It was initially thought to be a meteorite impact zone, but people soon realized that meteorites typically punch craters into the Earth, and don't just cut a bunch of doughnuts in the sand before launching themselves back into space. Then it was suggested that the ridges might have been formed by a volcanic eruption, but that theory proved to be equally full of wrongness once people realized that there aren't any volcanic rocks anywhere near the damn thing. Nowadays, the prevalent belief is that the Eye was formed by the gradual erosion of nearby rocks over the centuries, and they just happened to settle into the shape of an eye. While that may turn out to be true, it's important to note that all of these theories have overlooked the most obvious explanation: magic.

How the rocks randomly managed to take the shape of an eyeball, nestled inside a raised slit that perfectly resembles an orbital socket, is a mystery that will probably never be explained. If it truly is the eyeball of a sentient Earth, it seems wildly disproportionate, and we have yet to find a second one, which suggests either a terrible birth defect or a cosmic motorcycle accident.

NASA
Europe does look suspiciously like an eye patch.

Neither the colors nor the patterns are Photoshopped -- Freakydeakistan up there is 100 percent real. The culprit appears to be an abundance of carnallite, a rare mineral that serves as an alteration product of salt and typically shows up in red, yellow, or blue color tones. After years of miners kicking it up all over the place, the carnallite started layering together along the walls to create the grooviest mine in Russia (despite certain stretches that aren't so groovy).

Mikhail Mishainik/Caters News via Huffington Post
"It's starin' at me, man. It's got, like, 15 eyes, and they're all starin' at me like they know something, man."

But before you hop a plane to Mother Russia to go trip the mine fantastic, make sure you're prepared. As we mentioned, this mine is nothing but salt and carnallite, so the air within it is extremely dry. According to Mishainik, that dry saltiness, combined with the sweltering heat that comes with any windowless subterranean bunker, leaves you with a feeling of perpetual thirst. Combine that with the cotton mouth you get from "expanding your consciousness," and you might want to experience this place sober after all.

Mikhail Mishainik/Caters News via Huffington Post
Otherwise you might become convinced that the dragons in the ceiling are speaking to you, and no one would ever see you again.

Chances are you've seen pictures like this floating around the stronghold of accurate information that is the Internet:

Tony Travouillon/ExclusivePix via Daily Mail
Faaaaaaaake. Dude doesn't even look real.

The pictures are usually accompanied by some immediately discrediting caption such as "OMG, it's a frozen wave u guyz!" or "A wave of water just froze in the Arctic. I can't even." Because people evidently believe that The Day After Tomorrow is a documentary film and that flash-freezing a tidal wave mid-rip curl is totally a thing that is possible.

Tony Travouillon/ExclusivePix via Daily Mail
Statistically, if Roland Emmerich keeps making random shit up, eventually he'll come up with something that's true.

Now, while the fact that those are in no way frozen waves probably doesn't shock you, you might actually be surprised to hear that those pictures are 100 percent real. What you're actually looking at are glaciers, turned upside down and partially melted, then refrozen in the most artistic way possible.

Next Trip Tourism
For reference, "Iceman's pompadour" is the most artistic way possible.

As explained by Tony Travouillon -- the scientist responsible for the photographs -- during the warm(ish) summer months in Antarctica, some of the nearby sea ice will begin to melt. The thaw is enough to free glaciers that are normally held in place, and many of the glaciers become upended, revealing their crystal blue undersides. The glaciers themselves then gradually melt, sending water running down the sides, and that water freezes again before it gets a chance to hit the ground, like the tears of a yeti. Repeated melting and refreezing forces out any errant air bubbles in the glacier and gives it that flowing "wave" look, which is more than enough to fool absolutely everyone on the Internet into thinking that weather functions like a Batman villain.

Over the millennia, waves beat the bottom of the cube senseless, softening its hard exterior bit by bit until honeycombing caverns eventually formed in the cube's interior. Now it looks like a frost goblin's water park.

atlasobscura.com
Or a dolphin nightclub.

As the seawater laboriously carved its way through the rock, it left behind countless layers of turquoise salt residue, painting the walls the color of a pair of board shorts. The end result is a geographical wonder that looks like Aquaman's garage.

Fimm via Amazing Places on Earth
"Wait, where's my Ferrari? Did it sink to the bottom of the ocean again?"

Despite the caves' bright cheeriness, it seems like a good place to drown if you're not careful during your visit. On the plus side, it's probably really difficult for sharks to get inside.

1001 Archives via Wordless Tech
Probably.

Romania's Izvorul Bigar isn't a particularly tall waterfall (it's a mere 26 feet high), doesn't have cascading sheets of water so much as continuous drizzles, and is encased in a thick layer of flow-disrupting moss. Yet pretty much everyone who has seen it considers it to be the most beautiful waterfall in the entire world, because it looks like a giant green rock floating on space magic.

The locals call it the "miracle from the Minis Gorge," because unlike most waterfalls, which get their titular resource from a free-flowing river or lake, the water pouring down Izvorul Bigar seems to be flowing from a hole in the universe. There are no connecting sources of water whatsoever. It's as if the waterfall itself is some giant, sweaty rock monster.

Sabin Uivarosan via Huffington Post
Yeah, you have rock monster ball sweat set as your desktop.

The actual source of Izvorul Bigar's water is a subterranean spring bubbling up intermittently through several small holes along the ground, as if the gorge finally got sick of having its radishes stolen and decided to drown Fraggle Rock with a busted water main.

Coretchi via Huffington Post
Those are the tears of horrible victory.

Izvorul Bigar's bodysuit of thick moss slows the water's movement to a crawl, and the result is a steady, constant shower that in many ways is more beautiful and impressive than the thundering torrents of Niagara Falls. Until you look at it from the side; then it looks like the dank underdwelling of a Stephen King monster.

Ethan Richardson
There's definitely some kind of clown spider under there chewing on a Velcro sneaker.

Of course, if you're one of those nerds who prefer a boring, science-y explanation, there is an alternate theory -- frost wedging, which is a common geological phenomenon in cold places (and South Island can admittedly get pretty damn cold). Water will infiltrate a crack in a rock, and once the temperature gets low enough, the water freezes, turning to ice and expanding the crack. As this process is repeated countless times over thousands of years, it could eventually carve a titanic geological sea gonad like Split Apple Rock completely in half. Either that, or a giant Rune Ax was flung down from Valhalla like a shard of Ragnarok and cleft that boulder in two before detonating into clouds of mythic dust, which is clearly the superior explanation.

Christopher Bryant via Inspire Fusion