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Without a little mystery, life would be pretty dull. So when we come across something strange or unexplainable, it’s only human to speculate, create wild theories, or even suspect something supernatural might be behind it.
But sometimes, all those mysteries really need is time. That’s what one Reddit thread proved, as users shared baffling cases that finally got their answers. From unexplained disappearances to supposed alien encounters and famous crimes, here are some of the most fascinating ones.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
No one knew how the islanders of Easter Island moved their giant heads from one place to another. When asked how they did it, the islanders said they walked them. This sounded impossible and silly to Europeans so they ignored it. But a team of archeologists and native islanders a few years back made their own Easter Island head, tied 4 big ropes around it, then had a dozen guys on each rope pull the head side to side. It rocked corner to corner causing it to "walk" forward down the road.
So definitely not aliens.
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#2
I still don’t know why everyone asks “why don’t we have flying cars yet?”
Think about the average American driver, now give them a pilot’s license.
#3
The Roanoke colony wasn't destroyed by natives or kidnapped by aliens. They joined the local native tribe. We can tell because people in the tribe were born with blonde hair and blue eyes for decades after the colonials went "missing".
Jeremy James 1 month ago
In, "Lies My Teacher Told Me," the author suggests that this was known at the time, but the story was suppressed. Colonists defecting to the tribes was seen as a threat, because it suggested that the Native way of life was in some way preferable to the European.
#4
How the pyramids were built.
For some reason, people *still* keep saying we don’t know. Well, we do. It boils down to math + money + grunt work. The core workers and project leaders were professionals, and some slaves (likely not thousands and thousands, as previously assumed) were used for labor. It’s also known that low wage workers were used as well.
That’s it. It’s not magic. And it’s insulting to ancient people to claim that they couldn’t have had any sort of mathematical accuracy or the ability to build with precise lines. Of course they could do that. They had ropes and pulleys and understood leverage and design. They knew what tools to use. They had artisans and engineers.
Lady Eowyn 1 month ago
No, it was ancient aliens! Didn't you see the rock carving of a cargo helicopter? /j
#5
The mysterious trails of rocks at Racetrack Playa" in Death Valley National Park, California.
For many years, the cause of these mysterious rock movements was unknown. However, in recent years, scientists have discovered that the rocks move due to a combination of wind and ice. During periods of rain or melting snow, water freezes into thin sheets of ice on the surface of the lake bed. When the ice breaks apart, it can be moved by wind, and as the ice sheets move, they push the rocks along with them, leaving behind the distinctive trails.
Jane Doe-Doe 1 month ago
I remember this ‘mystery’ years ago, it was put down to aliens quite a lot
#6
Ships and planes never mysteriously vanished in the bemuda triangle, sinks sank because of rough weather, and planes dropped because they hit airborne pockets of methane and the engines stalled.
Thanks to modern navigation, not a single ship or planes sank there in over 20 years.
#7
The "bloop" sound that was recorded in the Pacific Ocean that baffled scientists was finally found to be an icequake.
David Paterson 1 month ago
Thanks! I didn't know that. Originally we didn't know if it was a whale or an earthquake or a methane bubble release.
#8
Whether the Titanic sank in one piece or not.
Many discounted those survivors who said they saw her split in two because they had a hard time believing such a mighty ship could rip apart like that.
It wasn’t until Ballard and his crew found her that the truth was revealed.
Laura Gillette 1 month ago
They also didn't believe the survivors' accounts because they were mostly women (because of the "women and children first" policy of access to lifeboats) and believed they were hysterical and must have been hallucinating due to their "heightened emotional state."
#9
How to make gold from lead.
Hundreds of years the alchemists tried it unsuccessfully. Today it is possible using a particle accelerator. However, it is far from cost efficient - mining gold is orders of magnitudes cheaper.
David Paterson 1 month ago (edited)
If you don't have room for a particle accelerator, a small nuclear reactor will do it.
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David Paterson 1 month ago
Alchemists succeeded in making silver from lead. Lead ores contain a small but valuable silver percentage. They succeeded in separating this silver from the lead metal produced from lead ores. There is no gold in lead ore, but it was worth a try.
Rick Murray 1 month ago
Well, it's not entirely correct. Particle accelerators blast particles at high speed, so what they did to "convert" lead into gold was to smack some protons out of the lead atoms to make it technically be gold for a minute fraction of a second.
