Episode list

Did you know there are more ways to shuffle a deck of cards than there are atoms in the universe? Seems crazy, but it's true. Today The Why Files covers amazing math facts (and tricks) that will convince your friends you have super powers. Math is everywhere. It's the source code of the universe. Most of the time math makes perfect sense. But sometimes math just gets.... weird. These math facts that will blow your mind. You'll learn about the Birthday Paradox, secrets of Pi, how to create numeric palindromes with your mind, and our favorite: the mysteries of the number nine. How many people do you need to get together before you find two that have the same birthday? Here's a hint: not that many. How quickly can you calculate 1,111,111 squared? We'll show you how to solve this in 5 seconds. You won't believe the answer when you see it. And nines? Nines have a whole thing going on. Multiplying by nines = magic. Squaring nines = pure sorcery.

Top 10 Terrifying Animals that actually exist. Have a high IQ and great sense of humor? You're home. Werewolves, zombies, Chupacabra and Bigfoot (bigfeet?) aren't real (or are they) but there actually is a very real and common lizard that squirts poisonous blood from its eye sockets. (We'll show you this!) Through the amazing and bizarre process of evolution - nature has created thousands of truly terrifying animals that actually exist. They exist right now. A couple of them might be living in your garage. Today we cover ten animals that we thought were scary, interesting or just plain ole amusing. You'll get amazing facts, interesting facts. The top 5 will blow your mind. We've got the Human Botfly which lays its eggs in human flesh. The Star-Nosed Mole, the Giant Isopod, the Giant Centipede and the largest spider on Earth: The GOLIATH BIRDEATER TARANTULA (shiver). How about the Hairy Horror Frog who has the same super powers as Wolverine from the X-Men? The Giant Isopod (aka terror cockroach of the sea), the Goblin Shark and a snake that looks like, well, you'll have to judge for yourself. Be warned. Some parts of this video are graphic. We did our best to keep the "spider eating" to a minimum (though we link to more graphic content below). And, of course, Hecklefish weighs in with his inappropriate commentary and inexplicable disdain for Canadians (a people I adore, BTW). We had fun making this video. If you had fun watching, we'd love to earn your subscription.

The Top10 Scariest Places You Can Actually Visit. Do you love scary places, haunted houses, abandoned mines and ghost towns? Have you ever noticed that every list for "Scariest Places in the World" or "Creepiest Locations in the US" contain places that you can't really visit? We're going to fix that. Here are the top 10 spookiest places in the United States that you can actually visit -- right now, today. If you're on the East coast, West coast or in the middle of the country, we've found a ghostly, haunted location that you can check out right now -- if you dare. Whether you're a serious paranormal investigator or just enjoy the darker side of history, this video has something for you.

What is ASMR? How does ASMR work? What does ASMR stand for? Are you "ASMR sensitive"? Do you get ASMR tingles? Is this the first time you've heard of ASMR which stands for "Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response"? It might not mean what you think it means. Millions of people experience ASMR "tingles" when exposed to certain stimuli. The Why Files answers these questions and raises a few more. The science behind behind ASMR is still new but research is underway. Though ASMR is a relatively new phenomenon, the online ASMR community is vibrant and growing rapidly.

Don't look up. It's a rain of terror. We've all heard stories about raining frogs and fish. They're not new. Homer, Pliny the Elder, even the Bible document the raining of frogs and fish. As they said in Magnolia "it really happened". But what about raining spiders? It happened -- recently. In Australia, millions of baby spiders rained down, covering the entire countryside with silky webs. In Brazil, spider rain wasn't really rain -- but it was still terrifying. Raining blood? Well, it didn't really rain blood, except that one team -- The Kentucky Meat Storm -- when it did. Yes, the Kentucky Meat Storm. Raining snakes? It happened (though not exactly how most YouTube lists document). Raining worms? Oh yes. Even in the snowy mountains of Scandinavia -- in March. In June 2009, the entire country of Japan was covered in tadpoles. They were first spotted in Ishikawa, on the West coast of Japan but dead tadpoles were reported in towns and cities everywhere. Did you know the famous 1958 horror movie "The Blob" is based on actual events? In 1950, Pennsylvania police officers documented an eye witness account of "star jelly", a gelatinous substance that either contains or does not contain DNA, depending on who you ask. A rain of animals is a rare meteorological phenomenon in which flightless animals fall from the sky. Such occurrences have been reported in many countries throughout history. Is the phenomenon due to waterspouts? Predatory birds? Or something... else? Let's find out why.

