The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson tells the story of several people in one of the most haunted houses in the country. The novel has recently been reworked as a hit series on Netflix; reports of viewers passing out with fear from watching the show have circulated.

SEE ALSO: 10 Truly Creepy Demonic Hauntings

The horror Jackson’s characters witnessed is a work of fiction. However, the following families all experienced something that felt very much real to them. These families were driven from their own homes, leaving behind a legacy of pure fear.

10 The Smurl Family

When Janet and Jack Smurl first moved into their family home on Chase Street in West Pittson, Pennsylvania, they knew it was a fixer-upper. The property needed repainting and refixing, but what they didn’t know was that the renovations would be the least of their problems.

Over a period of 13 years, they were tormented by the ghosts that haunted the place. Janet also believed she was molested in her sleep by a demon, and Jack said he was sexually attacked by an unknown force as he watched a baseball game on TV. They also witnessed the family dog being thrown violently against the wall.

Demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren identified four ghosts at the property—a harmless old lady, a violent young girl, a man who had died in the home, and a demon who controlled the other three spirits. In 1987, the Smurl family had had enough of the attacks, and they fled their home with no intention to return.^[1]

9 The Perron Family

The real-life haunting of the Perron family was so terrifying it inspired the 2013 horror film The Conjuring. In 1970, Carolyn and Roger Perron, along with their five young children, moved into a farmhouse in Rhode Island known as the Old Arnold Estate, built in 1736. The previous occupant issued them a cold warning: “For the sake of your family, leave the lights on at night!”

The disturbances began almost immediately. Carolyn was awoken in the middle of the night by the ghost of an old, gray lady named Bathsheba, whose head hung loosely. The apparition warned the family to leave. The children also bonded with the spirit of a little boy they affectionately named “Manny,” who watched them through the windows as they played outside. Then there were the malevolent spirits that tossed them out of bed, pulled at their legs, and filled the house with the smell of rotting flesh many mornings at 5:15 AM.

To this day, the Perron family struggle to talk about what happened. Andrea Perron, now a grown woman, said, “Let’s just say there was a very bad male spirit in the home—with five little girls.”^[2]

8 The Enfield Poltergeist

Between 1977 and 1979, there was one ghost story that gripped the world—the Enfield Poltergeist. At 284 Green Street in Enfield, England, sat a suburban family home on a quiet street. Within this home, single mother Peggy Hodgson and her two young daughters were tormented by a violent poltergeist.

Sisters 13-year-old Margaret and 11-year-old Janet complained of menacing voices, loud banging, and chairs being overturned in the house. Janet would also become possessed and speak in a deep, demon-like voice belonging to 72-year-old Bill Wilkins, who had previously died at the house.

Press photographer Graham Morris, who was asked to report on the disturbances, recalled, “I thought it was an ordinary job until I walked into the house.” Morris managed to capture a famous photograph of young Janet purportedly levitating out of her bed as her face twists in horror.^[3]

7 The Lemp Family Curse

Built in 1868, the Lemp Mansion in Benton Park, St. Louis, Missouri, boasted a cave where the Lamp family brewed their own beer. In 1901, William J. Lemp was left devastated when his fourth son Frederick Lemp died of ill health. In 1904, William committed suicide by gunshot, and William J. “Billy” Lemp, Jr. took over the family business.

In 1920, Elsa Lemp Wright, the youngest Lemp child, shot herself following her divorce. As a result of Prohibition, the family brewery was sold at auction after hitting hard times, and Billy Jr. also shot himself in 1922. Years later, in 1949, Charles Lemp, the third son, shot himself in the head after killing the dog. The only surviving son, Edwin Lemp, died of natural causes, and his dying wish was for every family heirloom to be destroyed.

Not surprisingly, the Lemp Mansion, now a restaurant and inn, is said to be haunted.^[4] One legend is that there was another Lemp son who was born deformed and hidden away in the attic—his spirit is believed to haunt and torment the house.

6 The Snedeker Family

The Snedeker House inspired the book and horror film The Haunting in Connecticut due to its chilling legacy. In 1986, the Snedeker family—Allen and Carmen, their three sons and daughter, and two nieces—moved into the house on Meriden Avenue, Southington, Connecticut. While exploring their new home, Carmen found mortician’s tools in the basement, and she soon discovered that the property was once a funeral home.

It wasn’t long before their eldest son experienced visions of evil spirits, and both parents claimed to have been sexually attacked by demons. Demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren agreed that the Snedeker house was infested with demons. Since the family moved from the home, there have been no further reports of any paranormal activity; it is believed that the evil within was drawn to the family rather than the house itself.^[5]

5 The McPike Mansion

Alton in Madison County, Illinois, is considered one of the most haunted places in the United States, as many ghost stories plague this town. However, one building stands out among the rest—the McPike Mansion. Businessman Henry McPike built the 16-bedroom mansion on Alby Street for his family in 1869.

In the 1900s, the mansion was sold to Paul Laichinger, who rented the rooms to boarders. However, those who did stay here soon began to hear strange noises, including children talking and laughing together, although children weren’t on the grounds.

Following the death of Laichinger in 1945, the mansion sat vacant until 1994, when Sharyn and George Luedke purchased the property as a restoration project. Sharyn soon noticed that a ghost-like man would stare at her from the window as she was gardening. Other disturbances included orbs being caught on camera and heavy metal doors opening on their own. Ghost hunters have confirmed that the most paranormally active room in the house is the wine cellar.^[6]

4 The Sprague Mansion

In the mid-1800s, Lucy Chase Sprague lost her fortune and died penniless at the Sprague Mansion on Cranston Street in Cranston, Rhode Island. The property has stood with a dark cloud over it ever since. In 1967, Robert and Viola Lynch moved into the 28-bedrooom mansion that featured its very own creepy Doll Room.

In the late 1960s, night watchman Bob Lynch Jr. and a few of his friends had the blankets thrown off their beds. Using a makeshift Ouija board, they contacted a ghost that spelled out: “Tell my story!” Another entity that haunts the place is a ghost by the name of Amasa Sprague, whose body was discovered bludgeoned to death close to the house in 1843.

Since the Lynch family moved away, paranormal experts who have visited the mansion captured the dolls’ eyes in the Doll Room moving on camera. The wine cellar is also a place of much paranormal activity, including orbs and unexplained lights.^[7]

3 The Danny LaPlante Killings

In January 1987, teenagers Annie and Jessica Andrews heard loud knocking sounds coming from their bedroom walls. They also found blood-red writing on the walls: “I’m back. Find me if you can.” The girls had recently lost their mother and believed there was a spirit trying to make contact. When the girl’s father found a young boy standing in the house wearing a dress belonging to his deceased wife and holding a hatchet, he chased him from the house. Police later found a crawl space in the house and that the “ghost” was 17-year-old Daniel LaPlante.

Following a short sentence in a juvenile detention center, La Plante was released, and he turned his attention to a different family. On December 1, 1987, he assaulted and shot 33-year-old Priscilla Gustafson and then drowned her children, seven-year-old Abigail and five-year-old William, in their family home in Townsend, Middlesex County, Massachusetts. He was sentenced to life behind bars for his horrendous, deplorable actions.^[8]

2 The Lutz Family

On November 13, 1974, at 112 Ocean Drive, Amityville, Long Island, Ronald “Butch” DeFeo Jr. murdered his parents, two brothers, and two sisters with a .35-caliber rifle while they slept peacefully in their beds. Butch claimed he was tormented by voices that ordered him to kill his family.

A year later, George and Kathleen Lutz moved into the Amityville house with their three children after purchasing the five-bedroom property for a low price. George reportedly then began to awaken at 3:15 AM every day—around the time Butch was known to have massacred his family. They also saw a pig-like creature with red eyes staring from the windows of the house, and the young children would levitate from their beds.

Both George and Kathleen passed lie detector tests about what they experienced in the home, and eventually, they fled from the property. 112 Ocean Drive is still known as one of the most haunted houses in America.^[9]

1 The Winchester Mystery House

Located at 525 South Winchester Boulevard in San Jose, California, is the Winchester House, which was first built in 1884. Following the death of her husband, William Wirt Winchester, and with a $1,000-a-day inheritance at hand (the average daily wage at the time was $1.50), Sarah Winchester sought the help of a spiritualist to deal with her grief. Sarah had also lost her only daughter when she was just six weeks old.

The spiritualist warned Sarah that she was cursed and advised her to “build a home for [herself] and for the spirits.” The spirits in question were said to be those killed by Winchester rifles. Sarah sold her home in New Haven, Connecticut, and began work on the Winchester House. “If you continue building, you will live. Stop and you will die,” advised the spiritualist.

Every day for 38 years, Sarah continued building.^[10] The property ended up with 160 rooms, 47 fireplaces, trap doors, secret passages, and staircases that lead to nowhere. The labyrinth-like mansion attracts paranormal experts from all around the world.

Cheish Merryweather is a true crime fan and an oddities fanatic. Can either be found at house parties telling everyone Charles Manson was only 5’2″ or at home reading true crime magazines.
Twitter: @thecheish

There are times when we would all like to have superpowers. For most of us, this has to remain an idle daydream. However, there are people walking among us who already have totally legitimate and totally cool superhuman powers.

And who knows, perhaps these are the tip of the iceberg. There may be lots of them, living in the shadows or hiding in plain sight, waiting for their chance to save (or destroy) the planet! Here are ten real-life people with honest-to-goodness superpowers.

10 The Real-Life Batman

As a baby, Daniel Kish developed retinoblastoma, a cancer which affects the eyes. He had to have both eyes removed before he reached his first birthday. In order to navigate his environment, Kish developed his own echolocation system, using the same techniques that bats use to fly in the dark. In fact, he has been referred to as “the real-life Batman.”

As he moved around, Kish would make clicking noises with his tongue. He realized that every surface had its own sound. He could recognize a tree, for example, because the trunk produces a different echo than the branches and the leaves.^[1]

By listening to the echoes from his clicking, Daniel Kish is able to build a 3-D image in his mind of the objects around him. It is thought that the clicking noises activate the visual functions of the brain, which enhance spatial and depth perceptions. Kish says that he can often find his way out of a concert hall quicker than a sighted person because he can identify the exit from a long distance away. If he is in a noisy place, he just increases the volume of his clicking sounds.

9 The Real-Life Mr. Freeze

Like all good superheroes, Wim Hof discovered his superpowers by accident. When he was 17, he was walking along a frozen canal in his home city of Amsterdam when he felt a powerful urge to jump in. So he did. He soon discovered that he has superhuman ability to withstand the cold, which has led him to claim 26 world records.

He tried to climb Everest in a pair of shorts. Although he made it through the Death Zone unharmed, he was forced to turn back, not by the temperature but by a foot injury. Hof has run barefoot marathons in the snow and broken his own record for ice submergence four times.

Researchers studying Wim Hof’s remarkable abilities have discovered that he is able to override the stress responses in his brain through breathing and meditation techniques. When he is exposed to extreme cold, his brain releases opioids and cannabinoids into his body, inhibiting the signals that register cold and pain. What is not yet clear is how this breathing affects other physical and biological processes, such as Hof’s superhuman ability to resist frostbite, which should be unaffected by his breathing technique.^[2]

8 The Real-Life Flash

Dean Karnazes can run forever. He is one of the most remarkable endurance athletes on the planet. He once ran nonstop for 563 kilometers (350 mi) over three days. He ran nonstop across Death Valley and even ran to the South Pole. Even among ultra-endurance athletes, Dean Karnazes is a superhuman.

Most runners are limited by their body’s lactate threshold. The body breaks down glucose for energy, producing lactate as a by-product. When you reach your lactate threshold, the body is no longer able to convert the lactate quickly enough, leading to an acid buildup in the muscles and a burning pain runners call “hitting the wall.” Running beyond your lactate threshold will lead to muscle fatigue, breathlessness, and a racing heart, until eventually you collapse in a sweating, gasping heap.

Dean Karnazes does not have a lactate threshold, which means that, theoretically, he can run forever.

Karnazes has never experienced any form of cramp or muscle ache, even during runs that last more than 160 kilometers (100 mi). The only thing that stops him is his need for sleep, and he has even sometimes experienced bouts of “sleep running,” where he was able to keep on moving while nodding off.^[3]

7 The Real-Life Spider-Man

Nicknamed the “French Spiderman,” Alain Robert is one of the best climbers on Earth. He is famous for his free solo-climbing exploits up skyscrapers, without the use of ropes or safety harness. The only “equipment” that he carries is a bag of chalk dust. Robert has climbed over 160 skyscrapers, including the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the Taipei 101 in Taiwan, and the Lloyd’s building in London.^[4]

Robert was arrested in October 2018 after scaling the Salesforce Tower in London. He climbed the 202-meter (662 ft) tower without safety equipment, while a crowd gathered below to watch him. Though he reached the top safely, he was soon arrested “on suspicion of causing public nuisance.”

