Top 20 Craziest Mysteries Solved by Reddit

In 2013, one redditor shared pictures from Room 322 at Hotel Zaza in Houston, Texas, where their friend had stayed. The room’s unsettling decor included a bed chained to the wall, a creepy portrait of a finance executive and what looked suspiciously like a two-way mirror. Naturally, the internet went wild, with some speculating that it had ties to occult rituals or secret fraternities, while others shrugged it off as a marketing scam. One curious redditor decided to book the room for a closer look, only to discover that 322 was merely a jail-themed novelty lodge. And behind that two-way mirror? Just a bathroom to the space next door. Needless to say, that made for a rather underwhelming conclusion.

This online enigma first popped up on 4Chan, but as with most things on the internet, it eventually found its way to Reddit. It all began with a cryptic email telling the recipient they had been “selected” and were being watched. It also included a link to a strange website full of puzzles and nonsensical messages. While this was strange enough, this took an even weirder turn when the site’s admin began posting personal details of the sleuths trying to crack the case. Then, just as suddenly, the admin vanished, and the Reddit sub discussing the case was banned. Many now conclude the whole thing was an elaborate hoax, designed purely to troll curious netizens.

Ever had a tune lodge itself in your brain and simply refuse to leave? Well, that was exactly the case for one Redditor in 2015. They had stumbled upon a commercial for the Ibiza Toca by Spanish car manufacturer SEAT and were instantly hooked on the background song. But no matter how hard they tried, they just couldn’t find out the title of the track. Their desperation even led them to email the company, only to be told that the music was created specifically for the ad. When all seemed lost, they turned to Reddit. Oddly enough, a random user messaged them out of nowhere with the song title and artist, bringing a year-long mystery to an amusing end.

This eerie video began causing a stir online in October 2015. Featuring a masked figure wearing a plague doctor costume, the clip was packed with hidden messages, buzzing sounds, and disturbing imagery. Once it made its way to Reddit, the online sleuths wasted no time. They decoded several messages, including texts and images tucked inside a sound spectrogram. To make things weirder, the video hinted at biological warfare and even contained an anagram that spelled out “KILL THE PRESIDENT.” While many of the messages were deciphered, the video’s origin remained uncertain. However, during the investigation, the name Parker Wright kept popping up, and months later, a man going by that name eventually owned up to making the video as an art project.

Over the years, mysterious objects have washed up on beaches around the world, sparking confusion and curiosity among locals. In 2023, the residents of Green Head, a coastal town in Australia, got their turn when they stumbled upon a gigantic metal cylinder on the shore. The mysterious object fueled excitement and wild speculation, but hardly anyone, not even the police, could figure out what exactly it was. That is, until it got on Reddit, where it caught the attention of amateur detectives. Shortly after the post was made, one user correctly identified it as the third stage of a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle released by India. This was later confirmed by the Australian Space Agency, proving once again that Reddit knows everything.

Not even the most prolific YouTubers could keep up with the upload rate of Unfavorable Semicircle. The channel was created in March 2015 and quickly gained attention for flooding the internet with thousands of bizarre videos. These clips varied in length, but they all featured blurry visuals and occasionally, a distorted male voice reading letters or numbers. It didn’t take long for Reddit to take an interest. Two of the videos, titled “Lock” and “Delock[e],” particularly intrigued users, leading one to combine their frames, which produced a decipherable image that brought them closer to solving the puzzle. Ultimately, this online sleuthing prompted the anonymous creator to step forward in 2022, revealing it was all an outsider art project.

If you received a random CD today with noise music on it and an album art plastered with website links, you’d probably just throw it in the trash without a second thought. But when that happened to one Reddit user in 2013, they decided to post it on the site and ask for advice. Soon, what started as a simple curiosity ballooned into a complex mystery. People began investigating the CD and uncovered GPS coordinates that led them to an old factory. Then, a mysterious “creature” began making strange posts on the subreddit, engaging with those trying to crack the case. It all turned out to be a publicity stunt for an album by a Tampa-based performance noise act called Nequam Sonitus.

Nothing fires up the mind of an online sleuth like a set of encrypted codes begging to be solved. So when a Reddit user began posting random codes with no explanation, those amateur detectives quickly got to work. The effort took years, and several heads coming together, but sure enough, the Redditors decoded every last one. You’d think that after such a grueling journey, the message would be worth the wait, right? Well, nope. Turns out, the person behind it was just a bored teenager practicing their coding skills. So, no pot of gold at the end of this rainbow, but at least, it definitely kept them busy.

Redditors have pretty much seen it all, so when they call something “the Box of Crazy,” you know it’s next level. Back in 2013, someone found a mysterious box left by the trash, so their friend brought it to Reddit’s army of pseudo detectives. The contents of this box were mind-boggling. They ranged from hand-drawn maps to non-patented illustrations, to even sketches of UFOs and strange creatures that looked straight out of the Bible. You name it, it was in there. Redditors managed to trace the box to a man named Daniel Christiansen, who died a few years earlier at 96. It’s still unknown how the box ended up in the trash, but it was likely tossed out after its owner’s passing.

Just looking at the picture in this entry will have you scratching your head… like it did for thousands of Redditors when it first popped up. The image shows a block of wood divided into four sections, with a nail driven clean through the middle two without touching the edges. How’s that possible, you ask? Well, it left many baffled, until one Redditor dropped a video revealing the trick. Simply soak the end of the block in boiling water to soften it, compress it and slide the nail through. Then, pop it back into the boiling water and surprisingly, the wood returns to its original size. Now, who’s got the tutorial for squeezing a camel through the eye of a needle?

