Back in 2011, MuckRock user Jason Smathersfiled a FOIA with the CIA for all responses they had sent to requesters containing the term “record systems.” This was a reference to two earlier rejections he had received from the Agency, which cited the inability to preform a search in the system based on the terms Smathers had provided.
Smathers immediately appealed, on grounds that it beggared belief that he had been the only requester to have ever had an exchange with the CIA that contained the words “record system.”
Six years goes by, and we hear nothing from the Agency regarding this request. Then, just this week, this letter arrives in the mail.
Which is worse? The casual admittance that they haven’t done anything for over half a decade, or unfathomable audacity of putting Smathers on deadline? And while two months sounds pretty generous, keep in mind that they’ve been sitting on this for 72 months - a mere 36 times what they’re giving him.
To give this some further context - Smathers’ request was assigned an internal MuckRock tracking number of 238. If you were to file a request today, you’d be given a number in the 31,000s.
To the CIA FOIA officer (not) reading this: There have been children born since this appeal was filed that you could have a conversation with. This is bad, and you should feel bad. Please don’t be bad, be good instead.
As 2016 draws to a close, just about everyone is thinking the same thing—boy, are we going to miss it! Every year must end, but something about this one was special: maybe the unceasing political turmoil, or the spate of celebritydeaths, or all those charming, friendly clowns.
Nothing gold can stay. But if you want to squeeze just a little more out of 2016, we've got just the place for you to do it: Baker Island, a tiny, saucer-shaped atoll in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Located halfway between Hawaii and Australia, Baker Island is one of only two named pieces of land in the world to fall within the time zone UTC-12:00. (The other is its neighbor, Howland Island.) This makes it the last place on Earth where each day—and thus each year—finally ends. Below is a brief guide to this prime New Year's Eve location, where, surrounded by bird poop and boobies, 2016 will breathe its dying breath.
What is Baker Island?
Baker Island is an atoll—an island made out of a jutting coral reef—about 1,500 miles southwest of Hawaii. It is not quite a mile square, and is, for the moment, completely uninhabited (by people, at least). Although it was certainly frequented by Polynesian sailors, its first "official" sighting was in 1818, by the occupants of the whaling ship Equator, and for a few decades after that it served mainly as a place to bury dead seamen. In 1855, it was sold to the American Guano Company, who set up camp there to harvest the plentiful mounds of bird poop, which one expert called the "finest he had seen."
Attempts to make the island anything more than a giant bird poop repository—a would-be settlement in 1935, a military air base project in 1943—have mostly been stymied by the enormous number of birds that already live there. In 1974, the US gave up and declared Baker Island a National Wildlife Refuge, part of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument.
How can I get there?
Like most worthwhile New Year's Eve spots, if you want to visit Baker Island, you'll have to make your plans far in advance. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sends a boat over once every two years or so to make sure everything is still going well. In order to be on it, you need a special permit that is generally only afforded to researchers and educators. If you get past these bureaucratic bouncers, you're facing eight days at sea, after which you'll arrive at a small landing on the island's west coast.
What should I wear?
Baker Island is located just north of the equator. According to the CIA World Factbook, it enjoys "scant rainfall, constant wind, [and] burning sun"—so dress accordingly! For this special occasion, you may want to coordinate your outfit with the island's vegetation, which consists mostly of grasses, short shrubs, and vines that grow on the ground.
Who will I meet there?
Currently, most of the residents of Baker Island are seabirds—largely boobies, frigatebirds, and sooty terns. Two types of reptiles, the snake-eyed skink and the hawksbill turtle, also hang out there, along with hermit crabs and various insects. A contingent of 40 bottle-nosed dolphins generally greets boats on arrival. There are also a heck of a lot of Norway rats, which eat bird eggs.
What attractions should I be sure not to miss?
At a slim 0.8 square miles, you'd think there wouldn't be a lot of Baker Island to love—but what there is of the island packs a wallop. You can squelch around remnants of the guano trade—one 2006 travelogue describes a scraped-out basin beside several remaining "piles of low-grade guano." Once that gets old, there's an overgrown former airstrip, a decrepit radio tower, a lone cistern, and a crumbling day beacon that fills with shade-seeking hermit crabs during the hot days. The most stunning attraction, however, can't be visited at all—like most atolls, Baker Island lies atop an enormous underwater volcano, which dates back to the Cretaceous era. Just because it hasn't blown in a while doesn't mean it won't on New Year's Eve—think of the fireworks!
If Baker Island is too crowded, where should I go instead?
There is one other named piece of land that falls within the UTC-12:00 zone—Howland Island, which is much the same as Baker, with the added distinction of having been the intended destination of Amelia Earhart when she disappeared in 1937. Let's hope the same fate does not befall 2016—which, for all its faults, is at least guaranteed a final landing on these islands before it finally relegates itself to the guano heap of history.
Recently, the main Dublin branch of the National Museum of Ireland, which focuses on archaeology, received a series of mysterious envelopes addressed to “The History Museum, Kildare St., Dublin.”
The envelopes were brown and had no return address or postmark. Inside, museum staff found four fascinating objects dating back thousands of years into Ireland’s past.
Two of the items were axes from the Bronze Age, one about 3,300 years old and the other more than 4,200. The other items were more recent—rare Viking jewelry that might have come to Ireland from Norway.
The museum believes the items may have been excavated using a metal detector, without the necessary license. In Ireland, it's illegal to use a metal detector to search for archaeological objects, and without a "Detection Consent" permit, finding an archaeological object using a metal detector is subject to a hefty fine and possible prison time. (If a person finds an archaeological object accidentally, while they're, say, digging in a garden, that's okay.)
Despite the illegality involved, the staff is hoping the finder will come forward so that they can learn more about the context in which these objects were discovered.
