In 1980, Lake Peigneur in Louisiana did something lakes are absolutely not supposed to do: it started disappearing.

A Texaco drilling crew was working on the shallow freshwater lake when the drill accidentally breached a salt mine beneath it. Water rushed downward, widening the hole and creating a massive whirlpool on the surface.

The whirlpool swallowed the drilling platform, barges, trees, and huge chunks of shoreline. Then things got even stranger: the Delcambre Canal briefly reversed direction, pulling water from the Gulf of Mexico back toward the lake. For a short time, Louisiana had a waterfall pouring into a vanishing lake.

Amazingly, all the miners underground escaped, and no one was killed. But Lake Peigneur was permanently changed. What had been a shallow freshwater lake became a much deeper, saltier body of water.

It was less like a natural disaster and more like someone pulled the plug on the planet.