31 Namibia’s Barren Fairy Rings
Scattered across the arid landscape of Namibia, mysterious barren patches known as Fairy Circles have puzzled scientists and locals alike for decades. These nearly perfect circles, ranging from 1 to 15 meters wide, are completely devoid of vegetation and are often surrounded by taller grass on their edges. While similar formations were also reported in Australia’s Pilbara region, Namibia remains the global hotspot for these strange formations, which the local Himba people have long accepted as part of nature-sometimes even using them as makeshift cattle pens.
Several theories have been proposed to explain the phenomenon. One long-standing idea attributes the circles to sand termites that clear vegetation above their underground colonies. However, this theory has lost favor due to inconsistent evidence of termite presence across the circles. A more compelling theory suggests that intense plant competition in Namibia’s harsh environment leads grasses to create natural nutrient reserves by killing off interior vegetation and hoarding resources at the circle’s edges. Some locals believe the circles have supernatural origins, calling them “footprints of the gods,” while fringe theories even suggest alien communication.
32 Mystery of Haplogroup X
Haplogroup X is a rare and puzzling type of mitochondrial DNA found in small percentages among people in Europe, the Near East, North Africa, and notably, among some Indigenous groups in North America. While other Native American DNA haplogroups can be traced to Asia and the Bering land bridge migration, Haplogroup X-specifically its X2a variant-doesn’t follow this pattern and is strangely absent in East Asia. This has led to confusion among scientists about how it ended up in North America at all, especially since it shows up in high percentages among tribes like the Algonquian, Sioux, and Navajo. The highest known concentrations in the world are among the Druze people of the Near East, who also show exceptional diversity in this haplogroup, suggesting ancient and isolated origins.
Various theories have tried to explain this genetic mystery. One early theory, the Solutrean hypothesis, claimed that Haplogroup X arrived in North America via Stone Age Europeans crossing the Atlantic by boat, but newer studies show no link between the American X2a and any European DNA. Instead, it appears that X2a developed independently in early Native American populations over 13,000 years ago. Other fringe ideas-from ancient Israelites to Atlanteans to aliens-have been floated but lack any scientific backing.
33 Tarrare: France’s Hungriest Enigma
Tarrare, a mysterious figure from 18th-century France, remains one of medical history’s strangest unsolved cases. Born to peasant parents near Lyon, he displayed a monstrous appetite from a young age, reportedly eating his own body weight in meat daily without gaining weight. Despite his emaciated appearance, he could stretch his stomach skin dramatically and emitted an unbearable odor that made proximity difficult. Abandoned by his family, he joined a traveling freak show, performing grotesque acts like swallowing stones, live animals, and crates of food, becoming a street-side spectacle of human consumption. His unique condition caught the attention of military doctors during the French Revolutionary Wars, and he was even used as a human courier to smuggle secret messages into enemy territory-though this mission ended in capture and near execution after he was found out in Prussia.
Desperate for help, Tarrare sought cures from Dr. Percy, but nothing could quell his hunger. Hospitalized again, he was caught drinking blood and lurking near the morgue, suspected even of eating a missing child, which led to his final disappearance. Years later, he reappeared in Versailles, dying of a mysterious gastrointestinal illness marked by extreme internal decay. His autopsy revealed severely decomposed organs, but offered no concrete answers. To this day, experts can only speculate whether his affliction stemmed from a rare metabolic disorder, thyroid dysfunction, or an entirely unique syndrome.
34 Copper Scroll Treasure
The Copper Scroll, discovered in 1952 at Qumran’s Cave 3, is unique among the Dead Sea Scrolls because it was inscribed on metal rather than parchment. It couldn’t be unrolled normally, so it was cut into 23 strips in the 1950s. Scholars date it between 25 and 135 CE, and it is written in an unusual form of Hebrew not typically seen in biblical texts. The scroll lists 64 locations supposedly hiding vast treasures of gold, silver, and sacred vessels, some possibly linked to the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. Though detailed and specific, the directions assume a deep familiarity with obscure places, and no duplicate document mentioned in the scroll has been found.
Debate surrounds the authenticity and origin of the treasure: some believe it was real Temple wealth hidden during times of conflict, while others think the scroll could be a work of fiction. Certain features-such as similarities to Greek temple inventories and writing techniques consistent with hammering into metal-suggest it could be a legitimate administrative record. However, it is also possible the Romans seized the treasure when Herod’s Temple was destroyed. Today, the Copper Scroll is housed in the Jordan Museum in Amman, and the treasure, if it ever existed, remains undiscovered.
35 Origins of Phosphine on Venus
In 2020, the unexpected detection of phosphine-a potential biosignature-high in Venus’s atmosphere stunned the scientific community, since the harsh environment of the planet seemed utterly incompatible with life as we know it. Phosphine is produced by microbes on Earth and breaks down quickly in oxidizing atmospheres, yet astronomer Jane Greaves’s team found it at puzzlingly high concentrations in the temperate cloud layer 50 kilometers above Venus’s hellish surface. The findings, initially detected using powerful radio telescopes, were disputed by other astronomers who argued the signal was likely sulfur dioxide contamination, but further analysis and a 2024 redetection supported the original claim.
Attempts to explain the phosphine through non-biological means-ranging from lightning and volcanic activity to meteoritic delivery-have largely fallen short, with models failing to reproduce the observed concentrations under any plausible Venusian conditions. Critics argue that incomplete knowledge of Venus’s geology leaves room for alternate interpretations, particularly ongoing volcanic activity. While some suggest microbial life in the clouds as a possible source, others propose that the gas may be pointing to previously unknown geologic or photochemical processes.
36 Sleeping Village of Kazakhstan
Between 2013 and 2016, a baffling phenomenon struck the remote village of Kalachi in northern Kazakhstan, where dozens of residents began falling into sudden, prolonged sleep-sometimes while walking, driving, or even mid-conversation. The symptoms mimicked drunkenness at first-slurred speech, dizziness, and loss of balance-before victims succumbed to sleep that could last for days, with no memory upon waking. Investigations revealed no contamination, radiation, or consistent medical cause, and while isolated cases dated back to 2011, the full-scale waves of the “sleeping sickness” led to partial evacuations before the condition mysteriously disappeared in 2016 as suddenly as it had emerged.
Several theories have attempted to explain the outbreak. The official government stance blamed carbon monoxide from nearby abandoned Soviet uranium mines, though this failed to align with the absence of carbon monoxide in medical tests. Another theory proposed chemical leakage into the village’s water supply, but no evidence of water contamination or toxic waste was found. The most psychological explanation suggests mass psychogenic illness (mass hysteria), triggered by shared anxiety and stress, though that too lacks definitive proof. To this day, no single explanation can fully account for the strange wave of sleep that swept through Kalachi.
37 Joshua Maddux: Boy in the Chimney
In 2008, 18-year-old Joshua Maddux vanished after leaving home for a walk in the town of Woodland Park in Colorado. His disappearance prompted a prolonged but fruitless search that led many, including his family, to believe he had simply left town to start anew. Seven years later, his mummified body was discovered in the chimney of a nearby abandoned cabin—less than a mile from his home—wedged in a fetal position with no signs of trauma, injuries, or drug use, yet surrounded by baffling clues: his clothes were neatly folded inside the cabin, and he was found wearing only a thin thermal shirt.
Authorities ruled the death accidental, suggesting Joshua climbed down the chimney and became trapped, ultimately dying of hypothermia—but this theory was challenged by the property owner, who stated the chimney had been sealed with wire mesh for years. Further disturbing details emerged: the position of the body would have required him to enter headfirst and possibly with assistance, and a Reddit post linked a local man named Andy—later institutionalized—to suspicious comments implying involvement. Joshua’s tragic fate remains steeped in unsettling contradictions and unanswered questions, hinting at a mystery far darker than a simple accident.