Jaya 1 month ago
Oh, well that makes it a completely different story. Thanks for the info.
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Andrew Keir 1 month ago
Current price of gold bullion is around $ 4 000 per ounce. Made from particle accelerators etc, we can do it for maybe a quadrillion dollars ...
TotallyNOTAFox 1 month ago
We even know how gold is formed - it takes two neutron stars to collide for it to form naturally
Ace 1 month ago
Tiny quantities of gold nuclei that only exist for microseconds because they are so unstable .
Andrew Keir 1 month ago
I'm not sure there are any unstable isotopes of gold - or, at least, none that remain.
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Rich Black 1 month ago
this is why i wrote my congressperson to object to any more funding for particle accelerators. they don't make gold efficiently, and they haven't solved the "dark matter" mystery either.
KatWitch57 1 month ago
Step 1; remove lead from assorted roofs, churches are a good source. Step 2; sell lead to unscrupulous scrap dealers. Step 3; count your 'gold'. Simples.
#10
It was old man Jasper all along!
He pretended to be the ghost because he wanted to scare all the tourists away, that way he could search for the treasure all by himself!
#11
"Did we just find Noah's Ark?"
No, they did not.
#12
Torosaurus was actually a mature triceratops. Nanotyrannus was a baby T Rex. Stigymoloch and Dracorex are younger Pachycephalosaurus skeletons. Anatotitan was a grown up Edmontosaurus and I think there was a few others just because baby dinosaurs looked drastically different than adults.
#13
Aerodynamicicists understand perfectly well how insects, e.g. bees, fly. It's not the same as aircraft, but the clap-fling mechanism, the vortices they produce, and the resulting thrust and lift have been accurately modeled and match the measurements.
David Paterson 1 month ago
Yes. And they generate lift both on the downstroke and the upstroke of the wings. High speed videos of insects in flight helped with the solution.
#14
The "Miraculous Staircase" in the Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe, New Mexico. There was even a movie made about it starring Barbara Hershey.
One of the myths is that it stands miraculously without a center support pole and no engineer can figure out how that's possible. The center stringer is tightly wrapped with only 8" diameter. It acts as the center pole.
Nuns said a nine-day novena for a much-needed staircase, a woodworker miraculously showed up from nowhere and built the staircase. It must have been Saint Joseph! The staircase was ordered from France. The manufacturer sent a guy to put it together.
It's made of wood found nowhere in the area, it's a miracle! Because the wood is from France, duh.
And finally the guy who built it stayed in Santa Fe afterward. The local newspaper had his obituary (1896 or 1898) and even said he was the man who built the staircase.
#15
Elisa Lam, the woman found dead in the water tank on top of a hotel in Los Angeles. It wasn't a crime or ghost, she was mentally ill having a bipolar episode.
#16
The rediscoveries of lost cities such as:
The rediscovery of the location of Pompei in 1748.
The rediscovery of the location of Herculaneum in 1709.
The discovery of the location of Macchu Picchu in 1911.
David Paterson 1 month ago
And many more. Troy in 1871. Ur circa 1853. The Egyptian Labyrinth described by Herodotus. The ancient Greek city Helike finally identified in 2001. Etc.
#17
How cat(er)pillars become butterflies. When I was 12 I wanted to go university to be the first person to discover how they do it.
(Once catapillars have a cocoon, they secrete an enzyme that turns them into a puddle of stem cell filled goop and then that becomes a butterfly).
#18
Can you sail from Europe to Asia (and back to Europe) by going west?
Yes, BECAUSE THE EARTH IS ROUND AND NOT FLAT.
#19
Spontaneous generation. People used to think flies would spontaneously appear from rotten meat, as every time they had it, flies somehow would appear even though flies were no where close when the meat was okay. After observation and experiments, we understood flies landed in the meat, left their eggs, and then more flies would be born and then stay to eat the meat.
#20
The mystery of the Mary Toft: In 1726, a woman in England claimed to have given birth to rabbits. While it was believed to be a medical mystery at the time, it was later discovered that the rabbits had been inserted into her womb by a local surgeon.
#21
A man in Florida fooled people for years into believing there was a giant penguin walking the beaches, the haox began in 1958 and was only revealed to be a hoax in 1988.
#22
Just last year the identity of the Somerton Man was discovered.
