10 Amazing Mythological Objects

Perhaps as a child you worshiped Indiana Jones, bought yourself a fedora, and hoped to search for supernatural treasures long lost to mankind. Mythology has been rife with mysterious objects of power that imbue the user with unique abilities. So, fedora in hand, let’s venture into the world of mysterious and fantastic powers.

10The Cintamani Stone

Most people are familiar with the concept of the Philosopher’s Stone, but few have heard of the Cintamani Stone. Said to be lost somewhere in Southeast Asia, the stone is the Oriental equivalent of the Philosopher’s Stone. The stone is thought to be a relic of Buddha, and is able to grant wishes. Supernatural powers aside, the stone represents Buddhist values and teachings. It has never been found (of course), and there has never been any solid evidence of its existence.

9The Seven-League Boots

The Seven-League Boots are a recurring artifact in numerous European fairy tales, and the boots themselves allowed one to travel seven leagues (roughly five kilometers or three miles) per step. The boots aren’t very well known, and they are featured primarily in the French fairytale Hop-o’-My-Thumb.

In the story, Hop-o’-My-Thumb is a small boy who is extremely intelligent. When his parents abandon him and his brothers, he becomes the (very tiny) man of the house. When an ogre decides to make a meal of the brothers, Hop-o’-My-Thumb steals their magical boots to escape and make his fortune for his family.

8The Ring Of Gyges

Plenty of us have seen the Lord of the Rings movies and are familiar with the One Ring, the cursed ring that grants invisibility but eventually corrupts the souls of those who wear it. Luckily, mythology has a ring that grants invisibility without the nasty side effects. The Ring of Gyges was a ring from a story told by the famous philosopher Plato. In the story, Gyges is a shepherd who finds the ring after an earthquake reveals a cave near where he herds his flock.

Upon entering the cave, Gyges finds the ring on the finger of a corpse that doesn’t seem human. When he places it upon his finger, he discovers he can become invisible by adjusting it. Gyges then goes to the palace of his local kingdom, woos the wife of the king, then kills him and becomes King of Lydia. So . . . maybe we were wrong about the soul-blackening part.

7The Hand Of Glory

This is an item you better hope a burglar never gets his hands on. The Hand of Glory was fashioned from a condemned murderer’s hands. A wax candle was affixed to one of the fingers, and the dead man’s hair was used as a wick. It had the power to unlock doors and freeze people in place. Its flame could only be extinguished by the thief who wielded it, and it would have been a vital tool to the criminal trade if it ever existed. In its day, the Hand of Glory was considered to be the product of extremely black magic.

6Skatert-Samobranka

Let’s say you’re out for a picnic, and you’ve forgotten the food. That’s not an issue, you just need to whip out your Skatert-Samobranka. The Skatert-Samobranka was a magic tablecloth that could produce food when unfurled and cleaned itself up when it was folded again. As with most supernatural items, there were rules. The Skatert-Samobranka was sentient, so it needed to be respected and cared for. If angered, it might have ruined the food, and any rips or holes would cause it to slowly lose its magical properties. That’s one temperamental tablecloth.5

The Book Of Thoth

The Book of Thoth was a book of ancient magic used by the Egyptian god of wisdom and magic, Thoth. The Book of Thoth was said to contain two spells—one to understand animals and one to understand the mind of the gods. In an ancient Egyptian story, a prince of Egypt found the book after avoiding a series of traps. As punishment for finding the book, the prince’s family was killed, and the prince committed suicide.

Years later, a new prince found the book but was warned by the old prince’s ghost not to take it. He didn’t listen and was promptly convinced by a beautiful woman to humiliate himself and kill his children. However, he discovered that the whole thing was an illusion created by the old prince’s ghost as a warning. He placed the book back into the old prince’s tomb and left.

4Helmet Of Invisibility

Another Greek legend, the Helmet of Invisibility was a helmet once owned by the hero Perseus that could grant—you guessed it—invisibility. Perseus wore the helmet in his quest to slay Medusa. It prevented her petrifying gaze from affecting him when he went into battle. Perseus returned with Medusa’s head, so his quest went quite well.

3The Spear Of Destiny

The Spear of Destiny is a sacred relic in the Christian faith. It is said that the spear that pierced Christ’s side was imbued with unique powers. Supposedly, only the owner of the Spear of Destiny could control the world. Many a conspiracy nut will tell you that Hitler, while dabbling in the occult, took the spear for himself and went on to conquer most of Europe. Later, when General Patton arrived in Nuremburg, he took the spear from the city, and Hitler’s reign of terror soon ended.

