There are still some places on Earth that remain a total mystery, and we’re not even sure if they really exist! For example, there's the legendary city of Atlantis, which people have been searching for forever—some say it’s hidden beneath the ocean. Then there's the Eye of the Sahara, a massive spiral formation in the desert that might have been a meteor crash site or even the ruins of an ancient city. The Amazon rainforest is another mystery; deep inside, there are rumored to be uncontacted tribes and hidden temples. Even in modern times, places like Mount Roraima in South America seem like they belong to another world, with their flat-topped peaks shrouded in mist. So, even with all our technology, some places still keep their secrets! Credits: CC BY-SA 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/: Озеро Восток: by LEhAN, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%D0%9E%D0%B7%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%BE_%D0%92%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%BA.png Himalayan peak: by Christopher J. Fynn, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Himalayan_peak_from_Bumthang.jpg CC BY-SA 3.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en: Vermeja: by A. Codazzi, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vermeja.jpg New Lakes Under Antarctic Ice: by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13877 The Foundation for Exploration: by NOAA Ocean Exploration., https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/video_playlist/foundation-exploration-mapping.html Animation is created by Bright Side. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/ Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Our Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightside Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en Stock materials (photos, footages and other): https://www.depositphotos.com https://www.shutterstock.com https://www.eastnews.ru ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.
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00:00There's a mysterious island that appears and disappears like magic.
00:05Just like Schrödinger's cat, this Schrödinger's island exists and doesn't exist at the same
00:10time.
00:11Officially, it's called Sandy Island, and it once appeared in maps, but it was never
00:16there in real life.
00:18Australian scientists decided to solve the mystery once and for all by embarking on an
00:23adventure to find this elusive archipelago.
00:26But when they reached the coordinates, all they found was endless blue waves.
00:31It's like the island was playing a game of hide-and-seek with them.
00:35This story goes back to 1876.
00:37A whaling ship was crossing the area and reported an island.
00:42Whoever saw it said it was over 15 miles long north to south and around 3 miles wide.
00:48About the size of Manhattan, so not so tiny at all.
00:52But every time researchers went to visit the area, they found nothing.
00:56So in 1974, an official mission from New Caledonia declared that Sandy Island was
01:02simply not a thing and excluded it from all maps.
01:07People went on with their lives until they noticed that the island was appearing on Google
01:10Earth as a black blob.
01:12In 2012, another Australian expedition went out to check out the area to get some explanations.
01:19They had to write a eulogy for the long-lost island and explain what could have created
01:24this mess.
01:25For starters, mapping technology wasn't at its peak back in the 1900s.
01:30It was easy to get the coordinates wrong.
01:33Then there was the fact that the area is big on volcanic activities.
01:37It's likely that volcanic lava cooled down and created a raft of some kind.
01:43Let's say that the whaling ship went by, saw the volcanic raft, and thought it was
01:47land from a distance.
01:49But hey, it's just a guess.
01:52Scientists have ventured far and wide across the globe, and it may have seemed at some
01:56point that we discovered each and every nook of our planet.
02:00But when Mount Liko popped up on Google Earth, scientists were overcome with excitement.
02:06This hidden gem in northern Mozambique is no ordinary rainforest – it's nestled
02:11inside a volcano!
02:14Determined to confirm the existence of this mysterious forest, experts assembled a team
02:18of top-notch scientists and specialists from around the world.
02:22The journey to Mount Liko was no walk in the park, with a daunting vertical rock climb
02:27standing between them and the forest.
02:30But after 6 years of planning and preparation, they were ready for the challenge.
02:35Once they got there, they saw it was even better than they imagined.
02:39The place was like a perfectly tended garden.
02:42The forest sounded unique and different from other rainforests.
02:46There were some insanely huge caterpillars that looked dangerous.
02:50And they even found ancient pots and evidence of an untouched human ecosystem.
02:57Terra incognita means unknown land.
03:00And one of the largest unknown territories being uncovered today is the land beneath
03:05Antarctica's ice sheets.
03:07Below the snowy surface, there is an entirely new world of canyons, waterways, and lakes,
03:12which are now being mapped.
03:15One can't help but wonder, is there really liquid water below Antarctica's frozen surface?
03:20Yep.
03:21Water can exist without freezing due to pressure.
03:24The liquid water is the result of Earth's warm interior, and that's how we get things
03:29such as Lake Vostok.
03:31You can't see it, but Lake Vostok is right here.
