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History’s 10 Most Bizarre Mysteries

Saturday, January 18, 2014 9:48

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(Before It's News)

There’s a reason why Unsolved Mysteries has been one of the longest-running shows of all time – did you know it first broadcast in January of 1987? To put that into perspective (for myself, at least) I was two when it aired. Yes, you finally know how old I am.

Part of the reason it’s been successful has been because everyone loves to learn about a good, juicy mystery. Below, I’ve listed what I believe are History’s top ten unsolved mysteries. Keep in mind that I’ve tried to make them as Pg-13 as possible.

10. The Fate of Hitler’s Stolen Wealth

Purportedly, this is the biggest hoard ever: an indescribable collection of stolen gold bars, jewellery, and foreign currencies, with an approximate value of $4 billion USD. These looted treasures vanished in the blink of an eye from the vaults of the Reichsbank. In the decades after World War II, a handful of stolen valuables were found in Sweden, Portugal, Turkey, Switzerland, and Spain, but they barely match up to the value of the Fuhrer’s believed to be wealth.

Groups all over the world are still on the manhunt to find Hitler’s stolen wealth, but even after 69 years, the question remains: Where is the gold? The only sure thing is that the anonymity of the treasures stays mystifying, with all its reports, speculations, and legends tangled around it. One of the most popular beliefs is that Hitler himself buried it in a secret location somewhere in Deutschneudorf, Germany. Some treasure hunters believe that the plunder is lying at the bottom of LakeToplitz in Austria, while others suggest that it’s stashed in banks around the world.

9. Rongorongo

Rongorongo is considered to be Easter Island‘s other mystery. It is the hieroglyphic script used by people who inhabited the island many centuries go. While none of the adjacent peoples had a written language, Rongorongo appeared from nowhere in the 1700s. Early colonists banned the language; its connotation was lost eternally. Just by looking at the tablet you will see what appear to be body parts and humans. This reinforces our theory that this was some type of menu.

8. Locating the Remains of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus is probably the most famous European explorer of all time, and we know pretty much everything about his life – except for one thing. After he died in 1509, his remains continued to travel, and mystery still surrounds the exact location of his burial. Originally buried in the Spanish city of Vigiadolid, in 1537 his bones were moved to the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean, as per his wishes. But when the Spanish lost the island to France in 1795, his remains were relocated to Cuba where they stayed until the Spanish-American war. They were ultimately returned to Seville, Spain, in 1898.

However, Dominican Republic argues that the remnants of Columbus never left Hispaniola. In 1877, in the Cathedral of Santo Domingo, a box was revealed. Its inscription stated that the remains inside were those of the “glorious and eminent Cristobal Colon.” A DNA analysis conducted on the bones in Seville and on those of Columbus’s brother Diego were a perfect match. When researchers announced these findings in 2006, the controversy surrounding Columbus’s earthly remains should have been resolved. However, the Dominican Republic openly challenged the results of the DNA testing, and for years has asked for a DNA analysis of the bones in Hispaniola, leaving open a window of doubt.

7. Secrets of the Phaistos Disc

The Minoan Civilization is considered by most historians to be the first organized Western civilization, and it has been named “the first link in the European chain.” The Phaistos Disc, which was discovered in 1908 by Italian archaeologist Luigi Pernier in the ancient city of Phaistos, gave hope to even the least optimistic among us that it would help us understand the Minoan civilization in more detail.

But the Phaistos Disc is a global conundrum that has kept its secrets hidden for thousands of years. A suggestion about what its inscription means include a hymn, a prayer, and a geometric theorem for the calendar, and the narrative of a story. However, the global scientific community has not been able to confirm any of these. After decades of research, a diverse team of scientists intensively studying the Minoan language and the text of the Phaistos Disc may have come close to solving one of the biggest mysteries of archaeology, but so far the Disc remains an absolutely unsolved mystery.

6. Black Dahlia

In 1947, the body of Elizabeth Short was discovered in two pieces in a parking lot in Los Angeles. According to many media reports shortly after the murder, Short received the nickname “Black Dahlia” at a Long Beach drugstore in the summer of 1946, as a play on the then-current movie The Blue Dahlia. However, Los Angeles County district attorney reports state the nickname was invented by newspaper reporters who were reporting on the murder. In either case, Short was not viewed as the “Black Dahlia” throughout her life. That has not stopped people from spreading rumours and tales about the Black Dahlia, and the investigation still remains unsolved.