Tragic deaths, mysterious disappearances, and unexplainable phenomenon - the realm of unsolved
mysteries can prove irresistible, especially in the internet age. Now amateur sleuths
can pore over the evidence on blogs, discuss their outlandish theories in message boards,
and occasionally even stumble upon the solutions to some of these seemingly unsolvable puzzles.
But, despite the aid of the internet and the interest of thousands of amateur detectives,
the weirdest unsolved mysteries remain unsolved to this day.
The 1987 deaths of Don Henry and Kevin Ives seemed at first glance to be a simple accident,
but plenty of questions arose in the aftermath of the incident, and their deaths remain unsolved
to this day. On August 23rd, 1987, a train conductor travelling through Arkansas called in
to report a disturbing incident. As his train was barrelling down the tracks, he noticed something
laying on the tracks up ahead. He was too close and was going too fast to stop the train in time,
and he ran over what turned out to be 2 bodies. The medical examiner ruled the deaths accidental,
claiming that the two men had smoked too much cannabis and fallen asleep on the train tracks,
but that didn’t sit right with the conductor - he clearly recalled seeing that the two bodies were
tied to the tracks as the train approached. Rumors quickly spread that the two men had
unwittingly stumbled upon an illicit drug drop and had been killed to protect those involved,
though no one was ever charged. Years later, WWE superstar Billy Jack Haynes would claim
to have been hired by a local politician to run security for that very drug drop,
and he said he witnessed the murders of Henry and Ives. Despite his claims,
no further investigations were undertaken, and the case remains unsolved to this day.
We may never know who is responsible for the mysterious deaths of Henry and Ives,
but the untimely death of Kathy Hobbs is all the more chilling and mysterious
for the fact that she apparently saw it coming.
As a teen, young Kathy began to experience strange premonitions that foreshadowed her own death.
She was so convinced that she would die before she reached the age of 16 that she developed a
severe case of agoraphobia and refused to leave her house. After years of isolation and paranoia,
Kathy celebrated her sweet 16th, and, believing that the curse had been lifted, she
began venturing outside of the house once again. Tragically, just 3 months after her 16th birthday
in 1987, while walking home from the bookstore with a new paperback novel under her arm,
Kathy was attacked, beaten and left for dead with blunt force trauma to her head.
In 1989, a man named Michael Lee Lockhart was charged and convicted for her murder,
but he never confessed to the killing, and many question whether he’s truly guilty.
His conviction also doesn’t explain how Kathy foresaw her own demise.
Kathy’s tragic death may have been foretold,
but the mysterious disappearance of Elisa Lam is something no one saw coming.
In 2013, guests at the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles complained that the hotel’s drinking water had a
foul smell and taste to it. The hotel’s staff investigated, and what they found was truly
horrifying. Inside one of the hotel’s enormous rooftop water tanks, they found the body of
one of the hotel’s guests, 21 year old Elisa Lam, floating lifelessly inside the tank. It
seemed impossible that the diminutive girl had climbed all the way up to the top of the tank,
opened its heavy metal door, and willingly jumped into the dark tank, especially since the tank’s
door was locked from the outside. Things got even weirder when staff reviewed the security
footage from the night Elisa disappeared. She was caught on camera standing in the elevator,
looking around wildly as if someone in the hallway was pursuing her. That was the last time anyone
saw Elisa Lam alive, and to this day, no one knows how she ended up floating in that water tank.
It’s always disturbing to hear about a mysterious death or disappearance,
but when mother nature is involved, things can get truly terrifying.
In January 1959, a group of Soviet students from Ural Polytechnic Institute set off on what
was supposed to be a 16 day hiking expedition. All 9 of the students were highly experienced
mountaineers under the leadership of 5th-year student and expert guide Igor Dyatlov. Little did
they know that this would be their last trip into the wilderness. When the group failed to check in
via telegram from their final destination, rescue efforts were dispatched nearly 2 weeks after their
planned return. What the rescuers found would haunt them for years, and spawn one of the most
enduring mysteries of the modern age. After 6 days of searching, rescuers stumbled upon the
remains of the students’ abandoned camp. Their large canvas tent had partially collapsed and
appeared to have been sliced open from the inside, but there was no sign of the students nearby. The
next day, 2 bodies were found nearly a mile away, huddled naked around the remnants of a campfire.
3 more bodies were dug out from the snow in the following days, and the bodies of the rest of
the students were found in May once the snow had melted. An early Soviet investigation ruled that
the accident was the result of the “spontaneous power of nature”, and officials kept the details
of the investigation classified for decades. Unsurprisingly, this ruling proved unsatisfactory
to many, and over the years more than 75 alternate theories were put forth, covering
everything from an attack by local tribes to alien abduction. One of the most chilling theories is
that the entire site was staged to cover up an accident while testing a new top secret weapon.
None of these theories fully explain why a group of highly experienced mountaineers
would willingly leave their tent and expose themselves to the harsh elements,
why many of the bodies were found stripped naked in the brutal Russian winter,
or how many of the students were found with broken bones and head injuries. Given the
decades that have passed since the incident and the notorious secrecy of the Soviets, it’s
unlikely that we’ll ever know the full truth of what really happened in the Dyatlov Pass incident.
The possibility of a new, top secret weapon is at the heart of another unsolved mystery,
too - this one much more recent and foreboding.
