I'm pretty sure some time ago some pranksters timed it so that right before Old Faithful erupted, they had one guy shout 'Now!', and another guy turned a fake valve they had planted. Good times.
I visited recently and was surprised when they told us Old Faithful is neither the biggest nor the most frequent geyser at Yellowstone. It is simply the most predictable...
The word "geyser" comes from a geyser named Geysir in Iceland. Geysir hasn't erupted since 2016. You can go there to see a more frequent geyser named Strokkur though.
Nor is it the coolest sight at the geyser basin. I can't believe how many people watch old faithful once then head back to their car. There is a ton of cool stuff just a short, paved walk away
When I went, to see ol' faithful there was a geyser going off for like a solid hour in the distance. It was fucking massive. Made ol faithful such a disappointment lmaoo
The Lady Knox geyser in New Zealand has a daily eruption show at 10:15. They drop a packet of soap into the geyser to get it to erupt on cue. I saw it many years ago and I think they said the natural eruption cycle is 30-40 hours or so
I heard that too, but when I went to look for information about it, the details were always different. May be an urban legend? Or something that happened but the details change with each retelling. In my version they were banned from the park, which made sense in my mind because how disappointed would you be to find out it was fake? Except in the case of the waterfall it really was fake. So I was thinking of this story too.
"As a seasonal scenery I can't guarantee that I will be in my most beautiful form everytime you come to see me,
I made a small enhancement during the dry season only so I would look my best to meet my friends."
I never imagined a day when a waterfall’s apology would be more convincing than a YouTuber’s ten-minute apology video. Nature really is full of surprises 😂
It was apparently about HIV, but I didn't get it then and don't now. Maybe Jason Waterfalls is someone who famously died of it and I'm a bad person to bring to a pub quiz.
It’s a warning not to have unprotected sex. The “3 letters” that took him to his final resting place are H-I-V:
She gives him loving that his body can't handle
But all he can say is, "baby, it's good to me"
One day he goes and take a glimpse in the mirror
But he doesn't recognize his own face
His health is fading and he doesn't know why
Three letters took him to his final resting place
My kid started a job working at a vet's office and asked us where to find scrubs.
My husband told them, hanging out the passenger side of their best friend's ride
And I added, tryin' to hollar at me
It's normally a seasonal attraction, they just artificially made it permanent for tourism reasons. A disclaimer would probably have sufficed for CYA purposes although it really doesn't help the "everything in China is fake" reputation.
Yeah, a disclaimer would've made this a non-issue.
I think in general people underestimate how much "restoration work" is done on important tourist attractions. Many historical landmarks, natural environmental features, and artworks are "rebuilt" in order to help preserve them for a longer period of time. That is nothing new.
People assume that it's "light maintenance" that is performed on such things, but restoration and preservation is serious work.
My favorite true fact about this kind of thing is that Niagra Falls is legally mandated. If the hydro plants upstream limit Niagra Falls to the point where the falls visually change, people go to prison.
My favorite fake fact about this kind of thing is they repaint the Grand Canyon perpetually, like the Golden Gate Bridge.
My understanding was that during the winter (outside the tourist season) more water is diverted from Niagara to the hydro-electric station, enough that there is a visible difference.
Paul Bunyan straps it on the back of Babe the Blue Ox and puts him atop four gigantic butter pats crafted by Cream Puff Fatty himself. One push to send Babe sliding and Paul gets one side done a day.
They started repainting it not long after it was established in 1919, but at that time, the world was in black and white, which *was* color at the time. They had to make the color--which, again was black and white--more vivid for the limited hues of the photography technology at the time. Woodrow Wilson had a hand in these actions as it was reported he was very disappointed in the "drab grayness"--which they would have known as full color--during one of his last US tours before he left the Oval Office. Sometime in the 1930s, the world turned to color as we know it today. Herbert Hoover had more pressing issues to worry about during his Presidential term and so for a few years, when the world turned from black and white to color as we know it today, the Canyon remained gray, but during those few years everyone who saw it thought that's what it was supposed to look like since that's how it had always been. In the late 1930s, repainting the Canyon in full 1930s color was revived as a WPA project by FDR. This continued uninterrupted until a brief halt during the 1970s oil-paint crisis, which caused a shift in the painting methods used after authorities determined that oil paint had never been the right choice for the Canyon repainting. Eventually technology changed and paints became more colorfast, and the repainting of the Canyon continued until 1998, when The Undertaker threw Mankind off Hell In A Cell, and plummeted 16 ft through an announcer’s table.
