“Why Babysitter, What Did We Do Wrong?”: 30 Unresolved Mysteries People Doubt They’ll Ever Solve
Every family has some great memories, some secrets and some funny stories that will never be forgotten. If you ripped your pants while on vacation or burned Thanksgiving dinner one year, good luck living that down! But along with embarrassing and shameful moments, sometimes mysterious moments haunt us for the rest of our lives too...
Reddit users have recently been opening up about personal mysteries from their own lives that they've never been able to solve. From encounters they had decades ago to people in their lives mysteriously vanishing, we hope you enjoy reading through these confusing stories, pandas. And don't be afraid to do some detective work of your own!
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My sister and brother-in-law were having a really tough year, especially financially. On Christmas morning they woke up to extra presents for the ‘kids’ (teenagers), food in the fridge and a bag of coal for their living room fire.
It’s been about 10 years and they still don’t know where it came from, the kids are now adults and still believe it was Father Christmas.
(It’s not a mystery to me, I snook in and did it on Christmas Eve, but I love that’s it’s still not solved)
When I was a teenager I was lying in bed with headphones on listening to one of my playlists while drifting off to sleep. Next thing I remember I woke to someone very clearly whispering ‘wake up’ in my ear, I shot up looked around to an empty room and ran downstairs to tell my parents about my ghostly encounter. Spent years telling people about it when ghost stories would come up.
The mystery was finally solved when I was listening to that playlist again years later and it shuffled on to Sexual Healing by Marvin Gaye
Not so much an unsolved mystery, but extremely unusual for sure.
So it was 1997, I was in my second year of college, and coincidentally the college was near the seaside, so one lunch break me and a friend head down toward the seafront. Now, back then we didn't have mobile phones, and my friend needed to make a call, so we stopped at a phone box, which was situated by a pleasant green area with trees, shrubs etc. While he's making his call I decide now is a good time to chow down on that sandwich I'd purchased on route, one of those s****y prepackaged sandwiches you get in any supermarket meal deal.
As I open my sandwich I see an adorable little squirrel sitting on the low wall just opposite where I'm standing, so, as a lover of most things nature, I break a bit of sandwich off and toss it to the little guy, and he hurriedly accepts my gesture of goodwill, joining me in our lunchtime sandwich. All is good.
What comes next is quite simply an intrusion of personal space and daylight robbery. This cute little squirrel is actually a proper cheeky tosspot, who, at the speed of light, proceeded to jump off the wall, run at me, up my f*****g leg, around my torso and down my arm, then manages to bat the remainder of the sandwich out of my hand, before stopping for a second to look me dead in the eye like I was his b***h, before jumping off, and making away with the remainder of my lunch!
It all happened so fast, and I was so stunned I just kinda froze. My mate came out the phone box, oblivious to the recent heist and didn't believe a word of it when I told him (to be fair, I wouldn't have believed it either)
Growing up we always had a white doorbell with a black removable bezel. Very simple thing, nothing anyone would ever think about. It could have been 20 years old in the 70s.
I was 15 and coming back from school. Completely unremarkable, same routine as every school day.
The bezel was white.
I asked my parents if they'd changed it. They said it's always been white, what an I talking about.
And that's what freaked me out. And it freaked me out really badly. We had a black doorbell, not a white one. It was as much an incontrovertible constant as all of us having two hands, two thumbs, ten toes. Black doorbell.
Only "it's always been white".
I swear this isn't the universe I was born into. I slipped into a parallel universe that day where the only difference is the colour of my parents doorbell.
Found my birth father after learning he was also searching for me. I called the landline number I’d discovered. A man answered. Thinking it was him, I gave my name and confessed how thrilled I was after many decades. The man was a police offer. Guarding the home until the ME/funeral director arrived. I was beyond devastated. Gave my number to him hoping my fathers relatives would reverse charges and call. Thirty + years later, no-one has ever called. And without proof of accessible evidence, funeral home wouldn’t give me details. Plus we lived thousands of miles apart. Paid for his services and that was it. The smile on my face remains intact whenever I think of our limited memories together. Especially when the officer asked my hair color. He told me they’d discovered a very young childhood photo of me in his wallet with my name on the back and date. RIP Dad ❤️
Very sorry OP. May his soul rest in peace. At least you got a small form of closure. <3
I was in my final year of school, it felt like the summer would never end. Then I woke up and I’m almost 40. How?…
I can beat that - I was in my final year of school and went to sleep - woke up and my GRANDKIDS are in their 20's!!
I once went swimming in open water and got really bad cramp in my leg, my friends were a fair bit away from me on paddleboards. I can literally remember starting to go under and not be able to get myself back up, I started to really panic. I then swear I felt someone grab me and help me swim over to my friends, when I looked who it was it was my childhood football coach and he kept saying “oh dear we need to get you out the water, come on you’ll be fine”.
When I get to my friends they help me on the board and they help me back to shore. I’m not sure why I didn’t turn to say thanks to my football coach but we’re nearly back to shore when I ask where’s the guy who helped me out, and they told me I just swam to them myself and there was nobody there.
I don’t believe in ghosts or guardian angels, I don’t believe in god or anything paranormal at all. But to this day I still remember being dragged out the water and him helping me across. I guess it was just my brain freaking out and putting an old authority figure there to help me get back ok. But man what the hell, I definitely saw and felt someone there, the brains a powerful thing I guess.
I accidentally dropped my teddy and he went tumbling down some stairs into the cellar. Mum or dad went down to retrieve him and an arm was missing. Nowhere to be seen. Searched the cellar and the rest of the house, never found the arm of my beloved teddy. Still perplexed to this day.
Oh no, poor Teddy :( You know you have a really bad case of malicious haunting when the ghosts harm pets or plushies.
What the f**k was going on with *that* room in a 130-year-old house I once rented.
Back around '07/08 I lived with my then girlfriend in an 1890s terraced house in greater Manchester. Nice house, recently renovated, so it felt very modern even though it was over a hundred years old. But there was something off about the second bedroom at the back of the house.
