Scientists, archaeologists and other researchers have made some incredible discoveries in the course of the past year which may shed some light on some of the most elusive mysteries on the planet. This is a round-up of the most improbable and fascinating moments of discovery in the past twelve months.

In March, Norwegian scientists discovered a number of naturally formed craters in the seabed of the Barents Sea which were prone to emitting sudden and highly combustible bursts of methane. The scientists warned that the sporadic explosions from these craters could cause ships to effectively disappear and could make the surrounding air highly turbulent, so much so that it could cause a plane to fall from the sky. Naturally, this discovery led to speculation about similar craters potentially existing in the mysterious and volatile patch of sea known as the Bermuda Triangle.

Later in March, an enormous stone sphere was discovered in Bosnia which left experts about stumped. The stone sphere, which was discovered in a forest in Podubravlje and weighs over 30 tons. Scientists still have no idea where the sphere came from and whether it was created by human beings or by natural forces.

Various historical discoveries were made in 2016, one of which could completely blow apart the academic consensus about the discovery of the New World by European travelers. What appears to be the remains of a Roman sword was discovered on the east coast of Canada which has been dated to around the 2nd century. This would mean that there was a Roman presence approximately 800 years before Viking explorers made their first landing in North America.

In addition to this extraordinary discovery, further scientific testing on the infamous elongated skulls of Paracus in Peru which have previously been described as having “mutations unknown in any human, primate, or animal known so far” have been discovered to have European and Middle Eastern origin. This astonishing discovery has cast further doubt on the populating of the Americas by explorers from elsewhere in the world.

These skulls were not the only elongated skulls causing a stir in the historical community this year. In July, archaeologists based in Mexico unearthed a 1600 year old skeleton in the ancient ruins of Teotihuacan. The female skeleton had an elongated skull, stone-encrusted teeth and was buried with an astonishing nineteen jars of offerings. Her skull had been elongated in an extreme manner, which was fairly common about the Mayan regions of southern Mexico and Central America. However, archaeologists and experts on ancient history were at a loss to explain why her teeth had been encrusted with stones.

In addition to the discovery of two new scrolls which are believed to be fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the past month, analysis of older samples have also turned up some highly unusual findings. For instance, one of the fragments dating back more than two thousand years seems to depict Noah’s Ark as a kind of pyramid.

But perhaps the most astonishing find of the year was made using a newly developed telescope using a concave lens. Using this telescope, an astronomer named Dr Santilli has found the first known evidence of the apparent existence of antimatter galaxies, antimatter asteroids, and antimatter cosmic rays in addition to two different varieties of Invisible Terrestrial Entities (ITEs) which appear to be moving ‘intelligently’. What these incredible discoveries might mean for human understanding of the universe is certain is still unknown.

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