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13.7 Cosmos & Culture

When the mysterious and inexplicable happens.

Marcelo Gleiser

Nearly everyone has had weird experiences, things that happen in life that seem to defy any sort of rational explanation.

It could be strange sightings, events that apparently challenge the laws of nature, that evoke the supernatural, or feelings of being possessed by some kind of universal awe, that elicit a connectedness with something grander, timeless.

What are these events — and what are they trying to tell us, if anything?

For a rationalist, the usual response is one of dismissal, based on the law of large numbers: When there are billions of people experiencing billions of different events every day, chances are that some will encounter events that are so rare that they are deemed, on the surface, as unexplainable. Tanya Luhrmann, a professor of anthropology at Stanford and an expert on what could be called the experience of the sacred, has written extensively on the subject in The New York Times as an op-ed contributor , in books for the general public , and in more academic settings . When she was a graduate student in England, she had one such experience that left her wondering. She was on a train, going to interview with a group of people that practiced a form of powerful magic, when she felt strange :

"I was reading a book by a man they called an 'adept' — someone they regarded as deeply knowledgeable and powerful... And as I strained to imagine what the author thought it would be like to be that vehicle, I began to feel power in my veins — to really feel it, not to imagine it. I grew hot. I became completely alert, more awake than I usually am, and I felt so alive. It seemed that power coursed through me like water through a chute. I wanted to sing. And then wisps of smoke came out of my backpack, in which I had tossed my bicycle lights. One of them was melting."

She writes of the experience:

"I walked off that train with a new respect for why people believed in magic, not a new understanding of reality. Sometimes people have remarkable experiences, and then tuck them away as events they can't explain."

Luhrmann mentions how Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine and a notable rationalist, had one such experience that defied any sense of logic and left him stunned . I know Michael and can attest to his rock-solid convictions. A few weeks before his wedding, his German bride-to-be shipped many of her belongings to their home in California. Among them was an old radio that belonged to her dear grandfather, the closest father figure she had growing up. The transistor radio had been broken for years and Shermer's attempts to fix it failed. They tucked it into a drawer in their bedroom and forgot about it. On their wedding day, they were surprised to hear music coming from upstairs. After searching for possible sources, they were amazed to see that it was the transistor radio, as if it had come back to life on its own. "My grandfather is here with us," Shermer's wife Jennifer said, tearfully. "I'm not alone." The radio stopped playing the next day, as mysteriously as it had started.

I also have had one such experience (actually more than one), that I relate in detail in my recent book The Simple Beauty of the Unexpected , under the chapter heading "The Witch of Copacabana." Here is a brief summary:

When I was growing up in Rio, my parents loved hosting dinner parties. My father, a dentist, had welcomed to his practice many of the Portuguese immigrants that flooded Brazil after the Carnation Revolution of 1974. One day, he invited the former Minister of Justice (a sort of attorney general) and other friends to dinner. He offered the minister a whisky. After taking a sip, the minister gave my father a perplexed look. "Izaac, this is tea, not whisky." My father's mouth dropped. He ran to the closet where he stored his liquor and confirmed that the open whisky bottle had been filled with tea. The same with every open bottle with amber-colored liquid. My father ran to the kitchen to find our cook Maria, a small black lady in her 50s with pitch-dark beady eyes. We knew she was a high priestess of the Macumba, a widespread religious practice mixing elements of African black magic and fetishism with Catholicism. Maria confessed immediately, as if what she had done had been obvious. My father was furious, and fired her on the spot. Maria looked him in the eye and cursed the house: "Something bad will happen to this house." I was horrified. Maria tried to comfort me. "Don't worry, boy, you have 'corpo fechado' (closed body), and nothing will harm you."

My father, a superstitious man, took his precautions, filling his pockets with garlic and the house with branches of rue, a plant that many in Brazil believe is a sort of chlorophyllous evil barometer that shrivels when harm is near. A month passed and nothing happened. We went back to our routines and hired a new cook. One day, as I was studying for an exam, I felt a compulsion to go to the dining room. Our rococo-style dining table was flanked on both ends by furniture containing fine crystal. Behind my father's seat at the head of the table was a closet with glass doors and three glass shelves, where my parents stored beautiful wineglasses made of Bohemian crystal. At the opposite end of the table was a brass beverage trolley, with a top glass shelf covered with crystal bottles filled with port, sherry and liqueurs of all colors, each labeled with a small silver necklace.

I was standing by the dining table in a strange sort of daze when something, maybe a subtle noise, made me turn toward the closet. At that very moment, the top shelf broke in half, and all the heavy glasses came crashing down onto the second shelf, which in turn collapsed onto the first shelf in a horrifying waterfall of shattering crystal. Dozens of priceless antique glasses were instantly destroyed. I hardly had time to blink, when another cracking noise made me turn toward the trolley at the other end of the table. In a flash, the top shelf collapsed, taking all the crystal bottles to the floor with it. The noise was deafening. Shards of glass flew everywhere. I was paralyzed. The new cook came running from the kitchen and crossed herself. She packed her things and vanished that same night, never to be seen again.

Shaking uncontrollably, I phoned my father at his office. "It's the curse, dad. She did it! Everything crashed, right in front of me. The closet and the trolley, practically at the same time!"

I spent a long time trying to come up with a reasonable explanation: a supersonic boom; an earthquake; maybe I was in a hypnotic trance and did it myself. Nothing added up though. To have both events in almost synchrony was deeply perplexing. And it involved drinking, as it should. This is a mysterious event that remains unexplained.

People react differently when faced with such situations. Some feel it as convincing evidence of the supernatural and embrace a religion (a conversion event) or a mystical practice. Others, perhaps in fear for what such event may represent to their worldview, vigorously push it aside as an odd coincidence. Or they honestly think of such stories as some of life's bizarre twists, without any opening to otherworldly dimensions.

In my case, I remain agnostic. Being a scientist, I'm well-aware that nature tends to follow precise rules, some of which we have managed to understand and to describe. However, I'm also well-aware of our limitations, of the fact that we are surrounded by mystery and by what we don't understand.

Science's purpose is to crack open some of these mysteries, and it does so magnificently. But science can't crack them all. And that's okay. A bit of the unexplained is good, as it keeps us a little unsettled. We must keep an open mind as we peel layer after layer of reality, prepared to be surprised at every step — and humbled by what we can't know.

Marcelo Gleiser is a theoretical physicist and writer — and a professor of natural philosophy, physics and astronomy at Dartmouth College. He is the director of the Institute for Cross-Disciplinary Engagement at Dartmouth , co-founder of 13.7 and an active promoter of science to the general public. His latest book is The Simple Beauty of the Unexpected: A Natural Philosopher's Quest for Trout and the Meaning of Everything . You can keep up with Marcelo on Facebook and Twitter: @mgleiser

• unexplained events

Top Ten Mysteries of the Universe

What are those burning questions about the cosmos that still baffle astronomers today?

Joseph Stromberg

1. What Are Fermi Bubbles?

No, this is not a rare digestive disorder. The bubbles are massive, mysterious structures that emanate from the Milky Ways center and extend roughly 20,000 light-years above and below the galactic plane. The strange phenomenon, first discovered in 2010, is made up of super-high-energy gamma-ray and X-ray emissions, invisible to the naked eye. Scientists have hypothesized that the gamma rays might be shock waves from stars being consumed by the massive black hole at the center of the galaxy.

2. Rectangular Galaxy

“Look, up in the sky! It’s a…rectangle?” Earlier this year, astronomers spotted a celestial body, roughly 70 million light-years away, with an appearance that is unique in the visible universe: The galaxy LEDA 074886 is shaped more or less like a rectangle. While most galaxies are shaped like discs, three-dimensional ellipses or irregular blobs, this one seems to have a regular rectangle or diamond-shaped appearance. Some have speculated that the shape results from the collision of two spiral-shaped galaxies, but no one knows for now.

3. The Moon’s Magnetic Field

One of the moon’s greatest mysteries—why only some parts of the crust seem to have a magnetic field—has intrigued astronomers for decades, even inspiring the buried mythical “monolith” in the novel and film 2001: A Space Odyssey . But some scientists finally think they may have an explanation. After using a computer model to analyze the moon’s crust, researchers believe the magnetism may be a relic of a 120-mile-wide asteroid that collided with the moon’s southern pole about 4.5 billion years ago, scattering magnetic material. Others, though, believe the magnetic field may be related to other smaller, more recent impacts.

4. Why Do Pulsars Pulse?

Pulsars are distant, rapidly spinning neutron stars that emit a beam of electromagnetic radiation at regular intervals, like a rotating lighthouse beam sweeping over a shoreline. Although the first one was discovered in 1967, scientists have for decades struggled to understand what causes these stars to pulse—and, for that matter, what causes pulsars to occasionally stop pulsing. In 2008, though, when one pulsar suddenly shut off for 580 days, scientists’ observations allowed them to determine that the “on” and “off” periods are somehow related to magnetic currents slowing down the stars’ spin. Astronomers are still at work trying to understand why these magnetic currents fluctuate in the first place.

5. What Is Dark Matter?

Astrophysicists are currently trying to observe the effects of dark energy , which accounts for some 70 percent of the universe. But it's not the only dark stuff in the cosmos: roughly 25 percent of it is made up of an entirely separate material called dark matter. Completely invisible to telescopes and the human eye, it neither emits nor absorbs visible light (or any form of electromagnetic radiation), but its gravitational effect is evident in the motions of galaxy clusters and individual stars. Although dark matter has proven extremely difficult to study, many scientists speculate that it might be composed of subatomic particles that are fundamentally different from those that create the matter we see around us.

6.   Galactic Recycling

In recent years, astronomers have noticed that galaxies form new stars at a rate that would seem to consume more matter than they actually have inside them. The Milky Way, for example, appears to turn about one sun’s worth of dust and gas into new stars every year, but it doesn’t have enough spare matter to keep this up long-term. A new study of distant galaxies might provide the answer: Astronomers noticed gas that had been expelled by the galaxies flowing back in to the center. If the galaxies recycle this gas to produce new stars, it might be a piece of the puzzle in solving the question of the missing raw matter.

7. Where Is All the Lithium?

Models of the Big Bang indicate that the element lithium should be abundant throughout the universe. The mystery, in this case, is pretty straightforward: it doesn’t. Observations of ancient stars, formed from material most similar to that produced by the Big Bang, reveal amounts of lithium two to three times lower than predicted by the theoretical models. New research indicates that some of this lithium may be mixed into the center of stars, out of view of our telescopes, while theorists suggest that axions, hypothetical subatomic particles, may have absorbed protons and reduced the amount of lithium created in the period just after the Big Bang.

8. Is There Anybody Out There?

In 1961, astrophysicist Frank Drake devised a highly controversial equation: By multiplying together a series of terms relating to the probability of extraterrestrial life (the rate of star formation in the universe, the fraction of stars with planets, the fraction of planets with conditions suitable for life, etc.) he surmised that the existence of intelligent life on other planets is extremely likely. One problem: Roswell conspiracy theorists notwithstanding, we haven’t heard from any aliens to date. Recent discoveries of distant planets that could theoretically harbor life, though, have raised hopes that we might detect extraterrestrials if we just keep looking.

9. How Will the Universe End? [Warning, Potential Spoiler Alert!]

We now believe the universe started with the Big Bang. But how will it end? Based on a number of factors, theorists conclude that the fate of the universe could take one of several wildly different forms. If the amount of dark energy is not enough to resist the compressing force of gravity, the entire universe could collapse into a singular point—a mirror image of the Big Bang, known as the Big Crunch. Recent findings, though, indicate a Big Crunch is less likely than a Big Chill, in which dark energy forces the universe into a slow, gradual expansion and all that remains are burned-out stars and dead planets, hovering at temperatures barely above absolute zero. If enough dark energy is present to overwhelm all other forces, a Big Rip scenario could occur, in which all galaxies, stars and even atoms are torn apart.