It began as a vague sense of unease - when I went to the bathroom in the middle of the night, I just had a strong feeling that I shouldn't look in the direction of that room. So I'd go to and from the bathroom, taking care not to look over at the doorway. I thought it was just some silly quirk I was indulging. And then I told my girlfriend about it. I said, "Hey, so this is going to sound silly, but-' and she just put her hand up to stop me, and said, "It's the back room, isn't it?' Turned out she felt exactly the same way - a strange sense of not wanting to so much as glance at the back room in the middle of the night.
It got weirder.
My brother came to stay and we put him up in the back bedroom. We didn't mention anything to him about our unease about it. That first morning, I asked him how he'd slept, to which he replied that he'd had a horrible night, suffering from strange dreams before waking up in a cold sweat. "There's something weird about that room," he finished. One day, some time later, I walked past a bookshelf when a lever-arch folder - which had been lying on top of the bookcase for months - suddenly fell off and struck me on the shoulder.
But the strangest thing was still to come.
One night my girlfriend and I were just chilling in the living room watching TV when suddenly we heard this loud *crash* from the kitchen. It sounded like a load of plates and pots and pans and cutlery falling off the draining board onto the floor. I raced into the kitchen expecting to find a total mess. But there was nothing. Everything was exactly as it should be, exactly as we'd left it.
To this day I've never been able to figure out a rational explanation for that sound (which we both heard). There was a road to the front of the house, but the traffic on it was always pretty light and the noise definitely came from the kitchen, to the back of the house. The walls were really thick; in the two years we lived there we didn't once hear a peep from the neighbours on either side, so the sound can't have come through the walls. Nor could it have come from behind the house - I checked the back yard and it was empty, as were all the others on either side. There was no one there, nor any sign of anything that could have made such a loud noise.
Weird.
Oh! Yes! When I was 17 (so 1997), I was taking a class over the summer, so I didn't go to my grandparents house with parents and sister. One night, I was on the phone in my room, talking to my mom, and there was a huge crash from downstairs. Mom even heard it over the phone. So I told her I'm grabbing my bat, I'm gonna go check it. I'll call you back in five, call the cops if I don't. Best case, maybe the cat knocked something over and it broke a bunch of stuff. Nothing. Not a single thing was out of place, let alone broken. I still have no explanation.
My mother-in-law told her son, my brother-in-law, something important on her deathbed. It seemed to have shocked him and he said he would tell us what it was later. That was over twelve years ago and he hasn't contacted us since nor even responded to Christmas cards. He used to visit her grave on her anniversaries until about five years ago but has never been back. My wife (his sister) and I still wonder what was said and what became of him.
She said "Look shocked and tell them you will tell them what I said later. Then go no contact. It will be the best prank ever!"
“I left something special for you in my house” *guy goes to house to see gang of old ladies about to kill him*
Probably something like she had an affair and got pregnant, so the man who raised him, and who he called his father his entire life, wasn’t his father. Or that he was the result of a rape. That would shake anyone up to learn, and lead to them just not wanting to tell anybody about.
"you're adopted" or "your fathers name is XXX and you aren't related to your sister", or "I've got a savings account that is only for you at xxx".
She whispered "look shocked and tell them you will share it later. Keep them confused." And he did, because it was her last wish.
Okay so I get home from a shift i left at 7 in the morning ,and the fish tank was fine I get back at like 4 ish open the door my partner is out just me in the house , I hear a rumbling like plastic being rattled I look round the house trying to find the noise look at the fish tank and there is like 2 inches of water in there fish are nearly dead ( don't worry they survived) im like what the actual f**k where has my fish tank water gone ? Note there are no tubes or anything like that coming out the tank it was completely empty no cracks in the plastic nothing phone my missus in a panic she has no idea I search the around the stand and the floor nothing nothing . This freaks me out I quickly pour a few cups of water in , I didn't want to shock my fish with freezing cold water just enough for them to swim and breathe . I searched for a hour trying to find where 8 litres of water have gone no trace no spill no damp no puddles . I spent the next hour saying if there some one in here I will hurt you and call the police to this day mr and my missus get freaked out thinking about it . Where did it go
Somebody at school did a S**t the size of an arm; it was so absurdly big that the person who ‘discovered it’ ran into multiple classrooms (mid lesson) to get everyone to come to the Boys toilets and look at it… the fact no teacher bollocked him shows how justified they think he was in his amazement. By lunchtime word had spread to the whole school and dozens of students were now queuing up to get a glimpse of the ‘object’…. it was like Comic-Con with Ezra Miller; everyone was waiting in line to have their photo taken with a massive piece of s**t.
Speculation was rife as to who did it - with mainly the larger students and teachers falling foul of the ‘Depth Charge Detectives’. Despite the biggest man hunt since the ‘Who Shot Phil Mitchell’ saga of 2002; no one ever came forward and it remained the school’s biggest mystery since the ‘hands on’ PE teacher abruptly got fired.
We moved house in May. On one of the first days in the property, I put my airpod charge case down on the dining room table, went into the living room to dust and vacuum, came back 20 minutes later and it was gone. The only thing in the dining room was the table itself and a set of (empty) shelves. I was alone in the house, my husband was out for several hours picking up various other bits of furniture and boxes. I have, to this day, still not found the case.
Then, in June, I bought a new water bottle on the way to the gym, used it at the gym, came home and put it on the kitchen counter to wash and refill for the next day after dinner. Half an hour later when I came to do the washing up, it was gone. My husband had been with me the whole time. We were both totally perplexed. We’ve searched the house top to bottom multiple times over and still cannot find either of these items.
I lost quite a bit of weight so I bought myself a new "going out" outfit: new trousers (which were banging, btw), new suede top and new bra. Wore it once going out with hubby. End of night, changed into nightgown, threw clothes on floor. Got up next morning and they were just gone. Have torn the bedroom apart looking for my clothes and nothing......15 years later, still can't find them. No idea where they went.
As the younger sibling I used to occasionally liberate my brothers clothes. Once I borrowed his sweat band (one that goes around the head) for a football game. A few days later I was back at the football pitch and saw the headband on the pitch next to the goalposts. I panicked, picked it up and took it home, relieved I’d found it.
Fast forward a week or so and I overheard my brother asking my mum;
“Why do I have two of these?” Holding up the sweat bands.