Following a court hearing after the stunt, which only took around 45 minutes to complete, Robert was banned from climbing any building in the UK, which seems a shame. But, then again, the world is full of friendly neighborhoods with tall buildings.

6 The Real-Life Professor X

The actress Marilu Henner has superhuman mental powers. She has Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM), an extremely rare condition which allows her total recall of basically every single moment of her life. Fewer than 100 people with the condition have been documented worldwide. Though HSAM would make life easier in many ways (imagine never having to wonder where you put your car keys), there are some disadvantages, too. People with HSAM are more likely to have anxiety disorders and suffer from depression or OCD.

Marilu Henner can recall the month, day, and time of every event that has happened in her life and can also recall things that were on the news or happened to other people. She first became aware of her ability at the age of six.

MRI tests have revealed that people with HSAM have larger temporal lobes and caudate nuclei than normal, but researchers are not sure whether this is the cause or the result of living with the condition. Whatever the cause, Henner has found living with HSAM pretty useful at times, particularly when learning lines.^[5]

5 The Real-Life Elastigirl

Javier Botet is a Spanish actor with a peculiar gift. His extremely long limbs and lean body give him the look of a human skeleton. When he made a screen test in 2013, many people assumed that they were watching a puppet because Botet was able to move his limbs in very unexpected and disturbing ways. Botet suffers from Marfan syndrome, which results in hyperflexibility.

His condition has allowed him to carve out a career in horror movies, where he has appeared as aliens, lepers, monsters, and mummies, as well as the urban folklore-inspired Slender Man. He first noticed the condition as a child and liked to fold his arms and legs into unusual shapes.^[6] (Well, we all need a hobby.)

Marfan syndrome is a rare genetic disorder, resulting in extreme height and slenderness as well as hyperflexibility. It can also cause heart defects and blindness. For the moment, however, Javier Botet is using this elastic powers to conquer Hollywood.

4 The Real-Life Overseer

An unnamed family from Connecticut has been the center of much study by genetic scientists due to their unusually high bone density. Just like Bruce Willis in Unbreakable, the family has a genetic mutation that means their bones never break.

No one in the family has ever had a fracture, and it is thought that they have the strongest bones on the planet, which is impressive. It appears that the condition is genetic. Scientists tested 20 members of the family, with just under half of them being found to have extra dense bones. It is hoped that by studying the DNA of those family members with the condition, researchers will be able to more fully understand the factors affecting bone density, which could lead to treatments for osteoporosis.^[7]

The condition means that the Connecticut family will never need a plaster cast, though they may find themselves spending a lot of money on plastic ponchos. (That’s an Unbreakable joke.)

3 The Real-Life Invisible Woman

It is a universally accepted truth that we all have a unique set of fingerprints. Even identical twins differ when it comes to the minute whorls and loops on a set of dabs. Modern technology has made use of this unique property when it comes to things like cybersecurity, which must make Cheryl Maynard feel pretty invisible.^[8]

Fingerprints are usually fully formed even before we are born. People with adermatoglyphia, however, are born with no fingerprints. (In the picture above, Cheryl’s finger is compared with a normal one.) It is believed that there are only four extended families in the world with this condition, caused by a genetic mutation.

The condition has left Cheryl Maynard feeling pretty invisible. Having no fingerprints has even made it difficult for her to get jobs. However, if she fancied a career as a criminal, she would have a head start.

2 The Real-Life Vision

In 1972, when Veronica Seider claimed to be able to see small objects 1.6 kilometers (1 mi) away, no one believed her. However, eyesight is pretty easy to test, so it soon became clear that Seider’s vision was truly exceptional. She was soon listed by Guinness World Records with eyesight 20 times more powerful than normal human beings.

Not only is she able to distinguish people and objects from 1.6 kilometers (1 mi) away, but she is also able to judge distance and position, which can be useful. And she can distinguish the individual colors that make up the color on a television set. Not so useful.^[9]

1 The Real-Life Deadpool

Okay, well maybe this isn’t exactly like Deadpool, but a woman identified only as “SM” has a condition known as Urbach-Wiethe, which has damaged parts of her brain. As a result, she feels no fear. At all. Totally fearless.

The condition manifested first as a complete lack of fear from all external stimuli—such as the large, venomous spiders and snakes she picked up as a child. Once, when she was being held up at knifepoint, her attacker was so unnerved by her lack of fear that he let her go.

Like all superheroes, however, SM does have one weakness. After a barrage of tests where she had shown no fear responses, she was exposed to carbon dioxide and suddenly had a panic attack. Neurologists studying her brain hypothesized that impending suffocation finally produced a fear response where no other stimuli could. However, when the test was repeated, SM did not show any anxiety until the gas started to take effect, proving that her response had been a physical reaction to suffocation rather than a psychological manifestation of fear.^[10]

It could be worse. She could be afraid of cows.

Ward Hazell is a writer who travels, and an occasional travel writer.

Nature can be so serious. Most of the time, an intense survival game plays out. Yet, it is the more indirect side of the natural world—the quirks—that keep scientists on their toes. From the biggest organisms on the planet that nobody ever sees to the Sun setting off explosives, nature seems to have a strange sense of humor.

There are plenty of other cases. But as intriguing as they may be, this weirdness can get destructive. Sometimes, it not only tears apart human constructions but also the scientific community.

10 Haiting Hall

In 2017, an expedition from Hong Kong found a gigantic sinkhole. Located in the forest of Guangxi, it was named the Hong Kong Haiting Hall. A second expedition in 2018 scanned the inner dimensions and revealed a world-class wonder.

Haiting Hall is far from being a hole in the ground. After researchers lowered themselves into the pit, they found an epic cave complex hidden beneath the ground. The sheer size made the site very rare. In volume, it measured 6.7 million cubic meters (236 million ft³).

While 3-D mapping the interior, the team found halls, collapsed structures, craters, stone pillars, and water-polished rocks called cave pearls. The equipment also revealed that the sinkhole itself was 100 meters (328 ft) wide, around 118 meters (387 ft) deep, and almost 200 meters (656 ft) long.^[1]

The 3-D scanning was not just for measuring the standard stuff. It could also help with the reconstruction of the signs suggesting that the sinkhole had suffered a collapse. This could throw light on its formation. Similar sinkholes are usually the result of collapse brought on by the erosion of underground rivers.

9 Antarctica’s Hot Spot

Antarctica has its fair share of mysteries. One of them is rather ironic—the icy continent has a hot spot.

In 2018, a radar survey found the anomaly in East Antarctica. This region is the last place where any kind of heat should appear. East Antarctica is a craton, or a massive piece of Earth’s crust. Magma is shallow in some regions of Antarctica, but not with this craton. The solid interior, as well as its thickness, should prevent warmth within the planet from seeping back to the surface.

Yet the ice sheet closest to the crust is melting, another sign of something hot down there. Analysis showed that global warming cannot be blamed in this case. The bizarre spot is insulated away from the atmosphere and is also quite old.

The truth remains elusive, but hydrothermal energy could be responsible. If there is a fault in the crust filled with water shuttling up and down between the hot lower depths to the ice sheet, it could cause melting.^[2]

8 Woodleigh’s True Size

Woodleigh Crater is an ancient impact site near Shark Bay in Australia. The crater’s size remains a hotly debated issue. Since the crater is buried, an accurate assessment is difficult, although past research placed the diameter at around 60–120 kilometers (37–75 mi).

In 2018, two researchers had no desire to join the controversy. When they examined a core sample from Woodleigh, it was to see how the common mineral zircon behaved during the high pressures of an impact. They were amazed to find reidite instead.

To be fair, reidite is zircon. However, it is an exceptionally rare transformation of zircon. Created during the high-pressure moment when space rocks slam into Earth’s surface, reidite has only been found six times. The discovery could swing the Woodleigh debate.^[3]

To amass the kind of pressure needed to create reidite, only certain size craters can produce this priceless mineral. They must be over 100 kilometers (62 mi) in diameter, which would make Woodleigh the biggest meteorite hit in Australia. Some suggest the crater could dwarf the one in Mexico (thought to be the rock that killed the dinosaurs), which measured 180 kilometers (112 mi) across.

7 The Tree Fight

There is a battle going on in the scientific community. An undeniable amount of evidence suggests that trees are not just wood soaking up sunshine. Studies have identified behaviors that include pain reaction, chemical warning signals to other trees, and the nourishment of saplings and other adults through a subterranean fungal network. They also recognize “family,” or genetically related trees.

This is a far cry from how scientists used to view a forest. The fact that trees are organized, almost like an insect colony, is not really the issue. Both sides agree that these plants show remarkable abilities. However, one question turns things ugly. Are trees doing it on purpose?

Those who support sentient trees believe that these entities operate with intelligence, although it is misunderstood by humans. This is appalling to critics, who feel that chemical reactions to stimuli such as damage, predators, and nutritional needs dictate how trees respond.^[4]

Whether trees have free will or automatically react to their environment, they still behave in ways that scientists are just beginning to understand.

6 Earth Consumes Its Oceans

Earth has several tectonic plates. Often, when one is forced to slide underneath the other, this causes earthquakes. The process also pulls a huge amount of seawater down into the deeper layers of the planet.

Recently, scientists listened to seismic sounds at the Marianas trench where the Pacific plate is dipping under the Philippine plate. They wanted to use the rumblings to calculate just how much water got swallowed this way. Sensors tracked the velocity of earthquake echoes and especially listened for those slowing down as they passed through waterlogged material.

The result was shocking. Every million years, diving plates drag three billion teragrams of water into the Earth’s interior. A teragram equals a billion kilograms. This is three times more than previously thought.

The surprise did not end there. Earth’s deep water cycle should expel an equal amount, but not enough is being spouted by volcanoes or any other means. This inequality plus the fact that the oceans are not losing water volume means that science is missing something about how the planet shuttles water through its deepest plumbing.^[5]

5 Creeping Mud Blob

The Niland Geyser was born in 1953. The mud pool appeared in California’s Imperial County and bubbled placidly for decades. This changed 11 years ago when Niland’s mud began to creep over dry soil.

At first, the pace was so slow that nobody cared. However, in 2018, the flow picked up and became unstoppable. This was a huge problem since the mud’s direction threatened a state highway, train tracks, fiber optic telecommunications lines, and a petroleum pipeline.^[6]

All attempts to stop the mud failed, including an ambitious steel wall that was 22.9 meters (75 ft) deep and 36.6 meters (120 ft) long. The blob merely slipped underneath the barrier and sludged forth. A new railway line was built to circumnavigate the remorseless mud, but the flow could eventually close down state route 111 and force engineers to build a bridge instead.

The geyser, which had been declared an emergency, not only poses a threat to things in its path but also leaves behind a damaged trail. Similar to a bog, a large amount of moisture softens everything up to 12 meters (40 ft) down, ruining the land for future construction.

4 Frankenstein Worms

In 2018, Russian scientists extracted 300 soil samples from the Arctic. The frozen cores were recovered at different locations and represented various geological eras. Back in the laboratory, several 42,000-year-old samples contained worms.

Called nematodes, they had been frozen solid inside the permafrost for all that time. The tiny creatures were moved to a petri dish and left to thaw at 20 degrees Celsius (68 °F). It took the worms a few weeks, but they came back to life.

The dish was filled with a nutrient medium. Appearing unaware that they had stopped living for thousands of years, the nematodes started feeding. This amazing feat set the record for successful cryogenic suspension in animals.^[7]

Naturally, this piqued the interest of researchers trying to freeze humans for posterity. The fact that Pleistocene-era nematodes can survive having their entire bodies frozen, especially without side effects, is remarkable. Something protects them from the ravages of ice and oxidation. This mysterious mechanism can prove invaluable to several medical fields, including astrobiology and cryomedicine.

3 Brazil’s Termite Mounds

A few decades ago, a strange thing emerged from Brazil’s forest. As people cleared land for farming in the northeast, termite hills began to appear. Their sheer size was noteworthy. But in 2018, a study revealed the true magnificence of what the creatures had accomplished.

Thus far, about 200 million have been found and they are enormous. Visible from space, each contains around 50 cubic meters (1,800 ft³) of soil. Most measure 2.5 meters (8 ft) high with a diameter of 9 meters (30 ft).

Together, the hills cover an area as big as Great Britain and have an excavated volume of 10 cubic kilometers (2.4 mi³). This equals about 4,000 Great Pyramids of Giza. Speaking of which, the hills roughly dated back to the time when the Egyptians built the pyramids.

