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\n\n\n1. Atlantic Rainforest, Sao Paulo 2. Horsetail Fall 3. Eastern Coast, Australia 4. Blue Grotto, Italy 5. Forests in the Smoky Mountains of Elkmont, Tennessee 6. Hachijo-Jima Island, Japan 7. Toyama Bay, Japan 8. The Ocean Depths 9. Forest Park, New York 10. Catatumbo, Venezuela 11. Waitomo Caves, New Zealand 12. Vaadhoo, Maldives 13. Kilauea, Hawaii 15. Salar De Uyuni, Bolivia BONUS! Leave a comment and tell us what you think.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Everything is illuminated! No, I\u2019m not talking about the movie with Elijah Wood, I\u2019m talking about the bioluminescence, the Northern Lights, a freaky glowing mushroom forest in the heart of the New-York City and other crazy-looking natural wonders around you that can be seen only at night. Some of these phenomena are still scientific mysteries, […]\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1035,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbdigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbdigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbdigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbdigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbdigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1034"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lbdigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1036,"href":"https:\/\/lbdigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1034\/revisions\/1036"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbdigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbdigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbdigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbdigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
First thing on your mind when you see these pictures is probably: \u201cIs this from the new Avatar movie?\u201d And I can\u2019t blame you because this rainforest jungle in Sao Paulo does look all glowy and trippy. All because of the fungi species Mycena Luxaeterna a.k.a. \u201ceternal light mushrooms\u201d. Unfortunately, they are extremely rare, so the scientists still don\u2019t have any definitive answers except for \u201cthey look pretty\u201d. Scientists aren\u2019t good at describing their feelings.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Ever wanted to see a lava fall? It\u2019s just like a waterfall but with lava instead of water. Horsetail Fall will deliver on that if you decide to visit California\u2019s Yosemite National Park in either winter or early spring. Now, full disclosure? It\u2019s not actual lava. For a few days every year, as the sun sets behind the horizon, the last rays of sunlight will bounce off of the Horsetail Fall at just the right angle, creating a short-lived, yet unforgettable illusion of literal lava pouring down.\n\n\n
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Meet the Clusterwink snail. It\u2019s usually found along the Australian coast, living in small colonies. They\u2019re famous for their protection mechanism that is pretty flashy (pun intended). When agitated by any outside stimuli like other animals or just curious divers poking them with GoPRO\u2019s on a selfie stick, these fellas light up like Christmas trees to make themselves look bigger and scarier. While this may be effective against fish, humans won\u2019t get fooled that easily!\n\n\n
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This magnificent grotto in Italy is like a nature\u2019s fiber-optic cable, where the light from the outside is squeezed through a small hole, illuminating the entire cave in heavenly blue shine. No mushrooms, no glowworms, just pure light!\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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Every year in the Great Smoky Mountains, Tennessee, millions of fireflies take part in an inexplicable light show that mesmerizes any and all spectators. While the \u201cgathering of fireflies\u201d may sound somewhat trivial and boring, you will not regret seeing it with your own eyes, as these pulsating little night lights prefer to choose glowing fungi as their landing pads, making this an even brighter experience!\n\n\n
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Visiting Japan in summer? Don\u2019t forget to check out Hachijo-Jima Island and its famous hiking trails speckled with emerald-glowing mushrooms! The perfect time to see the fungal \u201clight show\u201d is during the rainy season that usually lasts from May to late August.\n\n\n
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Toyama Bay is the only place in the world, where you can see the Firefly Squid, an almost exclusively deep sea dweller, with your own eyes, without having to dive into the dark and cold depths of the Pacific Ocean. This spot has been their breeding grounds for centuries, maybe eons, so no wonder the Japanese art and folklore have more references to squids and tentacles, than any other culture on the planet! All jokes aside, at night time this place looks like a shot from one of Miyazaki\u2019s anime.\n\n\n
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Speaking of deep sea creatures\u2026 After billions of years of living under immense pressure and adapting their bodies, survival skills, and hunting mechanisms, these monsters finally popped up on our radars and people freaked out. Since the middle of the 18th century we\u2019ve discovered living organisms of almost any shape, size and form we could (and couldn\u2019t) imagine, but the scientists currently know more about the planets in our solar system, than about those abominations lurking in our oceans.