Sometimes in nature, it’s not about who works the hardest, but who cons the smartest. Such is the case in the complicated relationship between drongo birds and meerkats in the deserts of Southern Africa.
This video shows the development of a plot line worthy of a Shakespearean play. A drongo bird watches meerkats scavenge for food in the desert. Rather than waste its precious energy following their example, it decides to wage a psychological war against them.
First, the bird gains the meerkat’s trust by warning them when an eagle approaches. But as soon as it has secured their confidence, it uses it against them by sounding a false alarm and swooping in to eat the food they left behind in their panic.
The betrayal doesn’t end there. The meerkat’s confidence has been lost and the bird cannot fool them twice with the same trick. Instead, it employs an even more treacherous trick by learning to imitate the warning call of the meerkat’s leader. With their catch lost and their pride hurt, the meerkats are left in a tragic state while the drongo bird enjoys its feast.
If you want a surefire way to teach your children about the unfair ways of the world, just make them watch this video.
Every day we track down a Video Wonder: an audiovisual offering that delights, inspires, and entertains. Have you encountered a video we should feature? Email ella@atlasobscura.com.
During the War of 1812, 4,000 veteran Redcoats (so-called "Waterloo Men") landed on the Patuxent River, marched in a wide arc around Fort Washington—the only defensive fortification in the area until the Civil War—and burned the Capitol.
Three days later a squadron of 10 Royal Navy warships approached Fort Washington and began shelling it. The fort's commander, Captain Dyson, retreated with his small garrison of men and blew up the magazine, destroying the fort. Dyson received a court martial for his actions.
After the war, Fort Washington was quickly rebuilt at the request of President Monroe. Today, the guns on the old fort still look down on the Potomac, guarding the southern approach to the nation's capital. It is one of the more interesting military history sites in the region.
Pierre L'Enfant oversaw construction of the brick and masonry structure we have today. L'Enfant's design drew heavily on the concept of a star fort. Two layers of triangular bastions produced overlapping fields of cannon and musket fire. Guns were located both within the walls and on the top parapet. This design remained largely unchanged through the Civil War.
One of the most interesting things about Fort Washington is that it was continuously expanded over the 19th and early 20th centuries, and you can see progressive generations of military hardware side by side. Ironclad battleship design steamed ahead in the 1870s and 1880s, and Secretary of War William Endicott lobbied for the construction of a new system of coastal defenses. In 1890 a mining casemate was added alongside the old masonry fort. Technicians inside this reinforced bunker could electronically fire off underwater mines that were strung out across the Potomac.
The fort's offensive armament also increased during this period. New 12-inch mortars at Battery Meigs could direct plunging fire into the thinly armored decks of modern battleships. The concrete platforms in front of the old fort mounted direct fire cannons on disappearing carriages. Many of these modern cannons were later removed and shipped to France for use as railroad artillery during World War I.
In 1939 the obsolete and denuded fort was transferred to the Department of the Interior, which wanted to redevelop it as a park. The plans were slowed down by World War II, when the Department of War temporarily put the fort back into service. After 1946, the temporary World War-era administrative buildings were torn down and expanded visitor facilities. Today you can wander around the old fort and take a trip through Washington history.
The investigation by the local gas company, PG&E, did not find any gas leaks, though. And as KQED reports, no one else would take responsibility for the smell, either. “More than a half-dozen city and federal agencies, Pacific Gas and Electric and the city’s garbage collector say they don’t know what caused it,” the station reported.
San Francisco is not the only city to be blanketed with mysterious foul smells in the past week, it turns out. Philadelphia was subject to its own sulfur-smelling cloud late last week. In that case, though, the source was eventually found—it was coming from refinery across the river that has lost its power and as a result had some “flaring and odor” problems.
An offshoot of Cabaret Mechanical Theatre, Novelty Automation is a funhouse filled with homemade retro arcade games, most of them satirical in nature.
Buy your tokens and you can live out dozens of adventures, though not the sort found in traditional arcade games like in Pac-Man or Asteroids. You can practice money laundering. Try to buy a house before you get too old. Fly a drone and snoop on the stars. Operate a nuclear reactor. Go on an all inclusive 3 minute holiday. Win a Nobel prize. Get divorced. All for less than £20.
These irreverent penny games are based on historic British automata. While French and German automation tended toward the artistic, British automata were decidedly silly, sometimes even vulgar. Inventor Tim Hunkin based his games on British clockwork automata of the 18th and 19th centuries, which had names like "The Miser's Dream" and "The Drunk In The Graveyard."
Novelty Automation carries on this tradition of pier amusements, where for just a penny the machinery comes to life to entertain you.
The New Year might be the worst time to have a birthday. A birthday party in the early days of January struggles to attract attendees, you probably get combined holiday and birthday presents, and everyone else is too preoccupied thinking of all the resolutions they’re going to break to care about your big day.
Unless, that is, you’re from the Korean peninsula where everyone cares about your New Year birthday—because it is everyone’s birthday.
Koreans essentially have two birthdays: their Korean birthday, which is celebrated on the lunar New Year, and their “actual” birthday, which is celebrated on the day of birth. Both of these celebrations are important, but they do not hold the same weight.
Eunjoo Shin, a South Korean citizen from Gunsan who resides in Seoul, says “I love my individual date of birth, but we consider New Year’s more important.” This importance is derived from Korean emphasis on collectivity.
The Lunar New Year, which typically falls on the second new moon after the winter solstice, is a communal affair. Traditionally, entire families gather and spend the day cooking food to place on the home's ancestral table as an offering. With the offerings, they bow and pray to the ancestral spirits for good luck in the new year. A meal is then shared with all the family, which includes a seaweed soup called tteokguk. Eating this soup is what makes you a year older.