For 4,000 thousand years, termites have constructed the mounds as tunnels—not nests—to reach food on the forest floor. Incredibly, the termites have never gone. They still occupy what researchers are calling the “greatest known example of ecosystem engineering by a single insect species.”^[8]

2 Earth’s Biggest Organisms

The blue whale may be the biggest animal in history, but it is dwarfed by a mushroom. At first glance, the sweetly named honey mushroom resembles a field of small shrooms. However, since it was found 25 years ago in Michigan, scientists suspected that the real “creature” lurked underground. Those caps belong to a single 1,500-year-old fungus spread across 91 acres.^[9]

In 2018, new samples were taken and genetic tests confirmed the whole thing was indeed a single organism. The DNA also revealed a twist. The rate at which the mushroom evolved was slower than previously thought. This made everything bigger.

Calculations determined the fungus was 2,500 years old, covered four times its original territory, and weighed around 440 tons (the same as three blue whales). The Michigan mushroom was the first of its species to reveal how large they could grow, but another honey mushroom in Oregon now holds the record. That 8,000-year-old specimen hugs an area of 7.8 square kilometers (3 mi²).

1 Solar Storm Detonated Bombs

In 1972, a US military plane flew over a minefield off the coast of Hon La in Vietnam. The crew noticed up to 25 bombs detonate in the water, all within 30 seconds. Another 25 to 30 mud splats suggested earlier explosions. The incident was reported, classified, and filed away.

In 2018, the document became public and revealed an extraordinary incident—a solar storm had triggered the mines. As much as people in the 1970s understood that solar activity manipulated Earth’s magnetic field, it could not be proven that the Sun messed with the mines. (The bombs were designed to destruct during magnetic shifts.)

A solid clue was the intense solar activity recorded around the time the detonations took place. This was the main reason the navy suspected a space storm.^[10]

Modern scientists agree. In particular, one coronal mass ejection was identified as the culprit. It behaved like a whip and struck at Earth with unusual speed. Researchers believe earlier flares cleared the planet’s magnetosphere, which added power to the coronal slash.

Recently, there was a GoFundMe scam, which raised $400,000 to assist a homeless man who had allegedly given his last $20 to a damsel in distress on the side of the highway to refill her gas tank. This story was completely made up. Then there’s the Manchester attack’s homeless “hero,” who may have pulled nails from the arms and faces of children after a terrorist bomb killed 22 people, but then he robbed the victims. Judge David Hernandez, who sentenced him to four years and three months in prison, even said, “You presented yourself as a hero. Sadly you were not the hero that you pretended to be. You were just a common thief.”^[1]

Society seems to eat up these stories that fuel their distaste for the homeless, but there are plenty of cases of true heroism that should be remembered and honored. The purpose of this list is to highlight the moments when those who have lost everything in life act as heroes despite societal expectations. In the wake of these “homeless heroes turned rotten” stories, we need to be reminded of some real heroes. There are so many cases when homeless individuals have thrown themselves into a situation, even putting their own life on the line, to help another in need.

10 No Pulse, No Hope

In 2017, a Boston man named George Dakin was strolling down the sidewalk to meet his wife when a heart attack hit him, and he fell to his knees. It was called a “widowmaker” heart attack because 100 percent of his LAD artery was blocked. He lost his pulse for a full 28 minutes. Luckily, he happened to be in front of a group home for people seeking transitional housing. Most people pull out the picket signs when a group home tries to move into their neighborhood, but it saved Dakin’s life.

Austin Davis was staying at the group home at the time, and he raced to Dakin’s side. He performed CPR that kept Dakin alive until the ambulance arrived. It turns out that Davis had performed CPR four times in the past. Each time, he saved a person’s life. Davis said, “All I did was pump and pray, you know. I just hoped he’d make it.”^[2]

Dakin’s family was so grateful that they set up a GoFundMe for Davis. They bought him a used car and set him up in an apartment with the funds. They even helped to secure him a full-time position working at a Holiday Inn. Dakin’s daughter, Jodi, said, “Odds of escaping homelessness are about as bleak as walking away from a heart attack.” As of February 2018, $13,000 had been raised for Davis to help him transition into a new life.

9 A Chilling Splash

At around 2:00 AM on July 28, 2018, Shane Drossard (left above) was resting on the bank of the Mississippi River in Minneapolis when he heard a splash. A woman had jumped off a bridge to kill herself but survived the fall. Now, she was struggling against the current. Drossard reached his hand toward her from the riverbank, but the woman lost the strength (or the will) to hold on. She let go of his hand. Drossard said, “Help’s coming!” and jumped into the dark water.

He struggled to hold onto her against the current. She wanted to give up. Still, he fought to keep their heads above water while reassuring her that she was beautiful and had a full life ahead of her. Someone else heard her screams and called 911. Finally, both were pulled from the river and saved. Can someone please give this guy a medal? And why not a roof over his head while we’re at it?

In November 2010, another damsel in distress needed a knight in shining armor, but again, it probably wasn’t what she expected. Adan Abobaker (right above) was beside the River Thames when a woman attempted to plunge to her death from Blackfriars Bridge. Not only did he get hypothermia from the freezing water, but all of his precious possessions left onshore were stolen. Afterward, he said, “I took a long time to get over it . . . I still dream about it. I remember the waves coming over my head and swimming down towards her.” At least this guy did receive a medal.^[3]

8 Move Over, Flames

Anival Angulo is a young man with a hardened face and neck tattoos who lives in Las Vegas. He may not be what you imagine a hero looks like or even someone you want lurking in your neighborhood. He was doing just that, however, when he noticed smoke billowing from an apartment in 2017. Then, Angulo heard children screaming.

The gate was locked, so he jumped over it into the yard. He went to the door and saw a three-year-old girl. A 10-month-old infant was also inside. There was a steel deadbolt security bar on the door. He pulled until it bent upward and unlatched. Seriously, this is the kind of guy you want on your team when the apocalypse breaks out.

Las Vegas Fire and Rescue wrote on their Facebook page that the three-year-old “ran to him and wrapped her arms around his waist. He could see through the smoke the leg of an infant on the floor. He reached down and pulled the infant out.”^[4] So, it turns out that neck tattoos aren’t something to be afraid of, after all.

7 Baby Abduction

They say abuse happens closest to home. That was the case in Minden, Louisiana, in August 2017, when a family friend stole a two-month-old baby boy when the parent left the room to get a bottle from the fridge. He walked for miles with the infant before abandoning the boy under an overpass on Interstate 20. He then hitched a ride to a casino, where he confessed his crime to a complete stranger.

The kidnapper may have seemed a nutjob to some (especially since he claimed, “God made me do it,”) but the stranger who he confessed to wasn’t willing to take that risk. Even though the police have never endeared themselves to the homeless, this homeless man called them immediately. Police arrested the kidnapper and found the baby wrapped in a blanket, fast asleep. Chief Steve Cropper said, “The scariest thing about it—if [the baby] were able to roll off that ledge, he would have hit that concrete retaining ledge and probably would have rolled right out into the interstate.”^[5] So, another homeless gentleman acts fast and saves the day. Not all heroes wear capes!

6 ‘Trolley Man’ Fights Terrorist

What do you do when you see a knife-wielding man attempting to stab police officers? Run in the opposite direction, perhaps? Well, one man, lovingly dubbed “Trolley Man” online, had a different guttural reaction that was pure awesome sauce. At this point, mind you, the attacker, Hassan Khalif Shire Ali, had already killed a cafe owner and injured two others in his rampage on November 9, 2018, in Melbourne. Also, he had just set fire to a car full of gas cylinders near a busy street. So, the scene was literally red-hot. The terrorist was attempting to stab two policemen when Trolley Man lunged the shopping cart he was holding straight into Ali several times, helping to fend him off. (Ali was ultimately shot dead by police.)

Well, it turns out that living on the street leads to acts of desperation. Go figure. Sadly, the day before his heroic act, Trolley Man had broke into a CBD cafe and stole $500 from the register. He had also reportedly stolen a bicycle. So naturally, police wanted to have a chat about the burglaries after he had made his YouTube debut. Despite years of avoiding police at every turn, Trolley Man had an incentive to turn himself in. He was so beloved in the public eye that $155,000 had been raised on his behalf to get him off the streets. The community wanted to give him a second chance when they raised that life-changing sum of money for him. Now, Trolley Man, or Michael Rogers, is in a closely monitored support program where he can get the help and counseling he needs.^[6] Hopefully, harmless acts of burglary don’t disqualify hero status? There’s always redemption.

5 Defender Of The Elderly

Early during the morning of Mother’s Day 2018 in Brooklyn, an elderly woman in her seventies pulls her shopping cart while the woman beside her walks on a cane. They are minding their own business when a peculiar man approaches, mumbling to himself. He violently attacks them out of the blue, but another man quickly appears from the shadows to save the day. People stop and stare from the sidelines as the situation escalates. One of the women is bleeding profusely from her head. Both women are in a daze. The assailant tries to run away, but the Good Samaritan wrestles him to the ground and holds him down until police show up.^[7]

Perhaps this anonymous, homeless hero still wanders the city streets, Batman-style, keeping his eyes peeled for any funny business.

4 Accident Leaves Mother And Son Helpless

One moment, a mother and son are safely inside their car, and in the next instant, the car loses traction and slides off the highway. It was completely submerged underwater when the paramedics arrived. It January 2016 in Salinas, California, and a mother and her eight-year-old son had landed in a creek that was flooded from a recent downpour. It quickly swept them away. They traveled the length of five football fields as they battled the raging current. They were even sucked under the highway at one point and spit out on the other side.

A man named Rick Biddle was camping along the embankment when he heard his dog start barking. The dog alerted the man to the flailing woman in the murky water below. It was a close call, but Biddle managed to rescue both mother and son, who were utterly exhausted. It’s a good thing that the drainage ditch ran through Biddle’s camp, or they may not have been so lucky.^[8]

3 Puppy Love

It takes a real lowlife scumbag to hit-and-run in any situation, but somehow it’s even worse when the victim is a dog that can’t even call for help. There’s no excuse not to stop for a defenseless animal except, oh yeah, heartlessness. Thankfully, a homeless gentleman in Jackson, Mississippi, saw a dog get hit in November 2018 and scooped him up in his arms. He walked for miles with the wounded pooch until he found a vet. Despite some injuries, the dog (pictured above) was saved.

In another instance of puppy love, a Salt Lake City man named Ron Howell was panhandling on the side of the highway in 2018 when a woman dropped off a baby chihuahua in his lap. He knew he couldn’t take care of the tiny puppy, but now he didn’t have a choice. He met a woman who offered him a cigarette one day, and she listened to his story about the abandoned pup. She took some cutesy pictures, posted them on Facebook, and voila! The puppy found an owner, and $500 was raised for the chivalrous man who took the puppy in when no one else would.^[9]

2 Burglary Bungled

Jesse Green lived in a tent by a Shell gas station in San Franciso. He would often walk down there to wash windshields for some spare change. One day in January 2018, he happened to glance inside the mini-mart, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw a man trying to rob the clerk. The attacker had the young woman pinned to the floor in a choke hold. Jesse yelled for help as he rushed inside and leaped onto the attacker to pry off his strangling grasp. Two other men followed suit, and they all worked to pull the robber off the clerk.

The attacker made a run for it, but police found him lingering in a stairwell close by, where they arrested him for aggravated assault and burglary. When told that he was a hero, Green said casually, “Aren’t we all, naturally, I mean we got to help each other when we see stuff like that, right? I mean, it made me start crying. It’s not something to get happy on, you know?”^[10] Spoken like a true hero.

1 A Bag Containing $17,000

What would you do if you found a plastic grocery bag stuffed with $20 bills? Okay, now be honest. By the way, the money totals $17,000. Well, Kevin Booth of Sumner, Washington, is a man who’s about as honest as they come. As an adult with special needs who had a brain tumor removed in high school, Booth was at a severe disadvantage in life straight out of the gate. After living on the streets for over seven years, he remains drug-free despite daily struggles.

A surveillance video shows Booth discovering the money at the door of the Sumner Food Bank in 2018. “I kind of looked at the bag a little bit, put it on the trash can here . . . that’s when I pulled out a twenty, sniffed it to make sure it was real, which it was real.” Kevin said. “It is a lot of money. It was hard to turn it in, at first. I’m going, ‘Do I do this? Do I turn it in?’ ” He waited for the first person to arrive at the food bank and turned it in.

