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Why Is This Remote Lake Full of Hundreds of Skeletons? · Be Amazed

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Deep in the Himalayan Mountains of India, some 16,500 feet above sea level, lies a mysterious lake, known as Rupkand.
• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: This remote body of water is nestled below a steep slope on one of India's tallest mountains, and its frigid waters harbor a dark secret that's haunted experts for decades.
• 0:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Just below the surface are hundreds of human skeletons.
• 0:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: How did they get there?
• 0:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: What could have possibly caused the demise of all those people?
• 0:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: I hope you're not easily spooked because it's time to unravel the mystery of Rupkund Lake.
• 0:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Our story begins back in 1942, whilst the word was at war in Indian Forest Ranger named Hardy Kishan Muthwal was enjoying some relative pieces he conducted a routine patrol of the Himalayan Mountains.
• 1:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: That is until he stumbled across a deep valley he'd never noticed before.
• 1:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Despite the heavy snow, he could make something out at the bottom of it.
• 1:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: and treat the lone wanderer fought through the storm and made his way down.
• 1:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: As he got closer, he realized he was looking at a small glacial lake.
• 1:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Upon reaching the edge however, a chill ran up my wall spine that he couldn't blame on the cold.
• 1:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: There staring grimly back up at him through the icy waters was a skeletal face.
• 1:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: His art racing mudwall glanced away at a different
• 1:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: and gasped.
• 1:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: No matter where he looked, he was greeted with more human skulls.
• 1:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: The skeletal fragments weren't confined to the water, either.
• 1:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Some lay scattered on the shore around it.
• 2:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: But while they'd need any more evidence that something was horribly wrong about this place.
• 2:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: With a start, he sprinted back up the valley and down the mountain to tell anyone who'd listen.
• 2:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Since then, Rubicon Glake has been one of the most widely-contested mysteries ever known.
• 2:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because it was discovered during War of War II, the skeletons were initially feared to be the remains of enemy soldiers.
• 2:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: People were worried that Japanese were attempting an invasion through the mountains that some infantry had gotten lost on the way, and ended up in the lake.
• 2:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they were right.
• 2:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Case closed.
• 2:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Ha ha ha, psych.
• 2:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Come on, you know it wasn't gonna be that simple.
• 2:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: It turns out the bones were far too old to be access forces.
• 2:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm talking hundreds of years too old, though eerily some of them still had flesh and hair attached to them, even after all that time.
• 2:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, they weren't zombies or anything, the high altitude and freezing temperatures, it just preserved them incredibly well.
• 3:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Indeed, Orubkund Lake is frozen for most of the year, but when the Ice Thaws and the snow melts the water's spooky secrets bubble to the surface, all 800 of them.
• 3:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Seriously, that's how many bodies could be lying there, and this place is so creepy.
• 3:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: While obviously not Japanese soldiers, some people reckoned it could be the remains of a far older army, a group of Indian soldiers who tried to invade Tibet during the dogwrit to pet and war,
• 3:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: in 1841.
• 3:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: They'd failed, and after being forced to retreat had tried to cut through the icy mountains and back home, a grave mistake.
• 3:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Alone in the Himalayas, the unprepared soldiers quickly succumbed to the harsh conditions, they remains ultimately tumbling down the mountains, and then a gun, or at least that's how the theory went.
• 3:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: It too was quickly disproven.
• 3:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Aside from a single spearhead, nobody could find evidence of any weapons,
• 4:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: On top of this, the bones belong to both men and women, and at that time only men were allowed in the army to fight.
• 4:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hmm, at this stage, I'm sure you can see why locals refer to Rupundas the mystery lake.
• 4:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: But what if all those people didn't just end up in the lake?
• 4:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: What if the lake itself was somehow responsible for their fate?
• 4:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't mean it had a mind of its owner anything, but some lakes are unbelievably dangerous.
• 4:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: say acidic ones.
• 4:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Ordinary lakes can be transformed into these rear bodies of water by nearby volcanic activity.
• 4:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: When a volcano erupts, it releases corrosive gases like hydrogen sulfide, and if these spread through a lake, they can cause the pH levels to drop as low as 0.1, making the water stronger than battery acid.