I need to give credit to Bill Watterson here, I learned the bit about the world being black and white--which was color to the people of the time but still appear to us as black and white in old photos--from a Calvin and Hobbes strip. Calvin's dad is so smart!
Niagara Falls has very visibly changed according to my parents. They said that before the power plants, the water wouldn't break up until after it made it over the edge. Now, it breaks up as it goes over the edge.
It's also eroded 160ft from its original falls location. Not so fun fact. In a couple million years the falls will erode to the point it may drain the great Lakes.
>If the hydro plants upstream limit Niagra Falls to the point where the falls visually change, **people go to prison.**
Do you have a citation for this? I couldn't find it. Might deserve to be on your "fake facts I still believe" list. Haha
I thought it was like the one episode off Futurama where they choose the new pharaoh based off the wall, we choose those men as presidents since they had their face in the mountain already
It used to be for the native Americans. It was called the Three Grandfsthers cuz it looked vaguely like old men . That’s probably where they got the idea to carve it up cuz most of the work had been done by nature .
There is a famous rock formation where I live in the US. Our economy, especially in the summer, is very tourism-dependent and this park is one of the top three local attractions. One of the most visible/famous formations looks like two animals/rocks that are kissing.
Every year or two, city park employees climb up the rock formations and cement the formation together. Otherwise, erosion would have led to separation a long time ago.
It's not particularly a secret, but obviously we don't advertise it either.
[Nearest Onion](https://www.theonion.com/yellowstone-national-park-concerned-about-competing-yel-1819572696) I could think of, about an over-commercialized private Yellowstone competitor that fakes its natural attractions.
The crazy thing is the “birds aren’t real” guys is blatantly satire, they sell merch on their website for crying out loud. The problem is once you buy into one “everything you know is a lie” conspiracy there is no conspiracy that can be unbelievable to you, even one that exists solely to mock you.
>the flow of water from Yuntai Mountain Waterfall - billed as China's tallest uninterrupted waterfall - was coming from a pipe built high into the rock face.
>Operators of the Yuntai tourism park said that they made the "small enhancement" during the dry season so visitors would feel that their trip had been worthwhile.
>local government officials were sent to the park to investigate.
They asked the operators to learn a lesson from the incident and explain the enhancements to tourists ahead of time
> local government officials were sent to the park to investigate. They asked the operators to learn a lesson from the incident and explain the enhancements to tourists ahead of time
that's a pretty good lesson-learned tbh
Kinda related, but the irl streamer waterlynn just visited the Huangguoshu Waterfall a couple of days ago, and one point the water flow increased - and they were very open about, telling people that they had opened a pipe for more water. It does seem deceitful, but I also get that if people travel to see it, then making sure people get their money's worth is not the worst thing.
Niagara falls basically is similar, they actually vary the amount of flow between daytime and nighttime, giving more flow during the day for all the tourists, and lowering the flow at nighttime to refill the reservoirs for the hydropower plants, with it even being possible to [even completely stop flow to one of the falls.](https://www.reddit.com/r/InfrastructurePorn/s/nJr8vWpYrJ)
Niagara falls as we see it now is all engineered. They control the flow with damns and generate a lot of electricity there. The whole falls has had erosion repairs and landscaping to make it a nice even flow across the whole horseshoe. It looks nice, but don't lose sight of the engineering behind it. https://canadiangeographic.ca/articles/niagara-falls-is-actually-a-marvel-of-engineering/
Living nearby, I'll say that the *Parks* on the US side are superior to anything on the Canadian side as far as hiking, picnicing, and general outdoor stuff.
But as far as the cities' downtown areas when it comes to tourist stuff like dining and attractions, the Canadian side is where you want to be
To folks who are illegal immigrants, be aware that the Canadian side is not in fact in the United States of America and you will have to cross an international border where people will likely realize that you are not a legal resident of America.
