30 Unsolved Mysteries That Have Folks Scratching Their Brains To This Day

3 lighthouse workers with impeccable mustaches traveled to a remote island on December 7th, 1900 for a lighthouse shift that should have lasted for two weeks. When a boat arrived to pick them up, they were gone. No trace of the bodies, and the lighthouse was strangely locked. Not only was the setting normal (meal ready to be served), but there was no fire in the fireplace, and the clock stopped. One of the men kept a log in a diary, and he said that the seas were rough one day, but when monitored, it was actually calm. No one knows what happened to them.
Edit: The mustaches have nothing to do with the story at all. I just really liked them.

The wife of Scientology leader David Miscavige has not been seen in 11 years. The church insists that she’s just too busy to make public appearances, but former member Leah Remini has filed a missing person report for her. Some say she’s straight up dead.

Bermuda triangle. As a kid, that phenomenon was everywhere. TV, Sun Classic Films (just dated myself (IYKYK), magazines. Now it’s as if no ships or planes disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle.
What gives? Was all the hype fake. Was that real? I need to know!

What ever happened to that missing Malaysian flight? It just took a couple of crazy turns and then completely disappeared from the radar.

On the evening of March 31, 1922, six people from a small farmstead in Bavaria, located around 70 kilometers (43 miles) north of Munich, were found deceased under mysterious circumstances. The victims included Andreas Gruber (63), his wife Cäzilia Gruber (72), their widowed daughter Viktoria Gabriel (35), Viktoria's two children, Cazilia (7) and Josef (2), and their maid, Maria Baumgartner (44). They had all been fatally struck with a mattock. Strangely, the person or people responsible seemed to remain at the house for several days afterward, eating food, caring for the animals, and even starting fires in the fireplace. The case remains one of the most perplexing and unsettling unsolved crimes in German history.

The Voynich Manuscript. Nobody knows if it’s legit or just an elaborate joke.

The Mary Celeste. The merchant ship found abandoned and adrift in 1872. The crew’s belongings had not been disturbed. There were ample provisions for the sail. The cargo was not disturbed. However, the life boat was gone. The crew just... disappeared.

Roopkund lake. A small lake up in some mountains in India with a lot of human skeletons in it. Not only that, but the skeletons seems to have come from at least two different incidents hundreds of years apart.

What Pope Leo said to Attila the Hun. Attila was taking over the world and made it to Rome and the Vatican. Leo rode out alone and spoke to Attila and convinced Attila to not destroy Rome and the Vatican. What was said, only the archives of the Vatican has any idea.

Ball lightning is accepted as a real phenomenon, but is largely a mystery.

I first became fascinated with "ball lighting" as a kid after my grandpa freaked out when a ball of light came in through our back door and followed him to the living room then disappeared. He told that story again and again until he passed. I was a big fan of the Little House on the Prairie series at the time and his description sounded similar to what I read.

A few years later, my mom was taking a meteorology class and that reignited my interest in the weather, especially lightning. I loved having her teach me all the stuff she was learning and we'd watch her required documentaries together.

Fast forward to middle school when we finally got a computer, and my interest flared back up. That was about the first time I ran into the concept of ball lightning and it reminded me of when I was a kid. My mom confirmed my memory of my grandpa's story and even how eager I was to read him the passages from the book.

I check in time to time to see what new breakthroughs have been made in the area, but it's still really sparse even today.

So it's this Australian family who owned a Berry farm. Somehow Mr and Mrs Tromp and their three grown kids developed the belief that they weren't safe and they needed to flee their farm without cell phones or anything traceable (credit cards, etc). It sounds like the oldest son wasn't sold on whatever it was that led them to flee. He brought his phone, but eventually it got tossed from the car. He ended up bailing first and taking a train home. From there the rest of the family slowly separated and suffered various degrees of emotional breaks. The two girls stole a car. Somehow they got separated and one made it home, but the other was found on the floor in the backseat of some guys car in a catatonic state. (he spotted her after he started down the road). Eventually the parents were found wandering around aimlessly. Fortunately they were all ok physically but wtf happened? Was someone actually after them? Were they delusional? As far as I know the family hasn't released any updates.

The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser. I find the story of Kaspar Hauser, an anonymous teenager found wandering the streets of Nuremberg in in the early 19th century, fascinating. He appeared out of nowhere with no family, friends or anyone who could confirm his identity. He claimed to have been kept in almost total isolation for his whole life up until that point. His linguistic skills were severely limited, consistent with someone who had grown up with very little human contact. Rumours began to circulate that he was actually a German prince who had been swapped at birth with a dead baby to prevent his succession to the throne by scheming relatives. Rather than k**l him, they locked him up in complete isolation and left there to be forgotten, until somehow he was freed or managed to escape. He attracted several wealthy sponsors over the course of his short life, but none were successful at solving the mystery of his origins. He died under suspicious circumstances (stabbed by an unknown assailant) 5 years after being found. Of course he may have just been a deranged fantasist or attention seeker - who knows!

El Fausto.
Disappeared THREE TIMES during a trip that should have only taken hours and was missing for months. People talked to the crew when it reappeared before it vanished again. And when it was found for the last time, the crew was dead, one practically mummified. He kept a journal that didn't make much sense either. Amazing to read.

The U.S.S. Cyclops. A coal ship. Disappeared with 306 men. The largest U.S. Navy loss of life that didn't involve combat.

The Codex Gigas. Supposedly the Devil's bible. It's been mysteriously saved multiple times from burning buildings. For example it was chucked out of burning building from the 4 floor or something, but the catch is that a single person can't carry it. It weighs several hundred pounds and no one was in the building. Nobody knows where it's been originated. Also, it's reported that there's evidence in the hand writing and ink that the entire book was written within a very short period of time, (like a week or something) but the book is huge, should've taken years to write. Really interesting stuff.

Edit: Also as someone mentioned according to analysis, it seams as though the entire book was written by one monk.

Here's one I learned about recently: in 2000, a mummy was found around Pakistan with an inscription on the sarcophagus claiming her to be the unknown daughter of the Persian king Xerxes, Rhodugune. It caused a big hubbub, since it was the first apparent Persian mummy. It was fascinating because it had been mummified in traditional Egyptian fashion, complete with all the organs extracted including the brain, and I even recall something about golden resin being found inside the body.

But deeper examinations revealed a lot of smaller details that didn't add up. One archaeologist remembered being contacted by a middleman about a mummy that resembled the photos, and when he'd had a piece of the sarcophagus carbon dated he found it was only 250 years old. The inscription also used a Greek form of the name instead of Persian, the bandages dated to the wrong period, and the stone pad was found to be five years old. And a lot of other experts noticed that the heart had been removed, which Egyptians absolutely did NOT do.

They quickly decided she wasn't a Persian princess.But here's the freaky part: further examination on the "mummy" revealed her to be a woman between 21-25 who died around 1996 from some sort of blunt impact, like being hit by a car.

There have been a trail of suspects from it, since it was found in possession of some Pakistani and Irani dealers who were trying to sell it on the black market. But no one knows the victim's identity, and we probably never will.

The Isdal Woman refers to an unidentified woman found deceased in Isdalen ("The Ice Valley") in Bergen, Norway, on November 29, 1970.
While authorities at the time concluded that the death was likely self-inflicted, the unusual circumstances of the case sparked continued speculation and investigation over the years. Even after more than fifty years, it remains one of Norway's most perplexing unsolved cases.

The identity of and what happened to D.B Cooper. A man on a plane called himself D.B Cooper and claimed to have a b**b in use suitcase. He took the flight crew hostage and when he got the money he asked for he had the flight crew start flying again. Eventually he jumped out of the plane with a couple of parachutes and the money. No one knows where he went or if he even survived.

Whether or not we’re alone in the universe. I think everyone is onboard with knowing for sure that we’re not, but there’s still no public proof.

Asha Degree. Girl leaves her house in the middle of the night during a storm and disappeared. The only problem is that she was terrified of thunder and lightning and had no motive for leaving because her home life was fine. Then her clothes and backpack were found a year later in an abandoned construction site.

On the afternoon of 17 December 1967, Prime Minister Harold Holt entered the surf at Cheviot Beach in Victoria. He was never seen again. 
Despite an exhaustive search, no body or other evidence was found. In their place rose allegations, rumours and conspiracy theories that continue to this day. 

Where is Tera Smith? She disappeared from her Northern California hometown when she was a teenager in the late 1990s. I lived in Redding and was just a couple years younger than Tera at the time of her disappearance, so her disappearance has always stuck with me.

The boy in the box. A deceased little boy, found beaten, recently shaved of his hair and abandoned in the box for a bassinet that he was way too old for. The photos and reconstructions of him released to the public in the desperate hope of identifying him are haunting.

I vote for the Zodiac Killer. He left multiple cryptic messages, some of which never got decoded, but they never identified him. There's much debate as to what happened to him, and even how extensive the scope of his killings. I believe the FBI still has a reward on information leading to his arrest, but nobody has heard anything in decades.

The Bronze Age collapse. Where'd they all go? All my homies :(

On June 7, 1992, the Springfield, Missouri Police Department was notified of the disappearance of three women from a residence in central Springfield.
The parents of Stacy McCall, one of the missing women, contacted the police department in reference to their daughter's disappearance from the home of Sherrill Levitt and Suzanne Streeter, the other two missing women. Upon officers' arrival, the house bore no signs of a struggle, but rather the appearance of the missing women being abducted. All personal property was left behind including purses, money, clothing, cars, keys, cigarettes, and the family dog.

Roanoke Colony, early Virginia. Somewhere between 110 and 120 people disappeared without a trace between 1585 and 1590. It’s been suggested that they left and joined with the Croatian tribe on their island, but no proof of any of the many theories has ever been found.

The West Memphis Three case. All of the Satanic Panic mess obscured so much that will probably go unanswered now. A bloody man covered in mud stumbled into a Bojangles the night those little boys went missing. Cops barely investigated that incident and lost the blood evidence they did collect regarding it. WHAT was going on with John Mark Byers and Terry Hobbs, two dads of two of those kids, both turning up with evidence and acting at different points like they may have been involved?

The Monster with 21 Faces

In the 1980s, over a period of 17 months, Japan was held in the grip of terror by just such a powerful criminal force. The case would turn the country on its head, push police to their limits, dispel the notion that Japan was a completely safe place, and 30 years later remains just as unsolved and mysterious as it has ever been. This is the story of the notorious Monster with 21 Faces, an organization led by an enigmatic figure which proved to be just as untouchable and elusive as any super villain, which led the police on an unprecedented manhunt and whirlwind investigation for a crime they would never get to the bottom of, and which has gone on to become one of the most puzzling unsolved crimes in Japanese history.

On March 13, 1997 thousands of Arizona residents witnessed a large unidentified flying objects moving across the night sky. High profile witnesses to the phoenix lights include actor Kurt Russell who was flying a plane and reported the object to the FAA, and the governor of Arizona, Fife Symington.

The Yuba County Five were a group of young men from Yuba County, California, United States, each with mild intellectual disabilities or psychiatric conditions, who were reported missing after attending a college basketball game at California State University, Chico (also known as Chico State), on the night of February 24, 1978. Four of them - Bill Sterling, 29; Jack Huett, 24; Ted Weiher, 32; and Jack Madruga, 30 - were later found dead; the fifth, Gary Mathias, 25, has never been found.

The disappearance of Patti Krieger. Not very well known outside of Washington state. Hiking with her fiance's family when on the way down she allegedly went down the wrong trail and didn't hear them yelling at her and no one followed her, they just assumed the trails would meet back up, but she was never seen again. The search dogs were able to follow her scent down the the parking lot, but never found her, they did find her Rottweiler that was with her weeks later severely emaciated. Her fiance's family was seen driving her car after the disapearance. Her family has said they think her fiance is to blame but no charges have ever been filed against anyone.

The Chicago Tylenol Murders
It gripped the nation suddenly in the 1980s. Police were driving around with loudspeakers telling people to throw out their Tylenol. Seven people died And AFAIK thyy never even came up with a suspect.

