Who doesn’t love a good story? When the world is in a bit of a state, it’s good to retreat to the comforting fiction of books, movies, and video games. It’s worth remembering, though, that plenty of fantastical fiction has been inspired by real-life events, both small and gargantuan.
Better yet, some myths and legends have turned out to be true, and in many cases, the reality has outmatched the stories. Last year, we delved into six ancient tales that were based on real events – so, for 2017, here are six more epics that science has found to have actually taken place.
The Cave of Forgotten Dreams
Head over to southern France, and you may find yourself near the Chauvet-Pont D’Arc cave, one that was once inhabited by our ancestors 37,000 years ago. At this point in time, humanity had yet to engender any sort of advanced civilization – we were largely nomadic, and our cousins, the Neanderthals, had just died out.
This cave wall is an archaeological and anthropological treasure trove. Its walls are adorned with pigmented artwork depicting a plethora of wildlife. From giant deer and bears to lions and even wooly rhinoceroses, these animals are surrounded by images of people going about their vagabond lives. Thanks to this, this site is sometimes referred to as the cave of forgotten dreams.
In 1994, a rather unusual mural was found on one of the cavernous walls, one that was partially overlapping a few of those giant deer. It’s hard to describe, but it looks a lot like a spray of something rising up into the sky. For several decades, most thought this was an abstract image, but this was long thought to be unusual – the imagery in the cave mostly depicted literal things.
A team of researchers stumbled on a marvelous thought. What if it depicted a volcanic eruption? As it so happens, the remnants of a powerful eruption just 35 kilometers (about 22 miles) down the road were found in the Bas-Vivarais volcanic field.
Dating techniques revealed it to have taken place around the time these cave drawings were made – and it would have been so explosive that the people living back then would have certainly been inspired to etch it into stone for all to remember.
The Disappearance of Teonimanu
Solomon Islanders tell the tale of Roraimenu, a man whose wife decided to elope with a man on the island of Teonimanu. Clearly vexed, he got ahold of a curse and traveled to the island with four wave murals adorning his canoe.
When he got there, he planted two taro plants and kept one for himself. According to the curse rules, once his own plant began to sprout, a disaster would strike the island. Indeed it did: Watching from a mountaintop, he saw a series of waves smash into the island, causing it to sink beneath the waves.
Teonimanu was indeed a real place that disappeared, although it’s not entirely clear when. Waves alone can’t wash away small but tall volcanic islands, but an undersea tremor can. As it so happens, the island was always balanced on the edge of an unstable, underwater slope. A sizable earthquake shook the region, which collapsed this weak foundation and caused the island to collapse beneath the waves.
This island-sized landslide would have forced a lot of water out of the way as it took place, which would have generated a massive series of megatsunamis. So although those vengeful waves did take place, they were the result of the event, not the cause of it.
Vampirism in the Korean Sky
Philosophical texts spoke of an explosion of light in the skies over Korea back on March 11, 1437.
At the time, the peninsula wasn’t divided into two nations, but it was united under the rule of the Joseon Dynasty. It was certainly an advanced imperial state, one in which language, writing, currency, and law were quite well developed. Science, too, had made a debut – particularly in the form of astronomy.
Back on that night in 1437 some of its star-gazers spotted a flash above their heads, and it appeared to last for two whole weeks before disappearing. At the time, some thought it was a divine event; the more grounded suspected it was the birth of a new star.
Until 2017, no one was any the wiser – until a team of researchers solved the mystery. Intrigued by the descriptions of this perhaps legendary event, the team tracked the remnants of the explosion to the Constellation of Scorpius. The glowing embers of the long-gone blast, along with some old photographic plates, revealed that it wasn’t a newborn star, but a nova.
A nova is the result of a white dwarf – the dead core of an ancient star – and a companion star dancing destructively around each other. The dense dwarf steals hydrogen gas from its partner until it reaches a critical mass, wherein it collapses under the influence of gravity and triggers an unstoppable fusion reaction.
This culminates in a massive blast, one which can clearly be seen as far as Earth. So it wasn’t a birth that was witnessed all those centuries ago – it was an act of stellar vampirism gone awry.
The Fires of Queensland
Aboriginal people have a tradition of passing down stories orally, meaning that they are usually never written down. They are often extremely vivid and describe events that were both cataclysmic and colorful in equal measure.
It's easy to see why volcanic eruptions form the basis of so many ancient myths. saraporn/Shutterstock
One such story has been passed down through 230 generations of Gugu Badhun Aboriginal people. It’s a spectacular 7,000-year-old story, one that predates most of the world’s great civilizations.
A tape recording made in the 1970s documented an elder talking of a huge explosion shaking the land, followed by the reveal of a massive crater. An acrid dust swept through the skies, and if people walked into the haze, they were never seen again. The air was boiling, and all along the rivers and the coast, everything was ablaze.
A curious research team serendipitously found that Kinrara, a now-extinct but once violent volcano in northeastern Australia, erupted at the time this story was first told. This particular blast would have smothered the region in hot ash, as well as generating huge lava flows that would have burned the very earth in which the Aboriginal ancestors walked.
Amazingly, the eyewitness account has survived for millennia to this very day.
The Mischief-Making Catfish of Doom
Although the Chinese-imported dragon figure used to be seen as the primary antagonist in Japanese folklore, during the 18th Century it was gradually decided that a giant catfish known as Namazu was the real culprit. Known as a yo-kai, a creature that brings about misfortune, it was said that the wiggling of his tail caused catastrophic earthquakes.
Sometimes the god Kashima was able to immobilize him, but sometimes when he wasn’t looking, that catfish managed to do some serious wiggling. Back in 1855, Edo (now Tokyo) was hit by a shallow 7.0M quake, whose record-breaking shaking intensity destroyed much of the city and killed up to 10,000 people – and it was thought that Namazu’s deadly jiggle was responsible.
In reality, this was caused by the sudden rupture along the complex juncture of the Eurasian and Philippine Sea Plates. This type of earthquake will happen again someday, but we know now that it’s the forces of nature at work, not the whim of an aquatic beastie.
The Tears of Pele
Pele is the Hawaiian goddess of volcanic fire, and it’s said that she first arrived on the island of Hawai'i to flee from her mercurial older sister. She concealed herself in hideaways on each and every island until she buried herself in a pit at Kilauea.
That’s why, legends say, Kilauea is Hawaii’s active volcanic center – at least on land – today. It’s a visually resplendent story, but in reality, the volcanism is caused by a superheated, upwelling mantle plume that’s triggering a lot of crustal melting just beneath Kilauea.
It’s also said that the tears and hair of Pele can be found scattered around the volcano, but the real story here is one of physics.
When lava cools incredibly rapidly, particularly when its quenched in water or a small amount of it flies through the air, it turns into volcanic glass. When they get stretched through motion and then cool, they sometimes form tear-shaped droplets; on other occasions, they are stretched thin to form vitreous hairs.
Hawaii’s a volcanic archipelago known for fire fountaining – huge streams of lava shooting up from an active vent. It’s a good place to find both of these phenomena, and indubitably a great place to weave a beautiful story of gods and sibling rivalry.
These types of stories all fit under a single academic umbrella: geomythology. Back in 2007, the world’s first collection of fantastical-sounding folklore relating to earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions was published. Scientists may be the purveyors of facts, but trust us: No one's immune to a good, old-fashioned legend.
Don't forget to check out our first article on ancient legends that turned out to be true here.
