If we’re all living in a simulation, it’s a good one, with seemingly endless variables making our lives unpredictable and the world downright fascinating . Which only makes it seem less likely that it’s all made up for us.
You don’t need to look much further than the internet for evidence, either. The things folks find and share on there are absolutely mind-boggling to the point that you can’t imagine an outside force making them up. They’re just too weird . And doesn’t that make the world all the more fascinating?
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If you don’t keep water in your pool and you live in an area with a high water table, the groundwater can push your pool out of the ground.
This unlucky homeowner learned the hard way. Anybody new to owning a pool should take note and learn from their mistake.
I’ve seen it happen, and as much as it’s worthy of taking a pic, it’s not nearly as cool as you’d think. But it is very expensive and time consuming to fix, so there’s that.
The electromagnetic field around this power cord is on full display, causing iron shavings to line up.
Most likely this is a welder’s setup, which explains both the heavy duty cable and the abundance of iron shavings on the ground.
Of course, it’s only the iron shavings directly underneath the cord lining up here — as the cord has been moved around the job site, it has left trails of lined-up shavings behind. Still, a pretty neat thing to see!
After a huge fire tore through Seattle in 1889, streets were raised up to 22 feet, and some of the old building facades remain below.
The devastating fire destroyed 25 blocks of the city, including every wharf, displacing thousands of people and putting 5,000 out of work.
The raising of the streets in the aftermath actually leveled out some of the city’s hilly avenues. Visitors can take a tour of the city’s underground to check out a well-preserved slice of history.
Although it looks like a hole has been neatly trimmed out of the sky, this silhouette could only belong to one thing: the B-2 stealth bomber.
Stealthy to radar, of course, but not so much when it’s flying so close to the ground on a sunny day.
What actually makes the B-2 difficult for most of us to see is its relative rarity. With only 21 of these technological marvels ever built , the likelihood of catching one soaring overhead has to be pretty low.
Although sunlight typically causes colors to fade, with some hardwoods, it can cause colors to deepen.
You can see it in action here, where a rug hasn’t been moved in 20 years. Just like your skin, sunlight will change the color of wood over time if it’s not protected, although it’s seldom a dramatic change.
Whether it will fade or darken depends on the kind of wood involved — cherry, for example, will darken over the years, as will mahogany, while wood that starts darker will lighten.
The cool thing about this picture isn’t the mountain you can see; it’s the one you can’t see.
On the left, you can make out a shadow being cast on the sky by a mountain beyond the horizon.
It’s sort of the same principle as how the ancient Greek scientist Eratosthenes , who lived more than 2,000 years ago, figured out that the Earth was curved — and calculated the circumference with an impressive degree of accuracy, especially when you consider that he was working with pillars and sunlight and little else.
More fun with the horizon: following the line of this cloud front stretch off into the distance shows off the curvature of the Earth.
Things you just don’t appreciate from the ground, amirite? And definitely not a view that any ancient Greek scientist could have accessed.
Plus, that is one long cloud, like one of the bars on a meteorologist’s map rolling across the continent, but without a massive wall of inclement weather threatening to soak the world behind it.
Meanwhile, in India, there’s a lake with a floating island that moves around slowly.
These two images show how far the island can float around Prashar Lake over the course of a year, stopping only when the lake freezes over in the winter. It’s not so much a true island as a mass of floating vegetation held up by the oxygen in its roots.
Floating islands aren’t uncommon in nature, but this particularly tranquil location, almost 9,000 feet above sea level with a centuries-old three-tiered temple, is certainly a rarity.
Why is there a weird line running across the middle of this photograph?
It’s the water level of a large pond that usually fills this area. In the dry season, it leaves behind an algae-stained reminder that water was here, and might just be back when the wetter weather returns.
As a bonus, the guy in the orange vest in the background gives a sense of scale regarding the size of the pond that would normally be here. It’s kind of sad how much dried up!
In Poland, there’s a large statue of Jesus with a crown on top, which hides an array of telecommunications equipment and antennas.
Nearby villages can literally thank this Jesus for their access to wifi.
At 108 feet in height, the statue, Christ the King, is thought to be the tallest statue of Jesus in the world. The locals paid for Christ the King, shelling out a not unreasonable $1.45 million, and it was completed in 2010.
However, the broadcasting equipment was a recent addition that nobody — not even the parish that oversees the statue — claims to have put there. Does that mean the villagers get immaculate reception?
There is a lake in the African nation of Djibouti with salt levels 10 times those of the ocean.
Lake Assal is still only the second saltiest body of water on Earth, after Antarctica’s Don Juan Pond. Yeah, it’s ahead of even the Dead Sea, although the Dead Sea is certainly more popular and easier to access.
Lake Assal’s location in a geological depression, where three tectonic plates meet, make it a profoundly weird place, and in the summer it gets too hot to even swim there.
Who knew turkeys could come in such vibrant colors?