When you look at these photos of deep sea creatures you can\u2019t help but wonder \u201cHow is it that we can land a probe on an asteroid in space, but we don\u2019t have good enough technology to explored the bottom of our planet?\u201d Whatever the reason is, it\u2019s wrong because before looking for extraterrestrial life in the galaxies far far away we should check our backyard, which is full of undiscovered alien-looking monstrosities waiting to be discovered.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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A species of fungus known as Panellus Stipticus or \u201cbitter oyster\u201d, commonly seen in New England woods, has an unstoppable urge to glow in the dark, presumably attracting bugs and \u2026 tourists. These shrooms illuminate the forest by mixing a pigment called \u201cluciferin\u201d with oxygen from the atmosphere, making Forest Park one of New York\u2019s most beautiful places to visit. Scientists are still not quite sure as to why these fungi developed this trait other than to lure in small insects to spread the spores, but that\u2019s a boring explanation, don\u2019t you think?\n\n\n
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Catatumbo in Venezuela may be the closest thing to Hell we\u2019ll ever get to see. This phenomenon has many names ranging from the \u201cnever-ending storm\u201d to \u201cgates of hell\u201d and judging from the looks of it \u2013 it may very well be that. Nearly 300 flashes of lightning every hour, 10 hours a day, five months a year make this \u201cstorm\u201d a perfect attraction for tourists and scientists.\n\n\n
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New Zealand is full of breathtaking tourist spots like the Hobbiton or the never melting Glaciers but once you\u2019ve been to the New Zealand\u2019s Waitomo Caves, your world will be turned upside-down. Secretions of a very peculiar species of the glowworm, called Arachnocampa Luminosa, make the inside of the caves look like a beautiful starry sky. And the facts that you\u2019re awe-struck by worm saliva makes this place even more surreal.\n\n\n
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Ah, Maldives, probably the closest thing to heaven you\u2019ll find on Earth. One of the islands, Vaadhoo, is especially popular among the tourists. Hordes of tiny bioluminescent sea creatures, known as Phytoplankton, get regularly washed ashore creating an illusion of billions of star pieces scattered on the beach. If you can\u2019t afford a trip to Maldives and Google Images just don\u2019t do it for you, you can always go to San Diego, where a very similar occurrence also takes place.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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In the modern age of rocket science and space travels we, as species, have almost completely forgotten how terrifying and wildfire can be. Sure, you can use a fire extinguisher on your stove or throw some sand on your campfire but what will you do to put out a volcano? Every day at sunset, Kilauea, the ever-active zit from hell, gives off a huge cloud of sulfur and steam that morph into a spectacular mix or crimson-red smoke and superheated molten rock fireworks straight from the center of the Earth.
14. Norway, Polar Lights
To see the fabled Northern Lights all you need to do is cross the Arctic Circle. Sounds easy, right? Well, that\u2019s where things get tricky if you want to do it no your own. If, however, you\u2019d prefer not to freeze to death or get stranded in the ocean full of icebergs, you should just book a flight to Troms\u00f8, Norway. Aside from being an incredibly fascinating location by itself with rich history and cultural legacy, Troms\u00f8\u2019s cruise ships provide unforgettable trips for tourists from all over the world, who came all this way to witness the shimmering emerald lights in the sky. By the way, did you know that this famous natural phenomenon occurs when highly charged particles of the Sun come into contact with different particles in the Earth\u2019s atmosphere? In other words: the worlds are colliding.\n\n\n
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Bolivian salt flats are one of the most inexplicable natural phenomena on this list. The landscape is so incredibly flat that it messes with your brain and your vision, which is one of the main reasons that photographers from all over the world dream of snapping a perfect picture here. Additionally, on a rare occasion when it rains, this place turns into a literal Mirror Land.\n\n\n
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Planet Earth
I bet you didn\u2019t see this one coming! Our entire planet is one huge natural wonder, and we light it up every night, just like the glowing mushrooms and deep sea creatures light up forests and oceans. Look at this beauty in its full glory!
How can we even care about something as trivial as oil prices or waging wars, when we are but a speck of dust in the infinitely growing and ever-expanding universe?\n\n\n\n