Comets are among the most interesting celestial objects out there. Some are visible to the naked eye, and with their predictable orbits, we should always see them, provided we know where and when to look (unless they go missing). However, ancient civilizations did not have such knowledge. Comets were mysterious objects that were often considered good or bad omens—mostly bad.

Its not just the ancients who have linked comets to disasters, either. Historians, astronomers, and even regular people have blamed comets for causing some terrible event or another. Most of these connections are more superstitions and suggestions than facts. But then, the comets aren’t complaining.

10 The Death Of Mark Twain

Halley’s Comet is one of the most famous comets out there. It returns at roughly 75-year intervals, and there are historical accounts of its sightings. However, ancient civilizations did not realize they were looking at the same comet until Edmund Halley concluded that the comets spotted in 1531, 1607, and 1682 were actually the same. He predicted it would return again in 1758.

The comet returned in 1758, but Halley was dead before then. The comet was named after him, anyway.^[1] Halley’s Comet returned again in 1835, which was the same year that famous writer Mark Twain was born. Twain died on April 21, 1910, when Halley’s Comet was once again visible.

Mark Twain predicted his death and linked it to the passage of the comet. He remarked:

I came in with Halley’s comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don’t go out with Halley’s comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: “Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.”

9 The Death Of Julius Caesar

In March 44 BC, a group of Roman senators assassinated Julius Caesar over concerns that he would declare himself king. Four months later, a huge funerary festival, called Ludi Victoriae Caesaris, was held in his honor. A great comet appeared in the skies during the ceremonies and remained visible for seven days before disappearing. Today, we remember that comet as the Great Comet of 44 BC. Astronomers say it is one of the brightest comets to have ever appeared in the sky, and it was also recorded in ancient China.

The Romans did not consider the appearance of the comet a coincidence. They claimed it was actually the soul of Julius Caesar as he left the Earth to become a god in the skies. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that we will ever see the comet again. The Earth sped it up as it flew past and sent it out of our solar system.^[2]

8 The Death Of Pope Urban IV

Another great comet soared past the Earth in 1264. Today, we call it C/1264 N1 or the Great Comet of 1264. It was very bright and remained visible for four months, starting in July. At the time, people already had some superstitions about comets, and seeing one was considered a forewarning of impending disaster.

This time, it was the death of Pope Urban IV, who is said to have become ill immediately after the comet was sighted that July. He died in October 1264, reportedly on the last day that the comet was visible.^[3]

7 The Battle Of Hastings

On October 14, 1066, troops loyal to King Harold II of England faced the Norman army led by William the Conqueror in the Battle of Hastings. The battle was decisive. King Harold was killed, and William the Conqueror went on to take his throne and become the ruler of England.^[4]

Halley’s Comet, which had appeared in April of that year, was linked to the battle. As we already mentioned, people of the day had not yet realized that the comet was a periodic one that came around every three quarters of a century. That year, Halley’s comet was so bright that it was four times the size of Venus and around 25 percent as bright as the Moon.

Astrologers in England suggested that the comet had something to do with an upcoming battle with the Normans. However, they could not determine if it was a good or bad omen. They discovered it was a bad omen when King Harold was killed.

However, what was bad for King Harold was good for William the Conqueror, who had also spotted the comet in France while traveling to England for the battle. He called it “a wonderful sign from heaven” and suggested it was evidence that he would win the war. He was right.

6 The Great Earthquakes Of 1811

On October 20, 1811, Europeans and Americans watched in awe as a bright comet made its closest approach to the Earth. This was the Great Comet of 1811. The comet had showed up in March, even though no one was expecting to see one at the time. Some Americans became paranoid and suggested that it was an omen of some upcoming disaster.

That disaster came on December 16, when a great earthquake shook the Midwest and Southern United States. The earthquake was so intense that the Mississippi River temporarily flowed backwards. Americans soon linked the comet with the earthquake. They blamed it again when the US and England went to war the following year.

Americans weren’t the only ones to blame a random comet for causing a disaster. Napoleon Bonaparte sighted the comet in Europe, too. He considered it a good sign and evidence that he would be victorious in his planned invasion of Russia. Napoleon later realized that the comet was a bad omen after he suffered defeat at the hands of the Russians.

The comet favored other parts of Europe, though. Grape planters had a very good harvest, which they ascribed to the passage of the comet. They even called wines made from the grapes harvested that year Comet Wine.^[5]

5 The Great Biblical Flood

A bright comet passed the Earth in 1680. Predictably, it’s now called the Great Comet of 1680. This comet was of interest to several scientists, including Sir Isaac Newton, who used it to confirm a gravity theory he had proposed. In addition, Edmund Halley used it to determine the orbit of two dozen comets.