I remained silent. I’d imagine it still bothers him to this day.
I am 40 years old, I have a very thin scar on the right hand side of abdomen below my stomach. Kind of where your appendix would be. But there is nothing on my medical records about any surgery, I have spoken to my parents who both insist I never had any surgery as a baby/infant. It’s been there as long as I can remember. I seem to have this memory of being in hospital when I was younger, I remember a bathroom and a corridor, but honestly couldn’t say if these are real memories or not, whenever I think of them they’ve always made me feel uneasy.
One of my older brothers has a scar on his back from an operation and he just recently asked me if I knew why. He didn't know why, I don't know why, and apparently he asked my Dad and my Dad couldn't tell him why either. His health records don't go back far enough for him to ever figure out the answer to it. It's strange to read practically the same thing from a total stranger.
I want to know how a family member died. She was healthy one minute, the next minute dead as a doornail and her husband had her cremated extremely quickly.
When I was about 10 or 12 I was sitting at a desk in my room, and when I moved my elbow I accidentally knocked my favourite drawing diary off the desk. I bent down and pick it up, but it wasn’t there. Looked and looked but never saw it again.
I was driving up to my parents one morning, my internet was down and I needed to work from home (around the end of lockdowns) Dad had been unwell for a few days. I remember thinking I must ask Dad. As a teenager I had heard him mention that his Mum had had a stillborn child when he was about 12 to a family friend. I’d never had the courage to ask him for more details despite being curious. He died suddenly that afternoon, without my asking. He was the last of their family, so I’ll never know the answer.
Not nearly as intense or consequential, but I had a window cleaner for a few months. Decent guy, did the job, and I don’t think I ever really talked to him except when I needed to open the back gate so he could get to the windows there.
Anyway, must have been the fourth or fifth time he was washing the windows and suddenly he just upped and left with it halfway done. I was working from home at the time so I thought it was odd, but assumed it was an emergency or something so I gave him a few days to message me and explain.
Of course he didn’t, so I messaged him and commented on one of his Facebook Community Group posts asking him what happened, and he just blocked me. I checked for damage he might have caused but couldn’t see anything. It was so strange.
A good few years ago, while I was single, each time I met someone and went on a date, things went well and they'd then suddenly go cold on me (ghosted). Not too strange these days, however several of them later came back to say they received anonymous messages on social media about me. one forwarded me the message they received. The content of the messages means it must have been someone close to me who I was still friends with and hanging out with regularly (so it couldn't have been an ex). Things like taking what I had said, twisting it into a negative, and then sending it on anonymously to the person I was dating, trying to get them to stop seeing me. It still sometimes plays on my mind that I'll never know who it was who was sending these messages, or what their motivation was, other than stopping me meeting new people. The part that bothered me at the time was it stopped me progressing any kind of new relationships - it did stop eventually (afaik) and live worked itself out in the end as I'm now 10 years happily married :) Just a very strange situation and was pretty worrying at the time, feeling spied upon by someone close enough that I'd have probably considered them a friend. the message I did see was a FB messenger screenshot that had been created from various parts of other FB messenger messages. If you looked at it quickly, it looked legit, but on closer inspection it was clearly pieced together from one person's name, and different text in the body of the message. Whoever it was, went to some effort.
Aaand how did you meet your current significant other? Have you tracked their whereabouts around the time this was going on? :p
Nothing too crazy, but back in 2019, me, my girlfriend, her friend and sister were all having some fish and chips near the sea.
I love birds, so pigeons and seagulls, I love them, so naturally I threw a chip or two for some pigeons. We chatted for a bit whilst we ate, then we left, nothing out of the ordinary. BUT… my girlfriend, her friend and sister, all claim that I literally picked up a pigeon… with my own hands during this. I however don’t have any recollection of this ever happening, and since I love birds so much, I would definitely remember this. But I don’t at all. I remember everything else that happened on that day, but picking up a pigeon didn’t happen in my mind, but three people still to this day are adamant that I did pick up a pigeon.
It still goes through my head all the time and is regularly brought up by them but I still can’t remember ever doing so.
I have 2 cats that were very close when they were younger. Usually sharing the same box or curled up next to each other, never ever had a fight between them gotten serious. They would fight a lot but it was ALWAYS playful.
One day I left them in the kitchen in one of their boxes and went to the living room next door. A few minutes later I went back and only one of them was there, and there was a LOT of blood. Cat 1 seems fine, Cat2 is nowhere to be seen but the blood was everywhere- all over the floor, the box and going outside from the cat flap and down the garden path. I assumed he was dead due to the amount of blood lost (way too much for a bird or mouse) and he was missing for hours. I was only in the room next door for a few minutes and I hadn't heard any serious fighting or yowling.
Hours go by and Cat 2 turns up totally fine. No visible injuries, no signs of blood on him (they are both white so blood would show up very easily) and just slots back into his box like nothing happened. This was years ago and they're both going strong still. I'd love to know what happened and where it came from
Presumably another cat came into their territory through the cat flap and the other 2 beat the heck out of him.
I won my works fantasy rugby league and won a prize pool of £95. Had that tucked safely in an envelope in my drawer at home but went missing 2 days later.
I don't flat share for anyone to have stolen it. Had no one visit in those 2 days. It was the weekend and I didn't go anywhere. My cat can't get in the drawer so didn't eat it. I don't have a maid. The flat isn't haunted.
I've been thinking about it every day for months.
When i was about 12 or 13 an RE teacher once made me stand up during a lesson and think of a name, any name. He stared at me for a few minutes and then told the class the correct name i was thinking of.
Everybody was accusing us of being in cahoots but i still have no idea how he did it. Creepy, spooky bastard.
In the 1980's I was a wee lad and we used to go to my aunt's house in Hexham. Their neighbours had a river at the bottom of their back garden.
One year me, my brother, mum and aunt heard a really loud buzzing sound and saw a frikkin giant like 40-50cm long fat dragonfly going down the river bank.
It was like something out of Jurassic park .
To this day we can't explain what we saw unless it was a freak of nature or an unknown species.
