Unsolved Mysteries That Cannot Be Explained... But I'll Try!

From advanced medicine to space travel, we humans often think we’ve got it all figured out. But the truth is, there are still many things out there that totally defy explanation. From children from impossible places to miracles in the sky, here are some unsolved mysteries that can’t easily be explained. But I’ll try anyway!

The Cape Intruder

Back in 2005, residents of Cape Elizabeth in Maine, USA, began noticing some strange happenings each time night fell. And this wasn’t merely sleep walking. Countless residents of the town reported waking up in the night to see a guy staring back at them, all matching the same description.

These sleeping victims would catch only a tiny glimpse of the elusive figure, but before even getting a chance to react, he would vanish into thin air, leaving nothing behind but traumatized victims!

Creepy as that might be, the Cape Intruder’s victims could take comfort in the fact that this intruder seemingly came in peace; no harm was done to them or their property, and nothing was stolen. So aside from the weird sleep watching thing, he seems like an alright guy.

These sleeping victims weren’t about to rest on this though. A rough sketch was put together and featured on the local news, which actually brought forward a number of calls from citizens, claiming to know possible suspects. But while two people named the same suspect, the authorities never managed to crack the case with a real conclusion!

After his initial series of visitations, the mysterious Cape Intruder never snooped on the sleeping again or at least we think, unless he just got better at sneaking undetected.

Alternatively, it’s possible the guy never existed at all, and was just a series of incidences of sleep paralysis, with peoples’ half-waking-half-dream states influenced by the reported descriptions of the man they’d been hearing about.

The Green Children of Woolpit

Way back in the 12th century, village residents of Woolpit, in Suffolk, England, stumbled upon a truly bizarre sight: two children, a boy and girl, with skin of a distinctly green hue.

They seemed to have fallen from nowhere, as they were found on the village outskirts speaking complete gibberish, yet their supposed origin would be revealed much later, shocking the villagers of Woolpit.

According to writings at the time by Ralph of Coggeshall, these sage-colored siblings were taken in and cared for by Sir Richard de Calne, who was baffled to discover that these green-hued children would only eat green broad beans!

The children were not evergreens, however, after some years of slowly being weaned of the green-only diet, they eventually lost their chartreuse shade. Though the boy fell ill and died not long after his discovery, the girl continued to be raised by Sir Richard and eventually learned English.

It was then that she would explain exactly how she and her brother came to the village of Woolpit. She claimed to be from a place called St Martin’s Land, which she described as a twilight world where the sun never shone.

One day she and her brother were herding their father’s cattle when they heard a strange noise emitting from a cave nearby. As they passed through this cave, they found themselves arriving in Woolpit, where they would soon be discovered by the villagers.

So, what truth might lie behind this puzzling Medieval tale, recorded factually as it was at the time? English writer Robert Burton suggested in 1621 these little green people fell from heaven, while many assume their tale to be merely the stuff of folklore.

Others in more recent years, however, pose more scientific solutions. Some suggest the children had suffered arsenic poisoning or even Chlorosis; a condition caused by poor diet, which can turn a person’s skin a green-ish hue.

As for what the children were doing there, and why they spoke an unknown language, some theorize that they were children of Flemish immigrants. At the time, many Flemish people immigrated to England, and it’s possible the green kids’ parents died after the move, leaving them to wander off for help.

Being so young when it occurred, it’s possible these details were forgotten by the girl when she finally learned to speak English. Even more supportive to the argument that the green children were real is the fact that Suffolk does indeed have a village by the name of Fornham St Martin, which did exist at the time!

But, with the reality of the events long-lost to history, nobody can be certain just how much of this tale really occurred.

The Tromp Family

Back in August 2016 the Tromp family of Australia abandoned their red currant farm near Melbourne and took an impromptu 1000-mile road trip. Why? Well, because they had a strong belief that they were being hunted down.

Husband and wife, Mark and Jacoba, were the master minds behind this bizarre, sudden vacation, convincing their children that they were all in grave danger. Their 3 adult children, Riana, Mitchell and Ella, all in their 20s, fully convinced, all tagged along for the ride.