“The Somerton Man was an unidentified man whose body was found on 1 December 1948 on the beach at Somerton Park, a suburb of Adelaide, South Australia. The case is also known after the Persian phrase tamám shud (Persian: تمام شد),[note 1] meaning "is over" or "is finished", which was printed on a scrap of paper found months later in the fob pocket of the man's trousers. The scrap had been torn from the final page of a copy of Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyám, authored by 12th-century poet Omar Khayyám.”
#23
The Solway Firth Spaceman became popular in ufology as it supposedly showed a mysterious figure in the background. For 50 years no one quite knew what it really was till someone analysed the photo and concluded it was actually the mother who accidentally walked into the photo. The reason she looked like a spaceman was because of overexposure.
#24
The mystery of how the far side of the Moon actually looks:
"Until the late 1950s, little was known about the far side of the Moon. Librations periodically allowed limited glimpses of features near the lunar limb on the far side, but only up to 59% of the total surface of the Moon.[14]"
"Before space exploration began, astronomers did not expect that the far side would be different from the side visible to Earth. On 7 October 1959, the Soviet probe Luna 3 took the first photographs of the lunar far side, eighteen of them resolvable, covering one-third of the surface invisible from the Earth."
#25
The Mandela effect doesn’t exist, you just suck at remembering.
#26
“The Easter islanders disappeared”, including theories that they cut down all the trees to make rollers for the Moai.
It’s a totally fabricated theory by Jared Diamond, as the Easter islands never cut down every trees (in fact they didn’t even use rollers to transport the statues), and they never died out. Their descendants are alive today, with some of them hired as tour guides on the island itself.
Andrew Keir 1 month ago
Jared Diamond's books are generally worth reading, though - especially "Guns, Germs and Steel". And "Collapse" if you can stomach it ...
#27
The two ships of the lost Franklin expedition of 1845 were both found in the last decade sunk in the "Northwest Passage" (northern Canada). The mystery of what happened to the crew (126 men I think) has been speculated upon with plenty of solid theories but very few remains have been found. The ships are still being examined and may contain more clues.
#28
Most dinosaurs would likely have made some variation of a honk/bark. Jurassic Park got it p close with the sound of their raptors. Also the moai heads have bodies, and they just look like normal guys.
RamiRudolph 1 month ago
Even so, there's hardly anything cooler than the Tyrannosaurus roaring in JP.
#29
The luminiferous ether. It was thought to be the medium through which light would travel. Since light could behave like a wave, and waves needed a medium, it was assumed there needed to be a medium for light that was both transparent (because we couldn’t see it) and infinitely rigid (because the ‘stiffness’ of the medium corresponds to wave speed). Turns out, light is an electromagnetic wave that can travel through a vacuum.
Lady Eowyn 1 month ago
I thought light could behave as a wave or a particle. Or am I remembering something else?
#30
They recently found out who the Somerton man was. I hope one day they find the Beaumont children.
Drop Bear from Hell 1 month ago
Jane Nartare Beaumont (born 10 September 1956), Arnna Kathleen Beaumont (born 11 November 1958) and Grant Ellis Beaumont (born 12 July 1961), collectively referred to as the Beaumont children, were three Australian siblings who disappeared from Glenelg Beach near Adelaide, South Australia, on 26 January 1966 (Australia Day) in a suspected abduction and m****r.[1] Police investigations revealed that, on the day of their disappearance, several witnesses had seen the three children on and near Glenelg Beach in the company of a tall man with fairish to light-brown hair and a thin face with a sun-tanned complexion and medium build, in his mid-thirties. Confirmed sightings of the children occurred at the Colley Reserve and at Wenzel's cake shop on Moseley Street, Glenelg. Despite numerous searches, neither the children nor their suspected companion were located.
#31
The legends of Troy. Thought to be complete fiction. Only for the actual city to be found. So the stories of the Trojan war are based in fact. Although I don’t know if they have ever been able to find proof to back up any of the details of the Trojan wars depicted in the great epics. Been a while since I tried researching it.
#33
The location of Larry Ely Murillo-Moncada. Missing since 2009, his remains were found in a former No Frills Supermarket in Council Bluffs, Iowa. He apparently had fallen in a 18-inch gap between shelves and coolers, and no one heard his screams.
Drop Bear from Hell 1 month ago
I don't understand why they didn't smell him as he decomposed.