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38 Rasputin and Hemophilia
Grigori Rasputin, a controversial figure in Russian history, was often portrayed as a mystical healer and spiritual advisor, though many believe he was more of a manipulative and charismatic opportunist who skillfully embedded himself within the Romanov court. His rise to prominence came largely through his inexplicable ability to alleviate the suffering of Tsarevich Alexei, the young heir to the Russian throne, who was born with hemophilia-a life-threatening blood disorder that caused severe and spontaneous internal bleeding.
Traditional medicine at the time had little to offer, and the royal family grew increasingly desperate with each of Alexei’s medical crises. Rasputin, however, appeared to succeed where doctors could not: when he was near the boy, Alexei’s condition would improve, and even when Rasputin was far away, his letters and telegrams-often filled with calm, reassuring words-were said to have a soothing, almost miraculous effect on the child’s health. His ability to bring relief, whether through psychological comfort, hypnosis, or sheer coincidence, earned him unwavering loyalty from Empress Alexandra and made him an indispensable presence at court, despite widespread suspicion and political backlash. Rasputin’s strange healing connection to the tsarevich remains one of history’s most puzzling medical and psychological mysteries.
39 Curious Case of Evan Muncie
When a devastating 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti in January 2010, millions were affected and hundreds of thousands perished, but amidst the rubble emerged the astonishing story of Evan Muncie-a 28-year-old rice vendor who was found alive 27 days after the quake. Despite extreme dehydration, malnutrition, and minor wounds, Evan survived in what many called a miracle, baffling medical experts who stated that no human could survive that long without water, especially in such conditions.
What made his case even more mysterious was Evan’s account of being visited by someone in a white coat who gave him water, though no physical evidence supported such a possibility given the space he was trapped in. While some have speculated that delirium led to hallucinations or that Evan was only trapped for a shorter time, his emaciated condition and the fact that he was reported missing on the day of the quake raise more questions than answers. Whether through divine intervention, a rare survival anomaly, or something else entirely, the truth behind Evan Muncie’s survival remains an enigma.
40 Marine Phosphorescent Wheels
For over a century, sailors have reported encountering eerie and spectacular displays of “marine phosphorescent wheels”—massive, glowing circular patterns of light that appear on or beneath the surface of the ocean, particularly in the Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf, and South China Sea. These rotating wheels, sometimes accompanied by luminous spokes or parallel bands of light, can stretch for hundreds of meters, appear to spin at high speeds, and often occur in complete silence, baffling observers.
Despite a wide range of proposed explanations—from glowing plankton reacting to physical disturbances, to seismic activity, or even connections to UFO phenomena—no definitive cause has been confirmed, and accounts vary wildly in appearance and behavior. Witness reports describe surreal scenes, such as seas glowing like snowfields or being surrounded by spinning blue cartwheels of light, all pointing to one of the ocean’s most dazzling and least understood mysteries.
RE: Fact #35 (Origins of Phosphine on Venus) – Man, I was stoked when I first heard about this! I was really looking forward to learning more about Venus. Turns out, though, the findings aren’t exactly what everyone else in science is buying.
RE: Fact #14 (Green Children of Woolpit) – I really dig this idea from ancient origins: Paul Harris, in Fortean Studies, thought the kids were Flemish orphans, maybe from Fornham St. Martin near Woolpit, separated by the River Lark. Lots of Flemish people moved there in the 12th century, but King Henry II was rough on them, even killing many near Bury St Edmunds in 1173. If they ran off into Thetford Forest, it would’ve been super dark and scary for kids. They might’ve even gone through those old mine tunnels to Woolpit. Imagine – weird clothes, speaking a different language… they must’ve freaked out the villagers!
RE: Fact #43 (Viking Maine Penny Baffles Historians) – It probably got there through trading.
It’s easy to imagine Vikings making several trips to America. The stories only mention a few, but there could have been more. Crossing the ocean was dangerous, so not all of them might have returned to tell the tale.
There’s a cool book about Gudrid, a Viking woman who traveled the world long ago. It’s called *The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman*, by Nancy Marie Brown.
It looks like everyone agrees Greenlanders regularly went to North America for centuries to hunt walrus and get wood. I bet there was some trading going on during those trips, too.
The Vikings hung out in Greenland for a good four centuries.
Maybe some curious native explorers just happened to find it while cleaning up their old campsites.
If a coin like that was left behind or found on a dead Viking, someone probably picked it up and it traveled south, maybe as a family heirloom or through trading.
RE: Fact #7 (Rohonc Codex: Fake Manuscript or Real?) – I always wondered if it was someone with mental health issues. Honestly, I love the illustrations! They’re a little rough around the edges, but they’re gorgeous and intriguing. They don’t look like the work of a professional manuscript illustrator—they’re unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
RE: Fact #33 (Tarrare: France’s Hungriest Enigma) – His last illness might’ve been partly caused by tuberculosis, but the term “consumption” back then was pretty vague. They used it for all sorts of wasting diseases, not just TB. Plus, his symptoms – mostly a messed-up gut full of pus – don’t exactly shout “TB!”
Abdominal TB is real, and what the doctors saw fits with that, especially if it went untreated.
TB can affect the abdomen in a few ways. It can get into the gut from infected milk or spit, causing sores and spreading to lymph nodes and the lining of the abdomen. Sometimes, it even reaches the liver, pancreas, or spleen.
His body probably rotted faster because his gut was already wrecked and bacteria were running wild.
I bet some of the weird stuff in this case is just because medicine was so basic in the early 1800s.
RE: Fact #28 (Crutches Everywhere: Sweden’s Hip Mystery) – I really hate it when doctors just call something psychosomatic when they don’t know what’s going on. It’s like, “I’m stumped, so you’re making it up!” Seriously, figure it out!
RE: Fact #47 (Aksum’s Mysterious Fall from Power) – Hey, nobody has commented about this yet! My husband’s Egyptian, and we both thought it was super interesting. Thanks!
It’s a shame more people don’t know about them! Back in the third century, the prophet Mani thought they were one of the four biggest empires – right alongside Rome, Persia, and China. They lasted for almost a thousand years and were early adopters of Christianity.
RE: Fact #49 (The Jumping Gene Mystery) – Wow, that’s wild! It’s all about those genes just chilling and spreading around, I get it.
If you haven’t already, read ‘The Selfish Gene’.
It’s all about how genes, not people, are the main players in reproduction, which explains some weird stuff like altruism and how ant families work. Basically, it’s about genes trying to survive. And hey, that’s where the word “meme” comes from!
RE: Fact #1 (Did the Inca Sail to Distant Lands?) – This is a really cool story, but I have a couple of quick questions. First, I don’t think Aboriginal Australians were mining or working with gold and brass. And horses weren’t around in Australia back then. Second, Polynesians could be darker-skinned than Incas, it’s not a big deal, but maybe the voyage went to a different part of South America where darker people had those things. They seem more common in mainland South America than the Pacific.
Some Polynesians have really dark skin. The Melanesian islands got their name from how dark their people were—it’s from the same Greek word as “melanin.” If the Inka met Polynesians, they might have brought a pig back. That would have been a pretty unusual animal for the Inka, like a horse is to us, and pigs are common in Polynesia, used for trading and gifts. I’m not sure about that metal, though.
RE: Fact #39 (Curious Case of Evan Muncie ) – That’s one heck of a story! I’m really happy that guy got out of there.
But I don’t buy the supernatural stuff at all.
There’s this thing called the Third Man Factor—it pops up a lot in survival stories. Basically, people feel like they have a helpful presence with them during the ordeal, giving them support. Exactly *why* that happens is up for grabs; some just feel calm and sure they’ll make it, while others see actual hallucinations.
