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40 Real Places Ripped Right Out of Sci-Fi and Fantasy Stories

By:: Cracked Writers; Brian C. Miller

August 24, 2023

40 Real Places Ripped Right Out of Sci-Fi and Fantasy Stories

Think of the most amazing places you've seen come to life in science-fiction or fantasy movies and television shows: The dunes of Tatooine where Luke Skywalker longing looks up at two suns; the lush and gentle hills of the Shire in the Lord of the Rings films; or the expansive but claustrophobic cyberpunk cityscape of the Blade Runner films. While you’ll never be able to truly see those places for real, don't despair. There are numerous places on Earth that feel like they’d be right at home in any single one of those films. Places like…

40 Arctic Island Warehouse

A remote Arctic island hides a warehouse of the world's plant seed samples. - You might expect that kind of thing in sci-fi about eco-catastrophes, but this is real. The Global Seed Vault, which has samples from over 10,000 plants, is buried 390 feet deep and packed with security measures and booby traps to keep it safe from wannabe eco-supervillains. CRACKED.COM — Source: 18 Seemingly Sci-Fi Places Here On Earth

39 The Siberian mine that eats helicopters

This looks like a sci-fi superweapon, but it's what used to be the world's biggest diamond mine. This Siberian mine was blasted open in the 1950s with explosives and jet engines, and the Russians just kept digging for years. (They closed it in 2004.) The mine acts like a superweapon, too. It's so big that helicopters can't fly over it because the downdraft would suck them inside. CRACKED.COM — Source: 18 Seemingly Sci-Fi Places Here On Earth

38 Neuschwanstein Castle

This castle looks like a set from a Disney movie. It's actually the inspiration for them. That's Neuschwanstein Castle, the retreat of Ludwig II of Bavaria. The enormous structure was built in the style of castle romanticism during the 19th century. Because of its opulent, expensive design, most of the castle interior remains unfinished. GRAGKED.COM http //www neuschwanstein de/englisch/palace/index.htm — Source: 22 Ridiculous Places Right Here On Earth

37 Corryvreckan Maelstrom

Think whirlpools are a temporary, small- scale phenomenon? You're looking at a large, permanent one. This is the Corryvreckan Maelstrom, off the coast of Scotland. It's a massive, eternal vortex caused by a dramatic underwater pinnacle. A documentary team once tossed a mannequin into the vortex and it was immediately sucked to a depth of 650 feet. GRACKED.COM http://www. bfi.org uk/iims-tv-people/4ce2b85575545 — Source: 22 Ridiculous Places Right Here On Earth

36 The Seven Strong Men

These wonky stone pillars look like an art installation. They're a 200-foot-high rock formation. Scientists think the seven stone monoliths in Siberia were caused by erosion, but they stand in a grassy field with no other rock formations for miles. They're the Manpupuner Formations, although locals call them the Seven Strong Men. CRACKED.COM http://www.btlasobscura. com/places/manpupuner-rock-formations — Source: 22 Ridiculous Places Right Here On Earth

35 Don't fall in here

Think this landscape looks spiky and inhospitable? It's essentially a 250- square-mile tiger trap. The Tsingy de Bemaraha National Park in Madagascar is made up of massive limestone obelisks riddled with jagged spears. Because it's so deadly, it remains largely unexplored - and is teeming with undiscovered species. CRACKED.COM http //ngm nationalgeographio.com/2009/11/stone-forest/shea-text/2 — Source: 22 Ridiculous Places Right Here On Earth

34 The Atomium

Brussels' Atomium is basically the perfect lair for an evil genius. It's a 335-foot-tall building, shaped like an iron molecule, that consists of massive halls (one inside each atom) linked by futuristic escalator tubes and elevators. In other words, exactly the headquarters that a megalomaniacal mad scientist would want. CRACKED.COM — Source: 18 Seemingly Sci-Fi Places Here On Earth

33 DSU's Optical Science Center

This building looks like it's using advanced cloaking technology. But it's just really, really reflective. The building is Delaware State University's Optical Science Center for Applied Research, so it could be where people figure out how to cloak for real. CRACKED.COM — Source: 18 Seemingly Sci-Fi Places Here On Earth

32 The Garden of Cosmic Speculation

The Garden of Cosmic Speculation isn't an alien relic, but it might as well be. It's an obsessively crafted space whose every feature was based on the mathematics of, for example, fractals and black hole physics. And some parts of it are just flat-out trippy, designed to look like somebody fiddled with the concept of 3D space. CRACKED.COM — Source: 18 Seemingly Sci-Fi Places Here On Earth