It's often difficult to estimate the actual size of something that's flying more than a few meters away. Most likely the OP thought that the dragonfly was farther than it actually was and therefore overestimated the length. Happens all the time with snakes. People remember seeing a "30 foot anaconda" which, when captured, turns out to be 13 feet long.
About 20 yrs back maybe a small bit more, 4 of my buddys went on a trip to thailand, 2 guys 2 girls, 2 couples. Went out, were having a time, went to a lady boy show. 1 of the boys thought he was funny made a smart comment towards 1 of the ladyboys. About 20 mins later he had to go to the toilet. Was followed in by 5 ladyboys. Came out, black eye, shirt ripped, holding in tears. This was not the type of bloke to lose a fight, even when he lost he wanted to keep going. Went back to his table and begged the others can they leave that he wanted to go back to his hotel and pack as they were leaving the next day. For the rest of the night and the long flight back the following day he didn't open his mouth to speak once. Once back home, we, his friends didn't see him for over a month, in that month he gave up his job and broke it off with his girlfriend who he was meant to marry 4 months later. After about 6 months he ended up in a mental hospital where after 3 months he ended his life. We all think we know what happened in that bathroom in thailand but we'll never know.
When I was 5 or 6, one day I went to school and my teacher was off sick, so we had a supply teacher instead. And then my first teacher… just never came back. They never said anything to us about it, just kind of acted like we’d had this new teacher all along.
I’ve often wondered if she WAS ill, or if something happened to her - you’d think they’d have let us send a get well card for some sort of closure even if they didn’t want to let us know how serious it was. Makes me wonder if it was some kind of scandal, the way everyone seemed determined to pretend she’d never existed.
I had a colleague in my school that did something he got fired for immediately (nothing that physically harmed anyone, thankfully, but definitely an instant dismissal). We were told not to tell the students and just pretend he was ill. The offer by his class to write a get well card was discouraged. So yeah, there was probably some kind of scandal involved with your teacher.
My mum is one of 6; two of her brothers refuse to speak to each other and haven’t for 30+ years. No one else knows why and when my grandparents were still alive, they had no clue about it.
I cut off my mom’s brother’s family because they were extremely narcissistic people who only cared about themselves and their children who were entitled brats. As a child they were quite abusive (mentally) towards me out of all the kids in the families (e.g.: one of their kids once struck my head with a wooden bat when playing and their parents quickly blamed me when all I was doing was just sitting on a side). My parents often sided with them. I can’t 100% link the two but I would go on to develop a personality disorder that is linked to childhood neglect and also depression and anxiety. As a teenager I was mature enough to recognise that these people were taking a toll on my mental health and cut them off once I turned 18. My parents don’t know this reasoning. My dad has also never liked them much so he didn’t question me but my mom and other relatives always wonder why I cut them off cause to most of them “family is everything”.
I believe this was probably just a nightmare, but it remains so vivid even 25 years later.
I was about 7 years old. I used to have terrible nightmares so would often seek comfort in my parents room. On this occasion, I got into bed with my dad and my mum slept in my room.
I have an older brother (4 years difference so he was a kid himself) who I shared a bunk with. As far as I was aware, he was fast asleep.
All I remember is my dad fast asleep, and the sense that something was watching me by the doorway. I was too scared to get up and look, so I cracked an eye open ajar whilst pretending to be asleep.
I remember what appeared to be my brother standing by the door, staring at me, except he looked like a demonic, evil version. He had this sinister smile, similar to the recent horror film ‘Smile’.
I was too scared to do anything, and just remained as still and quiet as possible, whilst cuddling up to my dad.
The next thing I remember is waking up in the morning and having a huge sigh of relief that nothing/no one was there.
Everything was normal the next morning. I’ve never spoken about it with my brother. We have always been close but it truly creeped me out. I’ve never experienced anything like that again.
Like I mentioned, I believe it was most probably a vivid nightmare. But every now and then I think about it and still get the creeps!
Kids see weird s**t. When I was about 4, I got up to use the bathroom and while I was passing by the living room, I saw a man sitting on the footstool. He looked like Santa Claus, but he was all green. He had green work pants and shirt, greenish-colored skin, greenish tint to his Santa beard. He smiled at me, and I went back to my bedroom.
We had a great, lovely babysitter for our 2 year old. She'd looked after him on many occasions. We needed to go to my sister-in-law's wedding, in central London. Very fancy hotel. We booked a room for her to look after our son in. She was to look after him from after the reception party (she was invited) to when we were due to go home in the evening. We arranged transport for her. The wedding came and went, she seemed fine right after it. We never heard from her again. Wouldn't answer her phone or reply to texts. Why babysitter, what did we do wrong??
When I was about 6/7ish i was looking for bugs around my grandparents house, under furniture and what not.
I checked under a cupboard in the living room and saw a single eye on a stalk looking back at me (kinda like a snail but not slimy) from behind one of the cupboards rear legs. I thought it must be a toy so I went to the kitchen and asked my gran to give me something to reach it with (it was too far away for me to reach by hand).
Armed with a spaghetti server I went back to the cupboard and the eye was still there, I reached to get it... And it disappeared. my grandad then moved the cupboard and we could find no evidence of anything hiding behind it.
I ended up writing up notes and drawing pictures in a journal which I still have somewhere. For some reason this mystery as stuck with me ever since and I have no idea what it could be. Overactive imagination?
We have two.
1. At my wedding we hired a jazz band, they were great. Between songs the band leader chatted a bit. At one point he told a joke that brought the room to a standstill - in a good way, everyone creased up. Wife and I were not in the room so missed the joke. Nobody can remember it other than to refer to it as "the Welsh joke"
2. At the party celebrating the birth of our first child my father (mildly racist old white guy) said something to my brother-in-law which deeply upset him. He's black and was about 17 at the time (adopted by my wife's family who are white, just to give context that he was the only non-white face at the event). The people who know what my father said won't tell me even though he's now dead and the event was 22 years ago. Whatever it was was serious enough that none of my wife's family came to my father's funeral, although they did come to my mother's previously.
Guys and Gals, I think the "Welsh Joke" might make a great comedy/detective movie.
About five years ago, I was doing some temping for a recruitment agency - as in, I worked for them as a Recruitment Consultant - who occupied space in a multi-floored, shared occupancy building.
