Rare Pictures That Need Explaining

Some bizarre photos online leave you with far more questions than answers. From babies in test tubes to transparent hard-boiled eggs, let's investigate some of the strangest pics that need an explanation.

Camera's Rolling Shutter Effect

Take a look at this picture of two friends enjoying their time at a fairground. Seems pretty innocent, right?

Now, look more closely. Notice how the girl in the black T-shirt looks different in her reflection? On the right, she’s smiling with teeth. On the left, her mouth is open. Creepy! Luckily, this isn’t the work of an evil fairground spirit. The creepy effect is actually caused by the camera’s rolling shutter. Instead of capturing an entire picture at once, some cameras take photos by scanning from left to right, snapping small strips of the image as they go.

There are usually only a few fractions of a second between the strips, which means that in most cases you won’t notice anything unusual. But if whatever you’re photographing moves faster than the camera’s rolling shutter, you’ll end up with weird distortions like the one we’ve seen here.

The Dress

On the topic of distortions, it’s impossible to talk about confusing photos without mentioning the dress. This debate over the coloration of this simple gown divided the internet, splitting families, ending friendships, and probably causing a divorce or two along the way.

It all started back in February 2015, when Cecilia Bleasdale posted a photo of her brand new dress on Facebook. It immediately went viral, as to some people, it looked like a blue dress with black lace. To others, it was clearly a white dress with gold lace.

So, what’s the explanation for this disagreement? Well, scientists have suggested that people see the dress differently because of the ways their brains interpret the photo’s lighting. The original photo of the dress is low-quality, which means that it’s difficult to work out what time of day it is, or what kind of light is shining on the gown. As a result, our brains are forced to fill in the gaps for themselves.

If your brain assumes that the photo was taken in dim light, you’ll probably see a white and gold dress that looks a little blue because of shadow. If your brain assumes that the dress is in bright light, you’ll see a black and blue dress which appears yellow-tinted in the sun. And in case you didn’t already know, the dress is actually blue and black!

Shark Rides The Barrel

The sea may look pretty on the surface, but swim a little deeper, and something unsettling is often lurking beneath the waves. If you want proof, take a look at the image below! This terrifying pic, snapped by photographer Kurt Jones, appears to show a surfer floating helplessly into the path of an enormous shark.

But luckily for him, this pic isn’t quite as it seems. The clue is in the fins. Sharks have vertical dorsal fins, which stick straight up into the air. Look closely at this photo, and you’ll see that the fin is slightly curved. That means that instead of having a close encounter with Jaws, our surfer is actually frolicking with a playful dolphin. It just goes to show not everything you find in the ocean is out to bite you.

Skull With 4 Rows Of Teeth

The human skull below appears to have far too many teeth, with at least four rows of pearly whites! Can you imagine flossing those bad boys? Unfortunately, if you find this image disturbing, there are bad news for you. Not only did your skull once look like this, but so did the skulls of everyone you know!

The ancient skull belonged to a child, and the extra row of teeth are the adult, or permanent teeth, waiting in the gums for the moment they can push to the surface. Truly, the stuff of nightmares.

Baby In A Tube

However terrifying a child’s skeletal structure may be, there’s surely no excuse to put a poor, defenseless, chubby-cheeked baby in a test tube like this, is there?

Luckily, this picture isn’t quite as sinister as it looks. What you’re actually seeing here is a cute little baby receiving an X-ray. That weird plastic contraption is called a ‘Pigg-O-Statt’, and it’s used to stop the tiny patient from wriggling around and ruining their X-ray. With the baby held nice and still, the photo can be taken quickly, reducing its exposure to radiation. Let’s hope this baby got a lollipop once it was liberated from its plastic prison.

Rosie The Shark

In our next photo, something a bit bigger than a baby is trapped behind glass! This is a 13-ft-long Great White Shark, caught off the coast of Australia in 1998. But what’s with the weird, foggy lighting in its aquarium tank?

Well, that’s because it’s actually preserved in a massive tank of formaldehyde. For years, the long-dead shark’s preserved body was on display at Wildlife Wonderland, a nature park in Victoria. But when the park closed in 2012, the preserved shark was abandoned.

Years later, an urban explorer broke into the park and discovered the tank. His pictures of the decaying Great White quickly began to circulate online, and the people of the internet took pity on the lonely shark. They nicknamed her Rosie, and shared petitions to have her moved to a more respectable venue. As a result of the effort, Rosie was moved to Crystal World Exhibition Center where she was lovingly restored and is now on display.

