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From ancient artifacts to cosmic anomalies, these unexplained discoveries challenge everything we know! Join us as we explore mysterious phenomena that could revolutionize our understanding of history, science, and humanity's place in the universe. What secrets lie within the Antikythera Mechanism or the enigmatic Voynich Manuscript? Could the immortal jellyfish hold the key to eternal life?
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00:00When we first looked at the results, it was astonishing.
00:06Welcome to WatchMojo.
00:07And today we're counting down our picks for puzzling phenomena and artifacts
00:11that continue to defy explanation and could potentially redefine science,
00:17history, or even our place in the universe.
00:19What do these bizarre words and vibrant drawings represent?
00:24Number 10. The Vela Incident.
00:26The U.S. Department of Defense developed Project Vela to monitor Soviet compliance
00:31with the ban on testing nuclear weapons.
00:34For the past 18 years, Vela satellites have circled the Earth
00:37in search of secret nuclear tests in the atmosphere and in space.
00:41On September 22, 1979, a Vela satellite detected a mysterious double flash of light in the Indian Ocean.
00:48The signal meant a possible nuclear detonation.
00:51However, no country claimed responsibility.
00:53The only thing that was peculiar about this is where it occurred.
00:56It occurred in a strange place.
00:58It was not a French or Chinese test.
01:00Substantial evidence of a nuclear detonation was lacking,
01:03and in its place, various theories emerged.
01:05Some suggested that the signal could have been caused by a meteorite hitting the satellite.
01:10The panel then suggested that perhaps a tiny meteorite may have struck the spacecraft,
01:15broken into pieces, and reflected sunlight into the bang meters one at a time
01:19to create a double-humped curve.
01:21Others believe that the flash was the result of a secret joint Israeli-South African nuclear test.
01:27Whatever it may be, the Vela incident remains a mystery.
01:30The truth could alter nuclear geopolitics with world-shifting implications.
01:35I don't think it is possible to lay to rest this event with a report that indicates
01:42that a group of people feel that the probability of it not being a nuclear event is perhaps greater than half.
01:50Number 9.
01:51The Dogon Sirius Mystery.
01:53Myths of ancient peoples are easily dismissed,
01:57but now and then there are a few that strike eerily close to reality.
02:01The story of the Dogon people of Mali is one.
02:04The really strange thing about the Dogon tradition is that it dates back to before the era of astronomical history.
02:09The ancient West African tribe claims that their ancestors were descendants of beings from Sirius B,
02:16a white dwarf star invisible to the naked eye, which was first confirmed in 1862.
02:21But the Dogon, whose oral traditions predate this discovery,
02:26described the star's movement and characteristics with frightening accuracy.
02:30In 2005, NASA begins deep space observations of Sirius B using the Hubble Space Telescope.
02:39The state-of-the-art satellite data shows that, incredibly, the Dogon were right once again.
02:44How did a pre-telescopic society gain this knowledge?
02:48Is it possible that they established contact with an advanced civilization?
02:52Maybe even extraterrestrial?
02:54If true, the Dogon mystery challenges our understanding and position in the universe.
03:00It sounds like something straight out of a sci-fi movie, but in fact, there may be some truth to it.
03:05Number 8.
03:06The Immortal Jellyfish.
03:08If there is a secret to cheating death, it looks like a particular jellyfish has found it.
03:13The life cycles of most jellyfish species are similar,
03:16but the so-called Immortal Jellyfish can reverse it.
03:20The tiny jellyfish, Pteratopsis dornii, is one of the few animals that can be considered truly immortal.
03:27It does this by reverting its cells to an earlier stage of life.
03:31Instead of dying, the jellyfish shrinks in on itself.
03:34It becomes a blob-like cyst that settles on the ocean floor,
03:38and in time, matures and re-emerges as it was before.
03:42Potentially, this can be repeated indefinitely.
03:45If that sounds baffling, you are not alone.