10. Across the Multiverse

Theoretical physicists speculate that our universe may not be the only one of its kind. The idea is that our universe exists within a bubble, and multiple alternative universes are contained within their own distinct bubbles. In these other universes, the physical constants—and even the laws of physics—may differ drastically. Despite the theory's resemblance to science fiction, astronomers are now looking for physical evidence: Disc-shaped patterns in the cosmic background radiation left over from the Big Bang, which could indicate collisions with other universes.

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Joseph Stromberg | | READ MORE

Joseph Stromberg was previously a digital reporter for Smithsonian .

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11 epic mysteries scientists totally can’t solve

What is the universe made out of? When did the anus evolve? Can humans live to 150 years old? And more!

by Brian Resnick

To investigate some of the biggest mysteries in science, you have to venture to some pretty far-out places: the bottom of the oceans , inside the human brain , the tops of mountains , and even the end of time .

That’s what we’ve done on Unexplainable , a science podcast that Vox launched in March to explore the most important, interesting, and awe-inspiring unanswered questions in science. We set out to ask big questions that inspire scientists to do their work — questions that fill them with wonder or a sense of purpose, or remind them that the universe is still an enormous place with untapped potential.

In exploring these stories, we’ve learned some of the surprising reasons why major scientific mysteries can go unsolved for years or even decades: Some are due to the limits of technology, others are because of human failings. Regardless, working on Unexplainable has reminded us there’s hope in a question. Why ask one if you don’t believe an answer is possible?

Here, we rounded up 11 questions that astounded us the most.

For more mysteries, subscribe to Unexplainable wherever you listen to podcasts .

What is most of the universe made out of?

It’s a simple question that’s also bafflingly unanswered: What makes up the universe? It turns out all the stars in all the galaxies in all the universe barely even begin to account for all the stuff out there. Most of the matter in the universe is actually unseeable, untouchable, and, to this day, undiscovered. It’s called dark matter, and despite searching for it for decades, scientists still have no idea what it is.

Further reading: Dark Matter, unexplained

What lives in the ocean’s “twilight zone”?

As you dive deeper into the ocean, less and less sunlight shines through, and about 200 meters beneath the surface, you reach an area called the “twilight zone.” Sunlight fades almost completely out of view, and our knowledge about these dark depths fades too.

“It’s almost easier to define it by what we don’t know than what we do know,” Andone Lavery, an acoustician at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, told Vox’s Byrd Pinkerton.

Yet this region of the ocean is extremely important. It’s possible — but not certain — that there are more fish living in the twilight zone than the rest of the ocean combined, and creatures of the dark ocean play a large role in regulating the climate.

Further reading: “It’s deep. It’s dark. It’s elusive.” The ocean’s twilight zone is full of wonders.

What killed Venus?

“Hellscape” is the most appropriate word to describe the surface of Venus, the second planet from the sun. At 900 degrees Fahrenheit, it’s the hottest planet in the solar system, thanks in part to an atmosphere of almost entirely carbon dioxide. Clouds of highly corrosive sulfuric acid are draped over a volcanic landscape of razor-sharp lava flows. Most crushingly, the pressure on the surface of Venus is about 92 times the pressure you’d feel at sea level on Earth.

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Unexplainable is a weekly science podcast about everything we don’t know. For stories about great scientific mysteries, follow us wherever you listen to podcasts .

Yet some scientists suspect Venus was once much like Earth, with a liquid water ocean like the ones that support life on our planet. This prompts an existential question for life on Earth. “It really is a question about why are we here,” says Robin George Andrews, volcanologist and author of Super Volcanoes: What They Reveal about Earth and the Worlds Beyond .

“Venus and Earth are planetary siblings,” Andrews says. “They were made at the same time and made of the same stuff, yet Venus is apocalyptic and awful in every possible way. Earth is a paradise. So why do we have a paradise next to a paradise lost?”

There are two leading hypotheses. One is that the sun cooked Venus to death. The other is that volcanoes did.

Further reading: Venus could have been a paradise but turned into a hellscape. Earthlings, pay attention.

What will animals look like in the future?

It’s impossible to completely predict how evolution will play out in the future, but that doesn’t mean we can’t try. Reporter Mandy Nguyen asked biologists and other experts to weigh in: What could animals look like a million years from now?

The experts took the question seriously. “I do think it’s a really useful and important exercise,” Liz Alter, professor of evolutionary biology at California State University Monterey Bay, told Nguyen. In thinking about the forces that will shape the future of life on Earth, we need to think about how humans are changing environments right now.

Further reading: The animals that may exist in a million years, imagined by biologists

What causes Alzheimer’s?

There is no cure for Alzheimer’s, a neurodegenerative disease that causes dementia, and no highly effective treatments, despite decades of research. Why? For one thing, scientists don’t have a complete understanding of what causes the disease.

For years, the prevailing theory has been that Alzheimer’s is caused by pile-ups of proteins called amyloids, which effectively create plaques in the brain. But drugs that help clear amyloids from the brain don’t seem to work very well in combating the disease.

Some scientists think Alzheimer’s researchers have been too focused on this one theory, at the expense of studying other potential causes, like viral infections.

Further reading: The new Alzheimer’s drug that could break Medicare

How is a brainless yellow goo known as “slime mold” so smart?

Slime mold is an extremely simple organism that is also extraordinarily complex.

Technically, they are single-celled organisms. But many individual slime mold cells can fuse themselves together into a huge mass, capable of, well ... thinking.

Slime mold can solve mazes and seems to be able to make risk-benefit decisions. There’s even evidence that slime mold can keep track of time . They do this all without a brain or even a single brain cell. Whatever mechanism allows slime mold to solve these problems, it’s evolved in a manner different from humans. How exactly do they do this? And what can it teach us about the nature of intelligence?

Further reading: Hampshire College promoted a brainless slime mold to its faculty. And it’s working on border policy.

What’s the oldest possible age a human can reach?

Is the first human to live to 150 years old alive today? We don’t know. On average, the human lifespan has risen over the decades in most of the world, but it’s unclear if there’s a ceiling. Could a human live into their second century? The technology and medicine that could make that possible may already be in development. But if it works, there will be unsettling questions for societies to answer.

Further reading: Science reporter Ferris Jabr’s piece “ How Long Can We Live? ” for the New York Times Magazine inspired this episode.

Are long-haul symptoms unique to Covid-19?

Millions of people around the world have dealt with long-term symptoms of Covid-19 for weeks or months after their initial infection has cleared. Some scientists say these “long-haul” symptoms are not unique to Covid. Instead, they argue that many types of viral infections can leave people with long-term symptoms, which often can go under-recognized in medicine. The question is: What connects all of these long-haul symptoms?

“It has always been [and] is the case that patients who get sick experience high levels of symptoms like those described by long-Covid patients,” Megan Hosey, assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, told Vox’s Julia Belluz . “We have just done a terrible job of acknowledging [and] treating them.”

Further reading: The nagging symptoms long-haulers experience reveal a frustrating blind spot in medicine.

Why don’t doctors know more about endometriosis?

In people with endometriosis, tissue similar to what grows inside the uterus grows elsewhere in the body. It’s a chronic condition that can be debilitatingly painful. Yet doctors don’t fully understand what causes it, and treatment options are limited.

Worse, many people with endometriosis find that doctors can be dismissive of their concerns. It can take years to get an accurate diagnosis, and research into the condition has been poorly funded.

Vox reporter Byrd Pinkerton highlighted how frustrating it can be to suffer from an often-ignored, chronic condition. “It’s just so, so, so soul-crushing to just live in this body day in and day out,” one patient told Pinkerton.

Further reading: People with endometriosis experience terrible pain. There’s finally a new treatment.

Why do we have anuses — or butts, for that matter?

This is a question we never even knew we wanted to answer — until we heard the Atlantic’s Katherine Wu explain that “the appearance of the anus was momentous in animal evolution.” Before the appearance of the anus, animals had to eat and excrete through the same hole. The anus allowed for a more efficient system, and allowed animal life on Earth to grow bigger and take on new shapes and forms.

But scientists don’t have a complete picture of the evolutionary history here; they don’t know which creature developed the anus first, and when. “It’s so hard to study something that must be millions and millions of years old and doesn’t fossilize,” Wu says.

And then there’s a whole other question: Why is the human butt so big, compared with other mammals?

Further reading: Katherine Wu’s “ The Body’s Most Embarrassing Organ Is an Evolutionary Marvel ,” at the Atlantic.

What the heck is ball lightning?

For millennia, people have been telling stories about mysterious spheres of light that glow, crackle, and hover eerily during thunderstorms. They’ve been spotted in homes, in rural areas, in cities, on airplanes , and even passing through windows .

They seem out of this world, but scientists believe they are very much of this world. These apparitions are called ball lightning, and they remain one of the most mysterious weather phenomena on Earth.

Ball lightning usually only lasts for a few moments, and it’s impossible to predict where and when it’ll show up. You can’t hunt ball lightning and reliably find it. Ball lightning finds you.

It’s rare, but many people have seen it. Scientists don’t know exactly where it comes from, but that hasn’t stopped them from trying to make it themselves, in their labs.

Further reading: Ball lightning is real, and very rare. This is what it’s like to experience it.

And so many more...

Those are just 11 of the mysteries we’ve explored in Unexplainable . There are so many more ! They include questions like: Can we predict when tornadoes will form? Where does all the plastic go in the ocean? Why do some people think they can talk to the dead? What’s the deal with “Havana syndrome”? How will the universe end? How tall is Mount Everest? Why does the placebo effect work? Find all the episodes here .

If you have ideas for topics for future shows, send us an email at [email protected].

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Listen&Learn: The Mandela Effect

Pre-listening vocabulary.

• phenomenon: a situation that is hard to explain
• coverage: media reports of an event
• insist: to argue persistently that something is true
• theory: an attempt to explain why something happens
• multiverse: the idea that there are many universes with different versions of events
• influence: to affect or change something
• individual: a single person

Listening activity

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:19 — 1.2MB)

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Gapfill exercise

Comprehension questions, discussion/essay questions.

• Have you ever experienced something like the Mandela Effect? Do you remember anything that didn’t actually happen?
• Do you believe in alternate universes? Why or why not?

The Mandela Effect is a strange phenomenon where large groups of people seem to share the same false memories . The effect is named after former South African president Nelson Mandela. This is because many people say that they remember news coverage of Nelson Mandela’s death back in the 1980s, even though Mandela did not die until 2013. There are many well-known examples of the Mandela Effect. Some people remember song lyrics or movie lines incorrectly . Many people insist that the famous Mona Lisa didn’t always have a smile on her face. This effect has caused some people to form theories about the multiverse. However, the most reasonable explanation for the Mandela Effect is that the opinions of a group can easily influence an individual. This can affect our thoughts, our beliefs , and even our memories. 

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18 comments

I believe that the Mandela Effect is real, but I have never experienced it. However, I don’t believe in the existence of alternate universes. There may be another universe other than the one we are living in, but it’s not an alternate version of what we have here.

the kid from the home alone movies.i was a teenager and on drugs and remember thta my grandma tried to make his death out as something that would happen t me soon , th eberenstine bears , i remeb=mber learning to spell oit because the speling of my best friends name was simular. coke a cola , i have drawn that logo thousands of times , . honestly the list goes on , but i dont watch tv , i dont listen to the raido or news , i barely use face book once every few months to contact a friend, so how would i be influenced by other ppol i had never heard of the mandella effect, i had just been sitting in a waiting room and saw something on the home alone kid and could not belive he was alive , cause i saw thattmz special on his death , i searched from there

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I have never experienced a Mandela effect.

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Unexplained Phenomena

Ancient Origins brings a section to explore some of the unexplained phenomena, not only current events and reports, but also those unexplained mysteries of the world. Visit us online to learn more about the mysteries which remain unsolved even today.

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19 Examples of Supernatural and Paranormal Phenomena Explained

Karen is a freelance writer with more than 25 years of experience writing for an array of publications, including authoring several books.

Learn about our Editorial Policy .

