The scientist stands over his creation, waiting
for the moment of truth. It’s taken him months to collect all the
parts, and soon nature will deliver the powerful shock of life. His colleagues said he was mad, but soon they’ll
all see! The sound of thunder claps overhead, followed
by a blast of lightning conducted by the lightning rod directly into his creation. The smoke clears, and the scientist stares
at… A singed, destroyed experiment. Okay, not all experiments work out, and some
are probably ill-advised in the first place. But a few experiments in human history could
have backfired terribly. In fact, everyone’s very lucky the ten experiments
in this list went mostly right - because they had the potential to end the world. #10. Kola Superdeep Borehole It was the height of the Cold War in 1970,
and the United States and the Soviet Union were each seeking an edge over their rival. So naturally, the Soviet Scientists decided
to embark on a very practical project - seeing just how deep they could dig into the earth’s
crust. Deep underground bunkers were a common strategy
in the Cold War, both for storing classified weapons and for hiding in the event of a nuclear
war. The Soviets, however, wanted to push the limits,
and what they created was the deepest artificial structure in human history - over 40,000 feet
below surface level. But that level of deep drilling doesn’t
come without serious risks. No man-made structure had ever penetrated
that deep into the Earth’s crust, and Russian scientists were worried that it would destabilize
the delicate balance of the tectonic plates. Dire predictions were made of massive earthquakes
or fractures in the Earth’s crust that could cause untold damage. But when the borehole was finished in 1989,
there were no obvious negative effects on the surrounding area. It did give Soviet scientists the chance to
study plankton fossils never before observed. So what stopped construction? The extreme heat, reaching 180 degrees celsius. The Kola Superdeep Borehole didn’t destroy
the world, but maybe only because of Earth’s natural defense system. #9. The Trinity Test Necessity is the mother of invention, and
few things cause necessity faster than war. World War Two was raging in July 1945, and
the United States was in an arms race to complete the first nuclear bomb before the Axis powers
did. There was no time to waste, as they intended
to use the bomb to end the war with Japan as soon as possible, and when the prototype
was finished they were ready to set it off in a deserted area of New Mexico. There was only one problem - no one had ever
set off a nuclear bomb before, and there was no way to know what would happen when the
atom would split. Could it rip apart the atmosphere itself? Many were nervous, and physicist Enrico Fermi
offered to take wagers among the top physicists and military on the project on multiple long-shot
disasters that could occur - from destruction of the state, to incineration of the entire
planet. This briefly caused a panic among the guards,
but United States brass decided to go with the assurances of the Manhattan Project’s
team, and the Trinity nuclear test went off successfully - followed by the only two nuclear
bombs ever used in combat in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nuclear tests didn’t end the world, but
the ongoing threat of nuclear weapons nearly did many times in the decade since. 8. Starfish Prime The Cold War and the ensuing arms race led
both sides to develop new and more powerful nuclear weapons, to the point where their
national stockpiles of nukes far outstrip any other country’s decades later. That also meant new and inventive nuclear
weapons tests - some of which had scientists deeply worried. As the Cold War combined with the Space Race,
the United States began planning for a possible space war. To that end, they decided to see what would
happen if they detonated a nuclear weapon in space - far above the Pacific Ocean. What’s the worst that could happen? Only the disruption of the Earth’s Magnetosphere. The bomb chosen for the test, named Starfish
Prime, was a hundred times more powerful than the bomb detonated over Hiroshima. Scientists worried that it would destroy the
layer of charged particles that serve as Earth’s defense system from powerful solar winds - potentially
increasing Earth’s temperature and radiation levels massively. Despite these warnings, the test went ahead
- and while the Earth didn’t burn alive, many satellites in orbit were disrupted and
radiation could be detected around the Earth’s orbit for years after. 7. The Magnaporthe Grisea Experiments The food chain is one of the main things keeping
human civilization running smoothly. Food production has been industrialized to
keep trillions of people and livestock fed, and it all hinges on the health of crops. That’s what makes fungi and other blights
so dangerous. A plant-pathogenic fungus named Magnaporthe
Grisea has been a plague on rice farmers for a long time - and has been shown to be able
to spread to other grains like wheat, rye, and barley. Each year it destroys enough rice to feed
60 million people, and occurs in 85 countries. It’s not surprising scientists were studying
it - but not all were studying it to stop it. There were few weapons the United States didn’t
look into during the Cold War, but one of the most dangerous was a weaponized form of
Magnaporthe Grisea. Scientists experimented with turning the fungi
into a spray or something that could be distributed via bombs - potentially disrupting an entire
country’s food system and forcing them into surrender. There’s no evidence that these weaponized
strains were ever used - but many people have noted that the fungi started spreading faster
than ever during this period., #6. The Oil-Eating Bacteria Not all potentially deadly experiments started
out to be weaponized. Some actually started out to heal the planet. It was the 1970s, and oil spills were a common
event that threatened to devastate the planet. One enterprising scientist, General Electric
R&D team member Ananda Chakrabarty, had a unique solution. She would add a plasmid to the chemical makeup
of the bacteria Pseudomonas Putida that would give it the ability to dissolve organic solvents. That would potentially make it able to dissolve
petroleum, making it easier to restore natural environments that were tainted by oil spills. And what could go wrong with a bacteria that
eats anything in its path? Many scientists feared that the bacteria would
mutate, becoming impossible to contain and eating everything in its sights. Less-terrified scientists still warned of
its use, saying this powerful genetically-engineered bacteria could upset Earth’s ecosystem by