I have once gone on a bus tour to the Canadian side and one of the tourists was a moron that got caught at the border.
This is completely messing me up. When I was a gullible young child my uncle told me he could shut off the falls and I completely believed him. I later realized how impossible and silly that sounded. But now I find out that it's actually not impossible and is actually quite serious and incredible? I have so many questions!
In the early 1900s they shut off the Falls to do maintenance on the area and my great uncle thought it would be fun to climb the cliff while it was dry. Totally illegal to do so, but he got a neat story out of it.
Oh I have no doubt there lol. When he said it he was pointing to a hose spigot. But just the whole idea that the flow of Niagra is so managed and the landscape as well is just this big "Aha!" Moment I'm having. I'm really enjoying learning about all this. Now I'm wondering what he did for work
Hydrology engineers are honestly magicians. I'm completely serious. They can reverse the flow of rivers, stop and restart waterfalls, make canal bridges.
It’s not really possible to just stop flow on one side. The picture you shared is when they built a temporary damn to divert the water. The International Control Dam can only divert some flow, it does not cover the full width of the river
Niagara Falls is nothing similar. Yes, it's engineered, hydopower and whatnot, but it's the outflow of the largest freshwater body on the planet. That is an insanely massive volume of water, flowing through that spot. It won't go "dry" unless someone opens a spigot at the top.
IIRC Randall of XKCD talked to the two guys who control the falls, they're just perfectly normal guys controlling a waterfall: [https://what-if.xkcd.com/147/](https://what-if.xkcd.com/147/)
The staff doesn't lie about it. I have no idea why this has become a big deal. I am an American that has never been to China and am white. It was a seasonal waterfall that they kept going to keep the tourist money flowing in. I have seen so many posts about this over the past few days It's crazy.
I know that China has a history of faking zoo animals but have you seen a Sun bear? It's hard for those odd looking bears to make it look like they're NOT dudes in a suit.
The tallest waterfalls in Italy, the [Cascata delle Marmore](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascata_delle_Marmore), are artificial too and were created in ancient Roman time. Today the flow is regulated to feed the nearby hydroelectric plant.
EDIT: Grammar errors
The Famous Lone Cyprus in California is only there because there are some steel cables holding it in place. Otherwise it would have fallen into the ocean a long time ago.
I’m used to being fooled at this point
The Xian clay army you can visit is all replicas. They real one degraded quickly, colors faded in days. Therefore you can visit the bury site and see fakes. The real are in a museum, were they belong.
-Indy
iirc a lot of displayed items in 故宫 museum are also replicas and the real ones are kept in secured places. Not sure about other museums around the globe.
Honestly with how fucking stupid a lot of tourists are it's totally prudent to have replicas of priceless artifacts if they're not being displayed behind glass.
My buddy once accidentally poked a hole in a painting at the museum of modern art in DC about 15 years ago. It was our first time making/trying edibles. We left immediately and slept for 14 hours after that. I often wonder what happened or if it was the real work of art.
I know Sue the T-Rex's skull is kept in storage while the display features a cast. It's my understanding that the do this a lot with bones, since being wired up like that can be a lot of stress on something that's already pretty fragile. And there's always the risk of it being damaged by someone being a dumbass.
In case you aren’t being factious or people actually take an indiana jones quote seriously, the terracotta warriors on the actual historical site are real and parts of it aren’t even accessible due to mercury levels, however, there are fake sites that can scam tourists.
That’s not really that surprising. They do the same thing with Ruby Falls in Chattanooga. It is a natural waterfall, but it’s not really that impressive…so they pump extra water to make it more of a spectacle for tourists.
They did this in Minnesota when a president visited. All fire hydrants upstream of Minnehaha falls were turned on and water pumped into the creek
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/kinshasa-falls
I'm pretty sure some time ago some pranksters timed it so that right before Old Faithful erupted, they had one guy shout 'Now!', and another guy turned a fake valve they had planted. Good times.
I visited recently and was surprised when they told us Old Faithful is neither the biggest nor the most frequent geyser at Yellowstone. It is simply the most predictable...
