10: The Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion The Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion is located
in Ethiopia and depending on who you ask, is the resting place of the fabled Ark of
the Covenant.
This is arguably one of the most mysterious churches in the world.
If you're not familiar with the Ark of the Covenant, it is allegedly the holy vessel
which carried the tablets on which the sacred Ten Commandments are written.
It's the thing in Indiana Jones that was so intense that it killed whoever looked at it.
But fortunately enough for everyone, it might not even exist.
The issue with the church is that only a single guardian is allowed inside to look at the
ark; nobody else can enter.
National Geographic even did a story on the guardians of the ark, who claimed they have
been trained to kill with their bare hands and that they will do so if anyone tries to
breach the entrance.
Ethiopia definitely wants everyone to think they have the ark, and hey, maybe they do
– but according to Edward Ullendorff, the man who allegedly saw the ark during World
War II, it's only a replica, not the real thing.
This means the real Ark of the Covenant may still be out there somewhere, waiting for
an intrepid explorer to discover it.
9: The Shilin Stone Forest The Shilin Stone Forest in China’s Yunnan
province is one of the most bizarre places in the entire world.
It's what the locals refer to as a stone forest, covering a massive area of about 186 square
miles(482km).
It's an otherworldly landscape that geologists have dated to be over 270 million years old.
It looks like an array of labyrinths built out of giant stalagmite pillars.
It's so perplexing that a person could very easily find themselves getting lost inside
of the mysterious stone forest, which also boasts caves, ponds, underwater rivers, and
even a lake with an island in the middle.
There is even a legend surrounding the stone forest.
It has to do with the main attraction here, the Ashima Stone.
Legend says the stone was formed after a beautiful girl named Ashima ran into the forest after
it was forbidden, in order to marry the man she loved.
So, the forest turned her to stone.
Each year, on June 24th, the local people hold a celebration in the stone forest, featuring
traditional performances such as bull fighting, pole-climbing, wrestling, lion-dancing, dragon-playing,
and the A-xi Moon Dance.
The torch festival has been a tradition for years, and one that will likely continue for
years to come, in one of the most mystical and mysterious places in all of China.
8: The Temple of Jupiter The Temple of Jupiter is situated on the top
of the Capitoline Hill in the very heart of what was once ancient Rome.
Or at least, the temple used to be there.
It’s long-since been erased from the alleys of history.
The temple was dedicated to Jupiter Optimus Maximus and included space for people to worship
other gods, specifically Juno and Minerva.
These three gods were part of the Capitoline Triad, a trio of divinities that were very
significant to the Roman state religion.
Jupiter was basically Zeus, and so his temple needed to be the biggest and the most central.
The temple was completed around 509 BC.
This was the time when the Romans overthrew the Etruscan monarchy and established their
own republican system of government, leading to what would eventually become the great
Roman Empire.
But unfortunately, the Temple of Jupiter had a rough time.
It was built and destroyed and rebuilt several times throughout the centuries and today is
almost completely gone.
All that remains are a few bricks underneath a boring piazza that was designed by Michelangelo
during the Renaissance.
We don't know exactly how they worshiped their gods in the mighty Temple of Jupiter because
now there's nothing left of it except crumbling rocks.
7: Bhangarh Haunted Fort There is a haunted fort in India called the
Bhangarh Fort.
This old and mysterious place was built by the mighty ruler Raja Bhagwant Singh way back
in the year 1573 AD.
He actually built it for his young son, Madho Singh.
Madho was succeeded by his own son, Chatr Sing, who had a daughter named Ratnavati.
Ratnavati was considered to be the most beautiful woman in all of Rajasthan.
This created some complications for the young woman, who had many men trying to marry her.
One of these men was a local priest, who fell in love with her, but knew he didn't have
a chance, and so he cursed her with black magic!
Seems a little petty to us, but hey, this is allegedly according to the legend.
The mad priest not only cursed the beautiful young woman, but also the village and her
entire family!
Just the next year, there was a huge battle between the Bhangarh forces and the neighboring
Ajabgarh, which resulted in the princess Ratnavati being killed and the fort being abandoned.
Ever since, the fort has been a condemned ruin.
The local villagers remain terrified of the thing, and some even claim the ghost of the
young woman can still be seen moving through its empty hallways.
Hey all you paranormal fans out there!
Would you like to visit this fort?
Let us know in the comments section down below and if you’re liking this video, be sure
to hit the thumbs up and subscribe button if you haven’t already!
:)
6: Sayhuite Sayhuite is one of the more mysterious archaeological
sites in the world.
It’s about 3 hours from Cusco in Peru and according to some archaeologists, it was once
the center of worship for the Inca people.
At the core of the site is an old temple.
The temple has an incredibly tragic story behind it, of the priestess Asarpay who leapt
to her death in the nearby gorge to avoid capture when the Spanish came.
We don’t know if this is true, but that’s the way the story goes.
One of the more mysterious features of Sayhuite is the large rock monolith which is about
6 feet(2m) long and 13 feet(4m) wide.
It contains over 200 odd, zoomorphic figures, including cats, reptiles, frogs, and things
that don’t look entirely from our world.
Nobody knows the true purpose of this monolith or why so many strange beasts were carved
on its face, nor why it was so important to the Inca who made pilgrimage here to worship
their mysterious gods.
5: Viking Greenland Greenland is one of the more mysterious regions
in the world, but more mysterious than the land of ice itself is that about 500 years
ago, Norse settlers, also known as Vikings, arrived in Greenland, settled the land, and
then completely vanished without a trace.
For a long time, nobody was sure why the Vikings left, and some historians had suggested it
was because they simply couldn’t hack it.
