The truths behind 10 of the world's great wonders

 Here we reveal the ingenious engineering behind 10 of the world's most epic structures – and the little-known facts that lie hidden in their depths.

1. Taj Mahal, Agra, India

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The Taj Mahal is widely considered one of the most beautiful buildings in the world. Image by Tetra Images - Bryan Mullennix / Brand X Pictures / Getty Images.

Legend has it that Mughal ruler Shah Jahan ordered the hands of the Taj Mahal builders to be chopped off after it was completed, to prevent them from ever building anything so beautiful again - although no written evidence supports this story. The elegance of the mausoleum can be attributed to clever engineering. To make the Taj Mahal appear perfectly straight from ground level, the architect designed the minarets to slant slightly outward, which also ensured that in the event of an earthquake they would fall away from the mausoleum's precious dome.

2. Burj Khalifa, Dubai, UAE

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This ethereal tower in the Arabian Desert cost US$1.5 billion to construct. At 828m, 2.5 times higher than the Eiffel Tower, the Burj Khalifa is the world's tallest building. To withstand high winds and earthquakes, this superscraper is designed with a 'buttressed core' – three wings set at 120 degrees to each other, anchored around a central hub. Each wing supports the others, so when the wind blows on two of the wings, the third resists the force.

3. Moai, Easter Island (Rapa Nui), Polynesia

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The moai are one of Rapa Nui's most enduring images. Image by Volanthevist / Flickr  / Getty Images.

These ancient statues (among other theories) have been blamed for the demise of the Easter islanders. Transporting them on logs would have devastated forests, and without trees the soil would have washed away, causing failed harvests, famine, war and cannibalism. But satellite images of Easter Island, taken in 2005, show dirt tracks radiating from the quarry where these mysterious 10m-tall statues were carved. After attaching ropes to the head of the moai, small teams could have moved the statues by 'walking' them along.

4. Stonehenge, England

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Stonehenge is still one of Britain's great archaeological mysteries. Image by Shanna Baker / Flickr RF / Getty Images.

Aliens, druids and everyone in between have been proposed as the builders of Stonehenge. But why was it built? Recent evidence suggests it was constructed to celebrate midwinter, not midsummer as previously thought. Most of the monuments in the area are aligned on sunrise and sunset at midwinter and, by dating pig teeth found at nearby settlements, it's now known that more pork was eaten then to celebrate days getting longer.

And how was it built? Around 2600BC, bluestones were (most likely) floated on river rafts from the Preseli Hills in west Wales. Radioactive dating proves glaciers couldn’t have swept them to Salisbury Plain 40,000 years ago, as once thought. On site, the foot of each stone was levered into a pit, and lintels lifted into place using scaffolding.

5. Eiffel Tower, Paris, France

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You can't imagine Paris without its signature spire. Image by Rilind Hoxha Photography / Flickr RF / Getty Images.

Built for the 1889 World's Fair, Monsieur Eiffel himself was the first to climb the tower’s 1710 steps to the summit. (Having funded most of the construction, he raked in US$1 million in ticket sales in the first year alone.) At 324m, the Eiffel Tower was a useful radio antenna from which the Germans sent coded signals to their forces during WWII. Today, 50 tons of paint are used to resurface the tower every seven years.

6. Great Wall of China, China

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No matter what your expectations, a visit to the Great Wall of China will blow you away. Image by Digital Vision / Photodisc / Getty Images.

Initially built out of rocks and mud, 16th-century Emperor Jiajing developed the Great Wall into a formidable stone dragon. Millions of workers were recruited from the army or press-ganged into signing up, and worked around the clock, extending the wall and constructing the forts. Records claim that a 3km section was completed in 600 days by just 3000 men. And despite frequent billing as the only man-made object visible from space, the Great Wall can actually be seen only with a hefty camera lens from low Earth orbit.

7. Angkor Wat, Cambodia

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A traveller’s first glimpse of Angkor Wat, the ultimate expression of Khmer genius, is sure to astonish. Image by Artie Photography (Artie Ng) / Flickr / Getty Images.

This empire of temples for a city of 1 million people took more than 300,000 workers just 35 years to build (with the help of 6000 elephants). Most temples take centuries to build, let alone one this size: Angkor Wat is believed to be the largest religious complex in the world. Indeed, Angkor Wat's moat is so vast that it can be seen from space. Each one of more than 3000 seductive nymphs (apsaras) carved on the temple walls is unique and has one of 37 different hairstyles.