2The Argo

Anyone familiar with classical mythology is probably familiar with The Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes, the tale of Jason and his team of heroes (the Argonauts), who quested to gain the Golden Fleece in Colchis—so that Jason could claim his throne. The ship itself was said to be under the protection of the goddess Hera and was made from the timber of the forests of Dodona, which held the power of prophecy. When the quest for the Golden Fleece was done, the Argo was placed into the heavens as a constellation.

1Dragon’s Teeth

Dragons are the quintessential monster of European folklore: giant, fire-breathing lizards that may have been the medieval explanation for dinosaur bones. The Greek legend of Cadmus states that, in the days of yore, Cadmus killed the sacred dragon of the god of war—Ares. Athena, Ares’s sister, told Cadmus to plant the teeth, which grew into a fresh crop of soldiers. He then threw a precious gem in amid the soldiers, who fought each other for it until there were five survivors. These five later went on to found the city of Thebes. To this day, to “sow dragon’s teeth” means to cause something that breeds dispute.

10 Crazy Features Of Old Cars

When you imagine a car any older than 30 years, a certain (bulky) image likely comes to mind. But old cars were actually much cooler than you’d think. Some of the features were more advanced then you’d expect for the time, and some were less advanced. Either way they were all crazy.

10Minibar In The Glove Box

The ‘50s were a time of martinis and cocktails. It was decades before the silly “safety” revolution of seatbelts and airbags that took place in the ‘70s, and car manufacturers decided that drinking and driving was what all the cool kids were doing. The 1957 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham featured a minibar in the glove box as a standard feature. Shot glasses stuck magnetically to the opened glove compartment so they would remain stationary.

9Iter Avto (Onboard Navigation)

GPS is another fairly recent invention. Well, as it turns out, drivers in the ‘30s had access to onboard navigation far more complex than you might have guessed. The Iter Avto worked with long paper scrolls, which would fit into the display and be pulled by a cable attached to a speedometer. Because of this, the map would only move as fast as you decided to travel. The problem was, it only could scroll up or down. If you turned, you had to stop and replace the scroll with the new road you were traveling on.

8Automatic Seatbelts

Seatbelts weren’t always commonplace in cars. Early on, many manufacturers offered them as a choice or luxury, and many people that had them didn’t pay much attention to wearing them. During the late ’70s, as the government became more conscious of safety, automatic seatbelts were born.

Many of these automatic belts were attached to the door in some manner, so when you entered the car, you needed to slide under the belts. The closing of the door secured the belts automatically as they retracted to their original position.

The problem was that it was so awkward to get into, most people would remove the belts altogether.

7Onboard Record Players

Today, all you need is an iPod and a small cord, and you can listen to any song you want while driving. But how would you listen to your favorite tracks while driving in the ’50s? Why, with Chrysler’s in-car phonograph, of course. It was essentially a mini record player fitted beneath the car radio. It connected to the radio and could be activated with the flip of a switch. It seems too good to be true because it was. The records were specifically made for the in-car phonograph, had a very limited catalog, and as you may have guessed, skipped when the car encountered even the slightest uneven surface.

6Automatic Lights

Automatic headlights seem like a recent invention, but old cars had them. They just didn’t quite work. In the ‘60s, General Motors introduced the Twilight Sentinel. It automatically turned on the headlights in dark conditions and even had a timer that allowed you to leave the headlights on after you got out so you could find your way to the front door.

Cadillac called their system the “Guidematic Headlamp Control.” The system was temperamental though—sometimes not sensing darkness or light. Still, it was an impressive feature for such early automobiles.5

Chin Alarm

Today, some highways have rumble strips on the edges of the road that make a loud noise if a car veers onto them, waking a sleeping driver. They didn’t have those in the ‘30s, but they had something else. A small metal gong or bell was attached to the driver under the chin. The idea was that if the driver happened to nod off, they would ring the bell and wake up.

4Skull License Plates

No, the skulls on these license plates were not issued only to people who were super cool; they were actually given to super awful drivers. Or at least that was the plan. In Memphis in the ‘30s, an idea was devised to let motorists know who was a good driver and whom to keep away from. Those who continued to break traffic laws would be forced to use special black license plates with a skull and crossbones and the words “Traffic Law Violator.” The idea never took off—probably because people realized that if a person is so bad they need a warning on their car, it’s probably easier just to not let them drive.

