50 Surreal Landscapes on Earth (PHOTOS)

Not surprisingly, more than one of the featured landscapes are known as "Valley of the Moon." Chile's "Valle de la Luna," located in the harsh Atacama Desert, stretches for 600 miles and is dotted with various stone and sand formations which have been carved by wind and water. Even though the desert sees nearly no rainfall and no humidity, dry lakebeds are scattered throughout the imposing landscape, according to Conde Nast Traveler.

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Also in South America, the Hornocal Mountains rise above the Quebrada de Humahuaca valley in Argentina in an explosion of colors that seems almost unreal. A rainbow of eleven different rock layers gives the peaks their distinctive appearance, according to the Daily Mail. Seen against the bright South American sky, the mountains become ture spectacles of nature.

(MORE: 100 Most Colorful Places on Earth)

But there are also many surreal, alien landscapes to see right here in the United States.

There's the Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness in New Mexico, an alien world of tawny desert, stunning rock formations, towering hoodoos and fairy chimneys, fossils and petrified wood. The haunting scenery is a product of time and the natural elements. The area was once a riverine delta that lay just to the west of the shore of an ancient sea, the Western Interior Seaway, which covered much of New Mexico 70 million years ago. The water slowly receded and eventually disappeared, leaving behind a 1,400-foot-thick layer of jumbled sandstone, mudstone, shale, and coal that lay undisturbed for 50 million years. Then, 6,000 years ago, the last ice age receded, exposing fossils and eroding the rock into the fantastic hoodoos we see today, according to the University of Montana's Wilderness.net.