#34
Atlantis
It was made up by Plato in a writing talking about this great power that Athens fought off in a pretty clear propaganda piece.
The similarities to the Greco Persian wars and the Peloponnesian wars are astounding. He also claims that the story is passed through his family and no one else is supposed to know it which is why he’s the only person who knows about Atlantis. It’s likely even the Ancient Greeks laughed at the idea it was real.
Wyrdwoman 1 month ago
Having just come back from Santorini, the thought is the island played a large part in the myth, as it was a round island until about 6000(?) years ago. Then its volcano went bang and a lot of the island was swamped by a tsunami. The outcome of the eruption caused the demise of the Minoan culture and possibly explains the parting of the Red Sea myth.
#35
The "Disappearance of MH370"
1) Bits of the plane have washed up along Indian Ocean shores in a manner that would be expected from drift from the projected crash location;
2) One of the two pilots was almost certainly responsible, and of the two pilots, one profiles as much more likely to be responsible, because they kept a private flight simulator that showed MH370's path in the disappearance.
#36
The location of King Tut's tomb which was finally found in 1922.
Kirsten Kerkhof 1 month ago
That was not exactly a mystery that got solved. Tutankhamen was such an insignificant pharaoh that until his tomb was found, he was almost entirely unknown. And he is only famous now because his tomb was mostly intact.
#37
While not objectively solved, I can say this with almost certainty.
But yeah, D.B. Cooper died of hypothermia either on the way down or in the wilderness. The dude jumped out into -7 degree weather with lord knows what the windchill was like going from a plane WHILE IT WAS RAINING. The man had no protection from the elements and landed miles away from civilization. He'd have died within 45 minutes.
As for his body? Most likely eaten by animals.
#40
That stranded cosmonaut recording is 99% likely to be a hoax, Many have discredited if the brother's technology was even capable of picking up the signal of a Cosmonaut who's drifted off course, but the real smoking gun is that the woman in the audio recording is speaking in broken Russian and the two brothers who "picked up the signal" had a sister who was currently learning Russian which would explain the limited vocabulary and pronunciation issues that skeptics have pointed out.
#41
Elisa Lam could have gotten both on the roof and into the watertank by herself and her family does not think any foul play was involved as Elisa had mental health problems and they were used to seeing her act strange when off her medication.
#42
The Mary Celeste was probably abandoned as part of an insurance fraud.
Lady Eowyn 1 month ago
I'd like to see more documentation on this. I've never heard this particular theory. But if you believe Doctor Who, it was Daleks who scared everyone into jumping overboard.
#43
Not a worldwide mystery but a mystery amongst my Mom’s side of the family, when my mom was little like 8-13 years old, she was so close (until now) with her cousins that they all play together almost everyday in their Grandma’s house and that house is a 2nd story house. So here’s how the mystery started, my mom, her siblings, and her male cousins played with a ball, and the ball went upstairs and into the only room that the stairs went to, but then the door suddenly went open and the ball bounced down the stairs, there was a moment of silence, and then they all ran to their grandma saying that there’s a ghost, so their grandma comforted them and told the maid to check on it, and then she found no one there. A few weeks after that incident, they never went up to that room and then they started to forget about it. Many years later (2 months ago), my whole family went to my mom’s hometown and she spent time with her brothers and female cousin of hers to go the cemetery to visit grandpa, as we were going, my mom remembered that story and started talking about it, then my mom said “We never really knew who threw the ball back haha” and then her cousin said “that was me!” So my mom, her brothers and her cousin all laughed because the mystery was finally solved, sadly her cousin passed away 2 months ago, she revealed the mystery before she died of breast cancer, may she rest in peace.
#44
The moving rocks in the desert. Thin layer of ice forms during the night and very strong winds move the rocks. It was finally observed on camera.
#45
I'm pretty sure Jeremy Wade solved the mystery of loch Ness.
The entire story they put together paints a pretty clear to me picture anyway that it is probably a Greenland shark.
#46
Everyone loves a good mystery, but some have good enough theories that I think they have essentially been solved:
Emelia Earhart probably crash landed on Nikumaroro Island
Those hikers on the Dyatlov Pass incident probably died because the stove they brought with them caused a fire in the tent.
Those settlers on Roanoke Island probably left and went to the Croatoans.
Lady Eowyn 1 month ago
Amelia Earhart. As far as I can recall, there was no evidence of fire in the Dyatlov Pass incident.
