Some Alien Shit Going Down at Stonehenge

I love this otherworldly shot of Stonehenge from Reuben Wu. It’s a variant of his cover image for the August 2022 issue of National Geographic. The monument is lit from above and behind with drones, which created some logistical issues:

[We] had to call the Royal Air Force each time we launched the drone, and spent months getting permits and approval to do this. Even then we still couldn’t fly it above the stone circle (for fear of damaging the stones).

They had to call the RAF because the monument is in military airspace. This short behind-the-scenes video has more:

While we were making these images, something that was always very present was the sound of the traffic on the nearby A303 highway, and I was certain that passing motorists would have been alarmed to see what looked like an alien spacecraft flitting around above the 5,000 year old megalith.

• drones
• photography
• Reuben Wu
• Stonehenge

Decoding the geometry, geology, and astronomy of Stonehenge

Vox’s Joss Fong assembles a scale model of Stonehenge and explains some of the ancient monument’s geometry, the geology of the stone it’s built from, and the its possible astronomical significance.

Stonehenge is a popular destination for summer solstice celebrations because the 5,000-year-old monument points toward the summer solstice sunrise on the horizon. However, it also points to the winter solstice sunset in the opposite direction and there’s good reason to believe that this may have been the more important alignment for the Neolithic people who built Stonehenge. We investigate by constructing a tiny model of the Stonehenge monument.

• astronomy
• geology
• Joss Fong
• Stonehenge
• video

Wally Wallington demonstrates how to move anything

Wally Wallington demonstrates how to move anything by yourself, including a barn and a Stonehenge-sized rock. More information available at Wally’s site.

• how to
• stonehenge