Well, not all. 25-year-old Mitchell seemed to be the only one not consumed by the belief that the family were in danger, and instead only went to ensure his family would be safe.

It’s unclear as to why the Tromps believed they were under attack, but it’s said that leading up to this, Mark and Jacoba exhibited increasing signs of stress and paranoia, fearing for their lives and money.

Determined to leave no traces behind for their supposed pursuers, the Tromps left all traceable items at home, such as phones and bank cards. They were going completely off grid, and when they discovered Mitchell’s phone, which he’d smuggled along with him, they made him throw it out the car window.

After a day’s travel, they found themselves 500 miles north in a town called Bathhurst in New South Wales – at which point Mitchell decided to leave his family and return home, as he since revealed their behavior became intolerable.

Nevertheless, the rest of the family continued their pilgrimage to safety. But it wasn’t long before the two sisters, Riana and Ella, split from the pack too, going on to steal a car and report their parents as missing.

Soon after that, Ella decided to return home, while Riana found herself in Goulburn, New South Wales. It was here that things got even stranger, as she inexplicably climbed into the back of a utility vehicle.

The driver, around an hour later, discovered his unexpected guest in a catatonic state; and when she awoke, she claimed she didn’t know her name, nor where she was. Clearly distressed, she was taken into psychiatric care at a nearby hospital.

It wasn’t long before this volatile vacation reached journey’s end. Mom, dad, and Riana were found by a search effort and the Tromps all pretty much snapped out of it, returning back to their red currant farm and their normal lives.

But what exactly had caused this insane episode? Nobody’s quite sure, not even the Tromps! Some suspect a rare phenomenon called ‘folie a deux’, which translated from French means ‘madness of the two’.

This rare psychological disorder occurs mostly in close-knit families, whereby members share a sudden, collective madness and believe the same delusions, like that of the Tromps being in danger.

It’s suggested that stress and social isolation are large contributors to this disorder, so whether this was indeed what the Tromps experienced, there could certainly be a few more cases on the rise after the stresses of pandemic lockdowns!

Ningens

From Santa to The Loch Ness Monster, most would scoff at the existence of strange entities and creatures from folklore and urban legends, yet there’s always that little voice in the back of your mind wondering ‘what if?!’

One mystery creature that some claim walk the desolate corners of the earth is one you’ve probably never heard of: the Ningen.

These cryptic creatures supposedly lurk the lands and seas of the Antarctic and given how few people have ever visited Earth’s southernmost continent, sightings are extremely rare.

Those who claim to have seen a Ningen, which are typically encountered around the Antarctic ocean’s shores, say they’re around 65 to 100 feet tall, white, and bipedal, with eyes, mouth, legs, and even five-fingered hands.

According to one account shared online, crew members on deck initially thought they had come across a foreign submarine, yet as they got closer, they soon discovered it was actually a living creature, as it quickly vanished into the water.

While some argue that Ningens are, in fact, real entities of their own, others understandably dismiss the Ningen as misidentifications of whales, sharks, or squids. Given how closely images like this one, allegedly showing a Ningen, resemble a leaping beluga whale, it’s certainly a plausible explanation.

But for those Ningens reported to be sighted on land rather than sea, the explanation may be the stuff of illusion. Strange phenomena known as snow mirages can happen in places like the Antarctic due to special atmospheric conditions.

As cold air is denser than warm air, it can occasionally bend light in such a way that it warps the human eye’s perception of distant objects, meaning some Ningen-watchers may have been tricked by the intense Antarctic weather into thinking they were seeing giant, moving entities in the snowy distance.

But if you’re willing to travel down there to solve the mystery of these weird, M&M-looking creatures once and for all, be my guest!

Electric Girl

If you could have a superpower what would it be? Super-strength? Invisibility? Well, it turns out, superpowers might just be real; but they’re not all that super. Take Jacqueline Priestman, of Manchester, England, whose alleged origin story began in 1980.

After an argument with her husband, she rather unkindly told him, ‘I hope you break your neck!’. Lo and behold, later that same day that’s exactly how he shuffled off this mortal coil after a traffic accident. But that’s not even the half of it. It was around this time Jacqueline started to notice a change in how her body affected electricity.

