50 Bizarre Unsolved Mysteries That’ll Weird You Out – Part 3

A failed businessman named William Morgan was rejected from being inducted into the Freemasons Society of Batavia, New York in the 1800s. In retaliation, he planned to publish a book revealing their secrets. The angered local Freemasons took out newspaper ads denouncing Morgan and even attempted to burn his newspaper office down. Morgan was eventually arrested on charges that he owed money and was jailed. That same night an unknown man came to the jail offering to pay his debt and have him released. Morgan left the jail with the man and was never seen again. Three Masons were eventually convicted of kidnapping Morgan, but his body was never found

In 1942, residents of Pascagoula, Mississippi lived in fear of the “phantom barber,” a criminal who would sneak into homes at night only to steal locks of hair from his victims. He worked in the darkness made more profound by the Army’s blackout regulations due to World War 2. Though an arrest was made, many believe it to be a setup, and the identity of the phantom barber still remains a mystery.

Freak show performer Angelo Faticoni’s singular talent was reflected in his nickname, the Human Cork. He was unsinkable, and he made his living demonstrating that fact. He could stay afloat for hours with lead weighing twenty pounds fastened to his ankles and assume any position in the water without danger. Harvard University doctors assessed him and concluded he did not possess abnormal internal organs but failed to find any explanation for his buoyancy. He promised to reveal his secret, but he died in 1931, taking his secret with him.

On February 12, 1979, in Southampton, U.K., Roland Moody heard repeated sounds outside his observatory and discovered the glass roof to be covered with thousands of mustard seeds and cress seeds coated with jelly. Seeds continued to fall all day. Eight pails of cress seeds were collected and planted, and the plants eventually harvested. Moody learned that the garden of his neighbor, Airs Stockley, had been hit with seeds the previous year as well. The next day Moody and his two immediate neighbors were rained upon by haricot beans, broad beans, maize, and peas. Police were called in, but the seeds’ origin remained a mystery. Those three houses were the only ones targeted, and no “rain” fell on the sidewalk in front of them.

In 1925, women in Bridgeport, Connecticut started reporting “Phantom Stabber” who would use a sharp, pointed weapon to jab their buttocks or breasts before fleeing the scene. Victims described him as being unusually fast on his feet, disappearing while they screamed in pain. By June 1928, the Jabber’s victims numbered 26. Despite a continuous police investigation, the jabber was never identified.

In 1960, a man named William Foos claimed that his 15-year-old daughter Margaret Foos was skilled at “blind reading.” Though she wasn’t blind, she could read books through touch alone while being blindfolded. He even took his daughter to Veterans Administration Center in Washington, D.C. to be subjected to scientific tests by psychiatrists. She was blindfold by the doctors and she used her hands to read sections of the Bible, identify objects and colors, trace lines, and play checkers. Her father occasionally left the room and did not appear to be giving her signals. Though she passed the tests, VA psychiatrists couldn’t explain how she’d done it. Even the FBI investigated William Foos and his claims.

Katherine FitzGerald, the Countess of Desmond was a 17th-century noblewoman who was rumored to have lived up to the age of 140. She is said to have died of a fall when climbing a tree to gather nuts - not due to old age. She was so very well known that she was mentioned by Francis Bacon and Sir Walter Raleigh who nicknamed her “the old Countess of Desmond.” She reportedly walked every week to her local market town, a distance of 4–5 miles. She was also said to have grown teeth twice or thrice in her lifetime; casting her old teeth, and others coming in their place.

The South Atlantic Anomaly is a region of space that has reduced magnetosphere coverage, with higher-than-usual levels of radiation because Earth’s inner Van Allen belt comes closest to the Earth’s surface here. It’s an area centered just a bit off the coast of Brazil, and it has caused computers in satellites to crash, astronauts have reported seeing “shooting stars” in their visual field and a space telescope was destroyed by a guidance computer’s fault. The Hubble Telescope is turned off from taking observations when passing through the Anomaly and the International Space Station avoids scheduling spacewalks when passing through it. The anomaly is known to be caused by the high levels of radiation that accumulates here, but scientists aren’t sure exactly how or why.

John Brisker was an American basketball player who played in the ABA and NBA in the early 1970s. Brisker averaged over 20 points per game and was considered a solid defensive player too. Due to his volatile personality and penchant for fighting he was cut at the end of the 1975 season. In 1978 John Brisker, flew to Uganda to allegedly start an import/export business but was never heard from again. The prevailing theory is that he went there as a guest of Ugandan strongman Idi Amin. When Amin was overthrown in 1979, Brisker was allegedly executed by a firing squad.

British Library has at least three books/manuscripts that are written entirely in cipher. “The Subtlety of Witches,” authored by Ben Ezra Aseph, from 1657, “Order of the Altar, Ancient Mysteries to Which Females Were Alone Admissible: Being Part the First of the Secrets Preserved in the Association of Maiden Unity and Attachment,” from 1835 and “Mysteries of Vesta,” from 1850.