After 90 days without anybody claiming the money, the food bank claimed it. Booth said, “This story here . . . this has been, I’d say, the most terrific story ever in my life. This is a story to talk about for years to come.” The pride that he feels in doing the right thing is priceless. It props him to “hero” status for sure.^[11]

+ Rags To Riches: A Hollywood Story

Rock bottom has to be sleeping with your toddler in your arms on the floor of a public toilet at a railway station because you have run out of options. This happened to Chris Gardner when he was 27 years old. The odds were stacked against him from the very beginning. He was raised in poverty. His stepfather was an abusive alcoholic who eventually pushed his mother to attempt murder. Then Gardner was placed in the foster system, where so many children flounder. It didn’t seem that his life would work out so well, and it didn’t right away. He was homeless for a year in San Francisco before he eventually became a multimillionaire and had Will Smith star in the Hollywood movie of his life: The Pursuit of Happyness.

You may be wondering if this qualifies him as a hero. Well, some may argue that having unshakable hope in the face of despair is the quality of a true hero, not to mention his steely perseverance to not only survive but thrive for the sake of his son. However, I see your point. Gardner doesn’t just bask in his estimated worth of $60 million by buying private islands, a golden toilet, or $10,000 pajamas, as you may imagine millionaires do. Instead, he continues to be a champion for the homeless. He travels the globe 200 days of the year, giving motivational speeches. He also sponsors countless homeless charities and domestic abuse organizations.^[12] He’s still not giving up the fight.

Superheroes are the objects of fancy and admiration for millions the world over. They right wrongs, protect the weak, and rescue society from innumerable forms of injustice and peril. There’s only one glaring problem: They aren’t real. The incredible feats performed by these stalwart defenders are made possible by uncanny powers that, sadly, are fictional.

Or are they?

SEE ALSO: 10 Real-Life People With Real Superpowers

What if I told you that natural superpowers exist sealed away in our bodies, only waiting for the proper training to awaken them? Well, as unbelievable as this may sound, it is actually true. So if you’re ready to transcend your fragile human shell and become the superhero you’ve always dreamed of being, here’s a list of ten abilities that you can unlock to become a superhuman!

10 Superhuman Strength

Strength is a much more complex concept than many realize. It is not just about how much muscle we have, but even more so how well we use it. One need not be a bodybuilder to have super strength, as proven by grand master strongman and pound-for-pound strongest man in the world Dennis Rogers. Rogers has performed many incredible feats of strength, including preventing airplanes from taking off and holding back four Harley-Davidson motorcycles at once. These are impressive feats for any strongman but are especially incredible considering that Dennis Rogers is only 168 centimeters tall (5’6″) and 76 kilograms (168 lb). And he’s in his fifties. So how does he do it? The answer is plyometrics.

The goal of plyometrics is to access more of the dormant strength in our muscles by partially bypassing a natural function of the nervous system called the inhibition reflex. The golgi tendon organ (GTO)—present in every muscle—sends nerve impulses to our spinal cords every time we use a muscle. The spinal cord then responds with an inhibition reflex, which limits the amount of power your muscle can use. This process exists because human muscles are capable of creating a higher degree of force than they and other structural elements of the body can withstand. If not for this, reflex muscles would tear themselves from tension, and people would strike things with more force than their bones and tendons could handle without breaking. The GTO however, does not suppress your power only at the edge of damage. Through training with quick, explosive exercises, plyometrics gives us the ability to force out more power more rapidly, before the inhibition reflex occurs.^[1]

The intent of plyometrics is to train your muscles to release more power more rapidly from the muscle that you have, with the goal of generating as much power as possible before the inhibition reflex occurs. To achieve this, plyometrics is based on quick, explosive exercises, which focus on generating immediate force and developing your fast-twitch muscle fibers. In addition to training explosive burst techniques and exercises, an important part of developing fast-twitch muscle is exhausting slow-twitch muscles in other, more extended stamina-oriented workouts, at which point fast-twitch muscle fibers take over and begin to develop.

Plyometrics are wonderful, but muscle is still the source of that strength, so we still need some. There is a difference between how much muscle you have and how strong that muscle is. Both are equally important, and both are trained differently. Muscle growth, or hypertrophy, is best trained through pushing muscles to the point of exhaustion through high reps and consecutive workouts for the same muscle groups. Strength, on the other hand, is developed with lower reps of more weight and reasonable rest time in between.

9 Lightning Speed

You’re probably thinking, “Sure, there are some fast people out there, but there’s a difference between being really fast and ‘superhuman speed.’ ” However, anyone lucky enough to have had the illustrious pleasure of working with the late, great Bruce Lee would likely beg to differ. In order for Lee’s movements to be reasonably visible on film, they had to be slowed down two-fold. First, he would intentionally move slower so that the camera could capture his movements, and then afterward, the film would be slowed so that the eyes of the viewer could follow what was happening. If these measures weren’t taken, it would appear that the villains surrounding him would simply fall over for no reason without any visible cause.^[2] If speed beyond the comprehension of the human eye isn’t fast enough in your opinion to be considered superhuman, then you’re certainly a tough one to impress.

Fighting fast is one thing, but if we’re going to talk about real super speed, we need to take running and other types of movement into account as well. Luckily, this traces back to the same core concept, which is fast-twitch muscle fiber. This is the same fast-twitch muscle fiber discussed in the previous installment regarding super strength and is trained largely with the same type of concepts: plyometrics and explosiveness, as well as focusing these types of training on the muscle groups necessary for the abilities you want to achieve.

Fast movement, however, is not the only element of lightning speed. In order to be capable of utilizing this speed effectively, one must also have super reaction time. Without this, all the speed in the world is meaningless. The best way to train reaction time is through reaction-oriented activities, such as the hand-slap game and speed bag training, as well as through visual athletic training, such as robo-pong, focus loop, and brock string exercises.

8 Incredible Agility

So far, we’ve explored a few powers that will help you knock around the baddies. To do so, you’ll need to get there in time to save . . . whoever it is you’re saving. Super speed will help you with that, but you’ll need to round it out with the super agility to get past obstacles that most people can’t, and quick!

Parkour is just what you need. As stated by founder David Belle: “Parkour is a method of training which allows us to overcome obstacles, both in the urban and natural environments.” Likely the most notable paths for parkour users (traceurs) is across rooftops, as shown in the Rush Hour BBC promo, which was the introduction of parkour to the mainstream.^[3] Being agile enough to climb and jump and run across daunting obstacles may not sound like much of a superpower, but just watch any of the wealth of homemade parkour videos out there, and you’ll be shocked by the incredible things already being done by many across the world!

Founded in 1990, parkour is a relatively new concept but has taken the world by storm and has many training schools around the world. This is important because parkour, when not learned under professional guidance, can be extremely dangerous for obvious reasons (including falling from the rooftops you’re jumping across).

7 Extreme Flexibility

Extreme flexibility is one of the most well-known of all real superpowers. Contortionists have been a staple of the performance world since as far back as ancient Egypt and possibly beyond. A master of this art is Daniel Browning Smith, also known as “Rubberboy.” Recognized by Guinness World Records as the world’s most flexible man, he is known for squeezing himself through unstrung tennis rackets, rotating his torso 180 degrees, bending in half backwards from a laying position, and, of course, squeezing into tiny boxes, not to mention all of the other skills commonly associated with the art.

Jujutsu and its cousins, Brazilian jiu-jitsu and judo, as well as other forms of technical grappling are highly effective and popular martial arts. These styles of ground combatives utilize submission, choking, limb-breaking, and various other types of grappling techniques, and flexibility is essential. Flexibility also increases the quality of many striking techniques, and that’s not just for flashy moves and high kicks. Speed and range of motion in power-generating body parts, like the hips, lead to more powerful strikes.

Healing and recovery are also dramatically increased with superior flexibility, as it decreases stress on joints and reduces pain, making us more resilient and getting us back into action more quickly after a particularly strenuous battle or damaging injury.

Training flexibility is largely based on engaging in all types of stretching regularly and frequently. Dynamic stretching involves gradually increasing reach, movement speed, or both, when moving parts of your body. Ballistic stretching is less controlled and relies on using momentum to push a body part beyond its usual range. Static stretching involves holding a muscle stretched at its farthest point and has two subtypes: static-passive, which is holding the stretched muscle with some external force, and static-active, which means using only the muscles to hold the stretch. Another type, isometric stretching, involves tensing of the stretched muscles, such as if a partner is holding your leg high while you try to push it down. (This is but one of many examples of isometric stretching.)

All types of stretching are necessary for extreme flexibility, but isometric stretching is the best for developing strength and range of motion for athletics and contortion, so using it as a primary focus in your training is key for this kind of ability.^[4]

6 Ultra Fortitude

For a truly superhuman body, fortitude and toughness are of primary importance, as superheroes are faced with constant threat to their bodies. Methods of body conditioning have been used for many years in the world of martial arts, one of the most common concepts being bone mineralization, also called calcification. Bones are primarily comprised of calcium, and the amount and density of calcium in those bones determines their size and structural strength. Resistance training in one’s workout routine is a simple and safe way to achieve mineralization. It is even suggested to help the elderly maintain their health.^[5]

When the body detects that its bones are absorbing large amounts of force, a natural mechanism sends more calcium into the bones, increasing their size, density, and weight, thus adding to the structural integrity of their owner’s body and, in some ways, even striking power. This concept is called Wolff’s law. Many types of martial artists through history have utilized this concept by striking objects repeatedly to cause a calcifying reaction in the bones, including the legendary Shaolin monks.

Davis’s law is a concept similar to Wolff’s law, the difference being that where Wolff’s law concerns bones, Davis’s law concerns soft tissue. The body’s capacity to respond to stress is not limited to bones, and the soft tissues of the body can be trained to harden through stress as well, resulting in more resilient muscles and organs, as well as a boost to pain resistance, which is important, as well.

Having a body that can structurally survive as much punishment as possible is great, but how much pain and suffering the hero can endure before giving in to a villain or extraordinarily arduous task is another thing and also extremely important. Pain has two primary concepts behind it: threshold and tolerance. Threshold represents how much stimulus is required for something to feel “painful,” and tolerance represents how much of that pain one can physically and psychologically endure. Unfortunately, there seems to be no way of increasing one’s pain threshold, but tolerance can be trained, and to a remarkable degree.

A good place to look for this is once again is to the Shaolin. These incredible warrior monks perform superhuman feats of pain regulation, such as lying on spears and having large stones smashed on their stomachs. How do they do it? Meditation. By controlling their minds, the Shaolin can actually distract themselves from and even reduce pain, making it nearly, if not totally, irrelevant. If that’s not superhuman pain resistance, than what is?

5 Surviving Extreme Temperatures

In 2007, Wim Hof set a world record when he immersed himself in ice for 72 minutes in nothing but shorts and boots, and this isn’t even his most incredible feat. He has also climbed Mount Everest, again, in nothing but shorts and boots (he was only stopped from reaching the summit by a foot injury), and run a marathon in the desert without water.

Wim Hof, or “The Iceman,” as he is known, manages such things with a heightened connection to and control of his body. This may sound like something that is likely a trick or hoax, but Hof has always done his work under scrutiny by scientists and journalists, all of whom verify his claims.^[6] Though he has been observed by the scientific community closely enough to prove his legitimacy, exactly how his methods work remains a mystery to science.

So how is it possible to train something that can’t be identified? And how is it that we can be sure that Wim Hof isn’t a one-off freak of nature? Because he teaches people. That’s right, you can take lessons from the man directly, and even if traveling to Europe to train with the man is too much, there are training videos on his website!

4 Enhanced Immunity

Another accomplishment of the Wim Hof method is increasing your immunity! This was proven when Wim Hof was documented resisting that symptoms of an endotoxin introduced in a medical laboratory. The scientists were astonished by what they witnessed but doubted that anyone else could replicate Hof’s feat. To test this, 12 students of Hof’s were brought in, and all of them resisted the toxin, just like Hof!

The Wim Hof method may be incredibly impressive, but it’s not a cure-all, and as dangerous as it may be, for many potential contaminants, the only way to protect ourselves is to expose ourselves. Tolerance to poisons and other toxins is most commonly achieved by consuming or injecting a very small, survivable amount into one’s body at a steadily increasing rate as the body’s natural defensive reactions continuously toughen the body’s immunity to said toxin. This term for this is “mithridatism.”^[7]

Vaccines are a similar concept, created as “imitations” of a disease that cause no illness and are intended to provoke a response from the immune system, which then produces antibodies and T-lymphocytes which protect us against the illness in question.

3 Apnea Diving

Apnea diving, or freediving, is so popular and well-known that it is not only a superhuman ability but also a sport! AIDA International Freediving is a democratic, international organization that sets rules and regulations for safety in the sport, in addition to maintaining world records and organizing events all over the planet. Although scientists believed for years that humans could only survive underwater for a few minutes tops and at depths no deeper than 50 meters (164 ft), some of the world records in this sport include dives to depths well over 200 meters (656 ft), with some lasting over 11 minutes on a single breath!^[8]

This is possible because of an evolutionary adaptation called the “diving reflex.” The action of this reflex is to shut down and/or slow physiological functions that use oxygen, thus allowing our bodies to operate on less oxygen for a longer period of time. Blood shift is another phenomenon also necessary in freediving. This function allows the lungs to fill with plasma, preventing their collapse from pressure.

