Quantcast
Channel: Atlas Obscura: Articles
Browsing all 11432 articles
Browse latest View live

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

The Serpentine Story of Snake Oil, Or How I Came to Buy Snake Oil from...

Snake oil purchased from Amazon.com. (Photo: Ella Morton)Buying snake oil in 2015 is surprisingly easy. A search for "snake oil" on Amazon yields 2,716 hits, many of them not liquid, but 16 oils sit...

View Article



Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

LOST: Hollywood's Greatest Twitter Account

Fame is fickle (Photo: Christian Haugen/Flickr)Hollywood, an entire industry dedicated to people pretending to be someone that they're not (both onscreen and off), pretty much invented the concept of...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Cheating Wonders: The $6,000,000,000 Gold Mine That Didn't Exist

(Photo: Wichan Kongchan/shutterstock.com)The Gold Rush may be over, but that doesn’t mean the precious metal stopped inspiring criminal ingenuity.In fact, the largest gold mining scam in the history of...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

How To Design a Magical Life

(Photo: Alexandre17/shutterstock.com)You know those magical moments when fates collide, uncertainties resolve into sudden, stunning clarity, and the resulting awe and gratitude you feel for the...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

The Unmasking of the 19th Century's Seance Queen

Helena Blavatsky. (Photo: Public Domain/WikiCommons)“For our part, we regard her as neither the mouthpiece of hidden seers, nor as a mere vulgar adventuress; we think that she has achieved a title to...

View Article


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Nashville's Cheatin' Heart: Why Country Music Has Been Obsessed With Adultery...

Some troubadour left his broken heart. (Photo: Tim Parkinson/Flickr)Country music and cheating go together like whiskey and water.Flip on any radio station—classic country, pop-country, alt-country,...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Pizza Doesn't Really Stretch That Way, And Other Devious Food Stylist Tricks

What are they hiding? (Photo: William Hueberger/Lisa Homa)Everyone needs a little help to look their freshest. Celebrities have makeup artists, Instagrammers have filters, and food has food stylists:...

View Article

Found: A Very Flexible Fake Football Player

As a professional football team, the Phoenix-based Arizona Rattlers fields a very talented group of cheerleaders...and one extra-talented football player:  Okay, okay, just because he is wearing a...

View Article


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

5 Time Machines You Can Buy, Build or Visit

An 'Astral Projection Time Travel Machine Helmet Psychotronic Technology', for $129.95. (Photo: Ebay)The urge to travel through time is irresistible. It is, in fact, timeless: H.G. Wells' The Time...

View Article


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Cheating Wonders: A New Nazi Gold Scam?

One of the tunnels from Project Riese. (Photo: Chmee2/Wikipedia)This week, a pair of amateur treasure hunters claimed to have discovered a lost train packed with ill-gotten Nazi gold near the Polish...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Scam Reviewers Are So Crafty They Actually Deserve 4 Stars

(Photo: Artem Samokhvalov/shutterstock.com)You're walking around the city with a group of friends. It's 7 p.m., and you all have a similar urge to fill your stomachs with fish tacos and strong...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Take a Ride with the Country's Most Dedicated Elevator Tourist

Nix Hospital Elevator Lobby in San Antonio. (Photo: DieselDucy/flickr)Andrew Reams was just a toddler when he went on the elevator ride that launched a lifelong passion.He was shopping with his mother...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

FOUND: The Oldest Message in a Bottle Ever Recovered

One of Bidder's bottles (Photo: Marine Biological Association of the U.K/Facebook)A few months back, Marianne Winkler and her husband, Horst, were taking a vacation on Amrum, a German island in the...

View Article


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

The Psychedelic Moon Maps of the 1970s

Geological detail from the Byrgius Quadrangle of the moon. (Image: U.S. Geological Survey)In the 1960s and '70s, the U.S. Geological Survey created a Geologic Atlas of the Moon. The series of maps,...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

140 Years Ago, Captain Matthew Webb Swam The English Channel And Made...

An artist's rendering of Captain Webb accepting libations during the long swim. (Image: CS&PF/Public Domain)It's a hot August day, and you, like many, may choose to beat the heat with a few bracing...

View Article


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Fleeting Wonders: Snow in August

A windshield's-eye view in Longview, Alberta this weekend. (Photo: National Weather Service Grand Forks/Weather Channel)While much of the world swelters through one of the hottest summers on record,...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Meet the Genghis Khans of the Plant Kingdom

Sonchus oleraceus (Photo: Sten Porse/Wikimedia)In human history, certain societies have made it their business to try to take over the world. In plant history, there are species with the same...

View Article


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

When the Lights Go Out: 8 of the World's Loneliest Lighthouses

Photo: Thomas Guest/WikimediaAh, the lonely life of the lighthouse keeper. In the heyday of sailing, long before automated beacons steered ships away from treacherous shores, brave men and women were...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

FOUND: A Reef to Rival the Great Barrier Reef

The reef (Photo: Parks Victoria)Off the south coast of Australia, the Wilsons Promontory Marine National Park has been hiding an incredible coral reef beneath its waters. Not long ago, when scientists...

View Article

Fleeting Wonders: Watch One Stumble Ruin $1.5 Million Worth of Flowers

In the history of destroyed art, are there any more tragic or strangely gratifying examples of destruction than those caused by bumbling?The latest example of masterpiece-tarnishing klutzery comes from...

View Article
Browsing all 11432 articles
Browse latest View live




Latest Images