Unusual Things You Won’t Be Able to Take Your Eyes Off

Let's dive into a bunch of quirky and captivating phenomena that might seem a bit puzzling at first. Even if you're not entirely sure what they are, just encountering those wonders can spark a fun little curiosity. We'll be covering unusual and intriguing things that are sure to catch your eye and maybe even change the way you see things.

Yosemite Firefall

Yosemite National Park is, without a doubt, one of the most beautiful places on earth. Amidst all of its flawless forest scenery, the spectacular Horsetail Falls seasonally cascades down the park’s most famous granite rockface, known as El Capitan. As stunning as the 2,130 ft waterfall is by itself, under the right circumstances, it becomes even more captivating. For just two weeks in February, when the sun’s light is at the optimal angle, the rays reflect off the granite behind the waterfall, coloring the falling water bright orange!

Though it’s not actually ablaze, the photo-worthy phenomenon is known as a "Firefall" because it resembles a river of flames flowing down the rockface. It’s so beautifully stunning that you won't be able to take your eyes off!

Mud Volcanoes

You probably know what volcanoes are, but have you ever heard of mud volcanoes? Unlike normal volcanoes, mud volcanoes don’t spew out molten hot lava, but a much colder mixture of gas, water, and mud. But that mud is mainly made up of organic material, and the bacteria in it gradually breaks it down to produce highly flammable methane gas.

Although sometimes, when too much pressure from that gas builds up, it’s released in such huge quantities that the bubbling mud can be set alight. Just like the mud volcano located in South Taiwan in the footage below. Despite all the fire, that’s got to be one of the coolest things ever!

Ice Circles

Back in 2011, a perfect circle of ice was captured slowly spinning like some kind of tiny, icy carousel on the banks of a small river. At first, bystanders believed that someone must have carved the perfectly circular shape out of the ice using something like a chainsaw. While that could have been the case, ice circles can form completely naturally! Like the one below, which formed on a bend in Michigan river back in 2019.

The way it turns is utterly hypnotic! But how does that fascinating natural phenomenon form? One explanation is that strong eddies in those rivers break off and rotate sections of ice. As they spin, their outer edges are gradually worn down against the surrounding ice, leaving the perfectly frozen circle rotating in place.

Although, they’re not always that small, because in Maine back in 2019, an utterly colossal ice circle was discovered spinning hypnotically in the Presumpscot River! At around a staggering 300 ft across, that freezing water feature is almost as long as a standard football field!

Ice Baller

While ice circles are undeniably mesmerizing, the same can be said of ice balls! Ice melts quicker when more of its surface area is exposed to a liquid. So, instead of diluting a drink with multiple ice cubes, some people create large, singular ice spheres for their beverages which melt much slower. But their creation alone, which uses a specialized machine called an Ice Press, is hypnotic to watch!

As you can see in the footage above, a slab of regular ice is placed in between two huge heated aluminum blocks. The top one slowly presses down, melting the ice slab while molding it into the two spherical curves in each block. In just a few minutes, the process produces a stunningly spherical ice orb!

Cloud Chambers

Despite the name, a cloud chamber isn’t a box that magically captures clouds from the sky. Although it does technically contain a cloud. Those chambers are used by researchers to display the invisible tracks left by radiation particles! To do that, a layer of alcohol or water is heated up and evaporated so that a thick cloud of vapor fully saturates the space within the chamber.

That is a process called supersaturation. Once supersaturated, radioactive particles travelling about the tank bounce off the tightly packed, vaporized gas particles, knocking them aside and leaving mesmerizing tracks in their wake! It’s like some kind of forbidden Etch-A-Sketch, just look in the footage below to witness how fast they move!

What’s even more amazing is that those particles aren’t from anything famously radioactive like uranium those are just our environment’s naturally occurring radioactive particles. As you can see above, they’re a lot more energetic, and notoriously harmful. But as famously dangerous as it is, you could still sit and watch that for hours!

