We asked our regular contributors through e-mail What are some SOLVED mysteries? We got many interesting responses. Here are some of them. We have just copied and pasted their responses, not editing them in any way.
1. In 1981, a Soviet submarine ran aground in Swedish waters. This was a huge deal – although the Soviets claimed the sub was in distress and didn’t purposefully enter Swedish waters, basically, everyone in Sweden saw it as evidence that their waters were being invaded by spy subs. Plus, they did some snooping of their own and determined that the sub was emitting radiation, meaning it had nukes on board. So they went along with the Soviets’ clearly false claim about an accident and helped get the sub out of there, but panic was in the air.
So the Swedes did exactly what you’d expect, and they prepared for more Soviet subs. I mean, when you see one Soviet sub, surely there are more, right? So Sweden developed advanced acoustic technology to detect subs and they created a plan to basically seal off their waters when they heard a sub. And wouldn’t you know it, a year later, they found a Soviet sub! Well, they didn’t find it, but they absolutely heard it. And they cut off the bay and figured they just had to hunt the sub down. But after a month, they couldn’t find it. They gave up and reopened the bay, but they assumed the sub found a way out. But they’ll get it next time! And then it happened again, but they couldn’t find it again. And then again and again with no clear pattern for a decade. What the heck!
Thankfully, the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed. So… no more subs, right? Nyet! Because the Russian subs were still coming! Wait, what?
Okay, so now nothing is making sense. At this point, the Swedish military brought in outside experts to figure out what was happening. This included oceanographer-types who were obvious experts in the surrounding waters. The military then played the audio evidence of the Soviet submarines, only to be told they weren’t submarines at all – they were fish, and the propeller-like sound was water being released from their swim bladders.
And that’s the story of how the Swedish military spent ten years and tens of millions of dollars chasing fish farts.
– DecoyOne
2. The Case of Adrienne Shelly – screenwriter for Waitress. Husband came home to find her hanging in the shower – ruled suicide.
He insists she was happy and would never kill herself promoting another view of the crime scene where they found a shoe print that matched a construction worker in the building.
Sure enough, the construction worker went to rob her and thought he killed her so staged a suicide when the hanging ended up being the actual thing that killed her.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrienne_Shelly
– Juniper338
3. The Sailing Stones of Death Valley:
Video here:
– Kaidomac
4. In the 1970s, a number of Japanese citizens disappeared from coastal areas in Japan. After many years it was found out that North Korea had abducted them.
North Korean abductions of Japanese citizens
– your-playboy
5. Grand Duchess Anastasia was in fact killed with the rest of her family in 1918. She never escaped and several women throughout the 20th century claiming to be her lied.
The site of the execution of the Tsar and his family was completely untouched until 1991. The excavation found only 9 of the 11 expected remains. It wasn’t until 2007 that two further sets of remains were found a small distance away from the previous gravesite. DNA testing found that one of the sets of remains belonged to Tsarevich Alexei and the other to one of his sisters. With this find, it proved conclusively that the entire Imperial family was in fact executed and buried in 1918.
– waltwaffle
6. The Bloop
– Herp_derpelson
7. While it doesn’t give us who the Zodiac killer is, just recently his most infamous 340 ciphers was solved after 51 years.
– midnighthockey99
8. The Siberian craters. As the permafrost melts, the methane gas gets released and it sometimes ignites.
– tomasves02
9. Where is the Titanic? (Most people don’t realize that half of the people in the world grew up when the ship’s location was still a complete mystery. Now, it’s old news.
– SyzoBAZ
10. The Solway Spaceman: In 1964, Jim Templeton, a fireman from the English city of Carlisle, was spending an afternoon out with his family when he snapped a photograph his young daughter without much thought. But when he got home and had the film developed, he noticed what has now become known as the the Solway Spaceman. The photo shows what many people say is a person in some form of space suit. Kodak even analyzed the photo and their experts said it was authentic, lending to the spaceman theory.
The spaceman was his wife with her back to the camera, he was only able to see 70% of the frame and didn’t realize his wife was in the background of the picture.
– Mr_Cougarcat