8 Real Places You Won't Believe Aren't Science Fiction

7. Rjukan, Norway

For a hundred years, the people of Rjukan lived in the shadows.

The deep valley in which the town was built completely blocks out the sun for more that half of the year, leaving the locals in a perpetual state of twilight. For a long time, the only way the residents could catch a glimpse of sunlight during the autumn and winter months, was to take a cable car up to the top of the mountains.

In 2013, an artist by the name of Martin Anderson arrived in town and set about bringing the sun to the valley. He did this by building colossal mirror, or heliostats, on the top of a neighbouring mountain that would reflect the sun's rays down onto the faces of the shadow people below.

Now, if that doesn't sound like some kind of dystopian-future-underclass plot device then I don't know what does. Imagine a tyrannical government seizing control of the heliostat and using it to blackmail the people into bending to its will. There is an uprising, the people form a militia called the People of the Light and cast the baddies into the shadows. It's beautiful, poetic, tremblingly powerful.

Someone make this into a movie, I'll settle for 60% of the profits.