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

3. Rio Tinto River

Alien world? Government experiment? Photoshop?

Nope, just good, old fashioned pollution.

The Rio Tinto River in Spain runs alongside an ancient mine that has been used to extract copper, silver and gold for over 5,000 years and its thought that this is what could be causing it. The river's bloody hue is down to the high levels of iron dissolved in the acidic water, and the water is acidic

As inhospitable as it is, the river has caught the eye of the likes of NASA, as they reckon the conditions at Rio Tinto could be similar to hypothetical subterranean river on Mars and they have used this to try and figure out what life on Mars might look like. Horrible, miserable and smelly is probably the answer, given that most of it would be anaerobic bacteria.

Yum.