From a lake of acid to a secret underground facility in Russia, here are 10 of the strangest
and most isolated places on Earth.
10: Crooked Forest In Poland, there is a strange and mysterious
place known as the Crooked Forest, where the pine trees are twisted and disfigured, bucking
at odd angles to create a landscape unlike any other.
Roughly 400 trees here are mutated into strange shapes, all of them pointing north, and nobody
understands why.
The forest is located outside the small town of Gryfino, which was mostly destroyed during
the Second World War.
And according to the New York Times, the history of the trees was destroyed along with it.
Nowhere else on the planet are there as many bent trees as this.
They were planted in the early 1930s, with some of them bending outwards up to three
feet before bending back and growing straight up.
The tallest trees here are around 50 feet high.
From what experts can gather, the trees were damaged when they were very young, but they
don't know what did it.
William Remphrey, a retired plant scientist from the University of Manitoba, says there
is no easy explanation.
William says the Crooked Forest was not birthed through genetics, but rather something environmental.
It's possible heavy snow could have weighed the trees down one spring and caused them
to bend, but it’s pretty unlikely.
They would have been about 7 to 10 years old when whatever it was happened to them, and
if it were heavy snow there would be other trees like this around the world.
Other scientists propose that this area specifically might have a unique gravitational pull somehow
forcing the trees to grow to the side.
Another popular idea is that during the invasion of Poland during WWII, enemy tanks plowed
through the forest flattening all the trees, forcing them to grow crooked.
In any case no one is certain why these trees in this one isolated area are all growing
crooked together.
9: Skellig Michael Skellig Michael is about as isolated as it
gets.
It's a small clump of rock sticking out of the ocean off the coast of Ireland.
It's technically an island, but it looks more like the stubby peak of a mountain without
a single piece of flat land.
On Skellig Michael is a monastic settlement which dates back to the 6th century – though
there is proof that it was used far before that, in Pagan times over 3400 years ago.
In Europe, it's the most westerly sacred place.
It's also the last stop of a sacred pilgrimage that runs from Palestine, through Greece,
to France, and ultimately to Ireland.
The pilgrimage is known as the St. Michael Axis, and it was practiced by ancient people
thousands of years before Christianity ever appeared for reasons unknown.
During Catholic times, Skellig Michael was a place of refuge.
The monks of St. Fionan lived here, practicing simple lives in the middle of absolutely nowhere,
living in stone huts that look like beehives.
What did these monks do with themselves so far from land and with literally nothing around
them?
They spent the majority of their time praying in the church that they built for themselves.
They tended to their gardens, studied, and did whatever it is monks do.
Archaeological evidence suggests there were only about 12 monks living here back in the
day but they vanished mysteriously off the island in the 13th century.
Ever since, Skellig Michael has been abandoned.
8: Lava House In California, in the middle of some suburban
streets, there is a house and not a lot of people know how it got there.
It's known locally as the Lava House because all across the property there are heaps of
lava rocks.
It was apparently built by someone named Jerry Ganz, the man who started the mass production
of seatbelts.
He had wanted to build the house out of expensive imported lava rock but the city didn't let
him.
It took this guy 20 years of fighting city officials to finally get his weird architectural
fantasy approved.
But after two years of construction, everything came to a standstill.
The quiet city of Tiburon hasn't done anything with it since, other than trying desperately
to sell it.
But nobody wants to buy a half-built house – especially not one already partially made
from lava rocks.
These days, the mysterious shell of the Lava House is used for illegal parties.
It's also a prime location for urban photographers who like exploring the creepy subterranean
rooms.
The house has been around since the 90s and even though the city knows what it’s all
about, the local residents have lost all memory of what the Lava House was ever supposed to
be.
7: Siwa Oasis The Siwa Oasis has been around for thousands
of years and has gone by many different names.
The ancient Egyptians called it the Field of Palm Trees, it was called Santariya by
the ancient Arabs, and some have called it the Oasis of Jupiter-Amun.
It was probably occupied as early as Neolithic times and is still occupied today.
It was likely part of an ancient kingdom that was around during Egypt’s Old Kingdom.
