Creepy Unsolved Mysteries - From unsolved murders to unidentified people to unexplained supernatural events, what are some of the creepiest unsolved mysteries you've ever heard of?

[Well Intentioned]

The big thing with the polygraph is that it is simply an interrogation technique that provides information to the police.

If they view you as a suspect (a given since you're being subjected to this pseudo-science bullshit) anything you say can be made to look incriminating.

Polygraph operators are trained in interrogation and how to slant results in the way they want.

 

[Le b0wski]

Above posters 100% right about how bullshit a polygraph is.

So you are saying I've wasted my time training my body to trick the polygraph machine I'll eventually be connected to?

 

[FedPostalService]

The big thing with the polygraph is that it is simply an interrogation technique that provides information to the police.

If they view you as a suspect (a given since you're being subjected to this pseudo-science bullshit) anything you say can be made to look incriminating.

Polygraph operators are trained in interrogation and how to slant results in the way they want.

It’s also why it’s completely inadmissible in a court of law and used as a tactic by the police to bully people with a science-fiction to try and invert the burden of guilt.

Get suspicious if anyone for the last forty years has suggested using one.

You know the one group of people who will always “pass” these tests? Psychopaths. That’s how useful this test is.

 

[Throng of Titans]

I find most unsolved mysteries to not be all too deep, criminal conspiracies and coverups are fun to speculate about, but lots of the time, there's a boring (though still tragic) explanation. The Kremers/Froon case for example, while I don't doubt that the Panamanian government did shitty work, given it's the Panamanian government, I've never heard a solid explanation for why it wasn't an accidental death by misadventure. It doesn't help that, like many big unsolved mysteries, it's plagued with misinfo. Small example: people love to insist that they had no reason to go off trail, as the end of the trail is clearly marked. Except said clear markings were only added after, and almost certainly as a response to, their deaths. The Pianista trail beforehand just sort of stopped, and if you weren't aware or careful, it was very easy to wander into the jungle.

Though one that still gets me are the Samuel Little sketches.

Samuel Little was a prolific serial murderer who confessed to 93 murders, was convicted for 8 counts of murder, and was confirmed to have killed at least 60 people. One thing he did when confessing to his murders was not give not only a detailed account of them and how he murdered them, but he also provided sketches for several of them.

Spoiler: example with confirmed victim and sketch, not graphic

Some have been linked to known or suspected victims, but several of them are completely unlinked to any missing persons reports or unidentified bodies, here's a few examples (Unidentified Wiki does good work cataloging them).

https://unidentified-awareness.fandom.com/wiki/Linda_(1971)

https://unidentified-awareness.fandom.com/wiki/Knox_County_Jane_Doe_(1974)

https://unidentified-awareness.fandom.com/wiki/Phoenix_Jane_Doe_(1988-1996)

The sketches are pretty creepily accurate in the cases where they could be matched, so it's likely there's several victims out there that have never been found or identified, and likely never will be.

 

[Lovely Kin]

The death of Elisa Lam always creeped me out, it's well known though. Maybe it was the elevators not closing, or how she mashed the buttons in a panic within the video where she was last seen. I assumed since she was undermedicated or unmedicated at death, it was a suicide but how she got into the tank always baffles me. What really freaked me out about the whole case was how something was wrong the water pressure, the colour being black and some describing it tasted like lead.

 

[AnOminous]

You should ALWAYS refuse a polygraph. It's bullshit that's about as accurate as aura reading or tarot cards used by cops to convince retarded criminals to confess. There's a reason they haven't been admissible in court for over 20 years.

There are actually exceptions. While in many places, they're inadmissible in all circumstances, including by the defense, some courts allow them if their admissibility is stipulated by both parties.

(There shouldn't be exceptions any more than you should be able to admit divining rod results in a case about water rights.)

What the actual... why would your employer want you to take a polygraph ?

Lots of glowies require them.

And because it's one of my favorite Mr. Show skits, I'm just posting it because fuck it.

You know the one group of people who will always “pass” these tests? Psychopaths. That’s how useful this test is.

Not 100% true but psychopaths display a lot less physical response to danger than normal people, which is what most polygraphs are testing for. One of the major problems of polygraphs is that the physiological response to being falsely accused of something can be mistaken for the physiological response to the stress most people feel when lying.

If you don't believe in the magic box, though, and can suppress your natural response to stress (beta blockers can help and so can being a psychopath), they're basically a joke.

There is definitely a possibility of way more effective lie detectors using something like an fMRI because different parts of your brain light up depending on whether you're remembering something or inventing it.

Most people who actually get good results with polygraphs, though, are just good interrogators to start with and use the magic box to scare people. It won't turn some dumb yokel into Columbo.

