Get Premium
Dark mode theme is available exclusively for premium users. Learn more about the benefits of subscribing.
No fees, cancel anytime.
Dark Mode 
No fees, cancel anytime 
36submissions
Finished
36 Real Photos That Remain Unexplained To This Day
Have you ever taken a photo and seen a mysterious shadow lurking in the corner? People say that eyes can play tricks on us, but what about the times there's visual proof of those tricks? "Photoshop exists," you might say. But did it really exist in 1992, when Carlos Diaz took a photo of a possible UFO in Tepoztlán, Mexico?
Some folks might say that it's still a hoax. Others, however, are inclined to believe that there are just some things in this world that we can't logically explain, and that's okay. Folks on Reddit have shared many such photographs. We've gathered the most interesting ones here for you to be creeped out or entertained about!
Click here & follow us for more lists, facts, and stories.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
The Voynich Manuscript is pretty cool.
15th century text in an unknown language, yet to be deciphered.
RELATED:
#2
The mysterious part of this picture is not what is in it, but what is not in it. What could possibly be in the kitchen that has these guys so mesmerized?
#4
I like the old UPS truck and sewing machine combo.
american_hoser:
Oh wow. I can actually explain this. Takes place at Princeton lawnparties (annual weekend long formal event) circa 2004. The UPS truck got stuck for about a week after trying to drive down a walking path that was too narrow, and ended up rolling down the hill towards the tennis courts. They've since built a new residential college (Whitman) in that area. I'm still not sure how they got the UPS truck out.
The sewing machine, I have to presume was for repairing a tux. And clearly the guy is drunk, because that's how lawnparties work.
#5
The tulip ghost staircase is kind of freaky. Anything that predates Photoshop with s**t like this freaks me out a bit.
blitzballer:
Taken in 1966 by the Reverend Ralph Hardy, who was visiting the Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England on vacation.
However, the really interesting thing about the Tulip Staircase Ghost photograph is how scrutinized it was immediately after it was taken thanks to the Hardy family allowing the photo to be examined by experts in both the paranormal and photography fields.
After noticing the odd apparitions in their vacation photo after returning to Canada, the Hardy’s allowed The Ghost Club back in England to examine the photograph. Later the picture would be examined by the Kodak Film Company
Neither examination could prove the photo away as a fake and in fact the examinations provided this factual data on the photograph:
The photo did not seem to have suffered from photographic tricks or manipulations.
Each photo was accounted for in the roll. Neither the shot before nor after the ghost capture contains any image (both were of other architectural features of the Museum; one of a colonnade and one of a figurehead) that might have ‘bled’ over to the staircase shot.
The photograph was taken with a Zeiss Ikon Contina with Kodachrome 35mm color film. The picture was taken in natural daylight with no flash.
#6
I like the photo which captured a person outside a cabin that went up on reddit about a year ago.
Maby not so much unexplained as creepy, from what I remember they did see footprints in the snow as I recall.
OP:
Up North at my cousins cabin and decide to take a panoramic photo. Look outside. There's someone standing outside.
eastb01:
This might be easily explained. At least in Maine, people go and rob cabins in the winter, looking for medicine and other valuables. It's easy because the cabins are deserted. So, this guy probably wanted to break in, but saw people and just decided to leave and look for some other cabin.
TL,DR, it's a nonchalant burglar.
#7
The Loretto Chapel Staircase is somewhat unexplained. The story goes that the nun's needed a staircase and prayed to St. Joseph, patron saint of Carpenter's, when a mysterious man came and offered to help construct a staircase over the next couple months, but he disappeared without receiving pay or thanks and could not be found. Within the staircase there is not any support or nails to be found and the staircase makes two perfect 360 degree turns.
#8
The man at the canyon.
Supposedly the man at the edge had no idea anyone was there and didn't see anyone.
swimmerboy29:
A kid probably realized he was in the photo and didn't want to get in the way.
McGuineaRI:
When this was first posted a while back the guy said he and the person in the photo at the ledge were the only people around for miles. They drove to that spot and decided to take pictures. There's nothing for miles and miles around. Neither of them saw anyone else there with them. Not when they were taking the pictures or afterwards. That's what's so inexplicable. Otherwise it's just a picture of three people.
#9
This Carlos Diaz UFO photo.
Taken from the shoulder of a road on the side of a mountain in Mexico.
