Everyday people encounter things that can’t be explained.  What that statement means can be interpreted in a lot of ways, however. A UFO in the sky is an unexplained phenomenon to most of us. On the other hand, if you’ve never seen a vacuum before, that would be a baffling phenomenon as well. Everything in nature probably has an explanation, even if we’re not aware what it is. That said, the world seems to be full of things that have no logical explanation at first glance. 

10. Poets Die Younger Than All Other Writers

The world of writing can be quite diverse. You can write nonfiction, you can do technical writing, you can be a screenwriter, and of course you can still be a poet.  Once upon a time being a poet was quite a revered profession. Shakespeare was a poet, after all. But poetry isn’t all red roses and blue violets.

As it happens, poetry is something of a dangerous profession. Compared to all other writers, poets die much younger. It’s been speculated this is in part because poets are self-destructive by nature. The stereotype of the tortured poet didn’t come out of thin air after all.

It turns out that writers of all stripes die younger than people in other occupations. However, poets are on the bottom rung of that short-lived ladder. Any number of factors could contribute to this, but it seems to be a cross-cultural phenomenon. In a study of novelists, playwrights, nonfiction writers, and poets taken from the United States,Turkey, China, and Eastern Europe, poets had the shortest lifespan of all with no obvious reason attributed to it.

9. The Mariko Aoki Phenomenon

If you have never heard of the Mariko Aoki phenomenon, then you’re in for a treat. This condition, which no one can confirm is even real but has certainly been reported more than once, is named for the woman who first wrote a letter to a magazine in Japan describing it.

To put it bluntly, the Mariko Aoki phenomenon occurs when you go to a bookstore and then have an inexplicable urge to poop once inside the bookstore. In her 1985 letter, Aoki revealed she had realized the urge came upon her any time she entered a bookstore. It sounded utterly absurd, and you’d think one had nothing to do with the other until more people wrote to the magazine with similar stories.

The letter became an article in a later issue as they explored this phenomenon. The reason, of course, remains unclear. There’s been much speculation ranging from the smell of books having some kind of relaxing effect on one’s bowels, while others heading the more Pavlovian route and suggesting that if you read on the toilet, your brain will tie these events together and force the urge upon you.

Naturally, many people question if this is real at all or just a bunch of people trolling, but at least one Texas gastroenterologist has had to deal with patients claiming to suffer from it and believes it’s a real, albeit psychological, condition. 

8. Carcinization

Have you ever speculated about what alien life might look like if it were to come to Earth? Obviously, pop culture has settled in on the small gray aliens with colossal heads and bug eyes look. But if evolution on Earth is any sign, we should at least consider that aliens are going to look like crabs. That’s because of the phenomenon known as carcinization. Carcinization is the name we’ve given to the phenomenon of distinct life forms evolving into crabs. It’s happened at least five times on Earth.

Turns out not everything you think is a crab is actually a crab. For instance, the king crab, which is favored by many at seafood buffets, isn’t a real crab at all. From an evolutionary standpoint it’s what’s known as a false crab. Its ancestors didn’t look like crabs, but it evolved into the same shape as what you think is a crab.

Porcelain crabs and hairy stone crabs are two more creatures that look like crabs now but evolved from non-crab ancestors. Scientists aren’t even sure how many times this might have happened, but we have a handful of confirmed cases. As to why it happens? That’s up in the air, as well. Clearly there is some reason, maybe an evolutionary advantage we don’t understand, but it’s all speculative. 

7. Terminal Lucidity or Rally 

Patients who have dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, and related conditions will get worse as the disease progresses. Often these conditions can degrade a person’s cognitive function so badly that they are no longer themselves in the end. However, there is a phenomenon known as terminal lucidity that affects many patients with these conditions although it’s hard to say exactly how many.

Terminal lucidity, sometimes called rally, or paradoxical lucidity, occurs shortly before the patient dies. It could be as far out as a week or even on the day of death. But the patient seems to recover many of their cognitive functions and clarity. They may be like their old self again, able to speak or even remember some details of their past and personality in ways that they had not been able to for a long time. 

It’s not just dementia patients either, as terminal cancer patients who have lost the ability to speak or express themselves coherently may also show signs of this. The reasons for the change in these patients is not very well known or studied, however. 