The Korean birthday, eumnyeok saeng-il, is thus celebrated collectively, as all members of the family turn a year older at the same time. Once the meal is over, juniors offer a bow, sebae, to their elders, who in turn present them with gifts and money that are considered, as Shin puts it, good fortune. The rest of the day is spent in games, meals, and storytelling.
This collective birthday gives Koreans a very particular concept of age. Once born, a baby is considered to be one year old, accounting for the time spent in the womb. The baby will turn two not a year after it is born, but in the Lunar New Year. The new year will be celebrated in 2017 on January 28. This means that babies born on January 27, 2017, will be two years old in Korea, and one day old in the rest of the world.
In the Korean peninsula, this difference is extremely important. Korean culture organizes hierarchical social relationships based on age. Junior must treat seniors with respect, so knowing someone’s age is critical. Everyone born in the same lunar year shares the same age, so they are equal. But a person born a day before the lunar new year will be a year older than a person born a day after, and will thus be their senior.
What happens on a person’s “actual” date of birth, or yangnyeok saeng-il? It is still an occasion to celebrate, it’s just not as big. Shin says that she usually has a small party with around five people, or goes out to eat with friends and family.
Only certain birthdays, like the dol, or one-year birthday, and the 60th birthday, are considered of great importance. This is because for most of the peninsula’s history, many people died before these birthdays due to lack of medicine and markedly varying temperatures. If a baby survived after the first year, the chance of mortality decreased significantly, so it was an occasion for a great party. Likewise, it was not common for someone to live over 60, so it was seen as proper to revere elders who did.
Not only do Koreans have two ages, but they use both ages officially. For regulations on things like the age of consent and the commencement of school, the “actual” age is used. For other regulations like being able to buy tobacco and alcohol, what matters is the Korean age. That’s right, no Korean has had to wait patiently until their birthday to be able to go out with friends who turn of age just a couple of months before them.
The New Year tradition, like all traditions, cannot withstand the winds of change. Shin explains that Christians in Korea usually celebrate New Year with the family, but forego the memorial service for the ancestors, as it is contradictory to their faith. She sees this as a direct influence of western culture. She also says that younger generations are not as interested in memorial services because they take too much effort. A great part of the day is spent cooking the meals offered to the ancestors, and she says that younger people “want to go on a trip or relax at home rather than hold the memorial service.”
Despite these cultural shifts between generations, the New Year remains the most important festival of the year, and age continues to define the social structure of the peninsula.
The hike to the ruins of Wiñay Wayna is like a hike through time itself. Something about it just feels eternal. Named for the delicate orchids that dot the landscape, the name means “forever young” in the native Andean tongue of Quechua—a name perfectly suited to such an ageless site.
The ruins date to the mid-15th century, constructed during the days of the powerful Incan Empire. They are one of the stops along the Inca Trail, and the exact purpose of the site is tough to say. It may have been a spiritual or religious destination, or just a place for elders or royalty to rest before arriving at the end of the 26-mile journey to Machu Picchu.
The ruins consist of upper and lower collections of Incan architecture, connected by stone steps that are laid out in graceful curves. The upper structures have a unique, circular building, while below there is a collection of linear parapets with sharp peaks, jagged walls, and massive stone slabs with little space between them. The precarious staircase between the two levels hugs a long line of ancient fountains, often referred to as baths.
In addition to the architectural structures, the area is surrounded by an agricultural complex, terraced with extraordinary masonry out of local fieldstones.
Perhaps most remarkable about the site is how limited the Inca were in terms of the available construction tools. With nothing more than implements made from bronze or stone, the amount of human labor required for such a massive production is almost impossible to imagine.
Wiñay Wayna is in a cloud forest, with mist rolling in and out, a lush deep-green on steep mountain slopes, and a steady waterfall casually reclining in the distance. Despite the beauty of the surroundings, it is almost always devoid of tourists, with the occasional Inca Trail campers the only people in sight.
On the night of December 30, millions of mixed martial arts (MMA) fans around the world will watch fighters "Rowdy" Ronda Rousey and Amanda "Lioness" Nunes pummel the living daylights out of each other as they battle for the women's bantamweight title in the Ultimate Fighting Championship league.
For many fans, however, the real drama happens today at the weigh-in, with a ritual that has come to be commonplace before MMA and boxing bouts: the staredown.
The concept of the staredown is pretty self-explanatory: fighters, typically mere inches apart, stare into each other's eyes while the press and fans gawk. Photos are taken, and posturing ensues. Combatants may be aggressive, playful, serious, menacing, theatrical, sloppy, happy, foolish, bored, or all of the above. Whatever they are, they're usually entertaining. In fact, many MMA fighters have come to be known as much for their staredown antics as their fighting success.
The performance originated in boxing, from which professional MMA has drawn so much of its promotional and organizational structure. According to Eric Raskin, a veteran boxing writer and a former editor of Ring Magazine, archive photos from the ‘30s and ‘40s show boxers doing early forms of the staredown: fighters standing in various poses, turned toughly toward each other or the camera. He speculates that the modern form took off because it made for more compelling pre-fight publicity shots.
"If [fighters] are staring at each other from two feet away, you get this big dead space in the photo and it doesn't work as well," he says. "So somewhere along the line someone was nudging these fighters to get closer, get right up in each other's faces."
When former UFC lightweight brawler Tyson Griffin starting competing in 2006, he didn't really care about staredowns. His staredowns were largely tactical; he would focus on his opponent's chin to help him visualize where to land his punches. As he took on more and more opponents, however, he started to appreciate the psychological benefits that came from a good old-fashioned hard stare. He's come to believe that "you get to learn a lot about people just by looking in their eyes." A quality staredown, Griffin says, involves "two fighters that have trained hard, are hungry, and want what the other person has." The staredown is an opportunity "to look into this guy's soul and see who it is I'm fighting."