Monkey-Faced Orchids

Did you know that you can grow your own pet monkey with nothing more than some water and a bit of sunshine? Well that might not be exactly true, but these monkey orchids are the next best thing.

These are actually orchids, beautiful, rare blooms that just happen to look exactly like tiny monkey faces. What’s particularly special about these flowers is that they can bloom into different facial expressions: grumpy, happy or brooding, you never know what tiny face will emerge from your plant.

Their botanical name is dracula simia, which means "little dragon monkey" in Latin, as if they weren’t already cool enough! They’re found high up on the mountainsides of Ecuador and Peru, so if you want to see them in the wild, you have quite a climb ahead of you! Still, it’s worth it to find yourself in a field of little monkey faces, right? Added bonus: unlike real monkeys, these strange little orchids reportedly smell like ripe oranges, and they’ll never try to fling poop at you.

Gerenuk, The Giraffe-Gazelle Hybrid

Nature is full of weird and wonderful sights. A lot of the time, it’s beautiful, like monkey orchids, glorious sunsets, and cute little bunny rabbits. Other times, it’s downright weird. Take this picture, for example. With its tiny face and long neck, this animal looks a child’s drawing of Bambi gone wrong.

It’s actually a gerenuk, a type of antelope that can be found in parts of Africa. It eats by standing on its hind legs and craning its long, giraffe-like neck to reach higher branches. It may not be the most photogenic creature in the world, but after seeing Reddit’s terrifying, photoshopped praying-mantis hybrid version, you certainly wouldn’t dare say anything bad about it.

Baby Owls Sleep On Their Stomachs

On the topic of animals behaving strangely, check out this owl, which looks as though it’s just about given up. We’ve all been there at the end of a long day, buddy!

But there’s actually a good reason behind this owl’s despairing faceplant. It turns out that young, nesting owls sleep on their fronts, keeping their long legs stretched out behind them so that they can grip onto tree-branches with their back toes. In fact, since that first pic went viral in 2018, more and more owl enthusiasts have since come forward to share their photos of this adorable phenomenon.

Gecko Wearing A Pajama

Here’s another weird animal for you. This friendly little lizard appears to be wearing an adorable fancy-dress costume. The truth is slightly less cute though: it’s actually modelling a layer of its own worn-out skin, which it’s in the process of shedding.

As reptiles grow, their skin become too small for them. So, they shed it by rubbing the outer layer against hard objects until it splits and peels off, allowing further growth. The outgrown skin stays behind, like a ghost lizard or a miniature reptile-shaped onesie. Fun fact: lizards often eat the skin they shed as a source of calcium and other nutrients.

Penguin Eggs Turn Transparent When Boiled

Have you ever seen a hard-boiled egg that’s transparent like the one in the image below? If it looks weird to you, that’s probably because this isn’t a chicken egg. It actually belongs to a Gentoo penguin.

It turns out that penguin eggs are a delicacy in the Falkland Islands, and are characterized by their transparent, dense appearance. When boiled, the white remains clear due to a lack of Ovalbumin, the protein which makes chicken eggs white when cooked. But the differences don’t stop at the coloration. Reportedly, penguin eggs taste different too, harboring a fishy flavor, due to a penguin’s fish-heavy diet.

Banana Wow Ice Cream

For a more "a-peeling" snack, feast your eyes on this unusual frozen treat.

This is a Nestle ice cream called a ‘Split’, a ‘Banana Wow’ or a ‘Peel-a-pop’, depending on where you live, and it peels just like a real banana! These popsicles, sold in Taiwan and Malaysia, have an inner core of vanilla ice cream, while the bright yellow peel is made of Jell-o.

Unfortunately, though, there are disturbing news for you: this ice cream is not banana flavored. It actually tastes like vanilla and grape, which makes absolutely no sense. Still, this lack of logic isn’t enough to stop food bloggers everywhere from fighting to get their hands on these peelable popsicles.

Glitch Wooden Cabinet

But fake banana ice creams are far from the weirdest inventions whose pictures have graced the internet. Just take a look at this next photo.

Don’t worry, there’s nothing wrong with your screen, this cabinet was designed to be precisely as glitchy as it looks! Named the Good Vibrations Storage Unit, this piece was created by Italian architect Ferruccio Laviani to look like a distorted digital image.

Sadly, you can’t actually buy the cabinet, it hasn’t been built yet, and what you see there is a 3D digital rendering. A similar, simpler piece that Laviani actually has made can be seen in the image below, which is still pretty cool, though it could use a little wood-polish.

Special Effects Artist's Viral Mask

If you thought that warped furniture seemed like a glitch in the matrix, imagine how you’d feel encountering the guy below on a casual trip to the supermarket!

