mysteries

13 Stories

Diplomats: Canada Is Hiding 'Havana Syndrome' Cases

They claim personnel are being sent to Havana without knowing the risks

(Newser) - A group of Canadian diplomats says their government is hiding cases of "Havana Syndrome," the mysterious illness affecting Canadian and US personnel in Cuba. In a letter to Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau, nine diplomats who reported strange symptoms say "at least three additional cases were identified...

One Family Has Heavy Hand in Tale of the Loch Ness Monster

Sandy Gray's sighting made press; then his brother took a photo

(Newser) - You know the Loch Ness Monster, but it's unlikely you know the Gray family. In a lengthy piece for Narratively , Paul Brown rectifies that. He takes readers back nearly a century to May 1933, when a sighting of the beast in the loch's black waters was for the...

Beware, Bigfoot: Unsolved Mysteries Is Back

Netflix reboots series as producers aim to solve a murder

(Newser) - Paging armchair detectives: Netflix has revived Unsolved Mysteries because, as the New York Times puts it, "2020 isn't scary enough." The updated version of the docuseries—which first premiered on NBC in 1988, exploring everything from mysterious murders to Bigfoot sightings—premieres Wednesday with "much of...

Bermuda Triangle 'Victim' May Have Been Found
Bermuda Triangle 'Victim'
May Have Been Found
in case you missed it

Bermuda Triangle 'Victim' May Have Been Found

Michael Barnette believes SS Cotopaxi rests off Florida coast

(Newser) - A ship thought to have disappeared a century ago in an area known as the Bermuda Triangle turned up in the Gobi Desert in Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Now it has reportedly been found for real. The SS Cotopaxi set out to carry coal from...

Academic: I've Cracked the 'World's Most Mysterious Text'
Academic: I've Cracked the
'World's Most Mysterious Text'
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Academic: I've Cracked the 'World's Most Mysterious Text'

Gerard Cheshire says he has decoded the Voynich manuscript

(Newser) - A British academic claims to have cracked "the most puzzling book on Earth." Called the Voynich manuscript, it has baffled scholars, code breakers, and even the FBI for over 100 years—but Gerard Cheshire says ingenuity and lateral thinking was all he needed to unlock the text in...

Falling Mystery Meat Confounds Florida Family

Family woken up by crash of 15 pounds of frozen sausage

(Newser) - The weather in Florida can be wild, but we're not sure it's ever rained frozen meat before. WPLG reports a Deerfield Beach family was woken up by a loud noise Saturday morning. Travis Adair says it sounded "like thunder." The actual cause was less meteorological: The...

Plane Crashes in Canada—With No One Inside

Search is on for missing University of Michigan student

(Newser) - A University of Michigan student has seemingly vanished after the wreckage of a small plane he rented was found with no one inside. The unidentified graduate student was last seen renting a single-engine Cessna 172 registered to University of Michigan Flyers Inc. at Ann Arbor Airport last Wednesday, reports Wawa-news....

He Claims He's Solved a Century-Old Music Puzzle
He May Have
Cracked
Century-Old
Music 'Enigma'
LONGFORM

He May Have Cracked Century-Old Music 'Enigma'

But not all scholars are convinced of Bob Padgett's theory

(Newser) - At the debut of his Variations on an Original Theme in 1899, English composer and cryptographer Edward Elgar hinted at a riddle of sorts hidden in the work. The idea is that the 14 variations in the piece are, in fact, variations of a particular piece of music. "So...

Amelia Earhart May Have Been Found—76 Years Ago

Photo of Earhart matches skeleton found in 1940: TIGHAR

(Newser) - For 79 years, people have been searching for Amelia Earhart. But for 76 years, the mystery of her disappearance might have been solved. The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery says Earhart's bones were perhaps found on the island of Nikumaroro in Kiribati in 1940, three years after her...

DNA Tests Clear Up Titanic's 'Last Mystery'

Did 2-year-old Loraine Allison perish in 1912 ... or not?

(Newser) - A century later, the word "mystery" has been replaced by "hoax." The Telegraph reports on what it calls the Titanic's "last mystery": What was the fate of Loraine Allison? The 2-year-old passenger was believed to have gone down with the ship, which would make her...

Man Wakes With Amnesia, Speaking Only Swedish
Man Wakes With Amnesia, Speaking Only Swedish
in case you missed it

Man Wakes With Amnesia, Speaking Only Swedish

Doctors are looking into the mystery of Michael Boatwright

(Newser) - Doctors are looking into the mystery of a Florida man who awoke speaking only Swedish, with no memory of his past, after he was found unconscious four months ago at a Southern California motel. Michael Boatwright, 61, was in February taken to a Palm Springs medical center where he woke...

Book: Steering Blunder Sunk Titanic

And we thought it was the soundtrack...

(Newser) - The mystery of the Titanic , like Céline Dion 's heart, goes on and on...and on...and on... But a new book hopes to end the debate over the ship's demise by outlining a new theory: the crew saw the iceberg in plenty of time, but a helmsman panicked...

Agatha Christie Novel May Reveal Her Alzheimer's
Agatha Christie Novel May Reveal Her Alzheimer's
in case you missed it

Agatha Christie Novel May Reveal Her Alzheimer's

One of her last books shows big decline in language

(Newser) - One of Agatha Christie's last novels suggests the author had Alzheimer's, says an English professor who crunched its text in a database and compared it to earlier novels. The number of different words used dropped by an "astounding" 20%, while her use of indefinite words like "thing" or...

13 Stories