Top 20 Mysteries You've Never Heard Of

Boston, Kansas City, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires: what do all of these locations have in common? In all of these cities and many more, embedded in seemingly random streets, are linoleum tiles containing cryptic messages about death. The phrase “Resurrect dead on Planet Jupiter” is present on many of the tiles, as well as references to Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey.” A couple of different theories have been put forth as to the identity of the Tiler, including a 2011 documentary, but no proof or admission from the Tiler has confirmed any of them. If it was one person, why go through the trouble of travelling around the world?

Starting sometime in 2016, diplomatic personnel in Cuba began to experience a weird range of health problems such as memory loss, hearing loss, and nausea. Follow up studies found that there was evidence of brain injuries. However, when questioned, the victims said that they heard a strange noise like a grating sound or marbles rolling on the floor, although others nearby did not hear this. Quasi unusual... but when recordings of the sound were captured, the closest thing researchers could find were Jamaican field crickets, which are harmless. No cause has been found, and theories range from microwave weapons to pesticides.

Don’t bring your dogs near this next mystery. The Overtoun Bridge in Scotland is a seemingly normal bridge like any other, except for the staggering amount of dogs that have jumped to their deaths from the structure. Local tabloids have estimated that around 600 dogs have leaped off this bridge, seemingly for no reason. Residents tell of their dogs pausing on the bridge as if possessed before unexpectedly jumping. Some dogs have reportedly jumped twice! Paranormal theories abound, including spirits and ghosts, while the most scientific explanation is that the dogs are smelling wildlife below. But if that’s the case, why this bridge in particular?

One winter morning in 1855, residents of Devon, England woke to find an eerie phenomenon. Hoof prints, some four inches long, were found across 40 to 100 miles of snow, as well as on roofs, walls, and even in drain pipes! Residents might have been able to write the markings off as belonging to a donkey or other animal, except they appeared in a variety of unreachable places. Even stranger, they were all in a single line instead of alternating left and right. No animal walks in such a unique way. To this day, no satisfactory theory exists, but residents think it was Satan himself.

Try rationalizing this one. Benjamin Bathurst was a British diplomat in the 19th century. He was traveling through Germany in November, 1809, with his aide Herr Krause when something strange happened. They were walking to the carriage together, but when Krause got in, he suddenly couldn’t find Bathurst. Investigations uncovered his valuable fur coat in an outhouse and pantaloons miles away in the woods. His wife spent a fortune trying to find him, but to no avail. It’s thought he was murdered, and a possible skeleton was found many years later. Bathurst was known to carry pistols; how could no one have seen or heard him being taken?

There was more to worry about than World War 2 in the small town of Pascagoula, Mississippi in 1942. A mysterious person dressed in a white began sneaking into homes and cutting off locks of people’s hair in the middle of the night. This phantom seemed to prefer blonde hair, and he was rarely seen in the act. Though his intrusions were usually non violent, police think he used chloroform to knock out a victim and on one occasion, he beat a couple unconscious with an iron bar. A suspect was later arrested, and then released. No definitive identity has ever been given for this ghastly figure.

Sisters Joanna and Jacqueline Pollock were 11 and 6 years old, respectively, when they were killed in a car accident. The devastated parents decided to have another child and gave birth to twins, Gillian and Jennifer. These twins shared so many similarities with the deceased sisters, including birthmarks, behaviors and preferences, and memories from before the accident, behaviors, that they seemed to be perfect reincarnations. Many simply dismiss the case as a hoax, but both parents were convinced that these twins were their original daughters. The case is often touted as evidence of true resurrection.

This is a scary one. A sickness began sweeping through the world shortly after World War 1, and it would become so widespread it became an epidemic. It was called Lethargic Encephalitis, and it put people in a sort of coma where they were conscious but unable to speak or move - like living statues. Close to a million people died, and millions more were helplessly trapped in their bodies. No scientist to this day can explain what or how this sickness spread, and it is one of the biggest medical mysteries in history.

We’ve all heard of Roswell, but have you heard of the alien shipwreck in Aurora, Texas? In 1897 an airship that looked like a cigar allegedly collided with a windmill and exploded. People reported seeing a non-human pilot and papers with an unrecognizable language that resembled hieroglyphics. The pilot was supposedly buried, but the grave marker disappeared. The cemetery declined a request from the Mutual UFO Network to exhume the site. Conspiracy theorists believe that the wreckage was confiscated by the military, so all that’s left are accounts and memories. Was this a misconstrued event, or a real alien shipwreck?

The Big Grey Man, known as Am Fear Liath Mòr in Scottish Gaelic, is not actually a man. It’s said to be a creature or spirit living in the isolated Cairngorms mountains in Scotland. Various accounts of the creature tell of a tall spectre shrouded in mist that inflicts terrible fear and panic in the victims. Nearly all accounts report footsteps following them in the gravel before they encounter the entity. Another explanation that’s been proposed is that it’s a Brocken spectre - where the user’s shadow is enlarged on a cloud bank. We sure hope so!

