15 Most Mysterious Lakes in the World
1. Lake Natron
Nicknamed “Satanic Lake,” Lake Natron lives up to its reputation, and then some- trapping and suffocating animals and birds within its inhospitable waves.
The horrible truth lies within the lake’s composition itself; Natron. This sodium compound is a cruel mixture of chloride, sulfates bicarbonate, and sodium carbonate, making the water’s alkaline levels off the charts.
Lake Natron is an efficient killer, drowning the creatures and calcifying their remains so no hide nor hair remains. Savage!
2. Lake Hiller Australia’s Lake
Hiller stretches over three football fields long, but that’s the least intriguing thing about this body of water. The most interesting, by far, is its bright salmon-colored hue.
Lake Hiller is perennially Millennial Pink, and the water retains its vibrancy whether it’s in the lake itself or taken away from it. Lake Hiller gets its special pizazz from Dunaliella Salina, and this saline-rich inland lake is an insta-worthy must-see if you ever make it to the Land Down Under.
3. Taal Lake
This Filipino lake is shrouded in mystery and a full-fledged cautionary tale of what happens when you give in to your greed. According to legend, Tagaytay townsfolk disobeyed their wise leader and ventured to a mountain outside their village, where they plundered it for the good stuff; rubies, diamonds, and pearls.
For their disloyalty and greed, the townsfolk were slaughtered in a spectacular rain of fire and water, resulting in Taal Lake. Was this lake really the site of a righteous massacre? Or is it merely one of the coolest looking lakes in the world? It’s anyone’s guess.
4. Blue Lake
It’s one of the deepest lakes in the world, and scientists speculate that it hides an intricate system of underwater caves beneath its surface. How deep is this lake? It’s hella deep, a full 846 feet deep and growing thanks to the erosion at its silty bottom. For context, that’s deep enough to fully submerge the iconic St.
Louis Arch or Seattle’s Space Needle with plenty of space to spare. It’s totally unlikely that we will ever fully uncover all of the Blue Lake’s secrets, which is what makes it one of the most mysterious lakes on the planet.
5. Lake Nyos
What happens when a lake snaps? We all got the answer in 1986 when pleasant, unassuming Lake Nyos erupted in a poisonous gush of gas that quickly suffocated anyone and anything unlucky enough to live near her noxious shoes.
A whopping 1746 people perished, along with scores of animal and marine life. What caused the calamity? Apparently, this Cameroonian lake had a nasty little secret; a volcanic crater that was quietly belching up carbon dioxide, filling Lake Nyos to the bursting point and eventually erupting in a deadly blanket of poison air. Perhaps even more chilling is the fact that scientists fully expect Lake Nyos to go for round two, spewing poison gas into the atmosphere sometime in the future.
6. Plitvice Lakes
This magical interlocking maze of 16 lakes and 90 waterfalls will make you feel like you just stepped through the looking glass. With crystal-clear blue waters and some of the craziest land features of the planet, Plitvice Lakes is an otherworldly Croatian treasure that will blow your mind.
To add a touch of mystery to the mysticism, according to legend, this lake system was conjured up by an ancient Queen who used it to fertilize the landscape.
While we can’t verify that particular fact, it was almost certainly home to plenty of Pleistocene Era cave bears.
7. Spotted Lake
Spotted Lake is British Colombia’s most bizzaro water feature ever, and if you ever visit the Okanagan Valley, you can check it out for yourself. Summertime is when this lake really lets its funky side show, with bright yellow, green, and blue polka dots cropping up all over the surface of the lake.
Although it looks like it’s been ripped out of the pages of a Dr. Suess book, this lake gets its weird appearance from a very common cause; excess mineral deposits in the water.
Still, its otherworldly surface makes it a hotspot for local legends, and the Okanagan Nation believes that the colorful spots have healing powers.
8. Roopkund Lake
Sky-high Roopkund Lake in India is a sunken graveyard, and although it remains frozen for the majority of the year, when it thaws it reveals a horrific secret; the skeletal remains of hundreds of people. The skeletons drift to the top of the lake every year and then sink back into their frigid resting place when the lake freezes once more.
