whatever.
Some brave people have gone outside anyway, and have found some pretty awful things there.
Here are some of the most horrifying things people have discovered in the not-so-great
outdoors.
The Geological Society of London described Holyrood Park as "a place of sanctuary from
the crowded streets" of Edinburgh, Scotland, "and a piece of countryside within the city
limits."
With its 150-foot cliffs and freshwater loch, it sounds like a great place to relax after
a long week of bagpipe fights and haggis-eating contests.
That park's main landmark is an extinct volcano known as Arthur's Seat, which last erupted
340 million years ago.
Sitting at 823 feet above sea level, Arthur's Seat is the highest hill in Edinburgh.
It was also once a secret cemetery for 17 incredibly creepy dolls.
Smithsonian noted that accounts of how the dolls were found vary somewhat across sources,
but the gist of it is that in 1836, three boys went poking around Arthur's Seat for
rabbits' burrows.
But instead of finding long-eared fluff balls of joy, they found tiny coffins each 3 or
4 inches long which contained wooden dolls.
According to National Museums Scotland, newspapers at the time speculated that the coffins were
used for witchcraft or some ancient form of mourning.
Meanwhile, experts have since suggested they might've been toy soldiers.
But in the end, nobody seems to know just what they are or why they were buried.
Sandwiched between Mexico's southern border and the Caribbean Sea is the Central American
nation of Belize.
More than half the country is covered with tropical rainforests, and there you'll encounter
mangroves, mountains, macaws, and a "a prehistoric-looking stork" called the jabiru.
Once the stomping ground of the Mayan civilization, Belize is peppered with temples and caves
where Mayans sacrificed other humans to their gods so, you know, a real fun bunch of folks.
“Haha”
The forebodingly named Midnight Terror Cave is located in the Belizean countryside.
In 2006, rescuers were drawn to the sound of a man screaming.
There, at the bottom of the cave's 60-foot drop, they found a looter who was surrounded
by thousands of human bones.
In all there were about 9,000 bones, and archaeologists believe many of them belonged to children
who were sacrificed by the Mayans in the ninth century.
Some came from up to 200 miles away, leaving experts scratching their heads about why kids
would have been taken that far for that purpose.
All in all, one thing is for sure: The Midnight Terror Cave has a pretty great name.
The Himalayas are a grim sort of gorgeous.
Their name, which means "abode of snow" in Sanskrit, has an almost musical quality that
can't quite convey the deadliness of this roughly 1,500-mile mountain range.
The most famous Himalayan mountain, Mount Everest, doubles as an outdoor morgue for
unfortunate climbers but at least these people met their ends trying to conquer the world's
greatest physical obstacle.
Elsewhere along the range there's a valley full of bodies who never had a choice or even
a chance to survive.
In 1942 a British forest guard in Roopkund, India, found that place, a frozen lake 1,600
feet above sea level — and it was full of human skeletons.
In the summer the lake thawed, revealing even more corpses.
The body count exceeded 200, and with World War II raging, British officials thought the
guard had found the remains of Japanese soldiers.
In reality, the bodies dated back to 850 A.D.
In 2004, researchers would determine that they died in a one-sided war between man and
nature.
The bodies had "deep cracks" in their skulls and shoulders from some rounded object that
struck them from above.
Scientists ultimately concluded that they died in a hellacious hailstorm.
Ah, Antarctica.
You may know it for its blinding icy whiteness, deadly crevices, 200 mile-per-hour winds,
and severely limited internet.
You may also know Antarctica for penguins, nature's cutest crime victims.
In 2016, a team of researchers on East Antarctica's Long Peninsula came across an area littered
with hundreds of mummified penguins, most of them babies.
The evidence they gathered pointed to two separate waves of extreme weather and flooding,
one of which occurred roughly 750 years ago and another that happened about 200 years
ago.
Professor Liguang Sun explained, "It is quite likely that global climate warming caused
enhanced precipitation, which led to the tragedy."