In December of 1900, three lighthouse keepers mysteriously vanished without a trace on the uninhabited island of Eilean Mòr. When people went to check on them, they found a spare oilskin and unmade beds, suggesting something suddenly aroused them from their sleep. The mechanical clocks had not been wound for some time either. No evidence of foul play was found, and the bodies were never seen again. The leading theory is that waves pulled them into the Atlantic Ocean, but it’s forbidden to leave the lighthouse unmanned, so why did they all venture outside? And why did one leave his oilskin suit? It may forever be a mystery.

In 1518, in the Holy Roman Empire, the city of Strasbourg was reportedly struck with one of the strangest plagues in history: an inability to stop dancing. What started with one woman busting some moves somehow turned into mass hysteria that lasted for days. Residents found themselves unable to stop, and some sources report that many danced themselves to death! To this day, no one knows what really happened. Some believe the residents had ingested Ergot, a hallucinogenic fungi, while others point to stress-induced hysteria. Oddly enough, this plague also reportedly occurred in Switzerland, Holland, and Germany, though not to the same extent.

This is the sort of puzzle that keeps you up at night. In 1948, an unidentified dead body washed ashore in South Australia. What ensued was a wild scavenger hunt with dead ends everywhere. In the man’s pocket was a torn piece of paper that read “Tamam Shud” which is Persian for “Finished.” The paper led them to the book it was torn from, the “Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyám”, along with a phone number and cryptic message that has yet to be decoded. The number was of a local nurse, who denied knowing the dead man. Investigators discovered a discarded suitcase that they believe belonged to the body, but it had a fake name. One of Australia's biggest mysteries is still an open case.

This strange rock formation is located in the Bahamas. The underwater path stretches for exactly half a mile before ending abruptly. The limestone blocks seem to have been precisely cut and stacked, leading some to claim that it must have been manmade. What makes this even stranger is that some 30 years before divers discovered it, modern prophet Edgar Cayce said the road leading to the lost city of Atlantis was near Bimini. Geologists argue that this is a naturally occurring formation, but there are still believers who argue that it must have been built by an ancient civilization.

It’s one thing when a small dingy vanishes, but how does the largest ship in the Navy suddenly disappear? That’s what happened in 1918, when the USS Cyclops was making a trip to Baltimore. The last message sent front the ship is simple: “Weather Fair, All Well.” Normally when ships disappear, some remnant or flotsam of the vessel washes ashore, but nothing whatsoever has been found of the Cyclops. Even more eerily, it vanished within the infamous Bermuda Triangle. No enemy ships were ever reported in the region. The navy has called it one of the most confusing mysteries in its history.

Picture it. 1942, off the coast of California. Two US Navy pilots command the Navy's L-8 blimp in search for Japanese submarines in waters not so far from San Francisco. They radio flight control about an oil slick on the water... and are never heard from again. A few hours later that very same L-8 blimp crashes into a cliff... with no one on board. Everything in or about the craft was working normally, the throttles were idle, and – more eerily – the parachutes and lifeboat were still on board. To this day no one knows what happened, and the personnel involved were never found.

Brazil’s Guanabara Bay contains a lot of trash, but the trash that people can’t explain is the 200 or so Roman ceramic jars found submerged in an underwater field – an underwater field the size of three tennis courts. According to experts, these jars trace back to the third century. However, European explorers didn’t even reach Brazil until 1500, and the Romans themselves had little to no incentive to travel that far out. Thus, it’s a complete mystery why their artifacts would be found here. Meanwhile, Brazil closed off the area in 1983, so it’s unlikely an answer will ever be found.

If you haven’t heard of this one, strap in. The Voynich Manuscript is a mysterious 250-page book written in a completely unknown language and containing odd, other-wordly sketches. Its origin is unable to be fully traced, so no one knows who created it let alone why, but carbon dating puts it in the early 15th century. So far no one has been able to decode the script it's written in, despite being worked on by professional codebreakers from both World War I and II. What strange message lies inside this uncrackable book?

In 1987, two television stations in Chicago were hijacked in perhaps the most surreal act of video piracy ever recorded. Both instances featured an unidentified man dressed as obscure TV personality Max Headroom dancing to distorted audio. The second video, significantly longer, saw the man rambling incoherently in a distorted voice and being swatted on the behind by an offscreen accomplice. The segments lasted no more than a couple of minutes, but have gone down as among the most notorious incidents in television history. No one has ever identified who pulled it off, or even why. We can only hope someone comes forward after all this time to put an end to this mystery.

Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.

Kryptos
This Sculpture Outside of CIA Headquarters Contains a Famous Unsolved Code


The Spooklight
This Floating Light Has Been Spotted for Over 100 Years Near Hornet, Missouri.

According to legend, in the 12th century, two children were found in the village of Woolpit, England. Their skin was green, they spoke gibberish, and they only ate broad beans. Eventually they learned to eat normal food and speak English, and they claimed they were from a different world where there was no sun. The boy soon died of a mysterious illness, but the girl lived on. A few accounts from around the same time reference the tale. One leading theory proposes that the children were lost and malnourished Flemish immigrants from another town in Suffolk. Others claim that they were extraterrestrials, or from inside the Earth itself!