For MMA writer Eugene Robinson, the ideal staredown is like a seduction. "It's a very gentle dance, where you lull the opponent in, eliminate the physical distance, get some sort of intimate comfortability—and then turn on the steel. If you pull that off, it's pretty wonderful," says Robinson, author of the book Fight: Everything You Wanted to Know About Ass-Kicking but Were Afraid You'd Get Your Ass Kicked for Asking.
"You try to be a silverback gorilla," says Robinson; animals and other carnivores (including humans) will want to run for cover. A quick journey through YouTube will confirm this observation: input "MMA staredown" into the search field, and watch the shit-talking, scowling, and other conspicuous displays of dominance roll.
Professional fighter Ilima-Lei Macfarlane—fight name "The Iliminator"— doesn't put much stock in the staredown, however, apart from its potential hype value. The flyweight, who fights for Bellator (a rival MMA league to UFC), smiles during her staredowns. "I'm a friendly person. I've never been a shit-talker or have animosity toward my opponents, so it's just natural for me to smile when I stare at them."
Macfarlane acknowledges that most fighters probably don't share her philosophy—especially Rousey, who is well known for going wild at her staredowns. A fighter's performance is often judged against his or her level of staredown intensity (or insanity). The greater the disconnect between them, the greater the scorn.
As an example, Macfarlane cites the 2014 bout between Julian "Julz the Jackal" Wallace and Ben Nguyen. During the weigh-in, Wallace tried to aggressively intimidate a nonchalant and smiling Nguyen; less than 30 seconds into the fight, Nguyen knocks his tormentor out. A video of the staredown and the comeuppance has over 20 million views on YouTube. "People were like, Look at this guy trying to be all hard. And then he ends up getting knocked out," says Macfarlane.
"I think that all your talking should be done inside the cage," she says. If she had to choose a favorite staredown technique, however, she prefers ones that are clever, like the staredowns by Sean O'Connell, whose moves have included playing rock, paper, scissors and taking a selfie with his opponent. Despite her own lack of interest, she readily admits the media value of dramatic staredowns. "Of course, [MMA] is a business and you need to sell the viewers and get people excited to watch."
Accordingly, it makes sense that UFC president Dana White has called the staredown his "second favorite thing" after fights. In a 2013 blog post on BJPenn.com, a popular MMA news site, writer Christopher Murphy explained how the UFC has seized on the staredown's hype potential: "What had typically been limited to an event with press and media, the UFC transformed into an arena-filling event for fans. They stream it online for millions of viewers, and weigh-ins have even aired live on network television."
In boxing, staredowns have long been used as viewer-pumping performances. Many of Mike Tyson's staredowns in the 1990s and early 2000s were SportsCenter ratings gold and undoubtedly contributed to the huge purses paid out for his fights. Tyson could also take things too far, to put it mildly. Raskin points to the press conference for Tyson's 2002 fight with Lennox Lewis: a brawl broke out between the fighters' entourages, and Tyson allegedly bit Lewis's leg during the melee. It's not in fighters'—or Pay-Per-View executives'—interest to have injuries before a bout, however, so non-scripted scuffling is rare.
Whatever its publicity value, the staredown can evoke something much deeper than just pre-fight hijinks for some fighters. "It's an incredibly powerful experience. It underscores how much we have nonverbal conversations," says Robinson, who compares the ritual to Marina Abramović's 2010 work of performance art, "The Artist Is Present." Over a two-week period, Abramović famously logged 700 hours staring at volunteers willing to return her silent gaze from a chair at the Museum of Modern Art. "I like the idea of having a staredown competition without the fight."
Griffin takes a similar view of the staredown's relevance. In his opinion, the staredown in MMA or boxing is just an exaggerated version of real life. "Our bodies and brains are so similar it doesn’t even matter if it’s a competition for combat or two salesmen at a car lot," he says. Whenever humans go up against each other, a staredown is sure to follow. "A staredown happens every day in the streets."
Of all the ruins in France, this historic abbey in a lazy loop of the lower Seine might be the most impressive. In the river oxbows of Normandy, between the towns of Rouen and La Havre, the village of Jumiège is home to an old monastery, left wide open to the sky since the days of the French Revolution.
The Benedictine monastery at Jumiège was first established in the year 654 by an abbot (later saint) named Philibert. It was a pretty spiffy place, well-appointed and well-staffed, which meant just about everyone from the Vikings to the Huguenots wanted a piece of them (mostly the Vikings, who sacked it with some regularity).
In the middle of all the invasions and rebuilding, in 1067 coming home from his victory across the Channel, William the Conqueror stopped by for a re-consecration. With his protection, things started off again on a long course of (mostly) smooth sailing. The order was able to rebuild—spiritually, financially, scholarly, and artistically—although with some setbacks during the Huguenot Wars of the 16th century.
Cut to the French Revolution, which dealt the monastery its final blow. The brothers were all dispersed, the abbey fell apart, and it was eventually sold off for scrap and stone. Over the next 60 years it was a ghost of its former self, until 1852 when it was recognized for its value as a landscape of exquisite ruins. It was maintained in private hands for some time, and finally fully protected by the State in 1946 for its unparalleled historical and architectural power.
Throughout Southeast England, a small batch of modern pilgrims have been traveling to visit and sleep in ancient churches. They’re not necessarily seeking a religious experience—rather, they are part of a modern movement called champing, a portmanteau for church camping.
Organized through the Churches Conservation Trust, an organization that oversees the preservation of historic churches throughout the country, champing provides rural villages a way of offsetting the maintenance of these historic buildings, while offering travelers a very unusual place to stay. The Trust’s website promises that “apart from a few weary pilgrims, monks, and a tired vicar or two,” champers will be amongst the first to spend the night in the space.