But because of how far the oasis is from the rest of Egypt, located deep in the western
desert near the border of modern Libya, it has functioned independently ever since humans
settled there.
The traditions, customs, and history here are significantly different from the rest
of Egypt.
Even the language differs from several hundred miles to the east, where the Pyramids of Giza
and other ancient wonders are located.
The people who live in the Oasis now are the Siwan Berbers, who practice ancient beliefs
and deities.
Unlike other places in Egypt, there have not been any monuments discovered here relating
to the old Pharaohs.
Instead, Siwa boasts an impressive temple that once housed an oracle.
This was the Oracle of Amun, and she was consulted by Alexander the Great, at which point the
oracle announced Alexander as a god and endorsed his legitimate rule of all of Egypt.
It's believed that Cleopatra visited the oasis to consult with the oracle as well.
Another interesting fact is that Christianity never really established itself here.
The oasis is simply too remote.
Islam did eventually make its way to Siwa in 708 AD, though it didn't really take hold
until 1150 when the defenders of the Siwa Oasis were finally beaten.
To this day, it remains one of the most mystical and least-visited places in Egypt.
6: Kawah Ijen Lake In the middle of nowhere in East Java, Indonesia,
there is a mysterious volcano that contains a lake of almost pure acid within its bowl.
It's one of the most incredible and isolated places in the world.
This is the Kawah Ijen volcano, and the turquoise lake in its crater is the largest acidic lake
in the entire world, with a pH level of under 0.3.
In comparison, lemon juice has a pH level of 2.
Battery acid has a pH level of only 1.
A level of 0.3 is not great and would almost instantly kill all the fish in your fish tank.
What's really strange is that the acidity of the volcano lake has a direct effect on
the nearby rivers.
Because so many rivers in the area actually start at the lake, with the water moving downstream,
the rivers’ pH levels are completely crazy.
Farmers use this water to irrigate their crops, and it's been found to have a pH level of
between 2.5 and 3.5.
Basically, farmers are irrigating their crops with pure battery acid.
But why does the lake look so gorgeous?
It has a beautiful turquoise color and looks very appealing, especially in the hot weather
when you want to take a swim.
Well, according to NASA, the color comes from dissolved materials in the water, including
things like hydrochloric acid and sulfuric acid.
In other words, this is not the best place to stop for an afternoon swim.
There's also a plume that drifts perpetually west from the crater which is basically a
giant cloud of toxic gas.
5: Mezhgorye In Russia, there is a town called Mezhgorye
which just might be the Russian equivalent of Area 51.
It's a closed town located in the Ural Mountains, over 120 miles from the region’s capital.
The town was founded back in 1979, to house people who worked on a secret base on Mount
Yamantau.
The city actually began as a construction project in the 1970s in response to the growing
nuclear firepower of the United States.
Instead of just being a base, it was an entire town that was meant to be a secret.
It’s been said that a huge underground facility is located here to keep whatever is going
on away from U.S. spy satellites, which spotted suspicious activity back in the 90s.
Nobody knows how big the facility is, though some claim it could be 400 square miles.
It has all the telltale signs of a secret government base, just like Area 51 and nobody
really knows what goes on there.
In some official reports, it came out that Mezhgorye stored 73 nuclear warheads after
the cold war.
They were extremely powerful SS-23s, with 365 times the power of the nuclear bomb dropped
in hiroshima.
They were finally dismantled but this place probably is home to a nuclear weapons launch
site.
It is so large it can house around 60,000 people with air filtration that can purify
the air from any kind of nuclear or chemical attack.
Questions about the site have gone unanswered and Russia is sticking to the story that it
is a public works project.
Sounds like a secret, government research nuclear site to me!
What do you think?
Let me know in the comments below!!
And now for number 4, but first wanted to give a quick shout out to Brody Rains and
Sarah E for supporting this channel!
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4: Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion Far in the north of Ethiopia is the small
and mysterious city of Aksum.
The city is said to be where the great Queen of Sheba had her palace, with its ruins still
sitting in a small field outside the city center.
This city has been around a long time and is considered a holy city.
Ethiopia was one of the first countries to adopt Christianity in the 4th century.
At the heart of Aksum is a church called the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion.
It's arguably the most secretive church anywhere in the world.
