Top 20 Creepiest Mysteries That Were Finally Solved
#20: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition
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For centuries, explorers sought out a Northwest Passage between the Atlantic and Pacific through the Arctic Ocean, but their expeditions often ended in disaster. One of the most famous was British Royal Navy officer John Franklin’s in 1845. His expedition’s ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, never returned. Search parties recovered only artifacts and human remains. With the passing of time however, we’ve pieced together the full story. The ships got trapped in pack ice, and the crew died from starvation, hypothermia, and disease. The sunken Erebus and Terror were finally found in 2014 and 2016, respectively.
#19: Pierre April
Imagine waking up in a ditch with only $17 in your pocket and no idea who you are or where you came from. That’s what happened to amnesiac Pierre April in May, 1992. April was found wandering the streets of San Diego and taken to a shelter. Pieces of his life started coming back to him, including faces and talents, but nothing came of his attempts to connect to his past life. In September, his case was featured on an episode of “Unsolved Mysteries.” This episode was seen by an old colleague of April’s named Carol. She phoned the show’s tip line and told them all they needed to know. April was happily reunited with his family, and his memory has since recovered.
#18: Umbrella Man
The assassination of John F. Kennedy in November, 1963, prompted countless conspiracy theories. Some of the more interesting ones were about a figure spotted in photos and films of the event, who had been brandishing an umbrella despite the sunny weather. Could he have been complicit in the assassination? He remained a mystery for 15 years, until 1978, when Louie Steven Witt came forth. Witt identified himself as the Umbrella Man, and said that the umbrella was meant as a symbolic protest against Kennedy. An umbrella had been the trademark accessory of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, infamous for initially appeasing the Nazi Party. And with that, one of the world’s most tantalizing mysteries fizzled out with a disappointing answer.
#17: The Paulding Light of Michigan
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Speaking of horribly disappointing answers, let’s discuss the Paulding Light! Paulding is a small community in western Michigan that houses a famous piece of folklore. Just outside of town, onlookers can spot a bright light flashing on and off at the end of a valley. The people of Paulding have many supernatural explanations for this light, including ghosts. One particularly creepy story claims that it’s a grandparent looking for their lost grandchild with a flickering lantern. But the truth is far more boring. Turns out, it’s actually just headlights from a nearby highway. So…yeah. Bummer.
#16: The Somerton Man
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One of Australia’s enduring mysteries may have been finally solved in the summer of 2022. On December 1, 1948, a body was found in Adelaide’s Somerton Park. He was wearing American clothes embroidered with the name “Keane.” Inside his pocket was a scrap of paper reading “tamám shud” - Persian for “is finished.” The book that this paper was torn from was eventually located, and investigators found cryptic text written on the cover. In July 2022, DNA helped identify the man as Carl Webb. It’s also now believed that the “cryptic” text found in the book were the names of horses, as Webb often gambled on horse racing. And finally, the clothes were likely passed down from his nephew, who once lived in the United States.
#15: The Bloop
Top 10 Creepiest Mysteries That Were Finally Solved
Many people have a fear of the deep ocean, and it’s because of things like this. The Bloop was a very loud underwater noise captured in 1997 by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It was so loud that it was detected by sensors over 3,000 miles away. It doesn’t sound like much at normal speed, but it takes on its signature “bloop” noise when sped up. Believers in Cthulhu immediately went to ‘giant underwater monster’, but once again, the truth is more mundane. It wasn’t a massive creature, but an ice quake as a result of glacial movements. Man, science can’t let us have any fun…
#14: Anastasia’s Fate
On July 17 1918, far-left revolutionaries, the Bolsheviks, murdered the Russian imperial Romanov family. In the aftermath, rumors circulated that Grand Duchess Anastasia, who was 17, had somehow escaped and survived. Her body could not be located, and several people came forward claiming to be the lost Anastasia. However, these stories turned out to be outright lies or the result of mental illness, as was the case with famous imposter Anna Anderson. The longstanding rumor was officially put to rest when the remains of the royal family were identified with DNA. Grand Duchess Anatasia was among them, proving that she died with the rest of the Romanovs.
#13: Lady Be Good
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The World War II bomber Lady Be Good was used to conduct a raid on Naples on April 4, 1943. However, it disappeared on its way back to Libya, and both the plane and its crew were considered lost. No one knew what happened, and the plane was not recovered. That is, until 1958, when the crashed aircraft was spotted in the Libyan Desert. This raised even more questions, as the plane was remarkably preserved and showed no signs of the crew. All the questions were subsequently answered after an investigation. The pilots had gotten lost in a sandstorm and ejected from the craft when it ran out of fuel. The plane crashed and the men died while walking through the desert.
#12: Sailing Stones
It’s one of the most bizarre sights that can be seen in nature. A lone rock stands in the middle of the desert. A massive trail snakes behind it, as if it has been pushed across the ground. However, no footsteps and no signs of animal activity can be found. These stones are especially notable in the Racetrack Playa of California’s Death Valley. So just what in the heck is going on with these rocks? The phenomenon has tantalized researchers for decades, but the mystery has only recently been cracked. The valley floor produces a very thin layer of ice, and the rocks slide across these sheets when the ice starts to melt. The movement leaves indentations in the ground, resulting in their signature trails.
#11: 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.
#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 Construction of the Pyramids
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The Giza pyramids are arguably the most famous landmarks in the world. They continue to stand tall (literally) after thousands of years. Their construction has baffled people for millennia, leading some to suggest that aliens must have been involved! After all, humans couldn’t possibly drag and lift those stones into place, right? Well, yes they could. Researchers believe that workers loaded the blocks onto sledges and wet the sand to make them easier to drag. They raised the blocks using ramps and levering techniques. This took tens of thousands of people decades to complete, but hey, no one said building a Wonder of the World was easy!
#8: The Tunguska Event
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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 Golden State Killer
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One of the most notorious criminals in American history, the Golden State Killer has gone by many names. He terrorized California throughout the 70s and 80s, sexually assaulting at least 51 women, burglarizing over 100 homes, and murdering 13 people. He was given different names in different areas, including the Visalia Ransacker and the Night Stalker. Only with time did it become apparent that these crime sprees were the work of one person. The name Golden State Killer was coined in 2013 by crime writer Michelle McNamara. The case helped inspire the creation of California’s DNA database, and it was DNA evidence that eventually nabbed Joseph James DeAngelo in 2018, who by then was 72 years old. He was sentenced to life in prison.
#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.
