# Unsolved mysteries that aren't nightmare fuel **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 21, 2015, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsolved-mysteries-that-arent-nightmare-fuel/720538 "2015-05-21T19:07:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2015, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsolved-mysteries-that-arent-nightmare-fuel/720538/41 "2015-05-22T17:22:18Z")
> [@chacoguy](#): > > [This](https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CAcQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.quora.com%2FWho-is-responsible-for-placing-a-pumpkin-on-top-of-McGraw-Tower-at-Cornell-University-in-October-1997-and-how-did-they-do-it&ei=XzFeVY7hHMGTsAWh-YGgCw&bvm=bv.93756505,d.b2w&psig=AFQjCNFWm7cpFZ9aS53RIbohtGrzBLLOsA&ust=1432322776292815) That’s a fun one. I mean, I guess someone had to have climbed up there, but who and how is a good mystery. > [@madmonk28](#): > > I’ve always been fascinated with the Chicago Max Headroom incident on WGN in Chicago. I remember hearing about it when it happened and it has stuck with me ever since. I remember someone here posted a possible explanation of who did it. > > [Max Headroom signal hijacking - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Headroom_broadcast_signal_intrusion) I know I only mentioned murders and abductions in my OP, but for some reason, that story creeps me the hell out. Sure, it was mostly harmless, but that guy in the mask, the creepy stuff he was saying, the zigzag lines…::shudder:: > [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > [Why did Favell Lee Mortimer write such a terribly insulting travel guide for children?](http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/08/books/08grim.html?_r=0) > > [Who was the Poe Toaster?](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe_Toaster) > > [Who was Kaspar Hauser and why was he killed?](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaspar_Hauser) Good ones! I had never heard of the Kaspar Hauser story. That’s bizarre. On the Poe Toaster one, I really like that everyone was pretty content to let him do his thing without spoiling the mystery. Wiki says one year someone tried to detain him but was not successful. Not sure what that means exactly. I imagine if enough people got together and were serious about unmasking him they could have done so. But that would ruin the fun! I respectfully request that y’all take the “gry” thing elsewhere. Deliberate riddles are not really what I’m after. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2015, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsolved-mysteries-that-arent-nightmare-fuel/720538/42 "2015-05-22T17:32:44Z")
The lead masks case- Seems obvious it was some kind of suicide, possibly some nutty UFO suicide thing like Heaven’s Gate. The note mentions taking capsules, they didn’t do tox screens, seems obvious enough. ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2015, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsolved-mysteries-that-arent-nightmare-fuel/720538/43 "2015-05-22T19:57:27Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > [The Bloop](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloop) Listening to the bloop at the Wiki link. the answer is obvious It’s a whale fart ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2015, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsolved-mysteries-that-arent-nightmare-fuel/720538/44 "2015-05-22T20:54:37Z")
> [@Quercus](#): > > I mean, Oak Island, for instance. It used to be a fascinating story of mysterious technology, etc. Now you can just find an internet page that points out there is absolutely zero evidence of any of the reputed earlier events, and that everything is consistent with it being a mid 19th-century scam to sucker treasure-seekers. This, in both specific case and general thought. I was an Oak Island fanatic in my teens, forgot about it, discovered it was being questioned by the 1980s, forgot about it, read some very good analyses ca. 2000 that pretty much put the claim to bed. Time to drop it off the list of Mysteries. A lot of things that were “mysteries” because one bad (or just simplistic) book existed about them are now subject to NetKnowledge… and the collective information pretty much explains or debunks the mystery. An awful lot were either hoaxes or mass delusions, and only writing a selective account and having no competition can make them stand up as unexplained. ---
**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:** [May 22, 2015, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsolved-mysteries-that-arent-nightmare-fuel/720538/45 "2015-05-22T21:42:13Z")
[The Sailing Stones of Death Valley.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racetrack_Playa#Sailing_stones) ---