8. Machu Picchu, Peru

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In a spectacular location, Machu Picchu is the best-known archaeological site on the continent of South America. Image by Image source / Getty Images.

Clinging to a remote ridge high in the Andes, the ancient city of Machu Picchu was built, lived in and deserted in fewer than 100 years – then lost to civilization for centuries. During construction, the Inca didn't use wheels to transport the blocks. Instead it's thought they hauled them up the slopes by hand, as protrusions have been found on a few stones (suggesting grips for workers' hands). Ingenious engineering solutions were used to counteract earthquakes: L-shaped blocks anchored corners together, doors and windows tilted inward, and no mortar was used between stones so that, if shaken, they could move and resettle without collapsing.

9. Khazneh, Petra, Jordan

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The treasury (Khazneh) is one of Petra's most impressive sights. Image by Danita Delimont / Gallo Images  / Getty Images.

Immortalized in films like Indiana Jones, the 2000-year-old Khazneh was the jewel of the ancient city of Petra. A nearby unfinished tomb suggests the Khazneh was probably carved from top down. So the holes running up either side of the façade are misleading – they were probably created later by vandals to use as footholes to deface sculptures.

10. Great Pyramid of Giza, Egypt

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The Great Pyramid of Giza remained the world's tallest building for 4000 years. Image by Daryl Benson / Stone / Getty Images.

The goliath Great Pyramid of Giza, the sole survivor of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, was the tallest construction in the world until the Eiffel Tower was built in 1889. It was built to hold just three burial chambers, but required a workforce of around 30,000. Intriguingly, analyses of the living arrangements, bread-making technology, animal remains and ancient graffiti suggest the workers were not slaves as previously thought, but skilled laborers.

Information sources: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/travel-tips-and-articles/top-secrets-the-truths-behind-10-of-the-worlds-great-wonders#ixzz3U0TqIWI9

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Secrets Found – Ancient “Space-Ports”

Having a never ending curiosity and having wondered for many years, what would be the result if I had applied the secret template ciphers I know and use here in the USA to Egypt? I had been involved with coded systems all around the world vicariously an example would be leading a party from monument to monument over the phone from Africa.

Research had indicated over the years that many who used these codes adopted them from others who adopted them from Egypt. So I decided to conduct a basic large scale layout test. Knowing the core cipher in the “code” is the same world wide, I examined Abydos, in particular the Osirion (as this location is one of the few that exhibit structures from the “first-time”).

Then applied the numbers/ alignment hidden in the architecture to the known template ciphers and within days made amazing and even disturbing finds across 100′s of miles of the deserts of Egypt. I had sat alone in my shack and done it. 48 hrs in solitude with my curiosity on the throttle and expertise at the wheel…. And wow!

The Template ciphers are very ancient with their base form originating from the math of creation / reality. The same math used to study fluid flow, electrical dynamics, magnetic fields to gravity and black holes.  It incorporates tetrahedral math and explains the nature of torsional forces and angular momentum on “space-time” or hyper-dimensional physics.

These same template forms are represented everywhere on Earth. Such as Mandalas and sand paintings of Tibetan priests and Native American Elders of the Southwest USA. In architecture and construction, city planning and roads, in religion myth and legend, in story and song… This math and its geometry was used in pre-deluge times, 10,000bc to 30,000bc+ not just as a symbol with reverence but in technology and everyday life to offer a 20,000 year run of a virtual utopia.

It was again the miss-use of the same that ended it all. After which the knowledge became secret and emulated by elite groups to put themselves above the rest. For at least 6,000 years it has been incorporated world wide, again in temples, cities, roads etc… But this time kept under wraps and out of site or hidden from the masses. The earliest maps known are of mining areas and mining colonies and adopt this template cipher system. The Jesuit priests and Triad of the Orient use the numbers in initiation rights. The Nordic use the numbers in their sagas and so on.

It is highly possible that if their is truth to the Sumerian texts that indeed the entire world was mined under one rule. The evidence would support this. It also suggests that after that rule the knowledge was remembered by separated groups worldwide. Each retaining a “symbol” that portrays the same template cipher. Giving each group an identity of those that knew or retained a portion of the hidden past and its math and technology. Symbols such as the cross, the spade, the heart, diamond, four leaf clover, the yin yang and so on… All of which can be laid directly on the main template with perfect alignment.