Mathematician William Whiston later studied the Great Comet of 1680 and concluded that it had made earlier flybys thousands of years beforehand. He said the comet strayed so close to Earth during one of those flybys that water from its tail fell to the surface. Whiston added that the gravitational force of the passing comet also forced water out of the Earth’s crust.

Whiston concluded that the massive rainfall from the comet’s tail and the huge amounts of water that reached the Earth’s surface from below caused the massive flood mentioned in the Bible, the same one that Noah built an ark to escape.

Historians believe Whiston proposed the theory in an attempt to merge science with religion. This was common among scientists of the day, who often tried to use science to explain miracles and other impossible religious events.^[6]

4 536

In AD 536, the Earth suddenly got cold. Scholars of the day wrote that the Sun was small and obscured, as if there was an eclipse. The Sun could not provide enough heat, causing temperatures to drop. It got so cold that the ground was covered in frost in the middle of summer.

Crops failed, causing famine, mass migration, disease, and plague. This continued for a decade until the Earth got warmer again. The Justinian Plague of 541–542 was one of the most disastrous events of the period. It decimated a good chunk of the population of the Byzantine Empire.

Astronomers do not know what caused the Earth to cool. They suspect the sudden eruption of a massive volcano in El Salvador.

Dallas Abbott, a geologist at Columbia University in New York, has blamed Halley’s Comet for the sudden fall in temperature. Abbott suggested that the comet lost some decent-sized fragments as it traveled through the inner solar system in 530. Those fragments eventually hit the Earth, ultimately causing temperatures to fall.

Abbott reached this conclusion after studying ice cores in Greenland. The ice cores date to around 536, the same year the Earth suddenly got cold. They also contained nickel and tin, which Abbott insists are from the comet, as well as microorganisms from tropical regions, which he surmises rained down after having been thrown high into the atmosphere by an impact event.

While Abbott’s theory is considered inconclusive, astronomers know that Halley’s Comet sheds matter when it hits the inner solar system. The comet may have shed a higher-than-usual amount of fragments in 530. The Earth crossed that matter over the course of the 530s.^[7]

3 The Spanish Conquest Of The Inca Empire

The Inca Empire was the largest empire to spring up in pre-Columbian America. It had millions of people and covered a vast area until the Spanish came along and overthrew the emperor. Huayna Capac was the Incan emperor at the time the Spaniards first arrived. He knew they were going to overthrow the empire based on several signs he had seen before their arrival. One was a large green comet that flew across the sky. The other was his home, which was destroyed by lightning.

There was also a prophecy that the Incas would be defeated by some strangers who looked different from any other people they had ever seen. The Spaniards did not attack at the time Huayna Capac was emperor, however. They left and returned after Huayna Capac had fallen to smallpox (which was nevertheless carried there by the Spanish).^[8]

2 The Great Chicago Fire

The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 remains one of the greatest mysteries of the 19th century. The fire lasted from October 8 to October 10, 1871, destroying one third of the homes in Chicago. One Mrs. O’Leary and her cow were blamed for starting the fire, even though there is no evidence to prove they were guilty.

Other speculations have been raised, including one that involves a comet. In 1883, Ignatius Donnelly claimed the gas from the tail of a passing comet fell to Earth and caused the spark that started the fire.^[9] Donnelly’s claims were corroborated by Mel Waskin, who blamed a comet for starting the fire in his 1985 book Mrs. O’Leary’s Comet. Donnelly, Waskin, and everyone else who have blamed a comet for starting the fire based their theories on claims by some people who said they saw fire fall from the skies at the time the Great Chicago Fire started.

Those theories may actually be plausible, considering that Chicago was not the only place that burned that October. Similar fire outbreaks occurred along Lake Michigan and in Peshtigo, Wisconsin, the same day the Chicago fire started. The Peshtigo fire was actually the deadliest wildfire in US history, despite being overshadowed by the Chicago fire.

1 Younger Dryas

The last Ice Age ended around 17,500 years ago. The Earth started to warm up until roughly 13,000 years ago, when it suddenly started cooling again. This sudden cooling lasted until about 11,500 years ago, when the Earth started to warm up again.

Historians call this cold period the Younger Dryas. They do not know what caused it, although they have a few suggestions. One of the suspects: a passing comet. Historians think the Younger Dryas started when a comet impacted the Earth.

The impact caused massive wildfires. The fires sent so much soot into the atmosphere that it blocked the heat from the Sun. This caused the Earth to cool, leading to the Younger Dryas. This is just a guess, though since there isn’t much evidence that it ever happened.

