6 Eerie Manmade Mysteries in the US

All over the US, there are mysterious places and structures that have mysterious or even pre-historic pasts. Here are a few of those mysterious spots that are manmade.

October 01, 2020

By: Lucy Sherriff

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Georgia Guidestones, Georgia

The granite monument, which was erected in 1980, has 10 guidelines inscribed in eight languages and a message at the top of the structure in four ancient language scripts. The stone slabs are astronomically aligned and have been the subject of numerous conspiracy theories.

An anonymous individual who used the pseudonym Robert Christian commissioned the structure. The slabs were to be a compass, calendar, and clock and were built on a five acre area of land in Elbert County. The languages include Hebrew, Arabic, Swahili, and Hindi, and the inscriptions range from "guide reproduction wisely" and "unite humanity with a new living language" to "protect people and nations" and "be not a cancer on Earth."

Fly Geyser, Nevada

It’s hard to believe accidentally-made geyser in Washoe County is man-formed. It was created in 1916, when a well was drilled in the spot the geyser now stands. In the 1960s, after functioning for a few decades, geothermally heated water found a weak spot in the well and escaped to the surface, dissolving minerals on its way up. The minerals began piling up, forming a beautifully rainbow-colored mound, thanks to thermophilic algae where the geyser sits.

Chaco Canyon, New Mexico

The pre-Columbian mystical structure in Nageezi, between Albuquerque and Farmington, was once the hub for Ancestral Puebloans. The compounds, made up of 15 “Great Houses” and small kivas (places for worship) were built in an aligned composition to capture the cycles of the moon and sun.

The canyon used to contain the largest buildings ever built in North America until the 19th century and spread across nine miles over the canyon floor. Chacoans, the people who lived in the canyon, quarried stones and ferried timber across large distances with the most basic of tools. The sites are considered sacred ancestral homelands by the Hopi and Pueblo people, who maintain oral accounts of their historical migration from Chaco and their spiritual relationship to the land.

Medicine Wheel, Wyoming

The National Historic Landmark in Big Horn County is a sacred Native American complex more than 4,000 acres big. At 9,640 ft high, the Medicine Wheel is a circular pattern of stones surrounding a hollow oval cairn of rock, from which 28 lines extend to a circle. Although nobody knows exactly how old the structure is, estimates range from a few hundred years to more than 3,000. Anthropologists believe the structure was used for ceremonial and sacred purposes, including for medicinal plant gathering, vision quests, and navigation.

Coral Castle, Florida

Coral Castle is a limestone structure built by Edward Leedskalnin, a known Latvian-American eccentric, in Miami-Dade County, between Homestead and Leisure City. There are a number of stones made of limestone formed from coral. Each section of wall is 8 ft tall, 4 ft wide, 3 ft thick, and weighs more than 5.8 tons. But the mysterious part is around exactly how the structure was built. Legend has it that Leedskalnin built the structure on his own, using his supernatural abilities to move the stones, which weigh a total of 1,100 tons. Leedskalnin reportedly spent almost three decades carving the stones that form the Castle as a testament to Agnes, his teenage sweetheart who jilted him.

Underwater Pyramids, Wisconsin

In 1937, diver Max Nohl swam into the murky Rock Lake and came across a stone structure that “looked like an upside down ice cream cone.” Several expeditions into the lake followed, but found no conclusive evidence as to what the structures were. One archaeologist said the pyramid-like structures, which sophisticated sonar systems show are 18 ft-tall stone pyramids, are simply rock piles left by glaciers.

But the Lake Mills Chamber of Commerce has circulated that the structures date back hundreds of years and are a result of Native Americans building pyramids in a once dry valley. According to the legend, the tribes were hoping to end a drought. And in response to the offerings, they filled the valley with water, creating Rock Lake.