We are all familiar with Earth’s four oceans: Atlantic, Arctic, Pacific, and Indian. And now, thanks to National Geographic, there is officially a fifth ocean – the Southern Ocean that encircles Antarctica.

Alex Tait, who is a National Geographic Society Geographer, stated, “The Southern Ocean has long been recognized by scientists, but because there was never agreement internationally, we never officially recognized it.” More specifically, geographers couldn’t agree on whether the water around Antarctica was unique enough to be classified as its own ocean.

Interestingly, the Southern Ocean is defined by its current rather than the continent around it as is the case with the other four oceans. It is believed that the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), which flows around the continent from west to east, was formed approximately 34 million years ago when Antarctica separated from South America. Furthermore, it brings in water from the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans in a type of conveyor belt (or circulatory system) that distributes heat to other parts of the planet.

The Southern Ocean is home to many species such as penguins, seals, and whales, just to name a few. It’s about time that the Southern Ocean has finally been recognized as Earth’s fifth official ocean.

In other water news, an ancient “megalake” that extended 2.8 million square kilometers (a little over a million square miles) had approximately ten times the amount of water in all of today’s lakes combined. About 10 million years ago, the Paratethys Sea was located from the Alps above Italy to Kazakhstan in the central part of Asia.

A new study has revealed more information regarding the ancient megalake. There were four cataclysmic cycles caused by climate change that continued to make the lake smaller until it completely disappeared in addition to nearly killing off numerous creatures that inhabited it such as mollusks, crustaceans, small whales, and dolphins.

For their study, Wout Krijgsman, who is a geologist at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, as well as his colleagues, analyzed fossilized remains, sedimentary deposits, and focused on the geological area surrounding the Black Sea which is located in the middle of where the Paratethys Sea was once located and they were able to determine that there were four separate decreases in the water levels within several millions of years with the most significant one occurring between 7.65 and 7.9 million years ago when the water level dipped about 250 meters (820 feet). This event is referred to as the Great Khersonian Drying and it turned the megalake into numerous smaller mini lakes that would have been extremely harmful to the creatures living in the water. The shorelines would have eventually become grasslands which at least would have benefited land animals.

(Map generated in ArcGIS Pro https://www.esri.com/en-us/arcgis/products/arcgis-pro/overview, v. 2.1, see “Methods”).

Figure 2

From: Late Miocene megalake regressions in Eurasia

Paleomagnetic results from Cape Panagia. (a) Examples of demagnetization plots with normal and reversed polarities (AF alternating field, Th thermal demagnetization) with intervals used for interpretation highlighted in red; (b) Thermal behaviour of samples from Cape Panagia, obtained from Curie balance experiments with multiple cooling and heating steps; (c) Magnetic directions plotted in stratigraphic order and local magnetic polarity pattern. Log and lithological unit numbers are edited, from Popov et al.¹⁶; the coloured bar indicates Paratethys high-stands (light blue) and low-stands (red).

The study was published in Scientific Reports.

There can be few people reading this who have not at least heard of the legendary Mothman of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, who so terrorized the town and the surrounding area between November 1966 and December 1967, and whose diabolical exploits were chronicled in the 2002 hit Hollywood movie starring Richard Gere: The Mothman Prophecies, so named after the book of the same title written by Mothman authority John Keel. A devil-like, winged monster with glowing, red eyes, Mothman’s appearance came quite literally out of nowhere and, some say, culminated in high tragedy and death. But what was the Mothman of Point Pleasant? And how did the legend begin? To answer those questions we have to go back to the dark night of November 12, 1966, when five grave-diggers working in a cemetery in the nearby town of Clendenin were shocked to see what they described as a “brown human shape with wings” rise out of the thick, surrounding trees and soar off into the distance.

Three days later, the unearthly beast surfaced once again. It was at the highly appropriate time of the witching-hour when Roger and Linda Scarberry and Steve and Mary Mallette – two young, married couples from Point Pleasant – were passing the time away by cruising around town in the Scarberrys’ car. As they drove around the old factory, the four were puzzled to see in the shadows what looked like two red lights pointing in their direction. These were no normal lights, however. Rather, all four were shocked and horrified to discover that, in reality, the “lights” were the glowing, self-illuminating red eyes of a huge animal that, as Roger Scarberry would later recall, was “…shaped like a Mothman, but bigger, maybe six and a half or seven feet tall, with big wings folded against its back.”

Nick Redfern at Point Pleasant

Not surprisingly, they fled the area at high speed. Unfortunately for the Scarberry’s and the Mallette’s, however, the beast seemingly decided to follow them: as they sped off for the safety of Point Pleasant, the winged monster took to the skies and shadowed their vehicle’s every movement until it reached the city limits. The four raced to the sheriff’s office and told their astounding story to Deputy Millard Halstead, who later stated that: “I’ve known these kids all their lives. They’d never been in any trouble and they were really scared that night. I took them seriously.” And even though a search of the area by Halstead did not result in an answer to the mystery, the Mothman would soon return. Early on the morning of November 25, yet another remarkable encounter with the mysterious beast took place, as John Keel noted: “Thomas Ury was driving along Route 62 just north of the TNT area when he noticed a tall, grey manlike figure standing in a field by the road. ‘Suddenly it spread a pair of wings,’ Ury said, ‘and took off straight up, like a helicopter. It veered over my convertible and began going in circles three telephone poles high.'”

Keel reported that Ury quickly hit the accelerator. Nevertheless, Ury added: “It kept flying right over my car even though I was doing about seventy-five.” Over the next few days more sightings surfaced, including that of Ruth Foster of nearby Charleston – who saw the winged monster late at night in her garden, and who said: “It was tall with big red eyes that popped out of its face. My husband is six feet one and this bird looked about the same height or a little shorter, maybe.” Needless to say, the local media had a field day with the story. Tales of what were referred to as the “Bird-Monster” hit the headlines; while both the skeptics and the police ensured that their views and opinions on the matter were widely known. Dr. Robert L. Smith, Associate Professor of Wildlife Biology in the West Virginia University’s Division of Forestry, expressed his firm opinion that Mothman was nothing stranger than a large sandhill crane. This hardly satisfied the witnesses, however. In response to Dr. Smith’s assertion, Thomas Ury said: “I’ve seen big birds, but I’ve never seen anything like this.”

As for the local police, they offered stern warnings to any and all would-be monster hunters contemplating seeking out the mysterious creature, as the Herald Dispatch newspaper noted: “Sheriff [George] Johnson said he would arrest anybody caught with a loaded gun in the area after dark [and] warned that the scores of persons searching the abandoned powerhouse in the TNT area after dark risked possible serious injury.” In the weeks and months that followed, further encounters with the bizarre beast were reported; however, they were overshadowed by a tragic event that occurred on December 15, 1967. It was on that day that Point Pleasant’s Silver Bridge (so named after its aluminum paint) that spanned the Ohio River and connected Point Pleasant to Gallipolis, Ohio, collapsed into the river, tragically claiming forty-six lives. Interestingly, after the disaster at the Silver Bridge, encounters with the Mothman largely came to a grinding halt.

And while a down-to-earth explanation most certainly circulated – namely, that a fatal flaw in a single eye-bar in a suspension chain was the chief culprit – many saw, and still continue to see to this very day, the cause as being directly linked with the ominous and brooding presence of the accursed Mothman. Finally, John Keel titled his book, The Mothman Prophecies, for a reason. Keel himself foresaw a terrible disaster enveloping the city and the result being terrible carnage and death.