Thankfully, this snap doesn’t actually show a man who’s stuffed his freakishly-large mouth with an air filter. The picture, which was shared on Reddit in April 2020, actually shows a custom prosthetic face-mask designed by a special effects artist. With how terrifying he looks, it might just be the best way to enforce social-distancing you’ve seen yet!

Tiger-Stone Road Printer

Luckily, not every mind-bending invention is creepy. Take a look at the next photo, which shows a machine doing the seemingly-impossible: laying an entire brick road in one go! But it’s very much real.

This amazing contraption is a Tiger-Stone, otherwise known as a road printer, and machines like these can create brick roads at an astonishing rate. Loose bricks go into the machine, and are automatically sorted into the interlocking structure needed for a paved road, which emerges like a big stone carpet from the other side. These nifty machines can save hours of back-breaking, time-consuming labor.

Highway To Heaven

On the topic of roads, have you ever seen anything like this before? This stretch of road on the Interstate 80 in Wyoming appears to climb right into the sky, earning its nickname as the highway to heaven.

Sadly, it won’t actually lead you straight up to God’s parking lot, it’s simply an optical illusion caused by the road climbing up a series of hills known as the Three Sisters. On a clear day, without the fog, it’s not quite so otherworldly. Still, there are definitely worse roads to drive down on your way to work!

Underwater Cabinet Meeting in the Maldives

These days, offices are increasingly making allowances for flexible working. Who says meetings have to happen in the boardroom? Why can’t we crunch figures from our kitchen table, or sign important documents underwater?

It’s true. In 2009, the government of the Maldives held the world’s first underwater cabinet meeting to raise awareness about climate change. President Mohammed Nasheed had voiced fears that the Maldives could be swamped by rising sea levels if climate change wasn’t brought to a halt.

In order to raise awareness of the problem, politicians donned scuba diving gear and held their 30-minute meeting 6-feet below sea level, communicating using hand gestures and whiteboards as they signed a document calling on all countries to cut their carbon emissions.

Politicians Discussing Climate Change By Isaac Cordal

This pic similarly appears to show a group of politicians having a passionate debate, apparently ignoring the fact that they’re submerged up to their scalps.

What you’re actually seeing is a tiny sculpture by Spanish street artist Isaac Cordal, located in a puddle in Berlin. Officially called ‘Electoral Campaign’, it went viral on the internet under the new title ‘Politicians Discussing Global Warming’. With sea levels rising, it certainly makes a powerful statement.

Austria's Magical Green Lake

Meet the Green Lake in South-East Austria, sometimes dubbed the Caribbean of the Alps due to its emerald waters. Every summer, the snow from the mountains surrounding the lake begins to melt, flooding the valley. It covers trees, hiking trails, bridges and benches, creating a beautiful and otherworldly underwater park. Unfortunately, it’s now forbidden to dive in the lake, as the huge number of tourists and visitors were damaging the eco-system of this beautiful spot. So, for now, we can only dream of exploring this watery paradise.

Spotted Lake

On the topic of lakes, take a look at this colorful tapestry of liquid polka dots in shades of blue, green, and yellow.

This is Spotted Lake, a geographical marvel located in British Columbia. For most of the year, it looks just like any other body of water. But come summer, the water begins to evaporate, leaving behind a pattern of saltwater pools that resembles something from another planet. The water in Spotted Lake is incredibly rich in minerals, which is what gives the pools their unusual colors.

What’s more, the remaining minerals in the lake harden to create walkways between the spots. But considering the lake is a protected sacred site for the local Syilx. Native American community, those walkways are off-limits to outsiders. On the bright side, the best views are from afar anyway!

Pink Lake Hillier

The perplexing lake below also needs a bit of explaining, seeing as it looks like it’s been photoshopped Barbie pink!

This is Lake Hillier, located on an island off the coast of Western Australia. It gets its unusual color from algae and bacteria which thrive in the salty water, releasing red carotenoid pigments. Unlike other pink lakes in the world, the water stays pink all year round, and keeps its color even if you collect it in a glass. Which is not to say that you should drink it! The lake may look like one big strawberry milkshake, but don’t let that fool you, it’ll taste incredibly salty.

Long Neck Avocado

Say hello to the long neck avocado. This rare variety of the popular fruit can grow up to three feet long, meaning that a single avocado can make twelve slices of avocado toast! It’s any millennial’s dream. The fruits are typically grown in Southern Florida, and have glossy green skin, a buttery consistency, and a savory-sweet flavor.