3Dog Sacks

Even in the ‘30s, people knew that dogs like to stick their heads out the window. They also realized dogs left unwanted hair in the backseat, so they got inventing. The Dog Sack attached to the car’s running board at its bottom and to the door at its top. The dog could be placed inside and get fresh air through a head hole. There was also another similar invention—more like a cage. Also attaching to the outside of the car, it had flaps that could be rolled down to protect the dog from dust or rain.

2Wrist Twist Steering System

You’d probably need some practice to use a car with the Wrist Twist. Intended to replace the steering wheel, it used two 13-centimeter (5 in) plastic rings that could be turned independently of one another. It apparently made the dash easier to view and was more comfortable to control since your arms didn’t need to move much. Despite its supposed ease to use, the Wrist Twist never went into commercial production.

1Horse Head

The Horsey Horseless was a design from 1899. Allegedly thought up by a man named Uriah Smith, the vehicle featured a full-size, hollowed-out replica horse head bolted to the front to help people transition from horse-drawn carriages to vehicles. Smith even suggested the horse head be hollowed for storage. It’s believed the sketches found on the Internet only represent a design idea, and the car was never actually produced. It’s difficult to imagine how people made the transition without it.

10 People Who Experienced Hell On Earth

When most of us say we’re having a “day from hell,” we mean we missed the bus or accidentally sent a sexy photo of ourselves to our grandma. But for some people, the phrase is more than a figure of speech—it’s a reminder of an experience so utterly horrific that all we can do is attempt to describe it.

10The Family Who Survived A Firestorm

Earlier this year, Australia was crippled by a devastating heat wave. With temperatures topping 40 Celsius (104 F) and no rain in sight, it was only a matter of time before fire spread across the continent. But no one was prepared for the apocalyptic blaze that hit Tasmania.

On January 9, Tim and Tammy Holmes were babysitting their grandchildren when a veritable storm of fire tore through the area. Within seconds, shops, schools, and churches were overtaken by the inferno. With no other means of escape, the family jumped into the ocean, where they were forced to cling to a burning jetty for nearly three hours.

The superheated air was so toxic they could only breathe if their noses were practically in the water. For an entire afternoon, the family was trapped between an inferno and the freezing ocean—watching everything they ever loved burn to the ground.

9The Turkish Army Meets Dracula

In 1462, the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II was hankering for a slice of Wallachia—a province in modern-day Romania that belonged to Vlad the Impaler. The Turks sent an advance party across the Danube River, and what they found was utterly horrific.

It was a literal forest of corpses. In a fit of bloodthirsty insanity, Vlad had impaled some 20,000 of his enemies and left them to rot in the Romanian sun. But that’s not the worst part: It happened twice.

The Turks escaped the corpse forest only to encounter another one just afterward—another 20,000 of their countrymen dangling from spikes. If there’s anything creepier than walking through Dracula’s private nightmare garden for a second time, we’ve yet to hear it.

8Haiti’s Last Survivor

For those of you who never watch the news, an earthquake hit Haiti in 2010—a devastating wave of destruction that flattened around 40 percent of the capital and killed up to 300,000 people. But for Evans Monsignac, the ordeal was just beginning.

When the quake hit, Monsignac was working in the market. He was buried by rubble and forced to listen to the screams of his friends as they slowly bled to death. He was pinned under the rubble for 27 days. During that time, his body withered, sores formed on his skin, and his premature grave filled with the smell of his decaying countrymen. To survive, he was forced to drink from a ruptured sewage pipe. Although he made it out, Monsignac developed PTSD, screaming nightmares, and infected sores that required emergency skin grafts.

7The Novelist Returns

Hans Nossak was a German author at a time when Germany was more interested in death than literature. During World War II, he holed up in Hamburg, which seemed relatively safe. It wasn’t.

By a stroke of luck, Nossak was out of the city during the night of Operation Gomorrah—the RAF’s attempt to go Old Testament on the German population. However, he returned to the ruins a few days later, and what he saw will make you want to vomit up your soul.

In the aftermath of the bombing, the city was awash with rats. Fat rodents feasted on corpses that were melted to the tarmac—shriveled husks one-fourth the size of a human being. Even worse were the flies. Writing later, Nossak claimed they swarmed on every surface, hovering in clouds so thick they had to be cleared with a flamethrower. Maggots writhed ankle-deep in the epicenter of the firestorm, and the stench of burning human flesh hung over the city for three months.