As for how Evan Muncie survived being trapped under all that rubble… well, he wasn’t moving around or eating, and he was shaded from the sun, so he probably needed way less water. He might have gotten some rainwater or groundwater, too. And some people can just survive longer without water than you’d expect. It’s not fully understood, but maybe he was just incredibly lucky—his body and the situation just happened to line up perfectly.
RE: Fact #26 (Where Do Eels Come From?) – There is probably an obvious answer that I’m missing for this, but if their larvae and eggs haven’t actually been seen, how do we know that they aren’t laying them before they go off on their migration? This is a great entry. ! Love ecological mysteries.
RE: Fact #26 (Where Do Eels Come From?) – That’s awesome, thanks! I’m teaching environmental science and used the eastern Canadian elver overfishing problem for my final exam. I was totally blown away by how those tiny things navigate the ocean.
RE: Fact #4 (Africa’s Forgotten Atlantic Expedition?) – Most historians agree this didn’t happen. There’s no real proof, and it’s not a major historical idea.
Totally agree. Two thousand ships? That’s insane! Two hundred would be crazy, even twenty’s a lot. Two thousand is a full-blown invasion – it wouldn’t be a simple “let’s head west and see what happens” kind of thing.
RE: Fact #20 (Surviving Everest’s Death Zone Night) – Besides the decent weather, Hall could walk, which was huge for surviving. No walking, no chance past a certain point – no rescue.
Great article! I love reading about high-altitude mountaineering, from the comfy couch, of course. That mountaineer, Joe Simpson, wrote some fascinating books about the ethics of rescuing people up high. He’s experienced both sides – falling into a crevasse, being left for dead, then crawling miles with awful injuries to get himself out.
RE: Fact #50 (The Lonely 52 Hz Whale ) – Whales are awesome, I wrote papers on them in college. Their communication is way more complex than you’d expect – check out bowhead whale songs, they’re amazing! I really hope this whale gets to live in peace.
I find the idea that it’s deaf really interesting. It seems unlikely to be a completely unique species, since it’s the only one doing this. It’s hard to believe it’s the last one of its kind, especially one that hasn’t encountered humans before. Whales live for ages, so you’d think we’d have found another if there was a whole separate species. Maybe its unusual swimming is because it can’t find other whales. Its migratory instinct is probably in its DNA, but without being able to communicate, it’s probably just going it alone.
“It seems unlikely to be a completely unique species, since it’s the only one doing this. It’s hard to believe it’s the last one of its kind, especially one that hasn’t encountered humans before.”
But it’s not impossible. Whales live for ages – some maybe even over 260 years! We’ve only been able to spot them this way for a short while. Most animals that ever lived are gone now, so species dying out isn’t unusual. It wouldn’t be the first to disappear in the last hundred years.
If there weren’t many to begin with 200 years ago, and then whaling happened…well, it’s easy to see how only one or two might be left. Plus, some whales mix it up with other kinds, so maybe this one’s a unique kid, or a crossbreed itself – that could explain those 2010 recordings.
RE: Fact #7 (Rohonc Codex: Fake Manuscript or Real?) – This might sound silly, but seriously—if people have made up whole languages just for fun, why couldn’t something like this, or the Voynich manuscript, be a language made up by a small group? Maybe even just one monk in a monastery, just for kicks.
RE: Fact #36 (Sleeping Village of Kazakhstan) – Carbon monoxide poisoning is probably the reason.
I read a story on facebook about Syrian refugee kids who slept all the time. It was written like a mystery, but it seemed like the massive stress of war and growing up as a refugee was the real cause. If it’s not carbon monoxide, I wonder if there was something else really stressing those villagers out.
RE: Fact #10 (The Yuba County Five) – This case has always fascinated me—it’s basically the American Diatlov Pass. Stuff You Should Know did a great podcast about it, and there’s also a YouTube video if you prefer watching.
RE: Fact #41 (Fate of the Amber Room) – Wow, that’s a great piece, but it’s depressing to think about all the art, history, and culture lost in wars.
This is a small problem compared to the huge amount of ancient stuff and whole historical places that have been stolen or wrecked in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past thirty years or so.
RE: Fact #29 (Mysterious Upsweep Sound) – The trouble with thinking up a sea monster big enough to make that much noise is that the deep ocean just doesn’t have enough food for something so huge. People always bring up Megalodon, saying there’s plenty of unexplored ocean where a bunch of bus-sized sharks could hide. But even with weird finds like the megamouth shark, an animal that size – whether it hunts or filters food – needs tons of food.
So picture this giant Upsweep noisemaker. It’d have to be massive to make a sound that loud, heard all across the Pacific. And it lives deep down, around 2500-5000 meters – Cuvier’s beaked whales dive almost that deep, so it’s possible. But unlike whales, this thing rarely comes to the surface. Nobody’s ever seen anything that big. Plus, food’s scarce down there, so it’d probably be a slow-moving filter-feeder, which makes it hard to figure out what kind of animal it is. It’d be more like a giant clam than anything else, and clams don’t make much noise, which is a problem.
So, I’m guessing it’s some kind of geological thing. But I have to say, a house-sized geoduck making those sounds as it shuffles along the ocean floor is pretty cool.
RE: Fact #3 (Mystery of Vietnam’s Rock Apes) – My uncle served in Vietnam and used to tell us crazy stories about these Rock Apes. Even years later, the guy was still scared stiff of them! He’d chat about the Viet Cong no problem, but Rock Apes? Only after a few beers, and even then, he’d be totally freaked out.
I only knew a couple other guys who were there, and only one of them never mentioned anything about those things.
I asked my dad, who was there from ’69 to ’70, and he’d never heard of them. Pretty interesting!
My dad was out patrolling earlier and didn’t hear a thing about it.
Man, I wish I’d heard these stories sooner, before Dad passed. He was doing riverboat missions in Vietnam, roughly ’66-’70. He wasn’t big on talking about the war, but he started opening up a bit towards the end.
Same here. I really wish my dad had talked more about it. That war really messed him up.
RE: Fact #38 (Rasputin and Hemophilia) – Back then, aspirin was the big new thing. It messes with blood clotting, which is really bad for hemophilia. When Nicholas and Alexandra let Rasputin take over, he stopped giving the kid aspirin. That probably played a big part in what happened, along with everything else.
I don’t think Rasputin even knew aspirin was dangerous for hemophilia. He probably just stopped the medicine because he thought his “healing” would work. Seems like Rasputin got really lucky.
RE: Fact #8 (Washington’s Sea Eagle: America’s Lost Giant?) – This mystery’s always been a favorite of mine. I recall reading a theory suggesting both eagles were first-year birds with chicks, but that doesn’t account for their size or other reported sightings. It’s a real head-scratcher!
A big issue with them being two young bald eagles is that eagles aren’t usually ready to breed that young. Even if they *were* ready, bald eagles don’t build ground nests – that’s just not something they do. Except maybe Washington’s Sea Eagle, which apparently nested on the ground even in the woods.
Maruna covers the whole “juvenile eagles nesting” idea and convinced me it’s wrong, using the reasons above, but with more detail.
I wish more folks were writing about this thing – I’d really like to read more!
RE: Fact #10 (The Yuba County Five) – From what I’ve read and heard, they all had developmental disabilities that made independent living tough. It sounds harsh to say, but their problem-solving skills weren’t as strong as the average person’s. I don’t know the specifics of their disabilities, but if living alone was a struggle, then something like getting their car stuck would’ve been really hard. Even for someone without disabilities, that’s a panic-inducing situation!
So, yeah, they could’ve easily gotten the car unstuck and waited for help, but their disabilities might’ve made that impossible. Add in the stress and fear of being lost, and leaving the car on foot doesn’t seem so crazy.