The Churches Conservation Trust first piloted champing in 2014 at All Saints’ Church in Aldwincle, Northamptonshire. The medieval church, which features limestone arches and a square tower, is situated on the outskirts of town. Visitors can pass their time exploring the church, canoeing on the nearby river, or exploring the small village and surrounding woodlands and meadows. From the church tower, guests are offered a sprawling view of the surrounding countryside. Just under three hours from London, the church is conveniently located for city dwellers looking for a unique getaway.
In 2015, the Trust expanded their offerings to four churches. That year, nearly 300 people stayed overnight during the champing season, which runs from May until September. In 2016, nearly 650 champed in the seven available churches. These champers were mostly between 26 and 44 and from urban locations. Most were couples, but there were also many families with children, not to mention seasoned walkers, cyclists, and canoeists. Though there are no specific records, the Conservation Trust reports that a handful of guests champed more than once in the season.
The location of the champing churches might explain the appeal to these demographics. All of the current churches are in southeast England, no more than two or three hours from London, making them convenient for weekend getaways. All are located in small villages that have few tourist attractions, but are close to charming traditional English towns and areas of natural beauty.
One of the more popular destinations is in Fordwich, England’s self-proclaimed smallest town. Located along the Stour River, it was in the Middle Ages a port for boats making their way to Canterbury, two miles upriver. Though the town is little more than a bend in the road as you make your way south from the town of Sturry towards the eastern end of the Kent Downs, it played a small, if vital, role in both the protection of Britain from outside invaders and in the economic development of the towns upriver.
At the center of town sits the Church of St. Mary the Virgin. The original structure was built in the Norman era and was expanded in the 1200s. Legend has it that St. Augustine, the Benedictine monk who reintroduced Christianity to England in 600 A.D., is buried outside of the church’s north wall. Some evidence suggests that Shakespeare may have performed inside during his exile from London during the plague.
On one wall is listed the names of the church’s rectors beginning in 1283. Tomb markers on the floor date back to the 17th century. Historically the center of the town’s spiritual life, the church has been closed since 1995, but in 2015 it was resurrected as a spot for champing. Though the town offers little more than two pubs and an historic town hall, its location along the Stour River provides guests with easy access to hiking trails and canoeing note.
Proximity to nature is the primary draw of St Michael the Archangel Church in Booton, one of the top three most popular champing destinations in 2016. Located in the countryside along the Marriot’s way footpath, the location is ideal for hikers and cyclist looking for a secluded place to spend the night. The nearby Bure Valley Railway offers families the opportunity to ride a traditional steam engine train throughout the scenic countryside.
Though champing churches are open to the public during the day, guests have the entire church to themselves for the night, when they are free to explore every nook and corner. Local volunteers prepare the church for arriving guests, providing electric candles, light snacks, bottled water, and camping chairs, as well as sleeping bags and pillows for international guests who may not have been able to bring such bulky items.
As these provisions suggest, champing is a true camping experience, not a hotel; the churches are all unheated and have no running water, and all but two lack traditional toilets. Instead, churches are equipped with dry-separating toilets. According to the pre-arrival packet provided for guest, the toilet “does exactly what it sounds like...When using the loo, you must sit down, even the male of the species...When you sit down the mechanism works that opens the two containers below...it doesn’t whiff, honest.”
This jokey tone is typical of Churches Conservation Trust material. In contrast with the ancient beauty of the churches, the Trust’s correspondence is surprisingly chatty. ”It’s nearly Champ O’Clock,” guests are informed via email prior to arrival. In answer to whether champers need to be Christian, the website FAQ assures us that “that’s like saying that you need to be...a teenager to shriek at a One Direction concert (...ahem)!” Elsewhere, the FAQ informs guests that “the space had adapted to the requirements in the previous centuries and champing is just the latest chapter in this ongoing tradition of change.”
It remains to be seen whether champing will be enough to offset the expense required to upkeep these churches, though the modest growth seen between 2015 and 2016 was enough for the Trust to expand its offerings for the 2017 season. Starting in May, champers will have their choice of 12 new churches spread across all of England, not just the southeast. The Churches Conservation Trust will also look for ways to broaden its appeal by offering tiered pricing structure based on guests’ desired level of comfort, promoting the option for guests to visit more than one church per season, offering licensed merchandising, and improving the amount of local information on the local area for champers.
If recent trends continue, there will be no shortage of churches available for champing. In the past 15 years, the number of Britons identifying themselves as Christian has dropped from 75 percent to 25 percent, and only 1.4 percent of Britons attend weekly church services. The Church of England reports that nearly 20 additional churches are closed to worship each year.
Some of these churches are offered for sale to be turned into private residences or commercial spaces, but others will join the 350 non-operational churches currently overseen by the Trust. Champing is perhaps the last chance for preservation of some of these ancient churches, which were central to English life for so long.
On New Year’s Eve, Times Square and its giant ball have seemingly monopolized the dropped-at-midnight industry. However, there are objects dropping simultaneously all over the country as the calendar flips, ranging from other giant objects, foods, even living creatures. In 2011, Seaside Heights in New Jersey lowered the reality television star Snooki. Here are some of the most bizarre projectiles that have become tradition in their respective towns.
The town of Eastover, North Carolina, aimed to celebrate New Year’s in a quirky way that celebrated the town’s past. Eastover, located on land formerly known as Flea Hill, is a sandy area that was previously prone to bug (especially flea) infestations. “We had to do something that was original, a little quirky,” Mayor Charles McLaurin stated. The town made the decision to honor the land’s history of pests by dropping none other than the insect it was named for. The 30-pound insect, named Jasper, is made of fabric, wire, foam, and plywood, and was created by a local resident. Despite the flea drop’s infancy, it is growing in popularity and has successfully scratched Eastover’s itch for a zany tradition.