 

[Seafarer]

The death of Elisa Lam always creeped me out, it's well known though. Maybe it was the elevators not closing, or how she mashed the buttons in a panic within the video where she was last seen. I assumed since she was undermedicated or unmedicated at death, it was a suicide but how she got into the tank always baffles me. What really freaked me out about the whole case was how something was wrong the water pressure, the colour being black and some describing it tasted like lead.

This was already addressed a couple pages back:

She walked up the stairs, through the open doors, climbed up a ladder that had been left there by maintenance and jumped in. The hatch had been also left open and it was still open when her body was discovered, but were shut by the discoverer in his shock and panic.

Pretty much every mystery in the Lam case is covered by, "Mentally ill young woman off her meds and in a severe state of psychosis staying alone at a severely run down massive hotel where one maintenance bloke was doing the work of twenty". If you haven't watched the Netflix series I recommend that you do so. It goes into a lot of areas that most other investigations don't.

 

[Cheesegirl78]

You should ALWAYS refuse a polygraph. It's bullshit that's about as accurate as aura reading or tarot cards used by cops to convince retarded criminals to confess. There's a reason they haven't been admissible in court for over 20 years.

Almost 35 years ago, a relative went to trial for a serious crime. He passed the lie detector test with flying colors.
The only thing was, in California according to relatives' attorney, you couldn't say your client passed the test, it could only be used if your client FAILED it.

Fortunately, the relative was found innocent. But it pissed everyone off that passing a lie detector test couldn't be used in court.
It may be different here now, I have no idea.

 

[FedPostalService]

Small example: people love to insist that they had no reason to go off trail, as the end of the trail is clearly marked. Except said clear markings were only added after, and almost certainly as a response to, their deaths. The Pianista trail beforehand just sort of stopped, and if you weren't aware or careful, it was very easy to wander into the jungle.

Hiker here. I have got lost countless times trying to take short cuts or mistaking a landmark and suddenly ending up in dense woodland. Fortunately we don’t have animals that will kill us here and our bands of murdering rapists live in cities, so things like this and most Missing 411 cases aren’t that mysterious to me.

It’s easy to do dumb shit just to get to your goal. I’ve had a couple of close scrapes on mountain peaks.

 

[Juan But Not Forgotten]

but how she got into the tank always baffles me

It was left open because the staff was incompetent. Also, people who have paranoid delusions often try to hide in the bodies of water for some reason. I remember the case where one black girl was obsessed with a black pastor and then found dead in the lake. People speculated that he had an affair with her and killed her, but it was revealed that she was mentally ill and he had an alibi.

 

[squidward tentacles]

It was left open because the staff was incompetent. Also, people who have paranoid delusions often try to hide in the bodies of water for some reason. I remember the case where one black girl was obsessed with a black pastor and then found dead in the lake. People speculated that he had an affair with her and killed her, but it was revealed that she was mentally ill and he had an alibi.

I've read before that autistic children are at higher risk of drowning, and that when they elope, they often beeline for water. I wonder why that is? A quick search didn't turn up anything beyond some fluffy 'water is very sensory', which I guess is an explanation, but I wish there was some more concrete research about it.

 

[Juan But Not Forgotten]

I've read before that autistic children are at higher risk of drowning, and that when they elope, they often beeline for water. I wonder why that is? A quick search didn't turn up anything beyond some fluffy 'water is very sensory', which I guess is an explanation, but I wish there was some more concrete research about it.

I am not a psychiatrist, but from what I see autist are afraid of human touch because of sensory overload however still crave it so they can have the same experience with heavy blankets and something alike. Maybe getting submerged into water of reasonable temperature gives them the same feeling.

 

[Mysterious Girlfriend X]

Hiker here. I have got lost countless times trying to take short cuts or mistaking a landmark and suddenly ending up in dense woodland. Fortunately we don’t have animals that will kill us here and our bands of murdering rapists live in cities, so things like this and most Missing 411 cases aren’t that mysterious to me.

It’s easy to do dumb shit just to get to your goal. I’ve had a couple of close scrapes on mountain peaks.

This reminds me, has anyone brought up the Mount Asahi SOS Incident in this thread?

Back in 1989, a pair of hikers got lost on Mount Asahi in Japan. While looking for them, the search teams discovered a giant SOS sign made out of fallen logs, and promptly found the hikers afterwards. The thing is, the missing hikers weren't the ones who made the sign. When the authorities returned to the area of the SOS, they found skeletal remains with some belongings, including a tape recorder and a tape of a man yelling for help.

 

[Maricón de Mierda]

This reminds me, has anyone brought up the Mount Asahi SOS Incident in this thread?

That's an interesting story, thank you for sharing.