If you’d like to try one, your best bet is to place an order with a specialist seller, and be prepared to pay a little extra to reflect the jumbo size. Still, it’ll be worth it: a selfie with one of these bad boys is the ultimate foodie status symbol.

Arctic Finland

Long-neck avocados are just one of the weird and wonderful things you see in nature. Take a look at the photo below, for example. It looks like an alien landscape, or maybe even a shot taken in the midst of nuclear war. But what you can actually see here is Arctic Finland, where the forests freezes for six months of every year.

75% of Finland is covered by trees, making it Europe’s most forest-covered country. In Northern parts of Finland, temperatures can drop as low as -35 degrees C. In this pic, you can see that the trees have flash frozen, then received a generous coating of snowfall, twisting them into strange icy shapes resembling enormous, sad, cauliflower sculptures.

Angel Hair Spider Rain Coat, Australia

And the image below shows another snow scene, right? Wrong. This is actually a photo taken in Australia, and the white substance you can see coating the ground is not actually snow, but spider silk.

These unusual scenes are the result of mass ballooning events, when millions of spiders appear to drop from the sky in the South Tablelands region of Australia. In mass spider migrations like this, spiders crawl somewhere high and send up shoots of silk, which transport them through the air like parachutes so that they can find new homes or avoid threats like flooding. Some people have dubbed the horrifying event spider rain, so for your own sake, check the weather forecast before you go anywhere in Southern Australia!

Island Of The Dolls

And if you thought spider balloons were creepy, prepare yourself for these next pictures.

No, this isn’t the set of a horror movie. This is the Island of the Dolls, near Mexico City. Legend has it that in the 1950s, a terrible tragedy occurred in the area, after which the island’s caretaker began to hear a sinister voice calling out to him, demanding a doll. In order to ward off this malicious spirit, he spent the rest of his life collecting dolls and hanging them up all over the island.

Hidden Beach At Marieta Islands

Let’s cleanse our eyes by looking at this lovely-looking beach, is hidden away inside a cave. This curious sunbathing spot, located on a lush green island off the West coast of Mexico, can only be accessed through the tunnel connecting it to the Pacific Ocean.

But all is not quite as it seems; the beach actually has a pretty troubled history. Because this island chain is uninhabited, it’s historically been considered a perfect testing ground for weaponry and explosives by the Mexican government. Top secret military activity reportedly created all kinds of unusual caves and craters in the rock, and many people believe that a bomb actually created the hole through which this hidden beach is visible. But whether or not its military testing past is truth or fiction, there’s no denying the views at this place are the bomb!

Frying Pan Beach Sculpture

On the topic of beaches, here’s another surreal and sandy sight. This child appears to be climbing up the handle of an enormous frying pan, but, amazingly, this image isn’t actually photoshopped.

What you can see is a 24-meter sculpture at Tamarama Beach in Australia, part of the annual Sculpture by the Sea outdoor exhibition. It’s named We’re Fryin’ Out Here, and was made out of steel and polystyrene by artist Andrew Hankin. Anyone who’s ever burnt their feet on hot sand will probably agree that it’s a pretty appropriate tribute to the sun-drenched coastline!

Optical Illusions

In an article about confusing photos, it’d be remiss not to mention a few reality-bending optical illusions. Take this grass globe illusion.

This amazing installation looks like a 3D-globe, but is actually a park that was temporarily created outside Paris City Hall by French artist Francois Abelanet. This illusion is all about perspective. From the side, the globe looks like a long, bumpy piece of grass. But when it’s viewed from the correct angle, it resembles a 3D ball that seems to stand up vertically from the pavement.

Another example of warped perspective can be found in this mind-boggling creation.

Don’t worry, this isn’t actually a void leading straight to hell. It’s a checkerboard rug, designed with lines curved specifically to give the impression of a black hole on your floor. Vortex rugs have actually become a popular home décor item, with plenty of options available to buy online.

But no illusion is quite as effective at messing with your head as the ghostly gaze illusion. If you look at these sinister twins from far away, they appear to be looking at each other.

Get a little closer, however, and suddenly they’re staring straight into your soul, But how?

Well, this illusion was created by psychologist Rob Jenkins of the University of Glasgow, and the explanation is relatively simple. From up close, we can see the outline of the women’s pale irises, so our brain understands that they’re looking straight forward. But from far away, the dark corners of their eyes stand out. Our brains interpret these as their pupils, and so we believe they’re looking sideways at each other instead. Still, whatever the explanation, the illusion is pretty creepy to experience.

If you were amazed at these rare pictures explained, you might want to read about fake internet photos you thought were real. Thanks for reading!