• 4:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you did to toe and it wouldn't immediately strip your flesh to the bone, but it's severely burn you.
• 5:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if you were to fall all the way in, it could very easily spell bye-bye before you made it back to shore.
• 5:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: So could that explain the mystery of the Rupacund?
• 5:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, think about it.
• 5:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: If the water was so acidic with all those skeletons have lasted hundreds of years in it, no, no, they wouldn't have.
• 5:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: While it wouldn't be safe at all to dive into acidic waters, it's perfectly safe to swim on down to the follow button, while you're at it when I'd leave a Bivesdorn rating.
• 5:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And just like that, you'll never miss another of my mysterious episodes again.
• 5:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: All done?
• 5:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Great.
• 5:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let me get you a towel.
• 5:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right, so we've discredited a few theories, but I still don't feel like we're any closer to actually understanding what the heck happened in a group gun.
• 5:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: As the year since Mudwall's grizzly discovery grew longer, the list of possible explanations grew with them.
• 6:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Some people thought the skeletons belonged to unfortunate forters who'd been trying to gather a special mushroom that grew in the area.
• 6:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Others disregarded this and subscribe to a more brutal alternative that would gunned was the site of some sort of ritual sacrifice.
• 6:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Shrine's along a trail that leads to the lake have inscriptions on them that hand at this theory, but aside from those there isn't any other evidence.
• 6:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And there's practically none to support the Mushroom Idea.
• 6:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: A more likely explanation is that the lake was a burial ground for victims of an epidemic.
• 6:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: This makes more sense, in times of plague people around the world used to dispose of bodies in a similar manner.
• 6:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thean or Rukundas so isolated that it'd be perfect.
• 6:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Even today there are no roads that lead to it and it's a grueling 3-day hike to get there.
• 6:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: But just as people started to think they'd got the answer, a startling new twist through yet another spanner in the works.
• 7:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: As more schools were phished out of the lakes, scientists noticed something very odd.
• 7:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Some of them had short, deep, rounded cracks in them, unlike those by any known weapon or disease.
• 7:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: What?
• 7:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: At this point, I'd have been thinking it was aliens.
• 7:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: The nearest villagers had their own explanations for the strange fractures.
• 7:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Their people have been on Hindu pilgrimages around the area for centuries, and one path takes them right past the root gondon high above it, along treacherous terrain.
• 7:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: The arduous pilgrimages only undertake in once every 12 years and honors the goddess Nanda Devi.
• 7:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: As such, anyone that embarks on it is expected to respect the rules.
• 7:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Locals believe a medieval king undertook this very journey with his wife to celebrate their child's coming birth.
• 7:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: But, against the rules of the pilgrimage, the king refused to walk barefoot and brought soldiers and dancers with him.
• 7:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: On top of this, his wife had the cheek-to-give birth during the trek, and that was the last straw for Nanda Devi.
• 8:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Supposedly, the enragedy at a struck down the pilgrims with great iron bones from the sky, leaving their lifeless bodies
• 8:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Time passed, the bodies became bones, and the bones eventually slipped down into the water below.
• 8:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Although this fancival tale is probably heavily exaggerated, that doesn't mean it isn't based in truth, as well as skeletons, parasols, and bangles have also been found in the lake, both of which are traditional items taken by pilgrims honoring Nanda Devi.
• 8:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: And Iron Balls from the sky could refer to some kind of storm, but what storm would rain Iron Balls?
• 8:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, what if they weren't really Iron at all?
• 8:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: What if they were Ice?
• 8:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: In other words, Hale.
• 8:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Golf Ball Size Giant Hale It's not unheard of, even today, and it's super dangerous.
• 8:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Whether the Hale finished the Pilgrims offer not though the confusion and panic of the storm certainly would have
• 9:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Which is one slip and you could easily tumble down the valley end of the freezing lake below, where hypothermia or starvation would do the rest.
• 9:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Croaky!
• 9:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, I don't know about you, but that all sounds very convincing to me.
• 9:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Case closed?
• 9:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hmm, not quite.
• 9:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Great.
• 9:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: What now, I hear you ask?
• 9:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: See, well, it's generally accepted that giant hail is to blame for some of the skeletons in the lake.
• 9:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: The idea that it's the reason for all of them just doesn't hold water.