Each floor was occupied by a single company, with their own kitchen and bathroom facilities, but they weren't access restricted, so could be accessed by users of other floors.
Every single day I was there, without fail, someone would put washing up liquid in the kettle. The first few times, it was highly amusing as hot, unimaginably over-excitable foam spilled out across the kitchen, like some kinda naff, early 00's rave foam party.
By the second week, though, it had grown somewhat stale, when you find yourself having to mop down a whole kitchen, simply because you had the audacity to want to make a cuppa.
There were mass email exchanges between building occupants, each accusing one another, and it got so inflammatory, the building management company had to step in, and they installed CCTV, with the sole purpose being to deter or identify the culprit, who went unidentified forever.
We’d suspected for a few years prior to the incident that my grandma had dementia but she refused to let us get her tested so we weren’t too forceful towards it, we just started putting plans in place in the background.
Then March last year, I went to visit her for a couple of hours on Monday afternoon once I’d finished work, and all was fine. One of her neighbours had bought her some Chinese the night before and she was planning to have some left over won tons for her evening meal that night. I ate one just as I was setting off home.
Anyway, I didn’t get chance to see her the couple of days after that, but my girlfriend visited on the Thursday to take my grandma for her weekly shop, where I got a phone call that my grandma had severely burnt herself.
I went to visit her after work where she’d literally burnt all of her leg, stomach and side and it was looking infected. I asked her what happened, she said she spilt her meal on Monday. When I asked what she had, she couldn’t tell me other than “one of those what you had one of.” I said they wouldn’t have caused such a severe burn like that. And asked if she’d maybe spilt a hot drink or bowl of soup? But she said no, it was these won tons basically.
She hadn’t told anybody at all until my girlfriend visited that Thursday, but I took her to A&E and kept having to take her for dressings changing and checkups.
She healed and recovered but we’re absolutely dying to know how she really did it. But she just can’t tell us
It’s probably elderly memory loss (could even be dementia, Alzheimer’s, etc). When you went to see her on Thursday knowing about her burns beforehand from your girlfriend, just as you saw her you probably must have made a quick comment about last seeing her well on Monday and sharing wontons. With her failing memory those words being heard just before you inquired how she acquired the burns must have made her to just assume it was the wontons that caused the burns cause she most likely can’t remember what she did in the past few days. She also might not have realised that it’s Thursday already, she probably thought it was the day after she shared the wontons. My grandma in her last few years used to often talk about such impossible scenarios happening to her simply cause she would just substitute her last/remaining memories into what she was talking about. They’re not trying to purposely lie/make up stories, it’s just their failing memory. Please get a caretaker for your grandma!
1. When I was in secondary school I was walking across the football field. I was in the middle and nobody else was nearby (coming back from a music lesson, everyone in classes). Out of nowhere something hits me on the head. It landed next to me, and it was a half empty plastic bottle of water. I was the sort of kid where I wouldn't be surprised if someone threw something at my head, but there was literally nobody around. Nowhere to hide, nowhere close enough to feasibly throw it from. The only thing I can think of is that maybe a bird was carrying it for some reason and dropped it? But I have no idea.
2. I lost my wallet a few years ago. I was confident I lost it somewhere in my flat. I searched everywhere top to bottom and it was nowhere to be found. Cancelled all my cards, got a new wallet, etc.
About a week before I moved out I was packing everything up. And found my old wallet in my jacket pocket. The jacket that I'd worn almost every day throughout that entire summer. It was a fairly chunky wallet with loose change and stuff in it so it's not like it could've slipped into the lining or something. Nothing missing, everything as it was left. So weird.
Used to commute by train, a few years before mobile phones became common. One time, just before my stop, i found a wallet in the train toilet. No time to go hunting for the owner. Got off the train, found the driver's license in the wallet, found the phone number in the book, and rang. Spoke with the guy's wife, said i'd be happy to deliver it to their home (they lived farther up the line). Drove there, got there before he got home, gave it (entirely intact) to his wife. I can imagine when he got home and said 'i lost my wallet on the train', and she goes like 'what? this wallet?' I wonder if she ever told him?
In my childhood home there was a mysterious hole that appeared in the cupboard door under the sink in the kitchen. No-one has EVER owned up to it.
I was too young to do any real damage, so the only real candidates are my mum, 2 brothers, dad and my brother’s mate who was staying the night when it happened.
My mum and 2 brothers have always sworn it wasn’t them and we all believe eachother because it’s the sort of thing we’d admit now and laugh but they’re all adamant it wasn’t them, so it has to have been my dad or my brother’s friend, but my dad’s also denied it but also has a history of lying about stupid things.
Me and my mum joke about one of us admitting it on our death bed. It’ll bother us all forever and there’s no way of finding out
One of our friendship group moved to London after many years living in the same town.
Whilst he was in his hometown, 15 years or so, we met weekly for beers and went on holidays 2 or 3 times a year.
One of the group emigrated and Dan attended his wedding abroad at huge cost to himself.
After moving to London we still met every 2 months or so, and went to festivals together as a group.
One day the emigrant member of the group contacted me asking for Dan's number as he wasn't answering.
We all tried to contact Dan.
9 years ago he completely cut us all off.
Still a mystery and I still occasionally send a text to his old number in the hope he responds.
He has no linkedin profile, Facebook etc
Use whatever info you have about his last known address and look him up in the electoral register. You can find basic info there but enough info that can tell you if he is fine or not
In the midst of Covid, my mum was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer. I was driving her to a hospital appointment and she said "one day Ill tell you all about it". I should have pounced there and then, but tbh ive no idea what she was on about. Now shes dead, I often wonder what it was? Was it something major? Or mundane?
Start with what you and she were discussing when she said that.
Moved into a rented house which had apparently been empty for a while before we took it. Thought some of the neighbours were looking at us oddly. One day, one of our neighbour's kids piped up with "you know someone was m******d in your house?" His mum clouted him one and told him not to tell us that, but on further investigation we were told that it was a guy who'd beheaded someone with an axe in our front room. Possibly total b******t, almost certainly exaggeration, but it fitted with the house having been empty, and was eventually corroborated by other neighbours, though with varying details. Unfortunately this was pre-widespread-internet, and we could never find out a definite time-frame for it. So after fruitlessly searching through a couple of years worth of microfilm of local newspaper front pages (just like you see in the movies) I gave up the ghost and resigned myself to the fact we'd never know one way or the other.