Though recognized as a sport worldwide, freediving is still extremely dangerous to the ill-prepared. Improper preparation and faulty or mismanaged equipment have caused numerous deaths in the sport. Because of this, it is important to seek proper instruction.

2 Echolocation

Many have heard about how some blind people can use echolocation to navigate their surroundings, but a 2013 study from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich biologists shows that sighted people can learn this skill, as well! It turns out that the ability to echolocate is a talent that lies dormant within everyone. This is because our brains have learned to shut out echoes so that we can focus more effectively on the primary source of a sound, rather than having the constant distraction of echoes of everything around us. The trick to learning echolocation is to learn to “tune in” to the echoes that already exist in the world.

The LMU experiment consisted of sighted people outfitted with a headset that contained earphones and a microphone. The participants made a vocalization, and the appropriate echo in relation to objects and spaces in the room was created through the earphones. This test allowed sighted people, over a few weeks of training, to learn to extrapolate information regarding shape, size, and distance from the given echo.^[9]

1 Mind Control

Controlling others like puppets may not be realistic, but implanting thoughts and altering the way people think very much is. The human subconscious is frighteningly vulnerable, and controlling minds through planted suggestion is more accessible a skill than many would presume. This is why the reader should learn about this, not only to use if need be but also to defend against it should one come across a user of these techniques.

The essential element of this process is to go after the subconscious mind while the conscious mind is otherwise focused, and here are the five most common techniques: Covert hypnosis entails convincing someone that your thoughts are their own through suggestive, focused conversation. When one engages in pattern interruption, they create a brief hypnotic moment by forcing someone’s concentration through an abnormal behavior (such as placing a hand on someone’s chest in place of shaking their hand in a greeting—the moment it takes them to analyze the situation will cause a brief hypnotic state). The Zeingarnik effect is concentration that naturally occurs in people toward incomplete tasks. This can be achieved by telling someone an incomplete story, otherwise causing them to focus on an incomplete task. During this period of distracted focus, they are highly suggestible. Another method is to use ambiguous phrases or comments that require someone’s focus to analyze, causing a brief period of high suggestibility. Finally, there are hypnotic keywords, subconscious-evoking phrases like “imagine if . . . ” that can cause a rise in accessibility to someone’s subconscious. This technique is a bit vague and weaker but still very commonly used.

Controlling others is not, however, the only use of these skills. One of the most important uses—and the reason this item was saved for last on the list—is that these tricks can be used to help develop ourselves. The reader may be overwhelmed by the sheer apparent degree of effort needed to attain the things listed here, but by getting control of oneself using techniques such as self-hypnosis, it is remarkable what challenges the average person can overcome and what accomplishments they are able to achieve.

Using mind control on yourself is largely made up of neurolinguitsic programming (NLP), which in this context, is largely made up of two techniques: The flash technique is an NLP exercise in which one visualizes an image associated with a negative feeling in a given circumstance brightly and vividly. The person then implants in that imagined image another, much smaller gray scale image of their preferred feeling in that circumstance. Gradually, the preferred imagine grows to take over the negative image, with the color draining from the negative image to the preferred image. This process is repeated over and over until psychologically successful. Anchoring is associating an internal response with an external or internal stimulus in order to reaccess the internal response (similar to how seeing something nostalgic will remind you of how you felt when you first saw it). This effect can be manually created by choosing a simple, self-creatable stimulus—such as making a hand gesture or touching yourself in a certain way and repeating that action when you want to associate the anchored feeling to a given task at hand.^[10]

Though only a few techniques in each category have been listed here, there are actually a great number of others that can be used to achieve the same forms of control.

So there you have it: ten learnable superpowers ripe for practice. Clearly, in the brevity of this listicle, the complete process of learning such wondrous things is not expressible, but all of the items are out there and ready to be trained. All that’s left now is to reach out, grab for destiny, and, of course, always use your powers for good.

Excelsior!

Jason Karras writes, therefore he is.

Merlin was not just a legendary figure. An examination of ancient Welsh poetry, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s accounts of King Arthur, and other works reveals a powerful, real prophet, holy man, and bard.

In Britain in the sixth century AD, there existed a prophet, magician, and counselor to King Arthur—Merlin. Was Merlin real? In Britain of the post-Roman Dark Ages, the traditions of the Celts were still alive despite the influence of Christianity. The existence of Celtic culture and that of the real pagan druid or bard Merlin was removed from history by later chroniclers.

There were probably two Merlins. One lived from about AD 450–-536. This was Arthur’s Merlin. Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote of him in the History of the Kings of Britain, which became a best seller in Europe when it appeared in 1136. The Life of Merlin by Geoffrey appeared in 1150.

The second, later Merlin was a bard named Myrddin in Welsh. After the Battle of Arderydd in 573, this Merlin went insane and retreated into the woods. These two figures have been conflated, adding confusion to the dating of the Merlin’s life.

10 The Collapsing Tower Story Has A Historical Basis

Writing in the sixth century, St. Gildas recounts how the evil tyrant Vortigern fled from the onslaught of Saxon invaders. The tale is taken up in the Nennius papers that Vortigern tried to build a protective citadel for himself and his followers in Snowdonia.

Geoffrey tells how the tower that Vortigern was building kept collapsing. To remedy the situation, Vortigern’s counselors told him to sacrifice a fatherless boy on the site. This boy was Merlinus Ambrosius. Merlin instructed workers to excavate the foundation of the tower. There, in a pool, they would find two sleeping dragons, one red and one white.

In The Quest for Merlin, Nikolai Tolstoy proposes that Vortigern consulted Merlin, a person of spiritual authority who was known by the name “Myrddin Embreis.” He was the successor to the druids who had once presided over the “navel” of Britain, or a center of Earth that Tolstoy theorizes was Stonehenge.

While the tale of the collapsing towers is not historical per se, the place names and the names of the people involved are real.

9 Geoffrey Of Monmouth’s Information Is Sound

Since 1198, the historical accuracy of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s work has been discredited because of inconsistencies and mistakes that could be the result of translation errors or Geoffrey’s geographical errors. Beginning in the 20th century, scholars defended Geoffrey, pointing to the existence of valid written and oral materials in his time for him to draw upon. As he was a careful chronicler, much of Geoffrey’s information can be seen as sound.

For example, archaeologist T.C. Lethbridge used Geoffrey’s descriptions of ancient giants in Britain to uncover the giant chalk figures in the Cambridgeshire hills. Another example is an inscribed pillar stone found in Ireland that supports Geoffrey’s information that Vortigern’s son had fled to Ireland.

8 Merlin Is The Narrator Of History Of The Kings Of Britain

In History of the Kings of Britain, Geoffrey names Merlin as the source of the information that he has translated from British into Latin. In a letter to Alexander, bishop of Lincoln, Geoffrey writes, “The regard which I owe to your great worth, most noble prelate, has obliged me to undertake the translation of Merlin’s prophecies out of British into Latin.”

Throughout the years, scholars have doubted Geoffrey’s claims that his source for the History of the Kings of Britain could have been an authentic sourcebook written in the native British tongue. However, as Norma Lorre Goodrich points out in her book King Arthur, Geoffrey knew Brythonic.

In addition, Geoffrey claimed that his source material for the History of the Kings of Britain was a “small book” lent to him by a churchman at Oxford. Charlotte Guest, who translated ancient Welsh texts into English, wrote that many of her sourcebooks were little books of about 8 centimeters (3 in) by 15 centimeters (6 in).

Given the credence of the tales in the light of modern scholarship and interpretation, it is not outlandish to suppose that the information ascribed to Merlin by Geoffrey was exactly what Geoffrey claimed it was.

7 Arthur’s Merlin Was Archbishop Dubricius

In her book Merlin, Norma Lorre Goodrich makes the case for Merlin and the Archbishop Dubricius being one and the same person. Merlinus Dubricius Ambrosius, the historical personage, was the Merlin who crowned Arthur king at Carlisle, established the church and priory at Llandaf, and created centers of learning and astronomy.

As Goodrich relates, both men were born into a priestly, Celtic family and had unknown fathers. Both were also prodigies and were unmatched in intellectual brilliance, learning, and wisdom. For reasons of its own, the Roman church co-opted Merlin into the pantheon of its saints.

Merlin became a myth while the historicity of St. Dubricius is not questioned.

6 The Legendary Merlin Is Linked To The Worship Of The Celtic God Lug

As early writings about Merlin link him to ancient Celtic worship of the god Lug, Nikolai Tolstoy asserts that the Merlin tales reflect a real figure behind the myth. That figure, Merlin, was an earthly representative or priest of Lug.

Pagan practices were not extinguished in Britain during and after Roman rule. Tolstoy cites evidence that the Celtic festival of Lughnasa, which honored Lug, was celebrated in Britain during Merlin’s time.

In the Welsh poem Cyfoesi Myrddin (probably composed before AD 1100), Merlin foretells the succession of kings after King Rhydderch. Merlin uttered these prophecies “in his grave,” which means Merlin is speaking from the otherworld. Similarly, appearing to Conn, Lug reveals the succession of the kings of Ireland.

These and other similarities suggest to Tolstoy that there was a real Merlin figure who stood for Lug in the Celtic spiritual practices of that time.

5 Merlin Went Mad After The Battle Of Arderydd

North of Carlisle in Scotland, the Battle of Arderydd was fought in the second half of the sixth century. Geoffrey of Monmouth tells that after this battle in which his lord Gwenddolau is slain, Merlin goes mad and retreats into the woods to live, “forgetful of himself . . . lurking like a wild thing.”

This tale refers to Myrddin, who came after King Arthur’s Merlin. Not only has the site of the battle been identified by the historian W.F. Skene, but Nikolai Tolstoy has placed Myrddin’s retreat at a spring known as Hartfell Spa.

4 Merlin Was A Druid

In his book The Quest for Merlin, Nikolai Tolstoy explains that the Battle of Arderydd was fought as Christianity was overthrowing the pagan power of Dark Age Britain.

The Myrddin of Welsh poetry was a druid, and druidic associations abound in the Myrddin poetry. The “sweet apple tree” mentioned by Myrddin hid him from the rival king, Rhydderch. In addition, Myrddin is a prophet and shape-shifter who is associated with Cernunnos, the horned god and leader of the Wild Hunt.

3 Merlin Was A Dark Ages Soothsayer

Merlin was a historical prophet of the sixth century. As evidence, Nikolai Tolstoy cites a passage from The Life of St. Samson. Anna, the mother of St. Samson, and her husband go to see a soothsayer who is “a man sought out from many regions because all who had consulted him were assured of the truth of all he told them.”

As Tolstoy points out, this is significant because it is from an authentic, historical document that describes a contemporary figure of the fame and ability of Merlin.

2 Merlin Prophesied The Time Of His Own Death

In the Huth Merlin manuscript, Merlin predicted that the Earth would be darkened in the middle of the day at the time of his death. According to the work of an Austrian astronomer, 8,000 solar eclipses occurred or will occur between the years 1207 BC and AD 2161. The one numbered 4,143 was visible in Britain on September 1, AD 536. This was the eclipse that occurred at the time of Merlin’s death.

1 Merlin Was Buried At Bardsey Island

If Merlin is indeed the Archbishop Dubricius, then The Text of the Book of Llandaf tells that he was originally buried at Bardsey Island, where he lived “among the bones and bodies of martyrs and 20,000 saints.” His remains were taken to Llandaf in 1120.

Bardsey was a burial place for “the Treasures of Britain,” those of royal and priestly blood, warriors, and the nobility.

Sources:

Goodrich, Norma Lorre, King Arthur. (Harper & Row, 1986)
Goodrich, Norma Lorre, Merlin. (Franklin Watts, 1987)
Hennig, Kaye D., King Arthur: Lord of the Grail. (DesignMagic Publishing, 2008)
Monmouth, Geoffrey, History of the Kings of Britain. (In parentheses Publications, 1999)
Tolstoy, Nikolai, The Quest for Merlin. (Little, Brown and Company, 1985)

+Further Reading

For more tales of mystery, magic, and history, check out the following lists from our archives:

10 Of History’s Most Fascinating Sorcerers
10 Mysterious Swords From Legend And History
10 Notable People Thought To Be Immortal
Top 10 Medieval Urban Legends

Davanna is a writer living on the Gulf Coast of Florida. Contact her on Twitter.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is arguably responsible for making “multiverse” part of the everyday vernacular of millions of people worldwide, but they didn’t create the idea. Multiverse theory, or the Many Worlds Theory as it was first known, was proposed in 1957 by a physicist named Hugh Everett. Before Everett, a man named Erwin Schrodinger came up with essentially the same idea. Everett was more scientific, and Schrodinger was more philosophical. Both had essentially the same idea, however. 

