Tourism is a great source of income for every developed country. While we know all about the many tourist traps that ended up being built, most people haven’t heard of these crazy proposals.

10Michael Jackson’s Laser Robot

In the mid-2000s, Michael Jackson was planning on a huge comeback by securing a residency in Las Vegas. Jackson and his crew developed a variety of ideas for arenas, costumes, and shows but needed a huge advertising statement. Many ideas hit the drawing board before Jackson settled on his favorite: a 15-meter (50 ft) walking robot that would circle Las Vegas shooting laser beams.

Robot Michael Jackson was going to be fully mobile. It would stalk the desert around Las Vegas, focusing on being under the flight paths for airlines flying into McCarran Airport. (Nobody knows for sure if the robot would just walk or do Michael Jackson’s trademark moonwalk.) To complete the idea, robo-Jackson was going to have laser beams shooting from its eyes that could be seen from all parts of Las Vegas. It is unknown whether those would have been just laser lights or real, damaging laser beams. Unfortunately for Jackson, it was impossible to get any of the real estate moguls to invest in the design (possibly as a result of Jackson’s sex scandals), and the team had to drop their idea.

Instead of the giant robot, Jackson’s team decided on a “scaled down” plan to make a Michael Jackson–themed hotel and casino. They also refused to give up their dreams of robotic entertainment and planned to have Jackson’s shows involve a “giant audience-interactive video game with human cyborgs.”

All of these ideas never took off. Jackson did not have enough money and eventually decided against a Las Vegas residency. The city was spared from being stalked by a giant, laser-shooting Michael Jackson robot.

9Miami’s Artificial Sun

Miami is well known as a popular tourist area due to its perpetually warm weather and wonderful beaches. A pair of Swedish architects hope to capitalize on the sun-drenched city by erecting exactly what Miami needs: another Sun. Creatively named “Miami Sun,” the building is intended to be a 150-meter-tall (500 ft) half-orb with a hotel and casino. The exterior of the building is designed with screens that allow it to replicate the most vibrant sunsets during the day and to look like the Moon during the night.

If the architects get their way, Miami residents can look forward to a huge, otherworldly Sun-Moon combo right on the bay. As terrifying as that might sound, the Swedish architects have some practical reasoning behind their idea. The Miami Sun will be big enough to block out the real Sun during key summer months for people right near it. By doing this, tourists can have the joy of experiencing a sunny day without risking damage from dangerous UV rays. Fortunately for Miami residents, the city is extremely skeptical about the design, and it does not look like Miami will be building the artificial Sun anytime soon.

8Life-Size USS Enterprise

In 1992, the mayor of Las Vegas announced a project to redevelop downtown Vegas to pull some tourist money away from the big casinos on the strip. Countless project proposals were submitted, but the most interesting of all was the plan by the Goddard Group to build a life-size replica of the USS Enterprise from Star Trek.

The plan was an enormous undertaking. The Goddard Group proposed to build the Enterprise exactly to scale, making it a 300-meter-long (1,000 ft), 70-meter-tall (230 ft) attraction. Fittingly, the attraction would need new engineering techniques to keep the pylon and saucer held up without any external support. Instead of fitting the Enterprise with a hotel and casino as is standard for Vegas development projects, the ship was mainly geared toward shows, restaurants, rides, and other fan attractions.

Unfortunately, Paramount did not give the go-ahead for the licensing. Stanley Jaffe, CEO of Paramount, thought that the project would flop. Jaffe told the Goddard Group: “In the movie business, when we produce a big movie and it’s a flop—we take some bad press for a few weeks or a few months, but then it goes away. The next movie comes out and everyone forgets. But this—this is different. If this doesn’t work—if this is not a success—it’s there, forever . . . ”

Without the support of Paramount, the project stopped, and Las Vegas decided to go ahead with the Fremont Street Experience light show instead. Although a full-size Enterprise never came to fruition, the Goddard Group later built Star Trek: The Experience in the Las Vegas Hilton. This gave Star Trek fans the attraction they had waited for, until the Hilton tore it down in 2008.

