White Sands National Monument-White Sands, NM

White Sands National Monument is in the northern Chihuahuan Desert in the U.S. state of New Mexico. It's the worlds largest white gypsum sand dunes. Between 1969 and 1977 93 African Oryx, a species of antelope from East Africa, were imported from the Kalahari Desert and set free. Today, over 300 of these animals run free.

White Sands was also one of the key locations of the Manhattan Project, which developed the first atomic bomb during World War II. The testing of the first atomic bomb took place in 1945, 65 miles north of White Sands National Monument.

Today white sands is occasionally closed as the nearby White Sands Missile Range launches tests into the dunes.