I write a lot — and I mean a lot — of true crime and creepy content here at BuzzFeed. More often than not, I'm listening to a true crime podcast or on an hours-deep internet rabbit hole about some kind of inexplicable phenomenon I just learned about. All that being said, I know a thing or two about "unsolved mysteries," so I've rounded up 25 of the most unnerving, fascinating ones I've covered thus far. Let's get into them, shall we?
1.The peculiar case of Pauline Piccard. In April of 1922, in the small French village of Goas Al Ludu, a young girl went missing from her parent's farm. Searching had proved to be futile, and eventually, the family assumed she'd been kidnapped. That was until a young girl matching Pauline's description was found wandering in Cherbourg, 400 kilometers away. The family travelled there, identified the girl as Pauline, and brought her back home with them. The strange thing, though, was that the girl didn't seem to recognize the parents. When spoken to in Breton, which Pauline knew and spoke, she remained silent.
2.The "coincidental" murders of Mary Ashford and Barbara Forrest. Both women were 20 years old, killed on the same day (May 27), and found in Pype Hayes Park in Birmingham, United Kingdom. Both of their bodies were found in ditches and showed signs of rape. Mary and Barbara both had gone out dancing the night they were murdered, and the main suspects of both their cases had the last name "Thornton." Both suspects went to trial and were found not guilty due to lack of evidence. Both women even expressed having senses of dread leading up to their deaths, confiding in friends and explaining they felt something bad was going to happen. The only difference, though, was that their murders occurred 157 years apart. Mary's death was in 1817, and Barbara's was in 1974. Their cases are eerily similar.
3.The Circleville Letters. From the late '70s to the mid-'90s, residents of the town of Circleville, Ohio were plagued by mysterious, anonymous letters. The author of these handwritten letters accused the people of infidelity, domestic violence, embezzlement, and murder. For instance, the author accused a local school bus driver, Mary Gillispie, of having an affair with the school's superintendent, Gordon Massie. Mary and her husband received many threatening letters about it. In August of '77, her husband supposedly got a call from the writer and — that same day — was suspiciously killed when his car ran into a tree.
4.The disappearance of an extra from Scarface. There's a scene in the movie where Tony and others are upstairs in an apartment while Manny is supposed to keep watch from his car. Manny gets distracted by a blonde girl in a bikini and starts hitting on her. That blonde girl was Tami Lynn Leppert. Tami was a Florida beauty queen and model who, near the time of shooting the movie, went to a party one night and came back as a completely different person. It was like she changed overnight. She became paranoid, began isolating herself, and was convinced someone was trying to kill her.
5.The Setagaya Family Murders. On December 30, 2000, two kids and their parents were murdered in their home in Setagaya, Tokyo. The children's grandmother, Haruko, lived next door, and went to check on them as they hadn't answered her calls. She found all four members of the Miyazawa family dead, the son having been strangled and the others stabbed. The creepiest part, though, is that the killer stayed in the family's home for hours after killing them. According to ABC Australia, "He left his DNA everywhere. He left clothes at the scene. He left the murder weapon. He used the victims' computer. He ate at least four ice creams from their freezer."
6.The Great Kentucky Meat Shower, or the "Kentucky Shower of Flesh." On the third of March in 1876, large chunks of fresh meat — most of which were about 5x5 cm — rained down from the sky in Olympia Springs, Kentucky, "like large snowflakes." It was not actually raining, though — in fact, the sky was crystal clear, minus the chunks of flesh falling from it. Two local men tasted the strange meat and believed it was either venison or mutton. Later, two histologists analyzed the meat and determined it (or at least, the pieces they had access to) was made up of lung tissue, muscular tissue, and cartilage.
7.The disappearance of Brandon Swanson. On May 14, 2008, Brandon was driving home from a party and drove into a ditch. He called his parents asking for help, and they set out in their pickup truck to find him. According to Brandon's dad, Brandon was sure he knew where he was. When they got there, he was nowhere to be seen. Eventually, they all got frustrated, and Brandon decided to walk back to his friend's place. Brian dropped his wife off at home and went back out to look for his son. He stayed on the phone with Brandon, who was trying to direct his father to where he was walking. Eventually, Brandon told Brian to meet him at a nightclub parking lot. Suddenly, Brandon yelled, "Oh sh*t!" and the line went dead. They never heard from him again.
8.On December 5, 1872, a ship called the Mary Celeste was found empty and drifting in the Atlantic. It had set sail from New York City eight days prior and was headed to Genoa, Italy, but was found 400 miles east of the Azores. The ship's cargo was still intact, the crew's belongings were still in their rooms, and six months of food still on board, according to Smithsonian Mag. While there was three and a half feet of water in the ship's bottom, it was still seaworthy. The only thing missing was a lifeboat, which it appeared had been boarded in an orderly fashion. No one knows what happened to the crew or why they left the ship.