I know, it’s like a turkey crossed with a peacock, right? Ocellated turkeys sure change your perception of a typically unspectacular bird. They also sound quite different from the turkeys we’re used to, producing a higher-pitched gutteral noise rather than a gobble.
You probably won’t get to see one anytime soon, even around Thanksgiving, however. Ocellated turkeys are found in the Yucatan, Guatemala, and Belize, and unfortunately, their habitat is under threat.
Looks like the owner of this vase got a prettier show than they bargained for with their purchase.
You wouldn’t be wrong to expect a rainbow display from your glass vase on a sunny day. However, if the rainbow on the wall looks odd, that’s because it’s from light reflecting off the surface of the vase, not shining through it.
With a more prismatic vase, you’d get the classic rainbow — but this is much more interesting, don’t you think?
There’s something simultaneously eerie and intriguing about this outline of four people against this wall.
It’s just that so many people have sat there, waiting for a train, leaning up against the wall and transferring their sweat and grime that their “shadows” have become permanent. Spooky.
Apparently, this is in a subway station in Delhi, India, but the phenomenon of people residue left against walls isn’t unique.
Similar scenes have appeared in Montreal ‘s Metro system, among others. Maybe it’s time to wash the walls?
If you ever get a cut in your eye, this is your future, friend.
It’s a little bit Blade Runner and a little bit painful. Just like a plumber trying to find a not-so-obvious leak, doctors use a fluorescent dye to figure out where the cut is under a UV light.
I know, this looks fairly gross, and few of us like the idea of having the kind of chemicals that make you glow injected into us, but it’s necessary. The good news is that this person made a full recovery !
In WWI, soldiers were known to use the metal from spent shell casings to create art.
Boredom on the Western Front created these beauties in 1918, which only recently turned up in a barn.
Trench art , as it came to be known, has a longer history than WWI — even back in the Napoleonic Wars in the 19th century, soldiers were creating art from what they had on hand. Soldiers have used everything from chalk to clay to leaves to pass the time and often express themselves in a highly stressful time.
It’s pretty far from common to see a tree with two different bark patterns and a line separating the two.
Most likely it was wrapped up to protect it at some point, causing the wildly dissimilar appearance of the two sections.
It’s pretty unusual to see such a difference in bark patterns, however. Many trees get wrapped up over the winter, and you’d never know it later to look at the bark. So maybe this tree was just a tad unlucky, too.
No, you’re not falling into a separate, Christmas-y dimension — although how fun would that be? — it’s just the ornament display creating that effect.
If you squint a bit, it’s almost like you’re making the leap to festive hyperspace. Credit to this display’s designer for making Christmas shopping more enjoyable than just trying to complete a list while spending as little as possible.
Buddy the Elf couldn’t have done a better job with an electronic Christmas ornament launcher and a gut full of candy canes.
Hey, some places will go all-out for their holiday displays, like this library creating a huge wintry scene in the middle of a shopping mall out of book spines.
Well, sort of. They clearly painted the design onto book spines, which still requires no small amount of dedication.
This is at a library in a Korean shopping mall , and it doesn’t look like the most practical setup for book borrowers — not sure how they’re supposed to access the stacks above. However, it does look like a beautiful library.
Here’s a neat effect you might see on your car one morning when the conditions are right: the frost melting on the window where the side mirror’s reflection hits it.
Just goes to show how much more intense that reflected light can be, kind of like that Archimedes death ray that supposedly used a mirror to light the ships of invaders on fire.
Obviously, that was more myth than anything — the Mythbusters even debunked it on their show — but you kind of see where it was coming from.
Another cool thing to catch the sun doing first thing in the morning: making a fence steam.
After a few days of rain, the sunshine didn’t waste any time starting to dry out that soaked fence.
Also, has to be a relief when you realize that it’s in fact just evaporation and not smoke. Although what might set a rain-soaked fence ablaze I have no idea, but still, wouldn’t your heart skip a beat all the same? I know mine would!
The only thing weirder than finding that your light bulb has filled up with water during a leak is that it still worked until it was unscrewed.
Which, while it’s a testament to modern technology, is pretty scary too, when you think about it.
If left screwed in, couldn’t that potentially cause a fire? I mean, I would hope that the quality of light a water-logged light bulb gives off would clue you in that something was wrong, but you never know.
Not all credit cards are created equally, from the plastic you’d expect.
This one was stainless steel with a sticker on each side. More durable, for sure, and something of a surprise when you go to destroy it when it expires.
Mind you, a metal core shouldn’t be a huge surprise if you find one inside your credit card. For one thing, it will feel noticeably different than other cards, and for another, you usually have to order one specifically.
There are a few exceptions , of course, like the Amazon Prime Rewards Visa.
Don’t adjust your screen. This photo of bread is completely in focus, even though it seems like parts of it are blurry.
I know, you kind of lose your appetite trying to make sense of it, right?
It’s just the way the air pockets inside the bread formed that make it seem like only the middle is in focus. It’s almost dizzying if you stare at it directly — best to just make a sandwich and move along, don’t you think?