03:48While the jellyfish can still die from injury or disease,
03:51if we unlock its secrets, humanity might one day be able to radically redefine
03:56what it means to grow older, or, better yet, live forever.
04:01The natural process has inspired many researchers to hopefully find a way of using stem cells
04:08to renew damaged or dead tissue in humans.
04:11Number 7. The Tunguska Event.
04:14In 1908, a massive explosion rocked the sparsely populated East Siberian forest,
04:20felling nearly 80 million trees.
04:22That's how the Tunguska Event felt, 40 miles from ground zero.
04:27The blast had an explosive force equal to 15 megatons of TNT,
04:32and was a thousand times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
04:36After the explosion, the skies over Siberia and parts of Europe experienced unusually high light levels.
04:43The Tunguska Event left no evidence of an object behind.
04:47The leading theory today is that it was an atmospheric explosion of an asteroid.
04:51The explosion released enough energy to kill reindeer and flattened trees for many miles around the blast site,
04:58but no crater was ever found.
05:00Other fringe theories propose black holes, antimatter, or extraterrestrial activity.
05:05The most significant impact event in Earth's recorded history,
05:09the Tunguska Event, serves as a chilling reminder of the planet's vulnerability.
05:13More than 100 years after the event, only sparse clues survive.
05:17Seen from above, no evidence whatsoever remains.
05:21Number 6. The Shigir Idol
05:23Carved around 12,000 years ago from the trunk of a larch tree,
05:27the Shigir Idol is a towering sculpture that once stood 17 feet tall.
05:32It is the oldest known wooden sculpture in the world, and was discovered in 1894 at the bottom of a Russian bog,
05:47thanks to 40 years of investigation of a nearby gold mine.
05:51The totem features several carvings of human faces and hands,
05:55as well as geometric motifs, including zigzag patterns.
05:58What is truly confounding, though, is that the Shigir Idol is twice as old as Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids.
06:05This means our hunter-gatherer ancestors were capable of complex artistry and symbolic thought,
06:11much earlier than previously believed.
06:13If deciphered, the Shigir Idol could rewrite humanity's history of cultural evolution.
06:17Number 5. The Wow Signal
06:27On August 15, 1977, Ohio State University's Big Ear Radio Telescope detected a radio signal.
06:35This was no ordinary radio signal.
06:37From the direction of the Sagittarius Constellation, an intense and continuous narrow-band radio wave
06:44bounced off a 30-meter-tall flat reflector tilted towards the sky.
06:48Lasting 72 seconds, the signal was from deep space, near the Sagittarius Constellation.
06:54It was also a strikingly intense and narrow radio transmission,
06:58prompting astronomer Jerry Eamon to scrawl WOW next to the data.
07:02The signal has never been heard again since.
07:05The nature of the signal caused many to liken it to a message from extraterrestrial life.
07:10These four properties are, essentially, exactly what you'd expect from an alien transmitter,
07:17and likely, a very high-powered one.
07:20Modern research has suggested otherwise, stating it was a natural phenomenon generated by a comet.
07:25Whatever it may be, the WOW signal remains one of the most tantalizing mysteries in astronomy.
07:31Someone out there, perhaps watching this right now,
07:34might pick this up and one day resolve the WOW mystery.
07:39Number 4. The Voynich Manuscript
07:41If you're a bookworm, there is one book that you can add to your reading list,
07:44and that is the Voynich Manuscript.
07:46Deep inside Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
07:50lies the only copy of a 240-page tome.
07:54Antique bookseller Wilfred Voynich acquired this item in 1912,
07:58a 250-page book filled with strange illustrations and written in an unknown script.
08:04He purchased the manuscript from the cash-strapped priest at the college
08:06and eventually brought it to the U.S.,
08:08where experts have continued to puzzle over it for more than a century.
08:12The pages feature bizarre plants, astronomical diagrams,
08:16and naked women in elaborate bathing rituals.