My mystery is that I used to belong to a very tight knit group of friends. One summer the group imploded. I felt like I got hung out to dry by the others. I haven't really spoken to any of them in 25 years.
I was really traumatised by it all and felt months if not years of grief at the loss.
But I can't for the life of me remember or understand how it all kicked off.
In different part of my life I had a pack a friend. It was different pack for elementary school, high school, college years and adult years. At some point in time the entire pack met together for the last time, to never meet in this group again. Happens. I think everyone has similiar experience.
Where the middle eastern DNA came into our faily tree. I did a genetic test, which i know aren't entirely accurate, however, as an extremely pale Irish heritage person it was a surprise to find out one of my great grand parents was likely middle eastern. All of my grandparents are very pale and born in Ireland, was one of my great grandparents hiding their heritage? Someone have an affair?
The "black Irish" are descendants of the Spanish Armada that sailed to Ireland after they were devastated by weather. Spain was once a Muslim stronghold. I'd say it's possible that is the source of our mystery DNA.
Recently my wife and I built a shallow raised bed in our garden for some strawberry plants. It has walls about six inches high. It is at the end of our garden which backs onto a small field, in which lives a horse that belongs to a neighbour a couple of doors down. A few days ago, my wife finds a full, unopened box of Jaffa cakes buried in the new soil that we put down only a couple of weeks ago. The box is damp from the soil but otherwise unopened, and the plastic containing the Jaffa cakes is still sealed. Who put them there, and why?
The candidates include:
* Our children? But we don’t have Jaffa cakes in the house and never do (nobody in our house eats them)
* Our neighbour who owns the horse? We occasionally grumble at each other because she insists on placing her horse’s electric fence as close to our boundary fence as possible because she thinks, incorrectly, that our boundary runs along the fence (it doesn’t, it runs about a metre behind it). The field doesn’t belong to her so we just refuse to engage in the discussion and say if she has a concern about the boundary to take it up with her landlord. Seems a very unlikely thing for her to do, but she is a little odd.
* Our other neighbour? A very mild mannered family, or so we thought until a few days ago when the police turned up at our door to ask if we had heard an argument there a couple of days earlier (we hadn’t). Might they or their children be under such stress that stealing into our garden to bury food is all they can focus on?
* A neighbourhood cat? Our neighbour has a cat, and the next neighbour down from then has at least seven. Our garden can be a bit of a cat highway at night, and occasionally a cat toilet. This seems the most likely option to me, but do cats even like Jaffa cakes? Where would they have found a full pack?
* Someone else? But who would be brave enough to enter a field with a horse of unknown temperament just to play a prank?
It’s a mystery…
After my dad died, we found out he had a secret bank account. It was empty and had apparently never had much going in or out. But it was such an out of character thing for him, and my parents had joint finances all their married lives. None of us could think of a single reason he’d need or want it.
Probably a historic account that he’d had as a single man and only had the odd transaction still active in it. I still have an account from my teenage years. I occasionally put a bit of money in it to stop me spending it but it’s probably been dormant for 10 plus years now!
Not a personal mystery but a few years ago someone at work used to s**t in a freezer bag and put it in work fridge never found out who it was.
What the f**k happened to my favourite pair of leggings (BlackMilk Galaxy Red)
Almost certainly they were nicked by a housemate but there’s a good chance my partner from the time who I asked not to smoke inside was smoking inside and melted them with ash because they were just an inconsiderate c**t like that at times.
My paternal grandfather is a mystery, Dad was an illegitimate child born in 1946. His mum married a bloke who adopted him when he was an infant. Didn’t find this out until I was 19 and I met my auntie for the first time… when she came to visit for Dads funeral. From the little I’ve been told I think Dad knew it wasn’t his real Dad.
Side story, we’re a family of Only Fools and Horses lovers and it wasn until after he passed away that we discovered his name at birth had been Rodney, and got changed during the adoption. We would have loved calling him dipstick and plonker had we known.
My grandad never knew who his dad was, him and his 2 sisters (1 older & 1 younger) were born and raised in the 50s to a single mum. He died in 2005, never knowing who his father was (something he never got over and had loads of issues because of it.) During covid one of my cousins decided to try to find out, she spent the next 18mnths doing dna tests and working with genealogists from a number of companies, and it worked! Turns out he was a Canadian soldier who'd been stationed here during wwii, had a secret relationship and family with my great gran before going back to Canada. Turns out he'd also fathered 2 sons with 2 different women in England before going home to Canada, where he married his childhood sweetheart and had 6 more kids!
Something happened with my step brother at his job a good 14 years ago.
He was in his 30’s, living with a friend, he worked with his friends brother, he lost his job, and had to move back in with our parents.
Stopped being friends with the guys brother for quite some time. They’re friends now.
No one would tell me what happened, but when I’d ask my family would say “I think you know more than you’re letting on”..
To this day, I still have no flipping idea what happened 😅
I asked my dad a few months ago, but I’m assuming he played dumb and said he couldn’t remember what I was talking about.
A few years ago, my sister had an argument and massive fall-out with her husband. It was so bad that he moved out for several weeks, and she went on a pre-booked holiday all on her own! They'd had arguments before, but never this serious. To this day, no one else in the family knows what the argument was about (my sister insists the husband wasn't cheating).
Back on New Years Eve 2011 me and the lads rented out an AirBNB.
It was a messy night with loads of booze.
Come next morning I was looking for my shirt, it was my favourite shirt from Zara. In the end I found it in the bin covered in s**t.
Til this day none of the boys has admitted to s******g on my shirt (though I have my suspicions…).
The gear stick k**b in my fiat punto disappeared one day and I never found it.
I can only assume I left it unlocked and someone stole it.
If it fell off in the car I would of found it. So confused
We had stick insects as kids.
Someone stuck them on top of the radiator and they boiled and went pop.