However, supporters of the theory cite platinum found in ice in Greenland and other evidence in Pennsylvania as indications that the impact did happen. There is also a carving on a temple pillar in Gobekli Tepe in Turkey that some interpret as depicting a comet breaking up in the atmosphere as it falls to Earth.^[10]

The ‘Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All Of Us’ call to action that was issued in September, 2019, fizzled out.^[1] So what happens in Area 51 stays in Area 51. But the government-labeled tin-foil hat brigade, which claims that aliens and their spaceships are hidden there, doesn’t seem so crazy anymore. About a week before the call to action, the United States Navy finally acknowledged that UFOs exist. After decades of denial, the Navy publicly stated that there are, indeed, ‘Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.’^[2] Regardless of what they are called, the strange flying objects that Americans spot in the skies aren’t weather balloons and secret military aircraft, as they have been told.

Top 10 UFO Encounters That You’ve Never Heard About

It took the government almost as long to admit that there actually is a place called ‘Area 51.’ A Freedom of Information Act Request revealed its existence to the public in 2013. Officially, planes are tested and constructed at Area 51.^[3] The facility is actually called the Nevada Test and Training Range at Groom Lake, one of two military training areas at the Nellis Air Force Base Complex in Nevada.^[4] The remote desert site, about a two-hour drive from Las Vegas, is close to the UFO-themed tourist towns of Rachel and Hiko. Whistleblowers and witnesses continue to come forward about what is really going on at Area 51 and other military installations.

10 Malmstrom Air Force Base

Malmstrom Air Force Base, which deploys Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles, (ICBMs) is adjacent to Great Falls, Montana. In 1967, the Missile Combat Crew received reports from security patrols and maintenance crew that a UFO was hovering over one of the missile silos. Shortly thereafter, each of the ten missiles shut down, one at a time.^[5] While declassified documents prove that the nuclear weapons did, indeed, become inoperable, there is scant evidence of the UFO claim.^[6][7] However, evidence was gathered at an earlier UFO sighting. The Mariana UFO Incident took place in Great Falls in 1950. Nick Mariana, manager of a minor league baseball team, may be the first person to intentionally capture footage of UFOs. A bright flash caught Mariana’s attention as he was inspecting a baseball field. He ran to get a 16mm camera when he saw two silver disks flying at lightening speed over the city. He was able to get 16 seconds of color video footage. However, he later claimed that 35 complete frames were missing after the Air Force examined the film and returned it to him. These frames showed that the mystery objects in the sky were discs that were rotating.^[8]

9 Carswell Air Force Base

The 1947 Roswell Incident in New Mexico is perhaps the most famous UFO encounter. The first press release stated that a flying saucer had been found. The second press release claimed the object was a weather balloon.^[9] Operations officer Robert Shirkey saw an aluminum-like material with characters written on it being loaded for a flight to Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth, Texas.^[10] Flight crewman Robert Porter reported that the boxes holding the ‘pieces of flying saucer’ were as light as empty boxes.^[11] In later years, UFOs were seen around the base. In 1954, a T-shaped aircraft was spotted and picked up on radar. The blue, green, and white UFO hovered at 4000 feet over the nearby airport.^[12] Another sighting was recorded by the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) witness reporting database. In 1965, a witness saw a triangular UFO with three lights.^[13]

8 Wright-Patterson Air Force Base

Captain Oliver W. “Pappy” Henderson, a senior pilot at Roswell AFB during the Roswell Incident, flew a plane to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio shortly after the incident. He did not discuss the flight for more than thirty years because of his security clearance. But in 1977, he told his business partner about his assignment. He said he transported spacecraft wreckage and small alien bodies. He showed his partner a piece of metal from the wreckage. It resembled aluminum but was lighter and much stiffer. In 1982, Henderson told the same story to several of his Roswell pals while attending a reunion.^[14] Other military men confirm Henderson’s story. One of these men is Marine Lieutenant Colonel Marion M. “Black Mac” Magruder. On his deathbed, Magruder remembered that the alien he saw was ‘squiggly.’^[15]

7 Fort Dix

Major George Filer recounts six decades of investigating aliens and UFOs in John Guerra’s Strange Craft: The True Story of An Air Force Intelligence Officer’s Life with UFOs. Most notably, Filer recalls the shooting of an alien at Fort Dix in New Jersey.^[16] In 1978, a military policeman was following a low flying aircraft through the wilderness of the army base during the wee hours of a frigid January morning. A 4-foot tall, grayish-brown creature with long arms, a slender body, and fat head appeared in front of the MP’s truck and was then shot. The remains gave off an ammonia-like stench.^[17] Filer is a member of the Disclosure Project, which champions the release of all UFO information. In 2017, the Pentagon released footage of an extraterrestrial vehicle outdoing U.S. Navy fighters, confirming some of Filer’s descriptions.

6 29 Palms

29 Palms in the Mojave Desert in California was the site of a massive multi-regimental live-maneuver exercise in October, 2019.^[18] Military training is just one of the interesting activities at the Marine base, which is listed in Project Redbook. This database contains information about subsurface alien activity sites. It was compiled for those who want to explore the sites, with no claims of authenticity for any particular site.^[19] According to researcher Val Valerian, recovered alien technology is examined in underground facilities at the base.^[20] In addition, there have been many UFO sightings in the area since the 1950s.^[21] In May, 2019, a worm-like UFO was spotted over the town of 29 Palms.

