The history of human civilization reliably holds many secrets, many of which will never be solved. But the last two centuries have presented the world with many mysteries that researchers are puzzling over. The most mysterious incidents in the world of the XX-XXI centuries - today we’ll talk about ten secrets of modern human history.
Crop Circles
The most mysterious incidents in the world include mysterious ones. These are various geometric shapes formed by crushed plants in agricultural fields. The drawings are created perfectly smoothly and can form complex pictograms. Their size varies: they can be small or huge, fully visible only from an airplane. They began to attract a lot of attention in the 1970s in England. In 1972, in the south of the country, two eyewitnesses, watching the sky on a moonlit night in the hope of seeing a UFO, noticed how the grass in the field lay down, forming a circle. The peak of interest in the mysterious phenomenon occurred in the 1990s. The earliest mentions of the appearance of such pictograms (drawings) in the margins date back to the 17th century.
The most varied hypotheses for the origin of crop circles are put forward: the activities of an alien civilization, micro-tornadoes, ball lightning and hoaxes of interested parties. Thus, the Englishmen David Chorley and Douglas Bauer admitted in 1991 that the appearance of the first circles was their doing. They claim that they have created about 250 pictograms since 1978. But many continue to believe that the mysterious phenomenon of amazing drawings in the fields is not a hoax, but unsolved messages from mysterious forces. Crop circles are in 10th place among the most mysterious incidents on Earth.
The fall of the Tunguska meteorite
On June 30, 1908, at 7 o’clock in the morning, in the Podkamennaya Tunguska region (the right tributary of the Yenisei, Central Siberia), local residents witnessed the flight of a celestial body, which left a trail behind it, like a falling meteorite. The sound of the fall was heard at a distance of more than a thousand kilometers from the crash site. A powerful shock wave knocked down trees within a radius of 30 kilometers. This mysterious incident became known to the world as. But what kind of object exploded in the Podkamennaya Tunguska area, and whether it was really a meteorite, is still unknown. Thousands of researchers have been working on the solution to this phenomenon for over years. Many hypotheses have been put forward, none of which have received documented confirmation. The famous Tunguska meteorite, the mystery of which has never been solved, is in 9th place on the list of the most mysterious incidents in the world.
It is also associated with space, causing a huge resonance in the world. In 1947, a catastrophe allegedly occurred near the city of Roswell - the fall of a cosmic body of artificial origin. This incident became one of the most mysterious incidents in the world. There is still fierce debate over the nature of the fallen object. The authorities, represented by the country's air force, claim that a weather balloon crashed, which local residents mistook for the wreckage of a UFO. The Roswell incident is number eight on our list.
The mysterious disappearance of the ship's crew is in seventh place among the most mysterious incidents in the world. In 1872, the sailing ship was found by an English brig. From the trajectory of its movement it was clear that no one was controlling it. Not a single crew member or passenger was found on board. Things were untouched, as were the supply of water and provisions. From the entry in the logbook it followed that the ship reached almost the point where it was found. What happened to the crew is still unknown. The commission that investigated the case suggested that the crew for some reason abandoned the ship, leaving behind all their belongings and provisions. There was simply no other explanation for what happened.
Many mysterious incidents are associated with crimes. The most famous story is the Jack the Ripper case, which was never solved. The 20th century made its contribution to the history of serial killers. From 1918 to 1919, a criminal nicknamed "The Woodman" operated in New Orleans. The murder weapon was an ax, with which the maniac broke open the doors of the victims' houses. Like Jack the Ripper, the Woodcutter wrote letters to newspapers reporting future murders. The crimes suddenly stopped, and the Woodcutter's identity was never established. The New Orleans murder mystery ranks sixth on the list of the most mysterious incidents in the world.
One of the most mysterious stories in the world is the criminal case of the discovery in 1948 of the body of an unidentified man on the beach of Adelaide (Australia). The case received a great public outcry for a number of reasons: it was not possible to establish either the identity of the unknown person or the cause of death. In addition, a piece of paper with a strange inscription “Taman Shud” was found in a secret trouser pocket. As it turned out, the paper was torn from a rare edition of the works of Omar Khayyam. The mysterious story that happened on the beach in Somerton is in fifth place as the most mysterious incidents in the world. This incident inspired Stephen King to write "The Colorado Boy".
In fourth place among the most mysterious incidents in the world is history "Kyshtym dwarf". In 1996, an elderly woman in a village near Kyshtym discovered a living creature of an unknown biological species. Outwardly, it looked like a small humanoid - about 30 centimeters in length. The woman named him Alyoshenka and nursed him for about a month. Then the creature died. His mummified remains were later discovered by the police. Then the body of the “Kyshtym Dwarf” mysteriously disappeared.
- in third place on the list of the most amazing and mysterious incidents in the world. Since the 1970s, a program to search for extraterrestrial civilizations began in the United States. For this, a radio telescope was used to scan different parts of the sky. With its help, scientists were able to detect signals from other civilizations. In 1977, at a frequency at which no earthly transmitter operates, a signal was received from the constellation Sagittarius. It lasted 37 seconds. Its origin is still unknown.
Ship "Marlboro"
History - the new "Flying Dutchman" ranks second among the most mysterious incidents in the world. The ship left a port in New Zealand in 1890 with a cargo of frozen lamb. He did not reach his destination, disappearing in the area of Cape Horn. There were 23 crew members and several passengers on board. It was decided that the sailboat sank during a storm. But 23 years later he appeared off the coast of Tierra del Fuego. It was well preserved, and skeletons in rotting clothes were found on board. True, there were ten fewer of them than were listed in the logbook. What happened to the crew, why people died and where ten people disappeared from the sailing ship is unknown. Due to bad weather, the ship could not be brought to port. The Marlboro still plows the seas.
