Your favourite unsolved mystery?

firefly08 wrote:

The Shroud Of Turin. I read a book a few years ago that made an attempt to explain it, it was called The Second Messiah. The authors had a really clever explanation for the whole thing, which managed to explain every mysterious detail of the shroud and it's history...just no actual evidence unfortunately. They appear to have pulled the whole story out of their asses...still, it was by far the most realistic and convincing theory I've ever heard.

The shorud is an interesting one alright. An American amateur researcher(a non religious one too) has done some interesting work on it. His idea is that the shroud is older the C14 tests done on it and it's not a medieval artifact. He has a few reasons for believing this. Apparently the length of the cloth is shorter than it should be and was originally made up of one length split into three. The main part the shroud, the next largest peice the headscarf/covering or sudarium(this piece is mentioned in one of the gospel accounts) and a thin piece at the the end used as a belt/binder to wrap around the body. He thinks he knows where the headcovering is. In Spain http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudarium_of_Oviedo It matches in bloodtype and type of cloth. Now it can be dated historically way before the shroud and way before the shroud's C14 dating. So if they are connected we can bring the shroud back to the 7th century. Then other researchers, also amateurs but religious types, noted that the part of the shroud used for carbon dating was contaminated by medieval fibres and thus the dating is not reliable. Sadly the church worried about mould forming took bad advice and fumigated the box containing the shroud which means carbon dating will likely be not possible anymore. Another researcher found records in the Byzantine empire of a shroud fitting the description very closely of the Turin one that was venerated in the 5th century and then stolen. Apparently it was rolled into a box in a particular way differently to how the shroud has been in Europe and guess what, those earlier folds are still detectable. The plot defo thickens. Whatever about a medieval forger making the thing, how a late classical forger did it is truly fascinating and mysterious.

AudreyHepburn wrote: »

Amelia Earheart

IMH crashed in the sea either because of technical issues with her aricraft or running out of fuel. The latter I'd have less faith in as she was one helluva aviatrix so I'd go with catastrophic failure of on of her systems. Why hasn't she been found? The sea swallows up countless stories and lives without trace. Even today.

What happened to Tutankhamun ( Egyptian Pharoah for those who don't know)

Probably natural causes, most likely an infection. He wasn't the strongest of lads even at 19. His ma and da were brother and sister so the line was very inbred. He had bone disease, a club foot, cleft palate and needed (ornate) crutches to get around so was kinda bollexed. Murder is a possibility, but I doubt it myself. He was too weak and powerless to be much of a threat. Better to have a pliant king than a headstrong one you can't control. Oh yea and there was never a curse on his tomb. No Pharaoh's tomb ever had one.

Mr. Presentable wrote:

Who were the first Europeans to the Americas? Surely not the Romans? In my uneducated opinion if a ship made it, it was blown there in a storm.

Maybe even way earlier than that. The so called first "americans"(they weren't) the so called Clovis peoples of around 11,000 years ago don't have Asian style stone tools, but European style ones. Later Europeans? Well the Vikings defo made it and our own Brendan the navigator and his monks likely did, or it's possible. Columbus himself thought oul Bren had found the Indies and read much on the Brendan Voyage. Well it was a medieval and later "bestseller".

--Kaiser-- wrote: »

Taking some examples from this thread:
Dyatolov Pass incident - seems the explanations that they thought there was an avalanche (due to jets passing overhead) or else that they were attacked by natives are both very possible and believable. No reason to bring in secret weapon tests or aliens.

I dunno. The natives killing them seems an unlikely one. The only footprints found were the skiers own and the apparent chronology of events seem at odds with that too. The avalanche theory seems more plausible. Though a couple of problems with that one too. One there wasn't any evidence of one. Two they were camped in an area not prone to them and if one had occurred it would have missed the camp by a large distance(experienced hikers so picked the right spot, though why they didnt stay in the shelter of the relatively close forest is puzzling in itself). Jets passing overhead while rumbling would pass over head quickly. From the time they'd hear the approach, rouse from sleep, get out of the tents chances are the jets and noise would be gone. If they thought avalanche why all run in one direction? If they thought they were at risk from same why get out of their clothes in their tents(that's odd itself given the temps) or not stay in the treeline? I suspect they heard or saw or thought they heard or saw something(suspected bear/wolves?) approaching the campsite and ran in group/herd terror away from it and the elements took their toll. Maybe earlier in the day they had spotted a bear in the distance and hyped up the fear?

The Tunguska event - seems obvious from all the evidence available that it was a simple meteor strike. No need to evoke alien ships crashing to Earth.

Or comet.

I think Occams razor is a very helpful tool in these cases. If you have a simple, rational and possible explanation, stop looking for more complex ones.

Very true.