It took me over 2 decades to figure it out and find the base template. But it is the key to breaking them all worldwide. There is indeed more to it than just reading them all as they as well represent the intellectual minds of every man who used it. The manner in which it was used is as then as diverse as the men who used it as well.

Egypt represented an opportunity to apply this all to the time of the “Mega-builders”… The time of wonder, “when men of Earth traveled the stars”… Using this system in Egypt offered validation to the whole once more.  From still buried and some excavated pre-deluge 10,000 to 30,000 year old structures / cities, geo-glyphs of aircraft, Ancient city sites blasted by craters to 1000′s of tombs (many raided with bulldozers using industrial mining techniques).

Areas came to light with massive above ground structures built on sacred mathematical layouts. Some featuring modern excavation revealing very very modern looking building of massive proportions. There has been talk these could be ancient “space-ports” mentioned in historical texts.

Although these have little to do with the time frame of my previously found “sidewalk” route through the “tomb valleys” and royal geoglyphs… They are connected by virtue of their nature and connections through history to the more modern surface geoglyphs and lanes of travel over the ancient buried causeways, buildings and waterworks.

Information sources: http://www.google.com.br/search?q=secret+of+earth&biw=1366&bih=624&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=shf_VND5HozjsAT6voCgDg&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ#tbm=isch&q=Secrets+Found+%E2%80%93+Ancient+%E2%80%9CSpace-Ports%E2%80%9D&imgdii=_&imgrc=ulNmjDpMCQzunM%253A%3BvF18VdPe9kfkkM%3Bhttps%253A%252F%252Fkryderexploration.files.wordpress.com%252F2012%252F09%252Fegypt-geoglyphs-temple-template-area-b.jpg%3Bhttps%253A%252F%252Fkryderexploration.wordpress.com%252F%3B599%3B494

http://beforeitsnews.com/space/2012/10/egypt-ancient-space-ports-when-men-of-earth-traveled-the-stars-2447128.html

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10 of the world's biggest unsolved mysteries

Poucas histórias têm o poder de nos cativar mais do que aqueles que continuam por resolver. Códigos e enigmas e arte pública enigmática importunar-nos com a sua intriga: Por que a sua mensagem codificada? Que segredos grande eles podem esconder? Apesar dos esforços dos nossos historiadores mais reverenciados, mais inteligentes criptógrafos e caçadores de tesouros mais determinados, a história está repleta de enigmas que continuam a nos confundir hoje. Contos ficcionais, como aqueles apresentados em "O Código Da Vinci" e do filme "National Treasure" não tem nada sobre estes enigmas da vida real. Aqui está a nossa lista de 10 dos mistérios não resolvidos mais enigmáticas do mundo e códigos.

Manuscrito Voynich

Nomeado após o alfarrabista polonês-americano Wilfrid M. Voynich, que a adquiriu em 1912, o Manuscrito Voynich é um livro de 240 páginas detalhadas escrito em uma linguagem ou script que é completamente desconhecido. Suas páginas também estão cheias de desenhos coloridos de diagramas de estranhos, eventos estranhos e plantas que parecem não coincidir com nenhuma das espécies conhecidas, somando-se a intriga do documento e da dificuldade de decifrá-lo. O autor original do manuscrito permanece desconhecida, mas a datação por carbono revelou que suas páginas foram feitas em algum momento entre 1404 e 1438. Ele foi chamado de "manuscrito mais misterioso do mundo."

Há várias teorias sobre a origem ea natureza do manuscrito. Alguns acreditam que ele estava destinado a ser uma farmacopeia, para tratar de temas da medicina moderna medieval ou início. Muitas das imagens de ervas e plantas sugerem que muitos têm sido uma espécie de livro-texto para um alquimista. O fato de que muitos diagramas parecem ser de origem astronômica, combinado com os desenhos biológicos não identificáveis, até levou alguns teóricos fantasiosas de propor que o livro pode ter uma origem extraterrestre.

Uma coisa que a maioria dos teóricos concordam é que o livro é pouco provável que seja uma farsa, dada a quantidade de tempo, dinheiro e detalhes que teriam sido obrigados a fazê-lo.

Kryptos

KRYPTOS SLEUTHS MAY finally get some help cracking the CIA sculpture that has confounded amateur and professional cryptographers for two decades.

