Top 10 Creepiest Mysteries That Were Finally Solved
#10: The Face on Mars
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This is one of the most popular space images of all time. Taken by the Viking orbiters back in the mid-'70s, the picture depicts the Cydonia region of Mars. People immediately noticed that one of the features bore a striking resemblance to a human face, or maybe one of those old-school hockey masks. Speculation immediately flew to aliens or some kind of human habitation on the supposedly barren planet. But nah, the answer is much more boring. Turns out, this was just an optical illusion - the result of lighting, angle, and a low-resolution picture. More recent and much better photos have been taken of the same location, and they reveal nothing but a boring hill with face-like characteristics.
#9: The Trunk of Bones
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Back in 1993, “Unsolved Mysteries” aired a, well, a mystery about some old bones. In 1986, John Morris gave his friend Newell Sessions an old steamer trunk. Inside the trunk was a human skeleton, and the skull was found to contain a bullet. A police investigation was launched, and Morris claimed to have no knowledge of what was inside the trunk, as he never actually opened it. Before investigators could probe Morris further, he took his own life. The case remained cold until 2017 when DNA identified the remains as belonging to one Joseph Mulvaney. The DNA test was conducted with the help of Mulvaney’s descendant, who believes that Mulvaney was killed by John Morris.
#8: The Tunguska Event
Top 20 Creepiest Mysteries That Were Finally Solved
In the early morning of June 30, 1908, a remote area of Russia was hit with a massive and mysterious blast. This blast completely leveled over 800 square miles of forest and flattened 80 million trees. No source could be found for the explosion, so no one knew what exactly happened. Thousands of scientific papers have been written about the incident and the area has been studied for decades, with many trying to crack the bizarre case. It is now generally agreed that a 200-foot meteor traveling 60,000 miles per hour exploded in midair over the area, resulting in what’s called a meteor airburst. This airburst then leveled everything below the meteor’s detonation site.
#7: The Death of Ryan Stallings
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Patricia Stallings brought her sick baby Ryan to the hospital. The doctors found what they thought was ethylene glycol in the baby’s blood, leading them to conclude that he had been poisoned. He recovered, but Patricia was suspected of the poisoning, and Ryan was sent to live elsewhere. Following a future visit, Ryan fell sick again and died. Patricia was again blamed for poisoning Ryan and charged with homicide. She later gave birth to another son, and he exhibited the same symptoms. It was later found that both children suffered from a disorder called methylmalonic acidemia, an acidic byproduct of the disorder can be mistaken for ethylene glycol. Patricia was released from prison and successfully sued the lab that tested Ryan’s blood.
#6: Stonehenge
One of humanity’s greatest marvels, Stonehenge has been standing for thousands of years. But where exactly did the giant stones come from? They are all pretty much symmetrical - 13 feet high, 7 feet across, and each weighing 25 tons. Experts have been trying to crack the case for hundreds of years. Some will have you believe that it was aliens, but no, it was really just the nearby woods. In 2019, researchers were able to do tests on a small piece of extracted stone and sourced it to the nearby West Woods in Wiltshire. The location has finally been pinned down, but one tantalizing question remains - how did they drag these 25-ton boulders 15 miles to the south?
#5: The Centennial Olympic Park Criminal
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On July 27, 1996, Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park was bombed during the Summer Olympic Games. The blast injured hundreds, but thanks to the heroic efforts of security guard Richard Jewell, direct deaths were limited to two people. Jewell himself was initially pegged as the culprit, but he was eventually cleared and the case remained a mystery for several years. The FBI was eventually led to a man named Eric Rudolph, who had committed various other bombings across the American south. Rudolph was finally arrested in 2003 and pleaded guilty to all charges. He was given four life sentences and is currently held in a supermax prison in Colorado.
#4: The Disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi
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The case of journalist Jamal Khashoggi was all over the news in the fall of 2018. On October 2 of that year, Khashoggi went missing while visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. At the time, Khashoggi was living in exile, as he was penning scathing articles that criticized the Saudi Arabian rulers. While his fate remained a mystery for weeks, most people had a good idea of what happened - Khashoggi was killed inside the consulate. It was eventually revealed that Khashoggi did indeed die inside the building, and on October 25, Saudi Arabia’s attorney general admitted that it was a premeditated homicide. The CIA later concluded that Khashoggi was assassinated on the orders of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
#3: The Death of Jun Lin
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One of the most notorious videos in the history of the internet was uploaded on May 25, 2012. Titled “1 Lunatic 1 Ice Pick,” it depicts an Asian male getting killed and dismembered by an unidentified figure. Various body parts were then sent to schools and federal offices across Canada, and these remains were linked to the man who was killed in the video. The case made international headlines and remained a mystery for several days. But investigators quickly traced the grisly homicide to a man named Luka Magnotta, who had already fled the country. An international manhunt ensued, and Magnotta was finally captured in Berlin on June 4 - about a week and a half after uploading the infamous video.
#2: The Collapse of the Maya Civilization
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The largest and most sophisticated pre-Columbian civilization of the Americas, the Maya flourished for thousands of years. The civilization entered its so-called “classic period” in the year 250, and this lasted until 900. It was around then that the entire political system collapsed, and the Maya abandoned their most important cities to move north. With this, the Maya civilization entered what is called its “Postclassic period.” So what the heck happened? It’s a mystery that has plagued historians for years. The answer was finally found in the 21st century. Turns out that the Maya were so overpopulated that they damaged the environment and created a devastating drought. With their agriculture thoroughly destroyed, the Maya were forced to abandon their most populous cities.
#1: The Vampire Clan
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One of the creepiest episodes of “Unsolved Mysteries” involves Rod Ferrell and his so-called “Vampire Clan.” In November of 1996, Jennifer Wendorf found her parents beaten to death inside their Florida home. The case went unsolved for weeks, although police immediately suspected Ferrell in the killing, as he was close to the Wendorfs’ other daughter, Heather. Ferrell was the leader of a Kentucky cult centered around vampirism and allegedly had prospective members drink his blood in order to join. The grandmother of a member helped police apprehend the cult, and both Ferrell and a man named Scott Anderson were found responsible for the Wendorfs’ deaths and given life sentences.
