Sometimes, the passage of time only makes unsolved mysteries even harder to explain.
Information and clues are long lost, and any chance at solving these cases are almost entirely
lost.
They will almost definitely always remain an unknown mystery but there is still a small
hope something might be uncovered.
Number 5
The Shugborough Inscription is a mysterious series of letters carved onto an 18th century
monument.
The Shepherds Monument was built sometime between 1748 and 1756 on the grounds of Shugborough
Hall in Staffordshire, England.
The monument as a whole is designed to look like an ancient Roman or Greek structure,
complete with Doric columns and a carving that resembles the Greek god Pan.
But what gets the most attention is the relief at the centre of the monument.
Sculpted by Peter Scheemakers, the image is a reverse of the famous painting Et in Arcadia
Ego.
It features four figures: three shepherds and a woman.
In the painting they appear to be inspecting a tomb, though in the relief the tomb is much
more extravagant and features a pyramid shaped monument at the top.
In the sculpture, the name of the painting is written on the tomb.
Below the relief is a string of letters, the inscription which has baffled cryptographers
and scientists.
On one line are the letters OUOSVAVV, with a period after each letter.
Slightly below the line are the letters D and M, one letter on either side of the monument,
with a period after each.
What the letters are supposed to signify is likely never to be conclusively solved.
Some have suggested each letter represents a word, and a number of phrases have been
put forward.
This includes a message to the wife of Thomas Anson, who commissioned the piece, and a phrase
that has been seen on other tomb inscriptions.
More complicated answers have been put forward, with the addition of the pyramid shape on
top of the tomb indicating to some that a pyramid should be formed with the letters.
In addition, one of the figures in the relief is pointing to some letters on the tomb, N
and R, which they believe could also be a clue.
Some theorise the inscription could lead to the location of the legendary Holy Grail,
especially as the monument was paid for by Anson’s brother, who was known to have travelled
the world and acquired treasure from various places.
Others still have put forward that it was actually a hoax designed by members of the
Knights Templar to hide the secret.
It’s also been suggested that it doesn’t actually mean anything, and it’s a random
bunch of letters.
The only person who ever really knew the secret was Thomas Anson and, unless he wrote the
real interpretation down in some long lost diary, it’s unlikely an answer that satisfies
everyone will ever be found.
Number 4
Crater Lake National Park in Oregon can be a very unforgiving place, especially in the
winter.
The park is home to the deepest lake in the United States, and one of the deepest lakes
in the world.
For a long time it was thought the lake might be bottomless.
Surrounding the Lake are mountains, steep hills, and picturesque forests.
Even in the best of weather conditions, it can be dangerous and the almost year round
snow in the area can make things even worse.
It was here that Charles McCullar disappeared in 1975.
Charles was 19-years-old and an aspiring photographer.
He was from Virginia, and in 1974 left home to go on a cross-country photography expedition.
He left his Volkswagen car at home, instead taking bus tours and hitch-hiking across the
country.
In January 1975 he wound up in Eugene, Oregon, where his friend lived.
He planned to stay with his friend for a little while, and go on a two-day hike to the Park.
He left, taking his camera equipment and supplies for camping.
When he didn’t return after two days, his friend assumed he had decided to stay a little
longer.
The following day, when he still hadn’t come back, his friend alerted authorities.
Heavy snow hampered search efforts.
There were some sightings of Charles outside of the Park, in particular in the Diamond
Lake area.
It’s unlikely Charles would have been able to make it to the Park from there without
hitch-hiking, given the distance and the heavy snow.
It was also on the other side of the Park to the only entrance that was accessible in
the Winter.
Extensive searches of the park turned up no sign of Charles or any of the belongings he
had taken with him.
Even after the snow melted, police were left with no clues and Charles’ friends theorised
he wasn’t in the Park at all.
Finally, in October 1976, the case began to unravel.
Two Texan tourists took a wrong turn on a hike and ended up in a very isolated canyon.
There they found a torn backpack, with a Volkswagen key inside.
This was determined to have belonged to Charles and search teams were sent to the area.