Top 10 UFO Encounters That Involve Alien Humanoid Entities

5 Fort Meade

In his book, Above Black: Project Preserve Destiny, Dan Sherman writes that he was sent to Fort Meade in Maryland to train for his role in an above Top Secret-level Air Force program called ‘Greys.’ In 1992, he was recruited to speak to Grey Aliens, first encountered at the Roswell Incident. His mother was visited by aliens and was the subject of genetic manipulation. Therefore, Sherman could fulfill his duties as ‘Intuitive Communicator,’ and receive messages from the Greys. First, Sherman sat in a communications van in an unknown location to receive the messages from the designated alien. After some time, he began to receive what he calls ‘abduction data.’^[22] The National Security Agency, (NSA) headquartered at Fort Meade, declassified many documents in more recent years. Some of these reports note attempts to decode a ‘radio message’ received from outer space.^[23]

4 Edwards Air Force Base

Skeptics wonder why aliens speak to the ‘common man’ rather than leaders. In fact, one of our greatest leaders, Dwight Eisenhower, may have communicated with them. Depending on whose story you believe, the president either took a secret evening trip to Edwards Air Force Base while on a golf vacation or he went to the dentist for repair of a chipped tooth. Ike’s dentist insisted he saw the president on February 20, 1954. But Dr. Michael Salla believes that Ike met two blue-eyed aliens, who had colorless lips and white hair, at the base.^[24] Dr. Salla is a leader in the field of exopolitics, defined as ‘the political study of the key actors, institutions, and processes associated with extraterrestrial life.’^[25] Interestingly, the Associated Press reported that Ike died on February 20, 1954, but retracted the story two minutes later. Laura Magdalene Eisenhower, Ike’s great-granddaughter, has publicly stated that she believes that Ike met with extraterrestrials.^[26]

3 Kirtland Air Force Base

A declassified government report revealed that guards at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico saw UFOs in the Coyote Canyon area in 1980. During the same period of time, radar was jammed by an unknown source for six hours in the same area.^[27] Paul Bennewitz, a physicist, inventor, and UFO researcher, had begun to see odd lights in the sky a year earlier. These lights, which flew towards Coyote Canyon and the base, could be seen nearly every evening. Bennewitz filmed the lights as well as objects he saw on the ground and in the air. Over time, he collected more than 2600 feet of film. Bennewitz also taped low-frequency radio transmissions that he said were transmitted by the aliens, and he created a computer program to translate these transmissions.^[28] In addition, he claimed to have evidence that aliens were controlling people through electromagnetic devices.^[29]

2 Holloman Air Force Base

Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico is at the center of several UFO encounters. Project 1947, an ongoing gathering of articles and documents about UFOs seen between 1900 and 1965, presents one of these incidents.^[30] In 1950, electronics engineer Cliff Booth reported that he and another man had used an Askania theodolite to get photographs of a cigar-shaped UFO. While both men were convinced they had seen a ‘vehicle from outer space,’ photographs were blurry.^[31] Years later, filmmaker Robert Emenegger was prompted by the US Air Force to produce a UFO documentary. In 1974, UFOs: Past, Present and Future was released without its most sensational story. The Air Force reneged on its promise to give Emenegger footage of a UFO landing at Holloman Air Force Base in 1971.^[32] The footage showed three UFOs. One UFO landed and three aliens emerged.^[33]

1 Dobbins Air Force Base

‘Georgia’s Aerial Phenomenon 1947-1987,’ written by Roswell, Georgia, police officer Michael Hitt, presents 234 UFO sightings in the state. Many reports come from civilian and military pilots like the airmen from Dobbins Air Force Base who told their story in 1952. They saw an object streak overhead before it disappeared. This same object was seen on radar scopes as it traveled at 1,200 miles an hour, twice the speed of an airplane.^[34] Control tower operator Bruce Beach relates that there were so many UFO sightings at Dobbins Air Force Base in the 1950s that the tower had a 3D camera, which was unusual at that time.^[35] Sightings continued throughout the years. Recently, a square, black UFO the size of a Boeing 727 was spotted near the base and reported to MUFON in January, 2019.^[36]

The spaceship-shaped McDonald’s in Roswell, New Mexico, reminds residents and tourists that we may not be alone in the universe. Right now, the majority of the evidence comes in the form of stories told by military men, pilots, law enforcement officers, and others. The government has finally admitted that UFOs are a real phenomenon. Who knows what secrets may be revealed in the future.