You may have never heard of Everett but you probably know Schrodinger. This is the same guy with the famous cat; that cat experiment is part of the groundwork for the Multiverse itself. Part of Schrodinger’s experiment involves not knowing whether the cat in the box is alive or dead. You can see how this starts to lead into a multiverse theory already. Maybe it’s dead in one universe and alive in another. 

Part of the key to understanding Schrodinger’s experiment is that when you open the box to look at the cat to see whether it’s alive or dead, there’s nothing scientifically unsound about the idea that the other outcome could have been true. 

Also, on paper, it’s scientifically sound if the other outcome occurs. So, in extremely dumbed-down terms that are missing a lot of steps, nothing is saying that a different universe where things play out differently couldn’t exist. Welcome to the multiverse. But is it real or just a theory?

The Multiverse

Since Everett’s time, other scientists have taken on the Multiverse theory to propose the idea. It’s not strictly the realm of superheroes and sci-fi by any means, but the theory is certainly controversial. Like any good scientific theory to explain something esoteric, it’s rooted in what we know about science with a healthy dose of conjecture and supposition. There is no evidence to suggest this is real. But there’s not a lot of evidence to suggest it’s not real.

In some ways, you can think of the multiverse like a tiger in the bathroom. If a guest in your house tells you there’s a tiger in your bathroom, your natural inclination is to immediately say, “Of course there isn’t.” But you don’t know, do you?  Not with 100% certainty. You’ll never know for sure unless you look into it. And if for some reason you can’t get to the bathroom to check, you’re never, ever going to know with 100% certainty no matter how impossible it seems.

There are several different approaches to the idea of the multiverse. The Cosmological Multiverse Theory suggests that, immediately after the Big Bang, as the universe exploded into being it created all these bubbles. Each one is its own universe slightly separated from the main universe that birthed it. Over billions of years this potentially infinite number of bubbles all developed in their own way so some could be almost exactly like ours, and others could be unimaginably different and completely uninhabitable. Our universe would be just one of these bubbles.

String theory also allows for the idea of a nearly infinite number of parallel universes, each one developing in almost any imaginable way with just slightly different parameters each time. 

To go back to Everett and his Many World theory, he believed in a quantum multiverse. In simple terms, the universe is constantly splitting. That means when you go to have breakfast and decide between pancakes or waffles, when you choose pancakes this universe continues while a new one splits in which you chose waffles.

Part of what is inherent to the idea of the Multiverse theory is that we can’t see or understand these other realities. They’re completely separate from our own. That, of course, makes it difficult to prove they exist. As to why anyone would believe they exist if there’s no way to observe them, that’s a little easier to explain.

The concept of a Multiverse can explain a lot of things for us. Science doesn’t know what it doesn’t know. What caused the Big Bang? Why does time flow the way it does? Why do all the scientific constants that we understand as being essential to reality exist as they do? 

If a Multiverse exists, it can help us understand why things work the way they do in our universe. It’s entirely possible we got lucky and all of these things are just the subtle variations that managed to come together to create a functional universe while, in a different universe, nothing but chaos reigns because they were unlucky compared to us. 

Arguments for Multiverse

It’s all well and good to suggest that a Multiverse may exist, but what evidence is there? What science could possibly support this idea? There’s more than you might think, especially if the Avengers and Spider-Man are your only links to the idea.

One argument for a multiverse is based on what we think we understand about space itself. If space is infinite, then the multiverse has to be real. There are only so many ways you can arrange matter and in an infinite space at some point matter would be arranged the same way more than once. So our world, our reality, has to have been repeated almost exactly again and again and again as well as in vastly different ways again and again and again. Infinite space is very big, after all. 

A deck of cards is used as a visualization for how this makes sense. You can shuffle a deck of 52 cards in only so many ways. At some point, patterns emerge. Will the exact same 52 come out in order, eventually? Yes, actually, but smaller strings will happen, too. You’ll get the same three or four or five in a row again and again and again. 

Hand in hand with the Big Bang Theory for the start of our universe is the theory of inflation that the universe expanded out, doubling size 90 times in the smallest fraction of a second you can even imagine. 

Inflation is one of the most well-accepted theories about the origins of the universe and explains a lot, but it leads us back to the bubbles we talked about earlier. Some parts would expand faster than others and where it slowed down these bubbles would form. Those would be the little pocket universes and there could be an infinite number of them as well.

There is even potentially visible evidence of multiverses, but this is still in the realm of theory. Physicists in Europe studying Cosmic Microwave Background radiation left over from the formation of the universe itself spotted something unusual in 2010. There are visible, circular patterns in this background radiation. It’s been theorized that those patterns represent what you might call bruises from where other universes actually bumped into our own.

One of the more interesting arguments for Multiverse Theory proposes that our universe isn’t even a real one, it’s just a simulation. Based on what we know about computers, it was theorized that an advanced race, aliens or future humans, could build a computer so powerful that it would be able to simulate every human mind that ever existed. In fact, it could simulate far more than ever existed and do so very easily. 

Oddly worrisome is that this theory, if it’s logically sound, lends itself to its own reality. The odds are actually in favor of it being true and for us never being aware because we’d be programmed to not know it. The upside is that, fundamentally, it would never affect our day-to-day lives. 

Another argument for the existence of a Multiverse lies in the absolute complexity of our own. Think of how many things have to come together to make our universe work the way it does. Not just what had to happen for life to form on Earth, but how the forces of gravity have to work to allow a sun to burn as brightly, as warmly, and as long as it does. How subatomic forces need to work to hold atoms together. How molecules have to interact to allow for the complex chemical reactions that create livable environments, atmospheres, and so much more. It’s an infinite number of things that need to work together absolutely perfectly. This is sometimes called the “fine-tuning” argument.

Based on all that complexity, the multiverse theory offers a novel answer. Most universes don’t work. Life can’t happen, planets can’t form, and nothing can work the way we know it. But because there are infinite potential universes, some will have to work and ours is an example. 

There is actually an abundance of other arguments in favor of the existence of a multiverse. Some are extremely complicated, some are definitely more philosophical. Some might even contradict others, but they all show a willingness by physicists and other scientists to try to explain what we experience every day by looking well beyond what we can see.

Arguments Against the Multiverse

Let’s start with that last argument – our universe is so vastly complex and unlikely to exist that there’s a good chance it’s just a lucky roll in a multiverse of duds. While you can understand the logic of it, others have argued it commits a version of the gambler’s fallacy. The idea is that a gambler, after losing all night, believes their next roll of the dice has to be a winner because they’ve lost so many times. Except there’s nothing in the odds that support that idea. 

By the same token, nothing about why our universe works the way it does requires an infinite number of other failed or lesser universes to explain it. Whether they all exist or none exist has no relation to ours at all, so the argument is meaningless. By that reasoning, you cannot infer a multiverse.

A similar argument against this brand of Multiverse Theory can be summarized as likening it to faith. If the fundamentals of our universe are so complex and so seemingly impossible that we need to propose an infinite number of other less-perfect universes to explain our own, is this not very much like theology? None of it can be proven, so you must take it on faith that the multiverse blessed us with our more or less perfect universe. 

It’s the inability to infer or prove a Multiverse that is the biggest problem with any of these theories. Take inflation creating these little bubble universes. Every time inflation slows down a Big Bang happens and a new universe is created in that bubble. There could be Big Bangs happening over and over again. But we know from our universe that we don’t know anything about before the Big Bang or outside of our universe. We can’t test these ideas.  They are beyond the laws of physics as we know them in our universe.

The multiverse theory, while helping to explain many issues with quantum physics, also creates entirely new problems that reach levels of absurdity. If an infinite number of realities exist, then any preposterous thing could be happening in any one at any time. 

There could be a universe where the sun explodes for no reason. There could be one where dinosaurs survived and are our masters. There could be one where you’re mulling over this argument right now but you’re also a very intelligent penguin. Stupid? Maybe, but the multiverse has to support it.

Still, when it was said and done, one of the biggest arguments against the Multiverse today is much the same as it was when the theory was first proposed. For any theory to be proven true, you need to be able to test it. It is completely impossible to do that with Multiverse Theory.

In the end, what you have is a bit of a stalemate. There are plenty of arguments that could support the existence of the multiverse. There are also plenty of arguments that take the wind out of its sails. We have no evidence of any kind to suggest the Multiverse is real, nor do we have anything to conclusively deny that it exists.

What we do have is one reality that we currently exist in. We have as much practical proof as we need that we exist, that our universe exists, and that’s what we have to deal with. Until some scientific breakthroughs occur that challenge the laws of physics, that’s all we’re going to have as well.

Here we are again at the intersection of open-world video games and reality, ready to exploit some glitches, make our way into some seemingly unmapped areas, and find the inside jokes left for us by over-caffeinated programmers. In case you missed it, we’ve done this a few times before—but since the stimulant-addled coders of the real world sleep just as infrequently as those who make our games, we’ve had no trouble rounding up 10 more for your amusement and utter befuddlement.

10Standin’ On A Corner

“Well I’m standin’ on a corner in Winslow, Arizona / Such a fine sight to see / It’s a girl, my lord, in a flatbed Ford / Slowin’ down to take a look at me.” So goes the middle verse of the Eagles’ 1972 classic “Take It Easy”—and though the song’s author, Jackson Browne, likely picked the town and state for the sake of meter (and for rhyming somewhat poorly with “corner”), the small town has managed to kindle a respectable little tourism industry centered around the statue and mural installation pictured above.

The statue, which many have noted looks nothing like either Browne or Glenn Frey (who sang the Eagles tune), gazes eternally at the fine sight depicted in the mural as if it were a reflection in a window. The installation wasn’t built until 1999, the result of a push by the cleverly named Standin’ On a Corner Foundation, who saw opportunity in the fact that practically everyone who passed through the town would stop to take selfies on random street corners.

Today, the statue draws hundreds of visitors daily to this tiny town of around 10,000 citizens, many of whom owe their livelihoods to a long-ago name check by that other guy who was in the Eagles, Glenn Frey. There’s also a memorabilia stand where you can purchase T-shirts and mugs and listen to an endless loop of Eagles songs; alternatively, you could just tune to any classic rock station.

9Busted Plug Plaza

Artist Blue Sky, a Columbia native, was commissioned to create this piece by a local bank in honor of its 75th anniversary. This four-story concrete, steel, and aluminum rendering of a fire hydrant is called “Busted Plug Plaza.”

According to the artist’s website, it was conceived as a different project called “Downtown Fountain,” a cement structure that kind of looked like a hydrant, with plugs analogous to various parts of the downtown area. At any rate, this enormous, 306-metric-ton (337 ton) fire hydrant was kept completely under tarps during construction, willed into existence by the combined efforts of architects, engineers, and city planners before finally being unveiled to the wondering, stupefied eyes of Columbia’s residents in 2001.

Strangely, there are a couple of other towns in America that once laid claim to the title of World’s Biggest Hydrant, but Busted Plug Plaza’s behemoth dwarfs them both. Says the artist of his work: “There’s one thing about all my public works. And that is, if anybody looks at it and thinks it’s art then I’ve failed because it’s not meant to look like art. I want it to look like something bizarre and something they’ve never seen before. And the last thing I want them to think is that it’s art.” Bingo.

8Easter Egg Island

Ever wanted to find an actual deserted, tropical island that you could have to yourself for a day or two? Near Petit St. Vincent in the Caribbean, there’s a tiny little island where that fantasy can easily come true.

Looking like nothing so much as a deserted island straight out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon, Mopion Island is all of 30 meters (100 ft) across and completely unadorned by anything except for a picturesque thatched umbrella. As one might imagine, it’s been photographed six ways from Sunday for all manner of travel brochures, posters, and postcards, and probably painted about as many times. Visitors scrawl their names on the umbrella’s post, which we’re surprised isn’t completely inked over—as of this writing, the little shovelful of sand in the middle of all that clear, blue water is Trip Advisor’s third-highest-ranked attraction in St. Vincent.

7UFO Welcome Center

We already know from a previous entry in this series that space aliens occasionally deliver mail to and/or pick up mail from the middle of nowhere, because someone built a mailbox to accommodate that purpose. One South Carolina man, Jody Pendarvis, has taken this one step further by turning his house into a large flying saucer that he calls the UFO Welcome Center.