7Valravn Roller Coaster

Unlike the other entries on this list, the Valravn roller coaster is one that you may actually be able to experience in your lifetime. It is currently under construction at Cedar Point in Ohio. When completed, the Valravn will break 10 world records, including one for the biggest dive roller coaster. Other roller coasters may have drops that seem vertical, but a dive roller coaster puts the riders through a long, 90-degree vertical drop. When the drop occurs, the riders are in complete free fall; the only thing keeping them in their seats are the restraints.

The Valravn has a 68-meter (223 ft) drop, ensuring that the riders get a few terrifying seconds where they are just falling. Because the drop is so long, the Valravn will also break the record for the fastest dive roller coaster at an insane 120 kilometers per hour (75 mph). Utilizing that fast speed and energy, the Valravn will put the riders through three inversions throughout the ride, once again breaking a world record while doing so. It is slated for completion in spring 2016, so brave riders can get ready to experience the feeling of complete free fall.

6Aeroscraft Flying Hotel

Large airships lost favor with the public after the Hindenburg explosion and due to the slow speed of airships. Since passengers wanted to get where they were going quickly, the idea of flying on a slow airship was uninviting, especially in the era of fast jet airliners. In recent years, many investors and designers have proposed bringing back the airship, but the most spectacular of them all is Igor Pasternak, who wants to build huge flying hotels that lumber across the world.

Named Aeroscraft, these airships will be the largest in the world at nearly 200 meters (650 ft) long and 50 meters (160 ft) tall. Aeroscraft will travel at a slow speed of 280 kilometers per hour (175 mph), which will allow it to cross the United States in 18 hours. That might seem like a long time, but riding in an Aeroscraft is not about the arrival at the destination but the experience of getting there. Aeroscraft will carry 250 passengers in utmost style. Interior amenities will include full staterooms, bars, lounges, casinos, conference rooms, and anything else a person may need on their flight. For transatlantic flights, Aeroscraft will basically be a flying hotel.

This may seem far-fetched, but Pasternak has already begun development on the project. Various investors have given him money, including the United States Department of Defense. Not only will Pasternak’s airships be good for passenger travel, they also have uses for freight lifting and defense. A half-scale airship called Dragon Dream took to the air in 2013, making the flying hotel seem like a future inevitability.

5Port Disney

Currently, DisneySea is the name of an aquatic theme park in Japan, but most people do not know that it’s based on an insane and complicated Disney park planned for California. Plans started in the late 1980s, when Disney began buying up real estate in Long Beach with plans to make Port Disney, a huge resort area on the California coast.

As Disney was buying land, it also made two other purchases, the RMS Queen Mary and the “Spruce Goose” airplane, which were key parts of the Port Disney plans. Disney planned to convert the Queen Mary into one of Port Disney’s five hotels. Plans for the port also included a huge marina that would serve as home for Disney cruise ships. The centerpiece of this oceanic property was a new Disney theme park, DisneySea.

The theme park would have been a huge architectural undertaking. Initial plans show that it had five huge domes, each one focusing on a different part of marine life and offering different attractions. Among these attractions were huge aquariums, natural history museums, a few rides, and—most surprisingly—an attraction where guests sat in steel cages in shark tanks so they could experience swimming with the sharks. DisneySea would also offer research opportunities to biologists studying marine life.

Even though the plans seemed impressive, residents of Long Beach opposed the project, and costs skyrocketed, becoming too high even for Disney. Instead of opening Port Disney, the company decided to develop the much more conventional California Adventure park next to Disneyland. Years later, architects used the DisneySea plans for a Tokyo theme park, which gave tourists a glimpse of what could have been.

4ACME United Nations Memorial Space

UN memorials are not usually big tourist attractions, but the United Nations Memorial Space in Chungju, South Korea will attract tourists from around the world. Chungju is the birthplace of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon. The Memorial Space will be the focal point of a large UN Peace Park. The ACME proposal did not win the design competition, but it is certainly an interesting building.

