We are surrounded by the strange and mysterious. Some of it we can see, some we imagine, and some exist in the fantastic space between imagination and reality.

MyNation brings to you a list of ideas and beings which we have not only endlessly imagined and speculated about, but often serious sources like NASA or Pentagon have said they have found clues strong enough for us to not brush these off casually.

The newest is the discovery of Yeti tracks by the Indian Army in the snow. Does the ‘abominable snowman’ exist? Latest photos raise hope that it might just.

Here are some of the other strange and sensational objects and beings which have captured human imagination and set credible organisations on the chase.

1. Aliens

Theories that we are not the only living beings in the universe have surfaced around the world from a long time. An Oxford University lecturer recently made a shocking claim that the aliens have already started breeding on Earth with the humans to create a “superior hybrid species”.

Unidentified flying objects have been sighted across the world from as far back as 1440 BC. A script found from that time describes glowing fiery disks floating in the sky. The most recent sighting has been reported from the Republic of Ireland in 2018, where airline pilots said they witnessed very bright lights flying at Mach 2 speed and then zoomed away. This prompted the Irish Aviation Agency to launch an investigation.

Six days ago, the US Navy pilots were given a detailed report on how to file reports on UFO sightings. The Pentagon has over the years, funded several projects to explain these unexpected sightings, and the last one was shut in 2012. The Pentagon's programme to study and understand aliens and UFOs cost about $22 million.

Conspiracy theorists believe that the US Air Force’s military installation, Area 51, also acts as a storage space for crashed UFOs. A retired army colonel in 2017 claimed that he was given access to extraterrestrial materials gathered from an alien spacecraft that crashed in Roswell, New Mexico.

Many also believe that crop circles, mysterious but intricate designs in farmers’ fields, are a result of aliens landing on the earth. While in the 1600s people said crop circles are a result of the devil mowing the crops, a farmer in 1966 claimed he saw a UFO fly out of a swamp next to his field.

The SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) institute, founded in 1984, aims at exploring, understanding and explaining the origin and nature of life in the universe and the evolution of intelligence. Today they use advanced technology to survey thousands of red dwarf stars which they say have the ideal locale for life form to thrive and say there are tens of billions of worlds around the galaxy like ours.

2. The Bermuda triangle

Several sources over the years have made documentaries trying to explain the disappearance of ships and planes in the Bermuda triangle. Also called the Devil's triangle, several theories have attributed the disappearances to aliens, the lost city of Atlantis and even the mythical sea monster Charybdis.

What area constitutes the triangle still remains largely undefined. The Charybdis, a greek monster, was rationalised as being a whirlpool and not a monster. But the claims of left over mythical technology from Atlantis have been rubbished by many people claiming they have found the remains of the city around the world starting from the Java sea all the way to Gibraltar and even the waters surrounding the United Kingdom.

Although scientists have claimed that these paranormal explanations are hypothetical and have been derived from assumptions, they have have been unable to provide solid evidence for the various incidents. They have vaguely claimed that these disapperances can be attributed to various factors.

In 1975, journalist Larry Kursche, claimed that he had explained the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle in his book. He found that in some cases, the ships that were reported as missing never existed in the first place and in some other cases the ships and planes disappeared during bad storms.

One explanation also says that the ocean floor is rich in Methane which leads to the creation of a sand-ice-gas mixture which could lead to landslides. A mapping of the earth's gravity field took place in 2014 and it had a resolution of only 3 miles. So which theory should we believe?

3. Yeti: The abominable snowman

The Indian Army tweeted on Monday that they had found yeti footprints in the Makalu base camp in the Himalayas. The footprints, they said, measure 32x15 inches. The tweet also added that the mythical snowman has only been sighted at Makalu-Barun National Park in the past.

However, in 1951 Eric Shipton found a footprint of the Yeti on the Menlung Glacier, west of Mount Everest, on the Nepal-Tibet border. The photo came to be known as the Rosetta stone of Yeti Lore.

In 1959, a circular was issued by the American Embassy in Kathmandu which stated three regulations for all expeditions searching for the yeti in Nepal.

A call by Oxford professor Bryan Skyes for any DNA evidence relating to the Yeti caused confusion as samples started pouring in. Hair, bone fragments and finger nails were all dismissed. Some claimed that the footprints were made by a bear.

The snowman remains elusive even today. What do you think? Is the abominable snowman real or a myth?

4.  Loch Ness monster

A famous picture from 1924 still pops up when one googles the Loch Ness monster. One of the people who was there when the photo was supposedly taken admitted to it being a fake and a staged picture.