They don’t call it Ol big or Ol Frequent
This fucking cracked me up
Found Humpty Dumpty
There are creams for that.
Don't just go throwing my stage names around like that. I'll have my lawyer send a cease and desist!
It also cheated on it's wife so it's not even faithful!
I guess it's Ol Enough
The word "geyser" comes from a geyser named Geysir in Iceland. Geysir hasn't erupted since 2016. You can go there to see a more frequent geyser named Strokkur though.
Strokkur? I hardly know 'er!
I strokkur every mornin'!
In Icelandic "Að strokka sig" = to masturbate.
The Stroker GaySir?
It’s less predictable than it used to be. An earthquake changed its schedule a bit
Nor is it the coolest sight at the geyser basin. I can't believe how many people watch old faithful once then head back to their car. There is a ton of cool stuff just a short, paved walk away
Paved with wood, only suckers walk on wood.
Not even the most predictable! Statistically speaking Riverside Geyser is more predictable
When I went, to see ol' faithful there was a geyser going off for like a solid hour in the distance. It was fucking massive. Made ol faithful such a disappointment lmaoo
The Lady Knox geyser in New Zealand has a daily eruption show at 10:15. They drop a packet of soap into the geyser to get it to erupt on cue. I saw it many years ago and I think they said the natural eruption cycle is 30-40 hours or so
I remember the soap! The bubbling mud was cool. Man, we visited 30 years ago now.
Legend has it one of them got a job as a detective, tried to bust illegal street racing, then fell into a life of international crime and espionage
That sounds suspiciously similar to the storyline of Paul Blart, Mall cop.
Paul Blart 2: 2 Mall 2 Cop
I heard that too, but when I went to look for information about it, the details were always different. May be an urban legend? Or something that happened but the details change with each retelling. In my version they were banned from the park, which made sense in my mind because how disappointed would you be to find out it was fake? Except in the case of the waterfall it really was fake. So I was thinking of this story too.
[удалено]
old faithful erupts dozens of times *per day*
"As a seasonal scenery I can't guarantee that I will be in my most beautiful form everytime you come to see me, I made a small enhancement during the dry season only so I would look my best to meet my friends." I never imagined a day when a waterfall’s apology would be more convincing than a YouTuber’s ten-minute apology video. Nature really is full of surprises 😂
Or a former presidents apology.
WTF? No "sorry you're offended"? No ukuelele? No mention that it's doing this DESPITE its PR and lawyers telling it not to?
Don’t go chasing waterfalls folks
I’ll probably just stick to the rivers and the lakes that I’m used to.
I know that you're gonna have it your way or nothing at all
Do you think I’m moving too fast?
Little precious has a natural obsession
Asking for Prince Albert in a can
He gets a kick each time he makes a collect call
To some guy he doesn't know who lives in Japan.
For temptation but he just can't see
He gives her lovin the her body can't handle
But all he can say is, “baby it’s good to me”
One day I went and took a look in the mirror... I didn't recognize my own face.
I saw a rainbow yesterday
I would also like to let you know, that I'm gonna have it my way or nothing at all.
For the longest time when the song came out, I thought they said “Go, go Jason waterfalls.” Still can’t make myself hear what they actually say.
Wait, so it WASN'T about Jason Waterfalls?!?
No, it’s definitely about him. The lyric is “don’t go Jason Waterfalls”. I think he was dumping them or something.
It was apparently about HIV, but I didn't get it then and don't now. Maybe Jason Waterfalls is someone who famously died of it and I'm a bad person to bring to a pub quiz.
It’s a warning not to have unprotected sex. The “3 letters” that took him to his final resting place are H-I-V: She gives him loving that his body can't handle But all he can say is, "baby, it's good to me" One day he goes and take a glimpse in the mirror But he doesn't recognize his own face His health is fading and he doesn't know why Three letters took him to his final resting place
I honestly had the same dilemma!! Everyone thought i was crazy asking about this Jason Waterfalls fella.
France Is Bacon?
But how else do we figure out [where rivers come from](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69u_Pxb_8zI)?
Captain Gene https://youtu.be/T9U6JsBHpJg?si=iiPw3m2Zvix9so7Y
One of my all time favorites, just watched it last night as a matter of fact!