The Vikings couldn’t find enough food to eat and just kind of slowly evaporated.
But a new study by Danish and Canadian researchers has proved definitively that the Vikings didn’t
fail because of starvation.
When excavating the skeletons of Norse settlers in Greenland, found on the property of a local
farm, scientists analyzed the remains and found that they had been eating a healthy
diet of seafood, specifically seals.
There had been enough food to go around.
Indeed, the Vikings adapted rather well and exceptionally fast to the Arctic environment.
At least 80% of their diet was seal meat in the 14th century.
The mystery then surrounding the Greenland ruins, like the Norse ruin at Igaliku Fjord,
nothing left except a few old rocks that the Vikings had turned into a house, is that they
up and vanished for no logical reason.
They simply picked up their gear, sailed away, and never returned.
Why do you think they left so suddenly?
4: Kanam The archaeological site of Kanam in Kenya
is a mystery that still hasn’t been solved to this day.
The Kanam Prehistoric Site can be found on the shores of Lake Victoria, first discovered
in 1932 by the archaeologist Louis Leakey, who discovered the first fossils of what he
believed to be from Australopithecus.
The Australopithecus is one of the earliest known human species.
The discovery was so outrageous, and Leakey’s own credibility was so shaky, that nobody
believed him and he was forced to change the name of what he discovered to Homo Kanamensis.
One of the biggest problems was that when Leakey returned to Kanam in 1935 to prove
himself right, he couldn’t find the markers he’d left behind and was unable to find
any more fossils.
Even more suspicious was that the pictures he’d taken of his first expedition were
apparently ruined, so nobody could see them.
Seems a little suspicious to us.
But after the whole affair, other archaeologists went on to find the bones of Neanderthals
at Kanam.
It’s still considered a mysterious place that may hold some seriously important secrets
to the development of humankind from ape to man, but the place has been burdened by so
many misfortunes that it’s almost become a write-off in the archaeological community.
3: Camelot Believe it or not, a retired professor says
that he has finally discovered the location of the mysterious Camelot, the castle which
was the seat of power for the legendary King Arthur.
For thousands of years, both Camelot and King Arthur himself have been heavily disputed
as nothing but stories.
However, Professor Peter Field, an expert on Arthur, now claims that Camelot was nothing
but a small Roman near fortress near Huddersfield in West Yorkshire.
Here's what the professor has to say.
He claims that the old fort was called Camulodunum by the Romans, which translates roughly to,
“the fortress of the god Camul.”
He believes this is where the name Camelot came from.
1400 years ago, the fortress was located on the Roman road that led between Chester and
York, both of which were Celtic strongholds.
It would have been a perfect place for King Arthur to command his troops from.
Plus, if King Arthur was real, he probably lived around the year 500.
The first mention of King Arthur and Camelot comes from a very long French poem called,
Y Gododdin, in 1180.
Between the year 500 and 1180, it's no surprise that there was no mention of King Arthur written
because it was the Dark Ages and almost nothing was recorded.
Still, this may not actually be the legendary Camelot, it could just be an old abandoned
Roman fort – but the mystery is certainly there and Professor Field’s theory is quite
convincing.
2: Winchester Mystery House The Winchester Mystery House is an extremely
weird, beautiful, and slightly creepy mansion built by an eccentric woman starting in the
year 1886.
Her name was Sarah Winchester, and she traveled to San Jose, California after the death of
her husband, the firearms superstar William Wirt Winchester.
Her plan was to start a new life with the fortune left behind by the old man.
So, she spent 36 years and millions of dollars turning a small farmhouse into what is now
known as the Winchester Mystery House, one of the strangest places in the United States.
Her only decree while the house was being built was that the construction continue and
never stop, regardless of if the design made no sense.
There were so many changes that the house is basically a maze without a center, made
of over 160 rooms, 10,000 windows, two basements, 2000 doors (not all of them functional), and
more secret passages then Sherlock Holmes would know what to do with.
In the end, construction only stopped when the woman died in 1922.
To this day, nobody knows why she kept herself cooped up in the big house or why she insisted
on around-the-clock work being done for nearly 40 years.
There’s a story that claims she did this because after the death of her husband, she
visited a fortune teller.
The fortune teller told her to build the insane house and that if she ever stopped, all the
people that died at the hands of her late husband’s guns would haunt her!
No one is sure if that is the real reason, but it’s one of the only ones that makes
any sense.
1: Loch Ness Loch Ness is a mysterious lake in the Scottish
Highlands known for its serpent-like monster, but a lot of people don't really know the
truth behind what is one of the most mysterious places on the planet.
Believe it or not, the legend of Nessie actually goes back to year 1.
That’s right, the first Nessie sighting was in the 1st century AD when the Romans
showed up in Scotland.
According to Time Magazine, the Roman soldiers witnessed an animal that they could not recognize
and swore it was some kind of dragon-like monster!
The rumor stuck, with the first literary mention being around the year 550 AD, when the biography
of the Scottish Saint Columba mentioned Loch Ness as the place to see the monster.
Basically, the Loch Ness Monster has been around for at least 2000 years, making it
one of the longest-running mysteries in history.
Still today, people flock to the lake for a chance to witness that legendary monster
for themselves.
There’s been countless sightings and even pictures!
Though no one can actually prove if anyone is telling the truth.
Nessie has evaded humans for thousands of years and it’s doubtful she just recently
decided to play peek-a-boo a bunch in the last century.
Thanks for watching!
Which of these mysterious places would you love to visit for fun?
Do you believe in any of the legends surrounding them?
Let us know in the comments and don’t forget to hit the subscribe button and come back
for another awesome video!
See you next time!
Bye! :)