A more recent New Year’s tradition began last year. The folks of Marietta, Georgia, were treated to a mystery drop in 2015—in the form of an eight-foot cube designed by engineers from Kennesaw State University. In the inaugural ceremony, the cube opened at midnight to reveal not a ball but… a trapeze artist. The gymnast performed for several minutes while suspended in the air, and although the event was unique, it was met with mixed reviews on social media. This year, the cube is returning and will feature another mystery drop, but its contents will be new.
When it comes to creative New Year’s drops, Pennsylvania is a contender in terms of quantity and quality, with cities dropping pickles, wrenches, roses, and a slew of other items related to local lore or industries. One of the more popular events is Lebanon’s bologna drop, a tradition in its 20th year, featuring a 16-foot bologna that is lowered in a metal cage emblazoned with lights. The gargantuan lunch meat is lowered and then donated to local missions (don’t worry, it never touches the ground!)
Lebanon isn’t the only ones with giant foods, however. Mobile, Alabama, celebrates their wildly popular “Moonpie Over Mobile” event with a 12-foot electronic replica Moonpie, a confection consisting of two graham cracker cookies connected with marshmallow filling and dipped in chocolate. The treats were well-known for being tossed in Mardi Gras parades in Mobile, and the New Year’s event began in 2008. The city hosts musicians, fireworks, a parade for the event. While the New Year’s Moonpie is inedible, the Chattanooga Bakery (creators of the Moonpie) create a giant moonpie that is very edible, which is sliced and served to the public.
Two residents of Prairie Du Chien, a Wisconsin town on the Mississippi river, came back from a peach-dropping ceremony in Savannah, Georgia, and decided that their town needed its own tradition to celebrate the holiday. Based on their location by the river, the residents decided a fish made sense for their town. After learning of a Chinese belief that eating carp on New Year’s brings good luck, they adopted the idea of dropping a ceremonial carp, aptly named Lucky. Each year, a carp is selected to play the role of Lucky, who is frozen until the time of the event. However, Lucky isn’t actually dropped, but is rather lowered by a crane—met at ground level by a line of adoring fans waiting to kiss the fish for good luck. The event was originally small, but now attracts crowds of a couple thousand, and has been converted into festival, Carp Fest. After the festivities complete, Lucky is refrozen until the spring, where the fish will have a proper burial under a newly planted maple tree.
Another creature living a second life in holiday celebrations is Spencer, the stuffed possum dropped every year in Tallapoosa, Georgia. Much like Jasper, the aforementioned flea of Eastover, the tradition gets its roots from the area’s former (albeit unofficial) name of “Possum Snout.” According to the event’s website, Spencer was originally found on the side of the road by local taxidermist Bud Jones and taken home to be brought back to life. Now, the marsupial has been reincarnated as a popular western Georgia tradition, lowered every year in an illuminated cage. The event even got national attention, featured on TLC’s once-popular show Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.
Brasstown, North Carolina, has a similar event to the one in Tallapoosa, but with one distinction: their possum is alive. The possum, stored in a plexiglass box and lowered at midnight, has been an on-and-off tradition for the residents of the town. Fierce battles between organizers and animal rights groups have sparked debate in and out of the courtroom over the ethical treatment of the possum, who is left in the cage during the event and subjected to loud noise by way of music and fireworks. For the 2014 celebration, a compromise was met with a pot of possum stew being lowered instead (a stew that was eaten the next day). However, last year, they returned to the original event. It is yet to be decided what will happen this New Year’s.
The possum festivities in Georgia and North Carolina served as inspiration for the people of Princess Anne, Maryland, when it came time to choose their aerial object of choice. Hunters in the area have a long history trapping muskrats, and with the word of possums spreading to the north, Princess Anne residents made a similar appointment. Yet, this is no ordinary muskrat. The stuffed marsh creature named Marshall is decorated in a top hat and a cape, and rides down a zipline to greet the midnight hour. The event also features a competition to crown a Queen Muskrat, a highly sought-after title that is won through a trivia contest. Although the event was inspired by possums, “frankly, we think a muskrat is a whole lot better-looking," said Ben Adler, one of the creators of the event. And with an outfit like Marshall’s, who are we to argue?
At Walt Disney World, the weeks around Christmas are one of the most crowded times of the year: from all over the country and all over the world, families flock to Orlando to be in this special space for just a few days. Most Disney patrons would probably call their trip a vacation, but to anthropologists, religious studies experts, and art historians, a visit to Disney World looks a lot like another, older form of travel—a pilgrimage.
“Appetites for direct contact with Disney’s creations have transformed the trek to Disney World into a genuine form of pilgrimage,” writes historian Cheryl Krause Knight, author of Power and Paradise in Walt Disney’s World. In the modern world, a trip to Disney has become a rite of passage that transforms those who make the trek, and the design of the park heightens that experience: Disney World resembles a medieval pilgrimage center, designed to connect pilgrims with the supernatural, represented by Mickey Mouse and company.
In 1980, Alexander Moore, an anthropologist at University of Southern California, wrote one of the first critical analyses of Walt Disney’s theme parks. After visiting the park and observing its form and function, Moore concluded that the Disney World “borrowed—quite unconsciously—from the archaic pilgrimage center,” he wrote in Anthropological Quarterly.
In Moore’s description, a pilgrimage center is “a bounded place apart from ordinary settlement, drawing pilgrims from great distances as well as nearby.” (Sounds right so far.) Once pilgrims reach this set-apart space, they undergo transformational, transcendent experiences. After they leave, changed by their visit, they are reintegrated into society.
Pilgrims to Disney World do not have to spend months trekking to Orlando, but the approach to Disney sets the park apart from the space of normal life. To reach the Magic Kingdom requires a journey of many stages. Travelers must pass through private land, on highways owned by Disney, where all signs of the normal world are replaced by signs from Disney World. After parking, visitors make their way, perhaps by tram, across the vast expanse of asphalt to the ticket gates, where they gain entrance to the park. Even after that, though, their journey has one more step: they must take a special form of transportation, either ferry boat or monorail, to the entrance of the Magic Kingdom.