The most mysterious incident in the world is the mystery of the death of the Dyatlov group. This tragic story is known to everyone and haunts those who want to reveal the truth about what happened more than 50 years ago. In 1959, a tourist group led by Igor Dyatlov died mysteriously in the mountains of the Northern Urals. The causes of the terrible death of nine people have not yet been established.
Each of these mysterious stories could be called a detective story. But in detective stories, as you know, all the secrets are revealed by the last page. And in these stories, the solution is still far away, although humanity has been puzzling over some of them for decades. Perhaps we are not destined to find answers for them at all? Or will the veil of secrecy ever be lifted? And what do you think?
43 missing Mexican students
In 2014, 43 students from the College of Education from Ayotzinapa went to demonstrate in Iguala, where the mayor's wife was scheduled to speak to residents. The corrupt mayor ordered the police to rid him of this problem. On his orders, the police detained the students, and as a result of the harsh detention, two students and three bystanders died. The remaining students, as we found out, were handed over to the local crime syndicate Guerreros Unidos. The next day, the body of one of the students was found on the street with the skin torn off his face. Later, the remains of two more students were found. Relatives and friends of the students organized mass demonstrations, triggering a full-blown political crisis in the country. The corrupt mayor, his friends and the chief of police tried to escape, but were detained a few weeks later. The provincial governor resigned, and several dozen police officers and officials were arrested. And only one thing remains a mystery - the fate of almost four dozen students is still unknown.
Oak Island Money Pit
Off the coast of Nova Scotia, on Canadian territory, there is a small island - Oak Island, or Oak Island. There is the famous “money pit”. According to legend, local residents found it back in 1795. This is a very deep and complex mine, in which, according to legend, countless treasures are hidden. Many have tried to get into it - but the design is treacherous, and after the treasure hunter has dug to a certain depth, the mine begins to be intensively filled with water. They say that brave souls found at a depth of 40 meters a stone tablet with the scrawled inscription: “Two million pounds are buried 15 meters deeper.” More than one generation has tried to get the promised treasure out of the hole. Even the future President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, during his student years at Harvard, came to Oak Island with a group of friends to try his luck. But the treasure is not given to anyone. And is he there?..
Who was Benjamin Kyle?
In 2004, an unknown man woke up outside a Burger King in Georgia. He had no clothes on, there were no documents with him, but the worst thing was that he didn’t remember anything about himself. That is, absolutely nothing! The police conducted a thorough investigation, but were unable to find any traces: neither missing people with such characteristics, nor relatives who could identify him from a photo. He was soon given the name Benjamin Kyle, under which he continues to live to this day. Without documents or certificates of any education, he could not find a job, but one local businessman, having learned about him from a television program, out of pity, gave him a job as a dishwasher. He still works there now. The efforts of doctors to awaken his memory, and the police to find his previous traces, did not yield results.
Shore of Severed Legs
"Severed Legs Coast" is the name given to a beach on the Pacific Northwest coast of British Columbia. It received this terrible name because local residents several times found severed human legs here, shod in sneakers or sneakers. From 2007 to the present, 17 of them have been found, with the majority being right-wing. There are several theories to explain why legs wash up on this beach - natural disasters, the work of a serial killer... some even claim that the mafia destroys the bodies of its victims on this remote beach. But none of these theories looks convincing, and no one knows where the truth is.
"Dancing Death" 1518
One day in the summer of 1518 in Strasbourg, a woman suddenly began dancing in the middle of the street. She danced wildly until she fell from exhaustion. The strangest thing is that gradually others joined her. A week later, 34 people were dancing in the city, and a month later - 400. Many dancers died from overwork and heart attacks. The doctors did not know what to think, and the churchmen also could not exorcise the demons possessing the dancers. In the end, it was decided to leave the dancers alone. The fever gradually subsided, but no one ever knew what caused it. They talked about some special type of epilepsy, about poisoning, and even about a secret, pre-coordinated religious ceremony. But scientists of that time did not find an exact answer.
Signal from aliens
On August 15, 1977, Jerry Eman, who was monitoring signals from space at the volunteer Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Civilizations, picked up a signal at a random radio frequency, clearly coming from deep space, from the direction of the constellation Sagittarius. This signal was much stronger than the cosmic noise that Eman was used to hearing on the air. It lasted only 72 seconds and consisted of a completely definite, in the eye of the observer, completely random list of letters and numbers, which, however, was accurately reproduced several times in a row. Eman disciplinedly recorded the sequence and reported it to his colleagues in the search for aliens. However, further listening to this frequency did not yield anything, as did any attempts to catch at least some signal from the constellation Sagittarius. What it was - a prank by completely earthly jokers or an attempt by an extraterrestrial civilization to contact us - no one still knows.
Unknown from Somerton Beach
Here's another perfect murder, the mystery of which has still not been solved. On December 1, 1948, in Australia, on Somerton Beach in southern Adelaide, the body of an unknown man was discovered. There were no documents with him, only a note with two words: “Taman Shud” was found in one of his pockets. This was a line from Omar Khayyam's rubaiyat, meaning "the end." The cause of death of the unknown man could not be determined. The forensic investigator believed that it was a case of poisoning, but could not prove it. Others believed it was a suicide, but this claim was also unsubstantiated. The mysterious case has alarmed not only Australia, but the whole world. They tried to establish the identity of the unknown person in almost all countries of Europe and America, but the efforts of the police were in vain, and the history of Taman Shud remained shrouded in secrecy.
Confederate Treasures
This legend still haunts American treasure hunters - and not only them. According to legend, when the northerners were already close to victory in the Civil War, the treasurer of the Confederate government, George Trenholm, in desperation, decided to deprive the victors of their rightful spoils - the treasury of the southerners. Confederate President Jefferson Davis personally took on this mission. He and his guards left Richmond with a huge cargo of gold, silver and jewelry. No one knows where they went, but when the northerners took Davis prisoner, he had no jewelry with him, and 4 tons of Mexican gold dollars also disappeared without a trace. Davis never revealed the secret of the gold. Some believe that he distributed it to the planters of the South so that they could bury it until better times, others believe that it is buried somewhere in the vicinity of Danville, Virginia. Some believe that the secret society “Knights of the Golden Circle”, who were secretly preparing revenge in the Civil War, laid their paws on him. Some even say that the treasure is hidden at the bottom of the lake. Dozens of treasure hunters are still looking for him, but none of them can get to the bottom of either the money or the truth.
Voynich manuscript
The mysterious book, known as the Voynich manuscript, is named after the Polish-born American bookseller Wilfred Voynich, who bought it from an unknown person in 1912. In 1915, having taken a closer look at the find, he told the whole world about it - and since then many have not known peace. According to scientists, the manuscript was written in the 15th-16th centuries in central Europe. The book contains a lot of text, written in neat handwriting, and hundreds of drawings depicting plants, most of which are unknown to modern science. The signs of the zodiac and medicinal herbs are also drawn here, accompanied by text, apparently, of recipes for their use. However, the contents of the text are just speculations of scientists who have not been able to understand it. The reason is simple: the book is written in a language still unknown on Earth, which is also practically indecipherable. Who wrote the Voynich manuscript and why, we may not know even in centuries.
Karst wells of Yamal
In July 2014, an inexplicable explosion was heard in Yamal, as a result of which a huge well appeared in the ground, the width and height of which reached 40 meters! Yamal is not the most populated place on the planet, so no one was injured from the explosion and the appearance of a sinkhole. However, such a strange and potentially dangerous phenomenon required an explanation, and a scientific expedition went to Yamal. It included everyone who could be useful in studying the strange phenomenon - from geographers to experienced mountain climbers. However, upon arrival, they were unable to understand the reasons and nature of what had happened. Moreover, while the expedition was working, two more similar failures appeared in Yamal in exactly the same way! Until now, scientists have been able to come up with only one version - about periodic explosions of natural gas coming to the surface from underground. However, experts consider it unconvincing. The Yamal failures remain a mystery.
Antikythera Mechanism
Discovered by treasure hunters on a sunken ancient Greek ship at the beginning of the twentieth century, this device, which at first seemed like just another artifact, turned out to be, no less, the first analog computer in history! A complex system of bronze disks, made with precision and accuracy unimaginable in those distant times, made it possible to calculate the position of stars and luminaries in the sky, time in accordance with different calendars and the dates of the Olympic Games. According to the results of the analyses, the device was made at the turn of the millennium - about a century before the birth of Christ, 1600 years before the discoveries of Galileo and 1700 before the birth of Isaac Newton. This device was more than a thousand years ahead of its time and still amazes scientists.
Sea people
The Bronze Age, which lasted approximately from the XXXV to the X century BC, was the heyday of several European and Middle Eastern civilizations - Greek, Cretan, Cananese. People developed metallurgy, created impressive architectural monuments, and tools became more complex. It seemed that humanity was moving by leaps and bounds towards prosperity. But everything collapsed within a few years. The civilized peoples of Europe and Asia were attacked by a horde of “people of the sea” - barbarians on countless ships. They burned and destroyed cities and villages, burned food, killed and took people into slavery. After their invasion, ruins remained everywhere. Civilization was thrown back at least a thousand years ago. In once powerful and educated countries, writing disappeared, and many secrets of construction and working with metals were lost. The most mysterious thing is that after the invasion, the “sea people” disappeared as mysteriously as they appeared. Scientists are still wondering who and where this people came from and what their future fate was. But there is no clear answer to this question yet.
Murder of the Black Dahlia
Books were written and films were made about this legendary murder, but it was never solved. On January 15, 1947, 22-year-old aspiring actress Elizabeth Short was found brutally murdered in Los Angeles. Her naked body was subjected to cruel abuse: it was practically cut in half and bore traces of many injuries. At the same time, the body was washed clean and completely devoid of blood. This story of one of the oldest unsolved murders was widely circulated by journalists, giving Short the nickname “black dahlia.” Despite an active search, the police were unable to find the killer. The Black Dahlia case is considered one of the oldest unsolved murders in Los Angeles.
Motor ship "Ourang Medan"
In early 1948, the Dutch ship Ourang Medan sent an SOS signal while in the Strait of Mallaka off the coast of Sumatra and Malaysia. According to eyewitnesses, the radio message said that the captain and the entire crew were dead, and it ended with the chilling words: “And I am dying.” The captain of the Silver Star, having heard the distress signal, went in search of the Ourang Medan. Having discovered the ship in the Strait of Malacca, the sailors from the Silver Star boarded and saw that it was indeed full of corpses, and the cause of death was not visible on the bodies. Soon the rescuers noticed suspicious smoke coming from the hold and, just in case, chose to return to their ship. And they did the right thing, because soon the Ourang Medan spontaneously exploded and sank. Of course, because of this, the possibility of an investigation became zero. Why the crew died and the ship exploded is still a mystery.
Baghdad battery
Until recently, it was believed that humanity mastered the production and use of electric current only at the end of the 18th century. However, an artifact found by archaeologists in the region of ancient Mesopotamia in 1936 casts doubt on this conclusion. The device consists of a clay pot in which the battery itself is hidden: an iron core wrapped in copper, which is believed to have been filled with some kind of acid, after which it began to generate electricity. For many years, archaeologists debated whether the devices were actually related to the generation of electricity. In the end, they collected the same primitive products - and managed to generate electric current with their help! So, did they really know how to install electric lighting in ancient Mesopotamia? Since written sources from that era have not survived, this mystery will now probably forever excite scientists.
Despite all the achievements of science, there are still many blind spots in it. Look at this list of mysterious phenomena and facts that scientists are unable to explain.
Voynich manuscript
The Voynich Manuscript is an ancient book that continues to resist all attempts to decipher it. These are not just some self-invented gibberish of a schizophrenic, like, “But try to figure out what I wrote here.” No, this is a clearly structured book with obvious sequences, patterns, and detailed illustrations.
It looks like it's a real language, although no one has ever seen it before. And it really seems to make sense. Which no one can understand.
Image: Translation: “...and when you put the tennis racket in her mouth, put it in the fountain. Then draw a picture from it.”
There is not even a consensus on who wrote it, or even where the manuscript was written. Needless to say, no one knows why it was written.
Try it yourself.
No, don't try. Military codebreakers, cryptographers, mathematicians, linguists, they were all left with their noses, and could not decipher a single word.
As you can probably guess, a great variety of different options were offered - from quite reasonable to the most idiotic. Some say that this code cannot be deciphered, because decryption requires a key. Some say it's just a joke. Some say that this is glossolalia - the art of speaking or writing, something that you yourself do not understand, which is transmitted to you by God, space aliens, Cthulhu or Murzilka...
Our guess: The manuscript is written in English. It’s true that this figure knew him so poorly that it’s impossible to make out anything at all in this scribbling.
Antikythera Mechanism
Riddle: The Antikythera Mechanism is an ancient and complex mechanism found in a shipwreck off the coast of Greece, dating back to approximately 100 BC. It contains gears and elements that were not found for another thousand years - until the Muslims and Chinese began to invent all sorts of useful things, while the Europeans were happily crushing each other and everyone in a row.
Why can't they solve the riddle?
Firstly, there is no consensus on who created this mechanism and why. It is widely believed that it was made by the Greeks, but serious research published in serious publications suggests that the mechanism originated in Sicily.
In addition to the fact that the mechanism was quite capable of chopping off the curious finger of some particularly meticulous onlooker, it was also (sort of) intended for astronomical calculations. The problem is that at the time when this thing was invented, no one had yet discovered the laws of gravity and the movement of celestial bodies.
In other words, the Antikythera mechanism was intended for something that at the time of its invention no one had ever heard of, and none of the purposes at that time (for example, ship navigation) fit with the incredible number of functions and settings of this device.
Our guesses:
This is a part from a time machine that fell off when it arrived in the past.
Baigong pipes
In China, where no one has ever lived, let alone had any industry, on the top of a mountain there are three mysterious triangular holes containing hundreds of rusty pipes of unknown origin. Some of them go deep into the mountain. Some go into the nearby salt lake. There are more pipes in the lake, and more run along the shore of the lake from east to west. Some of them are large - about 40 centimeters in diameter, uniform in size and placed in such a way that they create a purposeful pattern.
So what's the problem? Archaeologists date the pipes to the time when people were just learning the basics of culinary art, becoming acquainted with fire, and starting to eat food cooked on fire, let alone cast iron.
Why can't they solve the riddle?
Oddly enough, the pipes are not clogged with garbage, although they themselves are older than Zeus. This suggests that they were not just taken into the ground for some hellish communal needs, but that they were actually used for something. Yes, did we say that the mountain is completely unsuitable for human life?
As usual in such cases, a party of stubborn dreamers believes that this is an ancient astronomical laboratory (where would we be without it), or even a take-off site abandoned by space aliens. This may be true because the pipes contain a fraction of silicon dioxide similar to that found on Mars. Although the hatch roof also contains silicon dioxide, it’s still not worth giving the plumbers’ laurels to aliens.
Our guesses:
Once upon a time, a bunch of frustrated fishermen with a lot of time on their hands spent their entire lives building a water and sewer system to drain a nearby lake. And then come to the lake and catch the fish of your dreams with your bare hands.
Giant stone balls of Costa Rica
Riddle: Giant stone balls are scattered throughout Costa Rica and several surrounding areas. They are smooth and perfectly spherical, or almost. Some are quite small, only a few centimeters in diameter, but others measure up to eight feet and weigh several tons.
Someone unknown carved them out of stone, despite the fact that Costa Rica does not plan to enter the Bronze Age until 2013. There are many stones, and their purpose remains unknown.
Some of the balloons were blown up by local residents in the hope of finding gold or some other freebie. Some roll freely on the ground, while others are so heavy that even a bulldozer could not move them. However, this cannot be proven, because there are no bulldozers in Costa Rica.
Why can't they solve the riddle?
The curious thing is that there are no mining workings anywhere near the balls. Some more useless information: the stones are carved from volcanic rock.
Our guesses:
In a thousand years, the eggs of the stone monsters will mature, they will hatch, devour all people and begin to rule the world.
Baghdad batteries
The Baghdad Batteries are a collection of artifacts found in the Mesopotamian region, dating back to the early centuries AD.
When archaeologists came across the batteries, they assumed they were just regular old clay pots for storing food, but the theory was quickly thrown into the trash because each pot contained a copper rod with signs of oxidation. Well, if at school you preferred tanks to studying, let us explain - the pots probably contained a liquid that, when interacting with copper, generated electricity. If this is true, then the first batteries appeared thousands of years ago.
Why can't they solve the riddle?
Unfortunately, ancient video cameras have not yet been excavated. Some stone reliefs called "The Light of Dendera" depict, some believe, the fire of an electric arc, which required something similar to the Baghdad batteries.
More reasonable theories suggest that the batteries were used to electrolyze objects with gold. Some people think that the healers of that time could have used batteries to shock people (well, to show that they had mystical powers or something).
Our guesses:
We need to bring them to Egypt. Put it into the Sphinx's secret hole. Then he will open his eyes, stand up, and with a wild roar rush across the desert (we don’t know why, we haven’t figured it out yet).
In 1997, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recorded a strange sound in the ocean. Strange and loud. So loud that it was picked up by two microphones located 3 thousand miles apart (~5,000 km).
Scientists have determined that the wave pattern shows that it was an animal.
Why can't they solve the riddle?
There is no animal so large that it can produce a sound that can be heard so far away. Not a blue whale, not a howler monkey, not a screaming teenage girl.
Shortly after NOAA posted the strange sound on its website, some H.P. Lovecraft fans believed that the sound was coming from Loughcraft's famous character, Cthulhu, since the coordinates for the source of the sound were close to the location H.P. Lovecraft indicated for the underwater city of R'lyeh, where Cthulhu sleeps.
Renee Truta survived after a terrible hurricane lifted her 240 meters into the air and 12 minutes later dropped her 18 kilometers from her home. As a result of the incredible adventure, the unfortunate woman lost all her hair and one ear, broke her arm, and also received many minor wounds.
“Everything happened so quickly that it seems to me that it was a dream,” Renee said after being discharged from the hospital on May 27, 1997. I was posing in front of the camera and then something picked me up like a dry leaf. There was a noise like a freight train. I found myself in the air. Dirt, garbage, sticks hit my body and I felt a sharp pain in my right ear. I was lifted higher and higher and I lost consciousness.”
When Renee Truta came to, she was lying on a hilltop 18 kilometers from home. From above, a freshly plowed strip of land about sixty meters wide was visible - this was the work of the tornado.
Police said no one else in the area was injured by the tornado. As it turned out, similar cases have already happened. In 1984, near Frankfurt am Main (Germany), a tornado lifted 64 schoolchildren into the air and dropped them unharmed 100 meters from the take-off site.
Survive in the desert
1994 Mauro Prosperi from Italy was discovered in the Sahara Desert. Incredibly, the man spent nine days in the sweltering heat and survived. Mauro Prosperi took part in the marathon race. Due to a sandstorm, he lost his way and got lost. Two days later he ran out of water. Mayro decided to open his veins and commit suicide, but he did not succeed, because due to a lack of water in the body, the blood began to clot very quickly. Nine days later, the athlete was found by a family of nomads. By this time, the marathon runner was practically unconscious and had lost 18 kilograms.
Nine o'clock at the bottom
The owner of the pleasure yacht, 32-year-old Roy Levin, his girlfriend, cousin Ken, and most importantly, Ken’s wife, 25-year-old Susan, were incredibly lucky. They all survived. The yacht was calmly drifting under sail in the waters of the Gulf of California when a squall suddenly came from a clear sky. The ship capsized. Susan, who was in the cabin at that time, sank along with the yacht. It happened not far from the coast, but in a deserted place, and there were no eyewitnesses.
“It’s incredible that the ship sank without being damaged,” said rescuer Bill Hutchison. And one more accident: while diving, the yacht turned over again, so that it lay on the bottom in a “normal” position. The “swimmers” who ended up overboard did not have life jackets or belts. But they were able to stay on the water for two hours until they were picked up by a boat passing by. The owners of the boat contacted the coast guard, and a group of scuba divers was immediately sent to the scene of the disaster.
Several more hours passed. “We knew that one passenger remained on board, but we did not expect to find her alive,” Bill continued. “You could only hope for a miracle.”
The portholes were tightly battened down, the cabin door was closed hermetically, but water still seeped in, thereby displacing the air. With the last of her strength, the woman kept her head above the water - there was still an air gap right at the ceiling. “Looking to the porthole, I saw Susan’s chalk-white face,” said Bill. Almost 8 hours have passed since the disaster!”
Freeing the unfortunate woman was not an easy task. The yacht was at a depth of twenty meters, and handing over scuba gear to it would mean letting water inside. Something had to be done urgently. Bill went upstairs to get an oxygen tank. His colleagues indicated to Susan that she should hold her breath and open the salon door. She understood. But it turned out differently. The door opened, but a lifeless body in an elegant cocktail dress floated out. She still took some water into her lungs. Seconds counted. Bill grabbed the woman, rushed to the surface and made it! The doctor on the boat literally pulled Susan out of the other world.
Great Hanging
Yogi Ravi Varanasi from the city of Bhopal, right in front of the amazed public, quite deliberately suspended himself from eight hooks, hooking them on the skin of his back and legs. And when, three months later, he moved from a hanging position to a standing position, then, as if nothing had happened, he began to perform a set of physical exercises.
During the "great hanging" Ravi of Varanasi was one meter above the ground. To increase the effect, the students pierced the skin of his hands and tongue with needles. All this time, the yogi ate quite moderately - a handful of rice and a cup of water throughout the day. He was hanging in a tent-like structure. When it rained, a tarpaulin was thrown over the wooden frame. Ravi willingly communicated with the public and was under the supervision of the German doctor Horst Groning.
“He remained in excellent physical shape after hanging,” Dr. Groening noted. “It’s a pity that science still does not know the methodology of self-hypnosis, which is used by yogis to stop bleeding and relieve pain.”
Mechanic on the wing
On May 27, 1995, during tactical maneuvers, the MiG-17 left the runway and got stuck in the mud. Ground service mechanic Pyotr Gorbanev and his comrades rushed to the rescue. Through joint efforts they were able to push the plane onto the GDP. Freed from the dirt, the MiG began to quickly pick up speed and a minute later rose into the air, “grabbing” the mechanic, who was bent around the front part of the wing by the air flow.
While climbing, the fighter pilot felt that the plane was behaving strangely. Looking around, he saw a foreign object on the wing. The flight took place at night, so it was not possible to see it. They gave advice from the ground to shake off the “foreign object” by maneuvering.
The silhouette on the wing seemed very human-like to the pilot and he requested permission to land. The plane landed at 23:27, having been in the air for about half an hour. All this time, Gorbanev was conscious on the wing of the fighter - he was held tightly by the oncoming air flow. After landing, they found out that the mechanic escaped with severe fright and two broken ribs.
Girl - night lamp
Nguyen Thi Nga is a resident of the small village of An Theong in Hoan An County, in Binh Dinh Province (Vietnam). Until recently, both the village itself and Nguyen were not distinguished by anything special - a village like a village, a girl like a girl: she studied at school, helped her parents, and picked oranges and lemons from the surrounding plantations with her friends.
But one day, when Nguyen went to bed, her body began to glow brightly, as if phosphorescent. A huge halo enveloped the head, and golden-yellow rays began to emanate from the arms, legs and torso. In the morning they took the girl to the healers. They did some manipulations, but nothing helped. Then the parents took their daughter to Saigon, to the hospital. Nguyen was examined, but no abnormalities were found in her health.
It is unknown how this story could have ended if Nguyen had not been examined by the well-known healer Thang in those parts. He asked if the glow was bothering her. She replied that no, but that she was only worried about the incomprehensible fact that happened on the second day of the new year according to the lunar calendar.
“The most favorable time for the grace of the Almighty,” the healer reassured her. – At this time, God rewards what he deserves. And if you haven’t earned anything yet, then you will still deserve it.” Nguyen's peace of mind returned, but the glow remained.
During the experiment, a piece of meat and a plant leaf were placed in front of 29-year-old artist Jody Ostroit. Nearby stood an ordinary electron microscope. Jody carefully examined the objects with the naked eye for a couple of minutes, then took a sheet of paper and depicted their internal structure. Researchers could then go up to the microscope and see that the artist had enlarged the scale without distorting the essence of what was being depicted in the least.
“It didn’t come to me right away,” Jody said. – At first, for some reason, I began to meticulously draw the texture of various objects - trees, furniture, animals. Then I began to notice that I was seeing much finer details, elusive to the ordinary eye. Skeptics say that I use a microscope. But where can I get an electron microscope?
Jody Ostroit sees the smallest cells of matter, as if photographing them, and then transfers them to paper with ultra-thin brushes and a pencil. “It would be better if my gift went to some scientist. Why do I need it? For now my pictures are selling out, but the fashion for them will pass. Although I see deeper than any professor, but only in the literal sense of the word.”
Captain behind the windshield
It's not just motorists who need to wear a seat belt: the captain of the British Airways BAC 1-11 Series 528FL, Tim Lancaster, probably remembered this basic safety rule forever after June 10, 1990.
While flying the plane at an altitude of 5273 meters, Tim Lancaster relaxed his seat belt. Shortly thereafter, the airliner's windshield burst. The captain immediately flew out through the opening, and his back was pressed against the outside of the plane's fuselage. Lancaster's legs were caught between the wheel and the control panel, and the cockpit door, torn off by the airflow, landed on the radio and navigation panel, breaking it.
Flight attendant Nigel Ogden, who was in the cockpit, was not taken aback and firmly grabbed the captain’s legs. The co-pilot managed to land the plane only after 22 minutes, all this time the captain of the plane was outside.
The flight attendant holding Lancaster believed he was dead, but did not let go because he was afraid that the body would get into the engine and it would burn out, reducing the plane's chances of landing safely. After landing, they found out that Tim was alive, doctors diagnosed him with bruises, as well as fractures of his right hand, a finger on his left hand and his right wrist. After 5 months, Lancaster took the helm again. Steward Nigel Ogden escaped with a dislocated shoulder and frostbite on his face and left eye.
Materials used by Nikolai Nepomnyashchiy, “Interesting Newspaper”
Nowadays, it is quite difficult to completely hide information about yourself, because all you have to do is type a few words into a search engine - and secrets are revealed and secrets come to the surface. With the development of science and the improvement of technology, the game of hide and seek becomes more and more difficult. It was, of course, easier before. And there are many examples in history when it was impossible to find out what kind of person he was and where he came from. Here are a few such mysterious cases.
15. Kaspar Hauser
May 26, Nuremberg, Germany. 1828 A teenager of about seventeen wanders aimlessly through the streets, clutching a letter addressed to Commander von Wessenig. The letter states that the boy was taken in for training in 1812, taught to read and write, but was never allowed to "take one step out of the door." It was also said that the boy should become a "cavalryman like his father" and the commander could either accept him or hang him.
After meticulous questioning, we managed to find out that his name was Kaspar Hauser and he spent his entire life in a “darkened cage” 2 meters long, 1 meter wide and 1.5 meters high, in which there were only an armful of straw and three toys carved from wood (two horses and dog). A hole was made in the floor of the cell so he could relieve himself. The foundling hardly spoke, could not eat anything except water and black bread, called all people boys, and all animals horses. The police tried to find out where he came from and who the criminal was that made a savage out of the boy, but they could not find out. Over the next few years, he was cared for by one person or another, taking him into their homes and caring for him. Until on December 14, 1833, Kaspar was found with a stab wound to the chest. A purple silk wallet was found nearby, and inside it was a note made in such a way that it could only be read in a mirror image. It read:
“Hauser will be able to describe to you exactly what I look like and where I came from. In order not to bother Hauser, I want to tell you myself where I come from _ _ I came from _ _ the Bavarian border _ _ on the river _ _ I’ll even tell you my name: M . L. O."
14. Green children of Woolpit
Imagine that you live in the 12th century in the small village of Woolpit in the English county of Suffolk. While harvesting in a field, you find two children huddled in an empty wolf's hole. The children speak an incomprehensible language, are dressed in indescribable clothes, but the most interesting thing is that their skin is green. You take them to your home where they refuse to eat anything other than green beans.
After a while, these children - brother and sister - begin to speak a little English, eat more than just beans, and their skin gradually loses its green tint. The boy gets sick and dies. The surviving girl explains that they came from the "Land of St. Martin", an underground "world of darkness", where they looked after their father's cattle, and then heard a noise and found themselves in a wolf's den. The inhabitants of the underworld are green and dark all the time. There were two versions: either it was a fairy tale, or the children escaped from the copper mines.
13. The Man from Somerton
On December 1, 1948, police discovered the body of a man on Somerton Beach in Glenelg (a suburb of Adelaide) in Australia. All the labels on his clothes were cut off, he had no documents or wallet on him, and his face was clean shaven. Even the teeth could not be identified. That is, there was not a single clue at all.
After the autopsy, the pathologist concluded that “death could not have occurred due to natural causes” and assumed poisoning, although no traces of toxic substances were found in the body. Apart from this hypothesis, the doctor could not guess anything more about the cause of death. Perhaps the most mysterious thing in this whole story was that with the deceased they found a piece of paper torn from a very rare edition of Omar Khayyam, on which only two words were written - Tamam Shud (“Tamam Shud”). These words are translated from Persian as “finished” or “completed”. The victim remained unidentified.
12. The Man from Taured
In 1954, in Japan, at Tokyo's Haneda Airport, thousands of passengers were rushing about their business. However, one passenger seemed to be taking no part in it. For some reason, this outwardly completely normal man in a business suit attracted the attention of airport security, they stopped him and started asking questions. The man answered in French, but was also fluent in several other languages. His passport contained stamps from many countries, including Japan. But this man claimed that he came from a country called Taured, located between France and Spain. The problem was that none of the maps offered to him showed any Taured in this place - Andorra was located there. This fact greatly saddened the man. He said that his country had existed for centuries and that he even had its stamps in his passport.
Discouraged, airport officials left the man in a hotel room with two armed guards outside the door while they tried to find more information about the man. They didn't find anything. When they returned to the hotel for him, it turned out that the man had disappeared without a trace. The door did not open, the guards did not hear any noise or movement in the room, and he could not leave through the window - it was too high. Moreover, all of this passenger’s belongings disappeared from the airport security premises.
The man, simply put, dived into the abyss and did not return.
11. Lady Grandmother
The 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy has given rise to many conspiracy theories, and one of the most mystical details of this event is the presence in photographs of a certain woman who was dubbed Lady Granny. This woman in a coat and sunglasses was in a bunch of pictures, moreover, they show that she had a camera and was filming what was happening.
The FBI tried to find her and establish her identity, but to no avail. The FBI later called on her to turn over her videotape as evidence, but no one ever came. Just think: this woman, in daylight, in full view of at least 32 witnesses (photographed and videoed by her), witnessed and videotaped a murder, and yet no one, not even the FBI, could identify her. It remained a secret.
10. D.B. Cooper
It happened on November 24, 1971 at Portland International Airport, where a man who had bought a ticket using documents in the name of Dan Cooper boarded a plane bound for Seattle, clutching a black briefcase in his hands. After takeoff, Cooper gave the flight attendant a note saying that he had a bomb in his briefcase and his demands were $200,000 and four parachutes. The flight attendant notified the pilot, who contacted authorities.
After landing at Seattle Airport, all passengers were released, Cooper's demands were met and the exchange was made, after which the plane took off again. As he flew over Reno, Nevada, the calm Cooper ordered all personnel on board to remain seated as he opened the passenger door and jumped into the night sky. Despite the large number of witnesses who could identify him, “Cooper” was never found. Only a small portion of the money was found in a river in Vancouver, Washington.
9. 21-faced monster
In May 1984, a Japanese food corporation called Ezaki Glico faced a problem. Its president, Katsuhiza Yezaki, was kidnapped for ransom from his home and held for some time in an abandoned warehouse, but then managed to escape. A little later, the company received a letter stating that the products were poisoned with potassium cyanide and there would be casualties if all products were not immediately recalled from food warehouses and stores. The company's losses amounted to $21 million, 450 people lost their jobs. The Unknowns - a group of people who took the name "21-faced monster" - sent mocking letters to the police, who could not find them, and even gave hints. The next message said that they had “forgiven” Glico, and the persecution had stopped.
Not content with playing with one large corporation, the Monster organization has its eyes on others: Morinaga and several other food companies. They acted according to the same scenario - they threatened to poison the food, but this time they demanded money. During a botched money exchange operation, a police officer almost managed to capture one of the criminals, but still let him go. Superintendent Yamamoto, who was responsible for investigating this case, could not bear the shame and committed suicide by self-immolation.
Shortly after, "The Monster" sent his final message to the media, mocking the death of a police officer and ending with the words: "We are the bad guys. That means we have better things to do than harass companies. Being bad is fun. Monster with 21 faces." . And nothing more was heard about them.
8. The Man in the Iron Mask
The "man in the iron mask" had the number 64389000, as follows from prison archives. In 1669, the minister of Louis XIV sent a letter to the governor of the prison in the French city of Pignerol, in which he announced the imminent arrival of a special prisoner. The minister ordered the construction of a cell with several doors to prevent eavesdropping, to provide for this prisoner's every basic need, and finally, if the prisoner ever spoke of anything other than this, to kill him without hesitation.
This prison was known for incarcerating "black sheep" from noble families and the government. It is noteworthy that the "mask" received special treatment: his cell was well furnished, unlike the rest of the prison cells, and two soldiers were on duty at the door of his cell, who were ordered to kill the prisoner if he removed his iron mask. The imprisonment lasted until the prisoner's death in 1703. The same fate befell the things he used: the furniture and clothes were destroyed, the walls of the cell were scraped and washed, and the iron mask was melted down.