9.The disappearance of Asha Degree. On Valentine's day in 2000, she walked out of her home in the middle of the night. She was only 9 years old. According to the FBI, there were no signs of forced entry or indications of where she went. Asha was sighted multiple times walking down an extremely rural and desolate highway by herself — including by one truck driver at 4 a.m. — in the middle of a storm. She ran into the woods after being spotted and was never seen again.
10.The 169th victim of the Oklahoma City bombing. In the late 1990s, an additional leg was found in the rubble. DNA tests showed it belonged to another victim who had already been buried, but seemingly with the wrong left leg. Testimony reports from the trials claim that it wasn't possible to obtain DNA from the leg at the time according to Fox 25, but it turns out that the state did have a DNA profile of it after all. The sample was compared to that of 10 known victims, but didn't match any of them. So, who did this leg belong to? All other legs had been accounted for in other victims.
11.The Voynich manuscript. The manuscript — which lives in the rare book library at Yale — was written in the 15th or 16th century in Central Europe. It's written in an undecipherable script and assumed to be scientific or magical in nature. According to Yale, the manuscript seemingly consists of six sections: unidentifiable plant species, astronomical and astrological drawings, biology (which consists mostly of women with swollen stomachs "immersed or wading in fluids and oddly interacting with interconnecting tubes and capsules"), nine cosmological medallions, drawing of medicinal herbs, and long pages of text, thought to be recipes.
12.The "Bloody Benders" of Labette County, Kansas. They were believed to be one of the first serial killer families in America. In the 1870s, the family of four ran a one-room inn and sold supplies in a small town in Kansas. People began to go missing, but nothing was formally looked into until the brother of an up-and-coming politician, Alexander York, disappeared. In the search for his brother, York interviewed the Benders and called them "odd and hostile," but didn't outright accuse them. Instead, he decided to search every home in the town so as not to alert them.
13.The lost nuclear bomb off the coast of Tybee Island, Georgia. In 1958, a fighter jet and a B-47 bomber had a mid-air collision during a training exercise, resulting in the pilot dropping the bomb into the water to prevent it from going off if the plane crash landed. The bomb wasn't found during their search, but the government claimed it "didn't pose a threat unless it was disturbed." However, in 1994, a declassified document suggested otherwise.
14.The mysterious green children of Woolpit. The legend is that two children with green skin reportedly appeared in the village of Woolpit in Suffolk, England, around 1150. The brother and sister duo spoke in an unknown language and refused to eat anything but raw fava beans. They were taken to the home of a man named Richard de Calne, who, over time, slowly got them to consume other foods and learn to speak English. Eventually, their skin lost its green color. When asked where they came from, they claimed to be from "the land of St. Martin," where the sun doesn't rise.
15.The mystery of the Boy in the Box. On February 25, 1957, a boy — estimated to be between four and six years old — was found dead in a box along Susquehanna Road in Philadelphia. He was wrapped in a blanket and placed inside the box, which had previously housed a bassinet from J.C. Penney that had been paid for in cash. He had scars suggesting previous surgeries and his body showed signs of being beaten. According to the medical examiner, he died from blows to the head. Despite matching fingerprints from local hospitals, comparing him to missing children reports, and putting out thousands of fliers, the boy was never identified.
16.The disappearance of Jodi Huisentruit. Jodi was a morning news anchor at KIMT-TV — a news station in Mason City, Iowa. On the morning of June 27, 1995, Jodi didn't show up to work. A producer called her, and, frazzled, she said she'd overslept and would be in ASAP. The producer called again later, but she didn't pick up the phone or show up to work that day. So, they called the police for a welfare check. They found a bottle of hairspray, a pair of red shoes, and a blow dryer next to Jodi's red Mazda Miata. There were signs of a struggle at the scene, including a bent car key and handprints on the car.
17.The "Lost Girls" of Panama. In April of 2014, two Dutch women — Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon — were hiking the "El Pianista" trail near Boquete, Panama. They were in the region to volunteer at a local school and learn Spanish. They were informed that their assistance wasn't needed for another week, so they decided to explore the area in the meantime. Unfortunately, neither Kris nor Lisanne ever returned from that hike. Search parties were sent out but came back empty-handed. Two months later, Lisanne's left foot — which had been detached at the ankle — was found in her hiking boot. Kris's pelvis was also discovered, split in two. Later, locals found Lisanne's backpack, which held their bras, phones, $87 in cash, and a Canon Powershot camera. The camera had dozens of strange photos on it, most of which were taken at night, dated a week after the women initially disappeared.