The creepiest thing about it is that nobody knows why, or how, these skeletons are there. The bones date back to 850 C.E., and all of the lake’’s unfortunate souls were slaughtered in the same way; with a gristly blow to the head. Is Roopkund Lake the site of an ancient human sacrifice? Are the preserved skeletons remnants of a token offering to the Mountain Goddess? We may never know.
9. Lago Morto
You know a lake means business when it’s literally named “Lake of Death.” Lago Morto is Italy’s 24/7 one-stop-shop for body disposal, and it definitely gets used on the regular. Lago Morto contains a massive dose of sulfuric acid, so nothing swims in its toxic waters.
Instead, the Italian Mafia supposedly uses Lago Morto as a dumping ground for snitches, letting them swim with the non-existent fishes in the noxious lake.
The sulfuric acid eats away at the bodies, leaving not a single trace.
10: The Katwe Craters
These volcanic craters pack a powerful punch and makes Uganda’s Queen Elizabeth National Park look like it’s from another solar system.
The Katwe Craters, also known as the Katwe-Kikorongo explosion craters, covers 81 square miles of the park, a sprawling distance almost as large as Vatican City! Although not all of them are filled with water, a good portion are unique saltwater lakes.
The Katwe Craters themselves are massive, with the larger ones spanning nearly two miles and 330 feet deep. To give you an idea of just how far these craters pierce the ground, 330 feet deep is enough to cover Big Ben and still have 20 feet to spare.
The craters were created by volcanic explosions that shot gas and steam high into the atmosphere, carving out the craters.
11. Lake Karachay
If you fancy a little radiation poisoning with your afternoon swim, you need to haul ass to Lake Karachay, the most polluted lake in the world, and one that is absolutely guaranteed to kill you. This Russian lake has been used as a nuclear dumping ground for ages, and as a result, it’s hot! Even the shores of Lake Karachay are deadly, with most estimates suggesting that simply spending a few hours on the shore is enough to zap your body with enough radiation waves to do permanent damage.
Anyone who’s seen Chernobyl knows that radiation poisoning is a slow and excruciating death, so you’re best off staying far away from this toxic dump.
12. Jellyfish Lake
Palau’s Jellyfish Lake is exactly as advertised; a marine lake full of gracefully gliding golden jellyfish that couldn’t hurt a fly. These beautiful jellies don’t have stingers, so you can dive in and snorkel with them to your heart’s content.
Jellyfish Lake is a huge tourist destination on Eil Malk island, an insta-aspirational site, and perhaps the only place in the world where you can chill out with tons of jellyfish and swim away unharmed.
13. Loch Ness
This Scottish loch, or lake, isn’t notable for its features, but for what supposedly lurks in its deep waters. Nessie, the serpentine monster of the lake, is a legend and modern-day tourist attraction. People flock to the shores of Loch Ness to try to catch a glimpse of the elusive Nessie, and there are even some grainy photos taken of her.
Whatever Nessie is, and wherever she came from, she’s been in the lake for a long time. Ancient people started recording Nessie sightings as far back as 565 C.E. Eerily, all of the sighings are the same; a huge leviathan monster cutting through the mist wreathed surface of the lake. Creeeppppy!
14. Groom Lake
Nevada’s Groom Lake is as mysterious as they come for one key reason; it sits squarely in the middle of Area 51. If you love aliens, or even have a passing interest in extraterrestrial beings, you know that Area 51 is ground zero for all of our speculative contact with green men from Mars.
Groom Lake is actually a salt flat that’s part of the Nellis Bombing Range Test Site airport. It’s highly hush-hush and totally off limits, which just mkaes us want to check it out more. The truth is out there!
15. Boiling Lake
Dominica’s Boiling Lake is a perpetually bubbling hot spot in Morne Trois Pitons National Park. Don’t get it twisted, though; this lake is no leisurely hot spring.
The water in Boiling Lake is a fiery 197 degrees Fahrenheit, hot enough to shred off your skin if you had the bad sense to hop in. Swimming is strictly off-limits, and if you do throw caution to the wind and bellyflop into this toasty caldron of hot water, you will be in for a world of hurt. in the comments section.
