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Which Real Life Mystery Do You Find Most Fascinating?

829 replies

LifeIsBrutal · 28/04/2020 10:24

Mine is D. B. Cooper. He hijacked a beong 727, stole $1.25 million in today's money, and parachuted down to earth with it. His identity is unknown and it's unknown if he survived the plunge to earth.

OP posts:
NotDavidTennant · 10/05/2020 13:58

I think the Panama case has become a bit like the Bermuda Triangle. So many assumptions, misunderstanding, translation errors, Chinese whispers, a tendency to report opinion as fact, plain old fashioned making stuff up, made up stuff being re-reported as "allegedly" and "apparently" until those words are dropped and it becomes "fact".

I big problem with a lot of these mysteries is the tendency for the media to dwell on unusual and sensationalist aspects of the mystery and downplay more run of the mill explanations in pursuit of a good story.

I was fascinated by the Oak Island mystery for many years until I gradually realised that most of the claims about the island are not backed up by any kind of independent evidence, and that the whole thing is most likely a wild goose chase.

BovaryX · 10/05/2020 14:03

For me the weirdest thing is the pictures

The pictures are really strange. They are of a static location, not an attempt to light the way using the phone. The picture of the back of Kris' head is very disturbing. Who took it? If you were injured, yet still had access to the camera, would you not attempt to record what was happening to you? The picture of the back of Kris' head doesn't shed light on their situation, or their condition. It conceals both. The other weird thing is both girls' bras were found inside their backpack. Nowhere near their bodies. Something happened to trigger a 911 call two hours after their last tourist picture on April 1st. Eight days later, there were a sequence of pictures which do not show the girls, except the back of Kris' head. The bizarre events do not fit with an accident. The Dutch Forensic Institute analysed the phone data and the calls and pictures are evidence.

BertieBotts · 10/05/2020 14:15

I suspect if I was injured in a jungle and hoping to be rescued, no, documenting that wouldn't be my first reaction. Deciding to do such a thing means accepting that it's likely you'll die and not be able to tell people what happened yourself.

MilkTwoSugarsThanks · 10/05/2020 14:19

The Dutch Forensic Institute also concluded their deaths were accidental.

Are the photos that mysterious? I thought the bag had been found with the contents washed and dried as the finder was going to keep it until she realised it had belonged to the girls. Is it not just as possible that someone with limited knowledge was trying to get in to the phone with the hope of being able to use it?

Izzabellasasperella · 10/05/2020 14:24

Why didn't the Panama girls send text messages to their family and friends? If I was lost and couldn't contact the emergency services, I would do that. Even with no signal if they attempted to send them they would still be on their phones.

BovaryX · 10/05/2020 14:25

I think the Panama case has become a bit like the Bermuda Triangle

@MilkTwoSugarsThanks

I don't think there is much comparison at all. Two girls went on a hike from Boquete on April 1st around the area of the Pianista Trail. There are happy, tourist pictures of them which stop around 2pm. At 4.39, the first unsuccessful emergency call is made. Several more attempts to phone 112 are made the following day. The search for them started on April 3rd. From April 6th, there are attempts to access Kris' phone using the wrong pin. On April 8th, 90 flash photos are taken between 1am and 4am. One shows the back of Kris' head. 10 weeks later, a backpack containing their cameras, Lisanne's passport, their sunglasses and their bras are found. Two months later, Lisanne's foot inside her boot and part of Kris' pelvis were found. These are not rumours, or 'Chinese whispers' or inventions. These are the facts. You may conclude they met with an accident. I don't.

CanIHaveAPenguinPlease · 10/05/2020 14:35

Several years ago a friend of friend was raped & murdered. The family told my friend that it was the not knowing who her killer was that was the worst for them. They wanted justice. He was found a few years ago after a car accident IIRC & sentenced.

AprilJune · 10/05/2020 15:08

Why didn't the Panama girls send text messages to their family and friends? If I was lost and couldn't contact the emergency services, I would do that. Even with no signal if they attempted to send them they would still be on their phones

That’s a good point. Failed texts would show up wouldn’t they?

7Days · 10/05/2020 15:13

Exactly re the texts.
And how likely would it be that emergency calls would repeatedly fail, in a busy location, popular with tourists?

MilkTwoSugarsThanks · 10/05/2020 15:30

You may conclude they met with an accident. I don't.

I actually don't conclude one way or the other, but I don't think there's anything particularly mysterious about it.

AuntMasha · 10/05/2020 16:05

Many thanks for the Steven King link, Sydney Carton, I’m an avid King reader too.

JMoore · 10/05/2020 16:41

Two French cases:
Who killed little Grégory Villemin? Such a sad case...

And where is Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès? He murdered his family and buried them under the patio before disappearing. Last year a man was arrested in Scotland as he was thought to be Dupont, but the DNA did not match.

SweetMarmalade · 10/05/2020 16:53

@packetandtripe I’ve just spent almost 2 hours reading your link about the two Dutch women. Just awful.

I did imagine that the camera was being used to guide them during the night and that the random photos were due to the person holding the camera pressing the button too hard, as pointed out, makes sense really.

Utterly bizarre.

Just seems as if something along that trail, when they should have turned back, either spooked them, forced them into going further?! Makes sense due to the 911 call very early on!

MilkTrayLimeBarrel · 10/05/2020 18:15

I'd never heard of the Panama Girls before - what a mystery and a sad case. Could the photos have been taken by accident, for instance if they were in their sleeping bags and one of them was lying half on the phone, it would take random shots at random times and would account for the back of head photo? That was my immediate first thought!

AllianceOfCorcles · 10/05/2020 23:18

Bump as this is my favourite thread

SweetMarmalade · 11/05/2020 00:07

Mine too! I’ve written down lots of the mysteries mentioned and read about a couple this afternoon.

HavartitoMeetYou · 11/05/2020 01:23

Thing is, "Spent 8 days wandering around by a relatively well-trafficked and inhabited trail that everyone including their own families claims it impossible to get lost from, somehow dodged all the search parties looking for them, somehow had clean and dry hair and a charged and dry iPhone after 8 days in a rainforest, then somehow died violently enough their bones split and wound up many miles away up-river" isn't the simplest solution.

"Were accidentally or deliberately killed in an area rife with violence where murder is not uncommon" IS the simplest explanation in this case. The strangled American tourist and the kidnapped German tourist both happened in the same area; if it could happen to them, why not to the Dutch girls?

given the sheer unlikeliness if someone fiddling with the camera etc then
I don't think it's unlikely. The tour guide had a key to the girls' room where the camera charger/lead was, and there were computers there. It would not have been hard for him or another local to delete the photo. They girls weren't in some deep wild jungle, they were a couple of hours easy walk from the town, on a trail the locals used every day. It would have been the easiest thing in the world for a local to pop back to their room with the camera and delete the photo. There's also a theory (from someone alleging - emphasis on alleging they have evidence) it was deleted by local police; a bit outlandish, but given the level of corruption and fact tourists have reported the Panama police covering up rapes, not impossible.

If you haven't followed the details of the case, it's easy to assume the existence of a wild river, or steep ravines, or thick disorienting jungle where you get lost if you stop off the trail, or man-eating animals, or whatever. But in reality these things simply were not present or have been ruled out.

Zaphodsotherhead · 11/05/2020 09:47

Maybe we all have different ideas of what constitutes a 'mystery'.

ANY unsolved disappearance/ death is a mystery, because we don't know what happened. Although in some cases, like Corrie McTeague's, it quickly becomes fairly obvious what may have happened, and probably did. Some people like to read 'mystery' into things that are explicable. Other things seem more random and less explicable (Claudia Lawrence - why is there NO CCTV footage) and then on into the truly weird (the behaviour of the Swedish twins).

So the term 'mystery' covers such a wide base that we are trying to cover cases from 'yep, killed by someone, we don't know who' to 'what the hell was going on HERE?'

HavartitoMeetYou · 11/05/2020 13:23

Yeah, I agree. I don't consider Elisa Lam to be a mystery, because it's so obvious what happened to her (sad, but not especially weird or spooky). Same with the Aunt Diane case. Maura Murray is somewhat a mystery because we don't know exactly what happened, but it's fairly easy to follow logical possibilities.

The Panama girls, imo, is only a mystery if you exclude the possibility of a third party. The details are still slightly weird (in the sense of "we don't know why X did this") but honestly most of the mysteries vanish with a third party.

Asha Degree, I consider a real mystery, because none of the theories really explain things satisfactorily. Ditto the shooting in the alps, and the Plaza woman.

JoeExoticsEyebrowRing · 11/05/2020 13:29

I listened to the Casefile podcast about Amy-Lynn Bradley, who went missing off the cruise ship.

It's so odd, her dad saw her on the balcony from his bed, dozed off again and when he woke up a while later she had gone and no one ever saw her again...

And that absolute piece of shit fake PI guy who told her parents that he had found her and was going to rescue her, they were literally ready to meet her and everything, he had provided photo evidence of her complete with her tattoos, and the whole think was bullshit. Her poor parents, I just cannot imagine?

But what the hell happened to her?

MilkTwoSugarsThanks · 11/05/2020 14:08

I think Zaphodsotherhead is right as many of these I personally wouldn't class as mysteries. It's also open to interpretation as to whether people use unsolved to mean unsolved or unsolved to their satisfaction.

SheWranglesRugRats · 11/05/2020 14:31

I agree that there are few mysteries that don't have at least one theory that pretty much makes sense. JBR is one, maybe Asha Degree.

SheWranglesRugRats · 11/05/2020 14:33

But what the hell happened to her?

She was pissed and fell off the boat / possibly sexually assaulted and thrown off the boat. I don't believe the later sightings.

LoseLooseLucy · 11/05/2020 14:39

But what the hell happened to her?

Fell overboard, it was more than likely it was the sound of her falling that woke her dad.

DulciUke · 11/05/2020 14:55

@frownette Regarding the West Mesa Bone Collector--the suspect that I mentioned was named Lorenzo Montoya. Many people consider him the main suspect, but there are other suspects that law enforcement continues to investigate.