Wild and Crazy Natural Phenomena: Part 2

The Earth is full of bizarre natural phenomena—some explained, and some… not so much. In this second part of our series on these freaky and unusual natural phenomena, we cover some even rarer and less understood happenings of the natural world.

Sinkholes

Sinkholes are one of the more scary and bizarre phenomena on earth. They appear seemingly without warning, and often in urban areas, sometimes even dropping out below houses and stores.

Just last week, a story surfaced about a woman in Guatemala who heard a loud noise at night under her bed, and checking to see what it was, found that a sinkhole measuring about 4 feet wide and about 40 feet deep had literally sucked the floor right out from under her bed in a perfect circle. The sinkhole descended into a dark abyss, and she couldn’t even see the bottom!

Some sinkholes appear naturally, caused by movements of underground water and volcanic activity. Others are caused by human activity, when leaking underground pipelines or excavation cause unusual erosion or instability.

Some sinkholes are much larger than the one described above, even measuring hundreds of feet in diameter and depth!

Penitentes

Penitentes are bizarre ice sculptures which appear naturally, typically at high altitudes. They are named after some weird New Mexican Monks who wear pointy hats.

When ice melts in strange patterns, it sometimes leaves blades of ice pointing upwards, towards the sun. We often see waves of ice on top of snow, causing little ripple-like shadows between them. These Penitentes are the result of the shadows between these ripples of ice, which aren’t exposed to the sun. The sun slowly melts away the exposed ice, and fails to melt the shadowed ice. This is what scientists believe causes these ice sculptures.

Lenticular Clouds

Lenticular clouds actually resemble UFOs when they appear, forming bizarre ring-shaped cloud formations, often appearing directly above mountains. These clouds contain very strong updrafts. Because of this, they are avoided by traditional airplane pilots due to the effect the Lenticular clouds have on airplanes.

Glider pilots, on the other hand, actually seek out Lenticular clouds because the strong updrafts effectively give them a free ride up to higher altitudes. The rare clouds are caused by warm air rushing around a large mountain or other geologic formation and then soaring upwards to form these exotic-looking cloud formations.

Light Pillars

Light Pillars are extremely bizarre natural phenomena, and like the Lenticular clouds shown above, are often assumed to be un-natural, even extraterrestrial activity by those who are unaware of what causes them.

The pillars are caused by particles of ice lingering in the air, which reflect light when struck by light from any source, similar to the way a rainbow works. Unlike rainbows, they can be caused by man-made lights on the ground at night, rather than only being caused by the sun. Because of this, they sometimes appear over cities at night, often freaking out the people who live there.

Stay tuned for part 3 of our Bizarre Natural Phenomena series!