How well do you know the physical world? Can you claim to have the explanation for some common phenomena that we see every day? What if an incredible discovery turned all your notions upside down? Here is a list of such incredible discoveries that took everyone by surprise.
Incredible Discoveries You Won’t Believe Exist
1. Mass Animal Grave
This discovery occurred in an ordinary cornfield in Idaho when no one was looking. When the farmer reported finding some animal skeletons in his field to the authorities, further excavation showed that it was actually a mass grave. The site had previously been a waterhole and investigations revealed that the animals were most likely buried there under a thick layer of volcanic ash and suffocated to death. The skeletons are more than 12 million years old. The site is now declared as the Ashfall Fossil Beds State Historic Park.
Image Source: Wikimedia
2. Extraterrestrial Neutrinos in Antarctica
The IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica has been making some ground breaking discoveries. Physicists at this facility have reported finding evidence of neutrinos from outside our solar system. Neutrinos are subatomic particles that makeup beams of energy and the fact that some of these neutrinos have made their way to Earth could have huge implications for the study of space as well as the nature of energy making it one of the most incredible discoveries made by modern physics.
Related: World’s 10 Most Mysterious Places On Earth
Image Source: http://cdn.sci-news.com/images/enlarge/image_1566e-IceCube-neutrinos.jpg
3. Voynich Manuscript
This piece of parchment is perhaps one of the most mysterious and incredible discoveries ever made. The exact date or origin of this manuscript is unknown and so is the language it is written in and the meaning of the most of the symbols it contains. It also contains many diagrams of plant life which indicate that the people who wrote it had a keen understanding of botany. Despite extensive research, this manuscript cannot be traced back to any known civilization. This only shows how little we know of our own history.
Image Source: Wikimedia
4. Shroud of Turin
A shroud is a large piece of cloth used while burying people. The shroud of Turin is one such cloth but its discovery is incredible for the simple reason that it was most likely the stored used to bury Jesus Christ. The legend of this shroud has been known for centuries but the first proof probably appeared when the Catholic Church officially recorded the existence of the shroud in 1353 when it showed up in a church in Lirey, France. This shroud also contains the imprints of the body it was used to bury and traces of human blood. Today, it is located in the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist, Turin, Italy.
Image Source: Wikimedia
5. RNA Interference
In 1998, a series of experiments led to the incredible discovery of a phenomenon called RNA interference. This process if responsible for the expression of the gene sequence coded into human DNA. It also led to further research on the phenomenon called silent genes i.e. gene sequences that exist in the human body but do not get expressed at birth. Such silent genes are responsible for many diseases like high blood pressure. RNA interference also holds the key to solving the problem of viruses that infect the human body. The discovery of RNA interference was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2006.
Image Source: Wikimedia
6. Antikythera Mechanism
Most people are sure that the first computer was invented in the 1940s, but this incredible discovery off the coast of Greece has proved that analog computers existed before 100 BC. This device, now named as the Antikythera Mechanism is similar to an analog computer and was used to predict the positions of stars and planets. It was discovered at the bottom of the ocean near the island of Antikythera as part of a shipwreck.
Image Source: Wikimedia
7. Black Hole
A black is one of the strangest objects in outer space and for a long time, it existed only in theory. A black hole is an area in space and time that has so much gravitational pull that not even light can escape from it, making it appear black. The concept of a black hole was proposed by Einstein in 1916 as part of his Theory of General Relativity. The phrase “black hole” was created in 1967 by American astronomer John Wheeler, but it was not until 1971 that the first actual black hole was finally was discovered.
8. Mary Celeste
Mysterious occurrences at sea are not something new to humankind. Marine exploration has always been fraught with danger and the fear of the unknown and many legends of ferocious sea creatures have emerged from this. One such mysterious occurrence was the events that led to the disappearance of the captain and crew of a ship named ‘Many Celeste’. This merchant ship sailed from New York and was untraceable for a long time before it was found abandoned off the coast of the Azores Islands. All the cargo, the personal belongings of the Capitan and crew and all of the valuables on board were left intact but the people on board were nowhere to be found. The mystery of this ship remains unsolved to this day.
Image Source: Wikimedia
9. Frozen Child Sacrifice Mummies
Archaeological excavation on the Llullaillaco Volcano in Argentina in 1999 led to one of the most incredible discoveries that were as shocking as it was revealing. It was the discovery of the mummified remains of three Incan children who were left on the volcano to freeze and die as a part of a sacrifice ritual. Such rituals of child sacrifice were common in Incan culture to mark important occasions or ward off evil spirits. Since the remains were very well preserved, they provided vital information about the lifestyle, culture and religious beliefs of the Incas.
Image Source: Wikimedia
10. Sailing Stones
Sailing stones were recently discovered in Racetrack Playa, Death Valley National Park, California and have mystified observers since then. This incredible discovery opened the flood gates to a large number of conspiracy theories that attributed this movement to anything from alien telekinesis to magnetic fields. However, scientific examination of these Sailing Stones concluded that this was actually due to a much more mundane phenomenon of wind currents. The stones slid over a thin layer of ice present in the valley at night due to strong winds and appeared to be moving on their own.
Image Source: Wikimedia
Do you have any more incredible discoveries that should be included on this list? What makes some discoveries greater than the others? Is the impact they have on the human kind or the conditions under which they occurred? Or is it something completely different like their ability to capture people’s imaginations?