out-competing other bacterial organisms. While none of these apocalyptic scenarios
came true, it made history in a very different way - becoming the first patented living organism
in history when Dr. Chakrabarty won a court case giving her the rights to it. #5. Russian Underground Nuclear Tests It’s back to the Cold War, as the Americans
and Russians continue to find interesting places to detonate nuclear bombs. As the United States had already covered deep
space, it was time for the Russians to go deep underground. It was the tail-end of the Cold War, but the
militaries were still trying new techniques, which led to four underground nuclear weapons
tests in the Soviet Union which were detected by geological surveys. That means humanity managed to create its
own earthquakes - as if there weren’t enough of those. What’s the worst that could happen? Scientists worried about the disruption of
tectonic plates, which could cause massive earthquakes and even disrupt the Earth’s
electromagnetic field. Of course, that could also have been the purpose
of the experiment - that would be a devastating blow to strike against a rival. The four tests didn’t have any long-term
consequences, but the world was so worried about the possible results that they eventually
passed a treaty banning the use of military weapons to affect the environment. #4 SETI Not all potentially apocalyptic experiments
are military. Some start with peaceful intentions - but
things can quickly spiral out of control. The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
is a combination of private and government organizations that look for radio waves from
deep space that could be evidence of alien life. This not only searches for evidence of existing
radio waves but beams our own radio waves into space - hoping that any alien out there
will notice and contact us. But it’s like the dog chasing the car - what
would it do if it caught it? The world has just barely begun to master
space travel, with only one country ever pulling off a manned mission to the moon. If an alien civilization heard our radio waves
and had the capability to pay us a visit, they would be much more advanced than us in
technology. If they came to visit us in peace and to welcome
us to the universe, it might be fine. But if they were a hostile, imperialist civilization,
there would be very little we could do to resist. So SETI might just be putting out a flashing
red light for our future conquest. This scary experiment is one that could still
wipe human civilization off the map for good any day now! #3. Operation Cirrus Few forces of nature are more dangerous than
a hurricane or tsunami. Powerful winds can devastate a major city
in a matter of hours. So it was only a matter of time before people
decided to find out if they could control these. The original project, Operation Stormfury,
was an attempt to divert the path of hurricanes by seeding them with dry ice. The hope was that this could make it easy
to divert hurricanes away from populated areas - but the actual results were far more unpredictable. It turns out nature doesn’t like to be messed
with. A joint project of General Electric, the US
Air Force, the US Army Signal Corps, and the Office of Naval Research, Project Cirrus was
launched and seeded a hurricane with 180 pounds of dry ice. It was obvious that the cloud deck seemed
modified - but it didn’t cause the desired results, as the storm continued its current
trajectory into nearby Savannah. One person was killed in the ensuing storm,
causing a massive public outcry against the project. The technique of seeding hurricanes was abandoned
for years, and the government didn’t officially acknowledge the project for years. The science continued to be developed, but
seeding hurricanes never proved to be effective. It was far from the only time scientists experimented
with controlling the weather, though - During World War Two, New Zealand and American scientists
worked on developing bombs that would create artificial tsunamis. #2. Return of the Black Death? Everyone knows how dangerous a pandemic can
be, but no pandemic has ever approached the deadliness of the Bubonic Plague - better
known as the Black Death. It killed as much as sixty percent of Europe’s
population in the fourteenth century before largely fading away - but it’s never been
exterminated fully, with cases cropping up in animals and people every year. An enhancement in treatments has reduced its
fatality rate, but it’s unclear what would happen in the event of a mass outbreak. During the Cold War, one country may have
tried to do that intentionally. It wasn’t until the fall of the Berlin Wall
when one of the deadliest experiments in human history was made public. Vladimir Pasechnik, one of the Soviet Union’s
top scientists at the Soviet All-Union Institute of Ultra-Pure Biological Preparations, revealed
that Russia had successfully weaponized the Black Plague in the 1980s. They used a powdered version of the plague,
encased it in a polymer capsule, and planned to load it on warheads that would be equipped
with a time-release - dusting enemy populations with the worst plague in human history. Thankfully, the end of the Cold War meant
it was never weaponized - or accidentally released in a lab mishap. But as deadly as these nine experiments, none
of them had the potential to rip apart the fabric of the universe. #1. The Large Hadron Collider Seventeen miles below the border of France
and Switzerland lies the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator, built
by the European Organization for Nuclear Research. It was built to collide beams of protons at
almost the speed of light, letting scientists view particles never before observable by
human eyes. The Higgs-Boson particle was the most famous
example, and the collider was able to create miniature black holes in the collisions - giving
scientists their first chance to observe some of the universe’s most powerful phenomena. Wait, black holes? Those things that consume anything in their
path? On Earth? As the Large Hadron Collider ramped up production
and testing starting in 1998, many began to worry it could accidentally create a black
hole that would consume Earth and grow uncontrollably, annihilating everything in its path. Scientists brought in their best teams to
show that the black holes disappeared in less than a second and were nothing compared to
the ones that occur naturally in space. If no spontaneous black hole in space has
consumed us yet, it’s unlikely a man-made one is about to. The Large Hadron Collider continues to provide
invaluable scientific data, but fears about its safety continue. For more disturbing experiments, check out
“Science Experiments That Went Horribly Wrong”, or watch this video instead.
