mystery – News Stories About mystery - Page 8

Perpetual Terrorist 'Victim' Really Just a Con Artist

Jul 6, 2016 9:03 AM CDT

Perpetual Terrorist 'Victim' Really Just a Con Artist

But he's not the one putting his own picture up after each terrorist attack

(Newser) - He's gone missing in the Istanbul airport attack and the May EgyptAir crash , as well as been named a victim of the Pulse Orlando shooting and as an official who ordered police to shoot at a group of Mexican protesters in June, but who "he" is remains a...

Disturbing Letters Found After House Explodes

Jun 30, 2016 6:49 PM CDT

Disturbing Letters Found After House Explodes

2 bodies have been found, but police aren't saying much

(Newser) - Mystery surrounds the explosion of a home in Mississauga, Ontario, Tuesday. A woman's body was recovered from the rubble that day, and on Thursday night, a man's body was found, Global News reports. Their identities have not been released, but police have released the names of two people...

What the Heck Is Up
With This Reddit Mystery?

What the Heck Is Up With This Reddit Mystery?

At first no one noticed the numbers and letters quietly churning away at A858

(Newser) - It all started back in 2011 when a Reddit account began posting an indecipherable sequence of numbers and letters to a new subreddit, r/A858DE45F56D9BC9, or r/A858 for short. After languishing in Internet obscurity for nearly a year, another Reddit user requested more information, asking: "Do these seemingly random strings...

'Biggest Case
of Stolen Art'
in SC History
Solved, Kind Of

'Biggest Case of Stolen Art' in SC History Solved, Kind Of

11 of 17 missing works belonging to Belle Baruch found

(Newser) - "The biggest case of stolen art in South Carolina history" has been solved, at least partially, some 13 years after the art went missing from Hobcaw Barony. That's the name of the estate that belonged to Belle Baruch, an equestrian and horse breeder so known for her skills...

Philly PD Admits
Its SUV Was Masked
as Google Maps
Vehicle

May 13, 2016 1:40 PM CDT

Philly PD Admits Its SUV Was Masked as Google Maps Vehicle

SUV decked out with technology to spy on drivers (and fake Google decal)

(Newser) - The Philly PD has a "mystery" on its hands, and it involves one of its own vehicles. On Wednesday, a University of Pennsylvania professor spotted an SUV near the Philadelphia Convention Center, souped up with two high-tech license-plate readers and a placard linking it to the Pennsylvania State Police—...

$Prof Solves 300-Year-Old Math Mystery, Wins $700K$

Prof Solves 300-Year-Old
Math Mystery, Wins $700K

Prof Solves 300-Year-Old Math Mystery, Wins $700K

Oxford professor had been trying to crack Fermat's Last Theorem since he was a boy

(Newser) - An Oxford professor is now $700,000 richer for solving a 300-year-old math mystery, the Telegraph reports. In 1994, Andrew Wiles, 62, cracked Fermat's Last Theorem, which was put forth by 17th-century mathematician Pierre de Fermat. Wiles will be traveling to Oslo, Norway, in May to collect the 2016...

Mystery of Man Who Killed
Himself in 2001 Still Intrigues

Mar 5, 2016 10:55 AM CST

Mystery of Man Who Killed Himself in 2001 Still Intrigues

Who was Lyle Stevik?

(Newser) - On Sept. 14, 2001, a 20something man calling himself Lyle Stevik got a room at the Lake Quinault Inn , a rundown motel on Washington's Olympic Peninsula. Three days later, the inn's maid discovered the man dead in his room. He had used a leather belt to hang himself...

Mystery of Elisa Lam Still Haunts Internet Sleuths

Oct 31, 2015 11:00 AM CDT

Mystery of Elisa Lam Still Haunts Internet Sleuths

Clear-cut to some, others are not convinced we have all the facts

(Newser) - When 21-year-old Canadian college student Elisa Lam checked into the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles, she never checked out. With known bouts of depression that kept her from completing much course work at all in her first three years of college, the Canadian also left behind traces of inner turmoil...

Thousands of
Possum Tails
Mysteriously
Dot NZ Roads

Oct 28, 2015 7:40 AM CDT

Thousands of Possum Tails Mysteriously Dot NZ Roads

No one has a clue how they got there or why

(Newser) - Thousands of possum tails turned up mysteriously scattered across roads large and small in the Auckland and Northland regions of New Zealand over the weekend. Travelers who've counted them as frequently as every few hundred yards have been posting about them on Facebook, reports the New Zealand Herald , but...

Woman's Fingers
Returned to Her
80 Years After Death

Oct 20, 2015 7:11 AM CDT

Woman's Fingers Returned to Her 80 Years After Death

New Zealand is repatriating the remains of 37 individuals

(Newser) - When New Zealand educator Jessie Marguerite Fendell was found in a dry creek bed at the bottom of a cliff near the school where she worked in 1933, her family didn't believe that her death was an accident. So investigators exhumed her body three months later, sent her fingers...