In 2016, a CIA officer checked into the American Embassy’s health office in Havana, Cuba,
complaining of nausea, dizziness and a severe headache. Within days, 2 more CIA officers
reported the exact same strange symptoms, stumping embassy health officials. By the end of 2018,
26 Americans and 14 Canadians in Cuba had experienced the mysterious illness, which doctors
diagnosed as concussion-like symptoms, though none of those afflicted showed any other signs of
having sustained a concussion. They did all share one thing in common, though - each victim claimed
that the onset of their symptoms were triggered by a strange, high-pitched noise they had heard
immediately before. Officials were stumped - they knew of nothing that could make a sound that
would cause such symptoms. Was it some kind of new weapon? The Cubans denied any involvement, and the
FBI found no evidence that such a weapon existed. Some scientists who listened to recordings of the
noises that some victims had made thought it sounded like the mating calls of crickets,
but how could that cause such disorienting symptoms? Still others thought it was just the
Cuban heat - but that didn’t explain what happened next in China. In May 2018, an American working at
the consulate in Guangzhou was diagnosed with the same mysterious illness that had struck in Cuba -
unexplained nausea, dizziness and a blinding headache brought on by a strange, high-pitched
sound. Within months, 15 other Americans were evacuated from China, along with nearly 60% of
the Americans working in Cuba. There is still no official explanation for these bizarre symptoms.
Unsolved mysteries are certainly not a strictly modern phenomenon.
This perplexing 19th century mystery has remained unsolved for nearly 150 years.
On December 4th, 1872, the British-American ship the Mary Celeste was found abandoned and
adrift in the midst of the Atlantic ocean. The ship was seaworthy, her cargo was fully intact,
but there was not a soul on board, alive, or dead. The ship had set sail from New York and was headed
for Genoa, Italy. Her 7 crewmen had been under the leadership of Captain Briggs, who had brought his
wife and 2 year old daughter along for the trip. They had supplies enough for a 6 month voyage, and
luxurious accommodations for the captain’s family, including a sewing machine and an upright piano.
When the ship was discovered adrift in the Atlantic, everything onboard was untouched.
The only thing missing from the ship was the lifeboat, which appeared to have been boarded
and lowered in an orderly fashion. The last entry from the ship’s log revealed nothing
unusual that could explain the disappearance of the ship’s entire crew and passengers.
Many theories have been floated in the years and decades since the disappearance of the ship.
Some think the crew must have mutinied against the captain, while others blame pirates,
though neither theory explains why nothing was missing from the ship. Still others believe that
the crew was fleeing an attack by a giant octopus, a whale or even a sea monster, yet the ship was
fully intact with no signs of damage. At least one scientist thinks that the crew took to the
lifeboat because they were fleeing a fire caused by the fumes from some alcohol among the ship's
cargo, which could have burned without leaving any scorch marks. In reality, we’ll never know
the true reason why 10 souls abandoned the safety of their ship for the dangers of the open ocean,
since none of them were ever heard from again, and no sign of their boat or bodies was ever found.
Most unsolved mysteries involve the mysterious death or disappearance of a person,
but the mysterious dog suicides of Scotland prove
that the realm of the unexplained is not a uniquely human phenomenon.
“It was a miracle she survived,” recalled Lottie MacKinnon, thinking of the day years
ago when she was walking her border collie over the Overtoun Bridge, a century-old gothic stone
bridge in Dumbarton, Scotland. The locals have their own name for the bridge - they call it
Dog Suicide Bridge. Since the 1950s, hundreds of Scots, like Lottie, have claimed that their dogs
were suddenly compelled to leap over the side of the bridge, many tragically falling to their
deaths on the jagged rocks in the gorge below. On the day that Lottie’s dog Bonnie took the leap,
she clearly recalls how Bonnie started acting strangely as soon as they approached the bridge.
Bonnie froze at first, before suddenly running across the bridge, jumping up onto the parapet,
and leaping over the edge. It all happened so fast that Lottie barely had time to react,
but she remembers that Bonnie seemed to be compelled to jump by something unseen.
Luckily, when Lottie made the treacherous climb down the banks and into the gorge, she found
Bonnie lying on the rocks, whimpering but alive. Not all dogs who run afoul of the Overtoun Bridge
are so lucky - locals say that as many as 300 dogs have leapt from the bridge in the last 70 years,
and that at least 50 dogs have died. Were these dogs simply enticed by the smells of the animals
living in the gorge below, or was something more sinister at work, something convincing the dogs
to take their own lives? Locals are convinced that something paranormal haunts the bridge,
possibly the infamous White Lady of Overtoun, the widow of a wealthy landowner who is frequently
sighted walking the grounds and standing in the windows of Overtoun Manor, the historic property
where the bridge is located. The mystery of Dog Suicide Bridge remains unsolved,
and locals are careful to keep their dogs on a tight leash when walking near the bridge.
The world of unsolved mysteries can be an unending rabbit hole, and they serve to remind us that
there’s more that we don’t know about our world than what we can know for sure. We might never
have the answers to these weirdest unsolved mysteries, but that’s half the fun, isn’t it?
If you want more mysteries, we’ve got you covered. Be sure and check out our other videos,
like this video called “Mystery Space Events That Astronomers Can’t Explain”,
or you might like this other video.