Your favourite unsolved mystery?

silliussoddius wrote: »

Sounds very similar to the virgins in the afterlife that islamic suicide bombers go on about.

So... you know the way Irish Catholicism has a bunch of weirdness that isn't officially preached or on paper or Vatican approved and just sort of floats around as kind of fringe local folklore, like somebody Having The Cure and giving it to you with the right prayers or whatever?

The idea of having slaves in the afterlife, and sometimes specifically ones that you've killed in your lifetime, is something I've heard more than once associated with fringe/former/weirdo offshoot Mormons. Doesn't have any doctrinal basis that I'm aware of apart from one woman who was adopted as an "eternal" slave by the Smiths, Mormonism seeming to allow for the concept of somebody being a slave forever, and the idea of getting to be "God like" in the afterlife, interpreted by some fringer areas as getting to rule your own "sphere".

EDIT -

I see I'm not the only person who has heard of something like this.

What happened to the Roanoake colonists?

I recently stumbled across this old case. Who killed Harry Oakes?

Harry Oakes was an American who made his fortune in a gold mine and then moved to the Bahamas. This is back in 1935. He helped expand the Bahamas using his wealth and all seemed good.

Then in 1943 he was killed with an ice pick. A miners hand pick was used to hit him behind the ear to disguise the ice pick wound. Then his body burned with insecticide and then the body sprinkled with feathers from a mattress!!

Just at that time his daughter had eloped with Count Alfred De Marigny. So they thought he did it but his daughter stood by him. Because it was the middle of WW2 Scotland Yard detectives would be difficult to bring over. So they brought 2 American detectives from Miami. They forgot their own fingerprint kits so had to use the locals. They took over the case when they were only meant to help the locals and supposedly found a fingerprint of Count Alfred at the scene. Later it was found that they used his print from a glass of water when they were questioning him!

Even though everyone thought Alfred did it, he was acquitted as the detectives fabricated evidence. The jury said that he was an "unsavoury character" though and he got deported after the trial!

So who did it? There have been a load of books written about it. Some saying Alfred did indeed do it and Alfred himself wrote a book on it. One of the most recent ones was one saying it was a local conspiracy as Oakes was going to leave and take his money. Then this would cripple the Bahamas and people there had to do something to keep his money there.

The Wikipedia page about it is here. It is fascinating stuff!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Oakes#Murder

Cheerful Spring2 wrote: »

Cockpit depressurization, lack of oxygen i think probably right, but a guess.. Pilots maybe feel asleep after it? End of plane.

With depressurization the cockpit will get a warning that something is going amiss with the pressure. Masks too should deploy in the cabin automatically... they are not deployed automatically in the cockpit the crew need to get and put on but they are beside them literally... that’s why it’s so weird.... nothing about that accident if it indeed was one, makes sense.

BorneTobyWilde wrote: »

Chicago Tylenol murders


The Chicago Tylenol Murders were a series of poisoning deaths resulting from drug tampering in the Chicago metropolitan area in 1982. The victims had all taken Tylenol-branded acetaminophen capsules that had been laced with potassium cyanide.[1] A total of seven people died in the original poisonings, with several more deaths in subsequent copycat crimes.

No suspect was ever charged or convicted of the poisonings

At least they had no more headaches...

Oldtree wrote: »

Were Arthur c Clarke's crystal skulls really made in ancient times. Always wanted one.

This was my fav mystery - the level of technology and the amount of trees it would have taken to melt and shape the glass was above anything they could have produced - I saw the Arthur C Clarke one once displayed in the British Museum. Featured of course in an Indianna Jones movie....

Its gone from the Museum now - they discovered tiny tool cut marks that indicated it was finished on a fairly modern cutting wheel - so, fake unfortunately, all of them. Good to know though.

Peter Bergman remains my favourite unsolved mystery. Can't get my head around it.

EmmetSpiceland wrote: »

‘Mythbusters’ did a piece about it and proved it was well within Oswald’s abilities to get off 3 shots in that timeframe.

Always strikes me as odd that Oswald’s links to a previous assassination “attempt” of an army general rarely gets mentioned.

Because it reinforces his motive which doesn't suit the conspiracy theorist narrative. Unfortunately about 95% of books and writing on the subject are pro conspiracy and they've ruined it as a case.

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts wrote: »

I think blister packs weren’t as commonplace back then and the tablets came in capsule form (the type where one part fits into another) rather than the solid formulation they come in today. So you could place cyanide in a capsule and then fit it back together. I don’t know what the seals on the bottles were like. You’d think it would be noticeable that the seals were tampered with. The Tylenol murders brought about a lot of new regulations re: packaging and formulation. Sorry, I’m a bit of a pharma nerd having previously worked in that industry. I nerd out on stuff like that. :cool:

Yes, based on research that consists of listening to maybe 2 podcasts, I'm here to say that the tablets definitely weren't in blister packs. I remember the early 1980s myself and tablets came loose in small lidded containers, with a wad of cotton wool under the lid for some reason.

mrsdewinter wrote: »

Yes, based on research that consists of listening to maybe 2 podcasts, I'm here to say that the tablets definitely weren't in blister packs. I remember the early 1980s myself and tablets came loose in small lidded containers, with a wad of cotton wool under the lid for some reason.

the cotton was to stop the tablets rattling around in the bottle.

The Nal wrote: »

I watched this, equal parts interesting and frustrating.

Downloaded that to watch tonight. Came across the following recently as well - another in a million theories of course but I have to say the guy makes a very persuasive argument as to how the skyjacking possibly took place - he doesn't identify a suspect but makes a good case that it was probably an active duty US overseas arms forces member - and that he didn't parachute out where is commonly believed:
https://retiredinvestigator.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/updated-ii-db-cooper-step-out-of-the-shadow-spring-2019.pdf

Short read - 13 pages or so.

Monolake wrote: »

My favourite unsolved mystery is a personal one. A friend and I, both aged about 15 at the time and star watching on a summer night, saw a bright light in the sky moving in very definite triangular shapes and bolting around at a rapid speed. Then it stopped, flashed twice and accelerated away in a straight line at what looked like, from the ground at least, an absolutely astonishing pace.

I am the most cynical and sceptical person imaginable. If it can't be examined, measured or otherwise verified then I don't believe in it. And yet we both saw the same thing that night and to this day, nearly 25 years later, I can't even muster up a layman's explanation of what it was, except that it was definitely, in its most literal sense, an unidentified flying object.

Just catching up on the thread seen something very similar in April of 93.Still can't explain it.