31 El Alto, Bolivia

If you want to see comic book buildings in real life, go to El Alto, Bolivia. Even their interiors have these bright colors, crisp lines, and super-defined edges. Created by self-taught architect Freddy Mamani, they've been dismissed as flamboyant spaceships for the nouveaux riches. At least the first part of that sounds like praise to us. CRACKED.COM — Source: 18 Seemingly Sci-Fi Places Here On Earth

30 India and Pakistan's Border Wall

This is sci-fi artwork, right? Nope, it's a NASA photo of the 1,250-mile border wall between India and Pakistan. In their words, it's one of the few places on Earth where an international boundary can be seen at night. CRACKED.COM — Source: 18 Seemingly Sci-Fi Places Here On Earth

29 Chapel Torre Girona

Barcelona's Chapel Torre Girona looks like a Bond villain lair. On the outside, it's just a plain chapel. But the inside houses the Barcelona Supercomputing Center and the 10240-core IVM PowerPC MareNostrum, one of Europe's fastest supercomputers. Breakthroughs in fields like human genome research happened in this chapel. CRACKED.COM — Source: 18 Seemingly Sci-Fi Places Here On Earth

28 Kinda wish this is what Dune looked like

Think rainbow- colored sand only appears in jar art? It occurs naturally on the island of Mauritius. The Seven-Colored Earths is a tiny rainbow desert in the middle of a jungle on an island off the coast of Madagascar. Even more curious, when you disturb the sand, it eventually sorts itself back together according to color. GRACKED.COM http://maunitiusatfractons com/chamarei-colored-earth--104.html — Source: 22 Ridiculous Places Right Here On Earth

27 Volcanic ice caves SOUND like they should be oxymorons...

This eerily glowing blue cave looks like a movie set. It's a volcanic ice cave in Iceland. It's the Crystal Cave of Svinafellsjokull, a 150-foot-long ice cave located on the border between a glacier and the Icelandic coast. It gets its surreal blue color from snow that's had all its oxygen forced out by the movement of the glacier. CRACKED.COM — Source: 22 Ridiculous Places Right Here On Earth

26 Gonna nope right out of this cave, thanks

This dude is standing inside some kind of alien skeleton, right? Actually he's inside of 3N Cave, in Iran. Those spindly tentacles are salt crystals. 3N is the world's largest salt cave. When it rains heavily, water penetrates the surrounding rock layers and carries salt into the cave. Once inside, the salt quickly grows into feathery, crystalline formations. GRAGKED.COM SOURCE IT — Source: 22 Ridiculous Places Right Here On Earth

25 How did this form naturally?

This looks like some kind of manmade fish hatchery. Those rectangular shapes occurred naturally. You're looking at tessellated pavement, a set of stones on the Tasmanian coastline that are each shaped like a near-perfect rectangle. The stones cracked millions of years ago when tectonic plates shifted, forming nearly straight crevices. CRACKED.COM http //www atlasobscura com/places/eaglehawk-neck-tessellated-pavemant — Source: 22 Ridiculous Places Right Here On Earth

24 What's this weird, pink lake?

This bubbly pink lake looks like diarrhea medicine. It's just a typical day for Lake Natron in Tanzania. Specifically, it's the alkali salt crust on the lake's surface. Countless microorganisms are attracted to the heavy salt concentration, which gives the lake its odd appearance. And although the lake is highly alkaline, it's a breeding site for flamingos. GRACKED.COM http://earthobservatory nasa gov/IOTD/view php?id=3042 — Source: 22 Ridiculous Places Right Here On Earth

23 A real crystal fortress?

Think Superman's Fortress of Solitude is pure fantasy? Check out the Cueva de las Cristales, in Mexico. It's located in the Naica Mine of Chihuahua, Mexico, and contains some of the largest selenite crystals in the world. And not only does the cave make human beings look tiny, it can also make them dead. It's wet and hot-up to 136 degrees Fahrenheit. GRAGKED.COM http://ngm.nationalgeographic com/2008/11/crystal-giants/shea-text/s — Source: 22 Ridiculous Places Right Here On Earth

22 Mponeng Gold Mine

South Africa's Mponeng gold mine is basically an underground dystopian slum. The 236 miles of tunnels in the 2.5-mile-deep mine (Earth's deepest) are home to a society of illegal ghost miners, armed with AK-47s, whose economy has everything from bread to sex workers. Security guards leave them be, because the complex is just so huge. CRACKED.COM — Source: 18 Seemingly Sci-Fi Places Here On Earth