10 Times We Thought We Had Found Proof Of Aliens

An intriguing aspect of history concerns hidden features. Some were secret on purpose, while others were buried over time and forgotten. Concealed rooms, passages, and art can add more color to those who lived before, even to figures and monuments that are already well-known.

10 Secret Room At Coughton Court

Coughton Court belonged to a Catholic family when King James I outlawed priests. During the persecution, which lasted through the 16th and 17th centuries, supporters of the Catholic faith built hiding places known as priest holes.

During the 1850s, the resident owners of the Tudor mansion discovered a secret room in one of the watchtowers. But the priest hole’s ingenuity did not come to light until 2017.

Most priest holes were deliberately hard to find and harder to access, but some were still found by search parties. The Coughton tower revealed a final attempt to keep a hiding priest safe.^[1]

A laser scanner found a hidden compartment inside the room. What appeared to be the real priest hole—and meant to fool soldiers into thinking it was empty—was a chamber constructed beneath a floor. But underneath was another small space where the priest was likely really hiding.

Coughton Court is known as the meeting place of the Catholic resistance on the day they tried to blow up the king in 1605. The most famous of the conspirators was Guy Fawkes.

9 The Poulos Room

The home of Alexandra Poulos is not famous, but it could be connected to a chapter of US history that remains unforgettable. Located in Lansdowne, Pennsylvania, an area known for its history with the Underground Railroad, the old house was in need of repairs.

In 2016, Poulos hired a company to fix cracked walls when she remembered an old story. Years ago, a neighbor had mentioned that there was a basement under the Poulos house’s basement. Back then, the tale went unchased, but she asked the masonry team to investigate below the house when they were done with the cracks.

That was when they broke through to a sealed room. It was 4 meters (14 ft) down and about 5 meters (15 ft) long and 1.8–2.4 meters (6–8 ft) wide.^[2] The local history leaves the room ripe to be identified as part of the underground movement that helped slaves reach freedom.

Five minutes away, another house sat on a confirmed subterranean part of the Underground Railroad. However, more research is needed to eliminate the possibility that this chamber served as a storeroom or hiding place for something else altogether.

8 Sennacherib’s Palace

In 2014, Islamic State militants razed another iconic landmark. This time, it was the shrine of the Prophet Jonah in Nineveh. The edifice was said to mark the grave of Jonah, who is mentioned in the Bible and the Koran and also in Judaism.

Iraqi forces recaptured the hill on which it stood in 2017, and archaeologists were allowed to assess the damage. The ancient building had been blown up, but a remarkable find waited underneath the rubble.

The archaeologists followed tunnels dug by ISIS and were astonished when the tunnels led to a previously unknown palace. The 2,600-year-old building had not been harmed. Nineveh was once an ancient Assyrian city (in what is now Iraq), and the royal residence was build for King Sennacherib.

Two additional kings, his son and grandson, also resided there. It is not known what artifacts were removed by the extremists, but several priceless pieces remained.^[3] These included a marble inscription from 672 BC by Sennacherib’s son in cuneiform, an early form of writing.

In another tunnel were stone sculptures of a female deity. Done in fine detail, they showed the demigoddess guarding mortals by casting drops of the water of life.

7 Brogdar Butterflies

Ness of Brogdar is a famous and well-researched archaeological site in Orkney, Scotland. This makes the latest discovery in July 2017 even more remarkable.

The site is known for Neolithic standing stones and buildings, but one of the walls had a special block. It carried nearly invisible designs on the surface, so much so that they never showed up in any photographic images taken of the block.^[4]

They were finally revealed when somebody happened to be standing in the right place, looked at the block at the right moment, and the light hit the etchings at a certain angle. The chance discovery showed carvings roughly resembling butterflies or bow ties.

The reason behind the vanishing art is not entirely clear, but scholars feel that the carvings were deliberately made to appear when the conditions are right. The hunt is now on to scour the rest of the site for more of the hidden symbols, which have been described as the finest found in Orkney so far.

6 Cat’s Brain Barrow

In 2017, aerial photography revealed an unknown monument in Wiltshire. The area had already produced stars like Stonehenge, Avebury, and Marden Henge, Britain’s biggest stone circle. The new feature sat in a farmer’s field and was soon identified as a Neolithic long barrow burial mound.

Situated halfway between Stonehenge and Avebury in a place called Cat’s Brain,^[5] all that remained were traces of a building with a ditch on either side. The earth that made up the now-missing mound might have come from the trenches. The monument is around 5,000 years old and predates Marden Henge by over a millennium.

Considering the monument’s age and purpose, researchers hope to eventually find the remains of the ancestors of those who raised Stonehenge and Avebury. The so-called “House of the Dead” provides the rare chance to study a long barrow from a time when the country’s first monuments were being built. With any luck, it will also add something new to our understanding of this early Neolithic society.