• 9:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: For starters, only a few out of the hundreds of skulls had the tail tail circular cracks, and then certainly not enough for them all to have been caught in a storm.
• 9:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: but there's a bigger problem too, a much bigger problem.
• 9:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: See, it turns out the remains in the lake aren't the result of just one incident, or two, or even three.
• 9:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Nope, the bones are from different time periods spanning a whopping thousand years.
• 10:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: The oldest ones were carbon dated to around 800 AD, and the most recent at 1800 AD.
• 10:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: What?
• 10:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, you're trying to tell me colossal house dorms killed nearly 1,000 people in the exact same spot over and over again, for 1,000 years, then just stop.
• 10:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, come on.
• 10:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it gets even weirder.
• 10:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Further studies of the bones revealed they didn't just belong to Indians, and instead they're part of a dig burst group of different ethnicities, so they couldn't all have been going on Hindu pilgrimage.
• 10:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Strange is to have all some of them belong to people from as far away as the Eastern Mediterranean, meaning they traveled the Rupacund all the way from Greece.
• 10:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now back in the 17th to the 20th centuries when these Mediterranean bones were dated from, there were no planes or cars, so this would have been a tremendously long and arduous journey for anybody to undertake.
• 10:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Why on earth would anyone travel almost 4,000 miles on foot to see a strange little secluded lake in the mountains?
• 11:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: And how had they even heard about it to do so?
• 11:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, it's possible that the site held significance for a lot more people than just the Hindus.
• 11:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: After all, the lake does have a certain mystical aura about it tucked away and frozen at the bottom of a mountainous valley.
• 11:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: If it really did hold that much significance though, I can't help but think there'd be something written about it.
• 11:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: As it stands, historians haven't found a single mention of the lake in any document before the skeleton's discovery.
• 11:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Sure, the records could have been lost a time, but if the lake was really famous enough to pull people from all around the world, when there at least be one mention of it somewhere.
• 11:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: It just doesn't add up.
• 11:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: A more likely explanation is that the Greeks didn't travel that far at all, they were already in the country.
• 11:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Greeks actually had a kingdom in India for about 200 years starting in 180 BC.
• 12:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Sure, that's way before our skeletal bow supposedly lived, but it's entirely possible that the ancient endow Greeks passed their DNA onto further generations, well, live the fall of the kingdom.
• 12:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: These people may have had Greek ancestry, but still practice tenduism, and so might have traveled past Roopgun done pilgrimage after all, even if they weren't pilgrims.
• 12:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: They could feasibly have still visited.
• 12:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: The mountains would have been an enticing source of adventure for those brave enough to scale them, but the unprepared may never have made it back down.
• 12:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Ultimately, as unsatisfying as it might be, we just don't know for sure.
• 12:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Rookundra remains a mystery to this very day.
• 12:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's a running joke among those who make the trick that one wrong step could add another skeleton to the waters.
• 12:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Funny joke, right?
• 12:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, even so, scientists continue to study the lake, hoping to figure out what the heck happened there.
• 13:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: But there's still a long way to go, and tours haven't exactly been helpful either.
• 13:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Though I doubt anyone swims in the freezing-yary waters visitors have been known to disturb the side and even take bones home with them.
• 13:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Tcha!
• 13:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: As if figuring out this mystery wasn't hard enough, regardless I'm confident we'll eventually get to the bottom of it.
• 13:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: No discoveries are being made all the time, it was only as recently as 2019 that scientists realized some of the bones were met at Iranian, and they only tested a few of the skeletons.
• 13:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: So with more in-depth research, who knows what revelations are waiting around the corner?
• 13:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hmm, you know what I think?
• 13:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: There is no single story to explain or whoop God.
• 13:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: The skeletons are from different time periods, or different ethnicities, and seem to have died in different ways.
• 13:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Most of the theories I've been through could be right, some could be plague victims, some victims of extreme weather, whilst others merely travelers that lost their way.
• 14:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: But that's just my opinion.
• 14:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: What do you think about this whole strange situation?
• 14:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you thought roof gun was weird though, hold on to your heads.
• 14:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Our planet is home to a whole ton of mysterious fascinating and downright bizarre bodies of water.
