The Place of No Return

The strange myths surrounding the Aral Sea

Author

Perspective Media
June 15, 2025

THIS WEEK’S DEEP DIVE
The Place of No Return
BY NICK HUNT

Nick Hunt journeys to the haunting remnants of the Aral Sea, once the world's fourth-largest inland sea, now reduced to a tenth of its size after Soviet irrigation projects created one of history's worst environmental disasters. Among the bone-white shells of this newest desert, he discovers how catastrophic reality has spawned equally extraordinary myths—from pterosaur sightings to time distortions—revealing how communities create paranormal narratives to process incomprehensible ecological destruction.

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English pastoral

​​Guy Shrubsole explores England’s buried tradition of land reform, where less than one percent of the population owns half the land. From the radical Diggers of 1649 to today’s National Park debates, could modern proposals finally democratise how this vital resource is governed?

www.perspectivemedia.com/english-pastoral

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England’s highly unequal land ownership goes back to the Norman Conquest

Free as a bird

Keggie Carew weaves together Edward Thomas's 1913 bicycle journey and the ancient Irish tale of King Sweeney to explore our complex relationship with wildness. Through the story of a chaffinch freed from its cage, she examines whether humans have become too civilised to understand what it truly means to be wild, and questions our capacity for the raw freedom that comes with embracing our wilder selves.

www.perspectivemedia.com/free-as-a-bird

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Being human in a bird world stirs our admiration of how hard it is to be wild, the icy wind picking through our feathers

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