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This video explores two baffling mysteries: the discovery of human cells in unusual rainfall and the unexplained, eerie hum that shook the Earth for nine days. Dive into these strange occurrences and the ongoing investigations to uncover their origins and implications.
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00:00People went outside and stopped in wonder. Some gooey stuff was covering the ground.
00:06Whiteish, gelatinous blobs had turned the outside world into a scene out of a creepy sci-fi movie.
00:12This mystery evoked lots of discussion and experts offered different theories.
00:17But it turned out that the situation was even worse than previously thought.
00:22The blobs reportedly made the people who came into contact with them sick.
00:27But let's start from the very beginning.
00:30It was the summer of 1994 in the timber town of Oakville when gelatinous blobs were found on the ground.
00:37People thought they had rained from the sky because where else could they have come from?
00:42This find caused panic and confusion among the residents of the area.
00:47But actually, it was just the first appearance of this gooey substance.
00:51Flecks of goo, which were actually smaller than a grain of rice, fell down from the sky several times.
00:57The volume was very high, and when they accumulated on the ground and shed roofs, they became visible.
01:03Around 10 days after the first occurrence, a newspaper wrote an article about the blobs.
01:09Other than that, there seemed to be no other confirmed and official reports about this mysterious substance.
01:16Until a National Weather Service employee in the area got a call from an unidentified man in August.
01:24The man claimed that some hot, metallic particles falling from the sky had burned holes in his kid's trampoline.
01:32Apparently, it was time to examine the Oakville blobs.
01:36A hospital reportedly looked at them under a microscope and made a terrifying discovery.
01:42The researchers stated that the substance contained human white cells.
01:47This encouraged some people to suppose that the blobs were probably concentrated fluid waste from an airplane toilet.
01:54This theory was debunked after a spokesperson of the Federal Aviation Administration explained that toilet fluids were usually dyed blue,
02:03which gave them the nickname blue ice.
02:06Another theory trying to explain the Oakville blobs suggested they had something to do with jellyfish.
02:12Some experts agreed that this idea was plausible.
02:18Something the size of portions of jellyfish could have been pulled up into the atmosphere and moved to another location
02:24during a storm.
02:26After all, raining animals is nothing new, but we'll speak about that later.
02:32At the same time, six events of the Oakville blobs raining down from the sky were reported,
02:37which made it hard to imagine jellyfish particles floating around in the sky for so long.
02:43On the 20th of August, 1994, the New York Times reported that the mysterious gooey substance had once been alive.
02:51This article followed an analysis made by the Washington State Department of Ecology.
02:57The scientists who had tested the blobs announced that they had found out that the substance contained a number of
03:03cells of different sizes.
03:06Interestingly, those results brought an end to the human white cell theory since it turned out that the cells didn't
03:13have any nuclei.
03:14But that's something you definitely see in human white cells and jellyfish as well.
03:20These creatures are multicellular organisms whose cells contain nuclei.
03:24But what kind of life wouldn't have nuclei?
03:28For example, bacteria and some other microorganisms similar to them.
03:32An expert working on this mystery said that the blobs had no clearly visible structure,
03:37and it didn't appear even when they used a microscope.
03:41In the end, the researchers concluded that the substance contained two types of bacteria,
03:47both found in the digestive tracts of humans and other mammals.
03:50They were also often found when waste was deposited.
03:54These bacteria could travel in the water and through the air.
03:58The goo could be some kind of a carrier system.
04:02Unfortunately, the scientists admitted that they didn't have any hard evidence to support their idea.
04:08To add to the mystery, the samples reportedly went missing before the researchers could finish their work.
04:15But is it true that the weird blobs made people sick?
04:18At first sight, yes.
04:20A few Oakville residents reported becoming ill and experiencing similar flu-like symptoms after touching the Oakville blobs.
04:28But was it a direct consequence?
04:31No one knows.
04:32Experts admit that the cases of illness could have been a coincidence,
04:35which makes the incident even more intriguing.
04:38So far, the mystery remains unsolved.
04:42Now let's move on to the other stuff falling from the sky.
04:46Bad news.
04:47Some of it can be totally disgusting.
04:50Like worms falling from the sky in China and wiggling on people's cars.
04:54Some people thought it was an animal rain, while others were not convinced.
04:59They stated that the video was fake since the worms were only on vehicles, but not on the ground.
05:04Others were sure worm rains were a totally normal thing in March.
05:09Ugh, luckily, not where I live.
05:11But the most shocking thing?
05:13Bizarre worm rains happened in the British Isles too.
05:16For example, in Scotland, kids were playing soccer when worms started raining down.
05:22The reason could be a substantial weather change, or who knows what.
05:26But the cases of animal rain actually started long ago.
05:30In 1877, an unusual tornado hit a farm in Southern California, bringing along several tiny alligators about one foot in
05:40length.
05:41In 1894, a tornado moved through England, dropping poisonous jellyfish on people's heads.
05:47Even though some witnesses claimed those were not jellyfish, but tadpoles, the incident was still extremely strange.