Mr. Pendarvis is pretty serious about the whole thing: “Seriously, I am here to welcome the aliens from out of space.” He claims to have had several such visits since building the Center in the 1990s, and he has some definite theories as to what they’re up to: “I don’t believe they actually want to land. I think they’d just rather fly around, live on their own ship and maybe come visit, maybe not.” And if they do land, what then? “Aliens can fly from the north or the south and just land in the parking lot and come and chit chat with me.”

At any rate, the extremely small, 1,200-person town of Bowman with its one blinking stoplight has thus far tolerated Jody and the small amount of tourism his labor of love generates. At least they can all agree that it’s the town’s most noteworthy aspect: “Since this is the only attraction in Bowman, I think I’ll run for mayor and maybe I’ll get it,” said Mr. Pendarvis, a completely reasonable man.

6Hidden Solar System

In 1971, sculptor Ivan Kozaric gifted the city of Zagreb, Croatia with his latest work, entitled The Grounded Sun. It is pretty much exactly what it sounds like—a 2-meter (6.5 ft) bronze model of the Sun. That is to say, a huge bronze ball that sits on the ground in the middle of the city square. Interesting as that may or may not be, it’s not exactly Easter egg material. No, that would be the installation that artist Davor Preis created in 2004—since the Sun sits in the middle of the city, he envisioned the rest of it as the Solar System, and distributed the planets throughout the city.

Of course, the planets closest to the Sun—Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mar—are all contained within the square, but the outliers are a little more difficult to find and require some hiking. The installation was never advertised to the public, and it wasn’t until their location was revealed by students at Zagreb University that most residents became aware of it at all. The planet sculptures are built to the same scale as Kozaric’s original work, and of course, their distances from the original sculpture are accurate to the same scale. And for the astronomically nostalgic, the installation does include Pluto, whose planetary status was revoked in 2006.

5The Monster Pad

Here we have the second entry to ever appear in this series from Boulder, Colorado, home to some famously odd people (there’s a reason Mork and Mindy was set there). Tucked in a cozy neighborhood up close to the Flatirons, this neatly kept ’80s-modern house does not have any particularly fascinating features. The owner evidently decided that that would not do, and that the best way to remedy the situation was to place lifelike, life-size statues of Mike and Sulley from Monsters, Inc. in his living room window.

The statues hold their position year-round, delighting children and scaring the hippies, and one has to wonder if the owner is just a huge fan or was somehow able to secure these statues for less than the cost of a snazzy paint job. They wear ghost sheets on Halloween, Santa hats on Christmas, and generally just seem way more like something Jeffrey Katzenberg would have in his den than the centerpiece of some guy’s living room in Boulder. Nobody seems to know who lives in the house or whether they work for Pixar.

4The Lil’ Desert

The Desert of Maine has been attracting visitors for almost a century, and it certainly looks and feels like a desert—heat reflected by the sand dunes pushes temperatures up 20 degrees or so from the surrounding areas, and the little region can reach over 32 degrees Celsius (90 °F) during the summer.

The 47-acre geological oddity was created by a one-two punch of natural erosion and sloppy farming: Ice-age glaciers pulverized the rocks in the area into sand, which was buried deep beneath the topsoil. Said topsoil was slowly eroded by a farming family in the 1700s over generations, eventually exposing a small patch of sand that grew . . . and grew. Throughout the 1800s, the family tried to fight the encroaching drifts, but gave up in the early 1900s. They eventually sold it off for $300 to a Mr. Henry Goldrup, who turned it into the tourist attraction it remains today.

If you visit, you can go on tram tours, guided hikes, and play Frisbee golf. Just don’t ride the camel statues—they’ve been there since the ’50s as a replacement for the real camel they used to have.

3The Lil’ Post Office

Tourists to southern Florida often stop to take photos of the world’s smallest post office, pictured above, in the town of Ochopee. Inside, they find all the things you might expect—trinkets, keychains, postcards—and one thing you might not: a postal worker. Yes, the Ochopee post office actually functions as a post office, even if only two or three people pick up their mail there.

If the building just looks like a little shed, that’s because it used to be exactly that. In 1953, the original post office/general store burned to the ground, and instead of rebuilding it, well, you get the idea. For awhile, the little shed served as both the post office and bus stop for Trailways bus lines. When the decision was made to move the building, the job probably only took around half a day—a couple local residents plopped it onto a wheelbarrow and hauled it off to its current location.

In case you were wondering, the building has all the modern conveniences—a computer, a phone, even air conditioning. Oh, except a bathroom. We suppose that keeping things bottled up is something of a postal worker stereotype, but it still seems like a pretty glaring oversight.

2Homeless Jesus

If, at first glance, the art installation pictured above looks like an actual homeless man, perhaps that is the point. The work has had the police called on it at least once, and a bronze likeness of a hobo sleeping on a park bench seems an odd choice for a public artwork—until you consider the affluent neighborhood in which it resides, and the crucifixion marks on its feet.

Yes, the statue—a $22,000 gift to the Episcopalian Church from a parishioner—is meant to depict Jesus as a lowly vagrant, which may help explain why it was rejected by two other cathedrals before finding a home in Davidson, North Carolina. To their credit, the church that ended up accepting the statue seems to recognize the value of the artist’s intent—Reverend David Buck said, “It gives authenticity to our church . . . this is a relatively affluent church, to be honest, and we need to be reminded ourselves that our faith expresses itself in active concern for the marginalized of society.”

Canadian artist Timothy Schmalz, the statue’s creator, has brought a miniature to the Vatican and received the blessing of Pope Francis; he hopes to get a Homeless Jesus installed in Vatican City one day soon. Parishioners of the Davidson church, meanwhile, have warmed up to their version and have even been seen praying in front of it occasionally.

1E.T.’s Final Resting Place

Finally, we have the actual intersection of real-world Easter eggs and video games. That is to say, an Easter egg consisting of a video game in the real world.

It had long been a sort of urban legend that, after the infamous video game crash of 1983, Atari took a whole bunch of copies of its famously crappy E.T. The Extra Terrestrial video game and dumped them in a public landfill in Alamagordo, New Mexico. Atari never really confirmed nor denied this, and as it sounded just too awesomely fitting to be true, most assumed that it was at the very least a wild exaggeration. Turns out, it was not.

In April 2014, garbage company owner Joe Lewandoski, along with archaeologist Andrew Reinhard and, for some reason, film director Zak Penn, got together to hunt for the biggest Easter egg of all—Atari’s lost E.T. dump. The games had been dumped in a 12-meter-wide (40 ft) hole in a 300-acre landfill over 30 years prior, yet they hit pay dirt the same afternoon they started digging, also coming up with a few Missile Command and Centipede games for good measure.

Game designer Howard Warshaw, creator of E.T., was on hand for the excavation. While alluding to his brutal production schedule for the game (“It is the fastest video game developed in video game history as far as I know”), he also managed to wax philosophical about his supposed role in destroying his industry: “Thirty-two years ago I did a game that people called ‘the worst game of all time’ that toppled a billion dollar industry. Maybe it is true; maybe it is not. The fact is I did something 30 years ago that is still getting people gathered together, enjoying it, getting some excitement.”

Winston Groom’s Forrest Gump had a remarkable knack of being at the right place, at the right time, multiples times. By sheer luck, if one can call it that, Gump inspired world shakers and witnessed generational defining moments. Of course, he had the advantage of being fictional. The following 10 people repeatedly popped up at historical events. Unlike a box of chocolates, their lives were not always sweet.

Top 10 Mandela Effects (Movie And TV Edition!)

10Jenny and Jason Cairns-Lawrence

Jenny and Jason Cairns-Lawrence should have just stayed at home. Most vacations count as a disaster if someone gets a sunburn. The British couple has much higher standards. By strange luck, their trips wound up following three separate devastating terrorist attacks.

Their first trip was to see the New York City skyscrapers in 2001. During their visit, the skyline was forever changed following the attacks on 9/11. Understandably shy about returning to the United States, they decided to stay in their home country. In July 2005, they visited London. For the first time in British history, a series of suicide bombers attacked the country in the July 7th subway bombings.

In November 2008, the couple’s bad fortune continued. This time they headed for Mumbai, India. On November 26th, assassins affiliated with the Pakistani terrorist group Lashkar-e-Tayyiba shot 164 civilians across several locations in the city. Due to their distance from the tragic events, Jenny and Jason Cairns-Lawrence were fortunately never hurt.^[1]

9Rusty Torres

In the early days of the game, baseball forfeits were common. Now, they are practically nonexistent. Since 1955, there have only been five forfeits in all of Major League Baseball. Rusty Torres had the unlucky privilege of playing in three of them.

On his birthday, September 30th 1971, Rusty received a pretty bad present. During his ninth major league game ever, rowdy Washington Senators fan stormed the field. Outraged by the Senators upcoming move to Texas, the supporters looted the diamond. A MLB game was forfeited for the first time in 16 years. The next one came much sooner.

In 1973, Torres was traded from the Yankees to the Cleveland Indians. Torres was set to score the Indians winning run on June 4, 1974 before inebriated fans rioted during the disastrous Ten Cent Beer Night promotion. After drunkards threw rocks and bottles at the players, the Indians forfeited.

In 1978, Torres was traded to the Chicago White Sox. On August 4, 1979, he played in the midst of the infamous “Disco Demolition Night.” In between a doubleheader, fans literally blew up records in the outfield. The resulting crater from the explosion and chaos from police bashing disco haters with riot gear made the field inoperable.^[2]

8George Hewes

George Hewes was too short to be a Loyalist. Denied from enlisting in Britain’s army due to his height, he converted to the Patriot’s cause. During some of Massachusetts’ earliest political protests, Hewes became one of the more prominent activists.

Hewes supported revolting after witnessing the Boston Massacre. As part of the mob of protesters, Hewes was struck by a British officer’s rifle butt. Three years later, Hewes got revenge by joining the rowdy mass at the Boston Tea Party. Hewes forced the Captain to unlock the tea chests necessary for the rebellion. A month later, Hewes was one of the few vigilantes who objected to tarring and feathering John Malcolm.

When the colonies went to war in 1776, so did Hewes. His military career was less illustrative than his antebellum activism. His main tactical victory was piloting a ship called the “Diamond” that commandeered three enemy vessels. After that, Hewes lived a relatively quiet life. Dying at 98, George Hewes was one of the last survivors of the American Revolution. Even in death, George Hewes had one more claim to fame.^[3]

7Jim Leavelle

Jim Leavelle was not supposed to work on November 22, 1963. When news broke that President John F. Kennedy had been shot, he did not have much of a choice but to go into the office. Leavelle was assigned to deal with a lower case, the murder of Officer J.D. Tippit. Leavelle was in charge of questioning Tippit’s suspected shooter, Lee Harvey Oswald.

On November 24, 1963, Leavelle was assigned to transfer Oswald. While Oswald was handcuffed to Leavelle, local nightclub operator Jack Ruby barged into the garage of police headquarters and shot the assassin. Photographs of the event capture Leavelle’s shocked reaction under his white Stetson Cowboy hat.

Twenty-two years earlier, Leavelle witnessed another surprising attack. In 1940, Leavelle joined the U.S. Navy. Shortly later, he was stationed to the USS Whitney. During the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese “bullets bounced off the ship”. Neither Leavelle nor anybody else onboard the Whitney suffered serious damage in the battle.^[4]

6Daniel Sickles

Daniel Sickles was not insane. His life was. Rumored sexual partners included both Queen Elizabeth II of Spain and Mary Todd Lincoln. Despite his liaisons, he was greatly upset when his wife Teresa Bagioli had her own tryst with Philip Barton Key, son of composer Frances Scott Key. Unable to tolerate the infidelity, Sickles murdered Key in broad daylight. Sickle’s lawyers convinced a jury that he could not control his emotions. His acquittal was the first successful example of the temporary insanity defense.

He may not always follow them, but Sickles’ primary career was crafting laws. Elected to the New York Assembly in 1847, he persuaded the New York City Council to approve the purchase of the nearly 750 acres of land that eventually became Central Park.

After his political career, President Lincoln appointed Sickles to serve as an army officer alongside Union Major General George Mead. During the Battle of Gettysburg, Sickles flatly ignored Mead’s orders to stop troops from seizing a position on Peach Orchard. Historians disagree on how effective Sickles decision was. Some argue that he turned the battle for the Union. Critics dismiss his brashness as nearly costing the North the battle. No matter who is it right, it is just only one of the ways he changed history.^[5]

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5Nicholas Lawson

Nicholas Lawson lived a swashbuckling life on the seas. His most pioneering adventure was a coincidental meeting stationed on the land. History is funny like that.