Many experiences fall within the realm of the paranormal and supernatural. By definition, a supernatural or paranormal phenomenon is an event or entity that defies explanation in terms of the typical human experience. Supernatural examples include ghosts, cryptids, telekinesis, and other forms of psychic powers or paranormal entities. It is something that science can't explain; at least not yet. Discover some of the most common types of paranormal phenomena.

Ghosts might be considered the grand-daddy of paranormal experiences. Everyone has some level of curiosity about what happens when they die. Is there really life after physical death? Are spirits capable of communicating with the living? Some people believe so, and some desperately hope it's true. Wherever you stand on the topic, many people have reported seeing misty apparitions of human forms, some familiar and others unknown.

• Lost Answers: 15 Ancient Mysteries of the World That Remain Unsolved

Current parapsychological theory holds that a ghost's pure consciousness exists as energy and is able to communicate through extrasensory perceptions such as clairaudience and clairvoyance. Interestingly, it is believed that the creatures that exist in this supernatural realm are not necessarily dead, but rather can be the consciousness of anyone, living or dead, that is currently disembodied. In other words, a living human who is having an out of body experience or astral projection may appear to someone else as a ghost.

A group of otherworldly beings referred to as "elementals" are often thought of as ghosts, but because they are not spirits of people who have previously lived, they are not considered "ghosts." Elementals are nature spirits or etheric spirits believed to be mythical; however, people have reported experiencing or seeing them. This category includes (but isn't limited to):

• Tree people
• Earth or nature spirits

Lore suggests elemental spirits are essential for creating, sustaining, and renewing life on earth, and they have supernatural abilities that help them with these tasks.

Although many people believe angels to be religious in nature, others feel there are supernatural beings called guardian angels who watch over and protect them. These may also be referred to as spirit guides. Angels are believed to be of high vibration energy coming from God or Source.

Opinions are split about whether demons actually exist. Some people misperceive spirit activities from ghosts as being demonic activity, but there is a theoretical difference between the two. Demonology is a popular paranormal topic. There are many in the paranormal community who have dedicated their paranormal careers to demonology.

From a faith-based perspective, there is a widespread belief that demons are fallen angels who become the minions of Satan; however, many modern paranormal researchers dismiss this idea. Instead, they believe that what is thought to be a demon is really just an angry ghost or a misunderstood spirit. Many believe that people retain their personalities from life into the afterlife, and a demon may just be a person who was not very nice in life and is continuing on in the afterlife.

The Roman Catholic church remains among the foremost experts on demons, and the church still trains priests as experts who assist people believed to be possessed by demons by performing exorcisms.

Poltergeists

Poltergeist phenomena is one of the most misunderstood types of supernatural activity, according to parapsychologists. Poltergeists are often referred to as "noisy ghosts," and their activity includes moving of objects, opening and closing of doors, and many other odd phenomena.

Within paranormal realms, poltergeist hauntings are often the most feared because they can be terrifying and even violent. Many are surprised to learn that parapsychologists believe poltergeists have nothing to do with haunts or dead people, as parapsychologist Loyd Auerbach explains in an interview with LoveToKnow. According to Auerbach, poltergeist activity is actually a manifestation of psychokinetic energy from a living human who is likely unaware they are causing the activity.

There is great debate in the paranormal field about whether orbs are caused by supernatural activity. While many believe orbs are spirit manifestations or the appearance of supernatural entities like angels, others feel they are merely photographic artifacts or dust particles. However, orbs do appear regularly in videography and photographs captured by paranormal investigators and experiencers, so the debate is likely to continue.

Hauntings are supernatural experiences that are typically attached to a location. They can involve ghosts, but this isn't always the case. In parapsychological research, a haunting is something popularly referred to as a residual haunting. It's activity that involves a scenario repeating itself over and over in a given location at a general time of day like you're watching a supernatural re-run of a TV program. This differs from the term "ghost" or "apparition" because a haunting is a replay of energy that doesn't have any intelligence, while a ghost or apparition is an apparently intelligent and interactive event.

Has Earth been visited by beings from another world? Does life exist beyond the earth's atmosphere? There's certainly a lot of anecdotal evidence to support the claims, as well as a large body of questionable physical evidence. Some people even claim the US government is keeping conclusive physical evidence under tight security since the infamous UFO crash decades ago in Roswell, New Mexico. There are many reported UFO sightings around the world, leading many to believe that we are not alone on planet Earth.

Alien Abduction

Closely related to the phenomena of UFOs is alien abduction. Since the early 1960s when Betty and Barney Hill reported being abducted by aliens and taken aboard a ship, there have been hundreds of reports all around the world, including some made famous in books and movies, such as Whitley Strieber's 1985 reported abduction he shared in his book Communion , and the claimed abduction of Travis Walton . Stories among abductees bear remarkable similarities, and details don't waver under hypnosis, leading organizations like International Center for Abduction Research (ICAR) to conduct ongoing research into this fascinating phenomenon.

Bigfoot researchers like Dr. Jeff Meldrum argue that cryptozoology shouldn't fit in the category of paranormal activity because the likelihood is some of these creatures (including Bigfoot) exist and aren't supernatural creatures, but just animals that have not yet been discovered and classified. DNA testing is ongoing to discover evidence of the origins of these creatures.

Cryptozoology - Other Cryptids

This fascinating branch of paranormal research is all about animals as yet unidentified and cataloged by conventional science. There are numerous cryptids that fascinate people including:

• Skunk Ape creatures
• The Loch Ness Monster
• Jersey Devil

Black-Eyed Kids

One type of potential supernatural creature that is currently scaring the heck out of people is that of black-eyed kids. These youth appear normal, except they are said to have eyes of pure black, and they appear to people stating they are in distress and in need of assistance. People encountering them report feeling terror when they appear.

Supernatural Creatures of Lore

This category includes famous legendary creatures such as:

The belief in these paranormal creatures has been around for centuries, usually arising from stories passed down through cultures to explain elements of life that couldn't be easily understood. Some people report sightings of werewolves, Mothman, and vampires, potentially lending credence to myths surrounding these legendary creatures.

Psychic Ability

There are several types of psychic abilities that exist, from mediumship (the ability to communicate with the dead) to the various "clairs" that include:

• Clairvoyance - psychic seeing
• Clairaudience - psychic hearing
• Clairsentience - psychic knowing
• Clairolfaction - psychic smelling
• Clairgustance - psychic tasting
• Clairtangency - psychic feeling/touching

Also included in psychic abilities are empathy (experiencing someone else's feelings as your own), psychometry (receiving psychic information from touching objects), telepathy or ESP (psychic communication), and animal communication. Many organizations, including the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) are conducting ongoing research into this phenomena.

Survival of Consciousness

Many people group various phenomena, such as reincarnation and near-death experiences, into a category known as survival of consciousness after death. These are experiences people share through hypnotherapy, recovered memories, and various other routes that suggest their soul continued on after the death of a physical body. Many people from cultures around the world share stories of reincarnation, and researchers like Dr. Ian Stevenson have dedicated their life's work to researching reports of reincarnation. Likewise, Dr. Raymond Moody and others like him have researched near-death experiences and report remarkable similarities among experiencers.

Other Metaphysical Phenomena

Metaphysical phenomena include but are not limited to such concepts as:

• Astrology : The study of how the planets and other astral bodies affect the human experience
• Chakras : Seven energy portals located at specific points of the body from the pelvis to the top of the head
• Auras: Colorful energy fields that envelop a person at any given moment
• Energy healing: Various forms of healing, such as Reiki, that involve the human energy field

Explore Paranormal Phenomena

This is only a small sampling of things that can be considered supernatural and paranormal phenomena. With the current level of paranormal research, science may find soon find answers to many unexplained phenomena. Until then, they represent how much humanity still has to learn about the universe.

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7 Strange Geological Phenomena You Won’t Believe Exist

The natural world is full of strange and fascinating geological phenomena that seem almost otherworldly. From rocks that move on their own to underwater sinkholes and rainbow-colored mountains, these phenomena challenge our understanding of how the Earth works and offer glimpses into the incredible forces that shape our planet. In this article, we’ll explore 7 of the most strange and surprising geological phenomena from around the world that you won’t believe exist.

Sailing Stones

Fairy circles, blood falls, giant’s causeway, rainbow mountains, petrified forests.

The phenomenon of the “Sailing Stones” is a mysterious geological occurrence that has puzzled scientists and intrigued visitors for years. Located in the Racetrack Playa of Death Valley National Park in California, these rocks appear to move across the desert floor on their own, leaving behind long tracks that can stretch for hundreds of feet.

Despite years of study, the cause of this movement is still not fully understood. However, it’s believed to be caused by a combination of factors, including strong winds, slick mud, and ice. During cold desert nights, a thin layer of ice can form on the surface of the playa, creating a slick surface that allows the rocks to move when pushed by even the slightest breeze.

While there have been many theories put forth to explain the Sailing Stones, it wasn’t until the advent of time-lapse photography that scientists were finally able to capture the movement of the rocks in action, providing important new clues about the forces at work in this unusual geological phenomenon.

Fairy Circles are circular patches of barren earth surrounded by a ring of tall grasses found in the Namib Desert in southern Africa. These circles are typically between 6 and 30 feet in diameter and are evenly spaced, sometimes covering hundreds of acres.

The cause of these circles has long been a mystery, but there are many theories that attempt to explain this strange phenomenon. One popular theory is that the circles are created by termites, which burrow beneath the surface of the desert and create underground tunnels that allow water to spread evenly throughout the area. This creates a pattern of alternating wet and dry areas that promote the growth of grass around the edges of the circles, while leaving the center barren.

Another theory suggests that the circles are caused by competition between the grasses for limited resources, such as water and nutrients. This leads to a self-organizing pattern of vegetation that creates the distinctive circular shape of the fairy circles.

While the exact cause of the fairy circles is still unknown, they remain a fascinating geological phenomenon that has captured the imaginations of scientists and visitors alike.

Blood Falls is a geological phenomenon located in Antarctica’s Taylor Glacier. It gets its name from the outflow of iron-rich salty water that flows from the glacier, giving it the appearance of blood.

The water that emerges from Blood Falls is highly saline and contains a high concentration of iron . This creates a reaction with the oxygen in the air, causing the water to turn a deep red color, similar to blood. The water flows from an underground reservoir beneath the glacier, which is believed to have been sealed off from the outside world for millions of years.

Scientists believe that the water in the reservoir is kept liquid due to geothermal heating from the Earth’s interior, which allows it to remain liquid even in the extremely cold temperatures of the Antarctic. The high salt and iron content of the water make it inhospitable to most forms of life, but it is home to a unique community of microorganisms that have adapted to survive in this harsh environment.

Blood Falls is a fascinating example of the unique and extreme geological processes that occur in some of the world’s most inhospitable environments.

Blue Holes are underwater sinkholes that are found in various parts of the world, but are most famous in the Caribbean Sea. These deep, circular sinkholes are characterized by their dark blue color and their seemingly bottomless depths.

The unique blue color of Blue Holes comes from the depth of the sinkhole , which creates a deep blue color due to the absorption of light at different depths. Some Blue Holes are several hundred feet deep, making them some of the deepest underwater caves in the world.

Blue Holes are home to a variety of marine life, including sharks, turtles, and fish. They are also popular destinations for divers and snorkelers due to their unique beauty and the sense of adventure that comes with exploring an underwater cave.

Some Blue Holes are also significant from a geological standpoint, as they offer scientists a glimpse into the history of the Earth’s climate and sea levels. By analyzing sediment and fossils found in Blue Holes, researchers can learn about past climate patterns and sea level changes, and use this information to better understand the future of our planet.

Giant’s Causeway is a natural geological formation located in Northern Ireland that consists of over 40,000 hexagonal basalt columns that are interlocked like puzzle pieces. The columns are made of cooled and hardened lava that was erupted from a volcanic fissure about 60 million years ago.

The basalt columns vary in height and width, with some reaching as high as 39 feet. The formation is named after a legend that claims it was created by the giant Finn McCool as a path to Scotland, where he planned to fight his Scottish counterpart, Benandonner.

