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You Won't Believe What They Found Inside This Hole
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- Published on Apr 17, 2026
- Did you spot these mysterious circles on Google Earth?
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From high above, our planet is marked by vast and enigmatic circular structures, but how did they form? Are these circular scars a mere coincidence, or part of a much grander, unexplained pattern? Join us as we investigate the science behind these magnificent rings, decoding what they reveal about Earth's turbulent past, lost civilisations, and the powerful events that have shaped our world.
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2:01 Eye of the Sahara
11:32 Vredefort Crater
16:28 Mount Taranaki
20:14 El Ojo
25:06 The Dinosaur Killer
30:56 The Great Blue Hole
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References
"The Eye of Sahara", via nasa.gov bit.ly/eyeofSa...
"The ‘‘eye of Africa’’ (Richat dome, Mauritania): An isolated Cretaceous alkaline-hydrothermal complex", via cloudfront.net bit.ly/Richatg...
"Homo heidelbergensis", via si.edu bit.ly/hheidel...
"Green Sahara: African Humid Periods Paced by Earth's Orbital Changes", via nature.com bit.ly/greenSa...
"Atlantis", via nationalgeographic.com bit.ly/Atlanti...
"Vredefort Crater", via nasa.gov bit.ly/Vredefo...
"Largest asteroid ever to hit Earth was twice as big as the rock that killed off the dinosaurs", via livescience.com bit.ly/Vredefo...
"Taranaki Mounga History", via taranakimounga.nz bit.ly/taranak...
"Mount Taranaki Fact Sheet", via cri.nz bit.ly/Taranak...
"El Ojo: The mysterious floating island in Argentina's swampland that looks like a perfectly round eye", via livescience.com bit.ly/elojoar...
"The Eye An expedition to an unexplored, enigmatic Island", via kickstarter.com bit.ly/elojoex...
"The Formation of the Chicxulub Crater and an Avenue for Life", via spacenews.com bit.ly/chicxul...
"Extraterrestrial Cause for the Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction", via rutgers.edu bit.ly/chicxul...
"Great Belize Blue Hole", via belize.com bit.ly/largest...
"Last 2000 Year Climate Sediment Record from the Belize Central Shelf Lagoon", via rice.edu bit.ly/Mayanco...
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Credits
Narrator: James Stewart
Producers: Alex McColgan, James Stewart
Writer: James Stewart
Video Editor: Celal Kaçar
Animator: Peter Sheppard
Researcher: Edie Abrahams
Thumbnail Designers: Peter Sheppard, Ben Powell
Channel Manager: Georgina Brenner
Production Manager: Raquel Taylor
Head of Astrum: Jess Jordan
Creator of Astrum: Alex McColgan
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#AstrumEarth #Astrum #EarthFromSpace
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Astrum is owned by private equity and don't deserve your views.
Lac Manicouagan, Côte-Nord, QC, Canada
51°07′38″N 68°44′50″W
Earth's sixth-largest confirmed impact structure according to rim-to-rim diameter. Estimated to be 214 to 215 million years old (12 million years before the end of the Late Triassic Epoch - was not the dinosaur killer). Lake is now a reservoir for a hydroelectric dam downstream.
Here here I agree
I've found a similar but really small floating island with a few trees and bushes in Norway. Through my observations it used to be a swampy part of the lake edge which loosened from the shore, and have had enough vegetation on it to drain away enough water for it to float. It drifts clockwise around and will likely grow each year until it looks like this.
My floating island is only about 6 sq/m
Me during the first two minutes of this video: "Did I click on an Astrum Earth video or an Ancient Aliens video??"
For real. Wtf?
Silver is just a drone with zero possibility of learning new and amazing ideas let alone thinking through them. So sad "ancient alien" nut jobs have ruined so much.
Yeah can't say I like the clickbaity nature of the presentation, but I guess that's what you have to do to survive on RUclips as a science channel and get the views. As long as the science remains, well, SCIENCE, I'm willing to overlook stuff like that.
You must not pay very close attention to either then. Astrum earth is not even remotely similar to ancient aliens. It's fun writing comments, huh?
"Why are so many things circles, are all these things connected?" Very fast and easy "Don't recommend this channel" click.
People often forget that the tale of Atlantis was originally spoken by Solon, who told Dropidas, recalled by his great-grandson Critias, who told Socrates, that taught Plato
IIRC Plato made it up out of whole cloth in service of the narrative of his work. There was no such bloody place. Sorry, everyone.