Why doesn't the United States use the Metric System? Answer: Pirates. When the US was still brand new, the states were using their own systems of weights and measures. A pound in New York could weigh less than a pound in Virginia. Interstate commerce was difficult. This was such a major problem that in 1790, President George Washington said in his first State of the Union address that "uniformity in the currency, weights and measures of the United States is an object of great importance." Secretary of State at the time was Thomas Jefferson who liked a new "decimal based" system being used in France. This "metric system" would make all measurements would be divisible by 10: an inch a tenth of a foot, etc. Jefferson invited French scientist Joseph Dombey to the US in 1793 to preview "a small metallic cylinder with what looked like a handle on top. This was the official 'kilogram,' and weighed one kilogram." This copper object was called a "grave". Jefferson planned to use it to demonstrate the metric system to Congress, to the states, to the citizenry and, hopefully, convert the entire system of the United States to metric. Dombey never made it to America. Dombey's ship hit a storm and was blown South toward the Caribbean. Who was lurking in the waters in the 18th century Caribbean? Pirates. That's who. Technically, they were British privateers charged with harassing American shipping lanes. The swashbucklers captured Dombey and imprisoned him hoping to score a ransom. Instead, Dombey died in prison. The official metric objects didn't arrive, and the US moved on, instead embracing the current system: the "United States Customary" system which is based on the British Imperial system. Technically and officially, America is indeed a metric country, but colloquially US Customary is still widely used in the States. Let's find out why.

The Most Secret Places in the World - And the wild theories about what really happens inside. In the modern world, places are supposed to be accessible. People move freely around the country they live in and even between countries. However, the most interesting, fascinating and mysterious locations in the world, even today, are strictly off limits to just about everyone. Most of the places on this list are only accessible to those with the proper clearances, but some are not accessible to anyone at all. Regardless of the status of the places on this list, if you're searching for them, you absolutely do not have the proper access to visit them. The tantalizing status of the unknown and the secret makes these spots remarkable. You probably have your own theories about what goes on at some of these locations. If you don't, we'll provide some. You may not have ever heard of a few of these places. In fact, there are government facilities in the United States -- and around the world -- that are unknown to people even in the highest levels of government. Let's find out why.

The Chicxulub Asteroid Impact - The Day the Dinosaurs Died One of the deepest scars on our planet is hidden beneath the Yucatán Peninsula and the Gulf of Mexico. The buried crater, over 90 miles in diameter, was created when a massive asteroid struck the planet 66 million years ago and brought a calamitous end to the reign of dinosaurs. Though dinosaur extinction probably took weeks or months, in just one day, 425 feet of material accumulated where the asteroid hit with the power of 10 billion atomic bombs. The blast ignited trees and plants for thousands of miles -- which were quickly extinguished by mega tsunamis with waves that may have reached as far inland as Illinois. And at the low-end estimate of 10.1 on the Richter scale, the subsequent earthquake would have been more powerful than anything ever measured or experienced by humans. And then things got worse. Let's find out why.