That totally makes sense. I work with adults who have developmental disabilities, and I’ve seen this kind of thing happen all the time. For example, many of my clients have jobs like bagging groceries, but can’t even play Clue—it’s a logic game, and kids can play it when they’re eight!
Yeah, I can totally picture someone starving rather than eating the “wrong” food, or not eating at all if they thought it was stealing.
RE: Fact #50 (The Lonely 52 Hz Whale ) – I’m thrilled that whale might have found a partner!
RE: Fact #11 (Mysterious Soda Machine of Capitol Hill) – That title made me think it was about Congress getting snacks from a vending machine! Lol
Same here! I was hoping for something like National Treasure, a hidden history with secret compartments built by Benjamin Franklin.
RE: Fact #42 (The Mask That Wasn’t Agamemnon’s) – Schliemann kicked the bucket in 1890 and got a huge burial, like a Greek temple.
Could that mask have belonged to some rich but totally unimportant Mycenaean bigwig?
That whole thing’s kinda funny. I bet tons of “historical” discoveries are wrong, just some rich person’s quirky idea. People are still the same, right? Maybe someone really wanted to be like a legendary figure from the past.
Thinking about it, if I were loaded, I’d build myself a crazy tomb, write a totally bogus life story on the walls, and let future people think I was some ancient king.
Wow, I hadn’t thought of that! You’re totally right. It’s easy to forget how long those “ancient times” actually were. So even when that tomb was built, they already had tons of legendary kings and myths. I’d love to know more about Mycenaean stuff – I wish I could go back in time and ask them!
Lots of grave goods are actually family heirlooms, not buried at the same time as the person.
RE: Fact #6 (Whispers from the Headless Valley) – I googled it on maps—cool to see some truly remote spots still exist!
RE: Fact #8 (Washington’s Sea Eagle: America’s Lost Giant?) – I wonder what would happen if we could DNA test one of those stuffed birds and compare it to bald and golden eagles – if there’s any DNA left, that is.
From what I’ve read, it’s hard to believe Audubon, with his background, would have mistaken another bird for this one.
Plus, this mystery bird seems to behave so differently from other eagles that it’s probably a whole new species.
Depending on how they preserved those species, there might be a good chunk of DNA left. Similar age specimens have tons of genetic material already collected—scientists even use it to track how their genes have changed over time.
From what I’ve seen, I’m pretty sure there’s a Golden Eagle specimen tucked away somewhere that’s actually something else entirely.
People around here sometimes talk about this giant bird, and I always figured it was crazy. I don’t live on the rez anymore, but I’m nearby. I was in my barn around mid-March, and saw a shadow that looked like a plane or a cloud shaped like a plane, but it was weird enough that I went outside to check it out. No planes, no clouds. It was a bird shadow—a seriously huge bird shadow. I didn’t see the bird itself; it was gone behind the trees and hills. But the way all the other animals reacted—even the frogs and bugs went silent—told me it was something massive.
RE: Fact #3 (Mystery of Vietnam’s Rock Apes) – It’s great to see a cryptozoology case posted on factrepublic! This cryptid’s been around for ages, not just during the American war. The Vietnamese call it Người Rừng. I totally buy that it could be real, especially with all the new megafauna discoveries in Vietnam lately.
RE: Fact #12 (The Dalby Spook) – This cryptozoology case really freaked me out as a kid! I was terrified a Gef was living in our attic stairs. Thanks for bringing those memories up.
This reminded me of a local story, Tailypo. Even now, at 30, it still freaks me out.
Just hearing someone whisper “Tailypo” gives me the chills and makes my back tense up.
I was reading this outside when something walked across my patio roof—probably a raccoon, but it totally creeped me out.
Yeah, Gef freaked me out too. A talking, threatening mongoose is just… unsettling. I think it’s fake now, but it still gives me the creeps.
RE: Fact #44 (Vanishing of the Honjo Masamune) – I’m guessing some family here in the states has got the sword, they know it’s worth a fortune, and they’re probably worried about the media finding out and pushing them to give it back to the Japanese museums.
Just a thought, though!
Maybe the family’s clueless about how much it’s worth. Their grandson pawns it, and Rick from Pawn Stars snags it for $20, saying it’s a gamble.
I bet Bimore’s family sold the sword soon after he died, and some collector probably thinks their $50 yard sale find is just junk – little do they know!
Yeah, probably just an old sword a grandpa brought home from a war. My dad’s got a Confederate bayonet with a similar story – a relative in the Union army brought it back, and it’s been passed down ever since.
It could easily turn up again someday, maybe someone’ll get it appraised. I’m guessing it was brought to the US as a souvenir.
That show got boring after the first season. I can’t believe it has over a thousand episodes! The History Channel should be sued for false advertising—they haven’t shown any real history in ages.
RE: Fact #22 (Mysterious Purge of N. Korea’s Army Corps) – I’ve always wondered about one of the weirder things that happened under Kim Jong Il in North Korea. A Japanese professor claimed back in 2008 that Kim Jong Il actually died in 2003 and was replaced by a bunch of body doubles. Apparently, the regime hadn’t figured out who should take over yet, so they just pretended he was still alive. The professor pointed to Kim Jong Il missing some big events and said that voice analysis showed a different person speaking after 2003.
Experts were pretty split on whether the professor was right. The CIA thought Kim was having some serious health issues, but didn’t say he was dead.
The craziest part? North Korea denied Kim was dead, but then admitted he was really sick and had surgery. Then, they told their diplomats to wait for a big announcement – just like they did before Kim Il Sung died – but nothing ever happened. The Japanese prime minister even commented that Kim was unwell, but could still make decisions. In 2009, Kim Jong Un was publicly named as the successor, leading to even more speculation about Kim Jong Il’s death. It was a surprise to people watching North Korea because a second family succession in the military seemed unlikely.
Then, in 2009, Kim Jong Il popped back up! He seemed totally fine, traveling all over to China and Russia for meetings. Then, in December 2011, he supposedly died of a heart attack on his train.
So, the big question is: when did Kim Jong Il really die? Was it a body double after 2003? Why did North Korea say he was super sick, only for him to be totally fine months later? Why did he go on all those diplomatic trips? And what really happened on that train?
My guess is that Kim Jong Il died unexpectedly in 2003, and it took eight years to decide Kim Jong Un was the best choice to lead. Unless someone super important defects, we probably won’t ever know for sure.
So, he was meeting people in China and Russia who knew him before 2003, right? Did any of them notice a change in him?
He totally met Putin in 2011, and they’d met before, back in 2001. If Putin suspected the guy he met in 2011 was a double, he never said anything then or since…but that doesn’t automatically mean he didn’t have doubts.
What’s even weirder is that the state media didn’t make a big deal about his amazing recovery. They could have easily said he rode a magic train to a rainbow and made a miracle cure for everything, then used the rainbow to blow up America. The supreme leader is, after all, a brilliant scientist and super nice guy who saved the world!
Seriously, if you want a wild ride down a bizarre rabbit hole, check out North Korean state media. It’s hilarious, mysterious, and totally bonkers.
RE: Fact #16 (Crooked Forest of Poland) – We don’t have groves like that, but we do have these cool bent trees in the US called trailtrees. They bend and tie ’em down young, then let ’em grow. Native Americans often used them as markers or monuments. It’s not magic, but probably just for farming, like you said, a specific shape.
RE: Fact #18 (The Oknö Sleeper) – She had a toothache, so maybe a gum or tooth infection led to encephalitis, even encephalitis lethargica. Electric shock treatment might have also damaged her brain. Psychiatric opinions from 1910 aren’t very reliable, though, because the field was so new then.
I think so too, especially since she got so upset about her family dying—it seems like she knew what EL was all about.
They didn’t even look into EL until that 1916 sleeping sickness thing. I was stoked to get your reply!