03:35Located in East Antarctica, it lies beneath 2.5 miles of thick ice.
03:40This huge lake is about 4,800 square miles.
03:44Scientists could only discover it with the help of some top-notch technologies like seismic
03:49soundings and ice-penetrating radars.
03:52According to these scientists, it's likely that the lake has been there for up to 15
03:57million years.
03:59Bhutan is on the map for, among other things, being the happiest country in all of Asia.
04:05But it kept a hidden gem for all these years – one of the world's tallest unclimbed
04:10mountains – Khunkhar Pansum.
04:13Bhutan is enmeshed in the glorious Himalayan Mountains.
04:16That's why the climbing community was beyond excited when they discovered an untouched
04:22mountain.
04:23Imagine being the first person to climb an unexplored peak.
04:26That would probably guarantee you a spot in the Guinness World Records for sure.
04:31The mountain has been untouched because of a Bhutanese law.
04:34For locals, the mountain peak is a sacred site, shrouded in mystery and legends.
04:40Part of their beliefs is that the sacredness of climbing a mountain lies not in reaching
04:44its peak, but in truly communing with the mountain and enjoying the process.
04:49We gotta admit, that is a bit of a newsflash for Westerners.
04:54If you're ever in the state of New York, make sure you check out the Aglo General Store.
05:00You'll have to drive somewhere around the Catskills to find a beautiful grand big nothing.
05:06Aglo is one of America's most famous paper towns, aka a fake town.
05:12But this case is different from Sandy Island.
05:15Aglo town never existed, and it wasn't a mistake.
05:18You see, there's an old copyright practice amongst mapmakers.
05:22They add in paper towns so they can know when someone is simply copy-pasting their work.
05:28What they didn't expect is that this would get completely out of hand.
05:32Some say that one day, a guy picked up a map at a gas station that had Aglo town marked
05:37in it.
05:38The person decided to open a store over there and named it Aglo General Store.
05:43Some say the guy who opened the store faced a lawsuit from the mapmakers.
05:47Anyways, it only lasted enough years to become a national joke.
05:52Americans drove from all over the US to get a picture of the town's fake welcome sign.
05:58And then we've got Bermeja Island, located in the Gulf of Mexico.
06:03This funky island appeared on many maps of the 16th and 17th centuries.
06:07It was probably drawn by Spanish explorers.
06:10Sure, the exact location varied from map to map, and its name sometimes appeared as Vermeja,
06:17but its existence was certain enough.
06:20The Bermeja Island was last seen in a 1921 Mexican map, and then, poof, it dropped out
06:26of the horizon altogether.
06:28People started talking and wondering, did the island sink?
06:32Was it destroyed?
06:33In 2009, three official investigations happened to search for the island.
06:39They used high-tech technologies to scour the Mexican seabed.
06:43But Bermeja was nowhere.
06:45Researchers had multiple guesses on what it could be.
06:48Let's delve on one of these ideas.
06:50The idea was probably made up by old-day explorers to mislead their enemies in search of land
06:57and gold.
06:58Well, that seems plausible.
06:59Now, let's take a look at Rio de Janeiro.
07:01Once, the city was filled with informal territories.
07:05These places are known as slums or favelas.
07:08They're like mini-cities inside the big city.
07:11Some favelas are known to be underprivileged territories, where dwellers don't get the
07:15same urban perks as other citizens, such as the sewage system and garbage pickups.
07:22These slums grew so quickly that the government didn't have time to keep track of their
07:26developments.
07:27So today, it's usually the dwellers themselves that name the streets and make do with whatever
07:33they have at their disposal.
07:35One of the biggest slums in Brazil is located in Rio de Janeiro, the so-called Hassinia,
07:40and it was only recognized as a neighborhood by the local government in the 1990s.
07:46Our own ocean floor is less mapped than Venus, Mars, and the Moon.
07:51In fact, 95% of our oceans are unexplored.
07:55Strange, right?
07:56We do have the available technology, which is mainly sonar soundings, sending wave sounds
08:01to the ocean bed, and registering what they hear back.
08:05One of the main advantages of mapping the seabed more thoroughly would be to get more
08:09insight to marine hazards, such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions.
08:15Plus, there are so many unidentified marine life.
08:19This could give us a great insight into preservation and discovering the true dynamics of our marine
08:24ecosystems.
08:26That's it for today!
08:27So hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your
08:32friends!
08:33Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the Bright Side!