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The disappearance of Nancy Guthrie has turned ordinary people around the world into armchair detectives. The 84-year-old mother of Today show host, Savannah Guthrie was taken from her Arizona home in the early hours of 1 February. At the time of publication, she's still been found despite hundreds of investigators working on the case, and more than 20,000 tips from the public being called in.
Guthrie's is just one of hundreds of thousands of cases that remain unsolved since the 1960s- and that's only in the United States. Someone recently asked, "What’s the arguably best-known (and scary) unsolved mystery in your country?" and more than 1,000 comments came pouring in as people took a short break from dissecting doorbell footage from Tucson, or coming up with their own conspiracy theories.
In honor of those like Madelaine McCann and JonBenét Ramsey, Bored Panda has put together a list of mysteries from around the world that have never been forgotten, and need to be solved...
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
Since no one said it, I nominate the lost MH 370 for Malaysia.
It's always been puzzling how a thing as big as that just vanished without any sign. They are about to search for it again so I hope the families would have closure this time.
David Paterson 1 hour ago
Very little floating debris. Like it hit the water without breaking up.
RELATED:
#2
I'd say lake Bodom murders, an unsolved triple homicide that happened in the 60's. Four teenagers went camping on lake Bodom and three of them had their skulls crushed with a stone. The famous metal band Children of Bodom is named after the murders.
#3
I am from japan and my english is bad sorry. if you ask japanese people what is scary unsolved mystery many say the sos incident of mt asahidake. it happen in 1989 in hokkaido. details are so crazy. helicopter was looking for hikers and saw huge sign on ground made of logs spelling s o s. they land and found skeleton but here is the crazy part. the skeleton was female but missing hiker was man. also the logs were giant white birch trees and experts say impossible for one person to move them. need 5 or 6 men but no footprints found.
the most scary part is tape recording. in backpack they found tape and played it. it was man voice screaming s o s help me i can not move. sounds not like human but like someone copying human. police play tape to parents and they say not our son voice. so who make the sign? local rumor in hokkaido says after police took body the sos sign appear again. logs back in same spot but nobody climb mountain. rumor is the thing making sign is not human but a mimic or yokai. it learned that sos brings humans which is food from sky. the tape was not distress call it was like duck call for humans. even today we get scared seeing birch trees.
#4
For Italy I’d say Emanuela Orlandi’s disappearance.
She was a 15-year-old Vatican citizen who went missing on June 22, 1983 in Rome after she finished her routinely music lessons at school. Her schoolmates, who were the last people who saw her, claim that the last time they saw Emanuela was at the bus stop where she told her friends she wouldn’t take the bus with them because it was too crowded. She never made it back home.
Her disappearance still haunts Italians and after more than 40 years it’s still a mystery than everyone has heard about. She was never found and it’s still unknown if she is still alive or not (even though it’s highly likely that she’s died at this point).
Her family and the public opinion generally agree that the Vatican state has something to do with her disappearance and that people in the high places don’t want anyone to discover the truth because of the scandal it would cause.
Many tracks have been followed, including that it was a political kidnapping related to the attempted murder of Pope John Paul II by Mehmet Ali Agca (who still claims that Emanuela is still alive hidden somewhere in either France or Switzerland).
The disappearance of another 15-year-old girl just a month before Emanuela’s (Mirella Gregori, disappeared on May 7, 1983) and the unsolved murder mystery of a 17-year-old girl (Katty Skerl, found dead on January 21, 1984), both in Rome, have also been linked to the Orlandi case.
#5
I'm still wondering where Shelly Miscavage, wife of David Miscavage the head of Scientology, is.
#6
I guess technically it wasn't *in* our country however Madeleine Mccann is probably the most famous missing British child.
#7
There was an Australian Prime Minister called Harold Holt. One morning he went for a swim at the beach and never returned. No body has ever been found.
There's lots of crazy conspiracy theories about what happened. My favorite I've heard is that he was secretly a spy for China and hitched a ride on a Chinese submarine.
#8
The hinterkaifek murders. In 1922, A whole family was k****d in their house in the small village of hinterkaifek.