Me and both my sister's deny it till we are blue in the face and nobody has ever cracked. Everytime it's mentioned it's turnt into a finger pointing exercise with lots of laughter and denial.
I was wearing my late mom's emerald necklace and took it off to take a shower. I left it on my bed with my pajamas (I was the only one in the house). When I came back. it was gone. I have searched absolutely every corner of my bedroom including underneath all the furniture and inside every drawer. It has been three years. I know I will never find it but I cannot figure out what could have happened.
I like these. Kind of feels like when you and your friends get together in school snd everyone goes around telling their creepy and spooky stories
About a year ago I was walking my dog in a field across from my apartment. This a large field, about half the size of a soccer field. I’m always very alert when walking Jake as he aggressive towards other dogs. So I always give other dogs a wide birth. He has never been aggressive towards people. So there we are in middle of this empty field with no one in sight. I bend down to pick up his …leavings. And he bolts, ripping the leash out of my hand. I stumble, regain my balance and look up. Only to see a woman standing 10 feet in front of me. Jake is going nuts circling and barking and snarling. She’s maybe in her late 50s with long curtly salt and pepper hair. And she’s completely unfazed by the 70 pound dog barking and snarling at her. She looks at me say’s almost serenely “I want to pet your dog”. I say “that’s not a good idea.” She just kept saying “I want to pet your dog”. I just caught his leash and got the hell out of there. Where did she come from? why was my dog so freaked?
When I was a young parent I felt uneasy and started walking around the large garden of a relatives house, we were there for a BBQ, I just felt this well of unease like something bad would happen, I kept getting drawn to the bottom of the garden, I would shake my head and walk back up a little and turn around again, the closer to the house I went the greater the pull to the garden was, my 3 year old son had found a pool with a cover on it right at the bottom of the garden behind some trees, had tried to walk on it and fell in, no one else heard a splash and I ran towards it, seen his tiny hand going under the water, grabbed him and pulled him out. Something made me go down to that part of the garden to make sure my son did not die.. If I had not had that urge I would have lost my son.
When my mother passed away, I was the one responsible for clearing her stuff from the house. Sorting out what was to be dumped, what was to go to a charity shop, and what was to be given to other members of the family. I came across a nice little jewellery/keepsake box that I'd never seen mum use, and which played "Speak Softly, Love" (Love theme from "The Godfather") when opened. To the best of anyone's knowledge, mum had never seen "The Godfather". We have no clue whatsoever where it came from, and when she bought it.
While in the hospital after cancer surgery, was waiting to speak to the doctor, they had put my chart on my bed so I was reading it. It said that during my surgery they checked my appendix to see if it needed to be taken out but it had already been removed. I never had appendicitis or had my appendix removed, no scar, nothing. Where did it go?
Could you have, perhaps, been born without it? Is that even possible? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Load More Replies...I still have a significant memory gap from a severe hypoglycemic episode when I was about 14. Last thing I remember was sitting in my bedroom cramming for a test, next thing I know I'm waking up in the dining room with paramedics checking on me. The thing is, when I was studying I was still in my day clothes, but when I regained consciousness I was in my PJs. Logically, I know I had to have stopped studying, gotten ready for bed, went to sleep, then woken up, realized my blood sugar was low, made my way downstairs to get something to eat, then truly passed out. And yet I have absolutely no memory of any of it. As a side note, I had a bizarre ninja moment during all this because despite the severe low giving me the balance of a drunk pirate on a ship in a hurricane and our house being so old breathing wrong made the floors creak, I somehow left my room and got downstairs without waking my mother, the lightest sleeper on planet earth, until the thud that announced I'd passed out.
reminds me of the time i found a beautiful butterfly fully tangle in an old spiders web covered in dust etc, my daughter and my niece watched as i gently untangled the butterfly as he was 2 pretty 2 leave him dead in the dusty web.. while my daughter my niece and i stood there admiring it beauty while holding it in my palm it flapped its wings turned 2 look at me then flew away.. it was 100% dead in that old web.. my husband died the week b4 i found the butterfly, we say it was him, i felt like i was in an episode of The Twilight Zone.. after 20yrs we still rarely talk about cos the girls still freak out..
I have two. In highschool, someone sent me a huge valentine card anonymously. Never found out who. In prison, I was in a five-man room, next to the window. After lights out, I'd lie on my bed and solve math puzzles. When I was ready to sleep, I'd put my book, calculator, pencil, and light on the windowsill until morning. One night, the calculator fell off the window. In the morning, I got up to put my stuff away, and couldn't see the calculator under the bed. I pulled the bed out, the calculator wasn't there. I went through the bags and boxes I had under the bed, and couldn't find the calculator. My roommates looked. They couldn't find it, either. None of them could have stolen it, because I was the last one awake. They didn't know it had fallen off the windowsill. We never found the calculator.
one time i was on holidays, and you needed a card to get down to the pool. me and my friend went down to the pool (with the card). when we got out, we realised we didn't have the card, and decided to just ask my parents to let us in (they had a card each, and we had one). well we got back upstairs and they opened the door for us, lo and behold, there was the card on the bedside table, and everyone else had one.
Here’s one! I am wondering if perhaps a parallel universe version of me got in this universe and registered on Facebook because I once looked up my own name and saw someone who looked like me, but a bit younger and without glasses, and seemingly having decided against cutting her hair short like I had done. Now, that sounds not too far fetched, but I really really love flower crowns, and I loved them too at the time, and I liked to describe myself as a flower child as well then. And guess what I saw in the recent posts? A picture of the girl wearing a flower crown, with the caption flower girl. She looked like me with a different hairstyle and no glasses, had the same name, and had my aesthetic. Also my eyes are sometimes blue and sometimes green, and in the pic her eyes were blue-green. This is real!
My husband has a cool story. He's not sure to this day if he made it up or not, but he says he has vivid memory of seeing these things. His dad was showing him something in the woods; it was like a family who were tiny, little people. He remembers there was a grandma and two smaller kids. He told kids at school about it who all said he was lying but even his dad came in and told them that he wasn't and they did really see it. He says nowadays that his dad probably told him a story and he made the images up in his head and maybe his dad just played along. He still seems unsure.