#47
The Wilhelm Scream is actually from a movie in which a guy is bitten by an alligator.
Lady Eowyn 1 month ago
The Wilhelm Scream sound effect was best known for its usage in lots of movies. This was originally a Warner Bros sound effect. Vocal effect of a man yelling, composed of 6 yells. The 4th yell is most often used when someone is shot, falls from a great height, thrown from an explosion, or kicked by some people. Debuted in Distant Drums in 1951. It shouldn't be confused with Voices - Male Assorted Screams. Very Wilhelm Like and Screams Male Various PE975004. Contents 1Info 2Clean, Full Length and Unedited Link to the Sound Effect 3Used In 3.1TV Shows 3.2TV Specials 3.3Movies 3.4Shorts 3.5Video Games 3.6Videos/DVDs 3.7Theme Parks 3.8Bumpers/Interstitials/Station IDs 3.9Commercials 3.10Logos 3.11Promos 3.12Trailers 3.13TV Spots 3.14Music 3.15Musicals 3.16Websites 3.17Radio Programming 3.18Newgrounds Videos 3.19Twitter Videos 3.20YouTube Videos 3.21Other Media 3.22Special Features 3.23Web Originals 3.24Abridged Anime 3.25Anime 4Image Gallery 5Audio Samples 6
#48
Kids love Cinnamon Toast Crunch because it's all sugar.
#49
"We've only explored 10 percent of the ocean, we don't know whats out there!" Yes we do. Water and rocks.
What do you think ?
Apatheist Account2 1 month ago
One that hasn't been solved: why idiots think that spamming BP with highly dubious ways of making money will actually attract anyone to their pathetic websites, rather than just annoy the hell out of everyone to no purpose whatsoever.
Otto Katz 1 month ago
I report every one as spam. But does BP do anything about them? That is my honest question.
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David Paterson 1 month ago
I have a few more. La Perouse sailed away from Botany Bay in 1788 and was never seen again. It was recently discovered that were wrecked on Vanikoro in the Solomon Islands. The wreck was discovered in 1964. Jeanne Louise Calment had a documented lifespan of 122 years and 164 days. It now looks as if she died young and her younger sister took over her identity in order to avoid death duties.
Otto Katz 1 month ago
The French "oldest woman", right? How much younger was her sister? And France has a tax you have to pay when you die? That's funny.
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Danielle 1 month ago
My favourite is 'what happens to the Swallows in the winter?' mystery. Many ideas submitted over the years, Aristotle thought they went into the lakes and hibernated in the mud. No one put together that the swallows they see in Africa in the winter are the same swallows they see in Europe in the summer until the 18th Century.
Roxy222uk 1 month ago
Who were all these people that were in the toe end of Africa in the winter and back in Europe in the summer?
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Jonathan Labelle 1 month ago
The most mysterious song on the internet was call subway of your mind byba band call fex
Apatheist Account2 1 month ago
One that hasn't been solved: why idiots think that spamming BP with highly dubious ways of making money will actually attract anyone to their pathetic websites, rather than just annoy the hell out of everyone to no purpose whatsoever.
Otto Katz 1 month ago
I report every one as spam. But does BP do anything about them? That is my honest question.
Load More Replies... David Paterson 1 month ago
I have a few more. La Perouse sailed away from Botany Bay in 1788 and was never seen again. It was recently discovered that were wrecked on Vanikoro in the Solomon Islands. The wreck was discovered in 1964. Jeanne Louise Calment had a documented lifespan of 122 years and 164 days. It now looks as if she died young and her younger sister took over her identity in order to avoid death duties.
Otto Katz 1 month ago
The French "oldest woman", right? How much younger was her sister? And France has a tax you have to pay when you die? That's funny.
Load More Replies... Danielle 1 month ago
My favourite is 'what happens to the Swallows in the winter?' mystery. Many ideas submitted over the years, Aristotle thought they went into the lakes and hibernated in the mud. No one put together that the swallows they see in Africa in the winter are the same swallows they see in Europe in the summer until the 18th Century.
Roxy222uk 1 month ago
Who were all these people that were in the toe end of Africa in the winter and back in Europe in the summer?
Load More Replies... Jonathan Labelle 1 month ago
The most mysterious song on the internet was call subway of your mind byba band call fex
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