The unique hexagonal shape of the basalt columns is due to the way the lava cooled and solidified as it flowed into the sea. As the lava cooled, it contracted and cracked, forming the distinctive polygonal shapes that make up the columns.

Giant’s Causeway is a popular tourist attraction and is also recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It has been the subject of scientific study for centuries, with researchers using it as a natural laboratory to better understand the processes that shape our planet.

The Rainbow Mountains, also known as the Zhangye Danxia Landform Geological Park, are a natural wonder located in Gansu Province, China. They get their name from their colorful appearance, which is caused by the presence of different minerals that have been compressed and eroded over millions of years.

The Rainbow Mountains are made up of a series of sandstone and mineral deposits that were formed over 24 million years ago. The different colors are the result of the oxidization of iron and other minerals, which created unique bands of red, orange, yellow, green, and blue.

The park is home to a number of hiking trails and viewing platforms that allow visitors to get a closer look at the colorful formations. It is also a popular destination for photography enthusiasts who are drawn to the otherworldly landscape and vibrant colors.

The Rainbow Mountains are an excellent example of the stunning natural beauty that can be found throughout the world. They are a testament to the incredible forces of nature that shape our planet, and offer a unique glimpse into the geological history of the region.

Petrified forests are ancient forests that have been turned to stone through a process called petrification. This occurs when trees are buried under sediment or volcanic ash, which cuts off their oxygen supply and prevents them from decomposing. Over time, the minerals in the sediment or ash seep into the wood, replacing the organic material and transforming the trees into stone.

Petrified forests can be found all over the world, with some of the most famous examples located in Arizona’s Petrified Forest National Park and in Yellowstone National Park. In these parks, visitors can see thousands of petrified trees that are millions of years old.

Petrified forests offer a unique glimpse into the past, as they provide scientists with valuable information about ancient ecosystems and climate patterns. By studying the types of trees that have been petrified and the sediment layers surrounding them, researchers can learn about the climate and geography of the area at the time the trees were alive.

Petrified forests are also popular tourist attractions, as they offer visitors the chance to see a natural wonder that is both beautiful and awe-inspiring. Whether exploring the trails of a national park or admiring petrified wood in a museum, petrified forests are a fascinating reminder of the incredible forces of nature that have shaped our planet over millions of years.

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Update: Make sure to checkout the new Familiar Stranger mobile phone application: Jabberwocky

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Strange phenomena

A month has passed, since we talked, half-seriously, in this introductory text about the monstrosity of the current era. To us, it seemed interesting to deal with this contemporaneity, from which we so directly drink, from a critical point of view, through current expressions of art, from a clear, or not so clear, stance. Approaching the distinct without the usual respect. The monstrous, the abnormal.

For this, we needed to cast off the weight of the political and float towards the fantastic, because, like many, we’re disgusted by the terrible times that beset our century. On the other hand, although it sounds (or reads) odd, at the same time, it seems curious that what we are drawn to, in what we intrinsically reject, be precisely this, the charge of the “unknown” that brings with it the bearer of difference. Difference, or distance, has been tackled in this month that has brought with it such great texts, from an almost fantastical point of view, from freak love to the mystical and a fondness for the alternative language of what we consider “strange phenomena”, monsters, freaks.

Juanjo Santos interviewed Lars Bang Larsen , co-curator of the Sao Paulo Biennale 2016, author of the famous essay ” Zombies of Immaterial Labor: the Modern Monster and the Death of Death”, a collection of essays with a sociological perspective about the tensions of contemporary art and the current economy. An interview that dealt with psychedelia as an element generating various truths, the potential of the zombie as concept and symbol…

Ana Llurba dissected before them, the exhibition titled Aura Nera , by Regina de Miguel at the Arts Santa Mònica. An exhibition plagued with myths, other science, dark genealogies, and in short, significant spaces for this differentiated, occult space where what we call the monstrous grows and prospers. Post-humanism, mythologies, dark winds, Donna Haraway, mythological femininities, amongst much more…

On her part, Caterina Almirall published a marvellous pastiche brimming with dinosaurs and their representation and primordial conceptualization. A sort of architecture of the imagined, the projected, an archaeology realised through fragments – as an excuse – a precarious quasi-ordering of the object, rich in concept, the fruit of the assemblage of bits after their extinction.

We’ve also wallowed in excellence with Manuela Pedrón Nicolau and her review of Slow Motion , Ben Rivers’s film infected by the landscape of the strange, of islands and unknown destinations that inhabit the imaginary of unconventional science fiction, much less abstract, or speculative if you want, more open to intangible questions, to alternate codes of representation.

And meanwhile, we turn – without a text that reviews it – to the inauguration (strange opening) of “The more we know about them, the stranger they become” a cycle curated by Sonia F. Pan [[http://themoreweknowaboutthemthestrangertheybeco.me]], on floor 0 of Arts Santa Mónica which, after the intro that captivated us, starts on the 2 February with Roc Jiménez de Cisneros. We particularly liked the subjectification of the object, the emptying of the space to reclaim its presence, one that takes on a persona, embodying almost a “fabulous” process, in the sense of a fable, one we don’t know where it might take us. The cycle is called “the more I know them, the stranger they become” and to us it seemed a magnificent colophon and starting shot to continue onwards with this search for the strange. We continue…

In archaeology the context is everything

Four horror stories in slow action, “i am only interested in visionary art to the extent that it is involved in immanent struggles”: lars bang larsen, post-humanism and utopia in aura nera, by regina de miguel, strange phenomena. welcome to 2017.

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January 5, 2024

The Strange and Beautiful Science of Our Lives

Nell Greenfieldboyce discusses her new book  Transient and Strange,  the intimacy of the essays and the science that inspired them.

By Brianne Kane & Carin Leong

Alfredo Martínez Fernández/Getty Images

Brianne Kane: Have you ever thought about how strange everything is? Ha, no—but really, something happens in January, when it still feels like last year, but it’s suddenly this year, and it always makes me ask: What are we transitioning into? What have we transitioned from? 

I’m Bri Kane, a member of Scientific American ’s editorial team and resident reader. Today I’m sharing a conversation with Nell Greenfieldboyce, author of Transient and Strange . I asked her about this new intimate collection of essays she’s written about the science that helps contextualize her life—and all our lives, for that matter. The essays range from why fleas have sexy poems written about them to how Mecca inspired touchable moonstones oceans away to even how all of this is tiny but still meaningful when you remember just how big time and space really are. 

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[CLIP: Show theme music]

You might recognize Nell’s voice. She’s been an NPR science correspondent for a while. You may also recognize the title of her new book from a Walt Whitman poem called “Year of Meteors.” For those of you who are poetry aficionados or fans of Meter, our poetry column, “Year of Meteors” ends with Whitman talking to time and space itself about the new year he finds himself in and how strange it is to see your own self in the brief and beautiful years coming and going.

He’s asking a similar question to what Nell asks herself and asks the readers of her book: What are we doing here? What am I transitioning to or out of? What have I learned along the way?

Although my conversation with Nell took place a few weeks ago, I’m still thinking about it. This one is not for the faint of heart, but it is for those looking around, wondering what strange new year, and life, is on the horizon.

[CLIP: Music cue] 

Kane: Thank you so much for joining me today, Nell.

When I first read the book, I was struck by how much I learned from a short collection of essays. I wanted to ask you about the touchable space rock and your connection to it. I'd never heard of this before.

Nell Greenfieldboyce: So, it's here in the city where I live, Washington, D. C. The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum has this touchable moon rock.

It's one of the rocks that the Apollo astronauts brought home. And it’s just—it’s on display, and people can touch it. And that was the idea of a scientist who had worked on the Apollo program and then went to work at the museum, uh, when it was first starting. Editor's Note: The touchable moon rock exhibit debuted in 1976 and was the idea of Farouk El-Baz, then director of the museum’s Center for Earth and Planetary Studies.

And his idea was, you know, one of the things we should do is, like, let people touch a moon rock. And, um, it was because of this experience he had on pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, where he saw, like, the black stone that’s in Mecca that pilgrims try to touch or point to; it’s associated with Muhammad.

And so he had this idea that this would be a really powerful emotional experience for people to touch a moon rock, and I think that it took a while to convince NASA that this would be a good thing to do, given that they had just spent a lot of money and a lot of time getting these precious rocks, and then you were just going to put one in the museum for, like, any random person to just, like, you know, put their hands all over it.

Kane: It's so interesting to even think about the idea of touching a moon rock, but I loved your connection to this rock and how you connected it to a necklace that you wear yourself.

Greenfieldboyce: Yeah, I wear a meteorite necklace most days. I don’t—I’m not a big jewelry person, but I do like wearing a meteorite because I feel like it’s just a good thing to have to remind you that space is big, the universe is big, and whatever’s going on in your day, you know, there’s just kind of this visceral reminder that there’s a lot out there and that your little concerns are rather puny.

Kane: That’s such a good point—a daily reminder of just how big everything is and how small we are. I was really interested in the chapter about the Rothschild family and the queen of fleas. Can you tell me about that? 

Greenfieldboyce: Yeah. So who knew that the Rothschilds were really into fleas, but, you know, being a scientist, being a naturalist, was a very, like, sort of, like, learned, you know, high-society thing to do.

You have collections of things, you know, these sort of cabinets of curiosities. And so in the Rothschilds family, it was apparently fleas, like, you know, Miriam Rothschild’s father had amassed what was probably the world's most important collection of fleas. And she grew up in this household where, you know, she didn’t go to like a traditional school, but she would go around with her father and, you know, sample fleas.

And she herself devoted her life to studying fleas. And she learned that one flea sort of syncs up its reproductive system with the reproductive system of its hosts. So there’s this flea or rabbit flea that has to feed on pregnant rabbits to be able to mature its own offspring. And the fleas are so interesting because they’re so little and small, and yet so much of the history of science and thinking about the universe and sort of poetry and metaphor can all be encapsulated in fleas, which—and you know, Herman Melville didn’t think that was possible.

He thought you needed a big whale or something like that. But obviously a flea is just as potent a source of symbolic power, as far as I can tell. 

Kane: Yeah, I was surprised by another example of just how big everything is, the entire field of science, the entire history of science, and then how small but important some of these examples are, like a flea. And the poems about fleas – how did you find those?

Greenfieldboyce: So there was this whole tradition of literary soft porn that involved fleas, because, you know, the fleas used to be more of an everyday thing.

And so people would search their bodies for fleas at night. And so, you know, you could have a painter who would paint, you know, a beautiful half naked woman, like, searching her body for fleas. It was an excuse to show, like, you know, half naked women next to their beds. And then, you know, the whole notion that the fleas could, like, crawl under people’s clothes and, like, you know, suck their blood and, like, just go anywhere on a woman’s body that they wanted was like very alluring.

You know, so there is a lot of, like, love poems and, like, you know, poetry that involves fleas. It’s very strange. I think that people in their minds maybe keep science and poetry pretty separate, but to me, they are closely linked because I think that both poets and, um, scientists are trying to understand the universe, and they’re often experimenting, um, and they're working within a kind of, um, confined space, a kind of constraints of certain kinds that often generates a lot of creativity.

Kane: But I think what you just said about the connection between literary works and science is really interesting. That they share a lens, and they share a goal of understanding. The work overall, your book, is fairly literary. I have to admit, I myself was surprised to see a Melville chapter and references to Walt Whitman.

The title itself is a literary reference. Can you tell me how you came to that title?

Greenfieldboyce: My editor at Norton, Matt Weiland, [who] suggested it. Um, it was from an essay on meteorites and the, the quote is from a Walt Whitman poem where he was writing a poem about this great meteor procession and, you know, um, of course he said it much more elegantly, but, you know, he’s like, you know, you’re transient and strange and, like, look, here I am, too. I’m also transient and strange. And so Matt, my editor, thought that that really encapsulated what a lot of this collection of essays is about.

It’s about, you know, exploring things that are transient and strange, whether they’re things, um, in the universe or things in your own life that happened, um, and everybody’s trying to investigate them and understand them, and scientists do it one way, and artists do it a different way. Children do it another way, but it’s fundamentally all the same exercise and investigation.