Encephalitis lethargica always fascinated me. I bet it popped up now and then before, but really took off during the Spanish Flu because it was so nasty. It basically wiped out people’s immune systems, and that wrecked a lot of other things, even for those who lived through it.
And people forget how scary mouth infections were before antibiotics. Your brain’s not that far from your mouth, when you think about how things can get through to it.
RE: Fact #22 (Mysterious Purge of N. Korea’s Army Corps) – Weird mystery. My first guess was they were plotting against Kim Jong-il, he found out, and bam! But maybe they just got too greedy, and he made an example of them—that sounds totally like him. We probably won’t know the real story until someone can properly look through North Korea’s secret files.
“But maybe they just got too greedy, and he made an example of them—that sounds totally like him.”
That’s the most likely explanation. It was during the famine, and the military handled border trade—maybe he figured they were keeping too much for themselves. A coup might’ve been possible, but in a place like North Korea, with all the surveillance, I doubt it could have gotten big enough to involve a significant part of the Sixth Army.
Maybe the whole coup thing is just a rumor started by the NK regime itself, no matter what really happened. If you’ve gotta wipe out a chunk of your army, which looks better for a dictator: seeming weak because your army ripped you off, or terrifying everyone into silence so they don’t get tortured?
If we kept records of that stuff…
RE: Fact #18 (The Oknö Sleeper) – The English Wikipedia page says she *did* wake up. People wondered if she was really asleep the whole time – things didn’t add up. Her hair and nails, for instance, didn’t grow. A psychiatrist, Dr. Frödeström, saw her in 1910 and wrote about it, but basically just called it a weird kind of hibernation. It turned out she woke up sometimes, and when she did, she was angry and sad. Dr. Frödeström figured she might have pretended to be really sick to get sympathy, maybe even with her mom’s help, keeping it all a secret.
It seems like there’s more to it than just her mom keeping secrets—she slept for three more years after her mom died!
RE: Fact #20 (Surviving Everest’s Death Zone Night) – That’s a really good entry! As someone who deals with exposure injuries, what jumped out at me from Hall’s account was the “relatively mild” weather. The other things he mentioned are pretty subjective, and probably apply to a lot of Everest victims. Still, the stories of Dr. Weather and the others you mentioned show how different climbers can survive or die in the same conditions.
I figure these deaths are all caused by a bunch of things working together – hypothermia, HACE, HAPE, injuries, etc. – and whether someone lives or dies depends on how bad those last four are. It seems Hall was in a somewhat unusual spot; his HACE was so bad he might have died another night, but the milder weather and amazing rescue effort saved him.
I don’t get the urge to climb Everest, with all the hassle and expense, but I definitely respect the huge effort his rescuers made to get him back. I’m happy he got more time with his family, and I hope his Sherpa rescuers got the credit they deserve.
RE: Fact #8 (Washington’s Sea Eagle: America’s Lost Giant?) – Birding and mysteries are two of my favorite things!
RE: Fact #11 (Mysterious Soda Machine of Capitol Hill) – I got soda from that machine tons of times – it was way cheaper than anywhere else. It started with one mystery button and in the end all of them were mystery buttons!
I figured the locksmith next door owned it, since it was right on their property. It was kinda weird, you don’t see that many stand-alone soda machines in the US. But hey, I’m all in on the soda machine mystery.
RE: Fact #32 (Mystery of Haplogroup X) – I’m no expert, but I’d guess the X group split in eastern Siberia. Some headed west to the Altai region, while others sailed down the Beringian coast before it disappeared under the sea, sticking to the coast. That might explain why Kennewick Man in Washington has that halotype. They later moved inland, spread out, and became the ancestors of the Sioux and Algonquin. We don’t have much direct migration evidence because it’s all underwater now.
RE: Fact #2 (Princes in the Tower) – I’d bet Richard III offed them, or at least let his buddies do it. Maybe there’s a tiny chance they died naturally, and someone covered it up because it looked suspicious.
My debates with Ricardians show they use the same old arguments over and over. They say Richard had no reason to kill his nephews because they were illegitimate – but then why would Henry Tudor have a reason? Why were they suddenly a threat to Henry, but not Richard? Especially since Henry wasn’t even around when they disappeared?
And if I were Henry Tudor, and I could send someone to kill the princes, why bother? Why not just kill Richard III? He was the big boss; the princes were just kids, easily dealt with later.
RE: Fact #12 (The Dalby Spook) – I always look at the “why”—what was the motive? You brought up a good point: why fake it if the family didn’t want fame or money? It seems like Voirrey especially didn’t crave fame if she was so hard to find later on. The lack of a clear motive makes a hoax seem less likely, though that dog hair being a perfect match is pretty strong evidence pointing to a hoax.
I’m stumped! Was it delusion, a hoax, or something paranormal? And why a weird-looking mongoose?!
Maybe the dad was just trying to make something fun for his daughter. She didn’t seem too thrilled about it, though.
RE: Fact #46 (Mysteries of the Minoan Civilization) – The biggest Minoan mystery? What their language sounded like! Figuring that out would really help solve other puzzles – was it Indo-European? Semitic? Something completely unique? It all depends on cracking Linear A.
There’s been some talk about Linear A maybe being related to Cypriot runes, but that seems pretty unlikely. People have also suggested a link to Linear B, but not enough to actually decipher it. I find the idea that it’s a completely separate language, maybe related to Etruscan and even older than the Indo-European languages in the area, pretty interesting. Other ideas aren’t as strong, but they’re still fun to think about.
It’s interesting to think that Linear B might have been a special language used only in courts and temples, not by everyone. That might explain why writing disappeared in Greece after the Bronze Age collapse, and why later writing was so different. If that’s true, maybe the same applies to Linear A – that could explain why we can understand the numbers, but not the rest.
I’d really love to see Linear A deciphered before I die. Understanding how the Minoan language fits into the bigger Mediterranean picture would be like discovering a living coelacanth – a huge deal!
It’s fascinating how Etruscan and this other language might be related. Both have so few surviving texts, it’s hard to figure them out—plus, both cultures are all wrapped up in later myths and legends.
One good find could unlock a whole world.
So, we can kinda read Etruscan, it’s just that we’re not sure what some words mean. Most Etruscan writing is on monuments or tombs – imagine trying to learn English only from old gravestones! You’d get the hang of it, but you’d miss a lot of words. Linear A, on the other hand, we can’t read at all.
RE: Fact #23 (The Enigma of Encephalitis Lethargica) – I first got into EL from reading *The Sandman* comics way back, over 20 years ago! Thanks for explaining all that medical stuff so clearly. I’m fascinated by the newer research on ganglia damage.
I wonder if there are any documented cases of gunshot or other penetrating wounds to the basal ganglia causing similar effects?
Wow, I had no idea EL was in Sandman, that’s awesome! I can definitely see the connection, since one resulted in tons of sleep, and the other caused sleep problems or nightmares.
The basal ganglia is, like, smack-dab in the middle of your brain. It’d be tough to hurt it without messing up other parts first—I’m guessing the only way to hit it directly would be a face injury. But, I’ve seen stuff online about basal ganglia strokes, and those seem to have similar effects. The good news is that strokes often get better with rehab. Maybe those older cases just didn’t get good rehab, or maybe we just didn’t have the right stuff back then.
RE: Fact #16 (Crooked Forest of Poland) – It’s cool to see a mystery from a different country—a nice change of pace.
So, like you said, maybe they were deliberately curved for something later on. Who knows, right?
RE: Fact #27 (Mystery Beneath: The White Shark Café) – I bet they’re there for both sex and some tasty deep-sea snacks, like squid!