We should also mention, however, that in addition to the mummified penguins, the researchers
also found various nesting materials and penguin poop because penguins deal with a bunch of
crap, including and especially their own.
Stretching over 3,900 miles, the Yangtze is Earth's third longest river.
Navigating this gargantuan waterway will provide you with breathtaking views of China's many
mountains and cliffs.
In 1982, the UNESCO World Heritage Centre recognized the Three Gorges portion of the
river as one of the most scenic spots on the planet.
Three years later Wong How Man, then a journalist for National Geographic, saw something along
the Yangtze that some might call disturbing.
Wong saw coffins mounted 300 feet high along the cliffside like morbid ornaments, and they
definitely weren't empty.
Known as "hanging coffins," they were placed on wooden stakes or inside caves.
Researchers determined that the oldest hanging coffins go back about 3,000 years, and writings
from the Tang dynasty indicate that a higher elevation signified greater reverence for
the deceased.
Exactly how they were mounted on those mountains remains a monumental mystery.
In northern Tanzania there's a natural anomaly named Lake Natron.
Described by Atlas Obscura as a "salty red hell," this unusual body of water turns blood-red
from the algae that thrive in it, and it can reach temperatures of 120 degrees.
According to Smithsonian, the lake has a pH as high as 10.5, making it comparable to ammonia.
Its special composition comes from a chemical called natron, which is basically baking soda
mixed with sodium carbonate decahydrate, sodium sulfate, and salt.
Live Science says that Lake Natron can become, quote, "so caustic it can burn the skin and
eyes of animals that aren't adapted to it."
Though it's home to crimson slime and endangered flamingos that breed there, few creatures
can live in this highly alkaline lake of fiery temperatures.
A lot of things can die in it, though, and when they do, their bodies are mummified by
the salty waters.
The process isn't instantaneous, but it's surreal-looking all the same.
Photographer Nick Brandt was visiting Lake Natron when he happened upon the un-rotting
carcasses of birds and bats.
He recalled:
"I saw entire flocks of dead birds all washed ashore together."
So he did what anyone would do: he spent three weeks paying locals to collect dead birds
for him to pose and photograph.
Obviously.
Found throughout the Eastern United States, the chestnut oak tree is unique among oaks
in that it can live on "steep, rocky" terrain.
Though chestnut oaks are known for their "beautiful silvery-white bark," one in particular became
infamous for a different, darker kind of bark in 1980.
A group of loggers lopped the top off of a chestnut oak and saw something unsettling
inside: the open-jawed grimace of a mummified hunting dog.
The movie Poltergeist taught us that demonically possessed trees get a kick out of eating people.
“Help me help me help me!”
So now we have to ask: do they eat dogs, too?
Did the loggers uncover the sinister dinner of a devilish deciduous?
No.
Sadly, that extremely unlucky canine climbed through the bottom of the tree in 1960 and
got stuck in the narrow opening 28 feet off the ground.
Why didn't the dog decompose?
Biological anthropologist Kristina Kilgrove explained chestnut oaks produce tannin, which
removes moisture and is used to prevent pelts from rotting.
Additionally, an updraft inside the tree likely produced a "chimney effect," blowing away
the pungent aroma of death and keeping corpse-eating creatures from smelling it.
The dog-filled log was sent to a tree museum in Georgia called Southern Forest World, where
it holds a "place of honor."
In 2002, a naming contest dubbed the dog "Stuckie," which is both a morbid pun and an unappetizing
reference to "pecan logs," a nougat-filled confection sold by the Georgia-based convenience
store chain called Stuckey's.
Presumably, Stuckie is the chestnut oak log's "nougat" filling.
It should go without saying that he probably doesn't taste nearly as good, though.
Check out one of our newest videos right here!
Plus, even more Grunge videos about some of the weirdest stuff in the world are coming
soon.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.