Kane: Yeah, as I was reading it, I was thinking the same thing about the times we’re living in, right? People are calling them unprecedented times, but things do feel very transitory and they feel very strange. I wanted to ask you if the act of writing this book was you embracing that transitory state, that strangeness that we’re all wading around in right now.

Greenfieldboyce: Yeah. I mean, honestly, you know, um, I wrote these essays, um, not really knowing what I was going to do with them. And the act of writing is itself a sort of transient and strange, um, phenomenon.

A lot of people [who] have said that among writing forms, in some ways, the essay is the most kind of experimental form because it’s not so prescribed about how it should look or what should go in it or where it should go.

Kane: I couldn't agree more. I think the essay is a really free-flowing form for writers to kind of find the format that they need for this story or for this stream of thought. Your publisher is calling this book [a collection of] intimate essays about everyday life, and it felt very intimate reading this book. It’s about 200 pages, but it packs a few punches in there.

I wanted to ask you which essay felt the most intimate for you to share with us.

Greenfieldboyce: I think the essay about, um, about the final essay in the book, um, “My Eugenics Project,” about, um, the issues that my husband and I talked about as we, uh, contemplated whether or not to, to try to prevent a hereditary disease in our kids. I, I feel like that was pretty darn intimate, and, um, at the time it was really quite, um, quite emotionally, um, exhausting for me.

I mean, like, that’s one, that's one thing about—another thing about personal essays is there’s, there’s often a very revealing quality to them. And, you know, you just sort of, like, just try to be honest and try to say what happened and what you thought then and what you think now, and, like, you don’t know. Yeah, you just sort of put it out there without really any knowledge about how other people will respond. Among all the things that are in the book, that’s the one, that’s one of the few things that I thought, wow, like, maybe I really ought not to be so open. But I did; I did it. Too late now.

Kane: Well, I have to say, I am so glad that you were so open with that essay.

I found it to stop me in my tracks. I thought it was a very beautiful exploration of a very serious conversation that does happen in marital beds, in doctors’ offices, and we cannot pretend like it’s not. We have to acknowledge it and be able to discuss it openly. I wanted to ask you how you were able to approach that chapter as a writer and a mother yourself.

Greenfieldboyce: I don’t know to what extent, um, people know the history of eugenics, but I learned it in college and have been reading about it since then. And it’s amazing to me how little it’s talked about or discussed. I do think that, you know, there’s this tendency now to throw around the word eugenics, and people often don’t even know what they—what it means exactly.

They know it was bad. They know it was associated with Nazis. Um, but I didn’t know a lot about, um, the role of people who espoused eugenic ideals in the sort of, um, genetic counseling, um, birth of that as a field. And I thought that was really interesting. And so when I started to think about my own experiences, um, I was often looking to try to understand what I went through, not just personally but, like, in a sort of like historical sense.

So for me, it’s really important to treat the history of science as not something that happened a long time ago and that just isn’t relevant to us but as something that is, is something that is very much still, like, playing out in various ways and having different echoes today. And that’s what I really wanted to try to convey as a writer—is that this stuff isn’t just, like, past history. It’s still kind of resonating. It’s, like, it’s, like, you hit a tuning fork or whatever, and there’s resonance that keeps on going.

Kane: That’s a really beautiful answer. I was struck by your relationship to motherhood in the book, and it felt very intimate how you pulled the curtain back to allow us into those conversations with your husband and with your doctors. But also the book starts with a really interesting conversation with your son and explaining just kind of the entropy of life through tornadoes. Can you tell me about that?

Greenfieldboyce: Yeah, so when my son was very young, he developed this really, um, big fear of tornadoes, which—you know, we live in Washington, D. C.; it’s not a particularly tornado-prone part of the country. Um, but he was quite scared of them, and it was an issue in our lives dealing with this. And, you know, as a parent, you’re supposed to try to, like, reassure your child. You’re supposed to, like, you know, help them with their fears. But I often found it difficult to do that because I don’t want to lie to my children. And so, you know, how do you tell your child it’s not going to happen?

Because I don’t know what’s going to happen. You know what I mean? Like, how do you teach your children about the possibility of just, like, random obliteration?

And, like, you know, you’re supposed to be a parent; you’re supposed to know. But obviously you don’t know; you don't have any idea. And you’re just sort of trying to muddle through as best you can. Um, and so I found my children then and now to be quite challenging in asking the big questions and forcing confrontations with stuff that maybe it would be easier just not to think about.

Kane: I loved that you started the book with that conversation with your son because it seemed like—in preparing your son for the entropy of life and how to be prepared but not scared—you know, it felt like you were preparing the reader as well about what you are about to get into, what this book is going to probe you to think about, uh, to bring us to an end today.

I wanted to ask you: What do you hope readers will be thinking about as they conclude reading your book?

Greenfieldboyce: For me, what I hope people would come away with is just a sense that, um, the enterprise of science is not so far removed from your everyday life.

It’s not removed from the way you think about things and the way that you and your children interact in the world. And it’s not removed from events that you experience as a person. And so, um, to me, it’s all just one continuous thread. And, like, we’re part of it. You know, we are, we are [a] transient, beautiful, brief part of it.

Um, but we’re, we’re right there in the mix. It’s, like, right up close to us. And that’s, that’s what I hope people would take away, a sense of that closeness. 

[Clip: Theme music]

Kane: Thank you so much, Nell Greenfieldboyce. This was a wonderful conversation to have with you about a really incredible book, Transient and Strange. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Greenfieldboyce: Thanks for having me on the show.

Kane: For Science, Quickly , I’m Bri Kane. 

Science, Quickly is produced by Tulika Bose, Jeff DelViscio, Kelso Harper and Carin Leong. Our music is composed by Dominic Smith.

Subscribe to Science, Quickly wherever you get your podcasts. If you like the show, give us a rating or review!

See you next time! Happy reading!

Photo by Christopher Anderson/Magnum

Have you been here before? The eerie sensation is the shadow of your mind searching inward for clues to its own survival

by Anne Cleary   + BIO

Déjà vu, the eerie sense that something new has been experienced before, has confounded us for hundreds of years. Along with the public, philosophers, physicians, intellectuals and, more recently, scientists have tried to get to the bottom of the phenomenon. Potential explanations have ranged from double perception (the idea that an initial glance at something was only partially taken in, leading to déjà vu upon a second, fuller glance) to dissolution of perceptual boundaries (a brief blurring of boundaries between the self and the environment) to seizure activity to memory-based explanations (the idea that déjà vu results from a buried memory). Now, research emerging from my lab and others suggests that déjà vu is not just a spooky experience, but a possible mechanism for focusing attention – perhaps an adaptive mechanism for survival shaped by evolution itself.

I first became interested in the topic after reading the paper ‘A Review of the Déjà Vu Experience’ (2003) by the psychologist Alan S Brown – probably the first treatment ever to appear in a mainstream psychology journal. Writing in the Psychological Bulletin , Brown described survey studies, case reports and theoretical ideas culled from more than a century’s worth of writings on déjà vu. Much of the available literature on déjà vu at the time came from non-mainstream sources (and some were even of a paranormal flavour). Still, from this largely fragmented literature, Brown managed to winnow some important clues and presented them in a language that cognitive scientists could work with and act upon: data and theory. The data from the survey studies provided useful empirical starting points, and the very old theories of déjà vu that Brown reviewed provided a scaffolding for devising highly specified hypotheses that could be tested in a lab.

From the large collection of surveys conducted over the years, Brown determined that roughly two-thirds of people experience déjà vu at some point in their lives. He also reported that the likelihood of experiencing déjà vu decreases with age, and that physical settings (or places) are the most common trigger. The finding that déjà vu is most commonly elicited by scenes (as opposed to just speech or objects) was a particularly useful clue for scientists: a new theoretical approach to autobiographical and event memory emphasises a role of scenes in the ability to recollect past life events. Partly based on newer understandings that brain areas critical for first-person navigation through places may also underlie recollective memory ability, the idea is that the first-person perspective within a scene is a crucial facet of human memory. Consider the last dinner that you ate at a restaurant. What is this memory like? Can you ‘see’, in your mind’s eye, where everyone else is sitting relative to you at the table? This illustrates how our ability to process, navigate through and mentally reconstruct our place within past scenes may be central to our recollective memory ability.

T he critical role of our place within scenes in memory may also be why the centuries-old memorisation technique known as the Method of Loci (also called the Memory Palace) is very effective and used by competitive memorisers; it involves envisioning your to-be-remembered information within particular scenes along a route that you regularly take, or within a building that you know well. For example, to remember his talking points in their correct order for his TED talk ‘Feats of Memory Anyone Can Do’ (2012), the science writer Joshua Foer created a visualisation of different points throughout his house, each with a visual-image cue attached to it so that, when he did a mental walk-through of his house starting at a mental image of the front door, he would ‘see’ in his mind’s eye an image cuing him for the next talking point.

In the foyer of his house, Foer had imagined Cookie Monster (the Muppet) on top of Mister Ed (the horse) as his cue to introduce his friend Ed Cooke at that point in the talk. Foer continued moving through various places within his image of his house to access his cues for the next talking points in the order in which he needed to raise them. For example, later on, when arriving at the kitchen in his mental walk-through of his home, he had imagined the characters from The Wizard of Oz along a Yellow Brick Road; this was his cue to describe how he had embarked on a journey and the many friends he met along the way. As Ulric Neisser, often considered the father of cognitive psychology, suggested decades ago, ‘a sense of where you are’ may provide a basis for recollective memory. Although déjà vu is more of a contentless sensation of memory than a recollection of autobiographical experience, the fact that it tends to be elicited by scenes hints at the possibility that it, too, emerges from the same basic scene-processing mechanisms that enable this ‘sense of where you are’.

An example is having a sense of recognition for a person’s face without being able to pinpoint just how you know them

Dovetailing with this useful clue about déjà vu, Brown’s 2003 review also mentioned the ‘Gestalt familiarity hypothesis’ – the theory that déjà vu results from a familiar Gestalt , a German word for the arrangement of elements within a space – such as when a new acquaintance’s living room happens to have the same spatial layout as a previously visited space that fails to come to mind. Brown linked this untested hypothesis of déjà vu to an ongoing approach for studying memory known as the ‘source-monitoring framework’, in which a person can recognise a situation as having been experienced before without pinpointing the source of the familiarity. In what seemed to be an invitation for cognitive scientists, Brown suggested that it would be straightforward to test such hypotheses in the lab.

At the time, I had been studying a phenomenon known as ‘recognition without identification’ and its sister phenomenon , ‘recognition without recall’. Both are thought to reflect the ability to sense that something was experienced before, even when no specific past instance comes to mind. A common example is having a sense of recognition for a person’s face without being able to pinpoint just how you know the person. I immediately saw a connection between my own work and what Brown presented in his review, and I set out to test his ideas.

One of my methods seemed particularly applicable. This was the recognition without recall method . In my original work , participants might receive a cue like ‘POTCHBORK’ that resembles an earlier viewed word, ‘PITCHFORK’. Although a person can successfully use the cue to recall the word it resembles, sometimes recall fails. Recognition without recall is the finding that people give higher familiarity ratings to cues that resemble unrecalled studied words than to cues that do not.

Applying this insight to déjà vu, my students and I developed a variant of the task using black-and-white line drawings. Each test image potentially shared an overall ‘Gestalt’ or arrangement, with an image that had been studied before. When presented with an image on the test, participants attempted to recall a previously viewed image having a similar arrangement of elements. They also rated how familiar the test image seemed and whether or not it provoked a sense of déjà vu. Images that fell into the déjà vu category tended to indeed match arrangements found in prior images, establishing evidence for the Gestalt familiarity hypothesis and setting the stage for what I would later facetiously refer to, in a TEDx talk , as a ‘déjà vu generator’– an implementation of the Gestalt familiarity idea in virtual reality (VR). Wearing a VR headset, participants would be sequentially immersed in different sets of visual surroundings throughout a study phase. In a later test phase, they would be immersed in new scenes, some of which share a spatial layout (ie, arrangement of elements) with scenes from the study phase. Here, the familiar Gestalt would be one’s visual surroundings within the VR environment, as might mimic real-life situations in which déjà vu occurs, and as might involve a sense of where you are.