RE: Fact #31 (Namibia’s Barren Fairy Rings) – I’m a believer in the “warfare” theory – plants are total survival masters! They’ll send roots miles to find water, even busting through rock or concrete. Plus, think about how they grow – the middle’s packed with nutrients, and everything spreads out evenly from there, like a circle.
RE: Fact #15 (Phantom Social Worker) – As a therapist working with teens, our company provides transportation, and it’s crazy how many parents let us pick up their kids without even meeting us beforehand! Often, someone else handles the initial paperwork, and I’m assigned clients – in my case, I work at a school, so sometimes I’ve gone months without meeting a kid’s parents. People trust easily if you seem legit, but there’s a real story (and a movie called “Compliance”) that shows the dangers of blindly following authority.
RE: Fact #6 (Whispers from the Headless Valley) – Probably a mix of Native legends, gold rush gossip, and just plain harsh conditions.
It’s tough to take Dene history as completely factual. Every culture has myths and legends, and it’s a crapshoot whether they’re literally true, metaphorical, or just made up. Take “white figures moving along the valley”—people take that literally, but who really knows? It’s not like First Nations people *only* tell riddles, but there were probably translators involved, and translation is tricky, especially between very different languages.
Research shows Apache and Navajo people migrated from Southwestern Canada, but there’s not much directly linking them to this specific place. “Navajo” comes from Spanish, so the link to “Naha” is likely a folk etymology thing. (The Navajo word for themselves is “Diné”).
The valley’s way out in the boonies of the Northern Territories—no help if you get into trouble. It’s seriously remote.
Gold rushes weren’t exactly known for being peaceful. You had people risking everything, people fighting when drunk (or otherwise), and outright criminals. People died in the goldfields. And without much investigative journalism back then, stories got embellished, mysteries were added, and natural events were easily misinterpreted.
Basically, I think a lot of the mystery is just not real. It’s a dangerous, wild place. Lots of places like that have spooky stories that aren’t necessarily true. People love to add extra flair to stories, especially in remote areas where news doesn’t travel fast.
Gold miners are always swapping stories and gossip—probably to keep others away from their best spots. It’s like those moonshiners back east who started all those spooky legends to protect their stills.
I’m also curious if “You need to leave, there’s a lot of white figures moving around” was a bad translation. Maybe “white figures” actually meant “white people,” and they were either complaining about them or warning about some other dangerous white people.
RE: Fact #21 (The Guiyang “Flying Train” ) – I’m from Arkansas, so I’ve seen firsthand how tornadoes behave. So probably that. No big mystery there.
RE: Fact #27 (Mystery Beneath: The White Shark Café) – Wow, what a mystery! Turns out, these huge animals sometimes left their usual spots in Northern California and went for a swim under the Golden Gate Bridge, probably looking for food.
The more I think about it, the creepier that sounds.
RE: Fact #45 (Lost Kingdom of Punt) – If they lived in stilt houses, that area probably flooded a lot, so it could be underwater now.
The baboon evidence has the same problem as the rhino evidence. Were those baboons even local? If Punt was advanced enough for Egypt to see them as trading partners, not just some backward place, they might have had animals from all over, like other rulers did.
I’m guessing Punt was underwater, since they just discovered a pretty well-preserved underwater city near Egypt.
That city was Thonis—Heracleion, if you’re fancy. I saw some amazing stuff from there at the Minneapolis Institute of Art in 2019; seeing things made thousands of years ago was seriously mind-blowing. It really puts things in perspective, you know? Makes you feel pretty tiny.
RE: Fact #5 (Hinterkaifeck Murders) – What are the odds it was some random dude living in the attic who only decided to kill when he got caught? Kind of like that Denver Spiderman story, right?
Denver Spider-Man? Ugh, another one of *those* things to get sucked into.
That one’s nothing compared to Hinterkaifeck.
Seriously creepy—and the house is still standing in Denver. My house has three ways to get into the attic, and I keep catching myself wondering if some little guy’s sneaking out with our leftovers…and, you know, maybe planning to kill us too.
It’s too late, and I’m too much of a loner to even check that out.
RE: Fact #23 (The Enigma of Encephalitis Lethargica) – Remember that stuff from my neuroscience class. Totally blew my mind.
Awakenings with Robin Williams and Robert De Niro? It’s not perfect, but definitely worth checking out.
RE: Fact #33 (Tarrare: France’s Hungriest Enigma) – He seems more legend than real person. Back when freak shows were a thing, there were these guys called “geeks”—they’d bite the heads off live animals and eat ’em right there, or drink the blood. Mostly poor addicts, paid off by the carnival owner with booze or drugs. Real bottom of the barrel types.
I bet Tarrare was one of the first of those geeks, and most of his story is just the carnival barker’s spiel—”Ladies and gentlemen, see the weirdest man alive!” I’d call him a hype man, but that wasn’t what they called them back then. It was all tall tales and scary stuff to get people to come and make the show look better. I reckon the whole thing comes down to a doctor writing about him years later, and even then, he was just repeating what he’d heard from others.
RE: Fact #9 (The Lost Children of Hamelin) – I’d bet on the resettlement theory; it makes the most sense, and there’s good evidence backing it up. Besides, if it were some crazy story, we’d know all about it already—no mystery!
I just checked out the Wikipedia page on the resettlement theory—it totally makes sense! Apparently, these people called Lokators went around recruiting folks to move. A professor compared last names in Hamelin to Polish ones and found some really interesting patterns. It’s wild!
RE: Fact #17 (UFO Incident at Ariel School) – So, a bunch of kids made up a story, it spread like wildfire, and then other kids jumped on the bandwagon. Add in a little accidental help from the grown-ups, and boom, here we are.
Kids’ memories are weird; I remember stuff from when I was little that totally didn’t happen. I just convinced myself it was real, or mixed up some memories, and now I have a super clear memory of it as an adult. But everyone else who was there says it never happened, and I believe them.
And seriously, a one-meter-tall creature with rugby ball-sized eyes? Those eyes would be like a third of its whole body!
RE: Fact #43 (Viking Maine Penny Baffles Historians) – If I remember correctly, they found butternut shells in L’Anse aux Meadows. Butternuts don’t grow way up there, not even considering how the climate’s changed over the last thousand years. So, either the Vikings went south for them, or Native Americans traded them up north.
Even considering the climate shifts of the last millennium, the Medieval Warm Period was a strange time. Greenland actually had pretty good farming back then—something that’s not possible now.
RE: Fact #44 (Vanishing of the Honjo Masamune) – It’s definitely Cole D.B. Moore.
Cole D.B. Moore is… D.B. Cooper! Wow!
My first thought when I saw “Coldy Bimore” was, “That sounds like a mishearing.”
RE: Fact #13 (Mystery Eruption of 1808) – As a geologist, I’m stumped by that geology mystery on my favorite factrepublic community. It’s like that nightmare where you’re late for a test in your underwear—everyone’s staring! Still, what a cool mystery and a great article!
RE: Fact #37 (Joshua Maddux: Boy in the Chimney) – He probably squatted in the cabin, accidentally locked himself out, tried to climb down the chimney, got stuck, freaked out, and suffocated. It’s not the most thrilling explanation, but it’s the one that makes the most sense.
RE: Fact #19 (The Great Sheep Panic) – This whole thing screams hoax to me.
I can’t find any original sources. Every article just cites other articles and letters to the editor. I’ve never even seen the Times newspaper they all mention!
You’d think there’d be tons of evidence if sheep really stampeded miles across fields and into other people’s property. There should be lawsuits, insurance claims, newspaper stories, even diary entries.
Where’s the proof?
Edit: The 1894 article has some original sources, though.
The original reports only mention five or six dead sheep total. One report says one sheep out of 310 died, another mentions two stillborn lambs, and other reports describe just a couple more deaths across different farms. One farmer said none of his 400 sheep died. Some farmers said fences were damaged, while others said they weren’t.
