12 Most Mysterious Recent Discoveries Scientists Still Can't Explain

what's the best sort of discovery for a scientist or archaeologist to make is it one that can immediately be fully understood or is it one that doesn't appear to have a rational explanation the answer to that question varies from person to person but there's no denying that we all love a good mystery with that in mind here's a collection of mysterious discoveries that have puzzled some of the world's greatest minds [Music] our first discovery ticks all the boxes for anyone interested in mysteries it's an enigmatic find and it happened by accident during a recent exploratory survey scientists drilled down more than 3 000 feet of ice in antarctica's filter rooney ice shelf there at the bottom of that deep hole scientists found creatures living in freezing cold and total darkness more than 150 miles away from the open sea the life forms which are attached to a boulder were previously unknown to science but have been compared to sponges this leaves scientists with a lot of unanswered questions how did these creatures get here in the first place what sustains them did they exist anywhere other than here and would every boulder under the ice sheet be covered with them if we could see them the scientists responsible for the find were collecting sediment samples so they were caught off guard by their discovery every previous theory says that life as we understand it couldn't survive in these conditions so now all those theories have to be tossed out the window to understand more we'll have to collect samples of the creatures but that's much easier said than done [Music] when corals experience coral bleaching a condition which can be fatal for them they usually turn white in a few circumstances though they've been known to exhibit vivid colors like purple and red instead scientists didn't know why until may 2020 when a team from england's university of southampton provided a potential explanation the dramatic change of color is part of a process that the coral goes through as it attempts to find a way to survive coral bleaching occurs when water temperatures rise stripping algae away from the coral and exposing its white limestone skeleton from there the coral is usually doomed however some coral cells are capable of boosting photoprotective pigments effectively providing the coral with its own personal layer of sunscreen the colorful layer might even persuade algae to return to the coral thus enabling the symbiotic relationship between coral and algae to continue this incredible self-repair system only appears to kick in during mild warming events those in which the temperature rises by less than one degree celsius anything beyond that is fatal even for the heartiest coral during summer 2020 an archaeological survey team carried out extensive digging work inside a cave known as coves del femme in tarragona spain by far the most fascinating artifact discovered during that survey is this incredible engraved plaque which is covered in animal engravings the team responsible for the find says that it's 11 700 years old which means it was carved during the stone age the inscriptions are hard to make out on the rock surface but the scene appears to show two deer two goats and another two animals that can't be identified the team that found the stone was specifically looking for stone age tools so the plaque came as a total surprise experts already know that people lived inside the cave around 8 000 years ago and made tools here but the plaque predates that period of occupation it's possible that it ended up in the cave by accident perhaps having been moved by water during a flood but it could also have been a cultural relic that was preserved and kept by the people of 8 000 years ago by which time it would already have been ancient the symbolic meaning of the carving if indeed it even has one is unknown right now as you watch this video enormous holes are forming in the siberian permafrost scientists aren't entirely sure why it's happening but they're in general agreement that it's connected to climate change seventeen holes have appeared in the gita and yamal peninsulas between 2013 and now they often make explosive entrances one of the largest holes was caused by a methane gas explosion that threw rock and ice hundreds of feet through the air the hole that's left in the earth is over 100 feet deep scientists have flown drones down to the floor of the crater allowing them to analyze the phenomenon it appears that methane gas creates cavities in the ice building up pressure that first appears at ground level as a mound but then gives way completely like an enormous burst zit in the skin of the earth what they're less sure about is where the methane is coming from in the first place as methane is a highly potent greenhouse gas having vast quantities of it escape into the atmosphere is not a good thing they haven't caused any major incidents yet but the wrong explosion in the wrong place could be perilous for the indigenous people of the region our next story is probably one of an impressive hoax rather than a scientific mystery but there are still unanswered questions about it back in 1884 a 27 year old man named raynard beck lived in dexter missouri usa dexter was a rural town and rainard was a farmer he was just like any other farmer in the town save for one remarkable exception raynard is said to have been able to levitate and there are plenty of eyewitnesses who swear they saw him do it the god-fearing farmer initially wanted to keep his supernatural ability secret but his brother samuel had other ideas he persuaded raynor to showcase his gravity-defying powers and started the beck brothers circus act they toured the american midwest with large crowds gathering to see the man build as the floating wonder raynard simply hovered in the air reading a book while the astonished audience attempted to find wires ropes or any other rational explanation for the trick a reviewer for the kansas city star wrote in april of 1887 that he'd examined raynard's floating form from every angle and beat the air above and below him with a cane in the hope of disrupting the illusion but it had no effect six years later raynor disappeared off the face of the earth some say he floated off straight into the sky it was all probably just a fabulous circus act but the secret of the trick was never discovered keeping to the same spirit of unexplained phenomena let's talk about the world famous loch ness monster in scotland it almost certainly doesn't exist but that doesn't stop people from seeing it phone camera footage of a strange black shape floating in the water of the lock was recorded in early april 2021 this is already the sixth alleged sighting of the elusive beast this year the footage captured from a live stream of the lake shows a slow moving shape moving south across the water before passing a tree and dipping below the surface the shape appears to be long and straight which might tempt you into believing it's just a log floating on the surface but it's far too big for that the permanent presence of a webcam watching the lake makes it easier to spot unidentified objects in the water than ever before there were no boats on the lake at the time this latest footage was captured and the sighting remains unexplained the first ever alleged sighting of the monster known as nessie was recorded in the 6th century so even if there is