We are a species who question things, we seek to know why things happened, how things happened, we pursue the answers to everything and we strive to keep on improving as a species... we are humans!
Throughout our growth in this World, we stumble upon mysteries we can't still explain. This article is just about that.
There are a lot of unsolved mysteries in this world, and while some of them may seem harmless, others are creepy and make you question everything about the Universe we live in.
As Descartes would put it, we know nothing, and the more we know the more questions we seem to have.
These mysteries all got me thinking, and some of them even gave me existential anxiety due to the things they may mean.
Read below if you like this kind of thing.
10 - The Voynich Manuscript: An Ancient Alien Book? Work of Fiction? Nobody Knows
The Voynich Manuscript is one of the most amazing books discovered in the history of mankind. Unfortunately, it's also a very mysterious one. It is a 240 pages book that was all written in a language that nobody can decipher - it isn't a known language, nobody knows what's written there.
However, the pictures are very clear and richly made. The book has all sorts of plant specimens' blueprints and information, it seems like pharmaceutical information. Now, for the bad part, none of these plants exist as well.
There are a lot of theories about this book, and the possibility of it being a hoax as arisen. Today, most scientists discard the hoax hypothesis, so it is considered to be the real thing.
The Voynich Manuscript also has a lot of astronomical diagrams and colorful diagrams explaining events that don't seem to coincide with reality.
There are a lot of theories about the origin of the book, but the symbols on the writing make it seem it's a mix of Hindi and Asian writings.
Some say it was Leonardo Da Vinci's doing when he discovered a cave with access to the "Hollow Earth" and a less farfetched theory is that this was the first sci-fi book in history.
I don't think we will ever know, but maybe some future archaeological finds will help us clear this one-of-a-kind mystery.
It is just strange that they discovered a 240-page book filled with a lot of anatomic plant images that don't exist in a language that doesn't exist either.
What does this mean? This kind of mystery makes my brain overheat.
9 - Dyatlov Pass Incident: A Gruesome Historical Mystery
The Dyatlov Pass Incident occurred in the Mountain of the Dead... yes, I know, it's a convenient name for one of the unexplained mysteries of mankind.
The mountain of the dead was avoided for centuries by the tribes that surrounded it, but in the second half of the twentieth-century hikers started to explore the mountain. People started dying there and still do. Granted this happens in virtually every mountain - hiking is a dangerous business.
The Dyatlov Pass Incident occurred when 9 hikers ventured to explore the mountain's peak, and they didn't return. The next day a friend went out to search for them and found out they were all dead.
They had their skulls crushed, ribcages shattered and yet they weren't showing signs of fighting or trauma. One of them was missing her tongue and they all had orange skin and radioactivity levels were present in the corpses. They were all shortly dressed or half-naked.
Now, there has been a theory about their death stating it was an avalanche and the orange bodies were the "tan" the snow reflecting the sun left on them, and the avalanche is consistent with the damage and yet no sign of trauma. What about radioactivity? And the rest of it?
It's a fine mystery because the official explanation given was that they were killed by a "compelling unknown force". I think that's just medical jargon for "I don't ****ing know".
Throughout the years, many scholars speculated and argued about the Dyatlov Pass incident, one of the most intriguing and gruesome historical mysteries of all time... but it still remains a mystery to this day.
8 - Rongorongo Undeciphered: Easter Island's Language Nobody Understands
The Rongorongo is Easter Island's dialect... or was, as the last person to understand it died in the late 19th century.
We have Rongorongo texts, we just don't know what they say... they could help us solve the mystery of the Moai, the Easter Island's mysterious statues - but we lost the knowledge to read it. Let me explain why.
When missionaries got to Easter Island, the inhabitants had these writings everywhere, but they were also pagans, and so the writings were all gathered and destroyed leaving us some exemplars, but not many. The natives were forbidden to write and to read, and the civilization starting dying of western diseases.
When mankind finally understood how useful those signs would be for science and archaeology, they tried to get natives to decipher them, but it was too late.
There was a villager that still knew it, but he wouldn't even touch the tablets because he was forbidden by the missionaries, so the European captain who owned the tablet got the man drunk. The drunken elder chanted the tablet's contents, but the captain had a lot of difficulties assigning meanings to the symbol.
We just know the story was about the mating of two Gods and their offspring.
The language died, and nobody can decipher it... maybe the Rongorongo and Easter Island statues are a mystery that will remain so.
Imagine the knowledge in those Rongorongo texts. Who were the people from Easter Island, why did they die.
Today there are several theories, but these texts could show us who they were for sure, why their island was devoid of life, why they extinguished themselves, or if they left for other lands.
An intriguing mystery of the modern world, and one I would like revealed in my lifetime.
7 - Identity of Robin Hood: Was Robin Hood a Real Person?
We all know the story of Robin Hood, but there is significant proof that the man truly existed. It's accepted by most scholars that Robin Hood tales were inspired by a true hero, Robin Hood himself. However, the mystery begins when starting to assess the man's identity.
You see, there were many bandits operating on the name Robin Hood at that time. Maybe they were inspired to use that name after the original Robin Hood, or maybe the true Robin Hood that stole the rich to provide for the poor wasn't the first one, but the one that gave sense to the name... nobody knows.
The part we know is that he most certainly existed before 1261, but the identity of the man under the hood is forever a mystery.
We also don't know if the deeds attributed to him are fiction, if they were in fact done by the real historical Robin Hood, attributed to different historical Robin Hoods, or just inspired in any other bandit of the time.
The fact remains there was probably a historical Robin Hood, and people want to know who he was.
