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Post by Nalkarj on Jul 25, 2017 18:28:46 GMT
Like Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, I tend to be fascinated by the bizarre and the outré, and I know that many others are as well.
In that spirit, I wonder what your favorite real-life unsolved mysteries are—preferably of the less well-known type (e.g., not the Bermuda Triangle, or Jack the Ripper, or the Black Dahlia, or even Amelia Earhart). That is to say, I am looking for the unheralded instances of the inexplicable and/or the impossible—the most enjoyable kind of mystery, in my opinion.
A few often-unheralded favorites of mine: Isidor Fink, Mary Reeser, Elisa Lam, the Taman Shud man, the man from Taured, "who put Bella in the wych elm?" etc.
How about you?
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wanton87
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@wanton87
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Post by wanton87 on Jul 25, 2017 18:57:23 GMT
I see that there is already a D.B. Cooper thread over in the history section Salzmank, that you may wish to check out: imdb2.freeforums.net/thread/40935/cooper-die-allAs far as unsolved mysteries go, for me, it would be the more recent disappearances of individuals at various state and national parks. I’m also somewhat fascinated with the Bob Crane murder mystery.
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Post by Nalkarj on Jul 25, 2017 19:31:25 GMT
Yes, indeed, wanton87. Cooper fascinates me, and I've contributed to that thread. That's one of the reasons I want to shine some light on possibly less-known unsolved mysteries.
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Post by MCDemuth on Jul 25, 2017 19:59:40 GMT
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 (MH370/MAS370) The flight, with 239 crew and passengers, that mysteriously disappeared on March 8, 2014. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_370I'm surprised, that with this being one of the greatest aviation mysteries in history, that this incident hasn't been discussed (By Others) on this website before now... ( Why Not?) Also: EgyptAir Flight 804 (MS804/MSR804) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EgyptAir_Flight_804There are many conflicting reports about what happened with this flight... including some reports which indicated that traces of explosives were found on the bodies and airplane debris, while other reports quickly denied this... Then the flow of news reports seemed to all but stop... ( Why?)
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wanton87
Sophomore
@wanton87
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Post by wanton87 on Jul 25, 2017 22:10:14 GMT
Yes, indeed, wanton87 . Cooper fascinates me, and I've contributed to that thread. That's one of the reasons I want to shine some light on possibly less-known unsolved mysteries. Oops, my bad Salzmank. I read through that thread but had forgotten that you had commented over there. One thing that I hadn’t noticed mentioned in that thread, was the portion of the money that some kid later found. But I’ll leave the topic at that.
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Post by Nalkarj on Jul 25, 2017 22:12:51 GMT
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Post by mecano04 on Jul 26, 2017 0:16:14 GMT
I got a few: - Coluche's death ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coluche ) I read Coluche, l'accident: contre-enquête ( Coluche, the accident: counter-investigation) and even if only half of what is said is true, then official version is bs. - Marilyn Monroe's death, for the same reason I mentioned in Coluche's case. The official version describe the investigation as a slam dunk, so to speak, but when you dig into the autopsy reports and other documents there are obvious and major discrepancies yet it seems like no one cared about those. - La bête du Gévaudan/ The beast of Gevaudan. I would like to know what or who it was. There are credible reports but nothing definitive. - The Tama Shud case. I do share the interest for it and from what I've read it seems someone was making sure people would keep their mouth shut. - Richard Colvin Cox case: ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Colvin_Cox#The_Jacobs_investigation ) And one that I don't even remember the name: It was a local murder case, from the Montréal area, that happened maybe 10 or 15 years ago. The facts: The victim, a retired school teacher, went to the mall at around 8pm (it closes at 9) to get a few things but when she wasn't back home at 10(from memory) her husband started to get worried and eventually he called the cops. They found her dead in the family van. The Van had been moved from the parking to the back of the mall. She hadn't been robbed nor raped and the cause of death was strangulation, even if she had taken a few punches. The investigators didn't find anything at all (no hair, no DNA, nothing of that sort) except a red plastic button. It was about 2-2½" wide and had a kind of rope pattern on the edge of the circumference. The back side had a loop with a hole in it (probably for a thread). It was the only piece of evidence they found, despite searching for days. The investigators went to every button-making shop, asked if they recognized it and checked their catalogs, going back 10 years, but they didn't find any match. They even looked for answers in clothing shops but nothing came up. They looked in catalogs from shops across the country and even in the US but they still didn't any match. The thing is, it had to be from the killer because it wasn't from the victim's own clothes not from anyone from the family or friends. Bottom line is the cops had this one piece about the killer but couldn't get anywhere with it. The lead investigators were interviewed years later and that's the case that haunt them to this day, even in retirement.