Lawson first left his Norwegian homeland in 1806. The sailor had mixed success on the waters. In 1809, Mediterranean pirates forced him into slavery. He escaped towards the United States. During the War of 1812, the fugitive distinguished himself in the U.S. Navy. Hopping around the Atlantic, he temporary settled in England and Canada. The small fortune he made trading in Canada went bankrupt by 1816. To recoup his losses, he joined the Chilean Navy. Following his military success, he was appointed to administrate the Galapagos Islands.

Serving as the Vice-Governor, Lawson tended to the Governor’s responsibilities while the Governor was away on different islands. That is how one day in 1835, Lawson was required to entertain a new shipload of naturalists. While serving them dinner, Lawson offhandedly mentioned that he knew which island a tortoise came from just by looking at its shell. The notion that changes in the environment manifest themselves in animal species piqued the interest of one of the guests. Spurred on by Lawson’s comment, that guest, Charles Darwin, further studied the island’s species.^[6]

4Francisco de Miranda

In the 1700’s, revolution gripped the world. Sebastian Francisco de Miranda was there for all of them. Supportive of his fellow revolutionaries, the Spanish officer Miranda lent George Washington aid during the Battle of Yorktown. In America, he fraternized with Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Paine. High ranking friends like these did not prevent him from being arrested in 1784 for selling black market goods in London.

He escaped prison. On the lam, he traveled around Europe. One stop in Russia led him to enjoying the night in Catherine the Great’s bedroom. Hightailing out of the empress’ chambers, he ended up in France. Miranda defended Paris from invading Prussians and Austrians forces. His valor was not appreciated. Swept up in “The Terror” of 1793, Miranda was twice sentence to the guillotine. In a rare show of leniency, he successfully defended himself to his executioners both times.

After fleeing France, he and future Chilean founder Bernardo O’Higgins petitioned England and America to lend monetary support to South American liberators. England rejected the offer. The more sympathetic Thomas Jefferson gave Miranda three ships to sail towards Venezuela. Accompanied by Simón Bolívar, Miranda declared independence from Spain. As generalissimo, Miranda seized power in burgeoning Venezuela. Simon Bolivar intervened and arrested Miranda. The man who fought for freedom around the world died a prisoner.^[7]

3Yang Kyoungjong

Yang Kyoungjong was good at being a soldier. He just had a terrible time choosing a side. By World War II’s end, he was supposedly the only person to have fought for three separate armies. When war broke out, he was conscripted into the Kwantung army in 1938. The troops were deployed to fight the Soviet Union’s army at the Mongolian border during the Battle of Khalkhin Gol. In the decisive Soviet victory, Kyoungjong was captured and sent to a labor camp.

With a dwindling supply of troops, the USSR recruited men from internment camps to fight for the nation. Kyoungjong’s tenure as a Red soldier was short lived. A year later at the Third Battle of Kharkov, the German forces seized Kyoungjong as a prisoner of war. That winding journey is how a Korean born soldier was compelled to fight for the Nazis on D-Day. Much like the war at large, the battle was a turning point for Kyoungjong. The American army captured Kyoungjong. Kyoungjong was stationed in a British POW camp until the war’s end.^[8]

2Robert Todd Lincoln

Robert Todd Lincoln thought he was cursed. He promised to never meet another United States President as long as he lived. It was for their benefit. By a bizarre coincidence, he was present for three separate presidential assassinations.

The first one was personal. Lincoln was in Washington D.C. the night John Wilkes Booth shot his father. Upon hearing the news, Robert ran to the Peterson House across the street from Ford’s Theatre. Consoling his mother, Robert and Mary Todd watched as Abraham Lincoln died.

Following in his late father’s footsteps, Lincoln got into politics. Lincoln joined James Garfield’s cabinet as the Secretary of War. Four months into the administration, Lincoln accompanied Garfield to the DC railroad station. Assassin Charles Guiteau ended any of Garfield’s future travel plans by shooting the president twice.

Despite the growing death toll, Lincoln still hobnobbed with the political elite. President William McKinley invited Lincoln to meet him at the Pan American Exposition in 1901. While Lincoln was wandering the fairgrounds to meet McKinley, Leon Czolgosz was busy murdering the president.^[9]

1Wilmer McLean

Despite never fighting in any battle, The Civil War haunted Wilmer McLean. He had a bad habit of living in important battle fields. During the Battle of Blackburn’s Ford, a union shell crashed into his kitchen. Three days later, his house was seized in the first major battle of the American Civil War, the Battle of Bull Run. Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard commandeered McLean’s farmhouse as his headquarters.

Following the Second Battle of Bull Run a year later, McLean and his family moved to Appomattox Court House in 1863. Two years later, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant in the Virginian hamlet. The two needed a house to sign the agreement. Picking the first man he saw, Confederate Colonel Charles Marshall asked McLean to use his parlor. Once the document was signed, Union officers commemorated the historic victory by looting the house. Raiding soldiers took the family’s tables, chairs, candlesticks, and even McLean’s 7-year-old daughter’s doll. The war ended like it began, by ruining Wilmer McLean’s home.^[10]

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Whether deformities are caused by genetics or environmental factors, they spark curiosity and awe throughout the world. Many who have them have accepted their differences and led fulfilling lives. Some have undergone risky surgeries to change their appearance. Some have joined the circus and embraced the label “freak” to make living. Others have concealed themselves to avoid people’s reactions.

10Cutaneous Horns

Cutaneous horns (cornu cutaneum) result when keratin manifests in a conical shape and protrudes outward from the skin. Lesions found at the base of these horns may be malignant or benign.

When cutaneous horns grow, they tend to be on people with fair skin, at an average age of 50. Sun-exposed areas of skin are most susceptible. A biopsy can help determine the cause because cutaneous horns are related to a variety of medical issues. Possibilities range from verruca to Bowen’s disease. The majority of horns are benign, but about 20 percent are cancerous, and another 20 percent are pre-cancerous.

Some people even choose to let their benign horns grow. If a horn does sprout on your forehead, you can at least now rest assured that you’re probably not turning into a demon.

Note: Most cutaneous horns are shorter than the one pictured above.

9Aniridia

Black eyes aren’t necessarily a sign of pure evil. A condition called aniridia can cause absence of color in the iris, which may lead to weakened vision and sensitivity to light. This figures, as the literal translation of aniridia is “without iris.” Further conditions, such as glaucoma and cataracts, are likely to occur along with aniridia. Sufferers may be legally blind, may see well enough to drive, or may even have 20/20 vision.

A gene mutation causes this condition. It occurs around the end of the first trimester of pregnancy, as the eye develops. Aniridia can be inherited; a parent with this condition has a 50-percent chance of passing it on to his or her child. Parents who each have a mutated copy of the PAX-6 gene may be at risk for having a child with Gillespie syndrome (autosomal recessive aniridia) and related cognitive disabilities.

8Backward-Bending Knees

People with genu recurvatum have knees that bend backward surprisingly far, sometimes creating an animal-like appearance. The most severe cases involve a congenital dislocation of the knees. Other cases involve differences in leg length or diseases such as cerebral palsy and multiple sclerosis. Another cause is physical trauma to the knee. It could happen while playing sports or in a car accident, for instance.

Surgery and physical therapy can help treat the condition. Leg braces may also be used. Depending on how well treatment works, this condition may become a permanent disability for some individuals.

To date, the most well-known case of genu recurvatum is that of Ella Harper, born in Tennessee circa 1870. Ella preferred to walk on all fours. She was dubbed “Camel Girl” and found great success in the role. She even starred in W.H. Harris’s Nickel Plate Circus in 1886 and used the profits to better her life.

7Prune Belly

Known more formally as Eagle-Barrett syndrome, prune belly syndrome causes extreme weakness in the abdomen. This leads to severe wrinkling and a prune-like appearance. The bladder of an Eagle-Barrett patient becomes permanently expanded and difficult to relieve, leading to further medical challenges. The genitalia, internal organs, and skeleton may also be negatively affected.

The cause of this condition is currently undetermined. It’s possible that prune belly syndrome is hereditary, as multiple cases have been noted within families. Parents usually have fair warning. When a fetus is affected, the prune-like appearance of the belly is often visible through prenatal ultrasound, allowing for early diagnosis. Undescended testicles are another symptom.

Nearly all Eagle-Barrett syndrome cases involve males—95 percent, to be exact. Children with this condition are often stillborn, and those who make it past delivery may die soon from related complications, but some do survive.

6Lobster Claws

People born with ectrodactyly tend to have deformities of both their hands and their feet. Varying degrees of surgery are used to correct this condition.

Known commonly as split hand/foot malformation (SHFM), lobster claw syndrome involves missing fingers or toes along with gaping clefts in the sufferer’s hands or feet. Fingers or toes are fused with other digits or webbed.

If only one limb is deformed, it likely occurred due to a non-hereditary genetic mutation. If the hands and feet are all deformed, the condition was inherited. Parents who carry the gene have a 50-percent chance of passing it down to their offspring. Some choose to have children despite the high risk.

Lobster claw syndrome is not related to more complicated medical conditions or mental barriers. The only challenge is learning to function with hands and feet shaped differently than most.

5Neurofibromas

Those with neurofibromatosis have tumors (“neurofibromas”) on their nerves or under the skin. The tumors can often be removed. Even when they can’t be excised, they’re benign and won’t cause physical harm in the majority of cases.

Of the two types of neurofibromatosis, Recklinghausen disease is the most common. It can be, and often is, inherited. Parents with Recklinghausen have a 50-percent chance of passing it on to their children. If there is no family history of the disease in a Recklinghausen patient, the condition is caused by a genetic mutation at conception.

Cases of this disease range from mild to severe to debilitating. The bulbous lumps can absolutely blanket skin in more extreme cases.

4Supernumerary Nipples

When more than two nipples grow on a body, the condition is known medically as polythelia. Extra nipples typically form along the milk lines, which run from the upper torso to the groin area. Cases have been recorded in which supernumerary nipples appear elsewhere on the body, though. Other places they may occur include the thighs, face, and neck.

Regardless of where these abnormalities pop up, they are physically harmless. Underdeveloped nipples are often mistaken for moles, so removal is typically done for cosmetic reasons. Celebrities such as Mark Wahlberg have famously accepted and embraced their third nipples. Harry Stiles of the band One Direction admitted to having four altogether. However, not everyone shows their supernumerary nipples so much love. Carrie Underwood had hers removed, which she admitted at her American Idol audition.

This particular deformity is relatively common, affecting 1–6 percent of the American population. You may well know somebody who has an extra nipple of their own.

3The Caudal Appendage

A caudal appendage is a human tail, which is not like an animal tail. Human tails don’t help people balance better or swat away flies. In some cases, they’re symptomatic of much more serious conditions, such as spina bifida.

All humans have a spinal protrusion in the womb. It’s typically absorbed in utero, but not all fetuses develop predictably. When a caudal appendage is not absorbed, the child ends up with a tail. It consists of fat, muscle, nerves, and blood vessels without any bone or cartilage.

Fewer than 40 cases of this medical rarity have been recorded. It affects males twice as often as it affects females. A caudal appendage may be removed if surgery is deemed safe.

2Polymastia

When an unexpected breast grows on the human body, the condition is called polymastia. Extra breasts tend to appear in the same place supernumerary nipples grow: the milk line, which runs down the torso and to the groin. They can, however, also appear on the buttocks, the back, the hip, or even the face.

Accessory breasts contain the same tissue as typical breasts. This means that a third breast can harbor a malignant tumor and threaten the patient’s life. It’s also possible for third breasts to feature nipples and lactate, though it’s not guaranteed. These are simply possibilities that come with all breasts, wherever they happen to grow.

Polymastia is an anomaly of nature that extends beyond the human species. A few primates have been diagnosed with this condition. It’s rarer in the animal kingdom, but science has confirmed there’s such a thing as a three-breasted monkey.

1Hypertrichosis

Hypertrichosis is also known medically as Ambras syndrome and cheekily as “werewolf syndrome.” Genetics cause people with hypertrichosis to have an excessive amount of hair, which may grow all over the body or only in concentrated areas. Ambras syndrome may also be acquired later in life—in relation to cancer, for example.

Fewer than 60 cases have ever been recorded, but this is not just a rarity for the history books. People with hypertrichosis live today. In 2010, Supatra “Nat” Sasuphan of Thailand earned a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records as the hairiest teenager.

She’s one of many who’ve made the best of especially unique physical traits. People can embrace and find success through their differences, especially when those oddities are strange enough to be seen as extraordinary.

Shannon M. Harris is a writer from the Seattle area. She enjoys watching stand-up comedy, visiting quirky roadside attractions, and exploring nature—as long as nature isn’t trying to kill her. Connect with (and hire) her at WriterBug.org.