6. Formaldehyde Hunger

Have you ever seen a movie or TV show in which a coroner is doing an autopsy and they have a sandwich sitting on a table near them? This kind of thing is played for a joke showing off how morbid this person must be if they can stomach eating while working on a corpse. Turns out that this is actually based on real world observations. Many people who work with cadavers have reported something that is known as formaldehyde hunger. it may just be anecdotal, but is extremely well known in medical fields.

It’s not that coroners, medical examiners, and med students are necessarily ghouls. It’s just that, at least according to commonly held beliefs and firsthand observations, the smell of formaldehyde can trigger a hunger response in some people.

There’s no actual science behind this phenomenon, there’s nothing that specifically says formaldehyde triggers this reaction in the human brain, and in part that’s because no one is really bothered to study it. It’s not groundbreaking science that’s really pressing on anyone’s mind. But that doesn’t discount anecdotal evidence either. These are doctors after all sharing their own observations and if it makes some people truly hungry, then clearly something is going on.

5. Windshield Phenomenon 

When was the last time you went for a drive down the highway? When you got home, do you remember thinking anything unusual about your windshield? Specifically, was it clean or was it covered in splattered bug carcasses?

The windshield phenomenon posits that the world is losing bugs. We can observe this every time we go for a drive and come home with a fairly clean windshield when compared to how things used to be in the past. The idea is that, back in the day, if you went for a road trip, you would have bugs splattered all over your car by the time you got home. And according to the phenomenon that doesn’t happen anymore.

As bizarre as this one might sound, there’s evidence to back it up. Research has shown that the number of bugs that end up splattered on somebody’s car is as much as 50% less than it was 15 years earlier. We really are running out of insects, in what some have called an insect apocalypse. Why is it happening? Everything from habitat loss to pesticides and climate change can be factors.

4. Marketing Placebo Effect 

Do you buy name brand food at the grocery store or the store brand? Does it make a difference? For many people, the more expensive option tastes better. This has actually been proven through experiments with wine. If you put the exact same wine in a more expensive bottle and give it to people to sample, most people will say that the more expensive wine was better tasting even if it’s the same thing. That’s the marketing placebo effect.

Interestingly enough, the phenomenon works in reverse too. For instance, if you’re selling something like an energy drink and then offer it at a discount, shoppers will think it must not be very effective because it’s so cheap.

During the wine experiment, the brains of the participants were actively studied in an MRI which proved that your brain reacts differently when you perceive something as more expensive and therefore higher quality, even if it’s not true. 

3. Latchkey Incontinence 

Latchkey incontinence is not a pleasant name for a phenomenon and you have to assume it’s going to be something at least a little unpleasant.  The condition it describes is related to the urgency you feel to go to the bathroom the closer you get to a bathroom. It may start with just the normal acknowledgment that you do have to go, and as you get closer and closer to the washroom that urge builds to the point of being almost unbearable. 

Before you get close to a washroom, you’ll probably be perfectly fine doing any number of tasks. However, once you’re within range, it’s like the floodgates are open. This is most noticeable when you’re on your way home and you have to use the washroom and then the moment you get to the door, it feels like you’re about to lose control completely. There may be physical or psychological reasons for this to occur.

2. The High Place Phenomenon

Have you ever heard of the Call of the Void? This is also known as the high place phenomenon and it is as weird as it is potentially deadly. This phenomenon can grip you when you are at the edge of a cliff or a tall building looking out over the world and get the urge to jump off. It can also happen in any other dangerous situation where you can easily make a terrible choice and hurt yourself. For instance, if you’ve ever been taken with the urge to jump on the tracks in the subway, or swerve into oncoming traffic.

These bizarre urges have been reported in many people and they don’t necessarily have anything to do with one’s mental health. There’s been plenty of speculation as to why you might have these quick urges that most people will never follow through on, but the exact reason for this phenomenon is not known and is not well studied. 

1. The Great Male Renunciation 

What exactly makes an article of clothing men’s clothing versus women’s clothing? We absolutely have an idea in our heads in the bottom world of what that means. Have you ever looked at how men dressed hundreds of years ago? High heeled shoes were not uncommon. Bright colors like purple and pink were certainly not abnormal. And we need only look to Scotland and the kilt to see that jeans or dress pants were not always the standard for men.