Lake Ice Cracking Sounds Like Lasers

It’s not your eyes you won’t be able to tear away from this next example, but your ears. Just take a listen to the noise this frozen lake makes as its ice slowly shifts and cracks:

Doesn’t it sound like a bunch of lasers firing?! That unexpected noise is caused by the ice shifting, likely because of temperature changes. As the inflexible ice cracks, the fissures emit sounds made up of lots of different frequencies.

The high frequency popping sounds travel faster through the ice, so they hit your ears first, followed by the low notes, giving them that ethereal, echo-like sound. And the more cracks there are in the ice, like here in the footage below, on Gun Lake in British Colombia, the more amazing pops and echoes they produce! Kind of hard to tell if that is the sound of ice, or the soundtrack to Star Wars!

Sea Gooseberries

Have you ever been enjoying a nice warm day on the beach, when suddenly you notice a strange, sticky-looking blob in the sand? While some people just can’t resist investigating, most simply assume they’re some kind of trash or jellyfish. But sometimes the sheer number of those literal tide pods scattered over the beach can be impossible to ignore!

So just what exactly are they? Depending on their size, the tiny transparent blobs could be a species of comb jelly called Pleurobrachia Pleius also adorably known as Sea Gooseberries. Unlike a lot of jellyfish, that species only grows to about the size of a teaspoon and doesn’t have the ability to sting humans.

However, their little swimming combs aren’t powerful enough to swim against strong currents, leaving many stranded along beaches after the tide recedes. But that’s not all they might be. Salps are another organism with stunning sea through skin!

©Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife via Wikimedia Commons

Those creatures are chordates, which are animals with dorsal nerve cords, so they’re closely linked to vertebrates. That means they’re more closely related to humans than they are jellyfish!

Los Angeles’ Shade Balls

Back in the summer of 2015, residents of Las Virgenes in California were captivated by something they’d never seen before. The Municipal Water District was filling their reservoirs with truckloads of black balls in a stunning spectacle that’s impossible to look away from!

As mesmerizing as watching that reservoir being turned into the world’s biggest ball pit is, why on earth did they do such a thing? Well, it turns out that these aren’t just any black balls, but specially made Shade Balls. They’re designed to cover the surface of lakes and reservoirs to prevent billions of gallons of water from being lost to evaporation.

The protective layer they provide also prevents the water supply from being polluted by animals, and even stops toxic chemical reactions caused by the sun altering elements in the water. And it’s not just Las Virgenes that uses them. That same august, the Los Angeles Reservoir was also filled to the brim with 96 million of those big black balls!

At 36 cents per ball, the cost of that incredible cascade came to an eye watering $34.5 million! Though still expensive, that was about $250 million cheaper than any alternative like rolling out a specially made, 175-acre tarp over the top of the massive reservoir! If you want to find out more, we have a whole article about shade balls.

Glowing Mushrooms

Fabulous fungi can be found in forests all over the world, but there’s one special subspecies that puts on a seriously surprising show! That is Omphalotus nidiformis, more commonly known as the Ghost Mushroom.

When the sun sets, the fleshy fans of those 12-inch, funnel shaped fungi turn into natures night lights, all thanks to their unusual bioluminescent properties. But an explanation of exactly why they glow eluded scientists for over 170 years. That was until 2015, when researchers realized that there’s almost no wind at the base of the trees where the flashy fungi grow.

So, in order to reproduce, they needed a windless way of spreading their spores. As such, those magical mushrooms have evolved to produce molecules called luciferins which react with the air to generate light! It’s the same compound that gives fireflies and deep-sea creatures their eerie glow. But instead of using the light to attract a mate or a meal, the Ghost Mushrooms use it to attract bugs! Those light loving visitors brush against the fungi, and in doing so, help it spread its spores!

Drone Light Shows

While magical mushrooms can light up the ground, there are even more mind-blowing light shows happening above your heads! In recent years, aerial drone light shows have become a popular alternative to firework displays. In April 2020, Verge Aero brought the spectacular display in the footage below to the heart of Philadelphia, writing their message of thanks to essential workers and healthcare providers in the sky.

