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Rainbow Falls in Manitou Springs, Colorado
Running out of Fountain Creek in Manitou Springs, Colorado, Rainbow Falls is a lovely little waterfall tucked away beneath a modern highway overpass. However it is better known as "Graffiti Waterfall"...
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The Arizona Trash Castle With a Heartbreaking Secret
Mystery Castle. (Photo: Melissa/flickr)The biggest mystery concerning Phoenix, Arizona's Mystery Castle is why someone would want to build an 18-room palace out of rocks and trash.We already know who...
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These Photos Will Change How You Look at Airport Towers
Stockholm-Arlanda Airport, Sweden. (All Photos: © Caroyln J. Russo)The earliest known air traffic controller was Archie League, in 1929, in St. Louis. He used a wheelbarrow as his control tower, where...
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How a Newspaper Hoax Led to Ostrich Racing in Nevada
A seasoned ostrich racer named Shorty (left) takes on the competition at the International Camel & Ostrich Races. (Photo: Rob Wyatt)On a mid-September morning in the small town of Virginia City,...
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The Long, Sweet Love Affair Between Cops and Doughnuts
We've got a situation. (Photo: JD Hancock/Flickr)It’s a scene procedural writers probably see in their sleep—a burglar (or bank robber, or other ne’er-do-well) slides open a window, grabs the jewels,...
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Abandoned 18th Street Subway Station in New York, New York
While today it is a creepy urban catacomb covered in graffiti and dirt, the abandoned 18th Street subway stop in Manhattan was actually in use up until 1948.It was originally opened in 1904, and at the...
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FOUND: A Tiny Dinosaur Named Ava
Ava the dinosaur (Photo: Triebold Paleontology Inc.)Ava the dinosaur is not very big: a kindergartner could look it in the eye. "This is a really cute dinosaur, if dinosaurs can be cute,' Michael...
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Hidden Wonders of the Digital World: Lord of The Rings Online
You could live in LOTRO's The Shire. (All screencaps by Eric Grundhauser) Visiting Middle Earth is every fantasy fan’s (sometimes literal) dream. To J.R.R. Tolkien, the setting and cartography of his...
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Fleeting Wonders: The 25th Ig Nobel Prizes, Celebrating Scientific Silliness
Chemistry Ig Nobel winner Javier Morales gets interrupted by Miss Sweetie Poo in 2009. Morales and his cohort discovered a way to turn tequila into diamonds. (Photo: Eric Workman/Improbable Research)...
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Gnomesville in Wellington Mill, Australia
Lawn gnomes are a classic symbol of kitschy yard decorations, but most people are content to have just one of the little creatures posted up in their yards. Australia's Gnomeville, a collection of...
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Le Pouce (The Thumb) in Moka, Mauritius
From the top of Le Pouce one can see almost the entire circumference of Mauritius.The hike up takes barely an hour and a half, beginning in a field of sugarcane and ending atop a grassy summit just big...
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How the Vatican Investigated a Modern Miracle at a Leprosy Settlement in Hawaii
One day in 1999, Audrey Toguchi made a pilgrimage to the island of Molokai, to visit the grave of a man she had never met. Passing through the gate in a low cobblestone wall, where stray cats...
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Diamonds are this Park’s Best Friend
Mine shaft at Craters of Diamond State Park. (Photo: Doug Wertman/flickr)There is “no such thing as a “typical day” for Waymon Cox, who works in a state park in Murfeesboro, Arkansas. But the events...
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Fleeting Wonders: The Reliably Miraculous Blood of St. Januarius
The blood of St. Januarius, in an ambiguous state inside the reliquary. (Photo: Paola Magni/Flickr)Not much is known of the life of St. Januarius. He was born in Benevento, near Naples, and became a...
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Smiling Hogshead Ranch in Queens, New York
Smiling Hogshead Ranch is an all-volunteer urban farm located on a long-abandoned rail spur in Long Island City, Queens, New York.It started as a “guerilla garden”, meaning that the gardeners did not...
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The Self-Made Castaway Who Spent 16 Years on an Atoll With His Cats
Anchorage Island on Suwarrow Atoll. (Photo: Suwarrow/Creative Commons)The phrase "sole survivor" evokes scenes of violent disaster—a plane crash; an explosion in a mine; the eruption of a volcano whose...
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Polywater, the Soviet Scientific Secret That Made the World Gulp
Water demonstrates a few of its unique properties. (Photo: Jonas Bergsten/WikiCommons Public Domain)In the pantheon of chemical compounds, water is our Zeus. Its properties make it well-suited for...
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The Unsolved Case of the Attempted Assassination of Pope John Paul II
The site of the 1981 Pope John Paul II assassination attempt (Photo: Public Domain)It was late afternoon on May 13th 1981 when Pope John Paul II emerged from St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, ready...
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FOUND: An Extremely Rare Andean Cat
The Andean cat (Photo: CONAF/Andean Cat Alliance)Earlier this month, rangers looking through footage from camera traps in a Chilean nature reserve encountered a surprise sight: an Andean cat and her...
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Secret Missionaries and Smuggled Bibles: China's Religious Boom
Perhaps this boy is headed to church? (Photo: Tauno Tõhk / 陶诺 /flickr)Xiao Xue is a young woman from the countryside in Henan Province, central China. Ten years ago, she migrated to the city of Tianjin...
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