• 14:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: So let's dive straight into some others.
• 14:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: As creepiest roof guned lake is, I've always found that there's something even
• 14:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, that creeping dread they give off that something might be lurking deep inside them.
• 14:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: While in that depths of southern Siberia sits just such a lake, late by call, and it's the deepest freshwater lake on the planet at over 5,000 feet.
• 14:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: That means if you swim to the bottom and stack 16 statues of Liberty on top of one another, they still wouldn't touch the surface.
• 14:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, the vast lake contains around 20% of all the earth's fresh surface water.
• 14:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's so massive, you can see it from space.
• 15:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, let's walk a mullet!
• 15:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, all manner of beasties could be lurking in its dark depths.
• 15:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Legend has it that a water dragon dwells beneath the surface looking for unwellery fishermen to drag down to its underwater kingdom.
• 15:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yooks.
• 15:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Some locals are so firm in this belief that they've even made offerings to the monster in the form of jewelry food and, ugh, blood.
• 15:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: As if a murderous underwater dragon wasn't terrifying enough, there are also rumors that aliens have taken up residents in the lake.
• 15:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: There have been an unusual number of settings in and around its waters,
• 15:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: One of the most famous was in 1982 when a team of military divers went exploring the depths of Bicol.
• 15:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: While swimming through the mark they supposedly stumbled across a group of horrifyingly tall humanoid beings in silver suits.
• 15:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: The divers gave chase but in the ensuing cast three of them never made it out, and a further four were seriously injured.
• 16:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: What's more?
• 16:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Some say that scientists researching the lake discovered strange tracks at that bottom from a vehicle that doesn't exist.
• 16:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Could all this be related?
• 16:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, but aliens and sea monsters aren't all.
• 16:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: I call up hostedly also host a gate to the underworld, as well as a horde of long lost Russian treasure.
• 16:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's so full of mysteries, I don't have near enough time to go into them all today.
• 16:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe we'll visit by Coligan in the future.
• 16:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you dare!
• 16:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: When you make the decision to buy a new car, what do you do with the old one?
• 16:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: You could sell it on, scrap it for parts, or... dump it in a gigantic lake?
• 16:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: It seems Italy's Lake Como is the favorite vacation spot for those who fall into the third category.
• 16:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's because it plays host to a weirdly huge number of submerged vehicles.
• 16:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's everything from classic cars to award-war two tanks, and it's not just cars you can find down there either.
• 17:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: The lake is also filled with sunken ships, weaponry, and even unexploded bombs.
• 17:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Some people think the random relics were left by criminal gangs looking to dispose of evidence.
• 17:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, at a whopping 56 square miles, the lake's so colossal that it'd be tough to find anything specific in there.
• 17:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: But most criminals don't go around stealing old World War 2 tanks, right?
• 17:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now those were probably not by German soldiers after the war ended.
• 17:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: According to rumor and anime objects aren't the only things they'd call Lake Como home though.
• 17:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: and extinct marine reptile caught laryosaurus apparently hides in the lake's mysterious caves.
• 17:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: At just two feet long, it'd be pretty easy to miss in the vastness of the water, even so the chances of a 235 million year old prehistoric reptile existing in all of our Kennislam.
• 17:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: You'd have better luck finding the Holy Grail.
• 18:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now seriously, they come as one tiny island of its western shores and the Holy Grail itself apparently had to stand there back in the 6th century.
• 18:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: A legendary cup set to grant my reckless healing powers are even a turtle you've that those who drink from it, many people have scoured the island to find it.
• 18:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: None have succeeded, some believe that after enemy troops invaded Italy at the start of the
• 18:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, who knows, maybe it's still there today.
• 18:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And suddenly, I really want to get a metal detector.
• 18:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Imagine a strange dark body of thick black goop, its surface bubbling and hissing as though it were full of snakes.
• 18:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: unsettling, right?
• 18:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Though it may sound like something straight out of a horror movie, it's actually very real.
• 18:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Just outside the town of La Braya and Trinidad sits pitch lake.
• 18:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Long ago locals believed the lake to be hell itself.
• 19:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Other thought its constant movement and the bizarre noises it makes meant it was a living breathing creature.
• 19:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: They were both wrong.