Cicada 3301 is one of the Internet’s most tantalizing mysteries. It is seemingly a complex puzzle with the intent of recruiting the intelligent individuals who solve its various clues. The first puzzle appeared on message boards in 2012, and others have appeared again in following years. The original puzzle focused primarily on aspects of data security and cryptography, leading most to speculate that the puzzle was some sort of recruitment tool for a government agency or anonymous internet mercenary group. Many of its intricate and complex clues have been cracked by collaborating Redditors and some have claimed to have solved the entire puzzle, with a mysterious Reddit URL providing crucial clues along the way.

No, Reddit didn’t figure out how our ancestors built Stonehenge. That mystery might never be solved. No, this Stonehenge is entirely digital. In July 2011, a Redditor opened a mysterious sub that consisted entirely of nonsensical text. Redditors quickly assumed that it was a code dump, and thousands quickly got to work trying to figure out the meaning of the codes. One Redditor eventually cracked the code, finding a picture of England’s famous Stonehenge in ASCII. Other, smaller fragments of the text were decoded, but the larger meaning behind the sub and its various codes remains a mystery.

While mysterious text is one thing, creepy, unexplained videos are something else. The Webdriver Torso videos started appearing on YouTube in 2013. They consisted of a white background, moving blue and red rectangles, and unsettling beeping noises. The channel quickly gained the attention of the internet, with many speculating about its intended purpose. Some theories thrown out included a recruitment tool, spy messages, and, because this is the internet, communication from aliens. Redditors quickly got to work, and an Italian blogger traced the account to Google. YouTube eventually admitted that they were behind the videos and that they served as a testing mechanism for video quality.

This one is sure to get the paranoid conspiracy theorists going. A poster by the (rather fitting) name of shadybusiness15 blew a fuse and took apart his extension cord to assess the damage. He found what looked like a SIM card inside the cord and posted a picture of the mysterious card to Reddit. Redditors quickly figured out that the chip was a listening device. Yep, shadybusiness15 was bugged. If you called the SIM card’s number, you could listen to what the device was recording. Shadybusiness15 called the number but found the service closed. The mystery of what the device was was solved. Why his room was bugged . . . was not.

Ciphers can be fun. This one…not so much. One Redditor was allegedly given a $50 bill and a secret code while walking the streets. He posted the mysterious markings to Reddit, and the users quickly figured out that it was something called a bifid cipher. The cracked code read, “There’s plenty more money to make. Figure this out and prepare to meet.” However, the poster also got another code chastising him for getting help, and he was allegedly threatened. Theories range about the meaning of the text, including links to the Department of Defense, planning a Reddit meetup, a hoax drummed up by the poster, and a marketing ploy.

On June 26, 1995, a hitchhiker was killed in a car crash and quickly earned the moniker “Grateful Doe” due to his unconfirmed identity and Grateful Dead tickets. Years later, a Redditor opened a Grateful Doe sub and circulated reconstructed images of the deceased. The image eventually caught the attention of the deceased’s mother, who said it was her son, Jason Callahan. Callahan looked a lot like the reconstructed image and went missing in 1995 while following the Grateful Dead on tour. An investigation was opened, and a DNA test was finally done on the unidentified man. After twenty years, Callahan was found.

Hit and runs are the worst. But fear not! Reddit is here to help! A Reddit user, Meatheaded, witnessed a hit and run accident and posted a picture of the broken-off headlight to the sub r/whatisthisthing. Hundreds of car aficionados worked together and traced the headlight to a grey 1990 Cadillac Brougham. The poster later discovered that a gray Cadillac Brougham had been reported stolen in the area. A man was then linked by police to the stolen car and was charged with auto theft and several traffic-related crimes.

And here we have Reddit helping yet another cold case. Back in the ‘70s, a group of kids came across a body. The case was cold for forty long, LONG years until a sleuthing Redditor came across the body’s cemetery records and autopsy report. After posting to Reddit, another poster copied the files to the site Websleuths; a forensic artist then got involved and reconstructed the victim’s face. This image bore a striking resemblance to a teenager named Linda Pagano, who had been missing since the mid ‘70s. In October 2017, the remains of the unidentified body were exhumed, and DNA from Pagano’s [g]older siblings confirmed it was a match. This finally gave her family closure and allowed them to bury her properly.

On April 4, 2015, a man named Walter Scott was stopped for a broken brake light and later shot in the back by police officer Michael Slager. The case made international headlines, and footage from a bystander’s cell phone became a key piece of evidence. A Redditor, Daniel Voshart, stabilized and cleared-up the shaky footage. He found what looked like Scott obtaining and subsequently throwing Slager’s taser. Voshart argues that Slager may not have seen Scott disposing of the taser. Voshart’s story and potential discovery was later made into a documentary.

Sometimes Reddit can save a life. Literally. A poster by the name of RBradbury1920 posted to r/legaladvice, as someone was leaving mysterious post-it notes around his apartment. He was suitably creeped out and asked the sub what to do. One Redditor suggested that he was writing the notes himself and forgetting due to possible carbon monoxide poisoning. The OP admitted that he had been having terrible headaches, lived above the parking garage, and never plugged in his CO detector. After doing so, he found his apartment reading 100 parts per million, indicating that he was indeed suffering from CO poisoning. He checked himself into a hospital, and user Kakkerlak literally saved a life.

Are you an ardent Redditor? What online mysteries have you helped solve? Let us know in the comments below.