05:57In 1876, in Kentucky, black humor rain was recorded.
06:02That was when chunks of meat fell from the sky.
06:04Now, let me tell you, if you're squeamish, you might want to skip this part.
06:09Okay, I've warned you.
06:11Locals claimed the meat tasted like mutton.
06:14But later, researchers discovered that buzzards flying over the area must have felt unwell and regurgitated their meal right in
06:22the air.
06:23Ew, told you.
06:25All these are instances of the animal rain, a rare meteorological phenomenon in which flightless animals fall from the sky.
06:34Such cases have been reported throughout history.
06:38Starting from 1794, when French soldiers saw toads fall to the ground during heavy rain near the French city of
06:45Lille.
06:46How do such rains occur?
06:48It might be different for different species.
06:51For example, frogs and toads often roam the countryside in large numbers.
06:57Powerful winds can pick them up and carry them for great distances.
07:01Or let's take fish.
07:03In 1861, there was a reported rain of fish in Singapore.
07:08And a naturalist speculated at that time, a migration of walking catfish could be taking place.
07:15So the wind might have dragged them over land from one puddle to another, as if they had been following
07:20the rain.
07:21In any case, the most common explanation of such cases is that there is no actual falling at all.
07:29Animals are just driven along by winds or something of the kind.
07:33This can also explain why typically only one single species of animal is reported raining from the sky.
07:40Another probable explanation involves tornado water spouts.
07:44Those are tornadoes forming over the water.
07:47A tornadic water spout can potentially transport animals to relatively high altitudes and carry them to remote locations.
07:55This idea is supported by the suggestion that animal rains are often preceded by storms.
08:01At the same time, this theory doesn't explain why each incident involves just one species, not a group of similarly
08:08sized animals from the same habitat.
08:11Here are some other examples of animal rains.
08:14In 1947, fish started falling to the ground in Louisiana.
08:18And in 2005, it rained frogs in Serbia.
08:22In 2010, a small town in Australia experienced a rain of perches.
08:28These occurrences were most likely caused by tornadoes, lifting things from the ground and water and depositing them in totally
08:35different areas.
08:36Sometimes, even iguanas might fall onto your head.
08:40When it's really cold, they go into hibernation mode to survive.
08:44But even though they might look frozen, they're still alive.
08:48When it gets warmer, they start moving again.
08:50But unfortunately, while in that chilled state, they might fall down from trees, which is dangerous both for the animals
08:58themselves and for passers-by.
09:02On September 16th of 2023, without warning, the Earth began to hum.
09:10A low, strange vibration reverberated through the crust.
09:15This set off seismic alarms all across the globe.
09:19For nine days straight, the planet was pulsing with this horrifying rhythm.
09:23And scientists had no idea what was going on.
09:26Meanwhile, the total disaster was happening in Greenland.
09:33It wasn't an earthquake.
09:35They knew that much.
09:36They could tell it by the rhythm.
09:38Since we all live on giant tectonic plates, they constantly move and slide on magma like icebergs on water.
09:46Sometimes, as they move, they can rub against each other or collide or break.
09:50In any case, all this causes an incredible release of energy that sends shockwaves through the ground.
09:57That's when we feel the ground literally shaking, and it's what we call an earthquake.
10:01These vibrations we feel are called seismic waves.
10:05Seismometers pick them up as pings or rumbles.
10:09In a typical earthquake, they create a bunch of different frequencies.
10:12It's a crazy chaotic mix of low and high frequencies, like smashing every piano key.
10:19What was weird about the Greenland event is that the signals weren't like that at all.
10:24It was a steady, single-frequency vibration, as if some ancient machine was stirring beneath the earth.
10:31It's like one piano key being struck over and over, creating a doom-like, repetitive sound.
10:39Turns out, what they were hearing wasn't the noise of tectonic plates going wild.
10:44It was a phenomenon seismologists had never seen before.
10:50The days passed, and the mysterious noise just kept going.
10:55The vibrations repeated every 90 seconds, echoing around the world.
10:59The hunt for answers was growing more desperate.
11:02Seismologists had no idea what they were dealing with.
11:05They had to gather a huge international team of 68 people from 15 countries.
11:12All these scientists were gathering seismic data, satellite images, and doing some advanced math for several days.
11:19Until they finally realized who the culprit was.
11:24Water
11:24It all happened in a remote, desolate region of East Greenland.
11:28This place is full of fjords.
11:31Narrow inlets of the sea between high cliffs, kind of like deep, water-filled valleys surrounded by towering, rocky sides.
11:38In this area, surrounded by jagged peaks and icy waters, the air was still.
11:44The landscape seemingly frozen in time.
11:47Nothing here changed much for years.
11:49Until one day.
11:54A colossal landslide has unfolded in the Dixon Fjord.
11:58One of those steep mountainsides towering over the fjord at almost 4,000 feet high, collapsed in a massive landslide.
12:06Picture a huge chunk of this mountain crumbling and crashing down into the fjord below.
12:13This sent a deluge of rock and ice crashing into the water.