I lost an Empire Strikes Back Snowtrooper action figure when I was seven.
Load More Replies...I was wearing my late mom's emerald necklace and took it off to take a shower. I left it on my bed with my pajamas (I was the only one in the house). When I came back. it was gone. I have searched absolutely every corner of my bedroom including underneath all the furniture and inside every drawer. It has been three years. I know I will never find it but I cannot figure out what could have happened.
I like these. Kind of feels like when you and your friends get together in school snd everyone goes around telling their creepy and spooky stories
About a year ago I was walking my dog in a field across from my apartment. This a large field, about half the size of a soccer field. I’m always very alert when walking Jake as he aggressive towards other dogs. So I always give other dogs a wide birth. He has never been aggressive towards people. So there we are in middle of this empty field with no one in sight. I bend down to pick up his …leavings. And he bolts, ripping the leash out of my hand. I stumble, regain my balance and look up. Only to see a woman standing 10 feet in front of me. Jake is going nuts circling and barking and snarling. She’s maybe in her late 50s with long curtly salt and pepper hair. And she’s completely unfazed by the 70 pound dog barking and snarling at her. She looks at me say’s almost serenely “I want to pet your dog”. I say “that’s not a good idea.” She just kept saying “I want to pet your dog”. I just caught his leash and got the hell out of there. Where did she come from? why was my dog so freaked?
When I was a young parent I felt uneasy and started walking around the large garden of a relatives house, we were there for a BBQ, I just felt this well of unease like something bad would happen, I kept getting drawn to the bottom of the garden, I would shake my head and walk back up a little and turn around again, the closer to the house I went the greater the pull to the garden was, my 3 year old son had found a pool with a cover on it right at the bottom of the garden behind some trees, had tried to walk on it and fell in, no one else heard a splash and I ran towards it, seen his tiny hand going under the water, grabbed him and pulled him out. Something made me go down to that part of the garden to make sure my son did not die.. If I had not had that urge I would have lost my son.
When my mother passed away, I was the one responsible for clearing her stuff from the house. Sorting out what was to be dumped, what was to go to a charity shop, and what was to be given to other members of the family. I came across a nice little jewellery/keepsake box that I'd never seen mum use, and which played "Speak Softly, Love" (Love theme from "The Godfather") when opened. To the best of anyone's knowledge, mum had never seen "The Godfather". We have no clue whatsoever where it came from, and when she bought it.
While in the hospital after cancer surgery, was waiting to speak to the doctor, they had put my chart on my bed so I was reading it. It said that during my surgery they checked my appendix to see if it needed to be taken out but it had already been removed. I never had appendicitis or had my appendix removed, no scar, nothing. Where did it go?
Could you have, perhaps, been born without it? Is that even possible? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Load More Replies...I still have a significant memory gap from a severe hypoglycemic episode when I was about 14. Last thing I remember was sitting in my bedroom cramming for a test, next thing I know I'm waking up in the dining room with paramedics checking on me. The thing is, when I was studying I was still in my day clothes, but when I regained consciousness I was in my PJs. Logically, I know I had to have stopped studying, gotten ready for bed, went to sleep, then woken up, realized my blood sugar was low, made my way downstairs to get something to eat, then truly passed out. And yet I have absolutely no memory of any of it. As a side note, I had a bizarre ninja moment during all this because despite the severe low giving me the balance of a drunk pirate on a ship in a hurricane and our house being so old breathing wrong made the floors creak, I somehow left my room and got downstairs without waking my mother, the lightest sleeper on planet earth, until the thud that announced I'd passed out.
reminds me of the time i found a beautiful butterfly fully tangle in an old spiders web covered in dust etc, my daughter and my niece watched as i gently untangled the butterfly as he was 2 pretty 2 leave him dead in the dusty web.. while my daughter my niece and i stood there admiring it beauty while holding it in my palm it flapped its wings turned 2 look at me then flew away.. it was 100% dead in that old web.. my husband died the week b4 i found the butterfly, we say it was him, i felt like i was in an episode of The Twilight Zone.. after 20yrs we still rarely talk about cos the girls still freak out..
I have two. In highschool, someone sent me a huge valentine card anonymously. Never found out who. In prison, I was in a five-man room, next to the window. After lights out, I'd lie on my bed and solve math puzzles. When I was ready to sleep, I'd put my book, calculator, pencil, and light on the windowsill until morning. One night, the calculator fell off the window. In the morning, I got up to put my stuff away, and couldn't see the calculator under the bed. I pulled the bed out, the calculator wasn't there. I went through the bags and boxes I had under the bed, and couldn't find the calculator. My roommates looked. They couldn't find it, either. None of them could have stolen it, because I was the last one awake. They didn't know it had fallen off the windowsill. We never found the calculator.
one time i was on holidays, and you needed a card to get down to the pool. me and my friend went down to the pool (with the card). when we got out, we realised we didn't have the card, and decided to just ask my parents to let us in (they had a card each, and we had one). well we got back upstairs and they opened the door for us, lo and behold, there was the card on the bedside table, and everyone else had one.
Here’s one! I am wondering if perhaps a parallel universe version of me got in this universe and registered on Facebook because I once looked up my own name and saw someone who looked like me, but a bit younger and without glasses, and seemingly having decided against cutting her hair short like I had done. Now, that sounds not too far fetched, but I really really love flower crowns, and I loved them too at the time, and I liked to describe myself as a flower child as well then. And guess what I saw in the recent posts? A picture of the girl wearing a flower crown, with the caption flower girl. She looked like me with a different hairstyle and no glasses, had the same name, and had my aesthetic. Also my eyes are sometimes blue and sometimes green, and in the pic her eyes were blue-green. This is real!
My husband has a cool story. He's not sure to this day if he made it up or not, but he says he has vivid memory of seeing these things. His dad was showing him something in the woods; it was like a family who were tiny, little people. He remembers there was a grandma and two smaller kids. He told kids at school about it who all said he was lying but even his dad came in and told them that he wasn't and they did really see it. He says nowadays that his dad probably told him a story and he made the images up in his head and maybe his dad just played along. He still seems unsure.
I lost an Empire Strikes Back Snowtrooper action figure when I was seven.
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