At the turn of the 19th century something dubbed the Great Male Renunciation occurred. This shift in men’s fashion got rid of flamboyant attire – things like frilly cuffs and bright colors. It ushered in dark suits in gray and navy and, as one psychologist put it, men abandoned their claim on being beautiful and focused instead on being useful. 

Part of this came from the idea that men were supposed to be rational while women were not, so men had to be more plain and acetic in their dress. In many ways it was the groundwork for the idea of alpha male mentality and manliness, by rejecting the frivolity of old.

Mysteries are not exclusively ancient, ghostly, or terrifying. Some are fascinating, giving insight into a different type of world while, at times, an unsolved mystery gives rise to increased interest in an old mystery of the same kind. Some mysteries are so obscure, it is hard to tell whether they even exist, or whether they are just the product of an overactive imagination. Others are very well-known, but their answers remain elusive.

On this list are a variety of incidents that have yet to be solved, all different, but all mysterious in their own way.

Top 10 Unsolved Mysteries Involving Celebrities

10 ‘Star Wars’ headdress

On 1 January 2021, farmers in the town of Hidalgo Amajac in Veracruz were working in a citrus field when they discovered something unusual. Before them was a 2-meter-tall statue of a young woman adorned with intricately patterned jewelry and dressed in elaborate clothing. A circular pendant necklace formed part of the jewelry and on her head was a headdress similar to something Ahsoka Tano of Star Wars wears.

Experts were called in who found that the statue had been discovered between the Aztec Tochpan and the Huastec Castille de Teayo areas, which suggests it may have roots in both cultures. They also believe that the statue dates to the late Postclassic period and that it might depict an important female ruler. However, at the time it remained unclear whether the statue was hugely significant or even whether it had been correctly identified. The farmers preferred to keep the statue in their possession and talks regarding the future of the statue were to continue between themselves and the National Institute of Anthropology and History in Mexico.

9 Bay of Jars

In 1982 The New York Times published an article about artifacts that had been found in a bay near Rio de Janeiro. The find encompassed a large collection of tall jars, the type that were carried on Roman ships in the 2nd Century B.C. The discovery was made in Guanabara Bay and for some archaeologists, it upended the belief that Portuguese navigator Pedro Alvares Cabral was the first European to reach Brazil.

Sunken treasure hunter and archaeologist, Robert Marx, voiced his opinion that the Romans had visited Brazil first. He also told The Times that Portuguese authorities were trying to prevent Brazil from granting him a permit to excavate the area in search of clues that would prove a Roman ship had lost its load of tall jars or amphoras in Guanabara Bay.

Marx also didn’t believe that the jars could have been planted as a hoax, since many of them were overgrown with barnacles and some had become encased in coral. At the time he was hoping to search the area with sonar to try and uncover tools or Roman origin, which would have strengthened his theory.

In 1983, the Brazilian government banned underwater exploration, preventing Marx from investigating the find any further.

The mystery of the Bay of Jars remains.

8 Message in a bottle

In 2017, a New Brunswick family found a glass bottle on the beach near the Bay of Fundy. Inside it was a letter that reads “I am throwing this bottle into the sea, in the middle of the Atlantic. We are due to arrive in New York in a few days. If someone finds it, contact the Lefebvre family in Liévin.” The signature at the bottom reads “Mathilde Lefebvre” and it is dated 13 April 1912.

History and Archology professor, Nicolas Beaudry, stated that a passenger named Mathilde Lefebvre boarded the Titanic in 1912 and that she was the daughter of a miner from northern France named Franck Lefebvre.

However, in 2021 it remains unconfirmed that Mathilde Lefebvre was indeed the person who had created the message in a bottle and thrown it from the Titanic into the Atlantic Ocean. This is despite Beaudry confirming that they haven’t caught wind of the incident being a hoax. His team will be carbon dating both the letter and the bottle to try and confirm its authenticity, but it apparently does not rule out the possibility of a hoax extending all the way back to 1912.

