Some Questions Just Don't Have Answers
You'd think that with all the historical records, eyewitness accounts, and modern investigative technology available today, we'd have solved most of history's strangest incidents by now. But with so many years behind us, the world has coughed up quite a few mysteries that never got any answers at all. Before you think you have it all figured out, come with us as we take a look at 20 incidents that have kept historians, scientists, and detectives occupied for decades.
1. The English Sweating Sickness Outbreak
Sweating is hardly an odd phenomenon…unless it was back in 1485. A mysterious illness swept through England, which not only caused intense sweating and fever, but sometimes death within hours. The disease returned in several outbreaks, including a particularly devastating one in 1528, before apparently disappearing completely after 1551. Historians and researchers have put their heads together for an answer, but their work didn’t yield anything conclusive.
Uploader: Simplicius on Wikimedia
2. The Salem Witch Trial Afflictions
If you know anything about creepy history, you’ve heard about the several young girls in Salem, Massachusetts. In case you haven’t, the story is that they began experiencing unusual fits and behavior in 1692. Sure enough, accusations of witchcraft quickly followed. The resulting trials led to the executions of 20 people, and the exact causes of the initial behavior remain disputed.
Joseph E., ca. 1837-1914, artist. on Wikimedia
3. The Kentucky Meat Shower
Yes, you read that correctly—and yes, it actually happened. On March 3, 1876, residents near Olympia Springs, Kentucky, reportedly saw pieces of what looked like raw meat falling from the sky. Samples were examined, and contemporary reports suggest that vultures regurgitated food while flying overhead. It’s a gross, sound theory, but the precise circumstances were never actually established.
4. The Disappearance of Dorothy Arnold
Dorothy Arnold, a wealthy 25-year-old socialite, disappeared on December 12, 1910, after leaving home to shop in Manhattan. Despite an extensive investigation and tons of newspaper attention, authorities never figured out where she went after her last confirmed sightings. Unfortunately, the same is still true today.
Library of Congress on Wikimedia
5. The Villisca Axe Murders
Eight people’s lives, including six children, were taken inside a house in Villisca, Iowa, during the night of June 9–10, 1912. As if the whole thing wasn’t grisly enough, investigators considered multiple suspects, but more than a century later, the identity of who did it is officially unresolved.
6. The Hinterkaifeck Farm Murders
Grisly history has long been pockmarked by this gruesome case. Six people were murdered at a remote farmstead near Gröbern, Bavaria, in 1922, and it’s still one of Germany's most disturbing unsolved crimes. Before it all happened, farmer Andreas Gruber had reportedly found unfamiliar footprints in the snow and heard strange noises around the property, but the case was never solved.
7. The Disappearance of George Mallory And Andrew Irvine
Scaling Mount Everest has always been a dangerous journey, and that was never truer than for British climbers George Mallory and Andrew Irvine. They disappeared in 1924 while trying to reach the summit. Mallory's body was found in 1999, but investigators couldn't determine whether the pair had reached the top before their deaths.
8. The Galápagos Affair
During the 1930s, a small group of European settlers established homes on the remote Galápagos island of Floreana. But as in any small town, personal rivalries blossomed. German settler Eloise Wehrborn de Wagner-Bosquet and her companion Robert Philippson disappeared in 1934, while two other settlers later died after being found on an uninhabited island. To this day, there’s too much back and forth from the survivors; historians don’t know what happened.
9. The Murder of Julia Wallace
William Herbert Wallace returned home on January 20, 1931, to discover that his wife, Julia, was dead. The case took the strangest turns, however, especially when it came out that Wallace traveled across the city after a mysterious telephone caller told him to. When he got there, the supposed address didn't exist. Police called baloney on the whole thing and convicted him, but it was overturned, and investigators never found out who killed Julia or who made the call.
10. The Mad Gasser of Mattoon
During September 1944, residents of Mattoon, Illinois, reported mysterious nighttime attacks involving strange odors and nausea. Some blamed it on an unknown attacker thought to be releasing gas through bedroom windows, which sparked an investigation and widespread panic. Authorities didn’t find any convincing evidence of a chemical, though, and the whole thing remains debated.
11. The Disappearance of Raoul Wallenberg
Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg helped protect thousands of Hungarian Jews during WWII before Soviet authorities detained him in 1945. Those same officials later claimed that he died in prison in 1947, but conflicting testimony raised questions about that. Even so, the full circumstances surrounding his imprisonment and death have never been established.
12. The Pont-Saint-Esprit Poisoning
In 1951, residents of Pont-Saint-Esprit, France, underwent a horrifying outbreak that’s still disputed today. The debacle caused hallucinations, confusion, and severe illness—several people even died. At first, investigators thought it was contaminated bread, with ergot poisoning becoming the most widely believed theory. But the reality is that researchers haven't agreed on what happened.
13. The Death of Dag Hammarskjöld
In 1961, UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld died when his aircraft crashed in Northern Rhodesia. The tragedy prompted an investigation, which initially explored pilot error, but subsequent inquiries examined claims of an attack or interference involving another aircraft. The United Nations still looks into new evidence, but the exact circumstances of the crash are unknown.
14. The Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic
You might’ve heard about the dancing plague, but what about the strange outbreak of uncontrollable laughter? It began at a girls' boarding school in Tanganyika in 1962 before spreading to other communities and disrupting schools. Researchers today assume it was mass hysteria, but the actual triggers and reasons for its spread remain unclear.
15. The Lead Masks Case
On August 20, 1966, two Brazilian electronics technicians were discovered dead near Niterói—wearing homemade lead eye masks. Investigators found a notebook with cryptic instructions and evidence that the two had purchased raincoats before showing up to the location. Those notes didn’t help police, though, leaving the duo’s exact activities and deaths a mystery to this day.
Brazilian government on Wikimedia
16. The Shag Harbour Incident
On October 4, 1967, witnesses near Shag Harbour, Nova Scotia, reported seeing illuminated objects descending toward the water. Canadian authorities searched the area after receiving reports of a possible aircraft crash, but they didn’t see any wreckage. Whatever witnesses saw is still unclear.
17. The Isdal Woman's Death
When a woman's badly burned body was discovered in Norway's Isdalen Valley in 1970, investigators already had their hands full. But when they started poking around, they uncovered evidence of false identities, coded notes, and clothing with all the labels removed. Even now, no one has any idea who she was.
18. The Southern Television Broadcast Interruption
The last thing you want to see is an interrupted broadcast of a guy claiming to represent aliens. But that’s exactly what happened in 1977 across parts of southern England. The message only lasted a few minutes before normal audio returned, and the person responsible was never publicly identified.
19. The Yuba County Five Disappearance
The terrible mystery is this: five men from Yuba County, California, vanished after attending a basketball game in 1978. Their car was later found pretty far from their route, and the remains of four men were eventually recovered. It was a tragedy from the get-go, and authorities never learned why the group traveled into the mountains, while the fifth man, Gary Mathias, was never even found.
Internet Archive Book Images on Wikimedia
20. The Vela Satellite Incident
In 1979, an American Vela satellite detected a double flash of light over the southern Indian Ocean—a pattern associated with nuclear explosions. Investigators considered whether a test had occurred, but a U.S. scientific panel suggested that a nonnuclear explanation was possible. Decades later, analysts continue to disagree about the signal's origin, and no one has officially acknowledged responsibility for a supposed nuclear test.