Most likely it was just Kenji Iwamura himself, a hiker who somehow got injured, and died trapped there. I wonder what kind of injury would cripple his ability to escape the mountain but still allow him to make such a large SOS sign from tree trunks. In the recording, he mentions being trapped by sasa, a kind of thick plant. A news team who were reporting on the case got caught in this same sasa and needed rescuing. But in order to make the SOS sign, he would have had to be ambulatory before getting caught in the sasa, so that still doesn't answer what stranded him there in the first place.

Take away the early (mis?)attribution of the skeleton being female and you have a simple but mysterious case of misadventure. Still very tragic. Rest in Peace, Kenji.

But with tragedy comes comedy. From the Wikipedia article:

"The rest of the tapes included music from the anime TV shows, Macross and Magical Princess Minky Momo. In addition, a cutout of artwork of "Magical Princess Minky Momo" was used as a case for the cassette tape."

 

[Le b0wski]

Cool story of Mike 'Madman' Marcum

Spoiler: Literal Spoiler - don't open unless you want to

Punchline- He is alive, trying to make another machine. I doubt that any of it happened.
"Oh shit, my welder just cut space=time and sent my electrode 2 years into the future."
Reminds me about the 'Radioactive Boy Scout'. Autistic fan-boy of a technology.
Remember, time-travel isn't real, but arc-flash explosions are.

Had Mike 'Madman' Marcum pop up on my recommended videos so watched it.

I don't doubt that governments and random people are spending millions each year funding time travel projects in sheds or even proper labs. I'll be honest if we could time travel back in time we would paradoxically discover it as someone from the future would fuck up.

 

[REGENDarySumanai]

"The rest of the tapes included music from the anime TV shows, Macross and Magical Princess Minky Momo. In addition, a cutout of artwork of "Magical Princess Minky Momo" was used as a case for the cassette tape."

More proof that Minky Momo is cursed as fuck. In other news, Perry County Jane Doe/Girl with the Turquoise Jewelry was identified as Doris Joanne Girtz of Ravenna, Ohio.

 

[glass_houses]

Most likely it was just Kenji Iwamura himself, a hiker who somehow got injured, and died trapped there. I wonder what kind of injury would cripple his ability to escape the mountain but still allow him to make such a large SOS sign from tree trunks. In the recording, he mentions being trapped by sasa, a kind of thick plant. A news team who were reporting on the case got caught in this same sasa and needed rescuing. But in order to make the SOS sign, he would have had to be ambulatory before getting caught in the sasa, so that still doesn't answer what stranded him there in the first place.

If you read the wiki article, there's a section on the SOS sign:

ThllThe wooden letters of the SOS sign were made by stacking large fallen birch trees, and it was estimated that it took about two days and considerable effort to create such a giant sign. It was speculated that the sign was made by the missing person that the skeleton belonged to, but in the autopsy of the skeleton that was found, who investigators believed was Iwamura, the body was described as thin and weak to the point that it would have been impossible for him to make the sign on his own. No axe that could have been used to cut trees down to make the sign has been found. Some have pointed out that Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy has a scene in which fallen trees are arranged in the shape of SOS.[8][13][5]

I have what I believe is a decent theory:

Iwamura was an okatu, and everything that this label implies. He decided to go and make a tribute to Astro Boy and build this huge SOS sign in arsefuck nowhere. He constructed his sign, and then realised that he was trapped. Burying his animu was a symbolic act, and then he died of starvation/exposure. The axe has never been found because sasa.

 

[Gianfranco Pizzaballa]

Which biography? And if that’s the case, what about the twins?

Historically ( and sometimes today) parents used to be " harder" on the older children then mellow out with the younger. The parent didn't necessarily have reasonable expectations of toddler/teen behavior and would often parentify the oldest daughter. Worse, Christina was a raised during a not particularly child-centric era. If she ended up "raging cluster B" it's not surprising given her role model.

 

[parsnip]

I've read before that autistic children are at higher risk of drowning, and that when they elope, they often beeline for water. I wonder why that is? A quick search didn't turn up anything beyond some fluffy 'water is very sensory', which I guess is an explanation, but I wish there was some more concrete research about it.

Autists are the true Atlanteans and they're trying to return to their ancestral home.

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

Joyce Chiang. She disappeared around the same time as the infamous DC intern Chandra Levy vanished. Although Levy's remains were found and some illegal was charged although I feel like they said it wasn't him?

Some other UM cases not solved that stuck out to me include Su Ya Kim, Ann Sigmin, Kurt McFall, Kurt Sova, Rogerest Cain, and Dottie Caylor. (Dotties husband Jules is a strange guy. There was an infamous Wendy's salad bar incident with him sometime in the 90s or 00's).