It seems unlikely so few sheep died if there really was a huge stampede.
Maybe the panic was all in the farmers’ heads, not the sheep’s. It’d be helpful to see a timeline of events to see if they started looking for “suspicious” activity after talking to each other or hearing about the 1888 scare.
Second edit: Another thought—Alpin’s article says most of the firsthand accounts were collected by Lord Moreton in response to a letter to a local newspaper. Maybe more info—and more direct accounts—about the 1894 event is in Moreton’s writings.
Third edit: I mapped some of the places mentioned in the Alpin and 1889 articles. The areas aren’t exact, just general locations. The 1889 article only mentions a broad area, and I’ve marked those places on the map.
RE: Fact #14 (Green Children of Woolpit) – It always seemed logical that kids were forced to mine copper.
I’d seen that explanation before, and I totally bought it at first—especially with the local mining history and her story about them crawling out of a cave into a pit. But then I learned more about how copper affects the body, and kids would definitely die before turning green from it.
To get that green color from just skin contact, they’d have to be practically covered in copper sheets or powder.
Plus, copper poisoning actually makes people turn yellow, not green.
So maybe the mining idea *could* work, but only if something else was involved. Like, maybe they bathed in a copper-blue lake inside a copper mine?
RE: Fact #48 (Anne Boleyn’s Portraits) – This is totally my area of expertise, I’m a huge Anne Boleyn fan! Thanks so much.
I mostly go with what Eric Ives says in his biography of her. He thinks the Hoskins miniature is the best likeness, maybe even based on that lost full-length painting. Along with the medal and Chequers ring, Ives thinks those are the best images we’ll ever get. It’s such a shame that portrait’s lost! It would have been amazing to see a full picture of Anne.
I think most accounts from her time are unfairly biased against her. Knowing Henry, there’s no way he’d have been into a woman like Sander describes. I bet she was pretty attractive, especially her eyes and hair, but it was her style, wit, and personality that really won people over. It’s the same thing for us Tudor fans even now, 500 years later!
Just got done with that book. Her daughter’s ring is probably the best clue to what she looked like. I think she was pretty average-looking, but wow, what a personality! A real charmer.
Anne was exotic, which helped a lot – young, outgoing, and French! Quite a contrast to Katherine of Aragon, who was much older and more religious.
If everyone else is a 4, then a 6 seems amazing. Beauty’s all relative, right?
That ring, man, it really got to me. Picture this: your dad’s a total monster, going nuts and destroying every photo of your mom after he kills her because he was bored. And you, three years old, barely remember what she looked like, so you’re stuck with maybe a dodgy painting.
It’s true, most people back then didn’t have many pictures, but they *did* have some, and Henry VIII had to go and ruin everything.
RE: Fact #48 (Anne Boleyn’s Portraits) – Great article! I’m totally obsessed with the Tudors, but I always thought Anne Boleyn had long, dark hair—I had no idea she was a redhead! That’s fascinating.
RE: Fact #12 (The Dalby Spook) – So, what happened to Graham’s dead bird?
Wow, I can’t figure it out! He kept the skin, right? So maybe it’s still around somewhere. It’d be awesome to know what it is.
RE: Fact #33 (Tarrare: France’s Hungriest Enigma) – Wow, that was weird and fascinating! Thanks for sharing; it’s like something straight out of The X-Files.
RE: Fact #21 (The Guiyang “Flying Train” ) – Seriously, that sounds like a tornado. They could totally do that much damage.
Edit: I get you said it was considered, but I’m still confused about how they ruled it out.
That sounds like a crazy, unexpected event to me. Weird stuff happens sometimes.
That’s total BS! How did they even figure out it couldn’t have happened naturally?
Yeah, I get that. I spent every summer growing up in tornado alley, so this sounds exactly like a tornado and the damage they do. The pressure change can even make doors stick. And if it hits power lines, it’ll blow the lights.
RE: Fact #30 (Man in the Iron Mask) – Leonardo DiCaprio
RE: Fact #18 (The Oknö Sleeper) – So, the whole “looking younger” thing? Easy – she’s been out of the sun and elements. And if she was already pretty slender, two glasses of milk would probably keep her going. It’s kinda funny how they’re all, “She doesn’t know much history!” She was basically an eighth-grader at best, and she’s been asleep for thirty years – was she supposed to magically learn everything else while she was out cold?
She’d barely been in school a few months. She could read, write, and do sums, but nobody had taught her things like map reading or Swedish history – probably on purpose, given her tough childhood.
It’s kinda rough, right? She lived the rest of her life just like the start. Imagine if she’d been born in 1990 – book deals, TV shows, a crazy social media presence, the whole shebang.
Not saying that would’ve been better, but she’d be loaded, and could have made up for lost time, maybe.
RE: Fact #22 (Mysterious Purge of N. Korea’s Army Corps) – Wow, that was a really great read, super thought-provoking! I’ve always been weirdly obsessed with North Korea – it’s such a strange and sad place. I visited the DMZ this summer, near the Imjin River where it flows into South Korea. It was seriously creepy seeing North Korean soldiers working across the river. I really hope things get better for the people there soon.
RE: Fact #1 (Did the Inca Sail to Distant Lands?) – I find it hard to believe they went that far, but I’m a total sucker for this kind of thing. I’m convinced there was contact between native South Americans and Polynesians—it’s a no-brainer, in my opinion. I’ve always been hooked on the idea of pre-Columbian transoceanic contact. People really sell indigenous peoples’ tech and skills short, I think.
So, whether this trip actually happened or not, Europeans weren’t the first outsiders in South America. Polynesians got there earlier, bringing sweet potatoes—which probably didn’t just drift across the ocean—and the names for them are similar in South American and Polynesian languages. Plus, some ancient Andean mummies have Polynesian DNA. It seems more likely the Polynesians traveled to South America, though, since they were amazing sailors—there’s even a story that Maori explorers were the first to see Antarctica and the Aurora Australis.
RE: Fact #28 (Crutches Everywhere: Sweden’s Hip Mystery) – It’s all IKEA’s fault.
Fair enough.
RE: Fact #12 (The Dalby Spook) – It started as a little joke, a prank among neighbors, but then the gossip blew up. Maybe they felt stuck playing along after it got so big.
RE: Fact #34 (Copper Scroll Treasure) – It covers 64 places. Wow, what a hunt!
RE: Fact #42 (The Mask That Wasn’t Agamemnon’s) – Man, if I could go back in time, I’d give Schliemann a serious talking-to. He didn’t excavate Troy; he basically demolished it, uncovering something much older and then looting it for treasure. All that’s left is rubble.
He also stole stuff for his wife, didn’t keep proper notes, tossed out important bits and pieces, and destroyed important stuff just for some gold that’s useless to archaeologists now because there’s no context left.
I don’t think it’s Agamemnon, and I think it’s probably from at least 1600 BC, maybe even older. I’ve read that the guy who died might have been a rich outsider or a foreign warrior, which explains the different mask, or maybe the mask-maker was. But we’ll never know for sure because Schliemann was a total disaster.
RE: Fact #11 (Mysterious Soda Machine of Capitol Hill) – Modern Family fans might get this, but it reminds me of Phil’s story about a legendary penguin – the one that left giant footprints and drove the town wild. Turns out, after his dad died, Phil found scuba gear in the garage and figured out his dad was the penguin all along.
RE: Fact #41 (Fate of the Amber Room) – Wow, great article! It looks like it was probably destroyed, but the stories about the people who hunted for the room are pretty wild.
RE: Fact #28 (Crutches Everywhere: Sweden’s Hip Mystery) – Yeah, I had something similar in high school – super weird. It wasn’t in Sweden, this was back in the 2000s. It eventually went away, but it was really awful and annoying. I needed crutches for about a week.