ACME designed its building as a series of cells that resemble a honeycomb. To determine the cell arrangement, ACME used a Voronoi diagram. This is a mathematical diagram that partitions a plane based on a series of predetermined variables. By using Voronoi diagrams to decide on the design of its structure, ACME gave the Memorial Space building a fascinating and seemingly random facade quite unlike other buildings. This odd structure symbolized the UN’s unity—all countries coming together for a single purpose.

The inside of the Memorial Space building houses a 1,500-seat assembly hall, conference rooms, theaters, and exhibition areas. Due to the cellular design, each area can be easily reconfigured for different purposes without affecting the structure of the building. To top it off, ACME placed a garden area on the roof for delegates and tourists to experience fresh air. ACME architects also made the center of the building hollow to allow for natural light to illuminate the corridors. Oddly, the UN has not released the second place and winning designs. With ACME’s spectacular building taking third, the winning design is probably breathtaking.

3Russian Commercial Space Station

Space tourism is all the rage now, with companies across the world gearing up to offer tourists a once-in-a-lifetime experience for a price. Not to be outdone by American space companies, the Russians are getting into the game. Aerospace company Orbital Technologies made plans for the first ever commercial hotel space station. Designed to be serviced by Soyuz and Progress capsules, the Russian space hotel was intended to launch by 2016, but setbacks in the program have pushed the date closer to 2020.

When completed, the yet-unnamed space station will be the first hotel in space. The design is big enough to hold seven people and can host research projects, if other countries prefer to use it instead of the larger International Space Station. But the science part is secondary. Orbital Technologies is looking to rake in tourist money from wealthy vacationers. A short stay at the station will cost around $1 million.

Orbital Technologies also expects to use the space station to host media productions and large parties. The firm has attempted to gain US support by stating that ISS astronauts could use the station as a backup if they need to evacuate. Investors have put some money into the project, and Orbital Technologies is confident that it will succeed.

2The Berg: Artificial Mountain

Everybody loves mountains. They are beautiful, scenic, and provide a variety of wonderful, touristy things to do, like skiing. Unfortunately, not everybody has easy access to mountains. Most people have to travel to visit them, and many might not have the time or money to make such a trip. The city of Berlin, Germany is bereft of tall mountains. Architect Jakob Tigges wants to change that by building a huge artificial mountain in the middle of Berlin.

In 2008, Berlin demolished the historic Tempelhof airport, clearing a huge swath of land in the city. German politicians do not know what to do with the land. Into the vacuum jumped Tigges, who believed that an artificial mountain called “The Berg” could invigorate the country. Chief among his proposal was the chance to ski right in the city without taking a trip to the Alps. With beautiful slopes and alpine features, The Berg would attract tourists from around the world while being a cutting-edge architectural project.

Tigges is not clear on exactly how to construct The Berg, but he is still working on getting approval for the project. In the late 2000s, support for the project was rapidly developing, with people around the world expressing interest in The Berg. However, development has stalled, and it seems that any chance that The Berg had has now evaporated. Still, it remains on the table as an odd way to reinvigorate Berlin.

1Hilton Hotel On The Moon

In an episode of AMC’s hit series Mad Men, hotel mogul Conrad Hilton asks protagonist Don Draper to work on an ad campaign. The subject? A forthcoming Hilton hotel on the Moon. The show portrayed it as a quirk of Hilton’s character, but the Hilton Moon hotel was a real project and one of the earliest attempts at outer space tourism.

Plans for the Lunar Hilton began to really take shape in 1967 and gained the public’s interest after the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey introduced people to the idea of commercial space travel. Nobody knows if the plans were sincere or just a way to get more people interested in the Hilton company. Whatever the case, by the end of the 1960s, everybody was talking about the Lunar Hilton. The company even started to sell souvenirs and reservation cards for the eventual opening of the hotel. Designs showed a fairly conventional hotel, with the biggest selling point being the view. Nothing could compare to waking up to a view of the Earth. With the lunar landings in 1969, the Hilton project remained in the public eye.