12:17The impact was just apocalyptic.
12:20882 million cubic feet of debris.
12:22That's enough ice and rock to fill 10,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools, or 10 Great Pyramids of Giza.
12:31And all this nightmare hurled into the water with such force that it kick-started a tsunami about 360 feet
12:39high, taller than the Statue of Liberty, into the air.
12:43What's crazy is that this incredibly powerful wave was trapped in the fjord by narrow cliffs, unable to escape.
12:50It's like water sloshing in a closed bathtub.
12:53For nine days, the mega tsunami continued to churn through it.
12:57That's why we heard this endless hum.
12:59It was a rhythmic back and forth of the water slamming against the walls.
13:04The shockwaves were rippling deep into Earth's crust, vibrations so strong that they were picked up by seismometers around the
13:12globe.
13:13This was a phenomenon so rare, so unprecedented, that it left scientists stunned.
13:19It turned out to be a perfect storm of elements.
13:22A glacier, weakened by years of warming, could no longer bear the weight of the mountain above.
13:31This collapse was inevitable, and the chaos literally shook the Earth to its core.
13:36And people often hang out in this area, with cruise ships passing by, were lucky that no lives were lost
13:42in the disaster.
13:44It was a close call, though.
13:45A tourist ship stranded in the area just two days before, narrowly escaped the tsunami's reach by pure luck.
13:52But it doesn't mean there were no losses.
13:54The waves destroyed a nearby Inuit site, which was there untouched for over 200 years.
14:02They also swept away the huts at a research station that were about 43 miles away.
14:08The vibrations traveled from Greenland to the South Pole in less than an hour.
14:13That just shows how dangerous events like this can be.
14:19And this isn't the only place where such catastrophes are happening.
14:22In the beautiful California community of Rancho Palos Verdes, the ground is shifting so quickly that it's tearing homes apart.
14:30The land there has always been kinda unstable.
14:34It has some unique geology.
14:36It's built on soft, clay-rich soil and sits on a geological fault line, which makes it prone to landslides.
14:44This means that this land is prone to slow, natural shifting over many years, even when no crazy weather is
14:51happening.
14:52It's been like this for decades, but usually it's slow and pretty manageable.
14:56Like about a foot a year.
14:59Imagine a tree that you played with as a kid, moving 20 feet to the left as you grow up.
15:03For decades, residents adapted.
15:06They built their homes on adjustable beams.
15:09This helped the houses to move with the land.
15:11And that strategy worked well, until now.
15:18Recently, things have been getting much worse in the community.
15:21Now, the land is moving by a foot in a single week.
15:24That would be like if the same tree moved almost 960 feet since you were a child.
15:30The past two years have also caused some heavy rains, and the weather has been getting worse.
15:36This increased water content in the soil.
15:39The land became heavier and more prone to rapid movement.
15:43Now, this once idyllic seaside escape turned into a disaster zone.
15:49Cracks have appeared in closets, gardens and roads, growing larger with each passing day.
15:55Streets that were once smooth are now buckled and twisted, with roads turning into a crazy theme park.
16:01Houses that once stood firm are being ripped from their foundations.
16:05Some of them split in half.
16:07One of the houses had its front door 8 feet off the ground.
16:11Entire neighborhoods have been plunged into chaos.
16:14Utility companies had to switch off gas and electricity indefinitely to prevent potential disasters.
16:23The hardest hit is the coastal neighborhood of Portuguese Bend, where residents are living on the edge.
16:29Literally.
16:30It always had amazing ocean views and cool sea breezes, with horses and peacocks still wandering the tree-lined streets.
16:37But now, it's like an earthquake hit.
16:40Only this time, the earth isn't stopping.
16:43For many, this place feels like paradise, if only the land would stop shifting beneath their feet.
16:49So, the locals don't give up.
16:51Some of them had to leave, but many are determined to stay and fight, despite the destruction.
16:57But they still have to pour in hundreds of thousands of dollars to save their properties.
17:02People have installed generators to keep the lights on,
17:04and set up sewer systems and pumps to drain the groundwater causing the landslides.
17:09Some say that the only way for these neighborhoods to survive might be to go completely off-grid,
17:15installing power walls to store energy and stuff like that.
17:19People are trying their best to run the sewer system off generators.
17:22They hope that they could get rid of this water in the soil that's causing these hellish landslides in the
17:27first place.
17:28They're determined to fight, but they will need help and support from the government to fight this disaster.
17:36Landslides are actually more common across the U.S. than many might think.
17:40And new maps and data show that tons of people in the country might be in danger.
17:45Scientists managed to create the first very detailed, very cool map that shows where these landslides might happen,
17:52county by county.
17:54It's based on a lot of data and the history of one million previous landslides.
17:59They say that nearly 40% of the United States is at risk of experiencing landslide activity,
18:05which could lead to some insane catastrophes in certain areas.
18:09Luckily, now both residents and engineers can keep this in mind.
18:13But all this shows how vulnerable we are to natural disasters,
18:17and how we should always stay alerted.
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