5 A Ritual Landscape

On Anglesey, another 5,000-year-old burial mound called Bryn Celli Ddu delivered a surprise. Known for aligning with the summer solstice when sunlight illuminates the inner room through a corridor, the monument has seen excavations since 1865.

The past few years revealed that Bryn Celli Ddu was not a stand-alone wonder. Incredibly, it was surrounded by a vast ritual landscape that showed signs of use over thousands of years. Ten rock carvings were found nearby and, more recently, pits filled with pottery and flint tools.^[6]

The most exciting and biggest discovery happened in 2016 when archaeologists unearthed remnants of an ancient burial cairn. When the team returned the following year with ground-penetrating radar, they found evidence that the cairn belonged to an entire cemetery of similar graves lining the area around Bryn Celli Ddu.

4 Funeral Shelf Of Jesus

Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a 19th-century shrine marking Christianity’s most sacred place—the tomb of Jesus. The building’s center is hailed as the location of the burial cave, thought to be long gone.

In 2016, radar tests detected the original walls of the tomb. Encouraged by the presence of a cave, archaeologists removed the marble slab said to cover the shelf where the body of Jesus once rested.^[7]

Underneath the centuries-old panel, they found rubble. More digging revealed another marble slab, this time with a carved cross. When this second one was lifted, it exposed the original burial bed cut from the limestone wall.

The finding shook the team, who did not truly expect to find a body shelf. Indeed, it is impossible to prove that this was the grave of Jesus, even though the Gospels state that he was buried in a rock-hewn tomb outside Jerusalem.

At the time, so were many other Jewish persons. But none was taken as seriously throughout history. Around AD 125, the Roman emperor Hadrian built a temple over it. This was destroyed two centuries later by Constantine, who raised a church to protect the tomb.

3 The Avebury Square

A diameter of 330 meters (1,083 ft) makes Avebury the largest stone ring in Europe. Why a Neolithic society decided to arrange 100 massive stones into three circles sometime around 2850–2200 BC remains hazy.

A unique addition may explain part of the story. Excavations in 1939 found a line of megaliths near the central obelisk. Recent radar mapping added more heart-stopping clarity. The 1939 “line” was one side of a square monument enclosing the obelisk. Each side was 30 meters (98 ft) long.

Discovering new hidden stones was unexpected and unusual but also changes the theory of Avebury’s beginnings. The World Heritage Site was thought to be built from the outer ring first.

Yet another find suggested that Avebury was built from the inside out and had humble beginnings. The remains of a wooden house dating to around 3500 BC were found inside the square (which is 500 years younger). The rings were added during the centuries that followed.^[8]

Why the central ruins deserved what archaeologists suspect is a grand show of respect remains unknown. The inclusion of a square in any henge is also unheard-of.

2 Home Of Sally Hemings

The enigmatic Sally Hemings was one of 600 slaves owned by Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States. She gave birth to several of his children while living at Jefferson’s Monticello mansion in Virginia.

Which part of the 5,000-acre plantation she called home remained unknown until archaeologists followed an old clue. One Jefferson grandson had mentioned that she lived in Monticello’s South Wing. Excavations shifted to that wing and unraveled why her room disappeared.

To accommodate visitors, it had been turned into a men’s bathroom in 1941 and was forgotten.^[9] Located next to Jefferson’s bedroom, the real room soon reappeared. It was small—approximately 4.5 meters (14.7 ft) wide and 4 meters (13 ft) long—with no windows. Further digging found the original fireplace, floors, and walls built from rubble-stone in 1809.

Many of the artifacts found will be studied to paint a better picture of Sally Hemings’s personal life. Almost nothing is known about her, and just four physical descriptions exist.

A fellow slave described her as “mighty near white . . . very handsome, long straight hair down her back.” Sally lived in a cramped, dark, and uncomfortable space, but her living quarters showed she likely lived better than Jefferson’s other slaves.

1 Michelangelo’s Chamber

The Medici Chapels museum in Florence needed another tourist exit in 1975, prompting the director to assess where one could be installed. Instead, the search delivered a Renaissance treasure.

Under a cabinet, they found a trapdoor leading to a chamber that looked like a plain storage room. The director’s instincts revealed what some call “one of the major artistic finds of the 20th century.” He ordered the wall plaster to be removed because he was suspicious that something might be underneath.

Finding chalk and charcoal drawings, Dal Poggetto, the director, concluded that the collection included lost work by the legendary Michelangelo.^[10] Several drawings had details similar to the master’s greatest works, produced both prior to and after the chamber sketches.

Dal Poggetto also believed that these were created when Michelangelo hid from the powerful Medici family in 1530. A few years earlier, the artist had turned against his patrons by siding with the Florentines who wanted them gone. When the Medicis returned from exile, Michelangelo was not safe.

