Unsolved mysteries can prove to be very frustrating as, despite the best efforts of baffled experts
and members of the public alike, they remain strangely unsolved.
Many of these unexplained mysteries have yielded no answers for years at a time and remain
seemingly unsolvable.
5.
Rudolf Hess
One of the most intriguing mysteries of the Second World War is one that has baffled war
experts for decades and involves a high-ranking German officer who was known to be an eccentric,
though he may not have been as loyal as his fellow soldiers were led to believe.
On the 10th of May, 1941, Germany was on the brink of invading the Soviet Union when Rudolf
Hess boarded a plane in Augsburg and headed to Scotland where he intended to complete
a diplomatic mission.
Hess later stated that he believed British and German forces were making a mistake by
fighting each other and he intended to propose that the two countries join forces against
the Soviet Union.
But his claims were dismissed and he was taken into custody and imprisoned before being transferred
to Nuremberg where he stood trial.
But his ill-fated trip to Scotland was just one of the many strange ideas that Hess had
and he was often mocked by his fellow officers and soldiers, despite his high intellect.
He was often described as odd and even mentally unstable as he believed in astrology, ghosts,
mesmerism and telepathy.
Some say that Hess would refuse to go to bed before using a divining rod to check that
there were no subterranean water flows that conflicted with the direction of his couch
and he was also known to hang magnets above his bed.
When he was examined by Dr Kelly S. Douglas, an official US government psychiatrist at
the time, he stated that “If one considers the street as sanity and the sidewalk as insanity,
then Hess spent the greater part of his time on the curb”.
Due to his eccentricities, many questions arose at his trial, including what his true
intentions were when he flew to Scotland and whether he had really done so under his own
volition.
It is considered to be one of the strangest incidents of the war, leading some people
to believe that the man who had arrived in Scotland wasn't actually Hess, but a body
double, a conspiracy theory that was considered plausible even by Winston Churchill.
Hess passed away in prison in 1987, aged 93 and to this day, his true intentions for flying
to Scotland remain an unsolved mystery.
4.
Betty Shanks
One of Australia's oldest unsolved mysteries stretches as far back as 1952 and in the nearly
70 years since it occurred, investigators are no closer to solving it than they were
on the day that it happened.
On the evening of the 19th of September of that year, a 22-year-old woman named Betty
Shanks had been attending classes in Queensland when she boarded a tram to travel home.
She arrived at her stop on Days Road at around 9:32 pm where she got off and started walking
towards her home which was only a short distance away.
It was a trip that she had made many times before and hence, it came as a shock to her
local community when she was found deceased in the garden of a house.
A police officer who also lived nearby was passing by at about 5:35 am when he noticed
the unfortunate scene and immediately reported what he had found.
When more officers arrived, it was found that Betty had been badly assaulted and had succumbed
to the attack.
The investigation that followed was the biggest in the history of Queensland at the time and
garnered so much attention that a $50,000 reward is still being offered to anyone who
has information leading to the identification of her attacker.
Many theories have been suggested over the following decades as to who the perpetrator
may be and there have even been a number of individuals who have confessed to the crime,
though these have all been proven to be false.
Some people suggest that Betty was the victim of mistaken identity and that the intended
victim was a doctor's receptionist who walked the same road that Betty did at the same time
every day.
She would have had keys to the doctor's surgery and it is theorized that the attacker intended
to steal them to gain access to the controlled substances that would have been kept inside.
Police have reached out to the public on numerous occasions as they believe that someone had
to have seen or heard something that night, but they have had no response and Betty's
untimely demise remains a creepy mystery that may never be solved.
3.
Oscar Zeta Acosta
Oscar Zeta Acosta is best known for his friendship with American Journalist and Author, Hunter
S. Thompson but his legacy remains a strange mystery that even his family has admitted
will never be solved.
Acosta wrote two novels during his lifetime called “Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo”
and “The Revolt of the Cockroach People”.
He was the first member of his family to gain a college education after studying creative
writing at San Francisco State University.
He then attended night classes at the San Francisco Law School, passing the bar exam
in 1966 and starting work the following year as an antipoverty lawyer.
In 1970, he decided to run for Sheriff of Los Angeles County, receiving more than 100,000
votes
The following year, Acosta and Thompson travelled to Las Vegas to discuss Thompson's article
on the injustice in the barrios of East Los Angeles away from any police supervision.
This trip would later serve as the inspiration for Thompson's book “Fear and Loathing in
Las Vegas”.
In May of 1974, Acosta was travelling in Mexico when he phoned his son to tell him that he
was in Sinaloa, stating that he was about to get onto a boat.