I met Alan Brown in the summer of 2007 at the American Psychological Association annual convention in San Francisco after inviting him to give a talk on déjà vu. I told him how his 2003 review paper and later book , The Déjà Vu Experience (1st ed, 2004), inspired me to pick up the study of déjà vu myself. This formed the start of a long collaboration. Later over dinner at the 2007 annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society that November in Long Beach, California, we marvelled at how neat it would be to be able to test the Gestalt familiarity hypothesis in VR for an immersive experience in which the spatial layout is one’s visual surroundings within the VR environment. To the extent that VR allows for a simulation of life-like immersion within scenes, this approach might approximate the way in which an arrangement of elements in space (such as where a table, couch, floor lamp and artwork are placed relative to one another within a living room scene) might produce déjà vu in real life. It seemed like a castles-in-the-air idea.

But then in 2008, there I was with a group of students, down in a windowless cinderblock room in the basement of the old Clark Building on the Colorado State University campus, wrestling with a VR headset. Fifteen years ago, VR systems were quite crude. They lacked a user-friendly interface or any form of tech support, and required a lot of improvising in the form of makeshift workarounds. We were working with a set of eMagin Z800 VR goggles and were attempting to get The Sims 2 – a 2004 life-simulation game – to display within the goggles for an immersive experience with the game. This was not trivial. Fortunately, Ben Sawyer was among the tinkerers down in that basement. An undergraduate at the time, with a lot of technical savvy, Sawyer was a legend among the Clark A-wing basement-dwellers for having taken apart and reassembled the always-malfunctioning driving simulator, completely reprogramming it for functional operation in research .

Recognition without recall occurred in the form of higher familiarity ratings among VR test scenes that shared a spatial layout

The Sims 2 video game involves creating indoor and outdoor spaces by placing elements onto a grid from a bird’s eye perspective, and then zooming down into the scene from a first-person perspective to make adjustments and tour the scene. This provided a means by which a large set of scenes, each having an identically configured but otherwise distinct counterpart scene, could be created for viewing from a first-person perspective. For example, a clothing-store scene might have the same arrangement of elements on a grid (eg, the placement of hanging wall displays of clothing relative to a table with folded shirts) as a bedroom scene (eg, the placement of windows and end tables relative to a bed). So while Sawyer worked for months on getting the Sims 2 game engine to output in 3D to the Z800 goggles, I used a pad of graph paper to sketch out a bird’s eye view of dozens of pairs of distinct but identically configured scenes to then manually create within The Sims 2 game, soliciting scene ideas from other team members along the way and keeping a running list (eg, a clothing store configured the same way as a bedroom, a bowling alley configured the same way as a subway station, a museum configured the same way as a courtyard, etc). After many months of creating Sims scenes, and many remarkable improvisations that included having the machine output in 3D to the monitor or any attached display device, and creating short-cut keys to enable teleportation from one scene to the next within The Sims 2 structure (and with Sawyer at one point taking apart then soldering together a pair of non-functioning Z800 goggles that Brown had shipped to us), we eventually got the experiment to work in VR.

From within the goggles, which felt a bit like thick, heavy ski goggles edged with foam, a given cartoon-like Sims scene could be viewed through a square, straight ahead. The depth perception was comparable to that of a 3D movie viewed with 3D glasses, and turning your head enabled viewing differing aspects of the scene, such as looking up at the ceiling or down at the floor, or left or right.

The first VR experiment to examine the Gestalt familiarity hypothesis involved 24 college students. A short-cut key zapped the participant from a particular vantage point within one scene to the next and, from each pre-established vantage point, the participant was free to look around the scene by turning their head. After the first 16 scenes, the person viewed a new set of 32 test scenes, half having an identical spatial layout to one of the first 16. While viewing a test scene, the student rated how familiar the scene seemed, indicated if the current scene prompted any recollection of one of the earlier 16 scenes (and if so, which one), and indicated if déjà vu had occurred. After cycling through the 32 test scenes in this manner, the process started over with a new set of 16 study scenes followed by another 32 test scenes. Recognition without recall occurred in the form of higher familiarity ratings among VR test scenes that shared a spatial layout with an earlier viewed but unrecalled scene, and during recall failure, participants reported déjà vu 27 per cent of the time, compared with a baseline of 17 per cent of the time when there was no spatial layout resemblance to an earlier scene.

Although this study demonstrated interesting findings and represented a remarkable technological feat for its era, it was repeatedly rejected from journals before finally finding a home at Consciousness and Cognition in 2012. The topic of déjà vu, was, and still is, a tough sell in the world of science.

S till, the publication generated a great deal of media attention and public interest, and with that came a number of enquiries to me from the general public about the research, by phone, email and sometimes mailed letters. In many of these enquiries, people were reaching out to tell me that they thought the idea that déjà vu was grounded in memory could not be correct, or could not be complete, because, to them, déjà vu included a sense of knowing what will happen next. Some people even used the term ‘precognition’ to describe this. At first, I was not only sceptical, but also wary of venturing into what seemed like more of a topic for paranormal literature than mainstream scientific research, especially when déjà vu was already a tough sell as a topic within science. But the line of questioning kept happening, even in academic settings and, eventually, I started looking into it.

Was there a logical, scientific explanation for the sensation these people expressed? Perhaps if a situation was experienced before but failed to be recalled, the sense of how a similar situation would unfold might seem like a prediction? To test this with our spatial layout paradigm, we needed scenes to dynamically unfold over time. The Sims 2 platform was well suited to this because it was set up to easily create videos of virtual tours to publicise one’s Sims creations on YouTube. From this idea, the ‘virtual tour’ paradigm was born. Participants viewed video tours of the Sims scenes that had been used in the previous VR study, each taking a particular path with turns through the scene from a first-person perspective. In the test phase, the tours through scenes with identical spatial layouts also followed the same path as in the earlier-viewed counterpart scene, but only up to a point – the tour stopped short of a turn that happened in the earlier counterpart scene, and participants had to determine the direction of the next turn. If our hypothesis was correct, we thought, then we would find that, when participants experience déjà vu while viewing a tour of a scene with an identical layout as an earlier viewed but unrecalled scene, they should be more likely to successfully predict the next turn.

However, that was not what we found. Our new hypothesis was not supported and, deeming the study a failure, I let it sit for a couple of years.

Everything the doctor was saying was something she’d heard before, but also she knew what the doctor was going to say next

But the enquiries continued to come. One that stands out was when my office phone rang and it was a somewhat shaken man calling from Alaska. He’d had a strange déjà vu experience and was looking for answers. He found some of my research on déjà vu in an internet search. He had recently experienced a strong sense of déjà vu while on a hunting trip and was quite shaken by the fact that, during his déjà vu, he knew exactly what would happen next. ‘I am not a superstitious person,’ he said, ‘so I just don’t understand how this could be possible. I’m hoping maybe you have some answers that can explain this.’ He was distraught, looking for an explanation. I had no good explanation to offer.

Conversations like this continued to eat at me.

Then one day it occurred to me that perhaps the feeling of déjà vu is associated with an illusory sense of prediction. Digging back through old literature, there were some hints at this idea. For example, in a very old neurology case report from 1959, Sean Mullan and Wilder Penfield reported on a patient for whom electrical stimulation during awake brain surgery induced déjà vu. The patient reported feeling like everything the doctor was saying was something she had heard before, but also like she knew what the doctor was going to say next. Since the déjà vu was induced artificially through electrical stimulation to the brain, the accompanying sense of prediction must have been illusory in that case, rather than memory based.

So, I dusted off the old experiment from a couple of years earlier and ran it again with an additional prompt following the pause during each tour of a test scene: rate the feeling of being able to predict the direction of the next turn. And lo and behold, people felt pretty strongly that they knew the direction of the next turn when experiencing déjà vu, even though that was not the case. This finding persisted across many subsequent experiments, including in the original multi-experiment study that was the first to show it in 2018 and in the studies that followed it.

But this research still didn’t address the question of why people like the Alaska caller feel like they really did predict what was going to happen during déjà vu. So, we did a follow-up study , which suggested that not only is there a predictive bias associated with déjà vu, but a ‘postdictive’ bias (a feeling of having known all along how the situation was going to unfold) too.

As to what all of this means, it may be that déjà vu produces the feeling of being on the verge of retrieving a past experience from memory, leading to the belief that you can identify what will happen next (because it feels like how the situation unfolds is about to come to mind at any moment); then, as the situation does unfold in a certain way, its continued familiarity tricks the mind into believing that it knew it all along.

A lthough these research findings represent major steps toward understanding déjà vu, it wasn’t until I was able to experience déjà vu myself within the ‘déjà vu generator’ that I had what may be my most critical insight. It took a recreation of the VR déjà vu paradigm by someone else for me to have the experience myself. Because I had personally created most of the scenes in our previous work, and because I knew every scene and its counterpart, I could never experience déjà vu myself within our system. The scenes were just too familiar to me.

That changed when I donned an HTC Vive VR headset to personally run through a brand-new variant of the VR paradigm created by Noah Okada, then a computer science student at Emory University in Georgia.

I met Okada in 2019 while on a visit to Emory during my sabbatical. He was working with the neuroscientist Daniel Drane and the neurologist Nigel Pedersen – whom I was visiting – to create VR scenes for use in research. Pedersen and Drane work with people who have epilepsy. Our collaboration had formed a year earlier through Joe Neisser, a philosopher at Grinnell College in Iowa (who, somewhat serendipitously, happens to be the son of Ulric Neisser). Joe Neisser met Pedersen during his own sabbatical at Emory while attending a talk. Like most neurologists specialising in epileptology, Pedersen was familiar with seizure-related déjà vu, as neurologists have been writing about it for more than a century . Joe Neisser and I had met in Savannah, Georgia in 2012 during a symposium he moderated at the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology, where I gave a talk on our recent VR study of déjà vu. When Pedersen and Joe Neisser got to talking about seizure-related déjà vu, Neisser described the VR paradigm to Pedersen and suggested that we should all collaborate.

So there I was in 2019 on my own sabbatical, visiting Pedersen’s group at Emory to help get the video-based virtual tour experiment running on a portable computer that could be wheeled on a cart into a patient’s room. Patients with pharmacologically intractable seizures sometimes undergo pre-operative evaluation for surgical candidacy through the use of implanted electrodes with continuous monitoring. While hospitalised for the lengthy monitoring period, interested patients can participate in computerised cognitive tasks while their brain activity is being measured through the electrodes to better understand the function of different brain circuits. As many of the common seizure foci (and thus commonly implanted regions of the brain) happen to be implicated in seizure-related déjà vu, measuring neural activity while a patient completes the virtual tour task might shed light on the mechanisms involved in both familiarity-detection and déjà vu.

While I was there helping to prepare the computer cart for the task, I had a long conversation with Okada about it. An impressive and intellectually curious student, he had already read my publications on déjà vu, and already had several great ideas for extending the research using modern-day VR. He got to work re-creating the virtual tour task for use with present-day VR systems. Using the gaming engine Unity, he created new scenes with new layouts and programmed a VR implementation of the virtual tour paradigm for the Vive headset. The viewer is pulled on rails through a highly realistic scene on a particular path as if on a ride (similar to the It’s a Small World ride at Disney World). In a later identically configured but otherwise novel scene, that precise path is taken through the identical layout of that new scene.

It felt like my mind signalling to me to pause exploring the new scene and instead turn my attention inward to something in my memory

It happened as I sat there in 2022 looking through the Vive headset, in a VR lab room in the Behavioral Sciences Building at Colorado State, testing out Okada’s VR virtual tour program for the first time. I had been exploring the various scenes he had created, looking around while ‘riding’ through them and admiring the detail of the textures and the cleverness of the placement of various realistic-seeming objects within each scene. Then, as I was being pulled through a scene of straw huts along a boardwalk in an oceanside resort, I was suddenly overcome with an intense sense of familiarity. The sensation grabbed hold of my attention and I found myself no longer looking around and taking in the details of the scene but instead intensely focused on trying to figure out why it felt so familiar. It was déjà vu.

