Do you think that nothing will surprise you? Even avid travelers can be wrong
Not all sights are marked in mass guidebooks. And the lists of must-see, which are usually supplied to tourists by reference books or friends, are rather monotonous. We invite you to learn about the most unusual American sights that you definitely need to see with your own eyes.
Moving stones in Death Valley
Just imagine heavy boulders scattered along the bottom of a dry lake in Death Valley, which by themselves can "travel". A real miracle of nature! This unique geological phenomenon is associated with a number of factors. The stones move due to the local relief and the wind rose. In this place, powerful vortex currents are formed, they push stones, some of which may weigh more than a centner.
Nobody has ever seen the movement with their own eyes. With the help of a special technique, it was also not possible to fix the sliding of the stones. However, the "travelers" leave traces on the sun-scorched soil, which confirm the guesses of geologists about the eddies of air currents. There is nothing supernatural, but stones still prefer to move without witnesses.
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Roswell Township in New Mexico
In the summer of 1947, a rancher in Roswell discovered strange debris in the pasture. He called the sheriff, who immediately contacted the military: none of the local residents had seen anything like that find before. Rumors leaked to newspapers that a flying saucer had crashed in New Mexico. The quiet town of Roswell has developed over time into one of the continent's most visited tourist attractions. Now everything is connected with aliens and UFOs.
The US government said the wreck was previously a balloon designed to monitor nuclear tests that were taking place nearby. But what can convince people who are waiting for contact with an extraterrestrial civilization?
In Roswell now there is even a thematic museum, which contains all the "evidence" of the presence of aliens on Earth. Believe it or not, Roswell is definitely worth a look, especially for sci-fi fans.
Bighorn Medical Wheel
If you ever fly a helicopter over the Bighorn Ridge in Wyoming, be sure to look down. There you will see an ancient cult structure called the “medical wheel”. Many scientists believe that this building is an ancient observatory for observing the sun. However, until now, local Indians carry out their rituals inside this impressive size of a thousand-year stone circle.
The "medical wheel" is a sacred place for Native Americans - they believe that it was built by their ancestors in memory of some "heavenly messengers" who have already visited those places. The stones, laid out on the ground in a special way, are, as it were, a reference point for guests from space, so that they do not get lost if they suddenly want to fly back.
By the way, this wheel was called "medical" precisely because for the Indians medicine is magic.
Chaco Canyon
The ancient ruins located in the Chaco National Park are further proof that life was in full swing on the territory of America before Columbus. In general, local buildings were the largest structures in North America until the 19th century. Not all ancient Indians were savages in loincloths. The Chaco has both residential buildings and astronomical observatories. All objects are sheltered from prying eyes by the sheer cliffs of the canyon and are connected to each other by a whole system of roads.
The largest house that people lived in Chaco was four stories high. It was simply huge - the ancient builders erected 800-room apartments.
By the beginning of the XIV century, this entire complex of buildings was already abandoned. Why the locals left their homes is still unknown. They sealed the entrances and exits with clay, hoping to return there someday, but for 700 years the Pueblo Indians never found their way home …
Winchester House
This crazy house, which is located in the city of San Jose, is legendary.
The famous Will Winchester inherited one of the largest American arms factories. He and his wife Sara did not enjoy family happiness for a very long time - they lost their little daughter. Later it turned out that Sarah would no longer be able to have children, and soon Will himself fell ill with tuberculosis and died.
Heartbroken Sarah Winchester traveled to Boston, where she met with mediums who conducted a series of seances, which were then popular in the United States. During these events, it "turned out" that an Indian curse was imposed on her and her family. The fact is that hundreds of thousands of Native Americans were killed with rifles manufactured by the Winchester family. Indian shamans decided to take revenge on the pale-faced.
Sarah was told that there is only one way to get rid of the curse: she must start building a house. And one more small clarification - the construction should last exactly as long as it wants to live. A woman bought a piece of land near the California city of San Jose, and it started.
A team of 16 workers worked tirelessly 24 hours a day, seven days a week for 36 years. Before the 1906 earthquake, which destroyed part of the grand structure, the Winchester home had 200 rooms, 10,000 windows and 2,000 doors. Sarah herself supervised the construction. Inside this amazing building there are stairs leading to nowhere, "nesting doll rooms" built one into the other, and hundreds of secret passages.
IVANOV ANDREY