I have sciatica now. Looking back, I’ve wondered if it was that old thing plus some early endometriosis issues, but who knows. 🤷🏻♀️
When I was fifteen, I got this crazy hip pain in Sweden, around 2000. It hit me out of nowhere – one day I woke up and couldn’t walk right. Ended up in the ER, X-rays, the works. A week later, they called to say blood tests showed a viral infection, which wasn’t a shock since everyone else in my family had a terrible cold. I skipped the cold, but got the killer hip pain instead. A week on crutches and I was good as new.
The doctors called it “höftsnuva,” apparently it means “hip sniffles.”
My friends weren’t exactly thrilled by my weird viral infection. Should I be bummed they didn’t want to magically catch it?
Same thing happened to me when I was about eight. One day I woke up and couldn’t put any weight on my right leg. Turns out it was viral, and I was better in under a week.
Hip-sniffles is the most adorable diagnosis ever.
RE: Fact #3 (Mystery of Vietnam’s Rock Apes) – I read this crazy story online—a bunch of soldiers in a crazy firefight, and these tiny, naked ape-like things ran screaming from the jungle and hid in their foxhole! The soldiers were too busy fighting to really notice, but when it was over, poof, they were gone. I read this a while back. Anyone else ever hear about this? Makes me wonder if it’s related to those “Rock Apes” stories.
Hey, that reminded me of something similar in Indonesia, not Vietnam.
RE: Fact #15 (Phantom Social Worker) – I’m stumped. Why would these PSWs go to all that trouble kidnapping/interacting with kids, but not get fake IDs? Especially if they were working together.
And what’s a home visitor, anyway? Like, a US equivalent? It sounds kind of like a social worker from CPS, but Wylie says she contacted her usual one, and that mom in St. Albans got a visit from someone claiming to be her *new* one. I’m totally confused. Do parents in the UK automatically get assigned home visitors?
It’s like those old “Nigerian prince” scams – they’re obviously fake, right? They’re after people who’ll just believe anything. Asking for ID means the parent isn’t an easy mark, so they’ll move on.
Seriously, I’m blown away that so many people asked those visitors for ID. I’ve done tons of home healthcare visits, and no one’s ever asked *me* for ID. Sure, it’s not like I’m a surprise—they know a nurse is coming—but I could totally be some creep who knocked off the real nurse and snagged her schedule.
Parents asking for ID means they’re not easy marks, so scammers won’t bother.
Sounds good, but my last social work gig? No ID, and it took forever to get business cards.
RE: Fact #9 (The Lost Children of Hamelin) – Growing up near that city, I always heard the kids drowned in the Weser River. The city still makes a killing off the Pied Piper story—tours run all day long, and everything’s got rats or the Piper on it.
I’m betting on this explanation. If it was a disease, lots of grown-ups would’ve died too. If it was people moving away, a whole bunch of adults would’ve gone as well. The story only mentions kids, so it feels like some awful accident that killed a lot of children—like what happened at Aberfan.
The piper’s just a stand-in for death or something really bad happening.
Nobody’d bother writing about a figure of speech in church records. “A hundred years since our kids left?” Nah, they’d have said “died” and talked about a plague. People wrote that stuff down to help others avoid more deaths later on, or maybe spot a pattern and figure out what was going on. So, definitely not a figure of speech.
Lots of folks think Grimm’s fairy tales are metaphors. It’s because we can’t imagine a parent, even a mean step-parent, ditching their kid in the woods ’cause they couldn’t feed them. But, seriously, kids still get abandoned. And step-parents still kill their step-kids. The stories might be fantastical, but they’re based on real stuff, not metaphors. Plus, the punishments in those tales? Stuff courts and townsfolk actually did back then. Tar and feathers? Yep.
Parents sold their kids to pay off debts, then acted like it was some big mystery to avoid the shame.
I’ve heard that before. The grown-ups probably made up the piper story to feel better about what happened and to explain to everyone else why the kids were gone.
RE: Fact #41 (Fate of the Amber Room) – The Amber Room probably got wrecked during the Königsberg battle, but I’ve heard a rumor it might be hidden with the Štěhovice treasure – supposedly a bunch of Nazi gold stashed in tunnels near Hradištko in the Czech Republic. The last big government hunt for it was right before Communism ended in 1989, and some people have been looking for it since, but no luck. It might just be a story from the end of World War II.
RE: Fact #44 (Vanishing of the Honjo Masamune) – That sword showed up a lot in Final Fantasy games. Pretty cool that it’s based on a real one!
Researching this was a real pain! Turns out the sword showed up in a bunch of video games, so I got tons of irrelevant results – it was pretty funny.
Those games are hugely popular, and it’s in tons of them. Finding it was tough, but thanks for your effort!
RE: Fact #2 (Princes in the Tower) – Richard III did them in. The big thing, besides him having the chance and reason, is that the princes vanishing really hurt his popularity. If he hadn’t killed them, he could have brought the boys out anytime and totally wrecked Henry Tudor’s rebellion. And their mom, Elizabeth Woodville, acted real weird if the boys were still around. She teamed up with the Tudors way back in 1483, almost two years before Tudor took over. Why would she betray a king holding her sons? Why side with a challenger instead of her own kids? Because she knew they were dead.
RE: Fact #19 (The Great Sheep Panic) – I grew up near Haunted Hills – it got its name because the farm animals there would sometimes freak out for no obvious reason. Turns out, the area’s a big old coal mining zone, and the mines run right under those hills. The sounds from the mines, along with the way the animals sounded running over the tunnels, probably explain the panics. I don’t know if it’s true or just a local story, but it was the first thing I thought of when I read this.
RE: Fact #23 (The Enigma of Encephalitis Lethargica) – A few months back, I stumbled on a cool old NOVA documentary (from 1986, on archive.org) about heroin users getting Parkinson’s-like symptoms in the early ’80s. It follows the hunt for what caused it and how to treat it, even showing patients before and after L-DOPA treatment. The documentary is called “The Case of the Frozen Addict”.
RE: Fact #19 (The Great Sheep Panic) – Maybe it was a huge flock of birds? They look like a dark cloud sometimes, and could scare the sheep. But that wouldn’t explain why it hit so many places at the same time, though.
Starling murmurations are awesome. They’re amazing now, but picture ten times that many birds in the late 1800s – wow!
RE: Fact #4 (Africa’s Forgotten Atlantic Expedition?) – That’s a wild story! I’m no Mali history expert, but 2,000 ships? Seriously? Even if they *were* rich, it’s weird there’s no record, especially with the emperor supposedly on board. Plus, it’s all secondhand—someone heard from someone who heard from the Mansa. Maybe some African ships vanished in the 14th century, but I’m not buying the 2,000-ship emperor tale.
EDIT: This factrepublic article has been awesome! Thanks to all the history nerds for enlightening us—I’m adding some books to my to-read list!
RE: Fact #37 (Joshua Maddux: Boy in the Chimney) – That case really messed with me. I couldn’t stop thinking about what he endured before he died. It’s just devastating, a parent’s worst nightmare.
Talk about a nightmare for that dad and his kid.
Seriously, claustrophobia warning! I couldn’t even finish reading it – I’m about to have a panic attack! Be careful, this is my biggest fear; I even freak out if a shirt gets stuck on my head.
I’ve always thought that’s a truly awful way to go. It’s not fast, and you eventually realize you’re trapped… Man, it makes me feel sick just thinking about it.
Ugh, me too. They thought he’d maybe started over somewhere, all happy and stuff. But the whole time he was just a mile away…stuck in a chimney!
Seriously, that’s crazy. Your kid goes missing, even an 18-year-old who thinks they’re independent… you’d check, right? Of course you would.