Utah is an interesting place. It's got some gorgeous scenery and a diverse climate. Between the wide and open desert, the red rock canyons and arches, the snowy mountains, and the Great Salt Lake, we've got a pretty cool mix. Sometimes though, the scenery is so different, it looks like it doesn't even belong to this world. So, here are seven places in Utah that I'm pretty sure might be portals to other planets.

1. Goblin Valley

Goblin Valley State Park is located near Hanksville, which is about 216 miles southwest of the state capital, Salt Lake City. It was named for the shape of the sand stone hoodoos, which have eroded away in some places to resemble goblin faces.

This area is apparently so other worldly that part of the movie Galaxy Quest (1999) was filmed in Goblin Valley.

2. Raplee Ridge

Raplee Ridge is located in the southwest corner of Utah. The interesting layers in the ridge come from millennia of gray gypsum, salt, and red sedimentary rock piling up. Scientists estimate that the same tectonic plate movement that formed the Rocky Mountains also formed the Raplee Ridge approximately 70-80 million years ago

Raplee Ridge is also located right next to a rock formation called Mexican Hat, which may or may not actually be a space ship in disguise.

If that's not cool enough for you, the photo above is of the surface of Pluto, taken by New Horizons' Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LOORI). Seems to fit in quite nicely, doesn't it?

3. Factory Butte

Factory Butte is also located in the southwest near Hanksville, approximately an hour-long drive away from Goblin Valley. One website describes the surrounding area as, "Undulating grey badlands and sharp ridges completely devoid of any vegetation." Sounds lovely, right?

Most of the rock in this area is Emery sandstone and Blue Gate shale, which makes it particularly difficult for plant life to grow (that and the lack of water... Being a desert and all...). It may not be a tropical paradise, but I hear that the moon is nice around this time of year.

4. Canyonlands & Arches National Parks

Canyonlands National Park is located just west of the town of Moab, and it is the meeting place of the Colorado and Green Rivers. The national park is separated into four separate districts: the Colorado and Green Rivers, the Needles, the Maze, and the Island in the Sky. It's dry vistas and endless canyons look other-worldly.

Meanwhile, Arches National Park is right outside of Moab. It has over 2,000 natural aches, along with a mix of other amazing pinnacles and formations.

The rock gets its red color because exposure to the elements causes the iron minerals in the stone to oxidize. You know where else gets its red color from that? Mars.

5. Spiral Jetty

Spiral Jetty is actually an art installation made by Robert Smithson in 1970. The jetty is located in the Great Salt Lake, and is made entirely of basalt, salt crystals, and mud. It's 1,500 feet long and 15 feet wide.

Originally, the sculpture looked black because of the basalt rock, but over time, it has turned white because of the salt. The Great Salt Lake is the second saltiest body of water in the world, only second to the Dead Sea, and it's salt content is nearly ten times that of the ocean. Due to it's high salinity, only brine shrimp and certain microbes can survive in the water, and these microbes contain pigments that sometimes turn the water pink. Pink water is definitely something you would find on another planet, right?

6. Bonneville Salt Flats

The Bonneville Salt Flats were made after most of the ancient Lake Bonneville dried up. While the Great Salt Lake is a remnant of Lake Bonneville, in other areas, all that is left of it is the salt. 30,000 acres of it. Literally nothing can survive here. In the movie Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, the Bonneville Salt Flats were the location for Davy Jones's Locker, or complete oblivion.

The salt flats are a vast, white expanse as far as the eye can see. If that isn't other-worldly, I don't know what is.

When the salt flats flood, they get covered in a couple of inches of crystal clear water. The reflection is so clear that it looks like glass.

The effect makes it look like you're walking on water. Definitely a portal to another world.

7. Mars Desert Research Station

Yep. Scientists thought that Utah was so much like Mars, they actually made it a training station for astronauts.

They use the station to conduct research, train, and run Mars mission simulations.

It is so much like space that you will actually find astronauts in space suits down here. I rest my case.