You can see the object, the trees/bushes between the object and the camera, the metal railing on the edge of the cliff, and the reflection off the hood of the car. Photo was taken from the left side of the car, over the hood, after Diaz stepped out of the driver side with his camera.
He described the object as being no more than 20m away, and making absolutely no sound as it rose out of the valley and then streaked away.
This picture is not taken through the windshield, and the light is not from the headlights. This photo was taken from over the hood of the car, diagonally over the close-left corner of the hood towards the front-right. The light coming off the guard-rail on the road is a result of the form of the light.
Coherent light, like a laser.
#10
The creepiest picture I've ever seen is this one.
"My friend took of his kid in his flat but theres a face in the curtain."
#11
Did we ever find out what the baltic sea anomaly was?
edit: IT'S NOT THE F*****G MILLENNIUM FALCON.
#12
I posted this in the last (non serious) thread. Now there are a few logical explanations of this but if you follow the story, it is pretty creepy.
The Warrens were performing a big investigation into Amityville. There were quite a few people in the house including the investigating team and reporters. At some point in the night one of the automatic cameras caught this image. There were no children in the house.
#13
Hampton Court Ghost.
"Hampton Court ghost refers to a figure seen in a CCTV footage/image near Hampton Court Palace in October 2003. The figure was seen in a long robe-like cloth allegedly haunting the place for a couple of days or months. The figure was first reported in early-2001."
#15
The white UPS delivery truck comes to my mind. I don't know why. It just feels... weird.
Come_To_r_Polandball:
Criminal organizations are known to clone delivery vehicles in smuggling operations. This looks like a really half-assed attempt.
#16
THE NORWEGIAN SKY ANOMALY. This phenomen was first observed in Norway in 1997 and contisues to this day.
Hundreds of calls flooded the Norwegian Meteorological Institute as residents wanted to know what they were seeing. UFO enthusiasts immediately began speculating whether the aerial light display could be evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence proposing among other things that it could be a wormhole opening up, or somehow was linked to the recent h**h-energy experiments undertaken at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland
#17
The Piri Reis Map
Fascinating artefact which could change the way we look at the history of the human race.
#19
Jay Z in 1939.
Was one of Brooklyn’s finest in Harlem in 1939? This Sid Grossman photo of “Harlem Loiterers” from the Prints Collection at NYPL's Schomburg Center for Research In Black Culture has created quite a stir since being posted to the Center's Facebook page the other day. Why? Because the man on the right looks a heck of a lot like Jay-Z. Cue Twilight Zone music, right? Schomburg’s Curator of Digital Collections Sylviane A. Diouf found the photo while researching an exhibition, and said, “I was immediately struck by the similarity to Jay-Z and actually laughed out loud … I still hope somebody will tell us who that young man really was.”
So is Jay-Z a time traveler? Is this someone else - anyone know who? What do you think?
#20
Picture from a hospital CCTV camera shows what appears to be a demon on-top of a dying patient.
“This picture was taken of a nurse’s viewing monitor. On the monitor, this black figure appeared standing on top of the patient who was lying in the bed. The patient died within a few hours of this figure appearing.
Some paranormal sites speculated that the mysterious figure on top of the bed was a mythological being known as a 'mare.'"
#21
Check out the bench on the left.
OP:
So a customer just printed this at my work, please tell me you see what we see.
#22
The Naga fireballs is a phenomenon with unconfirmed source said to be often seen in Thailand’s Mekong river in which glowing balls are alleged to naturally rise from the water high into the air.
#23
Brown Lady of Raynham Hall Brown Lady of Raynham Hall claimed photograph of the ghost, Captain Hubert C. Provand. First published in Countrylife magazine, 1936 Wiki Link
#24
Montparnasse Station train accident.
The Montparnasse derailment occurred at 4 pm on 22 October 1895 when the Granville–Paris Express overran the buffer stop at its Gare Montparnasse terminus. With the train several minutes late and the driver trying to make up for lost time, it entered the station too fast and the train air brake failed. After running through the buffer stop, the train crossed the station concourse and crashed through the station wall before falling onto the Place de Rennes below, where it stood on its nose. A woman in the street below was k**led by falling masonry. The driver was fined 50 francs and one of the guards 25 francs.
#25
It's going to be hard to prove this isn't fake, but I guess you'll either take me at my word, or...not.
