Some of the strangest mysteries are ones that come from the military, especially when the
military confirms they have a mystery on their hands.
Number 5
During the cold war, there were several occasions when Sweden noticed unidentified submarines
in their waters.
Many of these were attributed to the Soviet Union and were run out of Swedish waters before
they could be properly investigated.
The Soviet Union denied any involvement with the frequent unidentified submerged objects.
The one submarine that was confirmed to be from the USSR ended up in Sweden due to navigation
errors, according to the Soviets.
After the end of the Cold War, USO sightings pretty much disappeared.
There have been a handful of sightings since, including one in 2011 that turned out to be
a raft frozen in ice.
But the strangest of these sightings occurred in October 2014.
Over the course of about a week, there were at least three sightings of a strange object
in the Kanholmsfjarden bay near Stockholm.
The object appeared to be a damaged submarine, and authorities told local news organisations
it had detected distress calls from the area.
The sightings triggered one of the biggest searches since the end of the cold war.
More than 200 personnel were deployed to try to locate what was hiding beneath the waters.
A wide variety of vessels, including a minesweeper, were deployed for a wide-ranging search.
The military revealed a photograph of the mysterious object to the press.
The image was grainy, the object photographed from afar through a cluster of trees.
It was reminiscent of a conspiracy photo of a secretive sea creature, but the authorities
claim it came from a reliable source.
A few days later, it emerged authorities had misdirected the press about where the photo
was taken.
Apparently, revealing the information would help a “foreign power”.
It became increasingly clear the Swedish authorities believed the unidentified object was a foreign
military vessel.
The story only became more tense after it was revealed the military had intercepted
an encoded radio conversation in Russian between something or someone in the bay with the Russian
bay of Kaliningrad, where a fleet of Russian submarines were based.
It was a time of rising tensions in the area and Russia had been accused of interfering
with the activities of a number of Sweden’s neighbours.
Russia denied any involvement.
There were no submarines in any extra-ordinary circumstances and there definitely weren’t
any damaged vessels in the bay.
After a week, the search was called off.
The bay is well trafficked by merchant ships and littered with small islands making the
search incredibly difficult, but no sign of a submarine was found, leaving the reports
unexplained.
Number 4
UFOs or Unidentified Ariel Phenomena, are of great concern to the United States military.
While some are explained away by civilian drones of other mundane things, anything that
remains unidentified could possibly pose a threat to national security.
One area of significant concern is a zone designated W-12.
The area lies off the coast of Virginia and North Carolina and is classified as a warning
area, and is often used by military aircraft for training making it hazardous for civilian
aircrafts to travel through.
Since 2014, several pilots and airmen flying through the zone have encountered UAPs.
It became such a frequent occurrence that the Pentagon’s UAP Task Force asked pilots
to capture footage of these phenomena if they got a chance.
In March 2019, a weapons system officer used his iPhone to fulfil this request.
The officer was one of two people in an F-18 Super Hornet, a type of jet that is frequently
used for flights in the area.
He was seated behind the pilot for the flight and noticed several UAPs.
The first object was one the Navy referred to as the Sphere.
It was white in colour and appeared to be see-through in colour.
As the name suggests, it was found in shape but appeared to have a ring-like structure
on its surface.
A second object was photographed a few minutes later.
This one has been dubbed the Acorn.
It appeared to be more solid and darker in colour.
It was a rounded triangle in shape, hence the name.
The final UAP photographed was spotted 12 minutes later and was very different to the
first two.
It has been described as a metallic blimp and is mostly round in shape but has a number
of appendages.
It also doesn’t appear to be one solid colour, but instead has darker areas.
It’s not clear if these are actually darker on the UAP or are simply a reflection of its
surroundings.
The navy has confirmed the photos are legitimate and the UAPs really are unknown.
One suggestion is these are spy drones sent by China, explaining why the Pentagon is so
interested in them.
Sceptics have described them as nothing more than balloons.
However, leaked information from the UAP Task Force briefings indicated the objects remained
stationary even at high winds and do not behave like anything known to the military.
Number 3
Craig David Button disappeared under strange circumstances during an Air Force training
exercise.
He left behind a mystery that would not be resolved, even when his remains were eventually
found.
Button had been interested in aeroplanes from a young age and had started his Air Force
career in 1992, following in the footsteps of his father, who had also been in that branch
of the military.
It was a move that went against the wishes of his mother, who was a devote Jehovah’s
Witness and would not let her son wear his uniform at home.
Despite his mother’s wishes, by 1997, he was a captain.
However, he had never dropped live rounds before.
That was set to change on April 2nd, 1997, during a training exercise with two other
airmen.
That morning, Button and two other airmen set off from an airbase in Arizona in single-seater
A-10 Thunderbolt II planes.
They were all carrying explosives which were set to be dropped during the training exercise.
The planes were refuelled as scheduled mid-flight, before the explosives were set to be deployed.
Sometime after this, Button broke from formation, heading to the north east.
The other two planes did not follow him, and nobody made any attempt to intercept the plane
while it was in mid-air.
The plane’s transponder had been turned off.
While it still appeared on radar, it was impossible to know who the plane was and Button did not
respond to any messages requesting identification.
It was only after the radar records were analysed that the military were able to trace Button’s
flight.
It was found that he had flown straight for 800 miles towards four corners, where the
boarders of four states meet, before changing course.
The plane changed directions several more times, and appeared to be moving around bad
weather, leading investigators convinced Button was still in control of the plane at this
point.