• 19:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: This dark mass is actually made of 10 million tons of hot, liquid asphalt.
• 19:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: The noises and movements are caused by a heating, bubbling and cooling throughout the day.
• 19:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: As fault is the stuff roads are made from and pitch lake has been used to make a whole lot of roads.
• 19:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's the largest natural asphalt deposit in the world.
• 19:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: But how exactly did this place come to be?
• 19:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, people reckon the lake was sworn because of two great big cracks in the Earth beneath it.
• 19:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oil from deep underground got channeled up through these cracks and formed a deep pool on the surface.
• 19:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Then the hot sun heated the oil to the point that its lighter elements evaporated, leaving only the heaviest densest port behind.
• 19:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: That part is asphalt.
• 19:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: The lake itself may not be alive, but astonishingly some creatures do call it home, especially adapted microorganisms thrive in the incredibly harsh environment, and could hold the key to discovering whether life exists in similar lakes on Saturn's Moon Titan.
• 20:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Whoa!
• 20:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Not that these microbes are the only thing enjoying a dip, during the rainy season pools of water form on top of the asphalt that locals bay then.
• 20:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: According to them, the pools are fountains of life, capable of curing a whole host of ailments.
• 20:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hmm, I wonder if they could help me out with that embarrassing hitch.
• 20:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's admit it, most of the time water just isn't very exciting.
• 20:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Or at least it doesn't look very exciting.
• 20:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: On the south coast of western Australia, however, lies an utterly fantastical body of water that looks like it's straight out of a fairy tale.
• 20:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Its name is Lake Hillier, and though this mini Marvel is only a couple of thousand feet long, its incredible pink color makes it stand strikingly against the landscape around it.
• 20:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: You must have seen pictures of it online already?
• 21:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: The iconic pink lake often goes viral for its milkshake-looking color.
• 21:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Does anybody else kind of want to drink it?
• 21:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you did, you'd be in for a gross surprise.
• 21:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Rather than strawberry milkshake, scientists think the vibrant pink shade is caused by micro-organisms in the lake.
• 21:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thousands of colourful algae and bacteria live in the waters and together the cocktail of colors has turned the pool of vibrant pink.
• 21:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: But why just here, and not anywhere else?
• 21:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, hellier isn't actually the only pink lake in the world, but they are rare.
• 21:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is because the microorganisms that give hellier its color can only live in super-specific incredibly salty environments, that not many other lakes can provide.
• 21:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Unlike others like it though, hellier's intense pinkness stays all year round, kinda like
• 21:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: but there are some places you should never ever go swimming.
• 22:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like this next lake in Dominica.
• 22:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Why?
• 22:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because if you did, you'd end up just like that past I cook last night.
• 22:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Only less tasty and probably not covered in cheese in pesto.
• 22:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: The outskirts of the waters reach us staggering 197 degrees Fahrenheit, which is already near boiling point.
• 22:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: We don't even know how hot the center of the lake is because it's too dangerous for anyone to try and test.
• 22:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Fittingly then, it's known as, well, boiling lake.
• 22:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Technically though, it's not a lake.
• 22:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a flooded fumarole.
• 22:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh what?
• 22:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: fumaroles are cracks in the earth where hot volcanic gases from deep underground rise up in a scape out of.
• 22:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Rainfall combined with a couple of streams, keep the one in Dominica full of water, whilst the hot gas is beneath, boil the water, creating the steaming pool we see today.
• 22:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Tourists often enjoy boiling eggs, and it's all shoot streams or puddles, but as soon as it might sound, I'll stick to music pan, thanks.
• 23:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Much less chance of ending up in a scalding watery grave.
• 23:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Mind you the lake isn't always super hot, sometimes it's like a nice warm bath, which
• 23:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: The temperature can fluctuate so fast that your spot ache and quickly turn into an aaaaahhh day.
• 23:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because you know, that'll be the sound you make as ya boil alive.
• 23:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: So unsurprisingly, swimming is absolutely forbidden.
• 23:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's fine by me though, I'm already had enough as it is.
• 23:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's it for me.
• 23:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've had just about enough weird and mysterious lakes for one day.
• 23:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for listening, and I'll see you next time you want to be amazed.
• 23:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is gonna be the best.