Who made these circles in the Sahara?

Подробнее о видео

Someone left these marks in the sand. We had to find out who.

Subscribe and turn on notifications 🔔 so you don't miss any videos:

Deep in the Sahara, far from any towns, roads, or other signs of life, is a row of markings in the sand. There are dozens of them stretching for miles in a straight line in central Algeria, each consisting of a central point surrounded by a circle of 12 nodes, like numbers on a clock. And when we started making this video, no one seemed to know what they were.

We first saw the circles back in September 2021, after finding a Reddit post on r/WhatIsThis with coordinates asking what the circles could be. With just two upvotes and two commenters, it wasn’t exactly a lively discussion. But seeing the circles themselves on Google Earth was fascinating: They were eerily perfect in their shape and regularity, but so deeply isolated in the desert. We were hooked on finding an answer.

So we decided to make a video out of trying to solve the mystery, no matter where it took us. We documented every step of the process — from Zoom calls and web browser screen recordings to vlogs and field shoots — to show the reporting process from the inside out. And when we maxed out what we could learn on the internet, we handed over this story to a team in Algeria to take it all the way.

Resources:

Check out the circles for yourself:

Read Will K’s original post:

Here’s the 1885 document that Melissa found:

Read Dale Lightfoot on the sustainability of qanats:

My interview with Marta Musso didn’t make the final cut, but you can check out her work on the history of the hydrocarbon industry and Algerian decolonization:

I also spoke to Roberto Cantoni, who wrote a great book that covers the same history:

Make sure you never miss behind the scenes content in the Vox Video newsletter, sign up here:

Vox.com is a news website that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines. Check out

Support Vox's reporting with a one-time or recurring contribution:

Shop the Vox merch store:

Watch our full video catalog:

Follow Vox on Facebook:
Follow Vox on Twitter:
Follow Vox on TikTok: