10 Strangest Unsolved Mysteries From Around the World

Trigger Warning // Accident, Death, Murder, Detailed Description Of Accidents, Pictures of the Accidents

There are still thousands of unresolved mysteries in life despite the enormous advancements in science, technology, and research. Many people are searching for a logical explanation for these strange events.

Sadly, for the time being, we will have to make do with only speculation. Enjoy our list of the top 10 unsolved mysteries until they are all answered.

Unsolved Mystery 1: Elisa Lam’s Disturbing Death – Califonia, USA

Elisa Lam, a 21-year-old Canadian tourist, checked into the Cecil Hotel in downtown Los Angeles on January 26, 2013. The Los Angeles Police Department was notified when she failed to check out on February 1 and had no communication with her parents. Lam’s body was discovered floating naked in a water tank on the top of the Cecil Hotel on February 19, eighteen days after she was last seen when hotel guests complained about the water pressure. One couple even reported that the water was black and tasted awful.

When Elisa Lam first checked in, she was staying in a hostel-style room with other travelers, according to the hotel’s management. However, she was eventually transferred to her own private room when her roommates complained about her strange behavior. She was last spotted on CCTV footage in the hotel elevator. The video showed Lam acting strangely, almost as if she was hiding. She also moved her hands in weird and inhumane ways, and it appeared like she was speaking to someone who was not visible on the surveillance camera.

Following the discovery of her body and the surveillance footage, it was speculated that she was under the influence of a hallucinogenic drug. Despite the fact that Lam was taking four different medications for her bipolar disorder, toxicology testing revealed no signs of any drugs or alcohol that may have caused to her death. There was also a theory that she was killed and died of drowning, but the postmortem report showed no signs of trauma. No one really knows how she managed to go onto the roof, get inside the water tank, and close the 20-pound lid all by herself.

Unsolved Mystery 2: The ‘Dog Suicide’ Bridge – Scotland, UK

Overtoun Bridge, widely known as the ‘Dog Suicide’ bridge in Scotland. Since the 1950s, around 50 dogs have perished by plunging to their deaths from the 50-foot bridge, while 600 have leapt but lived, according to New York Times. Some canines are said to have survived the jump, returned to the bridge, and tried again. And what’s even more creepy is that there is no water below, just rocks.

Unsolved Mystery 3: Tim Molnar’s Disappearance… And Death – Florida, USA

Tim Molnar left home for school one day in 1984. His family never saw him again. According to an episode of Unsolved Mysteries, the family got a silent phone call the night after he disappeared. They suspected Tim had fled to start a new life and attempted to contact them, but he became nervous and hung up. The family’s credit card was used at a gas station in Lake City, Florida, two weeks later, and witnesses reported Tim was traveling alone.

Plot twist: In early 1996, a Wisconsin resident was watching Tim’s Unsolved Mysteries episode on TV. According to the Wisconsin State Journal, he discovered a body frozen in a block of ice with a ring of keys in a secluded wood lot. Tim drove a 1969 Dodge Dart, and Dodge vehicle keys were discovered alongside the corpse. Helen, Tim’s mother, still had the same locks on her doors, so she mailed the guy a duplicate of her house key to match the one found with the body. It was a perfect match.

DNA tests confirmed that it was indeed Tim Molnar.

Suggested by: u/mamamaia_

Unsolved Mystery 4: The Mirrored Murders of Mary Ashford and Barbara Forrest – England, UK

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Image from Huffpost

Mary Ashford and Barbara Forrest’s “mirrored” murders. Both ladies were 20 years old when they were murdered on the same day, May 27, in Erdington, a quaint suburb of Birmingham, England. Both of their bodies were discovered in ditches with signs of sexual assault. Both Mary and Barbara had gone out dancing the night they were killed, and the primary suspects in both cases had the surname “Thornton,” and they were both declared not guilty due to a lack of evidence. Both ladies described feelings of dread in the days before their deaths, confiding in friends and expressing that something terrible was about to happen.

The only difference was that their murders took place 157 years apart. Mary died in 1817, and Barbara died in 1974. Their circumstances are unsettlingly identical.

Suggested by: u/mariam67

You can read more about them here.

Unsolved Mystery 5: The Somerton Man – Adelaide, Australia

somerton man code 10 Strangest Unsolved Mysteries From Around the World Halloween, Halloween Special, Unsolved Mysteries
Image from Wikimedia

He was discovered dead on an Australian beach in 1948, and no one knows who he was or how he died to this day. An autopsy was unable to confirm the cause of death, however police suspected he may have taken a rare poison that left no trace. According to CNN, “there were no signs of violence, almost all the labels on his clothes had been cut off, and he wasn’t carrying any ID.” A hidden pocket in his trousers contained a piece of paper that read “Tamam Shud,” which means “the end” in Persian and is the conclusion of a poem called “The Rubaiyat.”

The day before the Somerton Man’s disappearance, a man discovered a book in his car, with the page containing that part of the poem ripped off. This book had a phone number and a code scrawled on it that detectives were unable to decipher. For more than 70 years, investigators have been baffled by this case, which remains one of the world’s most mysterious unresolved cases.

Suggested by: u/Longjumping_Toe3929

Unsolved Mystery 6: Lucila Lalu a.k.a. The “Chop Chop” Lady – Metro Manila, Philippines

On May 28 and 29, 1967, police officers discovered multiple dismembered human body parts in Manila and Makati 

The first set, bundled in a May 14 newspaper, contained four frozen parts of a woman’s pair of legs. It was discovered in a garbage can at the corner of Rizal Avenue and Malabon Street in Sta. Cruz.

The second discovery was a torso with arms tied behind the back near the Guadalupe Bridge in EDSA. It was similarly wrapped in newspaper, this time with the date May 23 written on it.

The police finally identified the body pieces as belonging to one person based on fingerprints in their database, despite the fact that her head was never recovered. Lucila Lalu, 28, was a Pampanga native who managed a beauty shop and a restaurant in Manila.

Three suspects were investigated, including Jose Luis Santiano, a 28-year-old student who went to the police two weeks after the body parts were found and confessed to the crime.

Three days later, however, he retracted his testimony, saying that he was just an “unwilling witness” to the crime, which was actually perpetrated by three men.

The case thereafter became more confusing, and the NBI finally freed him after taking over the investigation when the fiscal determined the evidence to be unconvincing.

After four decades, the murder case of Lucila Lalu the “Chop-Chop Lady”  remains unsolved.

To read more, here’s an article. And here’s a subreddit from u/forevermayborn.

Unsolved Mystery 7: The lost colony of Roanoke – North Carolina, USA

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Image from Science.Org

In 1587, John White led a group of people to establish an English colony from Britain on Roanoke Island, one of the Outer Banks of North Carolina’s barrier islands. White returned three years later to find the colony had been meticulously abandoned, with all dwellings and fortifications systematically dismantled. White had instructed the colonists before leaving the colony to carve a cross onto a nearby tree if they were taken by force; however, there was no cross. The only clue was the word “Croatoan” etched on a post, the name of an English-allied tribal tribe. White believed this to mean that the colonists had relocated to Croatoan Island (now known as Hatteras).

Following investigations, claims that the colonists were massacred by the Powhatan tribe surfaced, but there is no archaeological evidence of this, and a recent re-examination of primary sources suggests that any massacre took place not of this specific group of colonists, but of a group of colonists who had arrived earlier. More persistent theories involve colonists mixing with Croatoans or other neighboring tribes, but no DNA evidence has positively identified any colony descendants. These ocean mysteries continue to baffle scientists.

You can read more about it here.

Unsolved Mystery 8: The Ghost Ship of the Mary Celeste – Atlantic Ocean

mary celeste painting paul begg 10 Strangest Unsolved Mysteries From Around the World Halloween, Halloween Special, Unsolved Mysteries
A painting of the Mary Celeste by Paul Begg. Image credit: Paul Begg

On December 4, 1872, an abandoned British-American ship “the Mary Celeste” was discovered adrift in the Atlantic Ocean. It was found to be perfectly unsinkable and with all of its cargo intact, with the exception of a lifeboat, which looked to have been boarded in an orderly fashion. But why is that? We may never know because no one on board was ever found.

In November 1872, the Mary Celeste set sail from New York to Genoa, Italy. Captain Benjamin Briggs and seven crew members, including Briggs’ wife and their 2-year-old daughter, manned the ship. The supplies on board were meant to last six months, and there were some luxury items on board, such as a sewing machine and an upright piano. Historians and critics generally believe that for such a worthy ship to be abandoned, some strange and dangerous circumstance must have happened. However, the most recent entry in the ship’s daily log reveals nothing unusual, and everything looked to be in order on board.

Mutiny, pirate attack, and even a gigantic octopus or sea monster attack have all been suggested as conspiracy theories throughout the years. However, the mystery surrounding this ghost ship remains unsolved.

You can read more about it here.

Unsolved Mystery 9: Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Disappearance – Southern Indian Ocean (presumed)

On March 8, 2014, a Boeing 777 carrying 239 passengers and crew members vanished into thin air while travelling from Malaysia to China. The largest global search operation in aviation history produced only 20 pieces of airplane wreckage. However, Malaysia’s Prime Minister was reluctant to comment, other than to clarify that the plane disappeared over the Indian Ocean.

The lack of closure has given rise to numerous theories, including a hijacking, a US capture, a crew suicide (it was revealed that the pilot was having marital issues), a fire aboard the aircraft, a meteor strike, and even extraterrestrial abduction.

Even after eight years have passed and $160 million has been spent searching hundreds of square miles of water, the fate of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 and the 239 passengers on board is still unknown.

You can read more about the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 here.

Unsolved Mystery 10: The Dyatlov Pass incident – Ural Mountains, Russia

Nine ski-hikers mysteriously died on the first night of February 1959 in the mountains of what is now Russia. The group had made camp on a slope the night of the incident, eaten dinner, and got ready for bed, but something went disastrously wrong because they never showed up again.

The hikers’ abandoned tent, which had been torn open from the inside, was discovered by rescuers on February 26. The group had left footprints all about the area, some of which were barefoot, some of which were in a single shoe, and all of which extended to the edge of a nearby wood. The first two victims were discovered there, without shoes and only wearing underpants.

The bodies at the scene and the other seven that were found over the next months all had indications of hypothermia, but when medical examiners investigated them, it became clear that this was not how they had died. In fact, the evidence made no sense at all. One person had third-degree burns, another had blunt force trauma suggesting a vicious assault, one had been vomiting blood, one was missing a tongue, and some of their clothes were found to be radioactive.

Numerous theories have circulated, including KGB interference, drug overdose, Alien abductions, gravitational anomalies, and the Russian Yeti. A theory about the terrifying but real phenomenon known as “infrasound” was recently put forth by a documentary filmmaker.

According to this theory, the wind and topography interact to produce a hum that is barely audible but can still cause strong feelings of nauseousness, panic, dread, chills, nervousness, an increased heart rate, and breathing problems. There is still just one point of agreement: Whatever happened included a strong, perhaps “inhuman force.”

A new expedition’s video footage supports the popular hypothesis that a special type avalanche was to blame for the mysterious deaths, according to Vice and History UK. Until an official report is released, the case remains unsolved.

Polly Amora

Polly Amora is the señorita behind GoldenIslandSenorita.Net. A corporate warrior by day, and a perpetual explorer by heart. She is a lifelong learner who is very outgoing, speaks four languages, loud & outspoken, and loves to have adventures in the mountains, on the beach, and in the city. You can throw her anywhere, and she'll handle it like a pro. Ice cream and bourbon are two of her weaknesses.

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