Artist Jim Sanborn, who created the cipher sculpture in 1990 for CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, plans to release a new clue to help puzzle detectives solve the last 97 characters of his masterpiece. The new clue is to be revealed in a New York Times article this weekend, to mark the 20th anniversary of the sculpture, which was dedicated Nov. 3, 1990.

It will be the first clue Sanborn has revealed in four years, after he corrected a typo in his sculpture in 2006 to keep crypto detectives from being derailed in their search for solutions.

Sanborn wouldn’t disclose the clue to Threat Level but said only cryptically that it will “globalize” the sculpture. Asked if this meant it would take the sculpture off the CIA grounds and out of the United States, he conceded it would.

“I personally think it’s a significant clue,” he said. “I’m throwing it out there. It just makes that many fewer characters people have to figure out.”

Sanborn said he’d been thinking about revealing a clue for a long time but couldn’t decide on the right occasion until the 20th anniversary and his birthday coincided in the same month.

Beale Ciphers

The Beale Ciphers are a set of three ciphertexts that supposedly reveal the location of one of the grandest buried treasures in U.S. history: thousands of pounds of gold, silver and jewels. The treasure was originally obtained by a mysterious man named Thomas Jefferson Beale in 1818 while prospecting in Colorado.

 

Of the three ciphertexts, only the second one has been cracked. Interestingly, the U.S. Declaration of Independence turned out to be the key — a curious fact given that Beale shares his name with the author of the Declaration of Independence.

 

The cracked text does reveal the county where the treasure was buried: Bedford County, Va., but its exact location is likely encrypted in one of the other uncracked ciphers. To this day, treasure hunters scour the Bedford County hillsides digging (often illegally) for the loot.

Phaistos Disc

The mystery of the Phaistos Disc is a story that sounds like something out of an Indiana Jones movie. Discovered by Italian archaeologist Luigi Pernier in 1908 in the Minoan palace-site of Phaistos, the disc is made of fired clay and contains mysterious symbols that may represent an unknown form of hieroglyphics. It is believed that it was designed sometime in the second millennium BC.

 

Some scholars believe that the hieroglyphs resemble symbols of Linear A and Linear B, scripts once used in ancient Crete. The only problem? Linear A also eludes decipherment. 

 

Today the disc remains one of the most famous puzzles of archaeology.

Shugborough inscription

Look from afar at the 18th-century Shepherd's Monument in Staffordshire, England, and you might take it as nothing more than a sculpted re-creation of Nicolas Poussin's famous painting, “Arcadian Shepherds.” Look closer, though, and you'll notice a curious sequence of letters: DOUOSVAVVM — a code that has eluded decipherment for over 250 years.

 

Though the identity of the code carver remains a mystery, some have speculated that the code could be a clue left behind by the Knights Templar about the whereabouts of the Holy Grail.

 

Many of the world's greatest minds have tried to crack the code and failed, including Charles Dickens and Charles Darwin.

Tamam Shud case

The Americans, he would begin, had a small metal flag on their mailboxes, one the mailman would raise whenever he delivered letters. Mother would only have to look out of the bedroom window.

‘The chalk mark is your small metal flag,’ he said to the class,  ‘and after the three days, when you return, it’s absence will mean one thing, and it’s presence another.

Yes Franklin, I can see that your hand is raised.’

Delongue insisted that questions be delivered standing up. Franklin stood, and like a fool, put his large hands into his pockets once before withdrawing them.

‘What if the book is sold?

‘When?’

‘The day he put it there, whenever it was on the shelf.’

Delongue held no compassion for the asker of an un-researched question.

‘You are a fool Franklin, and unsuited for this work.

The bookshop has three shelves of rubaiyats, they represent copies from over forty publications, over thirty are in languages other than the King’s English. Some are hardcover, others soft. They can be richly illustrated, or published in rough paper bound in Indian cardboard .

The seller buys, on average, three a week, and sells two. He, like many others, is a collector of the work.

There were three hundred and fifty eight rubaiyats on his bookshelf the last time I visited Franklin, because I too, am a collector, otherwise why would I visit the shop so often.’

He looked at Franklin with great distaste, ‘the only method by which your question could be correctly formulated, would be by calculating the mathematical chance of one particular copy being sold in three days. One particular copy that is not visible on the shelf, placed properly, which I doubt you will ever have the opportunity to do, Frankin.