Not all scholars are convinced that he holed up in the secret room. Some feel that the revered artist would have received shelter with another patron and that the doodles occurred in the 1520s, when he was commissioned by the Medici family to build their nearby mausoleum.

History books often fail to sync the living with the tragedy of slavery. On the other hand, artifacts can instantly bridge that gap. When we’re faced with a wrecked slave ship, graves, and personal artifacts, a history lesson becomes reality.

Unique photos, autobiographies, and workplaces also invite an intimate look into what it was like to be enslaved. Slavery artifacts have a weird side, too—like the Bible designed to make workers more obedient and the reverse engineering of an escaped slave’s DNA.

10 Mystery Foundations And Box

Virginia’s College of William & Mary is centuries old. In 2011, an excavation was launched south of the college’s iconic Christopher Wren Building. Historic documents recorded nothing in that area. However, after shoveling through a shallow amount of dirt, the team unearthed mysterious foundations.

The brick layer once supported a building 4.9 meters (16 ft) wide and over 6 meters (20 ft) long. A relatively small size for a building today, this one dated to the colonial era when it was considered large.

The structure was likely the living quarters or workplace of the 18th-century enslaved staff. If not lodgings, the building could have been a laundry room or kitchen. Additionally, near the foundations was a box buried for unknown reasons. Made of slate, it measured 15 by 10 centimeters (6 by 4 in) and was empty, save for deteriorated grains that could have been anything.^[1]

9 The Last Slave Ship

The Clotilda was the last slave ship of the United States. Her human cargo was not even legal. By the time the vessel sneaked into Alabama waters, the importation of slaves was banned.

Timothy Meaher was a plantation owner who did not care for humanitarian laws. He made a $100,000 bet that he could bring a boatload of African slaves into the country without being detected.

In 1860, Meaher employed William Foster to sail over to the Kingdom of Dahomey (modern-day Benin) and kidnap 110 people. Meaher and Foster succeeded and burned the Clotilda to destroy the evidence. Historians have looked for the vessel ever since. In 2018, the strongest candidate was tracked down by a journalist. The shipwreck was near Mobile, Alabama, which was already a thumbs-up.

When the Dahomey captives were freed five years after their capture, they built their own town north of Mobile. Structural clues also placed the vessel’s age in the mid-1800s. (Clotilda‘s construction year was 1855.) Additionally, the 38-meter-long (124 ft) ship showed fire damage, but more research is needed to confirm its identity.^[2]

8 A Crucified Slave (Maybe)

In 2007, archaeologists excavated at Gavello, a site outside Venice, Italy. They found a skeleton buried in an unusual way. At the time of his death around 2,000 years ago, Romans buried their dead in tombs and with grave goods. This man was plonked into the ground with neither.

When researchers examined his feet, they found one ankle was missing. The other had unhealed fractures, suggesting the injury occurred right before death. The nature of the wounds strongly suggested that a metal spike had been forced into the foot. One possibility was that his heels had been nailed to a cross.^[3]

Ancient Romans reserved crucifixion mostly for slaves as well as some criminals and those who threatened the status quo (Jesus). Even though the Romans crucified people for centuries, the Gavello grave is only the second time that evidence of the practice turned up in the archaeological record.

The skeleton belonged to a man in his thirties. His small body suggested that he was an undernourished slave. The unceremonious burial also matched the disdain shown for those who were executed.

7 Heming’s Kitchen

Former US president Thomas Jefferson loved French cooking. At the time, French meals needed a certain stove that was exceptionally rare in the United States. In 2017, a kitchen with the right stew stoves was found. Discovered at Monticello (Jefferson’s plantation in Virginia), the room was undoubtedly the realm of James Hemings.

Born into slavery, Hemings was taken to France with Jefferson when the latter served as the US minister to France (1784–89). The 19-year-old Hemings trained as a French chef and, upon his return, introduced macaroni and cheese, meringues, and creme brulee into American culture.

The first thing archaeologists found was the kitchen’s original brick floor in a cellar. As the work continued, the ruins extended to a partial fireplace and the four stew stoves, which would have stood waist-high during Heming’s time. Sadly, only their foundations were left. Even so, the find marked a rare time when a workplace was linked to an enslaved person whose name was known.^[4]

6 The Sierra Leone Smoker

Around 200 years ago, a slave smoked a pipe at Maryland’s Belvoir plantation. The pipe was one of four among other artifacts that remained at the site until archaeologists unearthed them in 2015.

The pipe was made of clay, a fortuitous choice for researchers. Clay is porous and can retain bodily fluids such as saliva from a smoker. DNA tests soon identified that the person who enjoyed tobacco in this case was a woman.