There they found Charles’ jeans resting on a log, with socks tucked into the bottom
of the legs.
Broken shin bones were found in the legs of the jeans and foot bones in the socks.
A short distance away, part of a skull was discovered.
This was all the remains that were found.
The area would have been almost inaccessible when Charles went missing due to heavy snow
that even skiers found themselves up to their waist in.
If he had entered the park through the only winter entrance he would have had to have
trekked 12 miles through thick snow to reach that point.
From the closest entrance, it was five miles, though people from the area say it would not
have been easily passable from that entrance either.
Charles' shoes, shirt and coat were never found, nor were the rest of his remains.
This could be explained by wildlife scattering his remains, though some sources claim his
jeans were found in relatively good condition.
Officially, it was deemed Charles succumbed to the elements, but his family still believed
he may have met foul play, and the person that dumped his body there were counting on
investigators coming to the conclusion they did.
Number 3
The disappearance of Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt has entered the country’s folklore.
Though there is a seemingly simple explanation, people are still left questioning what really
happened to him.
Holt had been prime minister for about two years when he vanished.
He’d been a progressive politician, and has been called Australia’s first modern
prime minister.
He set in motion the process for Aboriginal Australians to be counted in the country’s
population, brought Australia closer to America and opened its doors to its Asian neighbours.
In September 1967, Holt underwent surgery for a shoulder injury he had sustained decades
earlier, and was still recovering from the injury in December, when he and a group of
friends decided to go to the beach.
Holt’s personal doctor advised him to avoid physical activity like tennis and swimming,
and the headlines in newspapers on December 17th read “PM advised to swim less”.
Holt obviously didn’t take this advice, and had been playing tennis the day before.
At around midday on December 17th he went into the water at Cheviot Beach.
Witnesses said the tide was extremely high that day, some saying it was the highest they
had ever seen the water, and there was a strong undercurrent.
His friends may have pointed out how dangerous the water was, but Holt knew the beach well.
His last words to his friends were that he knew the beach like the back of his hands.
Holt swam further and further out until he disappeared beneath the waves and was never
seen again.
Search and rescue teams quickly went to work, scouring the beach and bay for any trace of
Holt, but he was never found.
The lack of a body has perpetuated many theories over the years.
One wild theory suggested he was actually a Chinese spy, and he had been picked up by
a submarine to be taken back to the communist state.
Others suggested he had been eaten by a shark.
The simplest explanation was that he simply drowned, given the strong currents and his
poor physical health, but a comment from the last person to see Holt has left people puzzled.
One of the women with him that day said the water around him suddenly became very turbulent
and appeared to boil.
The conditions seemed to swamp him and he vanished.
Number 2
It was the last day of 1931, and two Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers were sent
to a secluded cabin in the forests of the country’s Northwest Territories.
They had reports that a recluse, Albert Johnson, had been poaching in areas reserved for First
Nations peoples.
All they wanted was to give him a warning.
There were lots of migrants that had recently come to the area as fur trapping had become
one of the few ways to make money during the Great Depression.
Working in a prohibited space was an easy mistake to make.
When they arrived, Johnson didn’t respond to knocks at the door.
They tried to force open the door, and Johnson opened fire.
One of the officers was hit by a bullet and the other scrambled to get him back to civilisation.
This dramatically escalated after that.
The RCMP returned with reinforcements and threw dynamite onto the roof of his cabin.
The cabin collapsed in on itself, and the police closed in to search the rubble for
the criminal.
But Johnson had survived.
He had dug a small trench in his cabin and used it for cover.
As soon as police closed in, he opened fire again.
For a month and a half, police chased Johnson across mountains and along frozen rivers.
On one occasion he had held himself up at the bottom of a canyon.
A firefight broke out and it seemed to the officers that he had been hit.
They waited for two hours to make sure he had actually gone down, then two of the officers
began to approach him.
As soon as they did, he opened fire again, taking the life of one of the officers.
The situation seemed crazy.
