A selection of some of the more bizarre unsolved mysteries
Even with modern advancement of scientific techniques for solving crimes and the professional nouse of detectives and investigators, there are still a multitude of high profile cases where crimes have gone unsolved to this very day. From man made to natural phenomenon, we have trawled through hundreds of bizarre unsolved mysteries to cherry pick the best examples!
1. The Voynich Manuscript
A hand written book dated to back the early 15th century is made up of around 240 mammal skin pages containing images and coded text. The author, script and language of the Voynich Manuscript remain completely unknown with no one presently able to decipher the bizarre language. The book is named after Wilfrid M. Voynich who as a book dealer acquired the manuscript in 1912. It is thought the purpose of the book is to illustrate early modern medicine with illustrations of biology, astronomy and alchemy creating all sorts of the possible theories of what it’s true use is.
2. The Marree Man
First discovered on June 26th 1998 in Australia, the massive geoglyph shows an Aborigine with a throwing stick, possibly hunting. It lies on a huge plateau at Finnis Springs, 60km away from the town of Marree and it measures a total of 4.2km long! It’s origin and creator or even creators remain a complete mystery, many people have claimed to be the muscle behind this huge earth drawing with dodgy press releases and rumours rife.
3. The Curious Case of D.B. Cooper
Thanksgiving 1971, a commercial airliner from Portland, Oregon was hi-jacked by a passenger named Dan Cooper, he handed a stewardess a note stating that he had a bomb which he would detonate unless the plane’s flight path was diverted to Seattle. On arrival to Seattle, Cooper gave the orders to release all passengers but he kept the flight staff hostage. He duly made a request for $200,000 in cash and a parachute, he then had the plane take off again. Once the plane was over Lewis River in Southern Washington, Cooper parachuted out of the plane with his swag. After thorough investigation from the FBI, all that was found was a parachute and some marked notes in the river, the man dubbed D.B. Cooper is not known to be dead or alive but an end to this mystery is still no closer.
4. Mary Celeste, The Original Ghost Ship
First launched in 1860 from Nova Scotia with her original name ‘Amazon’, this merchant ship went through numerous accidents under several different owners at sea. She finally turned up at a New York salvage yard and was auctioned off for $3,000, she was fully restored and given a new name; Mary Celeste. The new commandeer of the vessel Benjamin Briggs, 37, was a master of the sea and on November 7th 1872, Captain Briggs departed from New Work with his family and crew to Genoa, Italy where he planned on selling 1,700 barrels of American alcohol. Briggs along with his family and crew were never to be seen again however the ship was found safe and sound floating in the Strait of Gibraltar. The cargo was untouched and personal belongings were still in place perfectly, it is dubbed the greatest maritime mystery of all time.
5. The Black Dahlia Murder
In 1947, the dead body of 22 year old Elizabeth Short was found in a car park in Los Angeles in two pieces, severed crudely at the waist, drained of all her blood and lacerations covered her face. Her nickname, the Black Dahlia, was invented by newspaper reports that covered the high profile murder. Many rumours, theories and suspects have since been contrived but the perpetrator of the murder has never been found.
6. Jack The Ripper
Jack the Ripper, the Whitechapel Murderer and the Leather Apron were all names given to the serial killer who terrorised the east end of London, mainly in the Whitechapel area in 1888. The murders of The Ripper were typically on prostitutes, recognisable by the slit throats and subsequent mutilation of the corpses, the removal of internal organs led people to believe that the Ripper had surgical or anatomical knowledge. The murders were never solved and the notorious legend of Jack the Ripper has lived on ever since.
7. The Cliff Dwelling of Anasazi
Built by the Anasazi Indians, these cliff dwellings held home to thousands of inhabitants but the people that built them and lived in these well crafted structures were seemingly wiped off the face of the earth without any trace. The Anasazi tribe were a peaceful people and after establishing their agricultural culture in 1200 B.C. they completely disappeared 700 years later but not in the usual way of steady decline. There is evidence of belongings left behind but the bodies were simply left in their homes to mummify with their whole culture vanishing. Now a modern day tourist attraction, the mystery is still not solved.