@Archangelm127yeah, I hate how stories made up entirely as we do today for fictional stories become "common knowledge" and people believe them to be true. It's pretty easy for anyone to look into and find out that Plato entirely made it up as a theory that a lost city could exist somewhere. It's like all of the dumb goth's that think the Necronimicon is an actual book instead of just an object in H.P. Lovecraft's fictional universe.
@Archangelm127 It was an *allegory*, even Plato didn't try to claim it was a real place.
@Archangelm127 Solon learned the story from Egyptian priests during his travels in Egypt. He is said to have brought a manuscript or a partial translation of the story back to Athens, where it was preserved and eventually passed down to Plato, who documented the myth in his works. While I agree that Plato used the myth as a cautionary tale-detailing how the Atlanteans' greed and hubris led to their divine punishment and eventual submersion-I find it hilariously ironic how much hubris you display by speaking so confidently about something that may have happened 11,000 years ago, as if you had been alive that long.
@ReptileBatyou'd also have to believe that Greek culture is 12,000 plus years old. I take it you've never actually read it? How they defeated the atlanteans, the so-called superior culture, in battle? I know darn well that didn't happen. Also allegorical writing was a very common method of storytelling at the time. One of his main methods and if we don't go claiming that any of his other stories are actual history. Plus there's no gigantic impassable mud patch in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and there never has been. Yet that is also part of the story. So yes none of us have been there 11 thousand years ago but if you look at individual elements it's pretty apparent that this is just a story.
“It’s fascinating how natural patterns, like these mysterious circles, can hold clues to bigger scientific questions. Sometimes nature speaks in shapes we don’t fully understand yet.”
Like circles?
I cannot wait for 2026 for them to try and arrest a mountain for failing to pay taxes.
No income. It would probably get a tax refund
There’s a similar floating island like El Ojo in the Himalayas in India. It’s called Parashar Lake and its floating island also a perfect circle that moves around
so its a really big guy
Why does this make me want to travel more than most actual travel shows? 😱🤩
We are naturally curious, increasingly inquisitive at the slightest inspiration. Me too !
Because it showcases actually interesting places in our natural world and not just tourist destinations lol.
Because you're intrepid. These aren't your usual 'holiday destinations'.
That circular moving island reminded me of those ice discs instantly. If it can form in ice, it could form in a multitude of materials that matched the same attrition and motion
Great work! one small inaccuracy, Mt Taranaki is NZs second highest volcano on the main land after Mt Ruaphehu.
Also: If it erupts and any flows go outside the perimeter of the national park, the park boundaries will expand to accomodate them
interesting! btw looks like an early (80s) fractal print ❤
The circle around Taranaki is due to civil defence / district planning; the circle is a national park (to mitigate some of the volcano risk!)
Hi I'm Mt. Ruaphehu and I can confirm this is true
Mt Egmont
11:01 Thats what they said about the city of Troy before they found it was actually real
Out here learning how to pronounce Vredefort and Chicxulub.
Now now ... Let's not symmetry shame the other volcanoes! They can't help what they look like.
Rumor has it that if you go into the waters surrounding El Ojo, you will hear "You Spin Me 'Round," by Dead or Alive playing on loop.
:D Excellent!
I would have liked to have seen the René-Lavasseur crater in Quebec discussed. Or the Witâshâkimî ones.
To be clear, New Zealand underwent equivalent deforestation during it’s Polynesian colonisation period as during it’s European colonisation period though motives are unclear. As per the exhibit in Te Papa, the national museum.
Very enjoyable without the need to be sensational or unfactual. I love this new channel it's exactly what I was looking for!
Far too sensational!!!!
@rkozakand If I hear one more speculation about how "we may have finally found Atlantis" my eyes will roll out of my Head.
Without being unfactual? Is that a serious statement? None of what he said is even remotely supported by any real science.
@ScottBFreewhat was untrue and what are your sources
Loved this one! Re the Vredefort Crater, doesn't need to be a bigger asteroid, just needs to be travelling faster... and now we know intergalactic bodies can reach 60km/s it's as plausible to assume a faster smaller asteroid as it is a larger slower one?
Thanks for clearing that one up, I was wondering about this !
I guess you're my new binge watch, thank you.
A 40 minute drop? Saving this one for dinner tonight.
It’s called, in Mayan, a HURRICANE, after the Poseidon of the Western Hemisphere, Hurakán.
I don't say it's aliens, but.. you know.
0:28 Holy cow is that Yavin 4??
If you look closely, you can actually see a Y-Wing in the corner
It’s not an accident, Yavin 4 it’s an homage. The name “Star Wars” even comes from Mayan history.
The films cover photo is of Mt Taranaki in New Zealand , I was born there and it's a circle because of farming and protected forest boundaries.