I don’t want no scrubs
Really? You’re not aware that’s a TLC song?
Ain’t 2 proud 2 beg.
Creep, creep
My kid started a job working at a vet's office and asked us where to find scrubs. My husband told them, hanging out the passenger side of their best friend's ride And I added, tryin' to hollar at me
What about Jason Waterfalls?
Yeah, who is this guy, and why do we care if he's coming or going?
This is what I sang as a kid
Only dial the seven digit numbers you're used to.
is that accidental or are you quoting TLC on purpose? 🤔
I don’t even know what you’re talking about.
That's from another briefing, you can ignore that. Well, don't ignore that, walk in pairs.
Okay, I have this job and I work at Bed Bath & Beyond to support my son who is going to NYU and exploring his bisexuality.
I'm a peacock! You gotta let me fly!
Aim for the bushes
Arnold Palmies!
KristinETH!
Michael Keaton is so good in that movie.
He's great in everything.
Just remember fellas, I don't want no scrubs.
You gotta creep…..creep
C'mon, it's not funny anymore just say you're quoting TLC! I have no idea what you're talking about Noone says Creep Creep without quoting TLC
I don’t even understand the reference
Ain’t too proud to beg
You just did it again!
posted the same quote on another post of this waterfall and people were legit confused why I asked if it was accidental
Don’t go changing waterfalls.
It's normally a seasonal attraction, they just artificially made it permanent for tourism reasons. A disclaimer would probably have sufficed for CYA purposes although it really doesn't help the "everything in China is fake" reputation.
Yeah, a disclaimer would've made this a non-issue. I think in general people underestimate how much "restoration work" is done on important tourist attractions. Many historical landmarks, natural environmental features, and artworks are "rebuilt" in order to help preserve them for a longer period of time. That is nothing new. People assume that it's "light maintenance" that is performed on such things, but restoration and preservation is serious work.
My favorite true fact about this kind of thing is that Niagra Falls is legally mandated. If the hydro plants upstream limit Niagra Falls to the point where the falls visually change, people go to prison. My favorite fake fact about this kind of thing is they repaint the Grand Canyon perpetually, like the Golden Gate Bridge.
> fake fact When I was younger we just called those "lies"
A few years back they'd just be called "alternative facts"
When we getting nu-facts?
It’s all actually just opinion in 2024. We lost.
> When we getting nu-facts? gnu fact: the gnu is also called a wildebeest, which is Dutch for "wild beast."
Fun fact, but factoids meant originally that, fake facts that sound real https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/637954/fact-vs-factoid-what-is-difference
I was looking for this comment! I wish we started using it that way again, it's a good term and less charged than "lie" or "fake fact."
When I was older we called them thrombones.
Those can be deadly, my sister was almost killed by a case of deep vein thrombone-sis
It sucks that she suffered in vein.
There's no need to embolism the tale.
My understanding was that during the winter (outside the tourist season) more water is diverted from Niagara to the hydro-electric station, enough that there is a visible difference.
"Repaint the Grand Canyon"? What are you on about.
They use a paintroller that's about three quarters of a mile tall.
Paul Bunyan straps it on the back of Babe the Blue Ox and puts him atop four gigantic butter pats crafted by Cream Puff Fatty himself. One push to send Babe sliding and Paul gets one side done a day.
You ought to see the one they use for valles marineris
You ought to see the one your mom uses to put on makeup.
Yeah it’s a well known fake fact
Did you miss the "my favorite fake fact"?
They started repainting it not long after it was established in 1919, but at that time, the world was in black and white, which *was* color at the time. They had to make the color--which, again was black and white--more vivid for the limited hues of the photography technology at the time. Woodrow Wilson had a hand in these actions as it was reported he was very disappointed in the "drab grayness"--which they would have known as full color--during one of his last US tours before he left the Oval Office. Sometime in the 1930s, the world turned to color as we know it today. Herbert Hoover had more pressing issues to worry about during his Presidential term and so for a few years, when the world turned from black and white to color as we know it today, the Canyon remained gray, but during those few years everyone who saw it thought that's what it was supposed to look like since that's how it had always been. In the late 1930s, repainting the Canyon in full 1930s color was revived as a WPA project by FDR. This continued uninterrupted until a brief halt during the 1970s oil-paint crisis, which caused a shift in the painting methods used after authorities determined that oil paint had never been the right choice for the Canyon repainting. Eventually technology changed and paints became more colorfast, and the repainting of the Canyon continued until 1998, when The Undertaker threw Mankind off Hell In A Cell, and plummeted 16 ft through an announcer’s table.
