Location: Protvino, Moscow Region, Russia (U-70 Synchrotron facility). 🇷🇺
Story: In 1978, Soviet scientist Anatoli Bugorski was inspecting the U-70 particle accelerator, believing it was powered down. A safety failure meant the proton beam was still active. As he leaned in, the high-energy beam, traveling near light speed, entered the back of his head and exited through his nose. He saw a flash "brighter than a thousand suns" but felt no pain. Doctors expected his swift death from the massive radiation dose. âš¡
Twist: Bugorski survived. Decades later, a bizarre side-effect emerged: while the unexposed right side of his face aged normally, the left side that was struck by the beam remained eerily youthful, its tissues effectively "frozen in time" by the radiation's damage. He became a living paradox,a man who survived one of science's most terrifying accidents, only to wear its strange, asymmetric legacy on his face. 👨