In the meantime, Jacques Lefebvre, who is a descendant of the Levebvre family is hoping that the letter is real as it would become the only letter he would have from his family. Should the message turn out to be authentic, it would also become the first Titanic artifact discovered on American shores.

7 Killhope Moor coffin

On 28 August 1921, farmer Titus Harrison, was tending sheep on Killhope when he spotted something sticking out of the side of an eroded peat hagg. It turned out to be a large wooden box and when he opened it, he found a human head inside. Shocked, he ran to inform the police at St. John’s Chapel who immediately rushed to the site which was near the junction of boundaries between Northumberland, Durham, and Cumberland. They found the body of a man who had obviously been dead for a long time, but still had some flesh attached to his skeleton. The remains were dressed in old fashioned military clothing and a bullet hole was present near its shoulder. The skull had no teeth, and the lower part of its jaw was missing.

The coffin was made of pitch pine with a lid shaped like a house roof. The remains were declared ‘very ancient’ and was buried in an unmarked grave in the Burtreeford cemetery. Some believed that the man could have been a despatch rider during the Jacobite rebellion while others thought he may have been Captain Richard Courteney Lovell who never reached his destination during a mission.
Who the man was remains a mystery to this day, however, as well as how he ended up in a coffin on Killhope Moor.

6 Boat disappears in the Bermuda Triangle

The reputation of the Bermuda Triangle needs no introduction. It is the location of many a mysterious disappearance, one of which happened as recently as 2020.

On 28 December 2020, a blue and white Mako Cuddy Cabin boat set off from Bimini in the Bahamas. The 20 people on board were headed to Lake Worth Beach, Florida where they should have arrived the following day. The boat was making its way through the Bermuda Triangle en route to its destination, when things somehow went wrong, and it disappeared without a trace.

The Coast Guard was alerted to the missing boat after a family member of one of the boat passengers told them the phone call they had been expecting from their relative never happened. The Coast Guard searched 20,000 square miles, including the Bermuda Triangle, for around 84 hours but eventually suspended their search when it became clear they would not find the boat.

To date, no clue has been found to indicate what happened to the boat or the 20 passengers. Their names and the name of the boat also remain unknown.

5 The Watseka Wonder

Creepy seems to be the preferred type of mystery and the Watseka Wonder falls into that category.

In 1877, a young girl from Illinois, Lurancy Vennum, suddenly began suffering seizures that caused her to faint and stay unconscious for hours at a time. Soon she began staying unconscious for days. Every time she awoke, she would tell her family that she communicated with the spirit world while she was ‘asleep’. Doctors could not find a medical explanation for her seizures and suggested to her family that Lurancy be committed to an insane asylum.

Lurancy’s family were on the verge of sending her to the nearest asylum, when a man named Asa Roff appeared on their doorstep. He told Lurancy and her family that his daughter Mary had suffered the same type of seizures and that they had started when she was an infant. Mary had also been sent to an asylum and she died there in 1865. Roff refused to accept that his daughter was insane and began studying Spiritualism. He eventually started believing that she had been a medium, with the ability to speak to ghosts.

Roff convinced Lurancy to let a Spiritualist physician examine her. During the examination, Lurancy went into a trance and when she regained consciousness, she identified herself as Mary Roff. She spoke of secrets only the Roff family would know, and Asa Roff was so overcome with emotion he invited Lurancy to stay at his home. During the 5 months she lived there, Lurancy remained ‘possessed’ by Mary’s spirit.

After she moved out again, Lurancy went on with her life and got married. She became pregnant and when she eventually went into labor, Mary’s spirit ‘possessed’ her again, and made the entire experience painless.

It remains a mystery whether Lurancy suffered a true psychological condition or, as some firmly believe, a supernatural incident occurred.

4 The Sleeping Girl of Turville

Ellen Sadler fell asleep one day in 1871 and didn’t wake up for nine years. Before this happened, Ellen would often suffer intense spells of drowsiness and fatigue. Doctors did not know what to make of it and Ellen eventually suffered a series of seizures before falling into her deep sleep.