6After The Tsunami

In 2004, a series of tsunamis obliterated large chunks of Indonesia, Thailand, and Sri Lanka—killing 230,000 and displacing millions. You probably remember the scenes from TV: villages underwater, bodies clumped together like jetsam, and no end of horrors. But for one survivor, the incident didn’t last for one day—but seven years.

In 2004, Meri Yuranda was eight years old. As the storm approached, her father loaded her and her sister into a boat, but a wave swept the boat away before he could join them. Her sister was soon pulled overboard, and Meri found herself drifting around her hometown alone for days before a local woman “rescued” her.

Did we say rescued? We meant kidnapped. The woman forced Meri to wander the devastated Indonesian countryside, begging strangers for money. Meri was held captive for seven years, but finally managed to find her parents again when she was 15.5

The Nightmare Virus

In 2000, Northern Uganda found itself at the epicenter of a plague. An Ebola outbreak swept through the Gulu, Masindi, and Mbarara districts, reducing the population to screaming panic. In towns and villages across the country, otherwise-healthy people began bleeding from every orifice. The end result left 50–90 percent of the infected dead. So when Pido Jibinino came down with a severe case, he naturally assumed it was the end. He survived, but not before experiencing the full horror of the disease.

In late 2000, Pido was rushed to a specialized Ebola hospital. Blood lay thick on the floor, and patients writhed on gurneys. The smell was beyond foul, and for Pido, things were just beginning. For days, he lay on his bed—surrounded by death and agony—feeling his eyeballs swell and a terrible rash develop on his entire body. Blood oozed from his pores and pooled under him. The only human contact he had was with doctors in hazmat suits—who were waiting for him to die. It was the sort of living nightmare no one should experience, yet Pido somehow survived and made a full recovery.

4After The Bomb

The bombing of Hiroshima likely saved millions of lives in the long run—but at an enormous cost. Tomiko Morimoto was 13 when the bomb went off. Inthis interview, she tells of watching from a hill as her hometown turned to ash.

Keiko Lane was in a shelter after the blast and recalls seeing people walk in with their skin hanging off and soldiers burning the bodies of children in an abandoned schoolyard. Hiroshi Morishita was forced to watch as his relatives vomited blood and died. In short, the hibakusha (“bomb survivors”) came closer to hell than most of us get in our worst nightmares.

3The Double Whammy

In April 2013, Joe Berti decided to help raise money for kids with terminal illnesses. Unfortunately, his chosen fundraising method was running in the Boston Marathon. Berti had just crossed the finish line when the world seemed to explode around him. Already exhausted from the run, he could only stagger through the war zone that had been a street moments earlier. Amazingly, he escaped injury—as did his wife, who was close to the bomb when it went off. But fate wasn’t finished with Berti yet.

Two days later, Berti was on a business trip in Texas. As he was driving by the town of West, he noticed a plume of black smoke. Seconds later, a fertilizer plant exploded, killing five and injuring 160. Berti felt the force of the blast two kilometers (1.2 mi) away, and chunks of flaming rubble started raining down around him. Once again, he escaped unharmed, if not a little bewildered by the astronomical odds of the situation.

2The Plague Hits Colorado

Sean and Darcy Downing were shocked last year when their seven-year-old daughter was diagnosed with the bubonic plague. We’re talking about one of the most virulent, deadly diseases ever known—something that hasn’t been a serious problem for hundreds of years because we deemed it deadly enough to totally eradicate it. And it just infected a Colorado schoolgirl.

Sierra Jane was rushed to the hospital with lymph swelling so severe that an ultrasound was enough to cause her intense pain. In the end, the Downings’ daughter survived after an intense treatment of antibiotics. Oh, and if you’re thinking this was just a freak incident that could never happen to you, cases have been reported up and down the entire West Coast.

1Five Nazi Concentration Camps

In a list of places you never want to be, “Nazi concentration camp” is probably near the top. Yet Eliezer Ayalon didn’t experience life inside just one genocide machine—he survived five of them.

His marathon ordeal started in the Radom Ghetto, a place notorious for its extremely low survival rate. After a year of forced labor and starvation, Eliezer’s family was shipped to Treblinka. At one point, he was stationed in Mauthausen, a camp known for its method of “extermination by labor.” Later, he found himself in the notorious Plaszow concentration camp, which you may recognize as the camp from Schindler’s List.

Near the end of World War II, he was sent on a two-day death march and wound up at the Ebenesse sub-camp, where the prisoners were murdered so fast that the camp crematorium—designed with mass extermination in mind—couldn’t keep up. By the time he was liberated in 1945, he’d survived more misery than we can even imagine.