Excellent work here, I truly enjoy and love Astrum Earth's videos. I love to learn new facts and mysteries all over our World, and so far, I have learned MANy new facts, had new places revealed, and that's been a hard thing for so many channels to give me; new things, new places, new cultures, new history I've not yet found.
I came from Patreon too. Just sayin' the Patreon is awesome!
Correction, mount taranaki is on the north Island of New Zealand, the South Island is considered the mainland
I live about 5 hours from Taranaki 😂
Your attitude to mystery is mysteriously interesting. Thanks.
Thanks to all.
not me recognising the voice immediately and having to check if coffeehouse crime was over here moonlighting, but being pleasantly surprised that the genetically blessed narration voice is adrian's brother!
Your pronunciation of the maori names is pretty damn good as always - barring whanganui. soft w sounds only have a w - like 'wahine' (waa-hen-ey) and 'wh' is a 'fff' sound. so 'whanganui river' is pronounced more like 'faa-nga-nuu-e' (if you're a speaker of te reo feel free to give more accurate proununciation short cuts, im not going based off any sources except experience here and tryna sound it out myself lol).
whanau = faa-now or faa-no
whiti ora = fii-tii-oo-ra
whangarei = faa-nga-ray
why did the colonisers decide to romanise it this way? idk bro bc their descendants still pronounce these words like 'witty ora' and 'wangarei' so clearly not for clarity on pronunciation.
(i got very excited that nz was mentioned in another astrum video too lol)
Taupō sounds like toe poor
Most people sound like they are saying towel wronger when saying Tauranga it sounds more like toe rah nga parapram for paraparaumu which is more like pah rah pah rah eww moo
Whakatane sounds like fuck ah tah nay
Who cares
@WildRoseRepublicofAlberta u give me the vibes of someone who makes fun of chinese accents speaking english.
spoiler alert: the people who's language it is cares, ESPECIALLY for languages like te reo which have been actively wiped out by colonisers.....
and not to call the kettle a pot but uhhh YOU cared enough to respond to my comment, over something that clearly doesn't effect you.... embarrasing behaviour. YOU care about it. lol.
Im from Whanganui, and only people from up north not from here pronounce it that way. I've never heard anyone from here pronounce it as "fonganui"
@tytaylor4714OF COURSE you're an extreme leftist wokie. I guessed that from the start. My girlfriend is Chinese and she begs to differ of your ridiculous and baseless assumptions about me.
You sound ridiculous
Nice video, but a little disappointed that you didn't mention the Fossa sinkhole on top of Mount Roraima.
Think about it: to all effects is an island within an island, only in the clouds.
Born in Taranaki. Used to ski on Mt Taranaki (Mt Egmont). Very scary access to the ski slope.
What are the odds that it may be an ancient geyser ? 🤔
There’s a circular hole at Fauld in Staffordshire England. A sad story worth telling.
The 100 km wide Lake Manicouagan in Quebec, Canada, believed to have formed due to an asteroid impact 214 million years ago..
"Harder, better, faster, stronger" - Meteor
Arizonas crater would be a good one to add
You should look up the "eye of Quebec" in Canada. It's gigantic and also visible from space.
The stalactites in the Great Blue Hole in Belize were well known before the submarine trip in 2018. Divers regularly visited one of the ones in your video. I still have pics of it from a 2010 trip.
Circles are the natural result of gravity itself
Jeez, I didn’t know that the Chixilub asteroid hit the south of France! (25:25)
The ocean still hides more secrets than we’ve uncovered.
We recently did a deep dive into a case that left even marine archaeologists speechless.
The Richat Structure _would_ be a good location for a city, from a defensive standpoint. The concentric ridges would form natural ring walls, and the difficult terrain would help limit the avenues of approach.
Edit:
The increase in cyclone frequency is absolutely consistent with normal, natural climate cycles, as they have been increasing in frequency for the last 5,000 years. It is impossible to measure climate cycles in years, decades, or even centuries.
2:01 It's the Geofront. Lilith is in there.
Contrary to what is said in the series The Big Bang Theory, geology seems to me to be the most important and exciting science of all.
The "Big Bang"? That's what ignorant and opinionated "experts" have named the Beginning of our Beautiful Earth and the multitude of stars we're able to see with our feeble telescopes and other instruments!!! How many stars are there? 😂
@Philip-m4w6uright was there millions of big bangs😂
If they ever translate it to English, I might get past the trailers. But that screetching American ... yeuchh.
@WellsiteGeologwe do that just to aggravate YOU you know. Jerk
@Philip-m4w6u He's talking about the TV show. The prequel showed the funny reason young Sheldon was irritated by the field of geology.