At first, I could not figure out exactly why I was experiencing it. That is, I could not identify a specific scene from earlier that might be responsible for the feeling. But my attention had now been fully devoted to trying to figure it out. So, as I continued to be pulled through the scene, I kept going through possibilities in my mind for what might be the reason behind the déjà vu. Eventually, by the time the tour of that scene came to an end and the prompts started appearing, I figured it out. It was the campground from earlier. The campground had an arrangement of tents along a dirt pathway and was identically configured to the layout of the huts along the oceanside boardwalk at the resort. And it happened several more times in several more test scenes as I continued through the program. What I noticed during these experiences was that, while thoroughly enjoying looking around a highly realistic, detailed scene that I had never seen before, I would be hit with a strong feeling of familiarity and would feel certain that the scene was reminding me of something I hadn’t quite placed yet. It felt like my mind signalling to me to pause exploring the novel and interesting scene and instead turn my attention inward to look for something in my memory. Then I would spend a lot of time going through possibilities in my mind. In many such instances, I would eventually figure it out: I would identify the previously viewed scene responsible for the familiarity.

This made me realise that there may be a component to déjà vu that we had been overlooking: it may prompt a flip of attention from outward to inward, to search one’s memory for potentially relevant information. For me, the déjà vu sensation in the VR environment was often a step along the way to eventual recall success, and this facet of the experience might be getting completely missed in our usual research approach of separating instances of recall success and recall failure. Instances of recall success may sometimes be preceded by a feeling of déjà vu – but our studies had not been set up to examine how the memory experience unfolds over time.

Perhaps déjà vu grabs attention and pulls it inward toward a search of memory for potentially relevant information? My students and I began to sift through some of our existing data sets in search of evidence that we might have previously missed. And we found some. For one thing, as reported in a recent article led by my former student Katherine McNeely-White, participants seem to guess more at earlier experienced scenarios when experiencing déjà vu than when not. That is, when experiencing déjà vu, they tend to type inaccurate information into the recall prompt rather than just leaving the recall prompt blank (leaving it blank more often when not experiencing déjà vu). This is consistent with the idea that, during déjà vu, people expend more effort searching their memory trying to conjure potentially relevant information, even if what they generate from the search is incorrect. For another thing, even when participants did leave the recall prompt blank during instances of déjà vu, they spent more time at the prompt before hitting Enter to move on, compared with when they were not experiencing déjà vu. This greater time spent at the recall prompt suggests that participants were likely trying a bit harder to recall an earlier scene when déjà vu was experienced than when it was not. Finally, participants were also more curious to discover whether a studied scene (and if so, which one) might map on to the current scene when experiencing déjà vu than when not.

There are other hints that déjà vu relates to attention. When it accompanies seizure activity, its pull on attention is so powerful that it may provoke some patients to confabulate memories – to invent recollections that help explain away the sensation of reliving something from the past. Much like the active search of memory I myself experienced, this kind of ‘recollective confabulation’ could represent an inward-directed accounting, and the information pulled up, real or not, could be a means of trying to provide oneself relief from the forced, prolonged, inward-directed attention that may ensue during seizure-related déjà vu.

Déjà vu may be an eerie shadow of the mind at work, and a window into the mind’s evolutionary past. Most of the time, our cognitive processing takes place smoothly and effortlessly – we just process the world around us and retrieve relevant information rapidly, without introspective access to how that occurs. It just does. Déjà vu occurs when there is a hiccup in the system, and we notice the pull on our attention; it grabs hold of our focus, allowing us to catch a quick glimpse of our memory’s operation occurring in slow motion. What would ordinarily take place quickly beneath the surface – the unfolding process of familiarity-detection followed by inward-directed attention and retrieval search effort leading to retrieval of relevant information – suddenly has a light shining on the spot where the halt occurred, where the retrieval piece was not successful, and we find ourselves in a heightened state of searching our memory, trying to find out why the situation feels so familiar. But rather than being an odd quirk of memory, this cognitive mechanism could be forcing us to retrieve the very memories we need to survive – and could be evolution’s way of forcing the mind inward, when it needs that insight most.

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10 Strange Phenomena That Stumped Experts

The unknown doesn’t tend to stay unknown. After all, there are quite a few very smart people out there, constantly endeavoring to document and understand our world and its mysteries. Often, they’re the ones to turn to when something seems inexplicable.

We rely on experts for answers, but sometimes, they’re as baffled as we are when strange phenomena are encountered. Whether they’re objects or events, such phenomena often strike us as odd, eerie, bizarre, fantastic, incredible, marvelous, or even revolting and remain puzzling until they’re identified and understood, if they ever are. These ten strange phenomena that stumped experts are no exceptions to the rule.

10 Bone Irrigator

In 2010, when a mysterious object was first discovered during an excavation of the grounds at New York’s City Hall, stumped archaeologists were unable to identify it. Found in a pile of rubbish, among beer bottles and the bones of a cow that had supplied food for a feast, the tubular bone object, a thin cylinder with screw threads on either end, a perforated lid, and a cap with a hole in its center, mystified experts.

In search of an answer, scientists theorized the object might be “a spice grinder or needle case,” said Alyssa Loorya, president of Chrysalis Archaeology, the firm supervising the excavation as part of a rehabilitation project. “We were stumped,” she admitted.

The strange artifact was identified after one of Loorya’s team members, Lisa Geiger, saw a similar object while she was at work in a Philadelphia museum. It was a vaginal syringe, or irrigator. 19th-century women used them to prevent pregnancy, to clean themselves, or to treat sexually transmitted diseases . Similar irrigators were found in a brothel outhouse during an archaeological dig in Boston. The devices weren’t only used by prostitutes; women of every socioeconomic stratum also employed the irrigators, and in New York, women gave them to each other as wedding presents. [1]

9 Buried Bones

A 9,300-year-old skull buried with the skeletal remains of severed hands, the left covering the right side of the head and pointing up, the right covering the left side of the head and pointing down, was found in Brazil. Although they understood the remains were those of a victim of ritual sacrifice , archaeologists were baffled as to the meaning of the arrangement of the skull and hands.

In 2007, Andre Strauss, a researcher with Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology, found the strange display buried beneath a rock. Strontium isotope analysis showed the bones belonged to a young man local to Brazil’s Lapa do Santo area. He suffered a horrific and agonizing death, experts said. The way his neck vertebrae were fractured indicated that his head was not completely severed by the blow of a blade, and “the remaining muscle and tissue was then twisted and torn to remove it from the body.” The flesh was not flayed from his body, and no evidence suggested the head and hands were mounted as a display.

Although amputated hands sometimes signaled punishment and warned of the results of violating social norms and was a way by which to disgrace conquered enemies, the skull’s condition does not correspond to either of these possibilities, and archaeologists remain stumped as the the meaning of the strange display. [2]

8 Canine Suicides

“Dogs do not commit suicide,” said Doreen Graham of the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Except in Scotland , apparently, they do. Once a prosperous town, Dumbarton, which has become little more than a suburb on the outskirts of Glasgow, can seem depressing on a gloomy day. Even the dogs seem to be feeling down, and in February and March of 2005, some leaped to their deaths from a bridge dubbed “rover’s leap.”

In one case, a woman’s dog leaped over the bridge’s parapet, plummeting 12 meters (40 ft) to its death. The woman, who was shocked by the incident, had no idea why her beloved canine companion would have done such a thing, nor did anyone else.

Four other dogs have also jumped off the bridge , with the same results. Strangely, they all leaped from the same spot. Animal behaviorist Joyce Stewart called for an investigation of the phenomenon. Although she said canine suicide isn’t something she’s ever heard of, the dogs’ behavior is certainly “abnormal.” She speculated that the animals might have experienced an optical illusion that interfered with their normally good ability to judge distances. According to Stewart, “From photographs of the bridge, it would appear that the tree canopy rises above the bridge and it may cause some sort of confusion to the animal, which thinks it is jumping to something solid.”

“The incidents at the bridge are of very great concern to us because we would like to understand why they are happening,” said Graham, despite Stewart’s hypothesis. Animal behaviorists were unable to explain the dogs’ bizarre behavior, and animal welfare experts advised pet owners to keep their dogs leashed. [3]

7 Hidden Geoglyphs

2,000-year-old geoglyphs, the size of city blocks, form circles and squares across thousands of acres in the Brazilian Amazon. [4] The ancient earthworks, which include trenches 11 meters (36 ft) wide and 4 meters (13 ft) deep, remained hidden until the 1980s, when farmers cleared land to raise cattle. Archaeologists are puzzled by the gigantic geoglyphs, the purpose of which remains unknown.

The discovery of the designs calls into question the idea that humans left the Amazon’s rain forests alone until European explorers arrived in the 15th century. Now, it seems local people were managing the forests using “sustainable agricultural processes.” As noted by Jennifer Watling, who conducted the research as a student at the University of Exeter in Britain, “A lot of people have the idea that the Amazon forests are pristine forests, never touched by humans, and that’s obviously not the case.”

6 Godzillus

Uncovered in 2011 by amateur paleontologist Ron Fine, 43, of Dayton, Ohio, the bizarre 70-kilogram (150 lb) fossil known as “Godzillus” continues to mystify scientists. Discovered in Northern Kentucky, the 450-million-year-old fossil is 1.8 meters (6 ft) long and 0.9 meters (3 ft) wide and resembles a group of concrete stepping stones. Scientists don’t know whether the fossil is that of an animal or a plant. According to University of Cincinnati geologist Carl Brett, Godzillus is the biggest fossil of its era ever to have been removed from the Cincinnati region.

Fine suggests the fossil could be ancient kelp or seaweed, but David Meyer, another UC geology professor said, “This one has us stumped.” While the fossil isn’t that of a fish , Meyer’s guess is that it might be the remains of a sponge, noting the area in which Fine found Godzillus was “covered by a sea, 100 to 200 feet deep.” But his guess is just that: a guess. Experts don’t know for certain what Fine discovered when he found the remains of Godzillus. [5]

5 Mesodinium Chamaeleon

Microscopic in size, Mesodinium chamaeleon has scientists stymied. It’s not a plant , but it’s not an animal , either. As an animal, it uses its hair-like cilia to swim about, devouring plants. After feeding, it turns into a plant itself and is able to photosynthesize. After a while, it consumes the chlorophyll granules it obtained by eating the plant and reverts into an animal to begin the process of transformations anew. The bizarre creature dwells at the bottom of the ocean. In 2012, it was discovered off the coast of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Scientists are mystified by it. They can’t describe it in detail, and they haven’t been able to determine the amount of energy it obtains from photosynthesis. They also don’t know why it eats the chlorophyll granules it acquires. Further discoveries await “getting this animal-plant established in a culture in our laboratory,” says Ojvind Moestrup, a professor in the Marine Biological Section of the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Biology. [6]

4 Ancient Monument

In 2017, archaeologists excavating a prehistoric settlement in Greece’s Thirassia, one of the Santorini islands, discovered a 2,200-year-old monument. Unable to determine its origin, experts from the the Ionian University, the University of Crete, and the Cycladic Antiquities Bureau were baffled.

According to the Greek Ministry of Culture and Antiquities, the oval-shaped monument is ornamented with numerous decorative features and might have been associated with a god , although which one, if any, remained unclear. [7]

3 Somerset Slime

Scientists were stumped by the strange jelly-like slime that appeared in a nature reserve in Somerset, England, in 2012. The bizarre substance was found in several locations. Experts were unable to explain its origin, although a few guesses were hazarded. The reserve’s spokesman, Tony Whitehead, suggested the slime might be Nostoc , a form of cyanobacteria.