**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:** [May 22, 2015, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsolved-mysteries-that-arent-nightmare-fuel/720538/46 "2015-05-22T21:47:36Z")
What about the Piltdown forger? It’s almost certain that Dawson was involved, because he was too much in the center of things, but who else, if anyone else? Stephen Jay Gould once made a compelling argument that Teilhard de Chardin was one of the forgers, or at least involved in planting the pieces after Dawson forged them. Also on the subject of human paleontology, an important set of Homo erectus fossils from Beijing, known at the “Peking man” fossils disappeared. The set of fossils was huge, and included several nearly intact crania. They were in possession of the Chinese until 1941, but, fearing that something might happen to them during the Japanese occupation, they were being shipped the the US museum of Natural History. They disappeared en route. There have been a number of attempts to locate them, including one in July 2005, on the 60th anniversary of the end of WWII. Some people think they may have been ground up for folk medicine, and others that they were at some point on a ship that was sunk. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2015, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsolved-mysteries-that-arent-nightmare-fuel/720538/47 "2015-05-22T21:53:39Z")
The identity of [Satoshi Nakamoto](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoshi_Nakamoto). Some guy pops up out of nowhere with a fake name, proposes Bitcoin, works on it for about a year and then completely disappears. In the meantime, he’s mined several hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin, none of which he’s spent. Newsweek claimed it was some retired engineer in California a while back and was hugely embarrassed when it turned out to have been completely implausible. His email was apparently hacked a few months ago but nothing much has turned up since. The number of people who possess the skills Satoshi has is pretty small and all of them have denied being Satoshi. The conspiracy theories span pretty wide, from it being a US Govt project to aliens making us ascend to the next level of development. ---
**Author:** ![eclectic\_wench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ac91a4/32.png) [@eclectic\_wench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eclectic_wench)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2015, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsolved-mysteries-that-arent-nightmare-fuel/720538/48 "2015-05-22T22:02:28Z")
I’m not sure how to pinpoint exactly what the mystery is here, but the case of [Ursula and Sabina Eriksson](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_and_Sabina_Eriksson) is mind-bogglingly weird. Basically, a pair of apparently normal identical twins went batshit nuts out of nowhere. Short version: they threw themselves in front of traffic on a motorway, survived, one was released from hospital and promptly stabbed to death a guy who took her in. For the full impact, though, you need to watch the BBC documentary - the motorway episode was captured on camera by a team filming one of those fly-on-the-wall shows about motorway cops. The mystery, I suppose, is WTF was going on in their heads? It’s been labelled folie à deux, but to me that just gives a label, not an answer. I would love to have some understanding of what on earth happened between those two minds that led to that spiral of events. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2015, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsolved-mysteries-that-arent-nightmare-fuel/720538/49 "2015-05-22T23:26:51Z")
> [@eclectic\_wench](#): > > For the full impact, though, you need to watch the BBC documentary - the motorway episode was captured on camera by a team filming one of those fly-on-the-wall shows about motorway cops. Here’s a doc which uses footage from the original motorway cops one [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdiISQdjwd0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdiISQdjwd0) It’s all kinds of WTF. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2015, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsolved-mysteries-that-arent-nightmare-fuel/720538/50 "2015-05-22T23:43:58Z")
My vote is for the whole nonsense about the “alien”“spaceship” that crashed in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947. How this non-story stays alive is beyond me-there is absolutely NO evidence of anything alien involved. The US AirForce (to its credit) has released all its files about the two (formerly secret) programs that are believed to have given rise to the mythology-to no avail. People still believe this nonsense, why ,I don’t know-maybe its still generating lots of money (for the people who write books and make films about it). ---
**Author:** ![SpoilerVirgin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@SpoilerVirgin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpoilerVirgin)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2015, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsolved-mysteries-that-arent-nightmare-fuel/720538/51 "2015-05-23T00:24:53Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > It’s also not mysterious, at least if you only include the aspects which weren’t simply made up. The most interesting _real_ part, where they were found nude or nearly so, is a known effect of hypothermia. I agree that everything that happened after they left the tent has a perfectly logical explanation. The question is _why did they leave the tent?_ In the middle of the night, in a freezing Russian winter, they ran out of a warm, well-stocked tent (several cut themselves out) to freeze to death. I’ve read the infrasound explanation, but I’m not sure I find it compelling. Do you have another explanation that you think make sense? I’m not challenging you, I’m just fascinated, and would like to know the answer. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2015, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsolved-mysteries-that-arent-nightmare-fuel/720538/52 "2015-05-23T00:57:25Z")
A favorite historical mystery of mine is what caused the Classic Era Mayan collapse? It seems every decade or so a new theory gains prominance, and seems totally reasonable … only to be replaced by another. Oddly enough, the theories tend to mirror the prevailing concerns of the day (warfare got out of hand, overpopulation, and more recently, environmental devestation and climate change - or a combo of 'em all). No-one really knows, and each theory has its drawbacks. It remains an intreguing mystery. ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2015, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsolved-mysteries-that-arent-nightmare-fuel/720538/53 "2015-05-23T04:10:20Z")