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Post by Nalkarj on Jul 26, 2017 0:29:47 GMT
Thanks for the comments, mecano04 ! I am equally interested in la bête du Gévaudan, Taman Shud, and Richard Colvin Cox. (I never read the book about Coluche, and I tend to be a bit skeptical of the conspiracy theories about Marilyn's death, just as I am skeptical of those about Kennedy's.) But the case in Montréal takes the cake, so to speak: a truly inexplicable problem, and one of which I for one have never heard. If you remember any more details... I've been looking at Google, CBC pages ("great Canadian unsolved mysteries"), and I haven't yet been able to find it (probably because it was a local case, as you say.) P.S. Re: Gévaudan, have you ever seen Le pacte des loops (2001, dir. Christophe Gans)? An absolutely ridiculous adaptation of the case from the historian's perspective, but a great deal of fun from the filmgoer's.
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Post by Nalkarj on Jul 26, 2017 0:41:24 GMT
mecano04 , I'm still trying to find the button case, as yet to no avail, unfortunately... Do you remember the name of the town near Montreal?
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Post by mecano04 on Jul 26, 2017 1:30:23 GMT
Thanks for the comments, mecano04 ! I am equally interested in la bête du Gévaudan, Taman Shud, and Richard Colvin Cox. (I never read the book about Coluche, and I tend to be a bit skeptical of the conspiracy theories about Marilyn's death, just as I am skeptical of those about Kennedy's.) But the case in Montréal takes the cake, so to speak: a truly inexplicable problem, and one of which I for one have never heard. If you remember any more details... I've been looking at Google, CBC pages ("great Canadian unsolved mysteries"), and I haven't yet been able to find it (probably because it was a local case, as you say.) P.S. Re: Gévaudan, have you ever seen Le pacte des loops (2001, dir. Christophe Gans)? An absolutely ridiculous adaptation of the case from the historian's perspective, but a great deal of fun from the filmgoer's. There are many things so I'll try to go one at the time but I guess you understand/speak french ? Here is a link to the book about Coluche: en.calameo.com/read/00171818219318b3308d3If's not hard to read, it's easy to get through it (slightly more challenging if you need google translate but still...) Fair enough for the Monroe & Kennedy cases. For the Montréal are case, from memory it didn't involve the RCMP/GRC so it was really a local thing. There was a tv show talkimg about it a few years ago but it was only on the french-tv channels in Québec. AIght, got to admit I got some details wrong (me and my bad memory): Victime : Reine Lauzière-Pagé
Tuée le 1er septembre 1995
Reine Lauzière-Pagé, enseignante à l'école primaire, a quitté son domicile de Montréal-Nord un soir de septembre en disant à son mari et à ses deux adolescents qu'elle allait magasiner. Ils ne l'ont jamais revue. Le lendemain après-midi, on a retrouvé le corps de la femme de 46 ans dans sa Dodge Caravan blanche, à l'arrière d'un centre commercial de Saint-Léonard. L'autopsie a révélé qu'elle avait été menottée puis poignardée à plusieurs reprises, mais l'expertise n'a révélé aucune trace d'agression sexuelle. Les enquêteurs ont trouvé dans la camionnette un petit bouton rouge et or qui pouvait avoir appartenu à l'assassin, lequel court toujours.
Translate as:
Victim: Reine Lauzière-Pagé
Killed on 1 September 1995
Reine Lauzière-Pagé, a teacher at the elementary school, left her home in Montréal-Nord one evening in September, telling her husband and two teenagers that she was going shopping. They have never seen it. The next day, the 46-year-old woman's body was found in her white Dodge Caravan at the back of a Saint-Léonard shopping center. The autopsy revealed that she had been handcuffed and stabbed several times, but there was no evidence of sexual assault. Investigators found in the van a small red and gold button that might have belonged to the assassin, who is still running.
Here is a link to the tv show I saw (but you got to understand french):
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Post by mecano04 on Jul 26, 2017 1:41:18 GMT
NalkarjOups, I forgot to reply to one thing. Yes, I own Le Pacte des Loups on Dvd. Watched it many times. I agree that it's ridiculous from a history perspective but it's quite entertaining otherwise.