Nobody is allowed inside except for a man known as “the guardian”, an important
figure in charge of guarding the Ark of the Covenant.
That's right, just like in Indiana Jones.
The guardian is a chosen representative of the church trained to protect the ark at all
costs, even trained to kill using their bare hands.
As you can imagine, historians and archaeologists would really like to get their hands on the
Ark of the Covenant, the holiest of holy relics.
Also the Vatican!!
But nobody is allowed to look – not even to peek, and there are no exceptions.
The Ark of the Covenant is a lost treasure from the Hebrew Bible – a chest which holds
the physical tablets engraved with the Ten Commandments given by God.
The ark was supposedly housed in the legendary Temple of Solomon before a Babylonian king
destroyed the temple and the ark vanished.
Some believe that temple priests removed the ark from the temple to protect it.
Maybe it was the Knights Templar who took the ark and hid it in Egypt for several hundred
years.
It was rumored it was also taken to a Jewish Island until it was finally taken to Aksum.
Or the ark was secretly brought to the country by Menelik, the son of the Queen of Sheba
and King Solomon of Israel.
The details of the story are quite murky and of course everyone wants to know if the Ark
is really inside the church.
If it even exists at all.
Ethiopia, of course, would like to keep the legend going, so they say the ark is still
inside of this church and they don't let anyone look to prove whether it is or isn't.
3: Cocos Island Cocos Island is 340 miles from Costa Rica
and has been part of the country since 1832.
The island is nothing but a tropical rainforest hardly touched by human hands.
It's remote, mysterious, and there may be a treasure buried on the island worth over
$1 billion!
The island was actually the inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel “Treasure
Island.”
It has black sand beaches, a gorgeous waterfall, and a treasure that may have been buried in
1820 back when Peru tried to fight back against the Spanish empire in the middle of colonizing
the Americas.
A Spanish viceroy thought it would be a good idea to take all the riches out of the war
zone and safeguard them until the fighting was over.
A massive haul of gold coins, diamonds, statues, and everything else was transported by British
Captain William Thompson on his vessel the Mary Dear.
Well, the British captain killed every Spanish soldier and priest, dumped their bodies, then
took the treasure for himself and allegedly buried it on Cocos Island.
To this day, the famous treasure has never been found.
Some speculate whether it really is buried somewhere on the island.
Some say it's already been dug up and spent.
2: Winnekenni Castle In the secluded countryside of Massachusetts,
there is a castle that looks like it belongs in medieval England.
It was constructed by the chemist James Nichols, inspired by the old castles and structures
of Europe.
Weirdly, James built the castle out of 35,000 cubic feet of glacial boulders.
This was done between 1873 and 1875, and at the time, it was simply to be used for his
summer home.
It was named Winnekenni Castle.
Today, the castle stands at the edge of Kenoza Lake, looking down from 250 feet above.
It's the most bizarre and out of place structure anywhere in Massachusetts and could even be
haunted.
In 1885, just ten years after being built, Nichols gave the castle to his cousin, who
then sold it 10 years later to the growing city of Haverhill.
It eventually became a public park, was ravaged by a mysterious fire, and then mostly left
alone.
It’s in the Winnekenni Park Conservation Area today, filled with quiet hiking trails.
And the air of ancient mysteries.
1: Diamond Head Crater Diamond Head Crater is a unique geological
formation at the edge of Waikiki Island.
It's also the most recognized landmark in all of Hawaii and is famous for its historic
hiking trail.
The monument itself is roughly 475 acres.
But just where did this huge and mysterious crater come from?
According to the government of Hawaii, it was formed 300,000 years ago during a single
explosive blast from the volcano.
When the blast was over and all the particles settled, the crater was formed.
Ever since, the volcano has remained dormant, allowing the crater to become a wild park
itself.
And of course, Diamond Head has a significant military history.
There were batteries installed at the summit of the crater that could direct artillery
fire at Japanese fighter crafts in World War Two.
There was a navigational lighthouse constructed above the crater in 1917 – and if you’re
lucky, you might even see a whale swimming beyond the shore below on a clear day.
Which of these mysterious places would you love to visit?
Tell me about it in the comments and thanks for watching.
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