21 Sudbury Neutrino Observatory

Canada's Sudbury Neutrino Observatory looks cooler than any supervillain science lab. Its neutrino detector (above) is deeper than a mile underground, just for extra secret lair points. Oh, and the space it occupies is the largest manmade hole ever. CRACKED.COM — Source: 18 Seemingly Sci-Fi Places Here On Earth

20 ARoS Kunstmuseum

This walkway would be at home in a cyberpunk movie. Sitting on top of the ARoS Kunstmuseum building, it offers great views of the city of Aarhus, Denmark. Well, if you don't mind seeing it in one color at a time. The designer says the tinted windows are there to make the inside and outside blur. CRACKED.COM — Source: 18 Seemingly Sci-Fi Places Here On Earth

19 The Ijen Crater

Hellish mines in bizarre terrain are a sci-fi staple. This one's real. Eastern Indonesia's Ijen Crater is an active volcano where cracks in the rocks release poisonous gases that sometimes burn a strange blue color. Every day, people climb 9,000 feet and then descend 3,000 feet into the crater to mine elemental sulfur while it's hardening. CRACKED.COM — Source: 18 Seemingly Sci-Fi Places Here On Earth

18 Salina Turda

This isn't a hidden asteroid base, but an underground theme park.l It's Salina Turda, a former Romanian salt mine that got turned into a tourist trap with a mini golf course, spa center, underground lake boat rides, and even a Ferris wheel. Disappointingly, there are no secret spaceship hangars. CRACKED.COM — Source: 18 Seemingly Sci-Fi Places Here On Earth

17 The Polygone Riviera

Yup, this looks just like Colossus peeking out of a metal box. mao LIBAL LIFER It's a building on France's Polygone Riviera, a big shopping district. Somehow, someone thought the shiny head of Colossus from the X-Men would look perfect there. Sadly, there's no cool observatory - or anything else - inside the head. It just links the lower and upper floors. CRACKED.COM — Source: 18 Seemingly Sci-Fi Places Here On Earth

16 This lake is ridiculous.

This looks less like a lake and more like a game of Twister. It's Spotted Lake in Osoyoos, British Columbia. That ridiculous polka-dotted landscape is caused by a large concentration of various minerals found within the lake. During the summer, most of the water evaporates and the minerals harden around the remaining spots of water. GRACKED.COM http://blog hellobc.com/the-magic-of-spotted-lake-n-osoyoQs/ — Source: 22 Ridiculous Places Right Here On Earth

15 Sahara sea shells?

This looks like some sort of seashell. It's a rock formation in the Sahara desert. Officially known as the Richat Structure, the Eye of the Sahara is a 30-mile-wide collection of raised rocks that, for one reason or another, wound up in the shape of an eyeball. The latest theory as to why it's there is erosion. GRAGKED.COM http //www gigairesearch,com/uk/mystery-of-the-giant-blue-eye-of-africa-in-mauritania.pbp — Source: 22 Ridiculous Places Right Here On Earth

14 Marble caves... sort of.

Think you're looking at giant caves made of marble? You sort of are. The Marble Caves of Chile began as nothing but a giant block of hardened calcium carbonate. Over the millennia, waves pounding the base softened its hard exterior until honeycombing caverns eventually of formed in the cube's interior. The sea left behind countless layers of turquoise salt residue, creating the swirling marble pattern. GRAGKED.COM http://www. amazingplacesonearth com/the-marbie-caves-chi(e/ — Source: 22 Ridiculous Places Right Here On Earth

13 Frozen waves? Not quite!

You might think you're looking at frozen waves. They're actually inverted glaciers in Antarctica. During the warm(ish) summer months in Antarctica, some of the sea ice will begin to melt. The thaw is enough to free and upend some glaciers, revealing their blue undersides. Then thawing and refreezing creates the wave effect. CRACKED.COM https://weather com/news/news/antarctic-blue-ice-waves-amazing-photos-20121203 — Source: 22 Ridiculous Places Right Here On Earth

12 You can't convince me a unicorn doesn't live here

Ever seen a magical mermaid shower? You can, in Romania. 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 it's widely considered to be the most beautiful waterfall in the world. The most magical part is its source - an invisible underground stream. GRACKED.COM http /www.designfaves.com/2014/04/magical-waterfall-earth-amazing-photographs — Source: 22 Ridiculous Places Right Here On Earth