The Wow! Signal

One summer night in 1977, Jerry Ehman, a volunteer for SETI, or the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, may have become the first man ever to receive an intentional message from an alien world. Ehman was scanning radio waves from deep space, hoping to randomly come across a signal that bore the hallmarks of one that might be sent by intelligent aliens, when he saw his measurements spike.

 

The signal lasted for 72 seconds, the longest period of time it could possibly be measured by the array that Ehman was using. It was loud and appeared to have been transmitted from a place no human has gone before: in the constellation Sagittarius near a star called Tau Sagittarii, 120 light-years away.

 

Ehman wrote the words "Wow!" on the original printout of the signal, thus its title as the "Wow! Signal."

 

All attempts to locate the signal again have failed, leading to much controversy and mystery about its origins and its meaning.

The Zodiac letters

The Zodiac letters are a series of four encrypted messages believed to have been written by the famous Zodiac Killer, a serial killer who terrorized residents of the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The letters were likely written as a way to taunt journalists and police, and though one of the messages has been deciphered, the three others remain uncracked.

 

The identity of the Zodiac Killer also remains a mystery, though no Zodiac murders have been identified since 1970.

Georgia Guidestones

The Georgia Guidestones, sometimes referred to as the "American Stonehenge," is a granite monument erected in Elbert County, Ga., in 1979. The stones are engraved in eight languages — English, Spanish, Swahili, Hindi, Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese and Russian — each relaying 10 "new" commandments for "an Age of Reason." The stones also line up with certain astronomical features.

 

Though the monument contains no encrypted messages, its purpose and origin remain shrouded in mystery. They were commissioned by a man who has yet to be properly identified, who went by the pseudonym of R.C. Christian.

 

Of the 10 commandments, the first one is perhaps the most controversial: "Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature." Many have taken it to be a license to cull the human population down to the specified number, and critics of the stones have called for them to be destroyed. Some conspiracy theorists even believe they may have been designed by a "Luciferian secret society" calling for a new world order.

Rongorongo

Rongorongo is a system of mysterious glyphs discovered written on various artifacts on Easter Island. Many believe they represent a lost system of writing or proto-writing and could be one of just three or four independent inventions of writing in human history.

 

The glyphs remain undecipherable, and their true messages — which some believe could offer hints about the perplexing collapse of the statue-building Easter Island civilization — may be lost forever.

Information sources: 

http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/photos/10-of-the-worlds-biggest-unsolved-mysteries/related-photos

http://tomsbytwo.com/2014/07/14/chapter-2-the-mailbox/

http://www.wired.com/2010/11/kryptos-clue/

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The 10 Strangest Islands in the World

Lots of folks are up from a romantic island getaway filled with sand, sun and fun. Who wouldn’t be? Even so, there are plenty of island destinations that offer up some pretty bizarre and unique experiences, which contrast strongly with a typical island beach holiday.

Some of these islands are stunningly beautiful, some are downright odd, and few of them are even a little bit dangerous. Here are 10 of the strangest islands in existence. Maybe, if you’re adventurous and lucky, you’ll be able to visit one or two of them someday.

1. Svalbard Island, Norway

JK-Netzwelt, Flickr

If you head up to Norway and the exceedingly remote Svalbard Islands, you just might have to tangle with a some wild polar bears. The islands are located in the artic, and teeming with polar bears. Tourist flock here every year to watch these majestic creatures in their natural habitat. While it’s illegal to kill them for sport, the law requires individuals traveling outside of settled areas to carry a gun with them at all times in case of a bear attack.

2. Howland Island, USA

Howland Island is situated just north of the equator, in the Pacific Ocean. The island is governed by the United States, and was once exploited for its large stockpiles of guano (bat, seabird and seal dung). These days the uninhabited island is a natural wildlife preserve. Amelia Earhart, the famous and pioneering pilot, should have landed here during one of her around-the-world flight attempts, but she never reached the island. She presumably crashed into the ocean nearby, or perhaps landed on another deserted island, where she eventually died.

3. Hashima Island, Japan

Hashima Island could once claim the title of the most densely populated spot on the planet. Despite that fact, the island, which was also famed for its coal mining, is now completely deserted. The thousands of Japanese workers, as well as forced laborers from China and Korean who toiled in the island’s deep mine shafts during WWII, are long gone. When Japan shifted to petroleum as its main energy source instead of coal, the island was no longer economically viable, and hence deserted. Most of the massive concrete buildings are still standing, though, which gives this island the aura of a floating ghost town, or an old battleship.