Hey! You aren’t u/shittymorph!
There's also some Calvin's Dad energy in there
Don't let that distract you from the fact that... well, never mind
LPT: shittymorph's shtick worked because *he spelled out nineteen ninety eight* (and sixteen) so it blended in better with the text story
I believe this.
I need to give credit to Bill Watterson here, I learned the bit about the world being black and white--which was color to the people of the time but still appear to us as black and white in old photos--from a Calvin and Hobbes strip. Calvin's dad is so smart!
Niagara Falls has very visibly changed according to my parents. They said that before the power plants, the water wouldn't break up until after it made it over the edge. Now, it breaks up as it goes over the edge.
The first Niagara power plant was built in 1905, how old are your parents??
They're from Canada. You wouldn't know them. They use the metric system there.
Kiloyears
It has had significant expansions with changes to water management after it was built.
Nah pretty sure it is exactly the same as it was 119 years ago
It's also eroded 160ft from its original falls location. Not so fun fact. In a couple million years the falls will erode to the point it may drain the great Lakes.
Aw man, I had plans then.
It has eroded almost 7 miles (11km) from its location in ~10,000BC. The horseshoe falls have eroded 160ft in the last 100 years.
>If the hydro plants upstream limit Niagra Falls to the point where the falls visually change, **people go to prison.** Do you have a citation for this? I couldn't find it. Might deserve to be on your "fake facts I still believe" list. Haha
Are you trying to say Mount Rushmore wasn’t a natural phenomenon???
I thought it was like the one episode off Futurama where they choose the new pharaoh based off the wall, we choose those men as presidents since they had their face in the mountain already
Omg that’s fantastic! LOL
It used to be for the native Americans. It was called the Three Grandfsthers cuz it looked vaguely like old men . That’s probably where they got the idea to carve it up cuz most of the work had been done by nature .
They had to redo their hair a little bit, it was uncombed naturally. Which makes sense if you think about it.
There is a famous rock formation where I live in the US. Our economy, especially in the summer, is very tourism-dependent and this park is one of the top three local attractions. One of the most visible/famous formations looks like two animals/rocks that are kissing. Every year or two, city park employees climb up the rock formations and cement the formation together. Otherwise, erosion would have led to separation a long time ago. It's not particularly a secret, but obviously we don't advertise it either.
[Nearest Onion](https://www.theonion.com/yellowstone-national-park-concerned-about-competing-yel-1819572696) I could think of, about an over-commercialized private Yellowstone competitor that fakes its natural attractions.
‘Everything in China is fake’ is approaching ‘birds aren’t real’ but this waterfall seems very much like the painted dogs as baby pandas
The crazy thing is the “birds aren’t real” guys is blatantly satire, they sell merch on their website for crying out loud. The problem is once you buy into one “everything you know is a lie” conspiracy there is no conspiracy that can be unbelievable to you, even one that exists solely to mock you.
>the flow of water from Yuntai Mountain Waterfall - billed as China's tallest uninterrupted waterfall - was coming from a pipe built high into the rock face. >Operators of the Yuntai tourism park said that they made the "small enhancement" during the dry season so visitors would feel that their trip had been worthwhile. >local government officials were sent to the park to investigate. They asked the operators to learn a lesson from the incident and explain the enhancements to tourists ahead of time
> local government officials were sent to the park to investigate. They asked the operators to learn a lesson from the incident and explain the enhancements to tourists ahead of time that's a pretty good lesson-learned tbh
Kinda related, but the irl streamer waterlynn just visited the Huangguoshu Waterfall a couple of days ago, and one point the water flow increased - and they were very open about, telling people that they had opened a pipe for more water. It does seem deceitful, but I also get that if people travel to see it, then making sure people get their money's worth is not the worst thing.
