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30 Brain-Rattling Mysteries and Unsolved Crimes Just Begging to Be Podcasts

Decades-old cold case? That’s a podcast! Mysterious disappearance? That’s a podcast!

30 Brain-Rattling Mysteries and Unsolved Crimes Just Begging to Be Podcasts

January 31, 2024

If you’re looking to make the next Serial, might we suggest: Please don’t. But if you simply must, try looking into one of these unsolved mysteries.

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30

CRACKED.COM How did Flight 653 crash? The Malaysian Airlines plane was hijacked mid-flight in 1977, and both pilots were killed (along with the hijacker). Then the autopilot was somehow turned off, crashing the plane. Did one of the passengers try to be a hero? What was the explosion reported by witnesses? — Source

29

Who made the Traub motorcycle? This bike was found in 1968, after tearing down a wall in Chicago. It had been hiding there for 50 years. It's the only bike of its kind, more advanced than other motorcycles of its time-and it still runs today. It's not known how it got there, or who built it. Traut CRACKED.COM — Source

28

Who buried the Saddle Ridge Hoard? While walking their dog, a California couple found in their property over 1,400 19th- century gold coins, worth a grand total of $10 million. Most of the coins were never circulated, and are in mint condition. It's the largest buried treasure ever discovered in the U.S. CRACKED.COM — Source

27

CRACKED.COM Who killed Lizzie Borden's parents? The name Lizzie Borden is synonymous with murderous maniac - people often glossing over the fact that she was acquitted. No one else was ever charged for the murder of Andrew and Abby Borden. Well over 100 years later, the case is officially unsolved. — Source

26

CRACKED.COM Who killed Mark Ruffalo's brother? When Scott Ruffalo died in 2008, police said he had been playing Russian roulette-until they found out that someone else had shot him. Two people were with him at the time, one of them a rich Saudi heiress. But if anyone knew anything, they kept their mouths well shut. — Source

25

Where did FLouil Bermeja Island go? 16th-and 17th- century maps consistently placed the tiny island northwest of Yucatán, Mexico- e Mexiq but a survey in 1997 failed to find it. It's possible the island was made up by map makers, but those aren't around to ask them-so we'll have to assume it just V skipped to an alternate universe. Veracruz Yucating tabasco Sala mane butheralat Q Redro CRACKED.COM wile — Source

24

RGO What the Hell is the Tamam Shud LIA Mystery all about? BIM All the Australian police could ever learn about the man they found was that he was dead. A piece of paper in a secret pocket read tamám shud (Persian for ended or finished). It was torn from a book where some /AB kind of code was scribbled. 70 years later, we still have no idea what any of this means. Tamám Shud CRACKED.COM — Source

23

Who was Kaspar Hauser? The boy was found wandering in Nuremberg, Germany in 1828, uneducated and acting strangely-but amazingly soon learned to read and write. Не claimed he had grown up locked up in a room. Is he some secret royal heir? everyone wondered. His mystery grew even bigger when he was murdered in 1833. CRACKED.COM — Source

22

CRACKED.COM Who is creating the Toynbee Tiles? TOYNBEE IDEA IN Kubrick's 2001 RESURRECTORAS ONPLANETO JUPTER you MUSTMAKE + GLUE Someone who is apparently very much into Stanley Kubrick and historian Arnold Toynbee has been embedding these messages in asphalt since the 1980s. It can't be just one person, as they pop up all across the U.S and South America. — Source

21

CRACKED.COM Where is D.B. Cooper (and his money)? In 1971, a guy using the name Dan Cooper took an airliner hostage, and demanded $200,000 and four parachutes. After getting what he asked for, he ordered a course for Mexico-but then he parachuted off the goddamn plane, and disappeared forever. — Source

20

CRACKED.COM Where is Lord Lucan? Is he even alive? Richard John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan, was a British playboy-also, a convicted murderer. Не was declared guilty of killing his children's nanny in 1974-but by the time of the trial, he had long disappeared. Не has been spotted over 70 times since, like some aristocratic Bigfoot. — Source

19

How did the men in the lead masks die? Two Brazilian engineers were found dead in 1966. They had a notebook which mentioned swallowing capsules, but it's not clear that they took any poison, or they intended to. Even weirder, they were wearing lead masks, of a kind used against radiation. No one could ever solve the crime-if it was a crime. CRACKED.COM — Source

18

CRACKED.COM What happened at the Dyatlov Pass? In 1959, nine Russian students went on a ski trip. While camping in a remote spot, they all fled their tent in their underwear-and died. Some of them were later found with their skulls broken. Were they attacked? Many theories were put forward, but there are no answers. — Source

17

CRACKED.COM What happened to Representative Hale Boggs? Boggs was the House majority leader in 1972, when he and fellow Representative Nick Begich took off from Anchorage, Alaska. Their Cessna was bound for Juneau, but it never arrived. A massive search failed to turn out anything (except for tons of conspiracy theory fodder). — Source