The mysterious thing about the murders are that the m******r seemed to live on the property a few days after they k****d the family. They ate the food in the house, fed the animals on the property and used the fireplace.
A few days before the murders, one of the daughters of the family reported hearing steps on the attic but nothing/no one was found.
#9
The "Frog Boys" Case. In 1992, five kids aged between 10~14 went up a small mountain to find lizard eggs and went missing, the president himself made a special order to find the boys so all the police and military did a nationwide search, while big corps printed millions of posters and included the boys' photos on their products in effort to find them. all of their skeletal remains get found on the same mountain 11.5 years later.
Some assumed they got lost and passed away due to hypothermia but this theory quickly got overturned because investigators found out 3 of the boys sustained damage on their skull which were made when they were still alive. Till this day nobody knows what really happened, various theories exist but they have their own flaws. We literally have 0 clues or evidence. The statue of limitations for this case expired in 2006, so it's impossible to punish the m******r(s) even if they turned themselves over.
#10
Barry and Honey Sherman. Canadian billionaire and his wife found m******d in their home in late 2017. Their bodies were found in the indoor pool area staged like statues they had in another room. This high profile m****r investigation has gone cold.
#11
He died in London but he was Welsh - MI6 ‘employee’ Gareth Williams was found dead in a large bag that was locked shut with a padlock. He had a large quantity of designer women’s clothes in his house despite him not having a partner (of either gender).
Known flippantly as the ‘Spy in a bag’ case.
Vix Spiderthrust 32 minutes ago
The official story was that he'd done it to himself, which, come the fu*k on
#12
Possibly the disappearance of the Beaumont children.
From wiki: 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.
The case received worldwide attention and is credited with causing a change in Australian lifestyles, since parents began to believe that their children could no longer be presumed to be safe when unsupervised in public. Police and media speculation has linked the disappearances to the Adelaide Oval abductions of 1973. Interest in the case has continued for more than half a century. As of 2018, a A$1 million reward has been offered for information related to the cold case by the South Australian government.
The family m**ders is pretty messed up also. One suspect was caught and died in prison recently but he never disclosed any useful information.
#13
Maybe the beast of gevaudan, it's was an animal who k****d and often ate around 100 people, mostly kids and women and injured many survivors, between 1764 and 1767 in the region of gevaudan, modern day lozere.
It looked like a dog/wolf but was definetly not a wolf according to survivors, people said it was the size of a veal. Many hunters and soldiers were deployed to k**l it, some swore they hit it with bullets but it got back up right away and the killings kept happening after. people often reported attacks that happened at different areas at the same time which gave a kind of supernatural vibe to it, the chuch at the time called it a curse by god to punish the farmers of the area who were straying away from god.
It quickly became a state scandal and the king was being ridiculed by its rival countries. The killings finally stoped after an animal was k****d, the autopsy described it as a canid, that looked kinda like a wolf and kinda like a dog. there's a theory that there were 2 or 3 of these animals and they were a litter which explained the attacks at different places at the same time. with each k*****g of an animal who was strongly suspected of being the beast the killings diminished, until the final one. Many many innocent wolfs were k****d by the army and hunters to try to solve the problem.
To this day they still don't know what it was exactly, but probably a wolf/dog hybrid, the bones were not kept.
The autopsy report is called the "rapport marin".
#14
I just learned about her, really interesting case!
In Mexico, sadly there are many but the most notorious one in these years was Debahni Escobar.
She attended three parties with two friends. They move by Uber, so they agree with the driver who takes them to the first party to move them to the other two places but charging for the trip outside the app, kinda as a personal driver. (Kinda common here tbh)
When they are in the third party, seems like Debanhi gets drunk and her two friends decide to call the uber driver to take their friend home so they could remain in the party.
But then, according to the driver something happens between Debanhi and him and that he left her in the middle of the road. It was like 3-4 am, she allegedly was being difficult. The driver took a picture of her just where he left her and sent it to her friends. Sadly this is the last picture of her seen alive.
Hours later her parents realize she is missing and they start looking for her with the authorities.
The area around the girls attended the party is an area soundrounded by motels (love hotels), factories and outdoor venues. So it not like a normal neighborhood. All places near were allegedly checked by the police.
