# "Mysteries" that really arent **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 23, 2020, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-that-really-arent/916159 "2020-07-23T21:12:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2020, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-that-really-arent/916159/61 "2020-07-30T12:44:44Z")
> [@Richard\_Pearse](#): > > My memory is that pilot suicide was a very strong theory with good supporting evidence soon after the disappearance Is it possible that you are conflating two different events? Maybe [Germanwings Flight 9525](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanwings_Flight_9525), which was due to pilot suicide. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2020, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-that-really-arent/916159/62 "2020-07-30T13:37:26Z")
And yet in nature we find potatoes that look exactly like Richard Nixon’s head. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2020, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-that-really-arent/916159/63 "2020-07-30T13:38:34Z")
Given the number of potatoes we grow every year, I’d be more worried if we _didn’t_. Although - one slight quibble: potato farms are not what I’d call “nature” ---
**Author:** ![Ynnad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/4491bb/32.png) [@Ynnad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ynnad)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2020, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-that-really-arent/916159/64 "2020-07-30T15:10:23Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > There’s a set of “mysteries” that are predicated on the absurd idea that there’s no such thing as a straight line, perfect sphere or right angle in nature. … In so far as lines, spheres, and angles are mathematical concepts, I assert that **straight** lines, **perfect** spheres, and **right** angles are intangible abstractions that do not physically exist in the actual universe. However, I do not dispute that there are natural objects that can be very accurately described using these concepts. ---
**Author:** ![SharltoCopley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sharltocopley/32/12309_2.png) [@SharltoCopley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SharltoCopley)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2020, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-that-really-arent/916159/65 "2020-07-30T15:14:56Z")
> [@Richard\_Pearse](#): > > To the extent that we accept the “pilot suicide” theory, the evidence is no stronger now than it was back in 2015/16. This is where I completely disagree, but I’d also draw a clear line between the years 2015 and 2016 in terms of investigation maturity and availability of information. ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2020, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-that-really-arent/916159/66 "2020-07-30T19:44:47Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > And yet in nature we find potatoes that look exactly like Richard Nixon’s head. > [@MrDibble](#): > > Given the number of potatoes we grow every year, I’d be more worried if we _didn’t_ . Baldrick, Lord Percy, and the turnip come to mind here… ---
**Author:** ![dorvann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df705f/32.png) [@dorvann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorvann)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2020, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-that-really-arent/916159/67 "2020-07-31T00:50:13Z")
Here’s another one: The Tunguska Explosion of 1908. It was simply an asteroid or small comet. Not a UFO exploding or an antimatter explosion or a black hole or a porthole to another dimension. ---
**Author:** ![dorvann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df705f/32.png) [@dorvann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorvann)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2020, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-that-really-arent/916159/68 "2020-07-31T00:55:48Z")
Also The “Face on Mars” turned out to look less like a face when higher resolution photos of it were made. > **[Cydonia (Mars) | "Face on Mars"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cydonia_(Mars)#%22Face_on_Mars%22)** > > Cydonia was first imaged in detail by the Viking 1 and Viking 2 orbiters. Eighteen images of the Cydonia region were taken by the orbiters, of which seven have resolutions better than 250 m/pixel (820 ft/pixel). The other eleven images have resolutions that are worse than 550 m/pixel (1800 ft/pixel) and are of limited use for studying surface features. Of the seven good images, the lighting and time at which two pairs of images were taken are so close as to reduce the number to five distinct imag... ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2020, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-that-really-arent/916159/69 "2020-07-31T03:27:46Z")
> [@dorvann](#): > > The “Face on Mars” The what? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2020, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-that-really-arent/916159/70 "2020-07-31T03:58:17Z")
I think Ruby was a lot like Oswald; a nut who was willing to kill somebody to get public attention. The conspiracy I feel might exist around JFK’s shooting is a possible cover-up after the fact. I think that Oswald shot Kennedy, all by himself. And I think after he did this, the FBI looked in its records and found evidence that they retroactively realized they should have followed up on. So to protect the FBI’s image they destroyed the evidence. They were hiding incompetence, not realizing it might later look like they were hiding complicity. ---
**Author:** ![Zyada](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zyada/32/3028_2.png) [@Zyada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zyada)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2020, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-that-really-arent/916159/71 "2020-07-31T14:27:59Z")
I will admit that this is my own pop psychology showing, but it seems to me that a successful business man would not be the kind of person to do something like that just for attention. If it had been some working class schmoe or unemployed person, I wouldn’t think anything of it. Especially since he had ties to organized crime ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2020, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-that-really-arent/916159/72 "2020-07-31T15:44:19Z")
Occam’s Razor: given multiple hypotheses, the simplest one is the one more likely to be true. Ruby said it was a fit of anger thinking about Jackie Kennedy’s suffering. While the mention of Jackie may be justification after the fact, the idea that he was angry and impulsively shot is the simplest and thus the most likely explanation. Anything more would require more evidence than the fact he knew organized crime figures. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2020, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-that-really-arent/916159/73 "2020-07-31T15:48:56Z")