Experts did a deeper analysis and found that she shared strong genetic links to modern-day Sierra Leone—more specifically, to the Mende people of West Africa. Indeed, old records revealed that a slavery route once existed between Sierra Leone and Annapolis, where the Belvoir plantation was situated.^[5]

The smoker was either abducted from West Africa or born in America to parents taken from Sierra Leone. The pipe proved that artifacts could identify slave quarters, which often cannot be separated from small housing for white families. The item is also part of an initiative to use artifacts’ DNA remnants to return to descendants their ancestral heritage, which was erased the moment their ancestors landed in America.

5 A Young Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman escaped slavery and then risked her life to free hundreds through the Underground Railroad. All of Tubman’s photos showed an older lady, stooped and fragile. When researchers recently uncovered an unknown portrait of a young Harriet, they were stunned. Not only did it depict her in earlier years, but her famous grit shone through.

The picture was taken in her forties around 1868 or 1869, with Tubman’s gaze as the most striking feature. It burned with a tangible mix of strength and suffering. For the first time, scholars could see why people called her “Moses,” for leading her people to safety, and “General Tubman,” after she helped to free over 700 African-Americans in a Union raid.

The image came from an album that once belonged to abolitionist Emily Howland, who was Tubman’s friend. All 49 portraits were of men and women, black and white, who fought for the freedom and education of enslaved individuals. The album contained another gem—the only known image of John Willis Menard, the first African-American elected to the US Congress.^[6]

4 Unique Slave Narrative

Omar Ibn Said was a wealthy young Muslim in the 19th century. Living in West Africa, he dedicated himself to being an Islamic scholar. One day, he was plucked from his routine and transported halfway across the world. Said was sold into slavery in Charleston, South Carolina.

His first owner was cruel, and after an escape attempt, Said was imprisoned in North Carolina. Contrary to popular belief, slaves were not uniformly illiterate. Said carved Arabic script on the only surface available—the cell’s walls. It was also his autobiography, which ensured his personal story would survive.

The Owen family purchased Said, and he lived with them until he died. He experienced a relatively good life, during which he produced the 15 pages that described his abduction and enslavement.

Today, the document is invaluable as a rare story sourced directly from the victim. (As it was penned in Arabic, his owners could not edit it.) It remains the only known Arabic slave narrative created in the United States. In 2019, the Library of Congress digitized Said’s pages to bring them to a wider audience.^[7]

3 George Washington’s Teeth

One of the wackiest myths surrounding George Washington is that he wore wooden dentures. However, Washington never chewed his corn with timber teeth. By the time he was president, he had already lost most of his own teeth and had several sets of dentures—some sporting other people’s pearly whites. Evidence seems to suggest that they came from slaves.

In 1784, he recorded the purchase of human teeth for his own private use—“By Cash pd Negroes for 9 Teeth on Acct of Dr. Lemoire.” The latter was a dentist who treated Washington and also paid premium prices for people to part with their front teeth.

Slaves could also sell their teeth but for much less. While it is impossible to know if the nine snappers became dentures, they were almost certainly pulled from Washington’s slaves. It is believed that the two men struck a deal to use Washington’s own slaves to drive the price down.^[8]

2 Hans Jonatan’s Genome

In 1784, Hans Jonatan was born in the Caribbean. His family was enslaved on a sugar plantation in St. Croix, which was a colony of Denmark. When Hans was old enough, he was shipped to Denmark and ordered to fight for the Danish navy. At one point, he was told to go back to the colony, but the 18-year-old made a bid for freedom.

In 1802, he fled to Iceland and became the first person with African heritage to reach the region. In recent years, scientists performed the first study using DNA from descendants and genealogical records to partially recreate the genome of an ancestor whose body was not available.

They analyzed 182 of his descendants and reverse engineered their genes until they completed 38 percent of the genome on his mother’s side. It showed that she was originally from Cameroon, Nigeria, or Benin. After comparing the genes to world databases, they also revealed when things changed drastically for the family. Hans’s mother or her parents were captured in West Africa between 1760 and 1790.^[9]

1 Rare Slave Bible

When slaves in the Caribbean opened their first Bible, it was not a regular edition. What British missionaries brought in the 19th century was a version so snipped that it shocked modern people.

In 2019, one of the last three remaining slave Bibles went on display in Washington, DC. Visitors were so stunned by the abridged book that officials soon made it the centerpiece of the exhibition.

Roman Catholics can page through 73 books, the Protestant edition holds 66, and 78 books knit together the Eastern Orthodox translation. The Caribbean version was pruned to 14 books.^[10]

The missionaries wanted to convert enslaved Africans to Christianity. However, they first had to get permission from the sugar plantation owners who did not want their workers reading about rebellions and uprisings. For this reason, related passages were removed.

In this version, the enslaved Israelites never left Egypt. Lines that condemn slave owners are gone. Even though “their” Bible praised obedience to a master, the Caribbean’s enslaved people constantly rebelled and finally gained freedom in 1834.