When people in the area of Turville, where Ellen lived with her family, heard of the sleeping girl they began turning up in their numbers, most of them with money to donate. People started arriving from across the country to catch a glimpse of the ‘anomaly.’ Her mother fed her by mouth, even though Ellen remained asleep, giving her port, tea and milk. Ann Frewen, Ellen’s mother, died in 1880 and Ellen woke up five months later at the age of 21. She remembered nothing of the nine years she was asleep.

Six years later she married and had five children, becoming every bit as normal as the families surrounding her.

All these years later, people are still speculating over this mystery, with some believing Ellen suffered from narcolepsy while others believe her mother drugged her for the purpose of gaining donations from visitors. Some are convinced it was an elaborate hoax. Whatever the case may be, the mystery of the Sleeping Girl of Turville lives on in folklore and urban legends.

3 The boy who saw ghosts

In 1993, Denise Jones was cooking dinner for her family one evening, when she heard her 5-year-old son, Michael, screaming in terror from his bedroom. Dropping everything, she ran to his room to find him curled up on the bed, shaking and screaming. Denise tried to calm him down and asked him to explain what had happened. With tears streaming down his cheeks, the boy told his mother that a weird-looking man had appeared in his room, smiled at him and touched his shoulder before vanishing.

Denise finally succeeding in getting Michael to calm down and eventually they both forgot the incident. A couple of weeks later, Denise and Michael were at her parent’s home and suddenly Michael started screaming again. When the adults came running, Michael told him that the man in a picture on the wall was the same one he had seen in his room. It turned out the man was Denise’s grandfather who had been dead for 17 years. Michael had never seen a picture of his grandfather before.

Soon Michael started claiming that evil spirits wanted to drag him to hell and that the ‘Shadow Man’ wouldn’t leave him alone. One evening, after hearing thumping noises and witnessing Michael’s bed shaking violently, Denise saw a six-foot-tall shadow flitting across her son’s bedroom wall.

Denise called in the help of a paranormal investigator who advised her to move. When this didn’t help, John suggested an exorcism. Michael underwent five exorcisms in total and drank holy water at one point, but he kept seeing the spirits.

It was established that Michael didn’t suffer any mental or physical illnesses, and his family continued to live in hope that their son would stop seeing evil as they couldn’t find any other explanation for his experiences.

2 Beast of Camberwell Cemetery

No mystery list would be complete without at least one cryptid sighting. In October 1996, a man took a shortcut through the Camberwell Old Cemetery on his way to see a friend. He was walking along, not a care in the world, when something suddenly grabbed him by the arm and unceremoniously threw him to the ground. Looking up he saw a huge creature with dark fur and a head resembling that of a German shepherd growling over him. The creature then simply turned around and ran off.

Eight years later two people were walking alongside the cemetery when they heard a growl. Looking around to see whether an animal was close by, they noticed a tree violently shaking in the corner of the cemetery. It looked to them as though something or someone was trying to rip out the tree by its roots. They did not stay to find out what it was, instead they ran away as quickly as they could.

The creature was never seen again but continues to fascinate those who love mysteries. The initial description of half-dog, half-man, has many believing that a werewolf was terrorizing the cemetery at the time of the sightings, including cryptid researcher Andy McGrath who believes the creature could have been the real deal.

1 Real life horror story

Mysteries are often fun distractions to mull over and argue about.

But sometimes, a real-life mystery hits so close to home that the only thing you want to do is hold your loved ones close and never let them go. The world is filled with evil people who in the blink of an eye can change your life forever.

On 11 February 1927, 4-year-old William Gaffney was having a fun time playing with friends; a three-year-old and twelve-year-old boy in the hallway of the Brooklyn apartment building he lived in. The older boy went inside his apartment for a couple of minutes and when he returned both William and the three-year-old boy had vanished.

After a search, the three-year-old was found on the roof of the apartment building but William was nowhere to be seen. The remaining toddler was questioned, and he simply said that the ‘boogey man’ had taken William.

Later that same day a streetcar motorman by the name of Joseph Meehan saw an old man trying to calm down a young boy. The boy was crying hysterically and said over and over that he wanted to go home to his mother. Later, during the investigation into William’s disappearance, Meehan realized William was the 4-year-old he had seen that day. The boy was never found again.

Years later during the trial of serial killer, Albert Fish, Joseph Meehan, realized with a start that Fish was the man he saw with William that fateful day. Fish eventually confessed to murdering William but refused to tell police where he buried him.