There was a motel (love hotel) near the venue of the last party Debahni attended and it had a water tank. Authorities claimed to have checked the water tank.
A week later, her body was found there.
Plenty of rumours and speculations around it.
Some people blamed the uber driver, some others said the friends tried to prostitute her, a random guy was blamed too.
Even the motel posted a weird promotional video of the motel with an interesting fitting song too. (Para poder llegar a ti - Ramon Ayala)
There was recorded videos of security cameras of Debahni inside the motel alone and outside the party arguing with her friend and other people.
Poor girl, had three autopsies.
To this day, I don't think people knows what happened.
#15
Lars Mittank disappeared in Bulgaria after behaving quite strangely. The disappearance didn't happen in Germany, but since he is from Germany and was actually on his way home, I think it still fits.
Another one was the YOGTZE case but they actually closed the case last year. And well, it was just an accident, so no mystery at all.
#17
For us it's the Seuso Hoard. Roman silverware with unclear origin. The most widely accepted theory is it was found by a young guy in 1975, who hanged himself a bit later. Fast forward to 1990, when the hoard is in the UK, with false Lebanese origin documents.
#18
Definitely the Dyatlov Pass incident.
#19
The 1978 Kaikoura Lights Mystery:
*The Kaikoura lights is a name given by the New Zealand media to a series of sightings that occurred in December 1978, over the skies above the Kaikoura mountain ranges of the northeastern South Island of New Zealand. The first sightings were made on 21 December when the crew of a Safe Air Ltd cargo aircraft began observing a series of strange lights around their Armstrong Whitworth AW.660 Argosy aircraft, which tracked along with their aircraft for several minutes before disappearing and then reappearing elsewhere. The pilots described some of the lights to be the size of a house and others small but flashing brilliantly. These objects appeared on the air traffic controller radar in Wellington and also on the aircraft's on-board radar.*
*On 30 December 1978, a television crew from Australia recorded background film for a network show on interviews about the sightings. For many minutes at a time on the flight to Christchurch, unidentified lights were observed by five people on the flight deck, were tracked by Wellington Air Traffic Controllers, and filmed in color by the television crew. One object reportedly followed the aircraft almost until landing. The cargo plane then took off again with the television crew still on board, heading for Blenheim. When the aircraft reached about 2000 feet, it encountered a gigantic lighted orb which fell into station off the wing tip and tracked along with the cargo aircraft for almost quarter of an hour, while being filmed, watched, tracked on the aircraft radar and described on a tape recording made by the TV film crew. A spate of sightings followed the initial report and an Air Force Skyhawk was put on stand-by to investigate any positive sightings.*
#20
The Aarushi Talwar m****r case happened in 2008 in Noida, India. Aarushi Talwar, a 14 year old girl, was found dead in her bedroom. At first, people thought the family’s helper, Hemraj, had k****d her because he was missing. But the next day, his body was also found on the roof of the same house. Both were k****d with a sharp weapon.
The police investigation was confusing and changed many times. In the beginning, the police suspected Aarushi’s parents, Rajesh and Nupur Talwar. Later, the Central Bureau of Investigation took over the case, but even they gave different possible explanations. In 2013, a court said the parents were guilty and sent them to jail for life. However, in 2017, the Allahabad High Court said there was not enough clear proof against them and freed them,, Even today, many people feel the case is not fully solved. It became one of India’s most talked about crime cases and raised questions about police work and media reporting.
A movie called Talvar was made in 2015 based on the case. It showed different possible versions of what might have happened.
#21
The m****r of our prime minister Olof Palme.
#22
In 1996, a female student at Nanjing University, Diao Aiqing, was dismembered into more than 2,000 pieces. The perpetrator has still not been found to this day. The police are still tracking the suspect.