He had no shelter, the weather hadn’t risen above zero degrees the entire time he had
been on the run, he had no food and he couldn’t hunt as the noise would alert authorities
to his location.
He was likely starving and suffering from frostbite, but had managed to climb a near
vertical cliff with very little gear and gave the police the slip multiple times.
Eventually he was surrounded on the frozen Eagle river.
He did not surrender and again tried to attack his way out of the situation, but he was eventually
brought down with a bullet to the spine.
Police couldn’t find any ID or personal mementos on his body, or in the cabin when
they searched it.
They did find $2000 in Canadian and US currency, a lot of money at the time, some pearls, kidney
pills, and gold teeth that didn’t match his own.
Albert Johnson was believed to be an alias, but his real name was unknown.
Photos of the man were spread around Canada, and a few years later trappers from British
Columbia said they recognised him as Arthur Nelson, who had been in the area about a decade
earlier.
But Nelson had as little history as Johnson, and it was believed that too was an alias.
Who the man really was remains a mystery.
He has been given the name the Mad Trapper and his story is now infamous.
In life he spoke with a faint Scandinavian accent, and it’s believed he either immigrated
from there or his parents had and he grew up in a bilingual household.
Analysis of his teeth determined he had likely grown up in the American Midwest, and he had
had sophisticated dental work done.
There are many theories about his identity.
The men that knew him as Nelson said he’d been obsessed with finding gold, and some
suggest he found what he was looking for and reacted violently to protect his treasure.
Another, much more tragic possibility, is that he was suffering from a mental illness,
possibly as a result of serving in World War 1, which drove him to those actions.
Investigators are still trying to find DNA matches for the Mad Trapper, using genetic
genealogy to try to determine his family members and reveal his true name.
Number 1
In the early hours of October 26th, 1984, two truck drivers came across the wreck of
a car.
Inside they found Gunther Stoll, badly in need of medical attention.
Gunther told the men he had been travelling with four other people but they were not his
friends.
Sadly, he passed away en route to the hospital, and the biggest unsolved mystery in German
criminal history began.
Gunther was a 34-year-old unemployed food technician, living with his wife in Anzhausen,
Germany.
He was prone to bouts of paranoia and would often tell his wife they were going to get
him.
He never explained who “they” were or why they wanted him, but his wife had gotten
used to her husband’s delusions.
The evening of October 25th was like any other when he suddenly shot out of his chair and
said something that roughly translates to “I get it!”.
He scribbled down a note on a piece of paper, then crossed it out.
Without explanation he left the house.
It was about 11pm, and Gunther drove to his local pub.
The other people at the pub said he was sober when he walked in.
He ordered a pint of beer but before he could drink any he passed out, falling on his face.
When he woke up again, he left the pub without saying anything.
The next two hours of Gunther’s night is unaccounted for.
He next showed up on the doorstep of a childhood friend who lived about six miles away.
Given the late hour, she wouldn’t let him in, and suggested he go back to his wife or
his parents.
Gunther gave in, but told her that some horrible incidents would take place that night.
Gunther disappeared again for another two hours before the two truck drivers found him.
He was in his own car, but in the passenger seat and for some reason wasn’t wearing
any clothes.
After he passed away, a post mortem determined his wounds weren’t due to a car accident.
He had been run over.
Both truck drivers said they saw a man in a white jacket running away from the scene.
Who the man was remains a mystery.
Over the years there has been a lot of focus on the note Gunther scribbled down hours before
the incident.
It read YOG’TZE, but nobody has been able to figure out what it meant.
Some have suggested it was a license plate number with O and G being replaced with 0
and 6.
Others have said it was something to do with yogurt, as TZE was a flavouring used in the
food stuff.
Realistically, it’s likely the note had nothing to do with his passing.
If he had suddenly figured something out that would cause people to want to take his life,
going straight to the pub seems like a strange detour.
But police do believe someone took Gunther’s life.
It may have been an accident, as it’s possible he was acting erratically in the road, and
they had tried to cover it up by placing him in the car.
But it’s unlikely we’ll ever discover the truth unless someone comes forward with
information all these years later.