Inside, Disney mimics the sort of European park reserved for royalty. As Moore puts it: “The bounded circular form of the Magic Kingdom is no accident, for it, simplified and quintessential, is the form of the baroque capital, itself derived from a playground, the royal hunting park.” At the center, where in a European city the church would sit, is Cinderella’s castle, the spire of which ascends upwards, towards the heavens, like the church’s spire.
From that center, pathways lead outwards, like “a baroque sundial.” Those paths divide the park into quadrants with contrasting themes—republicanism vs. monarchism (Main Street and the Palace), the past vs. the future (Frontierland and Tomorrowland), and childhood vs. adolescence (Fantasyland and Adventureland).
By exploring these sections of the park, visitors can symbolically pass through time and enact different parts of the American ideal. “Traditional pilgrimage centers evoke the supernatural, or at least mythic-heroic past. Walt Disney World does both,” Moore wrote. When pilgrims enter individual rides, they travel along defined paths, exploring themes of journey, danger, or even, in the Haunted Mansion, death and rebirth. They never leave a ride from the same place they started—these are journeys of transformation. On each ride, the pilgrims must face some danger, which is defeated, as the architectural critic Charles Moore puts it, by “that curious Disney touch that so hams up and thereby emasculates evil.”
But how far can the comparison to a religious pilgrimage really go? The counterargument is that Disney is a commercial place, a brand extension of one of the most powerful companies in America, selling an experience that will lead people to buy more of its products. To the extent that it acts like a religious space, that aura is only a screen to mask its true purpose.
“If you think of how the sacred is treated in many religions, there’s a tendency to create a space that’s demarcated from profane space. Disneyland mimics that,” says Debra Parr, an associate professor of art and design history at Columbia College Chicago. “But what happens inside Disneyland is this microcosm of capitalism and all kinds of profane activities.”
In 1989, Parr, with her then-husband Chris Parr, undertook an analysis of Disneyland using the framework of cultural and religious studies, in particular the ideas of Jean Baudrillard, the French critical theorist, and of Mircea Eliade, a theorist of religion. Baudrillard was skeptical of Disneyland: he wrote that it was, essentially, a hollow copy of historical systems that let people create meaning in their lives.
But although the two young scholars cast a critical eye on the space, ultimately, Debra Parr says, they were moved by the power it had. Like Moore, they saw how it traded in older religious tropes. “Disneyland was created on an orange grove, out in the desert, as a walled garden,” says Chris Parr. “That’s our idea of paradise.” As in Disney World, in the middle of the park, a castle draws the eye up towards the sky. “The spire is the key thing that marks the sacred axis. As the altar has the cross on it, the spire goes up toward the heavens.”
There’s also the power of Disney’s symbolism. “Disney has come to dominate both the narrative world and the symbolic imagination of the western world’s children for over half a century now ,” says Chris Parr. “It’s the shared child world of toddlers and kids. When you go to Disneyland, you are given the opportunity to actually meet Mickey. He’s walking right along the street. Minnie’s right behind him. Main Street is always sparking.” In the sacred space of Disney, the fantastical is made real. Visitors can see and touch these unreal and magical symbols, just as a medieval pilgrim could see a relic, perhaps touch the reliquary that contained it. Commercialism aside, “You can’t avoid recognizing that’s mirroring the religious activity of pilgrimage,” say Parr.
Since the 1980s, both Disney parks and Disney scholarship have expanded. But though scholars have expanded on the symbolic power of Disney, the basic analysis remains the same, only stronger: Disney operates as pilgrimage site, creating sacred space where people can transcend the ordinary. Even as the number of parks has proliferated and a select group of people have dedicated themselves to visiting every one, Disney World remains the primary site of pilgrimage. “Disneyland and the foreign parks are satellite shrines,” writes Knight in Power and Paradise in Walt Disney’s World. “Disney World is the seat of power.” For a true believer, a journey to Disney World is the truest expression of devotion.
When you open the cover of a pop-up book, components of the story spring to life. While they may often be associated with children's books about monsters and fairy tales, artist and photographer Colette Fu uses the moveable, three-dimensional elements of pop-up books to capture the life and culture of forgotten minority tribes in China.
"My pop-ups are a way for me to speak and inform," Fu writes on her website. "Constructing pop-ups allows me to combine intuitive design and technical acuity with my love of traveling as I try to understand the world around me."
Since 2008, Fu, whose mother is a member of the black Yi tribe, has ventured throughout China photographing the unique culture, food, folktales, and lifestyle of minority tribes. The Philadelphia-based artist returns to her studio where she edits and prints photos, and cuts and folds them into one-of-a-kind single-spread, pop-up books. She uses up to 20 photos to create one scene.
In the animated video above from her pop-up book series titled "We are Tiger Dragon People," you can watch colorful scenes unfold of minority tribes in the Yunnan Province, China's most southwestern Province. At the 12-second mark you can see an enticing spread of food cooked by the Dai people, and the Wa people in the midst of their Hair Swinging dance at the 29-second mark. Some of the covers of the books have a motif that symbolizes the photograph and the story inside.
Below is a close-up view of Fu's 8 1 Village pop-up book. She explains that the unmarried Yao women of 8 1 village wear black turbans, while the married women wear red conical-shaped hats. In earlier times, the leader of the group would wear a red plantain flower on the top of their head.
While learning more about her Yi ancestry in her mid-twenties, Fu got the idea to craft a pop-up art series inspired by the minority cultures of Yunnan Province. The region, dotted with snow-capped mountains in the northwest and tropical rainforests in the south, is home to 25 of the 55 minority tribes in China. These tribes make up only 8.5 percent of the nation's population, Fu explains.