8. The Oak Island Money Pit
First discovered in 1795 by a young boy on a fishing trip, the suspected sink hole turned out to be much more, numerous layers of logs and flat stones made the probability of this hole being coincidental extremely low. A stone tablet was found covered in symbols and it was deciphered to read “forty feet below, two millions pounds lie buried”, this disappeared around 1912 with no pictures or drawings ever taken. It is believed that the Oak Island Money Pit is a tomb protected by a series of traps enclosing huge amounts of treasure but what treasure? Some say it’s the resting place of the Knights Templar with the Holy Grail hidden inside, some say it’s hiding documents from English philosopher Francis Bacon stating he is the writer of Shakespeare’s plays, some say it’s home to Black Beard’s loot!
9. The Sphinx of Giza
The Sphinx of Giza is the world’s largest, man made, monolith structure, believed by many to be built by Pharaoh Khafre around 2,500 B.C but recent evidence such as the position of the Sphinx and the type of erosion of the tail versus the head suggests it was built long before the Egyptian civilisation was established. This suggests that an advanced ancient race of humans existed as long ago as 10,000 B.C and built this awesome structure but who and how?
10. The Stone Spheres of Costa Rica
Over three hundred near perfectly spherical magma based stones were discovered by modern day man in the late 19th century in Costa Rica. The stones that range in size from a few centimetres to over two metres, weighing up to fifteen tonnes are thought to have been crafted between 200 B.C. and 1,500 A.D. by the indigenous people of Costa Rica. Due to the Spanish Conquistadors who colonized Costa Rica and the majority of the Americas, the inhabitants who may have built these wonders are not known and may never be known. Many myths surround the stones such as they came from the Lost City of Atlantis or that every one contains a single coffee bean in it’s centre.
11. The Mystery of Easter Island
The remote island 2,300 miles off the coast of Chile is engulfed in questions and mystery. No one knows the true origins of it’s people, many believe the first inhabitants were a band of Polynesians who arrived via the sea and settled there. It is also thought their population grew to a peak of 11,000 before resources were near used up and cannibalism was resorted to. The enigmatic stone statues were built by the original settlers who had near died out when the modern day man in the form of Dutch “conquistadors” arrived. The native population soon died out completely and the questions of Easter Island were never answered.
12. The Mothman of Virginia
Mothman was a demonic creature seen in the Point Pleasant area of Western Virginia between November 12 1967 and December 1977, most reports describe the monster as being man sized with large red reflective red eyes with huge bat like wings however some say they’ve seen the Mothman without a head, instead it’s eyes are set in it’s chest. The legend prompted a film starring Richard Gere and a metal statue was erected in Virginia as a monument to Mothman. It disappeared after 1977 and has never been seen since, is it dead or merely hibernating?
13. The Taos Hum
The Taos Hum is an extremely high pitched sound that can be heard all over the world especially in the US, UK and Northern Europe. It is usually heard in quiet locations, since it’s undetectable by microphone or VLF antennae, the source and cause of this sound has remained unknown. In 1997, the US government directed a team of highly prestigious scientists to clarify the reasoning behind the hum but their research was to no avail and to this day no-one knows the cause of the Taos Hum.
14. The Disappearance of Fredrick Valentich
This extremely bizarre incident took place on October 21st 1978 to Fredrick Valentich, 20, who was piloting a light aircraft over the Bass Strait to King Island in Australia. Just before his disappearance, he reported on his radio “That strange aircraft is hovering on top of me again. It is hovering and it’s not an aircraft.” seconds later a strange noise terminated his radio signal. Neither Valentich nor his aircraft were ever seen again. Speculation of an alien abduction was fuelled intensely, twenty minutes before Valentich’s last communications, Roy Manifold, a plumber by profession, set up a time lapse camera on the shoreline to catch the sun set, when his pictures were developed it showed a fast moving “object” exiting the water.
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