Using some clever engineering and design software, 150 individual drones were fed a series of complex commands that moved them about the sky in predetermined patterns. The result was a perfectly choreographed show that shifted seamlessly from flashing messages of thanks, to a waving American flag, and even the EMS star of life!

But if you thought 150 drones were cool, just wait till you see what 1500 can do! As part of China’s 2020 Spring Festival, DAMODA took over the Shenzhen skyline with an utterly spellbinding show consisting of 1500 drones. They flawlessly recreated famous landscapes from around China in the sky, and even hung a traditional decoration up among the stars!

It almost looks better than the real thing! Not only are displays like that breath-taking, but they’re much cheaper than fireworks because unlike their explosive counterparts both the drones and their choreography software can be re-used. London’s New Year’s fireworks, for example, cost a staggering £2.3 million for just one 30-minute display, that’s about $3.2 million! But a show with just 500 flashy drones costs a fraction of that, at around $300,000!

Quicksand

In the movies, quicksand is dramatically depicted as a sure-fire death-trap that slowly sucks its victims under. But while the truth about quicksand is much tamer, it’s actually much cooler to look at in real life! So, peel your eyes off the silver screen, and look to the sandy shores of Morecambe Bay in England. That ground may look solid, but just watch what happens when you step on it in the footage below!

Parts of the sand lining those shores has become waterlogged, so while it looks solid on the surface, the second you step on it the sands begin to liquify. The longer you stay in one place, the more the layers of water and sand separate, so the densely packed layer of wet sand can suddenly trap you in.

But if you dance around from spot to spot like that guy in the video above, the layers aren’t put under enough prolonged pressure to separate! Although, depending on how fine the sandy sediment is, the surface can look unsuspectingly dry and solid until you start stepping on it.

Geodes

Geodes are nature’s true hidden treasures. Those spherical rocks don’t look like anything special on the surface, but their cavities are lined with minerals and crystals! Most are formed from the gas of old lava bubbles, which have been put under colossal pressure for thousands or even millions of years. Eventually, the minerals in the gasses crystalize, coating the cavity in a growth of gemstones!

They can range drastically in size; measuring from just a few inches to tens of feet in diameter, and weighing from a couple of grams up to several tons. While their insanely sparkly interiors are hypnotic to look at by themselves, they’re nothing compared to actually cracking one open!

But to prevent accidentally crushing the geode, many professionals rely on precision pressure cutting tools, like Cast Iron Pipe Snap Cutter. That loops an industrial strength chain around the geode and gradually constricts it, until the geode cracks cleanly along the length of the chain! Then, they slack the chain up, take it out, and reveal what’s been waiting within it for all those years.

Glass Blisters

Almost no one can resist the urge to pop an angry, fluid filled blister. But what if one appeared in your yard? You’d want to squeeze it and watch whatever was inside burst out, right? Bizarrely, the workers down at the golf course in the video below managed to catch that exact moment on camera:

And what an excellent if not weirdly placed water feature that is! Sometimes called grass blisters or turf bubbles, those bulging blisters can form when a water or irrigation pipe nearby bursts. That rush of water gets trapped in between the turf and a layer of plastic sheeting laid down by landscapers underneath, which is used if the original soil is of poor quality.

They then shovel new, good soil on top so that the grass they plant grows well. But if the water can’t flow through the top of the turf fast enough, it builds up in those big bouncy bubbles! Although, they’re not always filled with water. Just listen to this in the clip below!

That bubble was filled with air! Or, more specifically, methane. Many golf courses like that a built over the top of old landfills. But as the trash below decays, it releases methane gas which rises up, creating those funny, flatulent bubbles underneath the pristine turf.

Freezing Soap Bubbles

The only thing more mesmerizing than watching the iridescent swirls on a soap bubble is watching icy crystals whirl around them as it freezes solid! In less than a minute, the entire watery orb is frozen solid. But how does it freeze so fast?