18.The whereabouts of Byron Preiss's treasure. In 1982, Bryson Preiss published The Secret (treasure hunt), a fantasy book about "the Fair People," which were creatures like dragons, fairies, goblins, and the like who fled the "Old World" for the human world and brought heaps of treasure with them. In the book, Byron invites readers to find the 12 lost treasures of the Fair People, which he actually hid across North America. Through a series of 12 paintings, verses, and riddles, Byron and his team hint at the locations of 12 ceramic casques containing keys. Upon the discovery and redemption of a key, the winners get their cut of $10,000 worth of jewels (in 1982 dollars — which, today, would be worth about $31,960.31).
19.Tim Molnar’s disappearance and death. One day in 1984, he left home to go to class. He was never seen by his family again. According to an episode of Unsolved Mysteries, the night after he vanished, the family received a silent phone call. They believed Tim may have run away to start a new life and wanted to call them, but he got nervous and hung up. Two weeks later, the family's credit card was used at a gas station in Lake City, Florida, and witnesses claimed Tim was traveling alone. Months later, his car was found in a parking lot in Atlanta, Georgia, where it'd been abandoned. The lot was near a Greyhound bus station, and the car had reportedly been left there six days after he left. He'd nearly drained his bank account, took the valuable items out of his car, and left behind his wallet, license, and credit cards.
20.The Tunguska Mystery. At a little after 7 in the morning on June 30, 1908, residents near the Podkamennaya Tunguska river in rural Romania reported seeing a smoking fireball in the sky, an incredibly bright flash of light, a loud boom, and felt themselves being blown into the air. Some reported going unconscious and that their homes were destroyed. Trees in the area were flattened and burned. According to Scientific American, other parts of the world experienced huge silver clouds, spectacularly colored sunsets, and bright skies even in the dead of night.
21. Who blew up the Georgia Guide Stones. The monument was made up of four 16-foot high panels that acted as a sundial, an astronomical calendar, and were inscribed with "guidance for living in an age of reason" in eight different languages. There's a lot of mystery surrounding the stones, including why they're there and who is behind them. The Guide Stones were erected in 1980, though the person — or people — who commissioned them remained anonymous, simply using the pseudonym R.C. Christian. Both the messages on it and the monument itself were very controversial — some considered it to be satanic, while others jokingly called it "America's Stonehenge." On July 7, 2022, it was mysterious blown up in the early hours of the morning. Despite security footage, the culprit is unknown.
(1/4) The GBI is releasing additional surveillance video that shows an unknown person leaving an explosive device at the Georgia Guidestones. The video is unclear, but agents are still actively working to identify the person leaving the scene after the explosion. pic.twitter.com/WK61R7MKrs
— GA Bureau of Investigation (@GBI_GA) July 7, 2022
You can read more about ithere.
22.The disappearance of Tiffany Sessions. On February 9, 1989, 20-year-old Tiffany left her home in Gainesville, Florida, at 6 p.m. to take a walk. She was never seen or heard from again. Thirty-five years later, neither Tiffany nor her remains have been found.
23.The Taos "hum." In Taos, New Mexico, some residents report hearing an inexplicable low-frequency humming noise, which they describe as sounding like a swarm of bees or the humming of a truck. The noise, which has been reported since 1993, is usually heard when the surrounding atmosphere is quiet and still. Hearing an unexplainable noise like this isn't a unique occurrence — it's been the complaint of residents in several cities across the globe. How Taos differs, however, is that nobody has figured out where the sound is coming from.
24.The Max Headroom signal hijacking. On November 22, 1987, the Nine O'Clock News was being televised as usual on Channel 9, until the signal cut out without warning. It was hijacked by a person in a suit and smiling rubber mask — inspired by the character Max Headroom — jumping around to the sound of static. It lasted for about 30 seconds before the studio was able to regain control of the broadcast. But, Max wasn't done. Two hours later — on a completely different channel — Max returned.
25.The Isdal Woman. On November 29, 1970, the body of an unidentified woman was found in the Isdalen Valley of Bergen, Norway, wedged between big rocks. The front side of her body was severely burned, but not the back. All the labels on her clothes were removed, and jewelry was placed neatly beside her at the scene. Police also found a broken umbrella, remnants of nylon stockings, rubber boots, and bottles, all of which had the labels rubbed off. The autopsy showed that there were 50–70 sleeping pills in her system, which had not yet been fully absorbed into her bloodstream when she died.
Do you have a true crime case or unsolved mystery that you can't stop thinking about and want us to cover in a future edition of this article? If so, tell us about it in the comments below or via this anonymous form.