As time went on, excitement over the project waned. Lunar Hilton dropped out of the public eye, turning into a mere curiosity of the early space program. But the Lunar Hilton rarely stays dead. Talks about the project began again in the 1990s. This time, Hilton discussed building two hotels: one in orbit around the Earth and another on the Moon. These plans are shelved for now, but when it becomes possible, Hilton will create one of the most interesting tourist traps in the solar system.

Zachery Brasier is a physics student who likes to write on the side.

Booby traps are a common movie trope. However, as we are about to find out, they do not only exist in movies. People have created these things in real life to keep criminals and, at times, law enforcement out of their homes and businesses.

However, it appears that booby traps do not always catch the bad guys or the good ones in the case of law enforcement. Many people have ended up becoming victims of their own booby traps. Many have died while others managed to escape with devastating and sometimes life-threatening injuries in a few other instances.

Related: 10 True Stories Of People Killed By Household Objects

10 Louis Dethy

In 2002, Belgian police responded to a suspected suicide in a home in Charleroi, Belgium. The victim was 79-year-old Louis Dethy, who police believed had shot himself in the neck. Dethy bled to death, but as police would later find out, it was not a suicide. Dethy had actually fallen victim to one of the many booby traps he set inside his home.

Scarily, Dethy set the trap to kill his family. He was pissed with his wife for divorcing him and their 14 children and 37 grandchildren for abandoning him. He hit his breaking point when his mother willed his home to one of his estranged daughters. Dethy owned the house, but his mother owned the land.

In revenge, he rigged his three-story home with several shotguns, a pile of plates, and an explosive crate of beer.

A police officer was almost killed after a shotgun went off when he opened a wooden chest. The shot missed him by a few centimeters. Military engineers spent three weeks finding and disarming all 19 traps. Dethy left a clue suggesting there was a 20th trap in the building. However, military engineers never found it.^[1]

9 Julius Jackson

In November 1986, several police officers responded to a shooting at a home in Houston, Texas. Outside, they found the homeowner, Julius Jackson, bleeding from a gunshot wound to his left leg. Jackson told officers not to go into his home. As the officers later found out, the house was booby-trapped, and Jackson himself was a victim of one of the traps.

In a twist of fate, Jackson had set those booby traps himself. Apparently, burglars frequently raided his home. In fact, he was robbed ten times within five years. This made him set up a few shotguns to fire at the knee of whoever triggered it.

Jackson was transported to a hospital, where he was reported to be in critical condition. A police bomb squad later arrived to disarm the remaining guns. While police did not provide information about the number of booby traps in the home, his ex-wife said he told her he had a shotgun in every room in the house.^[2]

8 Ernest Michelberger

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

In 2015, Ernest Gaylord Michelberger was cut in half by a chainsaw inside his home in Savannah, Georgia. The scene looked like a murder straight out of a horror movie, except it was not. Instead, Michelberger had fallen victim to a booby trap he set inside his own home.

According to his son, Gunner, his father had booby-trapped his home with two chainsaws and a few guns over concerns that the minorities moving into the area may try burgling him. However, that did not happen before the older Michelberger mistakenly triggered one of the chainsaws, which cut him into two along the waist.^[3]

7 Edwin Smith

In October 2018, 68-year-old Edwin Cleve called 911 after a booby trap went off in his home in Cleveland County, North Carolina. He told the dispatcher, “I just blew my arm off,” before explaining how a booby-trapped shotgun he set inside his home fired and injured him in the arm.

Smith was feeding squirrels through his back door at the time of the shooting. He was saved from bleeding to death after a man suspected to be a Cleveland County Sheriff’s deputy used a tourniquet to cover his wounds. The dispatcher heard Smith tell the officer, “F**king squirrels did me in, buddy.”^[4]

6 Daniel Ricketts

In 2013, 50-year-old Daniel R. Ricketts was decapitated when he drove his quad bike into an almost invincible piano string tied to two marijuana plants on an illegal marijuana farm in Albany County, New York.

Piano wires may appear harmless, but they are extremely strong and sharp. Add the fact that Ricketts was probably speeding at the time of the accident, and you have a deadly weapon in your hands, one as sharp as a sword.