The Uncanny Valley Explained - Why Robots, Dolls and Mannequins are Creepy. The Uncanny Valley is a common unsettling, anxious, creepy feeling people experience when androids, robots, dolls, mannequins, video games and animations closely resemble humans but are not quite realistic enough. The phenomenon is a consideration in a number of areas of design including robotics, video game art, training simulators and 3-D animation. Designers work hard to avoid the Uncanny Valley or exploit it to elicit a particular response. The feelings of Uncanny Valley can reach extreme levels like revulsion, exceeding those experienced when viewing a corpse. The Uncanny Valley effect is experienced at different levels by different individuals, depending on the familiarity of the subject materials. Designers can bridge the valley with changes like the addition of cartoon-like or "cuter" features Still, all humans are susceptible to Uncanny Valley. You are, too. Let's find out why.

Nanorobotics and Nanotechnology - Big Changes in Small Science Explained. Nanorobotics is the technology of creating machines or robots at or close to the scale of a nanometer - 1 billionth of a meter. More specifically, nanorobotics refers to the still largely theoretical nanotechnology engineering discipline of designing and building nanorobots. These aren't the fictional nanobots of Iron Man or Rick and Morty. A nanorobot, or nanobot, is a popular term for molecules engineered with a unique property that enables them to be programmed to carry out a specific task within the human body. Medical nanotechnology is a reality and being actively researched and developed. Structural DNA nanotechnology, known as DNA origami, has emerged as a versatile approach to fabricate nanodevices, nanomaterials and nanoparticles with complex nanoscale geometry, functionalities, and programmed mechanical and dynamic properties. Nanorobotics can also revolutionize industry. Nano metamaterials are much stronger than steel -- and much lighter. They can be used for environmental clean up of the Earth's air and water, more efficiently than ever before. Nanotechnology can also allow us to connect our brains directly to the internet. This is something the futurist Ray Kurzweil predicted would occur by 2030. Are you ready to wire your brain into the cloud? With new technologies, comes new dangers. Nanotech innovation is world-changing and should be encouraged. But, we also have to acknowledge the risks. Let's find out why.

The Voynich Manuscript is a 240-page medieval codex written in an indecipherable language, full of bizarre drawings of strange plants, astrological symbols and - lots of - naked women.

The smells of the universe are not universal. Different objects in space, like comets, planets, moons, gas clouds each have their own distinctive aroma. The sci-fi show The Expanse describes the moon as having a gunpowder stink and it made me wonder how did they come up with that description. Does the moon really smell like gunpowder? Turns out it does.

Most of us have heard of the Bermuda Triangle, where planes and ships have mysteriously gone missing in the Atlantic Ocean for decades. Did you know there is a similar place in Nevada? The Nevada Triangle. In a region of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in Nevada and California, 2,000 planes have been lost in the last 60 years. In this remotely populated area of more than 25,000 miles of mountain desert, many of the crash sites have never been found. The Nevada Triangle is typically defined as spanning from Las Vegas, Nevada in the southeast to Fresno, California in the west, and to Reno, Nevada at the top. Within this wilderness is the mysterious, top-secret Area 51. Along with the dozens of conspiracy theories which include UFOs and paranormal activity that surrounds the air force base, similar theories have long been considered regarding the Nevada Triangle. One plane to go missing was that of a record-setting aviator, sailor, and adventurer named Steve Fossett on September 3, 2007. Fossett, flying a single-engine plane over Nevada's Great Basin Desert, took off and never returned. After hunting for a month for the plane, the search was called off and on February 15, 2008, Fossett was declared dead. Later that year on September 29th, Fossett's identification cards were discovered in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California by a hiker. Throughout the years, many of the missing planes were flown by experienced pilots and have disappeared under mysterious circumstances: and their wreckage never found. The biggest mystery is: nobody really talks about it. Let's find out why.