So a few years ago I was attending a Halloween party back in my hometown of Boston, that was being thrown by a few of my girlfriend's grad school friends.
I get to talking with a small group of them about things that creep us out, and one of them mentions his "girlfriend's family's ghost", and how creepy it is.
I'm a skeptical person, and I don't believe in ghosts, but it's Halloween and I want a cool story, so I press him for more details. He says his girlfriend's family claims that there's a ghost that lives in their house, and that it's a "friendly ghost" - whatever that means. He is also skeptical from what I remember, but claims to have a picture. He says it's a family photo and the ghost of the lady is in the background. He tries to dig it up on his Blackberry, but comes up short. Bummer.
A few days later, though - I get an email from my girlfriend from her friend.
I still have the picture, and even though I don't believe in that stuff it still freaks me the [darn] out.
I haven't looked at it in a while - it creeps me out too much. Gah I hate it.
#26
Has to be this one. We may never know what was going on when it was taken.
ReadsSmallTextWrong:
Clearly someone caught a leprechaun and had a completely ridiculous idea to stage a dog drinking competition so big that even the mayor would be there. There was also the swaggest lady of the age -- you can see her pictured here with the hat that says "WIN" on the underside of the brim.
Edit: I'd like to elaborate. The man to the left of the pipe-smoking mayor wearing a similar hat is Jergen Offen, the believed asker of the wish. To the right of The Lady of Swag, Hashtag Kanye, we see Eartha Fire-Wind Dutchess of Marmahol, Catzlvania. She's sporting the same hat that she wore to the Kentucky Derby in the year 1983.
#27
This strange looking bolder was photographed a few years ago on the surface of mars... Quite odd.
"The Mars monolith is a rectangular object, possibly a boulder, discovered on the surface of Mars. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took pictures of it from orbit, roughly 180 miles (300 km) away. The HiRISE camera that was used to photograph the monolith has a resolution of approximately 1 foot or 30 centimeters per pixel."
#28
In 2000, two photographs said to be of the Skunk Ape were taken by an anonymous woman and mailed to the Sarasota County, Florida, Sheriff's Department. The photographs were accompanied by a letter from the woman in which she claims to have photographed an ape in her backyard.[3] The woman wrote that on three different nights an ape had entered her backyard to take apples left on her back porch. She was convinced the ape was an escaped orangutan. The pictures have become known to Bigfoot enthusiasts as the "skunk ape photos."
#29
Martian spherules (also known as hematite spherules or blueberries) are small spherules (roughly spherical pebbles) that are rich in an iron oxide and are found in exceedingly large numbers at Meridiani Planum, a vast Martian plain.
#30
Loch Ness Monster. She's real, real I tell you!
"The Loch Ness Monster, known affectionately as Nessie, is a mythical creature in Scottish folklore that is said to inhabit Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands."
#31
Black Knight Satellite
An unidentifiable satellite that was found orbiting earth in the early 1960's. The object is in polar orbit which neither the Russians nor americans were capable of at the time.
Legend has it that in orbit around the Earth is a mysterious, dark object which dates back perhaps 13 000 years. Its origin and purpose are inscrutable, dubbed the “Black Knight” this elusive satellite has allegedly been beaming signals towards the Earth and inspected by NASA astronauts yet only a few on Earth officially know of its existence. The origin of the ominous name is part of the enigma; it is impossible to discover who first called it this or indeed why. Humans have only in the last 60 years had the technology to launch a man-made object into space so what is the logical explanation of tales of an alien intruder on our doorstep?
#33
Phoenix lights.
wickedsmaht:
I have seen this a few times since I moved here 3 years ago. Freaks me the [darn] out ever time.
#34
Somebody found this on google street view. I don't know anything else about it. Maybe somebody has suggestions on what it could be about? A specific group of people?
#36
The Eye of the Sahara has been NASA's APOD twice, although I can't link to it due to government shutdown. It's not an unexplained picture as much as it is a picture of an unexplained thing. It is a completely unique, apparently geologic formation in Africa that geologists can't explain or recreate. It is slightly oblong but appears nearly perfectly circular and is absolutely massive, almost 50 km in diameter.
While geologists don't know what to do with it conspiracy theorists come in, many claiming it is the lost city of Atlantis.
Wikipedia article.
Atlantis article
Explore more of these tags
Related on Bored Panda