Strange occurrences began to occur, like countless light bulbs violently exploding in her presence without apparent cause; her radio and TV automatically turning themselves on and coasting between stations; and most troubling of all, the intense electric shocks she began to experience when touching appliances.

As Jacqueline noticed the increasing problem electricity posed to her, or equally, she to it, she decided to visit a professor about her involuntary voltage issues. He recorded an abnormal build-up of static electricity within Jackie’s body, 10 times that of a normal person.

He supposed this may be caused by an alkali-acid imbalance in her body, possibly triggered by the stress of suddenly losing her husband. The solution? Walk around the house holding onions!

Sounds crazy, but the professor claimed such behavior would discharge the electricity, given that onions are naturally good conductors, and it actually did manage to reduce Jacqueline’s symptoms!

However, how many onions Jacqueline held; it didn’t prevent her daughter, who she had with her new husband in 1985, being likewise bestowed with the same electric curse!

While a chemical imbalance may have been to blame for Jacqueline’s strange super-power, the whole truth of its sudden mid-life emergence, and the case of her daughter being born with the same symptoms, leaves this electric tale with more questions than answers.

The Black Knight Satellite

NASA captured the image of a strange object back in 1998. While to some, and perhaps you, it’s clearly just a piece of space junk that’s been caught in the earth’s orbit, others argue that it’s something a lot more out-there.

Specifically, that it’s a 13,000-year-old, artificially made satellite, believed to be the work of ancient aliens, known as ‘The Black Knight Satellite’.

This bizarre theory has its origins as far back as 1899, when Nikola Tesla claimed to have received radio signals from space during his radio experiments. Believers interweave this story with one of UFO researcher Donald Keyhoe, who, in 1954, claimed that the US Air Force detected two satellites orbiting Earth, which at the time no country had the technology to launch a satellite.

While Keyhoe never provided any meaningful evidence for his claims, the two stories were later retrofitted to the admittedly UFO-like 1998 NASA image when it was released, and the Black Knight Satellite theory was born! Believers began attributing Tesla’s radio signals to the apparent satellites, theorizing this was the work of aliens!

However, Jerry Ross, an astronaut veteran, claims that the so-called ancient alien satellite captured in the 1998 photo is actually just a thermal blanket that broke loose into orbit while his team were carrying out work on the International Space Station.

What’s more, Tesla’s alien radio waves from space have since been widely assumed to be radio frequencies emitted naturally from celestial bodies, possibly even from the electromagnetic emissions of our own sun.

And while those seem like more tangible explanations, they still don’t satisfy the staunchest alien believers, who maintain that the heavens are home to extra-terrestrial observers, the truth being covered up by government bodies.

Miracles of the Air

The universe in which we find ourselves in one heck of a weird place. No one knew this better than the people of Fatima, Portugal, who got into a bit of a frenzy when they noticed something very odd going on with sun on October 13th, 1917.

After a period of rain, observers claimed the dark clouds parted, revealing a sight that left jaws on the floor. The sun was unusually dull, appeared to be rapidly spinning in the sky! Emitting from it was a beautiful blue light that ricocheted in rainbow-like beams across the sky, as if refracted by the colored panes of a stained-glass window.

Slowly fading into a yellow glow, this spectacle had the people falling to their knees, praying in the presence of the miracle they believed they were witnessing. While many at the time attributed this strange occurrence to higher powers, there may be a viable meteorological explanation.

At high altitudes, clouds of ice crystals can cause phenomena known as sun dogs, where the refraction of light through the ice can cause the appearance of false suns and bands of rainbow color.

If these crystals gain an electric charge, it’s theorized that they can be rapidly pulled around in the sky; their motion creating the same crazy-looking effects as those described by the people of Fatima.

But the events in Fatima aren’t the only time strange, ethereal forms have been spotted in the sky. One equally bizarre phenomenon hikers occasionally encounter is known as a ‘Brocken Spectre’, named after the Brocken Peak in Germany, where this phenomenon is often sighted.