10 Interesting Facts About Trees

No one has actually bothered to give the word “tree” a specific definition. As it turns out, there’s quite a lot about trees that the average person doesn’t know. Trees are far more than their basic definition, and they just might surprise you.

10Onbashira

Have you ever wanted to sit on an enormous tree trunk and slide out of control down the side of a mountain? What a ridiculous question—of course you have. During the Onbashira festival that occurs every six years in Japan, they do just that—and have been for the last 1,200 years. The trunks are used as pillars at the corners of local shrines, but custom dictates they be replaced every time the Chinese zodiac year of the monkey or tiger rolls around (yes, even though they’re Japanese).

The logs are chosen from fir trees, which are felled and dragged by hand to their destination. When a slope is reached, local men hop aboard and careen to the bottom to test their bravery. The process is as dangerous as it sounds, with people regularly being injured and killed. Despite this, it’s incredibly popular, attracting over half a million attendees. The dramatic hill riding is just one part of the several-month process of moving the logs, which is filled with numerous festivities.

And before you ask, yes, there are videos.

9Drugs From Trees

You might know that aspirin was originally developed from willow bark, but it’s certainly not the only plant-related drug. As with all plants, trees are a rich source of various biological compounds, so it makes sense that we’d be able to find a few chemicals that are useful to us. Some chemotherapy drugs are made from yew clippings, and if you live in the UK and have a yew tree you aren’t using, you can even donate some of it.

Another drug produced from trees is ecstasy. In Cambodia, a tree known as “mreah prew phnom,” which has no common English name, has become critically endangered due to the illegal drug trade. Four of the trees produce a barrel of safrole oil, an ingredient that is synthesized into pills in laboratories.

The process is dangerous—the distilleries needed to extract oil from the trees’ roots are known to explode. In addition, the environmental impact is devastating. Not only is the tree critically endangered, but the the Cambodian forests being stripped are host to other threatened species, such as the Asian elephant, a concern that oddly seems to have slipped the minds of ferocious drug cartels.

8Deforestation Could Reduce Global Warming

One of the key environmental themes to bear in mind with all this talk of illegal logging and the illegal prevention of logging is the impact on the wider planet. Conventional wisdom is that cutting down trees will accelerate global warming. It makes sense—trees take in carbon from the atmosphere, and as they’re destroyed, that carbon is returned. But, as is often the case, reality is more complicated.

Scientists from UC Davis conducted a study that found that if forests are lost north of 45 degrees latitude—north of Montana in the US or Bordeaux in France—the net effect would actually cool the planet. This is due to the fact that forests absorb heat from the sun during the day and retain it at night, while clear areas with snow reflect the sun’s energy back into space.However, the scientists are keen to point out that forests have other benefits, so there’s no need to put your newfound tree-sitting plans on hold just yet.

7Tree Disease Fought With Computer Game

Ash dieback is a tree disease currently spreading rapidly throughout the UK.Some experts think London’s trees could be devastated if the outbreak reaches the city. Scientists have taken to mobile technology and social media to aid in the fight the disease. In 2012, they launched the puntastically named AshTag, an app that allowed people to photograph and report the location of diseased trees.

A more novel crowdsourcing effort is the Facebook game Fraxinus. The game uses genetic data from trees to create puzzles, and solving them actually involves processing the data in a way that can speed up the discovery of what we need to know to breed trees with a resistance to the disease. It’s estimated that it could cut decades off the time it would’ve taken normally, so why not have a go? You might as well. Reaching level 350 of Candy Crush isn’t going to cure cancer, is it?

6Most Dangerous Tree

There’s an official Guinness World Record for “World’s Most Dangerous Tree,” and it’s held by the manchineel tree from the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. The manchineel’s bark is covered in sap that causes skin to blister and can blind a person if it gets in their eyes. Even standing under the tree in the rain can cause blisters because the sap will drip onto skin.

The tree’s fruit, known as the “beach apple” or “death apple,” is slightly sweet but very painful to eat. Ulceration of the mouth and esophagus will occur from just a small bite and consumption can be lethal. Smoke from burning manchineel wood can cause blindness, and the sap has historically been used to coat arrows for hunting. Today it’s an endangered species in Florida.5

Tree Worship

The religious significance of trees in the West nowadays tends to be reserved for Christmas. Historically, trees have been popular symbols of fertility and growth. Their majesty, combined with the seasonal display representing death and rebirth makes trees a natural choice for symbolism. Also, they look so darn pretty smothered in tinsel and twinkly lights.