OK, dinosaur fans. Experts have just uncovered the remains of a gigantic dinosaur in Argentina, and believe it could be one of the largest creatures to have ever walked the Earth. The Mezozoic era was about 252 million to 66 million years ago. This was the time of the really big dinosaur. But few measure up to what are called TITANOSAURS. Titanosaurs belonged to a group of sauropod dinosaurs which are defined by their long neck and tail, four-legs. Early in their evolution, they were about the size of dogs and omnivorous. But eventually they became herbivores and unbelievably... HUGE. In order to determine a more precise measurement of this titanosaur's size, scientists still have to dig its evolutionary history. But preliminary data shows that it's most likely larger than Patagotitan Majorum and will probably break the record as the biggest animal EVER to walk the Earth.

Oh this is juicy. With the release of strange Navy pilot videos and loads of classified documents and images being released by world governments, we just might be on the verge of a UFO renaissance. To add to the growing mountain of UFO-related material, the CIA has declassified a huge number of secret files related to unexplained sightings. You can now download all these clandestine records from one location... for free. The docs are currently being hosted at the Black Vault, a privately-run database housing declassified papers and studies. The download includes almost 3,000 pages of PDFs focused on alien spacecraft encounters and strange cases of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena or UAPs. This comes after a LONG struggle with authorities to make these files available to the general public. Black Vault founder, John Greenewald Jr., spent almost 20 years continually filing suits, filing Freedom of Information Acts also known as FOIA requests, asking that the CIA disclose its UAP records. I know this will come as a shock but dealing with the CIA was... difficult. He said it was like pulling teeth; going around and around with them. Then he finally received a large box containing a couple of thousand pages. John kindly scanned every single page for us, one at a time, and released them to the public. One of the most interesting documents seems to prove the physical evidence of a UFO. You can see this for yourself. It's document C 0 5 5 1 5 6 2 2 which is dated April 1976 and in the title is the actual words "UFO Research". According to the document, the CIA HAND DELIVERED an object to a researcher who was advising the government. So what was hand delivered by agents to a scientist? We don't know yet because much of the document is redacted but lots of people are digging through the archive to try and piece this together. Now you can, too. On the Black Vault YouTube channel, John has a video that's over an hour long where he goes into some of the more interesting documents. I'll link below so you can check it out. Do you believe the truth is out there? You might be right. That's the story. Time is up. Like and subscribe for more.

Humans are weird animals. Sure we're terrified of ghosts, monsters, snakes, spiders and all kinds of other things; both real and imagined. That's normal. Healthy, even. So why do we actually ENJOY being afraid by experiencing these things on purpose. There is a science of fear that explains why being frightened can be fun, at least for some people. Enjoying fear seems like a contradiction, but horror movies are a billion dollar business. And throw in horror TV, and horror gaming? That's billions more. Halloween spending is about 8 billion a year. And roller coasters? The scarier the ride, the longer the line. So we are definitely fascinated by being afraid. Let's find out why.

The Philadelphia Experiment. It was October 1943. The day the US Navy mastered time travel, teleportation, and invisibility. Actually, they didn't master anything. The experiment had disastrous consequences for the crew of the USS Eldridge. In the summer of 1943, two years after the US entered World War II, American destroyers were being decimated by the infamous German U-boat submarines and German mines were making combat... and commerce dangerous enterprises. The United States Navy knew something had to be done. A few months later, on October 28th, 1943, the USS Eldridge, a Cannon-class destroyer, was docked in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. And the Eldridge held some secrets. It was a newly commissioned vessel that was equipped with several large generators as part of a top-secret mission to win the Battle of the Atlantic once and for all. Rumor aboard the ship was that the generators were designed to power a new kind of magnetic field that would make the warship invisible to enemy radar and undetectable to enemy mines. With the full crew on board, it was time to test the system. In broad daylight, and in plain sight of nearby ships, the switches were thrown on the powerful generators, which hummed to life. What happened next was unexpected. And it would baffle scientists and fuel decades of speculation. Witnesses described a murky green fog that surrounded the entire hull of the ship; and then swallowed it whole. When the fog faded away seconds later, the USS Eldridge... was gone. It wasn't just invisible to military radar. It was invisible to everyone. It was gone... That is, until it mysteriously turned up in Norfolk, Virginia. That's a distance of about 250 miles. And the strangest part? When it arrived in Norfolk - it was ten minutes earlier in the day than when it disappeared from Philadelphia. The Eldridge then reappeared in Philadelphia twenty minutes later. Or, uh, ten minutes later? Because of the whole, uh, time travel thing? Hard to tell. Either way, it came back. But something had gone terribly wrong. According to reports, when the ship re-materialized, members of the Eldridge crew suffered from terrible burns and disorientation. And some of its crew had been fused into the metal walls at the molecular level. They were unable to move. Unable to free their skin from the metal that it clung to; and died in agony. Other crew members went insane. And some of the crew? They disappeared altogether. Let's find out why.

