The Worlds Most Famous Unsolved Mysteries

The Assassination of John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy was shot once in the back and once in head while riding with his wife Jacqueline in a Presidential motorcade through the streets of Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963. Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested 45 minutes after the shots were fired. After hours of interrogation, in which none of the proper procedures were followed, he was accused of murder. He was killed by Jack Ruby in the garage of the police building on November 24 in front of hundreds of journalists. On November 29, President Lyndon B. Johnson created the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination. It was headed by Earl Warren, the Chief Justice of the United States, and found that Oswald was the lone shooter and that he did it from the sixth floor of the Schoolbook Depository Building with an Italian Mannlicher-Carcano rifle.

Jack the Ripper

One of the oldest unsolved murder cases in the world, Jack the Ripper instilled fear into the heart of Victorian London and still captures our imagination today. Between August and November 1888, five prostitutes were murdered in Whitechapel, an area in the East End of London. Everything about the murders seems to be shrouded in mystery, from the identity of the killer to the letters that were sent to the police. Even the number of victims is under scrutiny. It is generally accepted that there were five victims of Jack the Ripper. Jack the Ripper had a real effect on, not only the rest of London, but also the entire British Empire. The legend played on the fears that poverty, crime, disease and social unrest were at their doorstep, and Jack the Ripper became the personification of all these evils.

The Mystery of Stonehenge

Built in three sections over 6,400 years by the Neolithic inhabitants of Salisbury Plain in Southern England, Stonehenge has captivated visitors for thousands of years. The site contains 30 sarcens (upright stones) weighing 26 tons and 30 lintels (horizontal top stones). Each stone weighs 6 tons and was carved from bluestone from a location several miles away. The Neolithic builders were able to create a monumental that has perplexed humanity for thousands of years using only stone tools, and without using draft animals. Even after all these years, nobody really knows why Stonehenge was built. The other mysteries surrounding Stonehenge are its construction and the significance of the giant blue stones used. As a result of the recent discovery, a new theory has emerged, one that states that Stonehenge was a place to celebrate the lives of the dead.

The Lost Island of Atlantis

--> One of the oldest mysteries in the world, the legend of Atlantis has mystified humanity since ancient times. According to the Greek philosopher Plato, Atlantis was a large island somewhere west of the Pillars of Hercules (the Rock of Gibraltar) and the home of an incredibly advanced civilization known as the Atlanteans. Plato described Atlantis as a place of immense beauty with a palace compound in the center of three ringed canals. He said that every king that inherited the palace would add to it, trying to surpass his predecessor and by doing so they made it a palace that surpassed any other in both beauty and wealth. The Atlanteans themselves were blessed with wealth but at the same they were incredibly ambitious, constantly seeking power. Atlantis is said to have met its end when it was hit by a giant earthquake and swallowed by the sea. But is any of this the truth or is the story of Atlantis just a myth?

The Riddle of the Sphinx

When one thinks of the Sphinx, they immediately think of the Great Sphinx at Giza, but the Sphinx was a powerful symbol in Greece, Phoenicia and Syria as well. In fact Riddle of the Sphinx originates in Greek legend. According to the ancient Greeks, if a man crossed its path the Sphinx would ask, “What is the creature that walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon and three in the evening?” If they couldn’t answer, the Sphinx would devour them; however, if they answered correctly, the Sphinx would destroy itself. The only person said to survive an encounter with the Sphinx was the Greek hero Oedipus who answered “man.” Despite the riddle being solved, the Great Sphinx still poses many questions. How old is it? Who built it? And what was the purpose of the passageways?

Lost cities found beneath sands of the Sahara

Ruins from a long-lost civilization have been revealed beneath the desert sands of the Sahara. Evidence of the advanced Garamantes civilization had remained mostly undocumented due to the strict regime of Colonel Gaddafi, but now due to recent events in Libya archaeologists have a chance to finally investigate in full the secrets of this long lost ancient culture. “It is like someone coming to England and suddenly discovered all the medieval castles,” said Proffessor David Mattingly. “These settlements had been unremarked and unrecorded under the Gaddafi regime.”

Mysterious skull discovered in Peru

An elongated skull found in the city of Andahuaylillas has managed to baffle anthropologists. The skull possesses a number of unusual features including an elongated cranium, enlarged eye sockets and a set of adult teeth despite the fact that the skull appears to belong to an infant. A group of anthropologists who visited the site to view the skull allegedly concluded that it wasn’t even human while others have suggested that it could be the product of an ancient technique known as “cradle boarding” in which the child’s skull was elongated from an early age.

Bigfoot (aka Sasquatch)

Bigfoot is world-famous for spooking the bejesus out of hikers and hunters in North America and Scientists consider Sasquatch to be the result of folklore, misidentification and a whole lot of hoaxes. However, many people still believe these humanoid creatures exist around the world, just like the Yeti of the Himalayas. One of the most infamous unexplained mysteries in the world today, Bigfoot has been described as an ape-like creature, some 6-10 feet tall, weighing more than 500 pounds, and covered in dark brown or reddish hair. Witnesses give him large eyes, a heavy brow ridge and a crested head, much like a male gorilla. Footprints allegedly belonging to Bigfoot are 24 inches long.

Black Dahlia

She was known as the “Black Dahlia”. She had jet black hair and preferred black dresses and lingerie. Those who knew her best said she had a tattoo of an exotic flower on her inner thigh. She wanted desperately to be a Hollywood actress, but her fame would not come from the movies. It would come from her death, a murder which has gone unsolved for 60 years. On a cold morning in January 1947, the nude, mutilated body of 22-year-old Elizabeth Short was discovered in a vacant lot in the Leimert Park area of Los Angeles. What made the murder so unique was the barbaric nature of the crime. The Black Dahlia’s body had been neatly severed in half, gutted and drained of blood. Author Lawrence P. Scherb put the unusual crime into perspective: “Her face had been very brutally cut from ear to ear in a grin. Her throat had been cut and she had been mutilated sexually. Basically, she was the worst case of a sex crime in the history of Los Angeles County.”