#23
For the Netherlands it's Dascha Graafsma. A 16 year old girl who left a bar at 2am and was hit by a train at 5.45. The death was ruled a s*****e almost immediately despite Dascha being a happy social girl that loved life. The investigation was closed. It becomes strange when you know she was not just hit almost 4 hours after leaving the bar, but also 5km from the bar, and nowhere near her home or any location familiar to her. It becomes even stranger when you find that the police never really investigated what happened in those almost 4 hours. It becomes even stranger when you hear she had d***s in her system where her friends swear they never did d***s. It becomes even even stranger when you look deeply into the given statements by the traindriver, who claimed he honked the horn 3 times and that Dascha was looking at him with her arms spread. However forensic investigations found Dascha was hit in her back and none of the passengers of the train nor people living next to the track heard any horns, only the loud bang when the train hit Dascha.
The parents, frustrated with the police investigation hired their own investigators and found a whole lot of evidence, from her phone and ID in completely different locations, to camera footage showing her walking in strange locations but also missing camera footage from several directions. But most importantly, they found that her watch kept track of her movements, and she only moved several hunderd meters, but nowhere near the 5km to the train tracks. The parents also found out that a guy who texted Dascha strange messages that same night, that the police claimed was a child so they didn't really investigate, was in reality a 27 year old guy with a criminal record.
#24
The "Vanishing Triangle" of Ireland. Between 1993 and 1998, 8 women disappeared without a trace in area roughly along the Irish east coast. Strongly suspected to be the work of a serial killer. The prime suspect is a violent s**t bag by the name of Larry Murphy, caught in 2000 as he tried to strangle a woman he kidnapped and r***d in Wicklow mountain. But the investigators couldn't connect him to the previous missing women. So he served a 10 years sentence for the r**e and attempted m****r, and left the country after that.
#25
I still think about the disappearance of Michael Dunahee, missing since 1991.
Lately, I have been thinking more about the disappearance of Lily and Jack Sullivan as we are getting close to the 1 year anniversary.
Edit - Michael was 4 when he went missing. Lily was 6, Jack was 4. All are missing kids.
#26
Priscila Belfort, sister of boxer and MMA fighter Vitor Belfort, disappeared in 2004 after leaving work for her lunch break. Despite the high profile of the case, which involved false confessions and investigations on d**g cartels, no one really knows what happened to her almost 20 years later.
#27
The two Dutch tourists that went missing while hiking on the 2010's. All that was found were some belongings and a boot with a foot still on it, then the case went cold.
RIP Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon.
#28
The disappearance of the boy scout Marco Aurélio. He disappeared during a hiking trip at the Marins peak after the lead scout got injured and sent Marco Aurélio ahead of the group to mark their way down back to camp. The group followed his markings up to a point until it stopped and got lost themselves, a day later the group arrived at camp (should have been just a couple of hours) coming from a different side of the mountain because they got horribly off track, but Marco wasn't there to rendezvous. His disappearance mobilized the largest search party in Brazil's history involving the firefighters, police and thousands of volunteers. 40 years have passed but the boy has never been found.
#29
The Alcàsser crime (1992) involved the kidnapping, r**e, t*****e, and m****r of three teenage girls from Valencia. The official investigation identified Antonio Anglés (still a fugitive) and Miguel Ricart (convicted and later released) as responsible. The case had massive media impact in Spain.
Years later, the father of one victim and journalist Juan Ignacio Blanco promoted a conspiracy theory claiming, without evidence, that politicians and businessmen were involved in a snuff‑film ring. These accusations led to defamation convictions. Despite the lack of proof, the theory spread widely due to TV exposure.
#30
In France, surely the case of little Gregory.
Farah (she/her) 3 hours ago
from Wikipedia: "Grégory Villemin (24 August 1980 – 16 October 1984) was a French boy from Lépanges-sur-Vologne, Vosges, who was abducted from his home and m******d at the age of four. His body was found four kilometres (2.5 mi) away in the River Vologne near Docelles. The case became known as the Grégory Case (French: l'Affaire Grégory) and for decades has received public interest and media coverage in France.[3] The m****r remains unsolved.[4]"
#31
The Bodom murders in 1960. Three youngsters were k****d and a fourth was severely injured while they were camping at Lake Bodom. Was never solved and most suspects have died already.
