10 Mysteries That Apparently Exist Solely To Mess With You
3. Baigong Pipes
The Baigong Pipes are a set of metal pipes embedded in rock formations in Tibet. If someone built them, as is often alleged, they would have to be 150,000 years old. That is, they can't possibly be human in origin, with all the extraordinary possibilities that suggests.
The pipes are an example of an 'out of place artefact', a category that includes anything turning up in a context it can't possibly exist according to science. If the pipes were made by intelligent beings, science would have to be completely re-written to include a pre-human civilication or alien architects who showed up to build them, for some baffling reason.
Fossilised tree roots, natural iron-rich deposits, or natural rock formations have all been put forward as non-insane explanations for the Baigong Pipes.
That hasn't stopped the collective salivary glands of the world's believers kicking into full drool mode when presented with the possibility that aliens were laying plumbing in China before mankind evolved.