Creepy Unsolved Mysteries - From unsolved murders to unidentified people to unexplained supernatural events, what are some of the creepiest unsolved mysteries you've ever heard of?

[Dysnomia]

The only unsolved mysteries that have fucked me up are the ones where parents turn around for a second and their kid goes missing. I think they're part of the missing 411 series but I don't remember. The parents blink and their kids vanish and no amount of searching brings any clues. There's just no way to explain it. They coulden't have been kidnapped because you would hear/see someone running away with a screaming kid in their arms. They didn't fall into a hole because the parents know where they last saw the kid and searched the area. They didn't wonder off and get lost, because again, their parents saw them very recently. Even in a forest you would be able to see/yell to find someone that left so recently. The only mildly acceptable theory I've heard is that a biggish animal (leopard, eagle, etc) grabbed them and flew away or climbed up a tree.

The speed and totality is what makes it so creepy. It's like they were just erased.

Have you heard of thunderbirds? Supposedly gigantic birds of prey that have been known to carry humans off. I remember they'd come up from time to time on Coast To Coast. But I don't believe in them. I think if birds the size of prehistoric ones were still around and flying in the sky we'd know. Plus the whole size thing seems off. Weren't most of the gigantic prehistoric birds flightless and a bit more akin to their dinosaur ancestors? That wingspan would have to be massive.

Even as big as quezelcoatlus was it probably didn't carry off large prey because that would impact flying. If you can't get away fast enough something else will just gobble you up. Apparently pterosaurs are not from the line that evolved to birds. But I don't think pterosaurs are around either and it's ridiculous to think so. I go as far as believing in prehistoric fish because some of them still exist.

I don't know how I ended up talking about dinosaurs. Sorry.

The thing with many of those cases is, oftentimes the parent or parents weren't turned away for a mere second. The poster above's recommendation, The Missing Enigma, does a good job debunking the "it was just a minute, than they were gone" aspect of so many missing 411 mysteries. Maybe the parents first said that to police/investigators in the beginning of the investigation, 'cause what parent is going to admit to authorities "...I was on my phone, shitposting on Reddit for approximately 10 minutes, and while I was distracted my 6 year old wandered off into the wilderness"? However, after interrogation the parent eventually admits the time period was different.

I've seen kids wander off in stores while mom was busy playing on her phone. I was in a dollar store years ago and this lady had a bunch of small children. She was yakking on the phone and not watching any of them. A kid about two wandered off into an aisle full of glassware and broke a jar. He could have been hurt really bad. She acted like this kid magically teleported in a split second. But she was distracted for several minutes. It was the employee who went to the aisle after hearing the jar break. The mom didn't even flinch until he called out to her. She was too busy yakking on the damn phone.

People lose track of time when distracted. People need to stay off their social media feeds when they are watching kids.

 

[DavidFerrie]

Black Dahlia Avenger by Steve Hodel is also very good. Keep in mind though the authors later books are unhinged. He’s an example of something extraordinary nuts but probably true happening in your life, that alters your perception of reality later. He’s paranoid and conspiratorial, but I get why (his father is very likely who killed Liz Short. He grew up to be a detective and then later discovered his own gross bad father has been the prime suspect according to police records).

Journalist Larry Harnisch, probably the greatest living expert on the Black Dahlia case, has thoroughly and repeatedly debunked Hodel's claims. Even if you buy the premise of the first book, his increasingly far-fetched claims in the successive ones ruin his credibility.
Harnisch's candidate for Elizabeth Short's killer, deranged doctor Walter Bayley, is an intriguing one.

 

[Spergerella Junior]

Journalist Larry Harnisch, probably the greatest living expert on the Black Dahlia case, has thoroughly and repeatedly debunked Hodel's claims. Even if you buy the premise of the first book, his increasingly far-fetched claims in the successive ones ruin his credibility.
Harnisch's candidate for Elizabeth Short's killer, deranged doctor Walter Bayley, is an intriguing one.