08:18Radiocarbon dating places it back some 600 years,
08:22but the book continues to confound linguists, historians, and cryptographers.
08:27While some argue that it is a hoax,
08:29others believe the manuscript could be a treatise on nature
08:32and holds lost knowledge or coded science.
08:36If cracked, the Voynich Manuscript could unveil a hidden worldview from the past.
08:40What do you think it is?
08:42Number 3. The Baghdad Battery
08:44In 1936, an assemblage of three artifacts,
08:47including a ceramic pot, a copper tube, and an iron rod,
08:51was discovered near modern-day Baghdad.
08:54The stupid thing is that people just assumed this thing was a battery
08:57because it resembled a modern battery.
08:59Believed to date back to the Parthian era, around 200 BCE,
09:03the purpose of the assembly was unclear.
09:06However, its similarities to modern-day voltaic cells,
09:09which convert chemical energy into electricity, were not overlooked.
09:13Fine, I admit it. This vessel was a battery made 2,000 years ago.
09:17But it was an accidental battery.
09:19Back then, nobody knew it was a battery.
09:21Wilhelm Koenig, then director of the National Museum of Iraq,
09:25suggested that the artifacts were used for electroplating or electrotherapy.
09:30The corrosion of the metals indicated that the jar was filled with an acidic solution,
09:34which could then produce small electric currents.
09:37While its true purpose remains unknown,
09:40the Baghdad Battery suggests that ancient people harnessed electricity,
09:44challenging our assumptions about technological progress throughout human history.
09:48Now you might ask, if it wasn't a battery, what was it for?
09:52I'm 100% sure I don't know what it was for.
09:54Number 2. Gobekli Tepe.
09:57Historians believe humans first settled into permanent towns in 8,000 BCE.
10:01Agriculture became the first commodity, and alongside religious practices, culture was born.
10:07But is that really how it happened?
10:09A temple complex in modern-day Turkey, dating back to the 10th millennium BCE, contradicts this.
10:16Today, Gobekli Tepe is one of the most well-known archaeological sites in the world.
10:20Discovered in 1994, Gobekli Tepe features multiple rings of massive stone pillars.
10:26These pillars are carved with scenes of animals, suggesting their makers were semi-nomadic hunters.
10:33These ancient peoples were unaware of agriculture, which was discovered only five centuries later.
10:38It's a well-known archaeological principle that the things that you find are never going to be the oldest things.
10:43It is just the oldest thing you have found so far.
10:45The Gobekli Tepe challenges the prevailing belief that complex societies emerged only after the advent of farming,
10:52forcing us to reconsider the circumstances that led to human civilization.
10:56This part of the world has been vastly left out of the history books, and so it still has so much to teach us.
11:17Number 1. The Antikythera Mechanism
11:20The biggest head-scratcher of them all, the Antikythera Mechanism is dubbed the world's first computer.
11:26It was discovered in the wreckage of a sunken Roman cargo ship in 1901.
11:31120 years ago, sponge divers discovered a shipwreck off the tiny island of Antikythera in Greece.
11:39And what they found changed our understanding of human history forever.
11:44The circular artifact dates back to 100 BCE, and is made of a sophisticated arrangement of interlocking gears and mysterious characters.
11:53This is a massive step forward in the history of science and technology.
11:57Archaeologists purport that it is a highly intricate astronomical calendar to track cosmic phenomena and even the four-year cycle of the Olympic Games.
12:06Interestingly, nothing else like it appears in historical records for over a millennium.
12:12Thus, it is possible that an entire chapter of human ingenuity and technological capability of the ancient world has been forgotten and is yet to be discovered.
12:22The history of technological development doesn't go in a straight line.
12:27It develops in fits and starts and sometimes gets lost and forgotten.
12:30Which of these mysteries blow your mind the most?
12:34Do you think they are hoaxes, or do we just not understand them yet?
12:37Let us know in the comments below, and don't forget to like and subscribe for more exciting content.
12:43A new world of secrets was revealed.
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