William Gaffney’s family never received any kind of closure as his remains were never found. To this day, his last resting place remains a mystery.

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Architecture is an incredible craft. Beautiful buildings and other structures are being designed and built to fit specific needs. Beauty and aesthetics can be key elements for architects. However, the most important requirement for any building is to remain upright!

Architects continue to push the boundaries of gravity, designing buildings that appear to define all written rules, often mysteriously and beautifully. All around the world, unique structures are created that seem to defy both gravity and logic.

We will look at the top ten structures that seem to defy gravity in the list below.

Related: 10 Most Haunted Buildings In New York City And Their Backstories

10 Takasugi-an (Tea House on the Tree)

In Chino, Japan, architect Terunobu Fujimori designed Takasugi-an. Translated from Japanese, Takasugi-an means “a tea house built too high.”

Takasugi-an was designed with meditation and tea in mind. It is a simple design of a small tea house with one significant difference; this tea house sits upon two chestnut tree trunks. It almost looks like the tiny house is on stilts.

The Tea House on the Tree is high above the nearby trees and allows for a different perspective on nature. While Takasugi-an is only a single room, it leaves a much bigger impression. Despite the translation, it seems this tea house was built at just the right height to make a big impact.

9 Endless Bridge

In Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the United States, another structure seems to defy both logic and gravity. The Endless Bridge was designed by architect Jean Nouvel and opened to the public in 2006. Despite the name, this structure is (obviously) not endless, but it is also not even a bridge! It does not cross the Mississippi River or even close to it. However, the purpose of the Endless Bridge was to create a unique viewing experience for America’s largest river.

As the signature part of the Guthrie Theater, the Endless Bridge extends nearly 200 feet north of the building, offering a wide view of the Upper Saint Anthony Falls area as well as the Stone Arch Bridge (another architectural feat). Patrons are not expected to pay any admission fee to see these great views from this incredible work of architecture. From outside of the Guthrie Theater, the Endless Bridge really appears to defy gravity.

8 Odeillo Solar Furnace

In Font-Romeu-Odeillo-Via, France, lies the largest solar furnace in the world. The Odeillo Solar Furnace is 54 meters (177 feet) tall and 48 meters (157 feet) wide. While that is impressive enough in its own right, the efficient design of the building makes it appear to defy gravity as well.

Font-Romeu-Odeillo-Via was chosen for the Odeillo Solar Furnace because it receives a great deal of quality sunlight throughout the year. The furnace itself features an extremely large concave mirror (over 6,400 square meters or 21,000 square feet) across the front of the building.

This series of mirrors redirect the sunlight to a small point within the mirror. This allows valuable sunlight to be harvested for many purposes. It also makes for a very odd sight, defying gravity, providing energy and beauty all at once. This amazing structure was built by engineer Felix Trombe throughout the 1960s and opened in 1970.

7 Museum of Tomorrow (Meseu do Amanhã)

The Museum of Tomorrow seems to float above the ocean. The Museum of Tomorrow in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, was completed and opened to the public in 2015. Amazingly, the museum hosted nearly 1.5 million guests in its first year alone. It is still the most visited museum in Brazil today.

Santiago Calatrava designed the Museum of Tomorrow to explore the relationship between nature and the city. As the name implies, Calatrava created the design with the future in mind. Therefore, there are many forward-thinking designs, including recycled water, solar panels, rainwater collection, and more.

Native species are also used around the Museum of Tomorrow. In fact, despite its impressive appearance, the Museum of Tomorrow was limited to only about 4.5 meters (15 feet) of height so that it did not block the nearby Sao Bento Monastery (which is a UNESCO world heritage site). A beautiful structure that appears to defy gravity, the Museum of Tomorrow will be one of Brazil’s most important museums not only tomorrow but many years into the future as well.

6 Dancing House

A unique structure in Prague, Czech Republic, is called Dancing House. Two architects worked together to design this structure that was completed in 1996. Vlado Milunić and Frank Gehry teamed up to create this beautiful building that looks like it is defying gravity.