Ironically, Ricketts owned the illegal marijuana farm and installed the piano wires to protect his stash from opportunists, like-minded criminals, and maybe, law enforcement officers. That thing was supposed to cut their heads off.

However, he became his own victim when he rode into it. The wire caught his neck, throwing him off his bike and almost separating his head from the rest of his body. He died at the scene. Police said he was drunk at the time. Police also found several leg traps and barbwires around the farm.^[5]

5 Ronald Cyr

On the evening of Thanksgiving 2019, 65-year-old Ronald Cyr called 911 after he was shot inside his home in Van Buren, Maine. Police and paramedics arrived to administer first aid and transport him to a hospital, but Cyr eventually succumbed to his injuries.

The Van Buren Police Department later established that Cyr was actually the victim of a gun he had fixed to his front door. In a comment posted on Facebook, the department said Cyr had set the gun to shoot at suspected intruders that may try entering his home through the door. However, they did not explain how he ended up being a victim of his handwork.^[6]

4 Langley Collyer

The Collyer brothers lived in Harlem, New York. The older, Homer, was blind and bedridden, while the younger, called Langley, was his caregiver. The brothers lived alone, spent their time alone, and refused to interact with anyone. The only company they had was the many booby traps and 120 tons of trash inside their home.

The men lived a rather public life in the years preceding Homer’s blindness. However, they became reclusive and retreated to their home after Homer went blind. Langley boarded up the windows and only left the house at night to buy food and collect random items he found along the way. He stored those items in their house until it was no different from a landfill.

Langley set many booby traps in the house to keep curious neighbors and people moving into the area out. He also fed Homer with a hundred oranges a week, hoping it would restore his sight. He had so much faith in Homer regaining his sight that he even saved every newspaper he found so Homer would be able to read them when he could see again.

However, that never happened as Langley was crushed to death after a booby-trapped tunnel collapsed on him while taking dinner to Homer. The blind and hungry Homer later starved to death.

Police found out about their death in March 1947 when someone called to complain about the stench of a decomposing body from the home. Police found Homer’s body, but Langley was missing, raising suspicions that he had fled. A manhunt began but turned up nothing. Police later found his half-decomposed body in the tunnel, 10 feet from where Homer had died.^[7]

3 Unnamed Man

On September 17, 2017, firefighters from Tubac Fire Department responded to an explosion in an unoccupied home in Amado, Arizona. Inside, they found an unnamed man who they evacuated to a local hospital for treatment.

Investigations revealed the man was the owner of the building and was building a pipe bomb with a friend at the time of the explosion. Investigators determined both men were building the bomb to protect the property. However, the police did not know who they were protecting it from and why. However, they know the bomb went off prematurely, injuring the man.^[8]

2 Another Unnamed Man

Sometime in 2018, several residents in a neighborhood in Tomball, Texas, called 911 after hearing gunshots from a home in the area. Residents suspected the shooter had barricaded himself inside his house.

Deputies from the Harris County Sheriff’s Office arrived to find a 73-year-old man outside the house with several wounds to the right side of his stomach. The unnamed man, who also owned the home, told officers, “There’s danger in the home.” A deputy attempted to enter the home but quickly retreated after hearing a gunshot from inside.

SWAT officers later arrived to confront the barricaded shooter but found none. Apparently, the supposed shooter was a booby-trapped explosive set up by the elderly homeowner. The explosive included some small metal fragments and shotgun shells that exploded when triggered. A spokesperson for the Sheriff’s department said the man set the explosives to prevent burglars.^[9]

1 Jos Potvin

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

In October 2010, police officers found the remains of 75-year-old Jos Lawrence Potvin inside his home in Levis, Quebec City, Canada. Potvin lived alone and had been killed by a gunshot, leading police to suspect suicide. However, police later established he was the victim of an accidental death.

Before his death, Potvin had informed police that some burglars were trying to steal from his home. Police investigated but found no evidence that anyone was trying to rob him.

Undaunted, the already paranoid Potvin fixed a shotgun to his bedroom door to fire the moment someone stepped on a string that ran across the floor. For some unclear reasons, Potvin stepped on that string, killing himself. He died on the spot.^[10]