He then mysteriously disappeared and that phone call would be the last time that anyone
heard from him.
His son believed that he was involved with the wrong type of people and that he had probably
mouthed off, gotten into a fight and his life was taken.
Thompson reiterated Acosta's son's theory, stating that, due to his addiction to alcohol
and illegal substances, he very likely lost his life in a deal gone wrong.
Others have speculated that his life was ended to neutralize his political power, as he was
seen as a powerful attorney.
His disappearance has never been investigated by any official channels, however, in 1977,
Thompson launched his own investigation into the disappearance, but he too came up empty
handed.
Thompson later wrote an article about his investigation entitled “The Banshee Screams
for Buffalo Meat” which was published in Rolling Stone magazine, but Acosta's true
fate remains strangely unsolved.
2.
Branson Perry
Branson Perry, a 20-year-old man from Skidmore, Missouri lived with his father after his parents'
divorce and he worked as a roofer and maintenance worker at a travelling petting zoo.
He suffered from a condition which caused his heart to race excessively.
On the 11th of April, 2001, Branson had invited a friend, Jena, over to help him clean his
house as his father, Bob, was scheduled to return home after spending time in hospital.
During this time, two men were outside the house, working on Bob's car as it needed a
new alternator.
At around 3 pm, Branson told Jena that he was going to a shed next to the house to return
a pair of jumper cables that he had used.
When he didn't return, Jena became concerned and found that he had gone missing, never
to be seen again.
The following day, Branson's grandmother stopped by the house and found that it was unlocked
with no one inside.
Over the next few days, she called the house repeatedly but with no answer.
She then contacted his mother, Rebecca Klino, but was told that she had not heard from him
either.
After being released from hospital, Bob and Rebecca filed a missing person report on the
12th of April.
Police then started searching a 15-mile radius from where he was last seen.
This included searches of farms, abandoned buildings and fields, but to no avail.
Police noted that, when the shed was searched, the jumper cables were nowhere to be found,
though they were located 2 weeks later just inside the shed's door.
Over 100 people were interviewed and it was found that, in the months prior to his disappearance,
he had been experimenting with prohibited substances.
On the 10th of April, 2003, Presbyterian minister Jack Wayne Rogers was arrested on unrelated
charges, but when a turtle claw necklace closely resembling one that Branson was wearing at
the time of his disappearance was found in his car, police believed that he was responsible,
though this was never proven.
At Rogers' sentencing, Klino begged for him to disclose her son's location, but he insisted
that he wasn't involved in his disappearance.
Despite further searches and excavations being done, Branson has never been found and his
whereabouts remain strangely unsolved to this day.
1.
John Patrick Kerrigan
In July of 1984, Father John Patrick Kerrigan was serving at his 13th church since he first
started ministering 30 years earlier.
He was scheduled to deliver his first sermon as permanent pastor at Sacred Heart Parish
in Montana on the 21st of July.
The previous evening, he had stopped in at a bakery across the street from the church
where he met some of his new parishioners who all described him as friendly and positive.
The following morning, the church filled with parishioners who were eager to meet the new
priest as they had been without one for 2 months.
But as the time came for the Saturday service to start, Kerrigan had not yet entered the
church and the parishioners started to grow uneasy, as it was not the best impression
to be late for the first sermon.
After 15 minutes had passed, people started to leave after growing impatient, though a
call was made to the rectory, but there was no answer.
The following morning, when Sunday Mass was supposed to take place, Kerrigan was once
again nowhere to be found and concern started to grow for his well being.
When he was still not found the next day, he was reported as a missing person.
But then things took a turn for the worse when a woman who was setting up a roadside
stand discovered a pile of clothes, covered in biological material by the side of the
road.
Included was a shirt, shoes and a windbreaker and police suspected that the items had been
placed there intentionally.
Nearly a week after he had disappeared, Kerrigan's Chevy impala was discovered on a hill, several
miles from the rectory.
Inside, police found a shovel and pillow containing biological material, as well as his wallet
containing over $1000 in cash, ruling out robbery as a motive.
The car's keys were found about 30 yards away from the vehicle and it was found that the
car had been wiped clean of fingerprints.
Immediately, rumors began to spread that Kerrigan was the victim of a serial killer who preyed
on priests, as an Episcopal priest called James Otis Anderson had his life ended in
similar circumstances 2 years earlier.
It was also found that Kerrigan and Anderson were friends and had worked together in White
Sulphur Springs in West Virginia.
Despite many more lines of inquiry being opened and an exhaustive investigation into his disappearance
being undertaken, no further leads or clues have ever been found.
Kerrigan remains missing more than 37 years after his mysterious disappearance and his
fate still remains a scary mystery.