In India, more traditional tree worshiping persists to this day. The sacred fig, or Ficus religiosa, shows its purpose with both its English and Latin names. It’s one of several trees revered in Hinduism, originating from a belief that trees had some level of sentience. Leaves and other parts of trees play a role in prayer and religious ceremonies throughout India.

The tree Sri Maha Bodhil is the oldest surviving tree whose planting date we know. It was planted in 288 B.C. and can be found in a Sri Lankan temple. It represents happiness and everything else that makes for a long, good life.

4Japanese Miracle Pine

The town of Rikuzentakata, on the east coast of Japan, was almost completely destroyed during the 2011 tsunami. Though the town was home to fewer than 30,000 people, over 2,000 were killed there, a tenth of the tsunami’s total victims. Before the disaster, the town’s coastline was home to 70,000 pine trees, which were designated an official “Place of Scenic Beauty.” After the wave hit, only a single tree remained alive.

The 250-year-old pine, naturally dubbed a “miracle,” survived the initial destruction, but exposure to salt water killed its roots. Experts removed the tree and created synthetic roots, along with a metal skeleton, to keep it alive. The tree served as a symbol of hope for the shattered community, and the town’s mayor, made a widower by the tsunami, was quoted as saying, “the miracle pine gave us the strength and hope to carry on living.”

3Tree Poaching

Stealing trees has got to be a hassle. Trees are quite large, and if they’re not, then they’re hardly worth stealing in the first place. You need resources to steal a tree, yet it’s a surprisingly common crime for one reason: Wood is big money.

A report from 1996 showed that $1 million worth of lumber was stolen each month in Washington State alone. More recently, thieves in Canada stole a massive, 800-year-old cedar tree in a heist that required heavy-duty logging equipment. This wasn’t an isolated incident, and it’s a big problem for US national parks.

Science, as usual, has provided a handy tool for catching these thieves. As living organisms, trees have DNA fingerprints the same way people do. Investigators in Indiana were able to match the DNA of a stump to logs at a lumber mill. Unfortunately, many land owners don’t notice their trees have gone missing for a long time, so poachers are unlikely to be put off.

2Tree Sitting

On December 10, 1997, environmental activist Julia Hill climbed a redwood tree in California to protest logging practices by the Pacific Lumber Company. She stayed there until December 23, 1999, setting a record for the longest tree sit. Tree sitting, which is pretty much what it sounds like, is a popular form of protest with environmentalists around the world.

Tree sitting is popular mainly because it’s difficult to arrest and evict people when they’re so far above the ground. Tree sitters will often link several trees together with ropes to create a village of sorts, and locals aren’t averse to flocking to their aid with supplies. The protest is such an effective nuisance that Oregon recently passed a law allowing logging companies to sue protesters, though a similar law that would make tree sitting a felony punishable by up to five years in prison failed to get past the Senate.

1Moon Trees

In 1971, astronaut Stuart Roosa took 500 seeds aboard Apollo 14 as part of his personal luggage. In his earlier life, Roosa had been a smoke jumper, someone who parachutes into burning forests to fight fires (people with the balls of astronauts had to find something to do before space travel came along).

The US Forestry Service gave the seeds to Roosa to take with him because of his earlier career. The seeds orbited the moon 34 times aboard Apollo 14′s command module—Roosa never walked on the moon himself. When he returned to Earth, the seeds were planted, and five years later, saplings were sent all around the country (and even overseas) as part of Americanbicentennial celebrations.

Shortly after that, everyone forgot about them. It wasn’t until 1997 that they were rediscovered—by a bunch of schoolkids. Cannelton Elementary School in Indiana had a tree on their grounds with a “Moon Tree” plaque, but no idea what that meant. They called NASA, and no one there had any idea either. Their inquiries prompted scientist Dave Williams to do some digging, and he was able to root out the tree’s history. He’s since collected details on over 50 of them. There are likely hundreds more around the world, so if you know of any, you can email him and help reconstruct a piece of history.

For those of you seeking the key to tree superpowers and thinking “outer space,” we’re sorry to inform you that the moon trees have been compared with trees from their sibling seeds that never left Earth and found to be no different.

Alan is an aspiring writer trying to kick-start his career with an awesome beard and an addiction to coffee. You can read some of his non-list writing here or you can email him here.