Strange Slope is a natural tourist attraction in China’s Liaoning Province, where a strange phenomenon causes things to roll uphill and prevents them from rolling downhill.

Located at the foot of Maoshan Mountain, near the city of Shenyang, the Strange Slope scenic area is considered one of the eight natural wonders of Liaoning Province. It was discovered in 1990, when, local stories say, a police officer stopped his car in the area and, taking his foot off the brake, noticed his vehicle slowly rolled uphill, all the way to the top. Word of the bizarre phenomenon spread like wildfire, and before long, people from all over the country, and even from abroad, were coming to see the gravity-defying slope in person. Authorities cleaned the place up, created separate lanes for bikes and cars, and Strange Slope became one of the most popular scenic areas in Liaoning.

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Tropical rainforests are densely populated with a remarkable diversity of plant life, from various trees to vines, shrubs and flowers, but deep in the Amazon rainforest there are large areas that consist of a single tree species. These are known as Devil’s Gardens.

The indigenous tribes of the Amazon rainforest have known about Devil’s Gardens for hundreds, if not thousands of years, and they have eerie local legends that speak of evil spirits. In fact, it’s these stories that inspired the name of the mysterious tracts of vegetation randomly spread throughout the jungle. Many locals believe that they were planted by an evil spirit, and who can blame them? After all, how can one explain large areas of otherwise diverse rainforest where only a single tree species appears to thrive? Well, a few years back, researchers found that Devil’s Gardens are not the work of the devil, but that of a small ant that only aims to ensure the survival of its habitat.

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