The Danakil Depression: Where a New Ocean Is Being Born
Picture a neon-colored desert painted in yellow, green, and rusty orange, covered in acid and salt, sitting 125 meters below sea level. It looks like a dying toxic wasteland, but it is actually a nurs...
28 Jun 17min
Aloha Flight 243: The Plane That Lost Its Roof Mid-Air
You are cruising at 24,000 feet when a deafening whoosh tears through the cabin, the temperature plunges, and where the ceiling should be you see only blue sky. On April 28, 1988, this nightmare becam...
28 Jun 20min
The Forrest Fenn Treasure: A Poem That Cost Five Lives
In 2010 an eccentric millionaire filled a 22-pound bronze chest with gold and jewels, hid it in the Rocky Mountains, and released a cryptic nine-line poem. What followed was a decade-long frenzy that ...
28 Jun 19min
It's Not an Aircraft: The Vanishing of Frederick Valentich
On the night of October 21, 1978, a 20-year-old pilot flying alone over the freezing Bass Strait radioed Melbourne that a brightly lit craft was orbiting him and toying with him. Air traffic control s...
28 Jun 18min
Lord Lucan: The Murdering Earl Who Vanished Forever
On the night of November 7, 1974, a blood-soaked Countess stumbled into a London pub screaming that she had escaped being murdered and that her nanny was dead. The man she accused was her husband, a B...
28 Jun 22min
Cahokia: America's Forgotten Megacity of Pyramids
Imagine a 12th-century metropolis larger than London or Paris, with towering earthen pyramids, astronomical observatories, and up to 40,000 people. Now place it not in Europe or the Middle East, but i...
28 Jun 22min
Catatumbo: The Everlasting Storm That Suddenly Went Dark
Picture a thunderstorm that almost never ends, producing up to 1.6 million lightning strikes a year and flashing 40 times a minute for nine hours a night. For centuries this everlasting storm over Ven...
28 Jun 20min
Zheng He: The Enslaved Eunuch Who Commanded the Seas
In 1405, a fleet of 317 wooden ships carrying nearly 28,000 men set sail from China, a floating city and the largest maritime force the world had ever seen. At its command was a man who began life as ...
28 Jun 21min