The teen couple Mitchel Weiser and Bonnie Bickwit. 50 years missing, Disappeared after going to a Rock concert in 1973. The only theory that makes sense what happened to them is that they hitchhiked with the wrong person

The young woman passed away under mysterious circumstances two months after marrying Edward Shue. Her death was initially thought to be from natural causes until her spirit appeared in a dream to her mother, Mary, revealing that her husband was responsible for her passing. Mary Heaster claimed her daughter appeared at her bedside (wearing the dress she died in) on four occasions, explaining how Edward had come home from work as a blacksmith and, in a fit of anger, caused her neck to be broken. An examination of the exhumed body confirmed the details from the vision. Edward Shue was convicted and sentenced to the state penitentiary at Moundsville, where he passed away eight years later.

The legend of the Green Children of Woolpit tells of two children with green skin who appeared in the village of Woolpit, England, in the 12th century. The brother and sister spoke an unknown language and only ate raw broad beans. After adapting to local food, they lost their green color, but the boy became sick and died around the time of their baptism. The girl later explained in English that they came from a land where the sun never shone and everything was green, which she called Saint Martin's Land.

In Australia 2008, an olive grove of 400 trees was stripped of every single olive OVERNIGHT by hand. The owner (who lives on the grove btw) says it usually would take a team of 6 a full 3 days to harvest the grove. He heard nothing overnight - no machinery - and found not a single olive on a tree nor the ground the next day. None! I can’t imagine the size of a team of silent thieves picking and hauling 4 tonnes of olives in a single night!!
The owner says he knows of 5 other similar raids in the area cumulating in 7.5 tonnes being heisted at a value of $10,000.
The numbers here are just confounding - the number of people it would take to do the work, not get caught and for such a comparative measly payoff?!!

The Sodder children; their house burned down in the middle of the night. Several of the kids were presumed dead, but their bodies were never found in the debris and it never burned hot enough to cremate them. It started to look extremely suspicious and the parents until their deaths believed that they had been taken for some reason. Many years down the line they did receive a photo and cryptic note from someone claiming to be their son but it was never authenticated.

As someone from Chicago who loves /r/UnresolvedMysteries I would say the Max Headroom broadcast signal intrusion, and I don't think we will ever find out who was behind it.

It's been over 30 years and we still have no idea who was behind that incredibly bizarre hijack. There was a thread a while ago of someone that thought they had figured it out that seemed very possible, but it was updated and they were ruled out as suspects.

Houska Castle creeps me out.

Basically this Bohemian fortress was constructed on top of an ancient Slavo-Germanic pagan ritual site which was a very deep hole. Nothing too weird about that except for the way the castle was built.

For one, its built in a useless position and served no strategic purpose so it was not desirable for medieval lords of Bohemia or any invaders to control.

Then people realized that the castle was actually inverted! The fortifications were on the inside (arrow slits, turrets, thick fortress walls slanting into the castle etc...) it's as if they were trying to keep something inside. There's a legend that a Bohemian king lowered a prisoner into the hole that the castle was built on and he began screaming so they pulled him back up and he had aged 60 years and died.

Then during WW2 the Nazis did actually occupy the castle for a time but they reported some strange sounds and when allied forces stormed the castle the Nazis were dead or abandoned the place.

For sure there's some folklore involved with the place but the fact that the castle was built clearly to keep something inside opposed to out and even the Nazis had issues with it, it definitely makes it seem like some ancient horror lies within that hole...

TL;DR Houska castle was built on top of an ancient pagan hole with fortifications inside not outside as if to keep something in not out. Nazis tried occupying the castle but ended up dead or abandoned it.

Astronomer here! In my field, the Wow! signal is probably the most famous unexplained mystery. It was basically detected in 1977 by a telescope that was just pointed overhead, and looked very similar to what a SETI signal is expected to look like. It was first noted the next morning by an astronomer (who wrote “Wow!” in the log margins) and was never seen again despite extensive follow up over the years.