11 Minecraft in real life?

Ever wish you could play real-life Q-Bert? Head on over to the Giant's Causeway, in Ireland. The causeway was formed by hundreds of basaltic lava columns hardening into stone 65 million years ago during a volcanic eruption. Normally, this leaves behind a flat sheet of rock, but in this case the basalt contracted as it cooled. CRACKED.COM http://www. giantscauseway co.uk/page_id=405 — Source: 22 Ridiculous Places Right Here On Earth

10 Pittsburgh Children's Museum

40 Real Places Ripped Right Out of Sci-Fi and Fantasy Stories — Source: 18 Seemingly Sci-Fi Places Here On Earth

9 Berlin's Tropical Island Resort

Want to see a rainforest 35 miles from Berlin? The Tropical Islands Resort is for you. The Resort is an enclosed dome that feels like a luxury biosphere on an alien planet. They also have a beach, hot air balloon rides, base jumping, and more. There are projected sunsets and fake sunlight too, strengthening the feeling of being in a high-end space resort. CRACKED.COM — Source: 18 Seemingly Sci-Fi Places Here On Earth

8 Slab City, CA

In Slab City, California, it feels like the apocalypse came and went. In the '60s, RV owners passing through the Colorado desert flocked to slabs left over from a military base, and eventually built a Mad Max-like shantytown there. Slab City's 200-ish residents mostly have no water or power, but they do have churches, businesses, and a library. CRACKED.COM — Source: 18 Seemingly Sci-Fi Places Here On Earth

7 Moshe Safdie's model society

Habitat 67 looks like it could turn into a giant robot. It's a housing complex of 354 cubes connected by walkways, elevator pillars, futuristic halls, plazas and more. Architect Moshe Safdie's idea was for the whole thing to house a model society (it was the '60s). Its resemblance to a Transformer is unintentional. CRACKED.COM — Source: 18 Seemingly Sci-Fi Places Here On Earth

6 This sea foam isn't fake

This sea foam definitely does not look natural. Except that it totally is. Phaeocystis-produced sea foam shows up every so often in the wake of big storms. The storm stirs up sediment and organic deposits from the ocean floor, creating a frothy whip that washes up onto the shore for several days. The foam itself is primarily made up of broken-down dead sea life and seaweed, so frolickers will want to shower. GRAGKED.COM https://www.sunshinecoastdaily com au/news/monster-deep-emerge-sea-foam/334210/ — Source: 22 Ridiculous Places Right Here On Earth

5 Psychadelic Russian mines

This looks like a '70s album cover, right? It's an abandoned salt mine in Russia. A photographer discovered the bright patterns when he visited the deserted salt mine 600 feet below Yekaterinburg, Russia to take pictures. The culprit appears to be an abundance of carnallite, a rare mineral that appears in sea salt deposits. GRAGKED.COM http — Source: 22 Ridiculous Places Right Here On Earth

4 The strange colors of this tree!

This tree looks like it lost a paintball fight. It's a rainbow eucalyptus, and is naturally colored. Officially known as the Eucalyptus deglupta, the trees have multiple layers of bark. As the bark peels, the inner layers are initially green, but then darken into different shades of yellow, brown, purple, red, and orange, Lisa-Frank-style. CRACKED.COM David Lee, 2010 Nature's Palette The Science of Plant Color — Source: 22 Ridiculous Places Right Here On Earth

3 Natural water stairs

Water doesn't form perfectly flat levels, like stairs, right? Apparently it does in Pamukkale, Turkey. Pamukkale is a series of naturally-forming hot springs located on the side of a cliff. When the water from underwater springs reaches the surface, the calcium in it forms deposits. Over time, those deposits have created terraces. CRACKED.COM SOURCE IT — Source: 22 Ridiculous Places Right Here On Earth

2 Snow... snakes, yeah...

This frozen tundra is protected by giant snow snakes! Actually, those are frozen trees in Finnish Lapland. Lapland is known for ferocious, driving snow and temperatures well below freezing, which routinely leaves the region's trees encased in shells of frost, like pornographic snow worms or gigantic anorexic snowmen. By spring, they'll be trees. GRAGKED.COM https://apod.nasa gov/apod/ap1. 20529.html — Source: 22 Ridiculous Places Right Here On Earth

1 These lakes change colors!

These three lakes keep changing colors. They're located in Kelimutu, Indonesia. Each lake can change its color completely at any time, independently of the others. The various hues range from light to navy blue, deep teal, and even yellow, brown, or red. So far, researchers have been unable to explain or predict the changes. CRACKED.COM http //www.amusingplanet com/2012/12/the-tri-colored-crater-lakes-of html — Source: 22 Ridiculous Places Right Here On Earth

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