2017 was the year of Loch Ness sightings and every one of them was declared as official. There have been 8 sightings of the mythical creature. A woman on her honeymoon said she spotted something huge moving in the water, while another said that she saw a huge shape arched out of the water.

In Scottish folklore, the Loch Ness Monster or Nessie is a creature said to inhabit Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands. It is often described as large in size with a long neck and one or more humps protruding from the water.

5. Mermaids

The Aquatic Ape hypothesis suggests that humans and other great apes have more in common with the aquatic animals and many modern humans were also habitual swimmers and wanderers. Although called an umbrella hypothesis it still remains highly controversial.

The ocean is believed to be home to mystic creatures as up to 80% of the ocean still remains unexplored. A documentary titled 'Uncovering the Aquatic Ape theory — are mermaids real?’ details why some scientists think mermaids exist.

They attribute certain whale-beaching incidents as being done by the mermaids that existed deep in the seas. The unnerving documentary makes you question what still exists under water.

6. Kraken

Fishermen from Norway and Germany have forever spoken of a mysterious creature in the sea that they have called Kraken. A creature with giant tentacles that can suck you out of the boat and drag you to the depths of the sea.

In 1857, the myth slowly started turning into reality as a large squid beak retreived from the shore of a sea in Denmark was examined. Although the size of the animal it could have belonged to was not specified, other parts started washing up in different parts of the world.

Japetus Steenstrup, the man who found the beak, published his findings and concluded that the Kraken is real. The giant squid is said to grow up to 15m in length with large tentacles. But nobody can say for sure how big a squid can be or can get. Whole specimens are also hardly ever found.

It might not be the Kraken, but who knows? It could have the power to drag you down to the depths maybe?

7. Cottingley fairies

In a series of five photos taken by Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths, two cousins who lived in Cottingley, England, fairies were depicted. Although interest in them deteriorated after 1921, they once again came to the spotlight after Elsie said she might have photographed her imagination.

Despite her ambiguous statement, Frances, her cousin maintained that out of the five photos, the final one was real and not a figment of their imagination. The cameras used to take these pictures and the photographs are in the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford, England.

The photos were pronounced as fake. People in certain parts of the world still believe that fairies are real while others have dismissed fairies as imaginary beings fit for children's stories. What do you believe?

8. Mary Celeste: The ghost ship

In the year 1872, when the crew members of the Dei Gratia climbed aboard the Mary Celeste, they found everything in order. Even the clothes belonging to crew members were stacked away perfectly, but there were no people on board.

A missing life boat was the only clue left behind on the boat and theories started floating around that the people had fallen prey to a sea monster. Some theories said that the crew members had abandoned their own boat from fear of fire that the alcohol in the cargo could ignite.

A theory finally surfaced that the ship was completely off course and was abandoned by the captain and crew members. This theory has not been accepted universally and to this day it remains a mystery why the ship was abandoned and why the captain abandoned a recently refitted ship.

9. Time travel

Allegedly many people have travelled through time, or so they claim on the internet. Many of these incidents have been recognised as legends and there have been no plausible explanations for it.

A genuine photograph taken in the year 1941, shows a man with sunglasses and attire from today and not from the 40s. But research suggested that buttons and T shirts were introduced in the 1920s and his clothing was very similar to the ones used by the ice hockey team of that era, Montreal Maroons.

The time travelling hipster became an urban legend.

Another famous video is that of Chaplin's time traveller. A behind the scenes clip of Charlie Chaplin's movie was uploaded on Twitter. On closer examination, it was found that a woman was holding a thin, black device resembling a mobile phone to her ear and walking.

The theory of time machines came into being and they were given different names.

The Montauk Project was alleged to be a series of secret United States government projects conducted at Camp Hero or Montauk Air Force Station on Montauk, Long Island, for the purpose of exotic research, including time travel

10. Curse of the Pharaohs

The curse of the pharoahs is believed to be cast upon those who disturb mummies in Egypt. The ancient Egyptian curse they say affects thieves and archaeologists alike. The most famous of the curses is Tutankhamun's curse.

People started believing in this curse after a few members of Howard Carter's team perished shortly after their visit to Tut's tomb. While studies revealed that their deaths could be due to exposure to toxic fungi from the mummified remains, several deaths have been attributed to the curse.

Howard Carter himself was skeptical of curses and has even recorded in his diary that he saw jackals resembling Anubis for the first time in thirty five years of his career, working in the desert. Other skeptics have also pointed out and listed people who have survived many years after their own explorations of the tombs.