What exactly is this ghostly phenomenon? The spectral effect happens when the observer stands above the upper surface of a cloud, like on a mountain or any kind of high ground. Mix that in with a bit of mist and a low sun behind the viewer casting a long shadow, and you’ve got the perfect recipe for a Brocken Specter!

You can certainly imagine the fright of the first viewer of this mysterious phenomenon before science came around to offer some answers as to what was going on! Similarly strange cloudy occurrences have been observed all around the world, including huge towers of swirling, circular clouds in the sky like the one below.

While many who’ve viewed these colorful stacked clouds have been quick to deem them UFOs, their curious appearance is actually very likely to be a unique type of cloud known as an altocumulus lenticularis, made to glow in fiery colors by the low angle of the setting sun.

These striking clouds form as moist air travels over structures like mountains, which guide it upwards and, as the moisture condenses, into wave-like clouds bearing the mountain’s general outline.

Trevaline Evans

It’s reported that every year in the US alone, more than 600,000 people go missing. And with a large number never found, families and loved ones are left in a sad state of suspense, holding out hope that those missing are still out there somewhere. This is the case with Trevaline Evans, an antique dealer from North Wales.

On a seemingly ordinary day, June 16th, 1990, she left her antique shop and put up a note saying ‘back in two minutes’. But two minutes turned into two days; then two weeks; then two months. Having been gone for over 30 years now, with no one having seen her, nor even figured out where she was headed, Trevaline seems to be at a point of no return.

Despite a major investigation and numerous appeals, the disappearance of Trevaline Evans continues to be a cold case. However, one person keen to get to the bottom of this 30-year hiatus, is freelance journalist Tim Hicks, who recently teamed up with retired police intelligence officer, Chris Clark.

After putting their heads together, the detective duo think they might have a possible suspect for Trevaline’s disappearance, or rather, demise. They suspect that a convict, Christopher Halliwell is to blame, what with him living in the area at the time of the disappearance and having been previously sentenced for crimes of a truly heinous nature.

But while that might seem extremely plausible, there’s currently no real evidence to support this, not to mention the absence of Trevaline’s body to even prove that she isn’t still alive. It’s a tragic and yet very real unsolved mystery that continues to evade any resolution.

Lady Dai

I'm sure you're wondering which other Lady Di is there but this one is, in fact, the original. Lady Dai was the Marquise of Dai, wife to a nobleman, during the Western Han dynasty of ancient China. Incredibly, she was found some 2,000 years after her passing, astoundingly well-preserved!

This preserved woman seemed to defy the laws of decay when she was discovered, with skin eerily still soft to the touch, locks of raven hair, and even traces of type A blood found remaining in her veins!

When workers digging for construction in 1968 accidentally uncovered her tomb, Lady Dai was so well preserved that researchers were even able to carry out an autopsy on her! And while a lady never tells her age, scientists dated Dai back to 163 BC, and the autopsy revealed a range of ailments, including gallstones, high cholesterol, blood pressure and liver disease.

These ailments appear to have been the product of an over-indulgent diet and lack of exercise; causing her to die at the estimated tender age of 50, the final blow determined to be a heart attack.

While examining Lady Dai, pathologists even found 138 undigested melon seeds in her stomach and intestines. As such seeds typically take about an hour to digest, it’s safe to assume melon was Dai’s final snack, very close to the time of her passing.

Perhaps the heart attack came along because the melon was so damn tasty? Either way, Dai’s exposure to oxygen since her excavation has taken a toll on her once radiant skin, so pictures available today don’t even show her full glory from the moment she was discovered.

So, what’s Lady Dai’s eternal youth secret? Well, nobody is entirely sure. She’s by far the best-preserved mummy ever found, and while this is at least partially due to the fact that she was buried 40 feet underground in multiple coffins and 20 layers of clothing like a Russian matryoshka doll, there still remains one mystery.

Scientists found Lady Dai’s body in 21 gallons of ‘unknown liquid’. And while they managed to find some traces of magnesium, the full extent of the mildly acidic liquid is largely unknown. A secret Dai’s quite literally taken to the grave!