Strange Finds (11 Photos vol. 3)

November 1, 2026

By Vidar

Eleven more strange finds, from a tidal beach to a wheat field

A sea serpent’s skeleton lies across a French beach. In a Cornish wood, a woman made of earth and moss is asleep. There are also shark fins in a Canadian wheat field, a fountain that seems to pour fire, and a dog statue that still gets sticks more than a century later.

More: Strange Finds (9 Photos vol. 2)

🌿 “The Mud Maid” — By Sue and Pete Hill at the Lost Gardens of Heligan, England 🇬🇧

A woman lies asleep on the floor of the woods in Cornwall, her face shaped from rock and earth, her body grown over with moss and ivy. Sue and Pete Hill made her for the Lost Gardens of Heligan.

💡 Garden Fact: She is not alone. Heligan’s Woodland Walk also has the Giant’s Head and the Grey Lady.

More: See the Mud Maid through the seasons

✋ “Giant Hand of Vyrnwy” — By Simon O’Rourke at Lake Vyrnwy, Wales 🇬🇧

A hand about 50 feet tall reaches out of the forest above Lake Vyrnwy. Simon O’Rourke carved it with chainsaws from the stump of a storm-damaged Douglas fir.

💡 Tree Fact: In 2009 the fir was recorded at 63.79 meters (209 feet) and listed as joint-tallest tree in the UK.

More: The Giant Hand of the UK

🔗 Follow Simon O’Rourke on Instagram

🗿 “Apennine Colossus” — By Giambologna at Villa Demidoff near Florence, Italy 🇮🇹

A bearded stone giant crouches over a pond in the park of Villa Demidoff, north of Florence, his hair and beard running into the rock. Giambologna built the Apennine Colossus in the 1580s; it is about 11 meters tall.

💡 Hidden Fact: The giant is hollow, with grottoes inside and a small room in the head. Grand Duke Francesco I is said to have fished in the pond through the giant’s eyes, which were then glazed like windows.

More: The Silent Giant of 1580

🐕 Rex — Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York, USA 🇺🇸

A dog statue lies on a grave at Green-Wood Cemetery, and visitors keep leaving sticks across his paws. Rex is believed to have belonged to John E. Stow, a New York fruit merchant who died in 1884.

More: A 100-Year-Old Dog’s Grave Receives Sticks

🐍 “Serpent d’Océan” — By Huang Yong Ping in Saint-Brevin-les-Pins, France 🇫🇷

The skeleton of a sea serpent, 130 meters long and made of aluminum, lies across the beach where the Loire meets the Atlantic. Huang Yong Ping made Serpent d’Océan for the Estuaire biennale in 2012.

💡 Tide Fact: The tail sits at the low-tide line and the head at the high-tide line, so at high tide only the head and the tops of the vertebrae show above the water.

More: More photos of the Serpent of the Ocean

🌾 Rice Paddy Art — Gyoda, Saitama, Japan 🇯🇵

The woman in the kimono, the bridge and the wisteria are not painted on this field. They are planted with several kinds of rice that grow in different colors, and the picture only works from above, from the observation tower at Kodai Hasu no Sato park.

💡 Record Fact: In 2015 Guinness World Records certified that year’s Gyoda picture as the largest rice field art in the world, at about 27,000 square meters.

More: More rice paddy art from Gyoda

🦈 Wheat Field Sharks — By Anne Melady near Dublin, Ontario, Canada 🇨🇦

Black fins cut through a wheat field outside Dublin, Ontario, as if the crop were open water. Anne Melady put four plywood fins in the field in 2021, on brackets that let them turn in the wind.

💡 Idea Fact: She got the idea from two fins she had seen in a field near Erin, Ontario, the year before.

More: Please Do Not Feed the Great Wheat Sharks

🔥 Fontana Luminosa — By Nicola D’Antino in L’Aquila, Italy 🇮🇹

With the sun at the right angle, the water pouring from this fountain in L’Aquila glows like lava. The two female figures are by Nicola D’Antino, and the Fontana Luminosa has stood in the city since 1934. The fire effect needs a clear sky.

More: More photos of the lava fountain

🌍 “Floating Earth” — By Luke Jerram at Canary Wharf, London, England 🇬🇧

In late January 2023 a 10-meter Earth floated in Middle Dock at Canary Wharf, glowing between the office towers. Luke Jerram’s globe was part of the Winter Lights festival.

More: Floating Earth by Luke Jerram

🔗 Follow Luke Jerram on Instagram

📄 “Horizons” — By Neil Dawson at Gibbs Farm, New Zealand 🇳🇿

A giant sheet of corrugated iron seems to have blown off a farm water tank and stopped in midair above a hill. Horizons is welded and painted steel, 36 meters long, and from most angles it looks like a pen drawing on the sky.

💡 Visiting Fact: Gibbs Farm on Kaipara Harbour is private land, open by appointment only, but Horizons is one of the few works there you can see from the road.

More: More photos of Horizons

📱 “Google Maps Hacks” — By Simon Weckert in Berlin, Germany 🇩🇪

In 2020 Simon Weckert pulled a small red handcart with 99 smartphones through quiet Berlin streets. Every phone ran Google Maps, and the app showed a traffic jam on roads where there were hardly any cars.

💡 Award Fact: The project won the Social Impact Award at Japan’s 24th Media Arts Festival.

More: 99 Smartphones on a Wagon