BEHIND a small waterfall in the Shale Creek Preserve section of Chestnut Ridge Park in the suburb of Buffalo, New York, you'll find one of the world's weirdest wonders.

A dancing golden flame burning within a waterfall - it's so odd it seems like an optical illusion.

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Scientists are baffled at the mystery of New York's eternal flame, unsure where the gas that keeps the flame eternally alight comes from.

The flame is believed to have been lit by Native Americans thousands of years ago … and eerily it has been burning ever since. What makes it even stranger is that previously scientists thought the flame was kept alight by gas produced by ancient, extremely hot rocks, but have since discovered that the rocks underneath the Chestnut Ridge County Park aren't hot enough to produce this gas.

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So what is keeping the flame alight? Scientists admit they can't identify why the flame continues to blaze and are truly baffled by this peculiarity. There are many other 'eternal flames' in the world, but each one is believed to be kept alight by the natural gas produced from the rocks beneath it. The rocks under this eternal flame have been likened in temperature to a cup of tea - definitely not hot enough.

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The New York eternal flame is kept alight by gas (and it smells like it too), but not in the same way as the other eternal flames. The assumption at present is that there's a different pathway of gas generation that is somehow keeping this oddity burning.

Here's hoping the flame never goes out.