a creature in the lake it can't be the same one that was alive back then maybe there's a whole species down there one that takes delight in teasing human observers by remaining just out of sight it was back in the 1920s that archaeologists first noticed the presence of small rock circles in anza borrego desert state park in california 100 years later they're as big an enigma to modern day archaeologists as they were to their predecessors there are more than 500 of the stone circles in the area usually measuring little more than 12 feet across it's obvious that the circles were created by human hands but nobody knows when or why joan schneider the associate state archaeologist has spent more than a decade studying the circles but hasn't been able to find any answers unlike many other ancient monuments in the area the story of their history hasn't been passed down from generation to generation by the region's indigenous people some say they were important ceremonial sites others say they had a more practical purpose perhaps created to support and protect vegetation in truth we have no idea what we do know is that the inland sea of lake kahuia reached almost this far 500 years ago and fish bones have been found inside some of the circles so perhaps that has something to do with it there were straight lights in the sky above the pacific northwest of the usa on march 26 2021 and it took quite some time for experts to find an explanation the objects streaking across the heavens appeared to be burning brightly in a rainbow of different colors visible from all over oregon and further afield dr jonathan mcdowell an astronomer at the harvard and smithsonian center for astrophysics quickly deduced that the objects were taking too long to burn up for them to have been a natural origin he was right it now seems likely that a spacex falcon 9 rocket might have been the cause of the spectacular sight the rocket would have been programmed to have a de-orbit burn but something must have gone slightly awry although the prospect of burning pieces of a space rocket landing on a populated area is a terrifying one that didn't happen in this case by the time the debris finished its journey through the atmosphere there would have been almost nothing left of it which explains why nothing has so far been found on the ground it was a once-in-a-lifetime show for the people who saw it though you know that scientists must be struggling to identify something when the best word they can find to describe it is a blob nevertheless that's how these strange squishy masses off the west coast of norway were first described when they were spotted in 1985. it took over 30 years for the mystery of the blobs to be solved but we finally got to the bottom of the issue in april 2021 the orb shaped gelatinous masses the largest of which ever recorded is more than four feet wide are actually egg sacs of a common species of squid known as the elex coendetti they're rarely seen anywhere else in the world but more than 100 of them have been spotted in this specific region of the sea around norway each blob contains over 100 000 squid eggs each of which is contained within its own mucous bubble the squid species was first identified by scientists more than 180 years ago but this is the only place their egg sacs have ever been seen in the wild now that the experts finally know what they're dealing with they're excited to have the opportunity to study them in greater detail the surface of the moon is barren dusty and devoid of life when lunar missions go there they bring back samples of rocks we don't tend to think of the material on the moon as being soft and spongy which makes this next discovery very strange when the chinese lunar rover u22 explored the earth's satellite in 2019 it found an unusual gelatinous material at the bottom of a small crater the material was first noticed by chinese scientists studying pictures taken by the rover who immediately directed u-22 to use its scientific instruments to take a closer look further analysis showed the material to be a kind of liquefied glass it was probably created by the intense heat of a meteor collision but scientists can't say for sure an apparently similar material called trinity was created by the heat of nuclear bomb tests in new mexico several decades ago an alternative way of looking at it would be as a sign that there might be a different kind of material hidden beneath the rocky top surface this is a good reason to send human beings back to the moon to carry out more detailed investigations there are two possible explanations for the enormous face on the side of this cliff in canada the first is that we can only see it because of peridolia a human tendency to see faces in things that aren't really there the second is that it's genuinely an enormous carving of a human face on a cliffside and nobody has any idea how it got there the face was discovered by hank guss and tashat first nation who spent two years looking for it after being informed of its existence by a tourist who'd sailed past it in a kayak it's not surprising that it was so hard to find the face which is on reek's island in the pacific rim national park reserve is in an exceptionally hard to reach location and can only be seen from one specific vantage point hank was particularly struck by how similar the seven foot tall face is to a wooden design on the front door of his own to shot administration office to him this is solid proof that the face was carved by his own people several centuries ago scientists aren't quite so sure they think it's more likely that it's a natural rock formation and point out that it would be hard for anyone to reach the cliff face and carve it now let alone hundreds of years ago who's right and who's wrong who can say if you wanted to see the largest collection of engraved megalithic art in the world you would have to visit north in drogada ireland there are more than 400 engraved construction stones and curbstones at the site dating back to the neolithic era the quality of the engravings varies from stone to stone but among them are some of the finest examples of the practice anywhere on the planet while they might look a little more like lines circles and squares to the untrained eye archaeologists and historians believe that they might be representations of the lunar cycle american researcher martin brennan even believes that the most elaborately decorated stones are calendars and sundials representing attempts to reconcile the cycle of the moon with the cycle of the sun of all the stones at the site the basin stone of the east chamber of the megalithic tomb network is the most impressive based on its size it's likely that the rest of the chamber was built around it the engravings on this special stone must have had a particular significance if only we knew what it was subscribe to the channel and turn on notifications and you will be the first to know when a new video comes out thank you for watching and see you in the next video

Channel: Inforado

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Keywords: 12 Most Mysterious Recent Discoveries Scientists Still Can't Explain, mystery, mysterious discoveries, recent discoveries, scientists still cant explain, recent finds, archaeological finds, 12 most, top 12, most amazing

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Length: 16min 6sec (966 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 27 2021