Other guesses held it might be the regurgitated viscera of amphibians and their spawn. Whitehead said, in past centuries, the substance was “known variously as star jelly, astral jelly or astromyxin,” and folklore associated it with meteors. Other speculations suggested it lacked DNA , although it appeared to be alive. Experts didn’t know what to make of the slime. Visitors to the reserve were warned not to touch the substance, whatever it was. [8]

2 Strange Insect

A mysterious insect that has stumped experts may be a newly discovered species. The bug , which is about the same size as a grain of rice, is black and red and was first seen in London’s Natural History Museum’s Wildlife Garden in 2007. Since then, it’s also been seen in Regent’s Park and Gray’s Inn. It’s already become “the most common insect in the [museum’s] garden” and could continue to spread throughout the United Kingdom.

The museum contains 28 million insect specimens, but none of them matched the strange bug, which looks most like Arocatus roselli , a rare species in Central Europe. However, the mystery bug is brighter than A. roselli , and A. roselli , unlike the unidentified insect, is associated with alder trees. “It seems strange that so many of these bugs should suddenly appear,” said Max Barclay, who works for the museum. Possibly, the insect is A. roselli , after all, and has multiplied and become invasive after feeding on plane trees instead of alder trees. If not, the insect could be a species never before encountered. [9]

1 Teenage Toddler

When she was 16 years old, Brooke Greenberg looked like a toddler. Neither doctors nor medical researchers knew why her body and her brain never grew or aged. Brooke also suffered from other contradictions. Her bones were those of a ten-year-old, and she still had her baby teeth. Her mental age was barely a year. She was never diagnosed with a genetic syndrome or a chromosomal abnormality. Due to her condition, she rode in a baby stroller, wore toddlers’ clothing, slept in a crib, and was entirely dependent on her parents’ care. Through her, scientists were hoping to learn more about how genetics affects and contributes to the aging process.

According to Johns Hopkins School of Medicine pediatrician Lawrence Pakula, Brooke’s condition may have been unique. “Many of the best-known names in medicine, in their experience [ . . . ] had not seen anyone who matched up to Brooke,” he said. Dr. Richard Walker of the University of South Florida College of Medicine, in Tampa, said that parts of Brooke’s body were developing in isolation of one another, rather than as parts of a whole, and that their development was “out of sync” with each other. Brooke had experienced only “very minimal changes” in her brain. She weighed only 7 kilograms (16 lb) and was only 76 centimeters tall (2’6″).

During her first six years, Brooke underwent surgery for seven perforated stomach ulcers and had other medical operations. She suffered a seizure after experiencing a stroke, but the event didn’t damage her brain. At age four, she was diagnosed with a brain tumor, but it disappeared on its own. Experts were stumped as to the cause of her illness. Growth hormone therapy proved ineffective. Only her hair and nails grew. Sadly, Brooke passed away in 2013, at age 20. She still physically resembled a toddler.

If doctors could have solved the mystery of the teen toddler’s agelessness, they may have been able to develop the means to slow aging itself, a breakthrough that could have a variety of applications, including allowing astronauts to travel in space for a much longer time than they can now. [10]

Gary Pullman, an instructor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, lives south of Area 51, which, according to his family and friends, explains “a lot.” His 2016 urban fantasy novel, A Whole World Full of Hurt , available on Amazon.com, was published by The Wild Rose Press.

For more mysteries that baffled the experts, check out 10 Biological Mysteries That Continue To Baffle Scientists and 10 Fascinating Mysteries Of Life That Science Can’t Explain .

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Strange pHenomenon, what the pH is going on?

By Billipo , Saturday at 02:51 PM in General Discussion

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I have three tanks.

29 gallon that has been cycled for at least 10 yrs - no water changes just top offs. Plants and rocks for hardscape. Two hang filters. (Ohio Natives - Central Mudminnows)

40 gallon  that has been cycled for 8 months - Weekly 15% water changes. Plants, rocks, and wood for hardscape. One hanging filter, one canister filter. (So. American Tetras, Cory, Bolivian Rams, Ottos)

10 gallon  that has been cycled for 2 months - no water changes just top offs. Plants, rocks, and wood for hardscape. Sponge filter (Endlers, Mystery Snails)

Since tanks established all tanks Ammonium and Nitrites @ 0 ppm, Nitrates vary 0 - 5 ppm.

pH consistently 7.6 for 10 and 40 gallon, but 29 gallon 6.0 . 

Question is why the difference? Anyone else experience this pH enomenon?   Same house (different rooms), same water source, same plants, rocks, ...

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You may have reached a tipping point for your 29g. Gotten into what's called old tank syndrome. Where the amount of old organic matter and organic acids have leached out your carbonates faster than they are being replaced. Organics are great for the plants, but not necessarily for water chemistry. You can keep running there. the plants won't mind. but it depends on what the livestock are. guppies and snails would mind. Or you can add a kh buffer on a routine basis. Baking soda is cheapest. Seachem makes alkaline buffer. Or you can redo the tank, which nobody wants. 10-year-old tanks are very rare and special. Or you could do a couple of deep cleanings, not too much at one time. which I'm not sure you would want to do either.

I would do Gh and KH tests for the tanks…

I suspect you will see low KH in the 29, and not in the other two.

On 8/31/2024 at 11:25 AM, Tony s said: You may have reached a tipping point for your 29g. Gotten into what's called old tank syndrome. Where the amount of old organic matter and organic acids have leached out your carbonates faster than they are being replaced. Organics are great for the plants, but not necessarily for water chemistry. You can keep running there. the plants won't mind. but it depends on what the livestock are. guppies and snails would mind. Or you can add a kh buffer on a routine basis. Baking soda is cheapest. Seachem makes alkaline buffer. Or you can redo the tank, which nobody wants. 10-year-old tanks are very rare and special. Or you could do a couple of deep cleanings, not too much at one time. which I'm not sure you would want to do either.

Not interested in tear down. Plants doing great much better than the other 2 tanks. Fish are showing signs of age (and have lost food stalking tendencies thinking accustomed to regular feedings) and mudminnows can survive very extreme conditions, but no need to push limits.

I am curious on baking soda add. Sounds cheap and easy! Any insight appreciated and I can try to do some research.

On 8/31/2024 at 12:05 PM, Billipo said: am curious on baking soda add. Sounds cheap and easy! Any insight appreciated and I can try to do some research.

I haven't used it. I have kh coming out my ears. I know it does it works very rapidly. Possibly too fast for some livestock.  I'd just trial and error on the small side. @Pepere  would have a better idea. Or you could switch up your livestock and get some of the very soft water species. 

Might be time to do some small water changes, 10-20% weekly with a little KH added if it’s reading zero. 

On 8/31/2024 at 10:51 AM, Billipo said: no water changes just top offs. Plants and rocks for hardscape. Two hang filters

Actually pretty impressive. A lot of no change tanks including FF and Walstad's have issues before now.

On 8/31/2024 at 12:26 PM, Tony s said: Actually pretty impressive. A lot of no change tanks including FF and Walstad's have issues before now.

I occasionally give a light rinse of filter media maybe twice a year per filter, one at a time. Before I started up the other tanks I used to discard tons of plants. Now wisely I use excess plants for other tanks. 

I would not go with baking soda until you know the tanks GH and KH.  I would also determine your tap waters GH and Kh.

It may well be that doing shallow waterchanges would be the better option, but unknown untill you know what you have in your tap and tank.

Gonna go small water change option, but treating a little like - not broke don't fix.

Here is the tank after I just did a 10% water change. Fish all hid!

I took the water to a local box store to check water. Clerk said all tests (including kH and gH which I cannot test at home) were fine but got no reading for pH. Quite honestly the clerk wasn't that interested in answering any details about test results. I did a pH at home and I got 6.0

I'm going to do some more small water changes over next few weeks. Figure it couldn't hurt.

Some research on mudminnow says preferred 6.5 -7.5 pH, but specimens can uniquely survive in as low as 3.5-5 pH (Per NANFA). They can also live through a freeze and in oxygen starved water.

On 9/1/2024 at 11:00 AM, Billipo said: Clerk said all tests (including kH and gH which I cannot test at home) were fine but got no reading for pH. Quite honestly the clerk wasn't that interested in answering any details about test results. I did a pH at home and I got 6.0

Well, “fine” doesnt communicate much… clerk might not have much knowledge about test results looking just for ammonia or nitrite… and hence not interested in discussing the other results and simply saying they are all “Fine”…

API liquid test kit for GH and KH is under $10.00 on Amazon.com…. It has earned a place in my fish cabinet.

on the PH,  are you using the API liquid low range ph from the Master Test Kit?  That only goes down to 6.0, so it could be 6.0, 5.8 or 4.0 and look exactly the same. You would have no idea what it actually is in that scenario.

A tank that is water top up only over time can deplete KH and then the ph can drop quite low.  Nitrates are on the acidic side and tannins and such can deplete kh and then the acids lowers ph….

I am guessing your tap water is a higher ph where tank ph in newer tanks is 7.6…

weekly water changes of 2-3 gallons per water for several months would not be a bad idea.  I am suspecting ph would rise over time with that treatment.  Once it does frequency of water changes could diminish if you prefer. 

On 9/1/2024 at 11:53 AM, Pepere said: on the PH,  are you using the API liquid low range ph from the Master Test Kit?  That only goes down to 6.0, so it could be 6.0, 5.8 or 4.0 and look exactly the same. You would have no idea what it actually is in that scenario.

You may be right since I am using the API test kit.

How I got in this situation, I minimize my interface with fish so they don't associate me with food, fear me or get accustomed to my presence so they act "more Natural". Kinda a unique and pleasant experience not to have fish beg for food when you observe them. Explains the lack of water changes.

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We help you complete Strange Phenomenon at the Castle, a main quest of Zelda TotK that will remain gathering dust in your adventure journal for a few dozen hours. We will split this guide into two parts, so watch out for spoilers after the red tag

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Part 1: Go get Hoz

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Potential spoiler

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Part 2: Chase to Hyrule Castle

Preparations.

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• Your best weapons, remember to look carefully at the powerful materials you have on you for amalgams.

Hordes of monsters

It’s pretty simple, Princess Zelda will ask you to come and get her at several places in the castle and it will be a trap each time. We will see here which minions of Ganon you will have to defeat.

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The Cass Report: Biased or Balanced?

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To the Editor:

Re “ The Strange Report Fueling the War on Trans Kids, ” by Lydia Polgreen (column, Aug. 18):

Thank you to Lydia Polgreen for this thoughtful, well-researched piece. She clearly identified the faulty and dangerous unspoken premise of the Cass report and much of the reporting on this topic: that being transgender is socially deviant and harmful, and we should do everything in our collective power to reserve gender-affirming care for those we deem virtuous enough to become “good” members of society.

She also pointed out critics’ double standards. Our medical system routinely provides — without controversy — the same gender-affirming medications to cisgender children and adolescents that it provides to trans children and adolescents. The issue is clearly not “concern for children” but the deep-rooted transphobia that this “concern” masks.

What if we didn’t think of being trans as being deviant or broken? What if we saw it for what it is: an identity as old as human existence that is as worthy of respect and celebration as any other, especially amid this climate of fear? What if we focused less on creating unnecessary barriers to care and more on protecting the right to self-determination and access to health care that respects each person’s unique needs?

Libby Hartle-Tyrrell Brooklyn

Lydia Polgreen speculates on the legitimacy of the Cass report in what I see as an effort all too common among public figures: to burnish their liberal credentials at the expense of families like mine. They state that pediatric gender transition is too politicized, but blame only the Republicans. But I wish, I beg, that they talk to parents like me.

Many of us are liberal, (formerly) Democratic professionals whose kids have been caught up in the left’s politicization of this issue. Our kids — who are smart, but struggle with mental health issues and anxiety — spent too much time online during Covid and self-diagnosed themselves as gender dysphoric. Meanwhile, activists have aggressively pushed an affirm-or-else, one-size-fits-all policy on educators, mental health providers and doctors.

This confluence has created a dystopian nightmare for well-educated, thoughtful and compassionate parents who urge caution and question medicalization. People who we used to align with politically are telling our kids that we are transphobic and support their cutting us off. We grieve and watch in horror as our vulnerable kids permanently scar their bodies, reproductive organs and voices.

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