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Post by Nalkarj on Jul 26, 2017 2:10:29 GMT
mecano04Yes, I understand French fairly well. I wouldn't call myself fluent, but probably fairly close. I have a friend from Quebec, and she and I speak to each other in French, so I'm able to practice often, and I do hold my own in conversation; I can understand the majority of French films without subtitles; and I can read fairly easily. Thanks for the details about the case. An excellent unsolved mystery! I absolutely agree about Le pacte des loups. Beautiful and evocative cinematography, with a real sense of mystery, even if the martial arts business was more than a little silly. Thanks again
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Post by MCDemuth on Jul 27, 2017 2:36:59 GMT
Here's another one for you... NalkarjThe Ghosts Of Flight 401! Eastern Air Lines Flight 401...Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 was a Lockheed L-1011-1 Tristar jet that crashed into the Florida Everglades at 11:42 pm December 29, 1972. The crash occurred while the entire flight crew was preoccupied with a burnt-out landing gear indicator light. They failed to notice that the autopilot had inadvertently been disconnected and, as a result, the aircraft gradually lost altitude and crashed. All three pilots, two of 10 flight attendants, and 96 of 163 passengers, died. There were a total of 101 fatalities... Fortunately, 75 passengers and crew survived. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Air_Lines_Flight_401Apparently...The aircraft was not "totally" destroyed, and many parts of the plane were still considered to be in good condition, and it was decided to salvage the parts, and install them on other Eastern aircraft... The Ghosts Of Flight 401...Soon stories began to circulate about "paranormal events" aboard these other aircraft, including seeing apparitions of the dead pilots from Eastern Air Lines Flight 401, because parts of Flight 401 had been reused... Aftermath...Eventually, All parts that were cannibalized from flight 401’s frame were eventually removed from other Eastern Airlines aircraft. In popular culture...John G. Fuller's wrote a 1976 book called " The Ghost of Flight 401"... In 1978, a TV Movie was made called " The Ghost of Flight 401"... The Season 1 Episode, " Phantom Traveler", of the TV Show " Supernatural", which aired on October 4, 2005, referenced this paranormal phenomenon. So what happened?As well all know, there will be skeptics, who will say that there were no ghosts, because " ghosts don't exist"... Yeah, Well, OK, We knew you would say that! Now please explain, if you can... 1.) What were crews & passengers seeing and experiencing? 2.) And why were these things only happening on planes that reused parts from on the Eastern Air Lines Flight 401? OK, maybe that last one is an incorrect part of the Urban Legend... Please feel free to set the record straight there... But, most of the people involved in reporting these events, probably would not have known that the parts were salvaged and reused... And if it was all just a bunch of random complaints from a few "wackos", then why would Eastern Air Lines go to all the trouble of removing the parts later on? Again, how would anyone know? Obviously there was something "unusual" about all of this... and it does make one have to wonder...
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Post by JHA Durant on Jul 27, 2017 8:40:17 GMT
I wouldn't say "favorite", but The Oklahoma Girl Scout murders.
In June 1977, three young girls were part of a large group of Girl Scouts at Camp Scott, in north-eastern Oklahoma. When camp started, these three girls were assigned to a (relatively isolated) tent on the edge of the camp grounds. During the first night, a thunderstorm hit so most of the activities were cancelled, and everyone went to bed earlier than usual. During the night, strange sounds were heard, but whenever any of the supervisors went looking, the sounds would stop. A girl reported that someone shone a light into her tent, and then screams were later heard by fellow campers, along with a cry for help. Just on daybreak, a supervisor found the body of one of the three girls on a path not far from their tent, still in her sleeping bag. The other two were later found in similar circumstances. All had been raped and brutally murdered.
This is where it gets weird...
1. Two months before the murders, a camp counselor had been on a training exercise in preparation for the camp and found a bizarre note warning that three girls would be murdered at that camp.
2. A man was seen at the campsite on the day of the camp who had no reason to be there.
3. Locals in the area who were up late at night reported seeing strange dim orange lights in the forest around the time of the killings.
4. Footprints found at the scene were described as that of "military boots".
5. Three sniffer dogs were brought in to search for leads. One died of heatstroke, the other ran onto a highway for no reason and was killed by a car.
6. When more sniffer dogs were brought in, all leads led nowhere. Like, all dogs reached a certain point and then stopped and looked up into the sky.
7. One of the supervisors reportedly left the area immediately following the discovery of the bodies and was never heard from again.