> [@Zyada](#): > > Stephen King did a short story based on it as well > [@SharltoCopley](#): > > 11/22/63 It wasn’t a short story. It was a novel. And it wasn’t about the conspiracy, the story comes right out and says Oswald did it. The story is about a man who can travel in time and tries to stop Oswald. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2020, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-that-really-arent/916159/74 "2020-07-31T16:10:36Z")
Skeptoid on MH370: [Chasing Malaysian Airlines MH370](https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4595) PIlot suicide is NOT very high on my personal list of probably causes. Nor on his. \
Any of those Discovery channel shows are useless with a capital U. I sometimes turn one on and leave the sound off just to see pictures of exotic locales with no inane dialog. There’s one host, a 30-something guy who’s an archaeologist, or plays one on TV. At every excavation, or wreck dive or whatever, he ALWAYS unearths a significant find that’s not all encrusted in gunk, mud, or sea life. It’s never a small fragment either. If he finds a dino bone, it’s an obvious complete femur or tooth, not a misshapen lump only an expert could even recognize as bone. What abject garbage. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2020, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-that-really-arent/916159/75 "2020-07-31T17:16:49Z")
> [@Zyada](#): > > I will admit that this is my own pop psychology showing, but it seems to me that a successful business man would not be the kind of person to do something like that just for attention. If it had been some working class schmoe or unemployed person, I wouldn’t think anything of it. > > Especially since he had ties to organized crime But think about the implications of saying Ruby had ties to organized crime. Are you saying organized crime had a reason to kill Oswald? That organized crime was involved in the assassination and was looking to conceal its connection? There’s no evidence of this. But if organized crime had killed Kennedy, why would they have chosen Oswald as their tool? They presumably have lots of professional killers working for them. If they simply used Oswald as a patsy, why did they wait two days before killing him? He was arrested and spent two days in police custody. If he had been set up to take the fall by somebody else, he could have revealed this at any time. If organized crime had worked with Oswald before the assassination, it would have been a lot safer for them to tell him they had a safehouse for him to go to after the shooting where he could hide - and then killed him and made it look like he committed suicide and left a note confessing to the assassination. That would have wrapped things up a lot neater than having Ruby shoot him while he was in police custody. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2020, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-that-really-arent/916159/76 "2020-07-31T20:01:34Z")
Oswald as a “patsy” is something you see in conspiracy theories a lot-- the secret that is not a secret. Oswald was secretly set up-- and “everyone” knew it! It’s kinda like the theories that the man of Avon did not write the Shakespeare plays (for the sake of argument, the “First Folio” collection). Most arguments propose the actor Shakespeare as a barely literate front man for the real playwright, and say that pretty much everyone at the time was in on the secret [so why was it necessary?], and that the real writer, whether it be Bacon, Oxford, or Marlowe, cryptically signed the plays with acrostics and other clues, which were “obvious” to anyone who took a good look. So this secret, so necessary that great lengths were gone to to arrange it, because the real writer’s very life was at stake (Bacon and Oxford, because men of their standing just could not write plays-- it wasn’t done; Marlowe because he would have to answer in court for murder otherwise), was then plotzed by the writer himself, who just couldn’t resist taking credit-- _and it didn’t matter_. I could sit here for a long time and come up with examples of “the secret that was not a secret,” but wow, anytime you see it, BAM, conspiracy. ---
**Author:** ![Zyada](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zyada/32/3028_2.png) [@Zyada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zyada)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2020, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-that-really-arent/916159/77 "2020-07-31T21:40:20Z")
So, I did more reading, and have apparently the ties to organized crime is a stretch, although there " was evidence indicating Jack Ruby had been involved in the underworld activities of illegal gambling, narcotics, and prostitution." Per wikipedia. Honestly, I wouldn’t think of Oswald as a patsy. I could see him as someone who was paid to do an assassination, and killed to keep from telling his information. However, knowing he said “No, they are taking me in because of the fact that I lived in the Soviet Union. I’m just a patsy!” when he was arrested does convince me he was just a nutcake. RivkahChaya - I understand what you are saying, but there are some real “secret that’s not a secret” situations, and some real instances where you would be accused of being a conspiracy nut, until you’re proven right. For instance, I think that organized crime pays off some LEOs and politicians. Which ones are which is the only question. Tobacco companies suppressed information about nicotine problems until it came out, and other companies have done the same. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2020, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-that-really-arent/916159/78 "2020-07-31T21:47:10Z")
> [@Seanette](#): > > How does he not have a dozen or more kids running around, plus a collection of STDs not otherwise known to medical science? Q makes some bad ass antibiotics. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2020, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-that-really-arent/916159/79 "2020-07-31T21:47:21Z")
Ruby managed night clubs and strip clubs. In 1960s Dallas, it would be amazing if he _didn’t_ have ties to organized crime at some level. ---
**Author:** ![Capn\_Carl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/838e76/32.png) [@Capn\_Carl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capn_Carl)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2020, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-that-really-arent/916159/80 "2020-08-01T00:55:06Z")
How about the Philadelphia Experiment, where a ship was supposedly made invisible, or some such bs? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-that-really-arent/916159.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-that-really-arent/916159.md?page=5)