4. Great Blue Hole, Belize

Blue holes are round sinkholes located in the Caribbean Sea. While the Great Blue Hole, located near the Lighthouse Reef off of the coast of Belize, isn’t exactly an island, it still deserves a mention on this list. The circular hole is 480 feet deep and filled with aquatic life and limestone stalactites. This incredible sinkhole, and the surrounding atoll, is one of the most amazing dive spots on Earth. The famous ocean explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau was a big fan of this place.

5. The Island of the Dolls, Mexico

The Island of the Dolls, or in Spanish, La Isla de las Munecas, is one heck of a creepy spot. The island, which is fairly close to Mexico City, is overflowing with dolls hanging from trees. Some time in the past, a grieving man by the name of Don Julian, who had lost his entire family, heard a woman screaming in the distance. She was drowning in one of the many local canals. He was unable to save her, but he still heard her voice at night after her death, and so he began stringing dolls up all over the place to ward off her spirit. Soon others, perhaps sympathetic to his cause, or else eager to see dolls swinging from trees, gave him even more dolls and doll parts to hang. Thus, the island became a legend, and later on, an eerie tourist attraction.

6. Easter Island, Chile

Ndecam, Flickr

Easter Island (Rapa Nui) is a small dot way out in the Pacific Ocean. It was discovered by a Dutch captain on Easter Day in 1772, hence the modern name. The island is covered with large statues, known as moia. These massive stone monuments, often up to three stories tall, are famous all over the world. The early Polynesians who lived on Eastern Island built them using fairly primitive tools, which make the statues existence even more enigmatic. If you’d like to see all 887 statues in person, you’ll have to book a flight to Chile and then make your way out this very mysterious island.

7. Monuriki Island, Fiji

Phil Gibbs, Flickr

There are plenty of uninhabited islands in the word. Monuriki wasn’t a particularly special one until it was featured in a Hollywood film. This small Fijian island served as the main shooting location for the film ‘Cast Away,’ staring Tom Hanks. A few inhabited islands are actually located nearby (unlike in the movie), so if you’d like to trek around the island that hosted Mr. Hanks and his volleyball pal Wilson, it shouldn’t be too hard to book a boat out to this unique Pacific Ocean film locale.

8. The Floating Islands of Lake Titicaca, Peru

The Floating Islands on Lake Titicaca, in Peru, are entirely manmade. These Islas Flotantes, or floating islands, are woven together out of floating totora reeds, which form enormous mats. The mats are fastened to one another and the bed of the high altitude lake with ropes, to keep the mats from drifting off. The local inhabitants, known as the Uros, built settlements on the reed islands a very long time ago, most likely to avoid trouble with other tribes in the area. The Uros once made their living from fishing, but tourism is now their main source of income.

9. North Sentinel Island, Indian (Nominally)

North Sentinel Island is one of the most isolated places on earth, and no, you’ll probably never be able to visit there. The Sentinelese, a hunting-gathering people who resist all attempts at contact from the outside world, inhabit the island, which rests in the Bay of Bengal. When boats or aircraft get too close to the island, the locals launch a barrage of arrows at the intruders, driving them off, and sometimes even killing them. Since the island is heavily forested, not much is known about the life and culture of the people living there, but it’s safe to say they’ve probably never heard of an iPhone.

10.  Socotra Island, Yemen

During a visit to Socorta Island, you could be forgiven for thinking you’ve landed on an alien world by mistake. This striking island, which is east of the Horn of Arica and administered by Yemen, is host to an amazing amount of unique flora and fauna found nowhere else in the world. Spectacular geographical formations, haunting beaches, Dragon’s Blood Trees and many strange species of birds add to the island’s mystical allure.

source of information: http://thefw.com/strange-islands/

http://www.google.com.br/imgres?imgurl=http://outofshell.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/socotra-island.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.incredipedia.info/2009/07/suqatra-island-yemen.html&h=529&w=720&tbnid=PaAZLV21kcfp_M:&zoom=1&q=10.+Socotra+Island,+Yemen&docid=e224NbZkACF0HM&ei=X_X5VMvgJaPIsQSWqoLoCw&tbm=isch&ved=0CB4QMygDMAM

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