When a bubble is in a freezing environment, the first part to freeze is the bottom. But the flow of the liquid in the bubble breaks up freezing particles and carries them off, creating that incredible snow globe effect while freezing the entire structure from multiple points. Even though the science behind that is pretty complicated, it just makes it all the more magical to watch!

Acrylic Pour Painting

Have you ever mixed a whole bunch of different colored paints together? Even if you use super bright colors, it almost always mixes into the same weird shade of muddy brown. Unless you use a mesmerizing method, which is called ‘the Acrylic Pour’.

Acrylic paint is a kind of polymer paint, the colorful pigment of which is made up of very large molecules. So, when two different paints meet, the sheer size of their molecules prevents them from immediately bleeding into each other. That means they can be layered on top of one another, and then delightfully drizzled to create magical masterpieces:

As it’s poured, the different layers of paint spread out gradually, creating that beautifully layered paint pour. But to finish that piece of art off, the canvas can be tipped to drag the paint in different directions, creating a color cascade with different layers all along it!

Rainbow Lightning

If you’re the kind of person who likes getting a "2 for the price of 1" deal, then you’re going to love what happened during Oklahoma thunderstorm!

If you watch as that lightning streaks across the same point in the sky where a rainbow has formed! That’s two natural phenomena in one. And the science behind it is just as astounding. Lightning that spreads out like that is known as Anvil Crawler lightning, as it looks like sparks flying off the top of an anvil.

Instead of striking from the cloud to the ground, that lightning crawls from cloud to cloud as the storm’s electrical balance equalizes. Usually, that happens inside the clouds, so you don’t see it. But in that case, the clear conditions not only revealed the lightning, but the sunlight refracting off the storm’s rain also produced a perfectly placed rainbow!

Hydrophobic Water

When you spill a little water, it splashes in just about every direction and soaks everything! Or at least, it usually does, unless you’ve mixed it with powdered aerogel like in the clip below:

That’s acting more like liquid mercury than liquid water! That is because aerogel is a synthetic, ultra-lightweight substance that’s specially formulated to be hydrophobic, so it doesn’t absorb water at all. In its powdered form it can be used to coat surfaces, which prevents the build-up of condensation and makes them completely waterproof!

However, when the powder is also immersed in the water it takes on some amazingly mesmerizing properties. The substance acts like it’s trapped in a bubble, and resists joining back to separated globules! But it’s not just its own contact it resists. The substance keeps itself so well contained that the beads it forms can be moved around and even cut with a sheet of paper!

Instant Ice

We all know that water can exist as a flowing liquid and as an icy solid. But have you ever seen it go from liquid to solid instantly, like in the video below?

As well as being supercool to watch, it’s also got some supercool science behind it literally! The thing is, water freezes at 32° Fahrenheit, but in order to become ice, water molecules need to organize themselves around impurities, also known as nuclei in order to crystalize. But in distilled water, the impurities are filtered out.

So even if the water reaches its freezing point, it can’t change states and becomes a supercooled solution instead! But a single shock wave can change the molecules arrangement and force them to crystalize. So just by tapping the bottle the water freezes instantly!

What’s more, if that supercooled water hits any other ice, which contains those essential nuclei, the process of crystallization travels up the stream! That means that if it’s poured onto an ice cube, it creates an instant ice sculpture!

Hot Water Turning Into Ice

This next entry is really cool or hot, depending on how you look at it. But you should never ever try that at home. Otherwise, you might end up in my "Embarrassingly Dumb Ways People Died" series. The video below reveals a guy throwing a mug of boiling hot water into the air on a -10° Fahrenheit day!

It looks like the water froze immediately, but that’s not quite the case. That big cloud over his head is actually condensate or water that has quickly condensed into tiny droplets. Like the clouds your breath makes when it’s cold outside!

And those stunning streaks are condensate coming off the spreading water droplets that have been flung into the air not water that’s instantly frozen. For that, the air outside would need to be a frosty -42° Fahrenheit! While it’s still utterly mesmerizing, remember, it’s much safer and warmer to watch the professionals do it on YouTube!

I hope you were amazed at these unusual things you won't be able to take your eyes off! Thanks for reading.