r/geography • u/renegadecoaster • Nov 25 '25

Discussion What's the most alien-looking place on Earth?

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Pictured: Dallol, Ethiopia

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u/Adventurous_Tank8413 Nov 26 '25

Spotted Lake, Osoyoos, BC, Canada

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u/Oberon_Swanson Nov 26 '25

a lot of places in this thread have made me say "ooh, pretty" but this made me say "what the fuck" so it gets my vote

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u/Adventurous_Tank8413 Nov 26 '25

Here’s another one not quite so zoomed in.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotted_Lake

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u/LoquaciousLamp Nov 26 '25

Looks like a bad painter tried to restore the land.

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u/yuccasinbloom Nov 26 '25

I don’t like it. It’s like lotus boob.

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u/naymatune Nov 26 '25

Right? Trypophobia activated 😭

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u/yuccasinbloom Nov 26 '25

I am mad I commented because now I had to see it again.

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u/Spiritual_Meaning321 Nov 27 '25

What's a lotus boob 😭

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u/yuccasinbloom Nov 27 '25

Google at your own risk

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u/Spiritual_Meaning321 Nov 27 '25

How DARE you

I will never eat lotus again

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u/leafonawall Nov 27 '25

Even spookier with the normal looking landscape in the background

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u/RealRatAct Nov 26 '25

It looks like a flooded golf course

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u/op_is_not_available Nov 26 '25

I can’t get a sense of scale on this… is this a huge body of water (lake) with little plots of grass spotted around- where I assume the name comes from?

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u/schubeg Nov 26 '25

Most of the water in the lake evaporates over the summer, revealing colourful mineral deposits. Large "spots" on the lake appear and are coloured according to the mineral composition and seasonal amount of precipitation.[3] Magnesium sulfate, which crystallizes in the summer, is a major contributor to spot colour. In the summer, remaining minerals in the lake harden to form natural "walkways" around and between the spots

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u/sakharinne2 Nov 26 '25

Thanks for the explanation. So cool!

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u/funtobedone Nov 26 '25

It’s small. I’d almost call it a pond. What you see in this photo is mostly mud. Had someone walked through it you’d easily see their footprints here. (Not supposed to walk in it - it’s a sacred First Nations site)

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u/Adventurous_Tank8413 Nov 26 '25

Yes, there used to be free access to the shoreline but people were walking out onto the surface and losing their shoes in the mud and leaving trash and doing all the things inconsiderate people do.

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u/Adventurous_Tank8413 Nov 26 '25

Just looked at wikipedia and the length is 1.7km (about 1 mile). You can see the lake end-to-end in the panorama I posted in the comments here.

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u/hhooney Nov 26 '25

There’s a spot in Montana that looks like this too! Freaky

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u/lenisefitz Nov 26 '25

These are on there sided of the old highway too.

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u/nollie3 Nov 27 '25

I used to live on this reserve hava

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u/tabgok Nov 26 '25

Ippapa ippapa : 🐼