Many historians have since fiercely debated the identity of the prisoner in an attempt to find out whether he was a relative of Louis XIV and for what reasons he was destined for such an unenviable fate.
7. Jack the Ripper
Perhaps the most famous and mysterious serial killer in history, London first heard about him in 1888, when five women were killed (although it is sometimes said that there were eleven victims). All the victims were connected by the fact that they were prostitutes, and also by the fact that all of them had their throats cut (in one of the cases, the cut went right up to the spine). All victims had at least one organ cut out of their bodies, and their faces and body parts were mutilated almost beyond recognition.
What's most suspicious is that these women were clearly not killed by a novice or amateur. The killer knew exactly how and where to cut, and he knew the anatomy perfectly, so many immediately decided that the killer was a doctor. The police received hundreds of letters in which people accused the police of incompetence, and there appeared to be letters from the Ripper himself, signed “From Hell.”
None of the many suspects and none of the countless conspiracy theories have been able to shed any light on the case.
6. Agent 355
One of the first spies in US history, and a female spy, was Agent 355, who worked for George Washington during the American Revolution and was part of the Culper Ring spy organization. This woman provided vital information about the British army and its tactics, including plans for sabotage and ambushes, and if not for her, the outcome of the war might have been different.
Supposedly in 1780, she was arrested and sent aboard a prison ship, where she gave birth to a boy, who was named Robert Townsend Jr. She died a little later. However, historians are suspicious of this story, stating that women were not sent to floating prisons, and there is no evidence of the birth of a child.
5. The Zodiac Killer
Another serial killer who remains unknown is the Zodiac. This is practically an American Jack the Ripper. In December 1968, he shot and killed two teenagers in California - right on the side of the road - and attacked five more people the following year. Only two of them survived. One victim described the attacker as a pistol-waving man wearing a cloak with an executioner's hood and a white cross painted on his forehead.
Like Jack the Ripper, the Zodiac maniac also sent letters to the press. The difference is that these were ciphers and cryptograms along with crazy threats, and at the end of the letter there was always a crosshair symbol. The main suspect was a man named Arthur Lee Allen, but the evidence against him was only circumstantial and his guilt was never proven. And he himself died of natural causes shortly before the trial. Who was the Zodiac? No answer.
4. Unknown rebel (Tank Man)
This photograph of a protester facing a column of tanks is one of the most famous anti-war photographs and also contains a mystery: the identity of this man, called Tank Man, has never been established. An unidentified rebel single-handedly held off a column of tanks for half an hour during the Tiananmen Square riots in June 1989.
The tank was unable to avoid the protester and stopped. This prompted Tank Man to climb onto the tank and talk to the crew through the vent. After some time, the protester got down from the tank and continued his standing strike, preventing the tanks from moving forward. Well, then he was carried away by people in blue. It is unknown what happened to him - whether he was killed by the government or forced into hiding.
3. Woman from Isdalen
In 1970, the partially burned body of a naked woman was discovered in the Isdalen Valley (Norway). More than a dozen sleeping pills, a lunch box, an empty liquor bottle and plastic bottles that smelled like gasoline were found on her. The woman suffered serious burns and carbon monoxide poisoning, 50 sleeping pills were found inside her, and she may have been hit in the neck. The tips of her fingers were cut off so that she could not be identified by her prints. And when the police found her luggage at a nearby train station, it turned out that all the labels on the clothes had also been cut off.
Upon further investigation, it turned out that the deceased had a total of nine aliases, a whole collection of different wigs and a collection of suspicious diaries. She also spoke four languages. But this information did not greatly help in identifying the woman. A little later, a witness was found who saw a woman in fashionable clothes walking along the path from the station, followed by two men in black coats - towards the place where the body was discovered 5 days later.
But this evidence was not very helpful.
2. Grinning Man
Usually paranormal events are difficult to take seriously and almost all phenomena of this kind are exposed almost immediately. However, this case seems to be of a different kind. In 1966, in New Jersey, two boys were walking along the road towards the barrier at night and one of them noticed a figure behind the fence. The towering figure was dressed in a green suit that shimmered in the lantern light. The creature had a wide grin or a grin and small prickly eyes that constantly followed the frightened boys with their gaze. The boys were then questioned separately and in great detail, and their stories matched exactly.
Some time later, reports of such a strange Grinning Man appeared again in West Virginia, in large numbers and from different people. Grinning even talked to one of them, Woodrow Dereberger. He identified himself as "Indrid Cold" and asked if there had been any reports of unidentified flying objects in the area. In general, he made an indelible impression on Woodrow. Then this paranormal entity was still encountered here and there until he disappeared completely.
1. Rasputin
Perhaps no other historical figure can compare with Grigory Rasputin in terms of the degree of mystery. And although we know who he is and where he comes from, his personality is surrounded by rumors, legends and mysticism and is still a mystery. Rasputin was born in January 1869 into a peasant family in Siberia, where he became a religious wanderer and “healer,” claiming that a certain deity gave him visions. A series of controversial and bizarre events led to Rasputin's employment as a healer in the royal family. He was invited to treat Tsarevich Alexei, who was suffering from hemophilia, in which he was even somewhat successful - and as a result acquired enormous power and influence over the royal family.
Rasputin, associated with corruption and evil, suffered countless unsuccessful assassination attempts. Either they sent a woman with a knife to him under the guise of a beggar, and she almost gutted him, or they invited him to the house of a famous politician and tried to poison him there with cyanide mixed into his drink. But that didn't work either! In the end, he was simply shot. The killers wrapped the body in sheets and threw it into the icy river. It later turned out that Rasputin died from hypothermia, and not from bullets, and was even almost able to extricate himself from his cocoon, but this time luck did not smile on him.