There have been various suggestions on what the Wow! signal was (but no, it probably wasn’t comets). Personally, based on my experience with man made interference (RFI) in radio astronomy (I wrote a paper on distinguishing a real transient signal from that stuff), it was most likely RFI from a satellite or similar. But until we see another signal like it, we just don’t know for sure, and that’s very fun to think about!

As a native of the Portland Oregon metro area, it's really sad that Kyron Horman's disappearance is still unsolved. He will be 21 this year. Disappeared at 7.

On June 8, 1987, eighteen year old Michael Adams returned home after leaving work at a local grocery store in Abilene, Texas. He was last seen by his sister at around 11:30PM, when she saw him standing next to a car that was idling outside of their home, he was leaning into the car, talking to the occupants. The next morning, he was discovered missing and his bed didn't appear to be slept in. He was never heard from again. His wallet was in his room, and his car was parked strangely in the driveway. Several of his friends were questioned and were given polygraphs; all passed and were cleared as suspects. His disappearance remains unsolved.

Madeleine Beth McCann (born 12 May 2003) is a British missing person, who at the age of 3, disappeared from her bed in a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Lagos, Portugal, on the evening of 3 May 2007. The Daily Telegraph described her disappearance as "the most heavily reported missing-person case in modern history". Madeleine's whereabouts remain unknown, although German prosecutors believe she is dead.

TIL during World War II, the town of Pascagoula, Mississippi, was gripped by fear over a mysterious figure known as the “Phantom Barber.” Residents reported that an intruder would sneak into their homes at night and cut locks of hair from their heads while they slept.

The case of the Pollock twins is one of the most intriguing instances of possible reincarnation. After the tragic deaths of their older sisters Joanna and Jacqueline, the twins, Gillian and Jennifer, began exhibiting strange behaviors and memories that seemed to mirror their deceased siblings. They recognized toys that once belonged to their sisters, made eerie statements about the accident, and even displayed matching birthmarks. Their close bond, shared interests, and phobias aligned closely with the lives of their older sisters. This unusual case has fascinated researchers and remains one of the most well-documented reincarnation stories to date.

The Oak Island mystery refers to a collection of tales and myths surrounding a hidden treasure and strange artifacts discovered on or around Oak Island in Nova Scotia. As of 2024, the primary treasure remains undiscovered.

Tri-state Crematory. A devastating case of a man called back from his college football career to take over his father's business when the father fell ill. Over time people started noticing... bodies... and body parts. On the grounds. Just hanging around. When someone finally took the reports seriously they found that he'd been piling bodies up randomly all over the property, often when it would've been much easier to cremate them instead of hauling them around to where they were dumped. The guy gave families canisters of cement dust instead of ashes. The mystery on this one is... why. The guy never gave up the answer to what happened there and will only insist that there are no answers. His lawyer theorized he had mercury poisoning from cremating amalgam fillings, but that doesn't really explain why you would dump a body instead of cremating it when the latter takes less effort.

We still have no definitive proof of who this Socrates guy is.

On one hand, he's mentioned constantly by philosophers from his time, often used as an example character, and several works are attributed to his name. On the other hand, we have countless legal records and censuses that confirm the existence of Aristotle and Plato but NONE that link back to Socrates.

He's either a very prolific philosopher, or an in-joke that classical philosophers would reference when they didn't know who to attribute quotes to.

The Dancing Plague of 1518 was a case of dancing mania that occurred in Strasbourg in July 1518. Around 400 people took to dancing for days without rest and, over the period of about one month, some of those affected collapsed or even died of heart attack, stroke, or exhaustion.

Historical documents, including "physician notes, cathedral sermons, local and regional chronicles, and even notes issued by the Strasbourg city council" are clear that the victims danced. It is not known why these people danced, some even to their deaths.

Brian Shaffer's disappearance. He was in a bar and afterwards disappeared. Surveillance photos never show him exiting, but a search never found him. I don't remember the in depth details though.

In 1977 we received a radio signal from outer space that lasted about 72 seconds. To this day, we still do not know where it originated from.