8. After more than a year, a suspect was found. He was put on trial but found not guilty of killing the three girls, due to poor evidence. He was still sentenced to jail time (over 300 years to be exact), and then he died in jail of a heart attack. Virtually none of the evidence ever suggested that he was there in the first place, even though there were reports he was living in a cave near Camp Scott.
By the time DNA tests were done, it was too late; most of the evidence was so degraded it was unusable. Camp Scott was abandoned and never reopened. So whoever really did it probably remains at large to this day.
Another interesting fact is that all the other tents had four campers in them, whereas the victim's tent only had three, and all the other tents were in close proximity to each other while theirs was away from everybody else. Was that just a coincidence, or intentional?
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Post by bonerxmas on Jul 27, 2017 9:14:35 GMT
1. who was the mysterious intruder that percy shelley exchanged pistol shots with in 1812? 2. disappearance of ambrose bierce, 1913 3. murder of malcolm caldwell, cambodia 1978 4. who was wanda tinasky? 5. why was christopher marlowe killed? 6. assassination of philip ii of macedon 7 shroud of turin - who faked it and how? 8. shakespeare's loves labours won
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Post by JHA Durant on Jul 28, 2017 12:43:11 GMT
Just remembered another one that I would call a favorite:
The Banjawarn Station Seismic Event.
On the night of May 28th, 1993, a group of campers and some truck drivers in a remote part of Western Australia experienced (and witnessed) some kind of earthquake which hit suddenly and without warning. It was accompanied by a faint explosion and a distant fireball "the size of the full moon in the night sky" above the horizon about 100 kilometres or so to the north of where they were. The force was enough to knock some people to the ground. This earthquake was picked up by seismic sensors all over the world, and the epicentre was estimated to be on the property of Banjawarn Station, which was a huge sheep station (or ranch, if you're American). It was believed that it was consistent with that of a meteorite impact, the force of which would've left a large crater. None was found, nor was any evidence that it could've been a large meteorite exploding in the lower atmosphere. Earthquakes were suggested, but that didn't really explain the fireball that many observed. The only theory that seemed to make any sense at the time was the suggestion that it may have been the detonation of a nuclear device. Now this seemed incredibly unlikely, until it was later found out who owned that sheep station:
The Japanese suicide cult Aum Shinrikyo, who owned Banjawarn Station for about a year, and who researched and conducted sarin gas tests on sheep in preparation for their attack on the Tokyo Subway in 1995.
A group of Aborigines living near that station witnessed the construction of various facilities, and reported that a trench digger and similar mining equipment was also brought to the station along with hazmat suits and breathing masks. One such facility was dismantled long before a police raid in 1995, unlike the others which had remained there. Banjawarn Station was known to have significant deposits of Uranium, and it was believed that two former Soviet nuclear scientists were members of the cult.
Whatever it was, the explosion was estimated to have been equivalent to that of 2000 tonnes of high explosives.
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Post by Nalkarj on Jul 28, 2017 18:44:55 GMT
wanton87, MCDemuth, mecano04, JHA Durant, bonerxmas, et al. Thank you all for your replies! I can't really respond as I'd like at the moment, but I'd certainly never heard the ghost story about Flight 401 or the Oklahoma Girl Scout Murders. Fascinating stuff.
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Post by MCDemuth on Jul 29, 2017 3:02:26 GMT
MCDemuth, et al. Thank you all for your replies! I can't really respond as I'd like at the moment, but I'd certainly never heard the ghost story about Flight 401... Fascinating stuff. Here's an article which describes some of the "Flight 401" paranormal events that were reported in detail... confessionsofatrolleydolly.com/2012/10/31/the-ghosts-of-flight-401/Sadly, most of the details concerning the witnesses and affected planes that were involved in the reports are very vague or non existent in the article... which makes it all hard to verify, and therefore it does raise questions about the validity of the reports themselves... Still, the reports were made... by Pilots, Cabin Crews, Flight Engineers, top airline executives, AND... especially by passengers who should have had no knowledge about the Flight 401 pilots, and that Flight 401 parts were installed on their planes... And again, Eastern Airlines went to all the trouble to spend time and money, removing the salvaged parts...
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Post by mecano04 on Aug 2, 2017 11:18:43 GMT
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Post by hi224 on Aug 4, 2017 15:51:14 GMT
That dead man in austrailia who many believed mightve been a secret agent as well.
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