Space is immense. It is doubtful whether all of humanity's existence will be enough for us to explore even a small part of it.
As with anything, whenever humans don't understand something about their surrounding world they begin to think theoretically. Theories and conspiracies regarding space have spawned some of the most unconventional explanations about its function and structure.
Some of the claims by scientists over the years seem absurd to say the least. But even so, each of them has their own following, even today.
Read on to discover the top 5 strangest theories about space ever conceived.
1. Bees
Gerald Haard, historian and author, was also a mystic with quite some fascinating ideas. In 1950 he published a book in which he claimed that the UFOs being seen around the world were piloted not by humanoids but by extraterrestrial super-bees from Mars. They have come here to observe and destroy us.
2. Ice
Austrian engineer Hanns Hörbiger was convinced that the Milky Way was comprised entirely of ice. In 1913 he announced that the stars in the night sky are an illusion, plain and simple. According to his theory, massive ice chunks the size of planets travel through space, surrounding our solar system in a ring. The light of several stars beyond this ice ring passes through it and creates the illusion of billions of stars that we can witness at night.
3. Glass
In the 1950s, Jon Bradbury observed the edge of the Universe. He claimed to have done this using a telescope with 15 lenses. With it he also saw that the Earth wasn't spherical but was flat at the top where we live and semi-spherical below - like a grapefruit cut in half. A little later it was proven that the telescope showed distorted images.
4. Flat Earth
In 1956, Samuel Shenton, founder of the International Flat Earth Research Society, described the Earth as being like a giant tea biscuit, surrounded by a large curving wall, consisting of ice blocks. In 1962 he became convinced that the Earth was flat like a plate, that it was stable and did not move or even spin. He posits that when you travel around the world and come back to the same spot you've simply been traveling along the circumference of the plate. Samuel also has an explanation for people who disappear - they travel too far in one direction and fall off the edge of the world.
5. The planet of love
French philosopher Charles Fourier believed that the force that kept planets near their stars was not gravity but their desire for love. According to his theory, planets and stars are living things that can see, sense and taste and which are also obsessed with having sexual relations with each other. The philosopher was convinced that solar eclipses occurred when the Sun and Moon came together in a matrimonial embrace. He said that the Earth was a creature of 2 souls and 2 sexes, capable of reproducing like animals or plants.
