Philadelphia physician Arthur Lintgen can recognize classical phonograph records without hearing them. By studying the spacing and patterns of the grooves, the structure of the vinyl, and the number and length of the movements, he can identify most orchestral music composed since Beethoven’s time.

He’s been tested several times, once in the presence of two musicians from major American orchestras. Lintgen studied each record for 15 to 30 seconds, then correctly named Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Rachmaninoff’s The Bells and Second Symphony, and the Saint-Saëns “Organ” Symphony.

Walk on Kazakhstan’s Dune of Altynemel and it will sing. The sound is described as a cross between a roar and a boom; a strong wind can produce the same effect.

Singing sand is found at about 35 sites around the world, including the Eureka Dunes in California, Sand Mountain in Nevada, and the Booming Dunes in the Namib Desert of Africa.

No one’s quite sure how it works. Scientists think it’s a reverberating resonance produced by the sliding of similarly sized grains of sand.

Jacob Le Maire, in his voyage to the Straits of Magellan, reports, that on the 17th of December, 1615, they found at Port Desire, several graves covered with stones; and having the curiosity to remove the stones, they discovered human skeletons of ten and eleven feet long.

— John Platts, Encyclopedia of Natural and Artificial Wonders and Curiosities, 1876

See also Tall Tale.

From the three-state junction of Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma, drive four miles south to Oklahoma East 50 Road, park your car, and look west. You’ll be looking into an uninhabited area known as the Devil’s Promenade, and on many nights you’ll see a ball of light floating about 2 feet above the ground.

No one knows what it is. Beyond the forested hills lies Interstate 44, so possibly it’s an effect of headlights, but the first documented sighting occurred in 1881, and the photograph above was taken in the early 1900s.

A visitor’s description of William Kingston, a Somerset farmer born without arms, recounted in John Platts, Encyclopedia of Natural and Artificial Wonders and Curiosities, 1876:

He highly entertained us at breakfast, by putting his half-naked feet upon the table as he sat, and carrying his tea and toast between his great and second toe to his mouth, with as much facility as if his foot had been a hand, and his toes fingers. … He then shewed me how he shaves himself with the razor in his toes; and he can comb his own hair. He can dress and undress himself, except buttoning his clothes. He feeds himself, and can bring both his meat or his broth to his mouth, by holding the fork or spoon in his toes. He cleans his own shoes, lights the fire, and does almost any domestic business as well as any other man. … He can milk his cows with his toes, and cuts his own hay, binds it up in bundles, and carries it about the field for his cattle. Last winter he had eight heifers constantly to fodder. The last summer he made all his hay-ricks. He can do all the business of the hay-field (except mowing) as fast and as well with his feet as others can with rakes and forks. … In a word, he can nearly do as much without as others can with their arms.

The British merchant ship Madagascar set sail from Melbourne in August 1853, headed for London and carrying 60,000 ounces of gold dust.

She was never seen again.

In 1739, to celebrate Russia’s victory over Turkey, empress Anna Ivanovna ordered a palace of ice to be built in St. Petersburg. Designed by architect Pyotr Yeropkin, the massive building was 60 meters long and 6.5 high, surrounded by sculptures and artillery, fully furnished (including a bed, mattress, and pillows), and featuring a garden filled with trees, birds, and even an elephant. All of this was made entirely of ice.

It melted the following summer.