I'm surprised you didn't cover the Sudbury Basin and the Manicouagan Crater in Canada.
You forgot to mention hudson bay! The south east side of it has what looks like uplifted land on the shore line and what looks like melted rock as the islands just off shore!
Greetings from Belize 🌎
Circles are cool, but I prefer triangles. Specifically the ones that get turned into squares. But enough squares can make a circle.
no Tunguska Event? 😳🥺
that left a pretty big circle, it happened only just over a century ago, and it's still visible from space, and it's tens of kilometers in diameter 🤔🤷♂️
It's not a complete circle, but the near-perfect arc on the east side of the Hudson Bay in Quebec has always fascinated me
Whoa how did I not know you guys had an earth channel? Love your voice!!!! It’s really perfect for this!!!!! ❤❤❤
Great video, but imo your videos don't need any sensationalism, or distracting image overlays, they're great without it.
I dove the blue hole in Belize. It’s both fascinating and eerie. The stalag tights start at 130 feet, so it’s quite a deep dive for recreational divers. Unfortunately, I got nitrogen narcosis and had to go up to shallow depths with my only friend being a barracuda.
What a fascinating channel… I’ve just discovered you. I love that you narrate this yourself and I’m not listening to some droning AI voice.
When humans drilled deep into the Earth’s crust, they discovered something no one had ever expected - a hidden world beneath our feet that challenged everything we thought we knew about our planet.
Great video. Great narration. To the point and nothing sensational. Excellent.
Thank you for this lovely overview.
The Sahara was a fertile valley before it dried up.
A "valley" 1,000 miles across? I don't think so.
@Element-oe8hn
Àctually if you look up on yheSahara 200.000 years ago, yoi will see a scientific GEOLOGICAL map of what North Africa looked like.
I do this resesrcb for various countries whose landdcapes are still,today fasvinating.
I then back up the data of ancirnt landscapes by looking up the ANTHROPOLOGYof that particular region and it makes for a VERY IINTERSTING DIVE INTO OUR HUMAN PAST.
A sort of stargate to the past which is FACTUAL and NOT VIRTUAL😂❤
@Element-oe8hn in fact it was. Before it (the african continent) got shifted to the equatorial zone. Plate-tectonics has moved everything largely around on our planet. Also the antarctican proto-continent was a green land. before it got drifted off to the south polar region. There were also large regions of e.g. europe still under seawater which are dry land today. Also the mediterranean sea did not exist in these ancient times before the african continent has split off from the former land continent, the land level sinking down, consequentially filling with seawater coming from the atlantic ocean (through the opening of the Gibraltar gap).
:(
You mean Desert Desert
rotating disk of ice that comes ashore, did you forget this is near Hutsen Bay and probably also at the tip of South Africa, judging by the markings on the terrain
Craters. Then, no? Then yes, some. 🤷 Great show 👏 👍
16:54 I kinda doubt mountains are capable of paying taxes. Perhaps I could use this to my advantage...
I was "Immersed" totally. Thank you very much.
Nature is full of events, Never a dull moment! Thank you!
You know what's giant circle that's very cool to look at? one that's huge that's larger than many countries on earth? the lower right of Hudson bay. Go check it out on the map, it is so stupid smooth!!
Just discovered (and subscribed). What a wonderful channel, Nice to hear a human narrator!
Fascinating explanations. Thanks!
10:51 If it's a work of fiction, it probably has a point of inspiration, which could be the Eye of the Sahara after all.
I'm just saying it being a work of fiction does not exclude it having a real-world origin, unless we perceive it to be entirely impossible for the writer to have visited that place ...
24:46 I doubt people would crowdfund that, many more of these exist in the Nile and they have been somewhat explained already. They're quite interesting though.
There is Hoia -Baciu forest in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, that has a weird circle where nothing but grass grows
Bro your pronunciation of Johannesburg and Vredefort are spot on
I have visited two of these locations; Chixulub and the Great Blue hole 🕳️
So I did the math and unless I'm wrong completely that crater in Africa would have been formed by an impact with an energy of 112 teratons of TNT. Don't worry though, the gravitational binding energy of earth is something like 500 zettatons of tnt.
Surprised you did mention the Nastapoka Arc
Only just found your channel as need a break from true crime and fiction. Glad to have found it
The Manicouagan Reservoir is one that would be cool to include!
The vredefort crater is just outside a small town called Vredefort. Its not in Johannesburg. Johannesburg is an hour away 😊 love from South Africa 🇿🇦
Why could the eye not be used as the base of the city. Has it ever been claimed that it is man made?