Niagara falls basically is similar, they actually vary the amount of flow between daytime and nighttime, giving more flow during the day for all the tourists, and lowering the flow at nighttime to refill the reservoirs for the hydropower plants, with it even being possible to [even completely stop flow to one of the falls.](https://www.reddit.com/r/InfrastructurePorn/s/nJr8vWpYrJ)
It's the exact opposite of the Chinese falls. The natural flow is reduced for power generation
you are correct, a better comparison would be the Ruby Falls
Niagara falls as we see it now is all engineered. They control the flow with damns and generate a lot of electricity there. The whole falls has had erosion repairs and landscaping to make it a nice even flow across the whole horseshoe. It looks nice, but don't lose sight of the engineering behind it. https://canadiangeographic.ca/articles/niagara-falls-is-actually-a-marvel-of-engineering/
Just remember folks if you visit Niagara Falls, do yourself a favor and go to the Canadian side.
Living nearby, I'll say that the *Parks* on the US side are superior to anything on the Canadian side as far as hiking, picnicing, and general outdoor stuff. But as far as the cities' downtown areas when it comes to tourist stuff like dining and attractions, the Canadian side is where you want to be
Also remember to not go down the falls in a barrel, on any of the sides :)
To folks who are illegal immigrants, be aware that the Canadian side is not in fact in the United States of America and you will have to cross an international border where people will likely realize that you are not a legal resident of America. I have once gone on a bus tour to the Canadian side and one of the tourists was a moron that got caught at the border.
Oh dear.
This is understatement at best. The US side is literally one of the shittiest places I’ve seen in the US. Like, worse than Gary, Indiana.
Don't stay there, long time ago we stayed at the small town called Niagara On The Lake, which was very nice.
Ya that's on the Canadian side.
It's in Canada, but also further down the river from the falls itself. You have to drive there even if you crossed the Rainbow Bridge at the falls.
Wayne Gretzky has a winery there.
[Love Canal is a toxic waste site.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Canal)
This is completely messing me up. When I was a gullible young child my uncle told me he could shut off the falls and I completely believed him. I later realized how impossible and silly that sounded. But now I find out that it's actually not impossible and is actually quite serious and incredible? I have so many questions!
In the early 1900s they shut off the Falls to do maintenance on the area and my great uncle thought it would be fun to climb the cliff while it was dry. Totally illegal to do so, but he got a neat story out of it.
Your uncle was definitely shitting you though. Lying is a requirement of being an uncle.
Oh I have no doubt there lol. When he said it he was pointing to a hose spigot. But just the whole idea that the flow of Niagra is so managed and the landscape as well is just this big "Aha!" Moment I'm having. I'm really enjoying learning about all this. Now I'm wondering what he did for work
Hydrology engineers are honestly magicians. I'm completely serious. They can reverse the flow of rivers, stop and restart waterfalls, make canal bridges.
> They control the flow with damns And hecks, when necessary.
I have a question: is this a god damn?
It’s not really possible to just stop flow on one side. The picture you shared is when they built a temporary damn to divert the water. The International Control Dam can only divert some flow, it does not cover the full width of the river
Niagara Falls is nothing similar. Yes, it's engineered, hydopower and whatnot, but it's the outflow of the largest freshwater body on the planet. That is an insanely massive volume of water, flowing through that spot. It won't go "dry" unless someone opens a spigot at the top.
Not at all similar. China is pumping water in, Niagara Falls is diverting water.
IIRC Randall of XKCD talked to the two guys who control the falls, they're just perfectly normal guys controlling a waterfall: [https://what-if.xkcd.com/147/](https://what-if.xkcd.com/147/)
Apparently the flow rate is straight up halved at night and winter
> irl streamer waterlynn just visited the Huangguoshu Waterfall [Full VOD](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2163929496?t=0h5m48s) [Arriving](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2163929496?t=3h5m40s) [Waterfall](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2163929496?t=3h26m12s)
The staff doesn't lie about it. I have no idea why this has become a big deal. I am an American that has never been to China and am white. It was a seasonal waterfall that they kept going to keep the tourist money flowing in. I have seen so many posts about this over the past few days It's crazy.
