Explanations bring a sense of order to our mysterious world. Mysteries may be fun, but the more you think about them — and the longer you can’t find the answer — the more frustrating they become.
Finding a unique image, and then learning the who, what, and why is super satisfying. So, feast your eyes on these images, and take comfort in the fact that we’re totally going to explain what’s going on.
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What can brown do for you?
What looks like an impressive bike mod is actually a legit UPS delivery truck. In many European cities, where people commute on narrow, medieval streets, vehicles like this are necessary. Redditor hayaimonogachi snapped this pic in Rome.
Is there anything 3D printers can’t do?
This image from Redditor DraftDraw is amazing. The left side shows a toucan with a broken beak. That’s sad! The right side shows the same toucan with a fancy new 3D-printed beak. That’s awesome!
Sometimes horses aren’t fast.
I’ve always thought of horses as fast creatures, but maybe that only happens when someone’s riding them. This pic from Redditor Kelleykrider16 shows a horse that’s stood still for so long that its shadow has preserved the frost on the ground.
The eternal prayer.
It’s incredible how amber can capture a single moment and preserve it for eons. This perfectly-preserved praying mantis, in mid-“prayer,” was posted by Redditor Raqped . Incredibly, this specimen is about 12 million-years-old.
Looks like a pole to me…
Reddit user elegant_clegane posted a pic of a pole that’s claiming it isn’t a pole. It seems to be a once-active pole that’s slated for removal, and contractors have put a sign up warning others not to use it.
I guess some poles just aren’t poles.
It’s a valuable reminder that, even when we think we know what objects look like and what they do, things can change — and if we don’t adapt to those changes, said objects will fail us.
They’ve found a hidden world.
This kinda-sorta looks like a bunch of firefighters found a portal to the secret police kingdom, but it’s okay because all parties are happy about it. Unsurprisingly, that’s not what’s shown in this pic from Redditor etymologynerd .
When police need the police, who do they call?
The image actually shows a bunch of Kansas City police officers who were stranded in a broken elevator. They couldn’t police their way out of the situation, so they turned to the fire department, who were happy to help.
I’ll stay up here, thanks.
This foreboding-looking stairway, captured by Redditor SubsonicDust leads directly into the abyss. This shows a stairway in Clifton Country Park near Manchester, England. The stairs lead into a flooded gravel pit. You can see an image from the bottom of the pit in this PDF .
Modern art?
It looks decidedly avant-garde, but this pic from Reddtior bambamjoeP shows something a little more pedestrian. This is either a tide marker or a channel marker. Either way, it’s a navigational tool for ships.
I want to crack this code, but have no idea how to.
This old timey cylindrical thing was posted by Redditor fastedzo . It looks a bit like the code lookup thing at some older grocery stores, but it’s way older than that.
It comes from a time before pocket calculators.
The device is a cylindrical calculator like the ones seen here . And before you ask, I have no idea how one would use it. I could find out, but in the age of smartphones, it doesn’t seem necessary.
Where do I get that window covering?
What looks like a pretty cool frosted glass design was actually created by a frog who went on a meandering journey across this fourth storey (!) window. Thanks to Redditor generaltso78 for this awesome pic.
The lucrative catch.
There’s a bit of controversy over what exactly is going on here. But this pic from Redditor BroAxe shows a Dutch fisherman who says he dredged up these solid gold bars during a recent expedition.
The car of the future (is super ugly).
Redditor blafurznarg was driving behind this bizarre looking car with a dazzle pattern and unknown electronics on the roof. It almost looks like a Google Street View vehicle, but there’s no 360° camera in sight.
Get out your tinfoil hats.
Or don’t, actually, because the weird equipment isn’t for surveillance. It’s actually called a Lidar system, which uses invisible lasers to help determine location. It’s commonly found on self-driving cars.
That’s not a normal pen…
Redditor James_Fennell found the bottom device packed into an old pen and asked the Reddit masses what it was (the Sharpie is just for scale). The answer is pretty fascinating.
James Bond called. He wants his pen back.
The pen has crystal radio components in it, and the consensus seems to be that it’s a signal injector , which allows for troubleshooting to trace a signal within a circuit.
A tiny ladder for tiny people?
Redditor tiagozap posted this interesting pic showing an impossibly small ladder leading into an impossibly small hole in the ceiling. There’s a sign indicating where the pay station is, but no info is given on what’s going on with the ladder.
Turns out, it’s an art installation.
Artist John Pym created the Secret Industry series, creating intriguing vignettes in places (like parking garages) where people don’t expect to find art. It’s super interesting and hangs together way better than my Zoolander theory.
What’s going on here?
Redditor flowerboy00 posted this unspectacular looking pic. Thing is, the fact that it looks unspectacular is what’s so cool since it isn’t one pic. It’s two that fit perfectly together — an unintentional panorama!
Most planned panoramas don’t work this well.
Seriously, most picture-taking technology allows us to “seamlessly” stitch different photos together into a panorama, but it never looks quite right. But somehow, two photos from decades ago are a perfect match.
Is that water or Jell-O?
Yes, it’s water, and yes, it’s a real coin. Apparently Japan’s ¥1 coin is so light, it can float. In fact, it’s so light that it won’t even break the surface tension on a glass of water. This one comes from Redditor chriskokura .
This is the only way Scrooge McDuck’s money vault could ever work.
Because seriously, unless those are ultralight Japanese coins he’s diving into, this billionaire duck is more likely to break his neck than go for a relaxing dip in his riches.