There are two others that are very popular, murders of two young women at Tulilahti when they were on a biking tour around Finland in 1959 and m****r of Kyllikki Saari in 1953. These three are like the top three unsolved Finnish cases. But I think Bodom is scariest because there were four people attacked, two men and two girls. Best known also for the fact the band Children of Bodom is named after the case, which I think most international fans don't know.
#32
We all have our thoughts and opinions on what happened, but it would likely be Madeline McCann.
#33
Missing Yamashita’s gold/treasure in the Philippines has legendary status as infamous unsolved mystery. Allegedly hidden in caves and secrets tunnels in the Philippines during WWII by the Japanese, those looted gold and jewels still inspire treasure hunters to find them as it’s claimed to be worth billions of dollars in today’s valuation.
#34
Isdalen woman, and ''Jennifer Fairgate''. One happened in the West Coast, while the other occurred on the East Coast.
#35
I think there are too many to pick from given the US has more than half of the world’s serial killer cases and they included tens to hundreds per killer where as the rest of the world is usually less than 10 per killer. Many of ours are unsolved.
#36
It is crazy how the media picks and chooses what cases it deems worthy of broadcast. In the US, we have over 110 missing children that have been missing for 5 years or longer. We find over 1000 unidentified bodies per year.
#37
The Disappearance of Iwona Wieczorek (2010)
The case of a 19-year-old girl who disappeared in Gdańsk. She was returning home from the club after an argument with her friends and she didn't come home. Despite enormous media interest and the work of specialized police department, the case remains unsolved
#38
Rasputin's death?
#39
Emanuela Orlandi: so she had Vatican citizenship, but not Italian citizenship ?
Gold Monkey 1 hour ago (edited)
She had Vatican citizenship but not Italian? That's some crazy mystery!
#41
Maybe Beaumont children or William Tyrrell or Mr Cruel.
When William Tyrrell went missing, my brother was the same age. It was... Really difficult to handle that one. I think they have a fair idea now of who did it but I don't think there's been many updates since?
We've had plenty of scary things that even though they're solved, I still just... Feel sick thinking about them. Jill Meagher, Eurydice Dixon, Courtney Herron (the perpetrator was allowed to go out to restaurants around the corner from where I lived, horrible!!), Isla Bell, Pheobe Bishop, Aya Maasarwe, Phoebe Handsjuk (we all know who did this).
#42
In Argentina, we found the lawyer in charge of the case that incriminated our former president dead in his hotel room in an apparent s*****e, although many leaked evidence indicate otherwise.
#43
In Germnay I would say the case of Frauke Liebs is realy scary and still unsolved. I never heard of a similar case it is really mysterious.
#44
The triple m****r at Lake Bodom on June 5, 1960.
Four friends, all teenagers, were attacked while on a camping trip; one survived and was eventually charged with the m****r, but ultimately found not guilty. Other suspects over the years include several people known to have committed other crimes, and one Russian spy.
There's even a metal band called Children of Bodom.
#45
I read "Sparizione di Emanuela Orlandi" on Wikipedia and it's terrifying. The part about the Vatican is creepy.
Well, this case is famous in my country.
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What do you think ?
Gold Monkey 1 hour ago
The "authors" of this deserve no credit. They mindlessly copied from Reddit or wherever and couldn't be bothered to do any editing. They could easily have removed duplicates, and they should have either removed those without details or researched the details themselves.
ttirreg 48 minutes ago
Years ago. On a Sunday afternoon my grandmom walked outside ger city appartement to get battery for the tvremote. And was never found. Police with dog and helicopter got involved without results. It literally drives me crazy sometimes that you hust dont know what happend . For my dad and his brother its still a very sensitive topic.
Gold Monkey 1 hour ago
The "authors" of this deserve no credit. They mindlessly copied from Reddit or wherever and couldn't be bothered to do any editing. They could easily have removed duplicates, and they should have either removed those without details or researched the details themselves.
ttirreg 48 minutes ago
Years ago. On a Sunday afternoon my grandmom walked outside ger city appartement to get battery for the tvremote. And was never found. Police with dog and helicopter got involved without results. It literally drives me crazy sometimes that you hust dont know what happend . For my dad and his brother its still a very sensitive topic.
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