Dancing House is also called Ginger and Fred, after famous dancers Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. As the name implies, the structure appears to show two structures, a masculine and a feminine structure, dancing together. Prague hired these architects to create an iconic building, and Gehry and Milunić clearly succeeded.

The Dancing House really appears to defy gravity with its bends and twists, illustrating a kind of movement. However, this incredible structure is used for a somewhat ordinary purpose… office buildings. Too bad it isn’t used as a dance studio!

5 Hypo Alpe-Adria Bank (Headquarters)

While this name may be hard to say, the structure is certainly easy on the eyes. A three-person team designed this breathtaking building. Karin Elzenbaumer, Sebastian Gretzer, and Veronica Reiner collaborated to create the Hypo Alpe-Adria Bank headquarters.

The bank may have been in existence since the late 1800s, but this gravity-defying structure was designed in 2004 and built in 2006. The Hypo Alpe-Adria Bank is located at the northern edge of Udine, Italy (in a small town called Tavagnacco).

The Hypo Alpe-Adria Bank is constructed as interwoven components coming together. It is designed to appear to be leaning. Although the building itself leans 14 degrees to the south, all columns are fully vertical. This creates a wondrous sight and allows the lower portions of the bank headquarters to enjoy the shade while enjoying unobstructed views. There is plenty of reason for hype regarding the Hypo Alpe-Adria Bank headquarters.

4 Balancing Barn

In Suffolk, the United Kingdom, a barn appears to defy gravity. In 2010, Dutch architecture firm MVRDR designed and developed this unique structure.

Unlike many other structures on this list, the Balancing Barn is only a single story. It appears to be halfway on the ground, while the other half appears balanced over the edge of a hill, propped up only by a small beam. The Balancing Barn is a rental house that appears to teeter on the edge of collapse.

In addition to its gravity-defying qualities, the Balancing Barn is constructed of metal and reflects brightly in the English sun. Despite the unique and somewhat awkward appearance, the Balancing Barn is comfortable and well-furnished on the inside.

From one end of the home, visitors enter on the ground level. Without going up any stairs, a visitor can walk to the other end of the Balancing Barn to get a lovely view of nature from a higher perspective. Compared to many structures on the list, the Balancing Barn is relatively simple, creating quite a striking image.

3 Torre Mare Nostrum

Torre Mare Nostrum is an office building in Barcelona, Spain. It was designed by architects Enric Miralles and Benedetta Tagliabue and was completed in 2008.

Unlike typical office buildings, Torre Mare Nostrum appears suspended in mid-air. Torre Mare Nostrum’s dominant feature is a horizontal block of the building that sticks out from the main structure. The main structure features 20 stories and reaches over 280 feet in height. The projection out of the building is five floors high and sticks out about 131 feet from the main structure. Like many similar structures, Torre Mare Nostrum contains four concrete cores despite the intricate design.

A unique take on an office building, this structure stands out in Barcelona as Torre Mare Nostrum was the last building designed by Enric Miralles, and the work did not finish until after his death.

2 Seattle Central Library

After two and a half years of design and construction, the Seattle Central Library opened in 2004. The design of this building is based not only on the architect’s wishes but also on the interior floor plan of the building. Designed by Rem Koolhas and Joshua Prince-Ramus, the Seattle Central Library features an overhang that looks to be only connected to the top edge of the main building.

In addition to the breathtaking, gravity-defying aesthetic, the Seattle Central Library also features unique rooms, including a “mixing chamber” (computers and customer assistance), a children’s center, and a “living room” (teen books, coffee bar, auditorium, and study rooms). Thanks to the excellent design, these areas receive a good deal of natural sunlight throughout the day. The building is also designed to be energy conscious and not waste any space. The Seattle Central Library has been a welcome, gravity-defying addition to the Seattle skyline.

1 De Rotterdam Building

The last building on this list is also one of the most impressive. The De Rotterdam building in Rotterdam, Netherlands, was completed by the firm OMA in 2013. It is truly a sight to behold, standing at 149 meters (489 feet) tall.

The De Rotterdam building is wind-resistant and includes a top-level of towers that sits off-center from the lower towers. This building looks like a game of Tetris gone wrong. It is a beautiful, gravity-defying structure that can be seen from many areas across Rotterdam