The last sighting was near a mountain range near Denver.
Searches in the area were hampered by storms that left a thick layer of snow but, three
weeks later, the plane was finally found.
Debris had been strewn over a large area and though recovery efforts tried to collect as
much as possible, signs were left up for years warning visitors that they may come across
ammunition.
It took four months, but Button’s remains were finally recovered.
He hadn’t attempted to jettison the aircraft and it appeared there was no reason why he
wouldn’t have been in control of the plane up until the crash.
There were two mysteries that still surround the strange events.
“Why” will likely never be answered.
Some have speculated a conversation with Button’s parents had left him distraught, prompting
him to commit the act.
Others suggest it was part of some conspiracy.
Possibly even stranger is the location of the four 500-pound explosives that the plane
had been carrying.
They were designed to withstand a crash and there was no sign they had been accidentally
detonated on impact.
The racks they were attached to were found in the wreckage and indicated they hadn’t
been jettisoned at any point.
But despite extensive searches, including from member of the Explosive Ordinance Disposal
team they would never be found.
Number 2
The photo of Goddard’s Squadron is probably one of the most famous military photos of
its kind.
No doubt there are countless like it, rows of servicemen and women in uniform gazing
stone faced at the camera.
On the face of it, the most unusual thing about this photo is the number of different
uniforms on display, representing a large number of different organisations working
together at the same site.
But of course, the reason why this photo is so famous is the unaccounted for man behind
the backrow.
The photo was first published in the 1970s, and dates back to the final year of World
War 1.
According to the story, the photo was taken a few days after a man named Freddy Jackson
passed away after walking into an active aeroplane propeller.
After the image was developed, it was pinned to a noticeboard with a memo asking anyone
who wanted a copy of the image to write their name below.
Everyone who looked at the photo all noticed the same mysterious figure at the back of
the group, and all said he bore a striking resemblance to Freddy Jackson.
Image manipulation was ruled out.
The people in the dark room wouldn’t have dared mess about with the image, according
to the author, and the negatives had been scrutinised and ruled out any foul play.
The only explanation was that Freddy Jackson hadn’t realised he had passed away, and
had come to join the rest of his co-workers in the photo.
Naturally, there are plenty of sceptics.
Despite the image only being published decades later, the author knew the people in the photograph,
and one of the women featured has also spoken about the supposed ghost, though not until
after the photo became famous.
The photo itself appears to be genuine, and the fact the person who the story originated
from knew the subjects only lends the story more credibility.
Air mechanic Freddy Jackson is also known to have been a real person who likely worked
at the base where the photo was taken.
George Frederick Jackson passed away on April 13th, 1918, at a hospital a few hundred miles
away from the supposed incident.
Though the official story dates the accident to a few months later, closer to the very
end of the war, it’s possible the dates were mixed up.
The base swapped between various organisations a number of times as the Royal Air Force was
developed, explaining the large number of organisations represented in the photo.
If the photo was taken just before one of these swaps, it’s possible the author mixed
up the date that way.
There are a number of explanations that have been put forward to explain the supposed ghost.
Some point out the similarities between the ghost image and the man he is stood behind,
and some mistake was made that copied the image behind him.
Others have suggested the ghost was actually another airman who dropped his cap as the
photo was being taken and ducked down to collect it during the long exposure time, hence why
he appears so faded.
It’s unlikely an explanation that satisfies everyone will be found, especially with the
few hints at fact that have been blended into the story.
Number 1
The tic tac UFO encounter is one of the most famous unexplained aerial phenomena to be
caught on camera.
The images were captured by a US fighter pilot in 2004, leaked in 2017, and finally confirmed
to be authentic two years later.
What was present in the skies that day remains a mystery.
In the weeks leading up to the incident, servicemen working off the US west coast had noticed
a number unexplained blips on their radars.
The blips didn’t appear to correspond with anything that was seen by the naked eye, and
all the radar equipment was serviced, as it was assumed something had to be faulty.
No explanation for the phenomena could be found.
Pilots operating in the area were told to be on the lookout for anything unusual and,
on November 14th, 2004, at least two servicemen saw something that fit the criteria.
Commander David Fravor was the first to spot the object.
He was flying a mission off the USS Nimitz when he saw the unusual activity.
An object appeared to dive beneath the water, resurface, and fly away at high-speed when
the commander tried to approach it.
The commander told the serviceman he shared the craft with that the incident weirded him
out.
Chad Underwood was the pilot who captured the now famous footage of the UFO.
The anomaly appeared on his radar, but when Underwood tried to lock onto it, he found
the radar had been jammed.
Instead, he turned his attention to the jet’s cameras, which were extremely advanced and
featured the best tracking technology available at the time.
The footage had now been labelled FLIR by the government and is about a minute and half
in length.
It shows an oval shaped anomaly about 40 feet long and appeared black in shape when viewed
through a normal camera.
When the camera switched to infrared it appeared a bright white, earning the tic tac name.
Underwood claimed the object acted very strangely, accelerating, decelerating, and changing direction
impossibly quickly.
Even the advanced technology in the camera couldn’t keep track of it and it eventually
shot away.
Underwood did not claim it was extra-terrestrial in nature, but did say it didn’t obey the
laws of physics.
The footage is yet to be explained.
Some have suggested it was an experimental, top secret government craft but, if this were
the case, why it was piloted out in the open where personnel without security clearance
were operating is another mystery.