6 - Antikythera Mechanism: The Ancient Greek Computer
It's the 1st century BC and the Greek culture proliferates. A ship was sailing with a lot of goods when it sunk to the sea. This is how our story starts - the end, however, is where the real mystery lies.
You see, when we discovered the shipwreck in our modern days, we uncovered that a very very old computer was traveling in that boat. The analog computer was capable of predicting the moon, sun, mercury, and venus's positions at any giving time using its intricate mechanism and a mathematical model.
But this what we think, as this is only what we say it does... because we just have the dented wheels and the analog computers' remains, not knowing what it does!
Regardless of that, look at the photo and think about the 1st century in an all different way.
This is actually one of the historical mysteries that has seen the most research during my lifetime, and there was even a scientist who built a working replica but was amazed at how much he had to know and how hard the process was.
This simply shows that the ancient world still has a lot of unsolved mysteries to tackle and image the mysteries still lying on the deep seabed.
5 - Kaspar Hauser: The Feral Nuremberg Caged Royal
Kaspar Hauser's story... well, where shall I begin?
Kaspar Hauser was a boy that was stumbling down a street in Nuremberg when a shoemaker found him and read the letter he had on his neck. The letter was meant to go to a cavalry captain and the boy would just say "I want to be a rider like my father" - understanding nothing else... he didn't know how to speak or understand the shoemaker.
The shoemaker took him to the captain that didn't know him but read the letter telling him he was abandoned because his mother couldn't support him and that if "you can't keep him, string him up".
The boy had a feral look, but he had a vaccination mark, which positions him on a higher segment of society.
They had the idea to give him a pen and paper and he wrote "Kasper Hauser".
When the boy grew up and as he learned to speak and write, he started to tell the tale of his life, he was kept in a cage at all times and never had contact with humans until the shoemaker picked him up.
Nobody knows where he came from or who kept him in his early years, but he was assassinated.
Recent DNA tests show that he was 95% connected to the Royal Family... something is amiss here...
A member of the house of Nuremberg kept in a cage during his infancy and assassinated once he learned to speak, it seems to me that some unsolved mystery plotting is involved, at a very high level.
4 - The Lost Roman Legion: The Emperor's Elite Disappearing in the Fog
The 9th Roman Legion was an Elite Legion comprised of the most skillful fighters of the empire.
Stationed at York, the Legion one day left to settle a public revolt in a nearby place.. all 5.000 of the veteran fighters disappeared without a trace and one of the greatest mysteries of all time was born.
Now, about their disappearing... people tell the tales of them disappearing into the fog on a mountain pass, but did they die at the hands of the revolted British people?
Some say this was the case, and the emperor - deeply embarrassed - covered up the loss to avoid the moral repercussions throughout the empire, preferring a conspiracy theory to settle in.
However, could the Emperor's best fighters... and a whole Legion, disappear from a simple revolt.
And if a battle was indeed responsible for taking the Elite Legionnaire's lives, wouldn't we have proof.
Another one of the greatest historical mysteries.
Could a revolt kill off the 9th Legion? I don't know, that's why it is a mystery.
3 - Betrayal of Anne Frank: Someone Betrayed the Family, But Who?
Anne Frank was hidden along with several other Jews, as you might know since her story is famous worldwide, but they were betrayed, being arrested on a fateful day: 4th of August, 1944.
Now, they were being supported by their friends with black market supplies and were successfully hidden for years, but something changed - the German Police went to investigate the town they were in and someone snitched.
A lot of investigations occurred, but they were all inconclusive... somebody betrayed them, and they all but one paid the ultimate price, including little Anne Frank.
Did the money for bribes run out? Did someone now have an interest in getting the family killed?
Nobody knows for sure, and that's why it's a mystery.
2 - The Disappearance of the Indus Valley Civilization: From Technological Super Power to Myth
The Indus Valley Civilization existed at the same time as the ancient Egyptian civilization and it had roughly 5 million inhabitants, is the first urban civilization to date.
They developed Metallurgy, made their towns with bricked structures, and had intricate sewage systems. Their houses were multistoried and their alphabet was pretty developed.
They had one of the most complex civilizations of all and harbored 10% of the World's population, but they abandoned their cities 3.000 years ago.
Something mysterious made them all disappear.
What made such an advanced culture for the time disappear without leaving a trace? Even civilizations with less technology left evidence of why they disappeared, is it a disaster, famine, or war.
However, the Indus Valley Civilization simply went from one of the most advanced powers in the world to nonexistent, and that is still a present-day mystery we want to see solved.
1 - Why are we alive? What is Reality? How Can Something Exist?
This is the ultimate mystery of all!
Why does something exist? Why do we live and why does the universe exist?
The origin of the universe isn't an issue here, the fact that it had a place to originate is. How is it possible that something exists?
The laws of physics aren't clear yet, and we know it's possible for something to originate from nothing. But what exactly is nothing and what exactly is something?
Is reality as real as we think? Is reality simply a sum of what we perceive and therefore we are in parts creators of reality?
This is the Ultimate Mystery, and seeking the answer to it is what keeps us going as a technological and philosophical being.
Human existence is a mystery, but the existence of existence itself far surpasses it.
And what happens when we die?
Those are some of the most unsettling unsolved mysteries of all time, and ones we probably won't ever see solved.
These are probably among the biggest historical mysteries, but we're soon including others on the list as years go by and more "present" events become historical with the passing of time.
One of these mysteries is, for sure, who is Satoshi Nakamoto?
A lot of people have been put forward as possible Satoshis, yet there is no evidence of any of them being the genius who started crypto.
Of course, there's one certainty - it ISN'T Craig Wright!
This post was published by me originally in HubPages, but I found it relevant to share here since some of my followers appear to like history.
Cheers!
Sometimes its better not to know..hehe