Woman 'Murdered' in
1984 Found Very
Much Alive

Sep 25, 2015 2:11 PM CDT

Woman 'Murdered' in 1984 Found Very Much Alive

She won't say what prompted her mysterious disappearance

(Newser) - A German woman assumed to have been murdered more than 30 years ago was found alive by police earlier this month, NBC News reports. But far from solving the mystery of her disappearance, her unexpected return is only deepening it. According to the Daily Express , 24-year-old Petra Pazsitka left her...

Millions May
Still Be Out
There From
'70s Murder

Sep 22, 2015 9:03 AM CDT

Millions May Still Be Out There From '70s Murder

FBI agent investigating heiress's murder may have lifted cash: reporter

(Newser) - During the last few months of her life, Marjorie Jackson became wary of keeping her inherited fortune in the bank, so she withdrew $8.6 million and stashed it in garbage bags, drawers, and toolboxes all over her Indianapolis home, the Indianapolis Star reports. And she may have had even...

Boy Still Missing 4 Years After Mom Killed Herself

'You'll never find him,' said suicide note left by Timmothy Pitzen's mother

(Newser) - An Illinois mom who killed herself four years ago after going on the run with her 6-year-old son left an ominous suicide note behind that, so far, has proven true. "You'll never find him," Amy Fry-Pitzen wrote of little Timmothy, whom she had taken out of kindergarten...

Linguist Claims He's Solved
Gulliver's Travels Riddle

NEW STUDY

Aug 12, 2015 7:32 AM CDT

Linguist Claims He's Solved Gulliver's Travels Riddle

Irving Rothman says he's solved the centuries-old mystery

(Newser) - Long have scholars debated the origins of the "nonsense" language in Jonathan Swift's most famous novel, Gulliver's Travels, though Isaac Asimov once said making sense of it is a "waste of time" because "I suspect that Swift simply made up nonsense for the purpose."...

Trillions of Glow-in-the-Dark
Fanged Fish Live in Ocean

Jun 30, 2015 4:13 PM CDT

Trillions of Glow-in-the-Dark Fanged Fish Live in Ocean

Bristlemouth is most numerous vertebrate on Earth, though it remains mysterious

(Newser) - What's believed to be the most numerous vertebrate on Earth is also one you've probably never heard of or seen—yet scientists say the bristlefish, a fanged creature that glows in the dark and lives deep down in the ocean, likely numbers in the thousands of trillions, reports...

Car Crash Solves
40-Year-Old Mystery
10K Miles Away

Car Crash Solves 40-Year-Old Mystery 10K Miles Away

Raymond Grady Stansel Jr. disappeared in 1974 right before drug-smuggling trial

(Newser) - When an elderly man in north Queensland, Australia, died in a car crash in May, the local paper ran a story that described an "outpouring of grief" in the town where he ran his crocodile-cruise company for almost 30 years. But as the Tampa Bay Times details in a...

Is This the 20th Century's Most Baffling Cold Case?

Jun 13, 2015 12:00 PM CDT

Is This the 20th Century's Most Baffling Cold Case?

We don't know who the Somerton Man was, or how he died

(Newser) - It’s a mystery as maddening as it is intriguing: Who was the still-unidentified Somerton Man, a suit-clad, 40-something man who was found dead on an Australian beach near Adelaide—possibly by poison—on the morning of Dec. 1, 1948? Graeme Wood boils 66 years of sleuthing, developments, twists, and...

Weird Battery Still Runs
175 Years Later

Jan 26, 2015 5:10 PM CST

Weird Battery Still Runs 175 Years Later

The Oxford Electric Bell has rung about 10B times

(Newser) - Like scientific mysteries? Then check out the Oxford Electric Bell, a battery-powered device that's still ringing 175 years after it was made, the Smithsonian reports. Sitting in the Clarendon Laboratory at Oxford University, it makes a little metal ball move swiftly back and forth between two bells. How its...

UN May Look Into
'Great Political
Mystery' of
1960s

Dec 15, 2014 9:58 AM CST

UN May Look Into 'Great Political Mystery' of 1960s

What happened in plane crash that killed Dag Hammarskjold?

(Newser) - For more than 50 years, the death of Swedish diplomat Dag Hammarskjold has remained one of the era's biggest mysteries. The UN secretary-general's plane plummeted out of the skies in September 1961 in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) as he flew to orchestrate a ceasefire between Congo's government...

Why Rubber Blocks
Keep Appearing on
Europe's Beaches

Dec 1, 2014 11:46 AM CST

Why Rubber Blocks Keep Appearing on Europe's Beaches

They come from shipwrecks—including, perhaps, the Titanic

(Newser) - From Britain to Spain to Denmark, rubbery blocks have recently washed up on beaches, all bearing the same word: Tjipetir. It's still not certain where each block comes from, but a woman who found one while walking her dog in England has a pretty good idea, the BBC reports....