Btw, next to no modern archeological expeditions have occured there. The locals have a museum there where they have thousands of artifacts just stacked ontop of eachother in a tent.
It has been largely ignored by expeditions....for some reason.
as a circle, there is a crater lake in Northern Quebec,
One interesting possibility I've heard of is that the Vredefort impact may have caused trouble or extinction for the Ediacaran biota (I've also heard "Francevillian biota"), causing a delay in the development of multicellular life. I'll be interested in seeing whether that turns out to have anything to it.
Absolutely Brilliant..Thank you ... Peace ...
33:46 The word 'conch' is pronounced as if you said the word junk but replaced the j with a c so it would sound like you said the word "cunk" but it's spelt "conch"
I found one near me in northern Ontario I'm going to go check out. I think it was an ancient asteroid impact
there is no end to the dinosaurs! (yet) .... i see some flying around almost every day!
How come a collection of spherical scars appear on a spherical planets where humans blow spherical soap bubbles near spherical gas tanks that fuel trucks that roll over cylindrical bearings?
Great video again thanks
I really love your videos. Calm, beautiful images.. and I always learn something!
Great work!
31:57. James Stewart says the sea level was much lower but the map shows the area with a much higher sea level
that intro triggered a lot of my interestt lol eye of mauritania yucatan etcetc so much history lost to oblivion even the records we have now are probably widely inaccurate
Really liked how much fun y'all had with word-play in this script
Great video! Thanks for such hard work and entertaining presentation. I'd heard about most of them, but the spinning island was new; and you made it fun by poking a bit at the wacky paranormal stuff. People need to know that there are, in fact, scientific understandings of these "mysterious" places.
Note: Mayan with an "n" is the language. A maya (no "n") is a person, or the civilization. Mayas is plural of maya. This is how both modern mayas that I've known and academics in those fields use them.
The Upheaval Dome in Canyonlands National Park is another circular formation. Great video, thank you.
Great content! I can watch this straight informative style constantly.
A couple other circle features include Aorounga crater in Chad and Tenoumer crater in northern Mauritania.
You missed Manicouwagsn (( misspelled) in eastern Canada !! It is now flooded, and spectacular on maps !!
The oldest impact structure is now known to be in eastern Australia
great work!!! 😲
Awesome video, thank you. As far as the question u asked - what about the Crop Circles?
Love the narrator's voice in these videos ❤❤
WRT Chixulub, it _SHOULDN'T_ have caused an extinction event of the scale it did, but it hit in the worst possible location - shallow water overlaying kilometers of limestone.
The Deccan traps also play into the extinction - they were on the opposite side of the planet to the impact at the time and it's argued by various geologists that they may have been triggered by the impact or were active at the time of the impact or had been going on for a while and were already causing a low level extinction event (biodiversity was declining in the 3 million years leading up to the event) and the asteroid gave a final hammer blow
Why would that be the worst location? Genuine question & what is Deccan traps
@johndc2998 Because the energy of the impact vaporised the carbonate rocks and added extra CO2 into the atmosphere, which casued the tipping point of the end-Cretaceous extinction. The Deccan Traps are a large volcanic province in modern day India. There are two main discussion points on this - one that they were already erupting and causing a low level extinction event prior to the Chixulub impact, and the other that the impact happened first. These alternate in favor a little bit as different sections of rock are dated with more accurate techniques. I think that the eruption followed by the impact is the current favored model.
@allatheaussie Last I heard, they pre-date the impact was slowing down when the impact happened, and there looks to be an increase in activity after, but I think they are still getting more samples and dates to confirm the uptick in activity at the time of the impact.
@ghostlyenigma680 I’ve heard about a recent study that said the Chixulub meteor has struck the earth twice.
Only circle I need to know about is the Circle game.
FACT: Taranaki is not as high as Ruapehu, also on North Island.
Also, New Zealand's South Island is generally considered the mainland, where many peaks are higher than Taranaki.
ai had no idea our ice disk was famous
Well, exceedingly interesting. Though it's the commercial by your narrator that causes this expression. I love math, however due to a quirk of cellular structures I have a mild condition I found in the extreme in people I've met. The condition or infirmary is called Discalcula. Needless to say I did prove certain people wrong by great diligence on my part. While being involved in a process I was required to take remedial math from basically 1st grade through beginning Algebra and while doing so took an especially design math class from my physics PROFF called Strength and Materials. I loved all of it. Though the condition hampers long term retention though I do retain some now. The classes in math would be fun if I had the time as I 💕 the subject, but continue to only retain bits. I did graduate and earn an A in the class I 😂 lovingly referred to as S and M. The real title was Strength and Materials. So thank you for peaking my interests.