I just realized that nobody has yet mentioned one of the greatest mysteries: the [Shroud of Turin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shroud_of_Turin). Most of the issues mentioned so far are fleeting incidents in history, based on strange episodes of human behavior— and we will never really know the truth. But the Shroud is a mystery based on a tangible physical object–a piece of hard evidence, which has been studied in depth by the world’s greatest scientists, and will continue to be studied. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2015, 9:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsolved-mysteries-that-arent-nightmare-fuel/720538/54 "2015-05-23T09:41:41Z")
> [@SpoilerVirgin](#): > > I agree that everything that happened after they left the tent has a perfectly logical explanation. The question is _why did they leave the tent?_ In the middle of the night, in a freezing Russian winter, they ran out of a warm, well-stocked tent (several cut themselves out) to freeze to death. > > I’ve read the infrasound explanation, but I’m not sure I find it compelling. Do you have another explanation that you think make sense? I’m not challenging you, I’m just fascinated, and would like to know the answer. The most plausible idea is that there was a small avalanche and they cut themselves free from their tents to avoid being crushed, and when they were wandering around caked in snow, hypothermia set in, and that’s when they did what’s called “paradoxical undressing” which, as I mentioned, is a known effect of hypothermia. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2015, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsolved-mysteries-that-arent-nightmare-fuel/720538/55 "2015-05-23T09:45:17Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > I just realized that nobody has yet mentioned one of the greatest mysteries: the [Shroud of Turin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shroud_of_Turin). That’s because pious forgeries aren’t mysterious. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2015, 10:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsolved-mysteries-that-arent-nightmare-fuel/720538/56 "2015-05-23T10:05:20Z")
The [Vela Incident,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vela_Incident) albeit the “could easily have been nothing” percentage is disappointingly high. ---
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2015, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsolved-mysteries-that-arent-nightmare-fuel/720538/57 "2015-05-23T13:12:59Z")
Who killed the deputy? ---
**Author:** ![Marion\_Wormer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d07c76/32.png) [@Marion\_Wormer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marion_Wormer)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2015, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsolved-mysteries-that-arent-nightmare-fuel/720538/58 "2015-05-23T16:50:15Z")
> [@Ranchoth](#): > > The [Vela Incident,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vela_Incident) albeit the “could easily have been nothing” percentage is disappointingly high. There’s this thing about false alarms. The probability of them happening is vanishingly small, but eventually they do and can happen. ---
**Author:** ![SpoilerVirgin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@SpoilerVirgin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpoilerVirgin)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2015, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsolved-mysteries-that-arent-nightmare-fuel/720538/59 "2015-05-23T23:59:53Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > The most plausible idea is that there was a small avalanche and they cut themselves free from their tents to avoid being crushed, and when they were wandering around caked in snow, hypothermia set in, and that’s when they did what’s called “paradoxical undressing” which, as I mentioned, is a known effect of hypothermia. Thanks. I agree that an avalanche is plausible. I don’t think paradoxical undressing is necessary to explain the state of the bodies – clothing appeared to have been taken from dead bodies to be used by the still living. I guess we can cross this one off the unsolved mysteries list. ---
**Author:** ![notfrommensa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f14d63/32.png) [@notfrommensa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notfrommensa)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2015, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unsolved-mysteries-that-arent-nightmare-fuel/720538/60 "2015-05-24T01:48:28Z")
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