16

CRACKED.COM Did UFOs kill Zigmund Adamski? In 1980, Adamski was missing for five days before appearing on top of a coal pile, 20 miles from home. There weren't any footprints around, and Adamski had unexplained burns. Was it aliens? Well, probably not- but then this story gets even weirder, doesn't it? — Source

15

CRACKED.COM Artemus Ogletree's death was all kinds of bizarre. ESIDENT In 1935, Ogletree was murdered in the Hotel President in Kansas City, Missouri. Before he was identified (he was going by a fake name), someone paid for his funeral, and someone tried to make his family think he was still alive. What weird going-ons was Artemus involved in? We may never know. — Source

14

CRACKED.COM The Texarkana Phantom was out of a teen slasher movie. In early 1946, a mysterious serial killer attacked three young couples in parked cars, and a middle- age married couple in their home. Five of the victims were killed; the other three barely escaped. The events were fictionalized in the film The Town That Dreaded Sundown. — Source

13

CRACKED.COM Who were the Sumter County Does? They were a young white couple, possibly well-to-do foreigners. There's some indication that the guy might be Canadian. But investigators could never find out who they were, or what they were doing in Sumter County, South Carolina - or who shot them dead there. The case has been open since 1976. — Source

12

CRACKED.COM A TV star's death was (maybe) porn-related. By the 1970s, Bob Crane had gone from star of the successful sitcom Hogan's Heroes to washed-up celebrity with a homemade porn fixation. His porn- producing partner, John Henry Carpenter, was the main suspect of Crane's bloody murder in 1978. However, there was never any conviction. — Source

11

30 Brain-Rattling Mysteries and Unsolved Crimes Just Begging to Be Podcasts — Source

10

CRACKED.COM Jonathan Luna committed the weirdest suicide ever. LUNA JONATHAN P. 1965 2003 Prosecutor Jonathan Luna left his office in Baltimore, Maryland at 11.38 pm. Не was found the next morning in Pennsylvania, drowned in a stream-with 36 stabs on his body and his throat cut. Coroners said it was a suicide, somehow. — Source

9

CRACKED.COM The Peasenhall Murder reads like a mystery novel. The 1902 murder of Rose Harsent, in Peasenhall, England, ticks all the clichés and then some: A big house in the countryside, a thunderstorm, a forbidden love affair... Nothing is missing. Harsent's (married) lover, William Gardiner, was the main suspect, but the evidence was never enough to convict him. — Source

8

CRACKED.COM The Rogerses were butchered. Literally. When two Houston police officers did a welfare check on Fred and Edwina Rogers, they found their pieces stacked inside the fridge. The suspect of the deed was the elderly couple's son, Charles, who had a strained relationship with his parents. Charles, however, was never found. — Source

7

CRACKED.COM Blair Adams was desperate to escape... something. Adams, a Canadian, took quite a trip. Не crossed the border to Seattle, took a plane to Washington, D.C., drove to Tennessee, paid for a hotel room he never used... And was found hours later in a parking lot, pantless and gut-punched to death. And that's all anyone knows. — Source

6

CRACKED.COM Several people were murdered with Tylenol. canting DOS POW TONSTAL In September 1982, seven people died in Chicago after taking painkillers. Someone had opened several Tylenol bottles and added cyanide to them. The investigation never found out who did it. Tylenol bottles are tamper-proof today to prevent this from ever happening again. — Source

5

CRACKED.COM John Bodkin Adams was a wealthy doctor (and maybe a serial killer). Doctor Adams' wealth had a dubious origin - he had his elderly female patients write him into their wills, and then he would (allegedly) alleviate their suffering with an injection. Не was never convicted for murder, but he was still found guilty of forging prescriptions and other such suspicious going-ons. — Source

4

CRACKED.COM Someone promised to kill girl scouts - and went through with it. When someone left a note at Camp Scott for Girl Scouts, in Oklahoma, threatening to kill three girls, it was dismissed as some sick joke. Two months later, three girls were murdered in their tent during a thunderstorm. A suspect was found, but eventually acquitted. The case is still open. — Source

3

Elizabeth Short hoped to be in movies - but movies were made about her. Dubbed Black Dahlia by the press due to her alleged penchant for black clothes, Short was found on a sidewalk in Los Angeles in 1947 - sliced in two, and without any blood in her body. While books were written and movies were made about her sensationalized case, no real leads were ever found. CRACKED.COM — Source

2

CRACKED.COM Did William Herbert Wallace kill his wife? No one knows! In 1931, Wallace left home to meet one R.M. Qualtrough - but the address he was given was fake. When he came back home, his wife Julia had been murdered. Was the killer luring him away? Or did Wallace make up the whole story as an alibi? No one could ever find out. — Source

1

CRACKED.COM Dorothy Jane Scott just up and disappeared. Scott had to bring her car around to pick up her co-workers - but then she just sped away and vanished. No one saw her again until her remains were found, four years later. For some time she had been getting threatening phone calls from a stalker- who then got to calling her parents. — Source

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