The Aztec Death Whistle. If hell has a sound, I bet it sounds a lot like the Aztec Death Whistle. The Aztec Death Whistle sounds like a shriek of death mixed with howling wind. It's so unnerving, that the significance of the horrifying sound of the Aztec Death Whistle has fascinated and perplexed scholars for years. I'm going to play the sound of the Aztec Death Whistle for you today. When Spanish conquistador Cortés and his men arrived in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán in 1521, they described witnessing a gruesome ceremony. Aztec priests, using razor-sharp obsidian blades, sliced open the chests of sacrificial victims and offered their still-beating hearts to the gods. They then tossed the victims' lifeless bodies down the steps of the Great Temple known as Templo Mayor; in Mexico City. Andrés de Tapia, also a conquistador, described two rounded towers flanking the Templo Mayor made entirely of human skulls. And between them, a huge wooden rack displaying thousands more skulls with holes bored through either side to allow them to slide onto the wooden poles. Reading these accounts hundreds of years later, many historians dismissed the 16th-century reports as wildly exaggerated. But over just the past few years, archaeologists working at the Templo Mayor excavation site discovered proof of widespread human sacrifice among the Aztecs. And the proof was none other than the very skull towers and skull racks that the conquistadors had described centuries ago. The Aztec Death Whistle has been described as sounding like humans howling in pain, or as one researcher said, the 'scream of a thousand corpses'. Let's find out why.

Is time travel possible? According to physicists, yes. Time travel to the future is not only possible, it's been scientifically proven. But what about traveling to the past? Well, that's a little trickier. BUT, there does seem to be evidence that travelers from the future have visited us in the past; and may be among us right now. The human race has been fascinated with traveling through time ever since, well, ever since the human race understood what time was. But has time travel been achieved by future humans? And if so, did they leave us clues that they were here? We've scoured the internet for the best time travel stories we could find. You may know some of them. Some are hoaxes. A few have been debunked. But there are a couple of stories that defy explanation. Why are we so obsessed with time travel? Probably because we're obsessed with time. Time rules our lives. Who doesn't wish they could go back and talk to our younger selves, or meet our ancestors, or witness historical events. Time creates possibilities; but time also ends possibilities. It's finite. When a moment is over. It's over. There are no second chances. The expression "time is money" isn't exactly true. Time is much more valuable than money. Wealth can be made; lost and made again. But time? Once we lose it, we can never get it back. Time is the most valuable thing you have. Spend it wisely.

NUMBERS STATIONS. Not a relic of the past. Intelligence agencies use shortwave to communicate with spies, agents and assets in the field. Right now. Today. Let's listen to a few and learn how to tune in from home - for free. Since World War One, numbers stations have been transmitting coded messages to spies around the world using shortwave radio. And they're still transmitting right now. We're going to listen to a few. These transmissions sound strange to casual listeners. But to the right set of ears, they contain information that could change the course of history. In fact, numbers stations have changed the course of history. Countless numbers stations are on the air right now - for what purpose, few really know. And the people that do know? They aren't talking. They're essentially pirate stations - operating illegally. But, nobody shuts them down. And no government acknowledges they even exist. Let's find out why.