Currently, Fu is expanding her collapsible book series to feature more ethnic minority groups, traveling to other regions including Shanghai, Mongolia, and Hunan Province.
"While I am directly unable to help these groups preserve their identity and ways of living, I can use my skills as an artist to spread knowledge and provide just a brief portrait of their existence," Fu writes.
Every day we track down a Video Wonder: an audiovisual offering that delights, inspires, and entertains. Have you encountered a video we should feature? Email ella@atlasobscura.com.
Åtvidaberg is in southeast Sweden, about 30 miles from the Baltic Sea. It’s a small industrial town, once dominated by copper mining and manufacturing. Today the town is best known for three things: great fishing, fanatical football, and an explosive time keeper—quite literally.
Åtvidaberg’s sun cannon is the only functioning time piece of its kind in the world that still works, and it works every day from the beginning of May through the end of August. The cannon is housed in a small tower on a hill, on the grounds of what use to be extensive estate gardens. When it was built in 1853, these strange cannon-clock devices were common at large estates to help keep track of the time.
It works like this: At midday (or during Daylight Savings Time, 1:00 pm), when the sun reaches its highest point, a lens focuses the sunlight on a small charge of black powder loaded into a 6-pound cannon. Add up some intense sunlight, a little gunpowder, a reasonably sized cannon—and boom! The total is everyone in town knowing it’s time for lunch.
The lens is attached to a movable arm, so it can be adjusted to the sun’s different meridian latitude. But on cloudy days, fear not: the cannon isn’t entirely dependent on solar ignition. On those days the on-duty gunner will manually ignite the charge, so 1:00 never passes in Åtvidaberg unnoticed.
Historic Route 66—America’s Main Street—has 2,451 miles of stories to tell. From one of the last remaining “Muffler Men” in Wilmington, Illinois, to the End of the Trail in Santa Monica, the Mother Road runs through eight Midwest and western states, weaving a dreamy and transient roadside past.
One story of thousands is tucked up in a corner of Ottawa County, where Oklahoma meets Kansas and Missouri. A couple of tenacious old sections of the Sidewalk Highway, also known as the Ribbon Road, cut through quiet farmland with a nickname from its unusual proportions. While impeccably constructed, it’s only nine feet wide—just about the width of an average sidewalk.
The original Ribbon Road was laid out in 1921-22. It was 15 miles long, zig-zagging between Miami and Afton, with pin-straight stretches between six 90-degree turns. The story goes that Oklahoma, barely a state in the early 1920s (they entered the union in 1907), was short on cash, and highways are expensive. They needed a solid roadbed, so to cut costs they cut width. The result was one perfect lane, with a concrete base, Topeka asphalt top, and gleaming concrete curbs.
The old road predates the designation of Route 66 in Ottawa County, and in 1926 it was absorbed into the historic route to the West. It stayed on the job until 1937, when the route was realigned. Much is now hidden under OK-59, but there are two remaining nine-foot-wide pieces: one heading into Afton, and the other outside of Miami.
Tracing the Sidewalk Highway has become a draw for tourists and Route 66 aficionados, but there is concern that the nine-foot quirk is disappearing under road graders and tons of gravel. Some sections have even been paved over by private landowners. But with a listing on the National Register of Historic Places and some preservation funds applied for, there is hope for the old Ribbon Road to stick around for another 95 years.
A team of geoscientists from the University of Toronto have been exploring this mine in search of water that's been conserved longer than any other on earth. In 2013, they reported, in the journal Nature, that they had found a pool of water that they dated to 1.5 billion years ago. In 2016, they announced they had found an even older pool, dating back 2 billion years.
These pools are deep in the earth, about 1.5 and 2 miles, respectively, beneath the surface. The scientists dated them by measuring concentrations of gases including argon, helium, and xenon, which are absorbed by the water as it ages in rock fissures.
Part of what's unique about this water is that it’s been conserved for all that time. (Much of the water on this planet has an even older origin: half of the water on Earth is actually melted interstellar ice that predates the sun.) But its age isn't of interest just because it's a record: Water this old could have traces of ancient organisms that could give scientists clues about how life on earth worked all those years ago.
On the western border between France and Spain, wedged between the two countries, there lies a two-acre island with no sign of human interference, save an inscribed white monument in the middle. It may look like nothing special, but this little splotch of land is actually home to centuries of history, and one of the most unique border irregularities in the world.
Pheasant Island, situated in the center of the Bidasoa River, is known as a “condominium,” a territory belonging to two separate nations at the same time. Every six months, representatives from France and Spain meet on Pheasant Island to exchange official papers, handing sovereignty of the island from one country to the other.
Not only is Pheasant Island the world’s longest-lasting condominium, it is also the only one to alternate sovereignty between the two countries throughout the year, as opposed to condominiums like Antarctica, where countries share sovereignty over the land simultaneously. Although the river island lies only a few dozen feet off the coast of each country, visitors are banned.
This strange half-year sovereignty conundrum is a result of over 400 years of history. When the Thirty Years War officially ended in 1648, violence and political interference between France and Spain continued on until 1659, when the Treaty of the Pyrenees was signed. In need of a neutral, symbolic location to sign the treaty, France and Spain chose Pheasant Island, conveniently located directly between the two countries’ territories. The officials from both countries then amended the Treaty of the Pyrenees to ensure that the island was exchanged from country to country every six months, symbolizing peace and equality.
From that day forward, the small island became the ultimate neutral common ground between the two countries, serving as a frequent meeting place between French kings and their Spanish brides (and vice versa). Since 1659, Pheasant Island has been passed back and forth between France and Spain over 700 times, and to this day it remains a powerful, albeit bizarre, symbol of peace and neutrality.