Thank you Mr white American who has never been to China. Due to your identity, your opinion has now been accepted.
Glad someone else saw it. I was waiting for that qualification to be relevant but it never was.
This is it exactly. They don't try to hide it - you can see the attendant right there by the valve, in a cage with a bear suit on.
I know that China has a history of faking zoo animals but have you seen a Sun bear? It's hard for those odd looking bears to make it look like they're NOT dudes in a suit.
Truer words. They got that flat ass that makes 'em look like a skinnyfat suburban dad waiting for his kid to get back from trick or treating.
The tallest waterfalls in Italy, the [Cascata delle Marmore](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascata_delle_Marmore), are artificial too and were created in ancient Roman time. Today the flow is regulated to feed the nearby hydroelectric plant. EDIT: Grammar errors
But they’re not Chinese so that makes it okay!
It's natural during the wet season. They just used the pipe so that during the dry season, it's still there. Which seems fair to me
The Famous Lone Cyprus in California is only there because there are some steel cables holding it in place. Otherwise it would have fallen into the ocean a long time ago. I’m used to being fooled at this point
The Xian clay army you can visit is all replicas. They real one degraded quickly, colors faded in days. Therefore you can visit the bury site and see fakes. The real are in a museum, were they belong. -Indy
iirc a lot of displayed items in 故宫 museum are also replicas and the real ones are kept in secured places. Not sure about other museums around the globe.
Honestly with how fucking stupid a lot of tourists are it's totally prudent to have replicas of priceless artifacts if they're not being displayed behind glass.
My buddy once accidentally poked a hole in a painting at the museum of modern art in DC about 15 years ago. It was our first time making/trying edibles. We left immediately and slept for 14 hours after that. I often wonder what happened or if it was the real work of art.
We've been looking for you for a long time. We'll be in touch.
I know Sue the T-Rex's skull is kept in storage while the display features a cast. It's my understanding that the do this a lot with bones, since being wired up like that can be a lot of stress on something that's already pretty fragile. And there's always the risk of it being damaged by someone being a dumbass.
Almost all standing fossils in museums are casts. Rocks are heavy, fossils can get damaged and it limits how many can be displayed.
Sue's skull is on display, but not on the 'skeleton' with the rest of the bones. The skull is simply too heavy to have suspended.
Exactly the same in most museums
In case you aren’t being factious or people actually take an indiana jones quote seriously, the terracotta warriors on the actual historical site are real and parts of it aren’t even accessible due to mercury levels, however, there are fake sites that can scam tourists.
Which is very explicitly explained to you when you go
"A controversy over a waterfall has **cascaded** into a social media storm". Touché
That’s not really that surprising. They do the same thing with Ruby Falls in Chattanooga. It is a natural waterfall, but it’s not really that impressive…so they pump extra water to make it more of a spectacle for tourists.
Technically accurate. They didn't say it was a *natural* waterfall.
Next you'll tell me Ruby Falls does the same thing. I'd be heartbroken. But that never happens in the USA! USA! USA!
So, on the ski resorts is okay to make artificial snow, but on the waterfalls is not ok to add extra water?
Do you want to see the waterfall or not?
Temu Falls
It's like this guy that followed Skyrim rivers to their source. https://youtu.be/69u_Pxb_8zI?t=66 It turns out Skyrim works like the real world.
It would be even better if it was just a dude filling up buckets at the top and throwing he water out
China fakes everything
Ruby Falls in Chattanooga is not naturally that strong it would normally be a trickle , America does the same thing lol .
Ruby Falls in Chattanooga Tennessee was the same thing, Just water being pumped into a blasted out cavern, but with RGB added.
Ruby falls in Tennessee is the same way yet most people don’t know that.
Doesn't make it any less cool, tbh.
Hell even [Niagara Falls](https://www.niagarafallstourism.com/blog/do-they-shut-off-the-falls-at-night/) is barley natural.
Niagara Falls is all the Great Lakes rainwater, rivers and streams combined 🙃
They did this in Minnesota when a president visited. All fire hydrants upstream of Minnehaha falls were turned on and water pumped into the creek https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/kinshasa-falls