Hundreds of hackers have tried to solve the Cicada 3301 mystery to no avail

My favourite is the David Lytton in Manchester, UK. It took a long time to identify the man, even with photographs shared around. They found that the British man travelled to London from Pakistan and the same day walked into a pub in Manchester asking for directions to the 'top of the mountain'. He was warned against it as it would be night time in the dead of winter by the time he gets there.
He had nothing on him except train tickets and £130. His body was found the next day, lying down fully clothed with some medication in his pocket, which wasn't a dangerous medication from what I remember.

I gotta go with the first ever unsolved mystery that really made me think. Mystery of the Somerton Man. In the 1948 a guy was found dead on a beach in Adelaide, Australia. He was never identified and months after finding his body they found a fake pocket in his pants. It was torn from a copy of the book Rubiyat of Omar Khayyam (I googled that) and had a phrase on it which said “Tamam Shud” which means ended or finished in Persian. They found the book that it came from but the owner denied ever knowing the guy. There was an encrypted message in the book that they found and it still hasn’t been cracked. Apparently there’s been a development recently that might identify him as H.C. Reynolds but it’s not 100% certain. It’s super interesting

Edit: thank you to u/Young_old-soul who has informed me that tamam shod actually means it’s over instead of finished or ended

I'd like to know what happened to Andrew Gosden.

A 14 year old boy left home in Yorkshire one morning in 2007 dressed in his school uniform, and then withdrew all his money from his bank account. He went back home after his parents had gone to work and changed out of his uniform, then went to the train station and bought a one way ticket to London (about two hours away by train). There is CCTV footage of him leaving King's Cross station, but that's the last time he was seen.

He didn't tell his parents he was planning to go to London, and it's never been established why he went there. I'd love to find out he's actually ok, or even if not for his parents to finally find out what happened to him.

Who created Piltdown Man? In the late 1800's and early 1900's, researchers became obsessed with finding the "missing link" between humans and apes. In 1912, archaeologist Charles Dawson finds a skull that seems to have an exact mix of human and ape features, right there in England. Its legitimacy was questioned from the start, but many English scientists wanted it so badly for it to be real that they ignored that evidence for a long time. It wasn't fully exposed as a fake until 41 years later. But who created the fake? Charles Dawson is the obvious suspect, but many believe that other people were in on it, or that someone else did it on their own. Arthur Conan Doyle (author of Sherlock) is my favorite of the suspects, though I rather doubt that he did it, ha ha. Still, I want it to be true!

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Art Heist (1990)

In late January 1921, the crew of the schooner Carroll A. Deering vanished off the North Carolina coast. The ship was spotted on January 31, still in good condition, before running aground on Diamond Shoals. When the Coast Guard boarded, they found the sails set, food prepared but untouched, and everything seemingly in order. However, the lifeboats were missing, and the twelve crew members had disappeared. Theories ranged from pirate attacks to Russian spies, and even the Bermuda Triangle. Despite widespread speculation, the true fate of the crew remains unknown.

The Dyatlov Pass incident occurred in the Ural Mountains between February 1 and 2, 1959, when nine experienced Soviet hikers tragically died under mysterious circumstances. The group, led by Igor Dyatlov, had set up camp on the eastern slopes of Kholat Syakhl in the Soviet Union. During the night, something prompted them to tear open their tent and flee into the harsh, freezing conditions, despite not being properly dressed for the extreme cold and snowfall.

What happened to Brian Shaffer

This happened in my home town. This med student went to a bar with friends and then fully disappeared off the face of the earth.

Edit: The podcast True Crime Garage has an incredible series on this case. The hosts are both from Columbus and around Brian's age. They talk through the whole case in depth and they also have a few guests that they talk with as well.

Sea people. An entire civilization who destroyed a couple of empires and very little is known about them. It’s still not even known if it was on specific group. There’s theories, but nothing really confirmed. Who they were, where they came from, their motivations, daily life, religion, etc. Just an entire group of people who brought down the lives of thousands, destroyed established, seasoned societies and armies, and we know very little facts about them. They are literally considered a possible huge figure in the late Bronze Age collapse and there’s just nothing known for sure.
EDIT: I meant there isn’t a lot we know for sure. Lots of theories and speculation using a lot of random puzzle pieces, but not much definitive conclusions. Don’t know too much about it so I’m inspired to look more now