Thanks for the tip. I’ll look into that. I thought it was established George Hodel was a monstrous POS, is this author debunking that as well? I’ll dive into their content, but specifically curious about that.

And yes, his books definitely went nutty, but to me, that doesn’t necessarily ruin his credibility. It could be evidence of a never ending grift OR someone becoming progressively more delusional because of tragic events warping their perceptions. I guess I’ll find out!

Editing to add that I do remember being able to tell his suspected images of Liz Short were not her.

 

[Coldgrip]

There's a pack of coyotes that's been hanging out around my backyard and the local area for the last few years. They sound like howling monkey demons at night. The noises they make are so fucked up. They scream and yell and make weird crying noises or these weird monkey hollering sounds. One of the creepiest times I've had around coyotes was one night my wife and I were out walking our dog at a local park near a golf course. We weren't too far from the car when all of a sudden all around us we could hear weird howling and whimpering doglike sounds. Our dog started freaking out wanting to go investigate and by the time we got to the car they had to have been only like 20 feet away all around us.

I also have a friend, when he was younger, he had a broken leg and was walking home drunk after a party on his crutches when a pack of coyotes started following him. They surrounded him and kept lunging in to nip and bite at him as he was walking and he had to fight them off with his crutches the whole way home. I guess they saw him as a wounded animal or something because apparently they were pretty persistent and wouldn't back off until he got home. Normally, as far as I know, it's fairly rare for a pack of coyotes to go after a full blown adult like that.

It's a bit more common than you think. Normally when this happens it's on somebody's ranch, the offending canids are promptly taken care of, and that's it. No need to report to the local authorities that you removed some pests. Coyotes are very inquisitive and while they do have a fear of humans, it's not as great a fear like wolves have.

If coyotes are in your area, be sure to be armed, as they rather quickly lose their fear of people, and they interbreed with feral and local dogs, which produce coy-dogs, which are even worse.

 

[Grub]

It's a bit more common than you think. Normally when this happens it's on somebody's ranch, the offending canids are promptly taken care of, and that's it. No need to report to the local authorities that you removed some pests. Coyotes are very inquisitive and while they do have a fear of humans, it's not as great a fear like wolves have.

If coyotes are in your area, be sure to be armed, as they rather quickly lose their fear of people, and they interbreed with feral and local dogs, which produce coy-dogs, which are even worse.

There are coy dogs in the area but not near where I live. I don't live in America. You're not allowed to discharge a firearm within the town limits. You can shoot guns up the logging road about 5 minutes away but the cops will show up if you shoot them off in town. There haven't really been a lot of reported attacks from coyotes in my town.

There was a pack that used to roam around a townhouse complex I lived in when I was a kid though in the city. They tore up someone's dog pretty badly one time and they used to hang around the playground and in the little forest trails around the school and playground nearby. They were fairly notorious for trying to lure dogs into the bushes and they had been known to follow kids and even adults occasionally.

 

[Burd Turglar]

Journalist Larry Harnisch, probably the greatest living expert on the Black Dahlia case, has thoroughly and repeatedly debunked Hodel's claims. Even if you buy the premise of the first book, his increasingly far-fetched claims in the successive ones ruin his credibility.
Harnisch's candidate for Elizabeth Short's killer, deranged doctor Walter Bayley, is an intriguing one.

From what little I know, I never gave water to the Hodel idea even though he was a real freak. I don't ascribe to the Dr Bayley idea either though. When I have some time off work I'll read into the second link you posted.

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

Shaffer is that the case where his mom died right before he vanished and then the dad was killed by a tree branch?

 

[FedPostalService]

Anyone else not a big fan of cryptids? The Loch Ness Monster is fun but I struggle to be interested in any others.

 

[Begemot]

Anyone else not a big fan of cryptids? The Loch Ness Monster is fun but I struggle to be interested in any others.

Pretty much. There's no real intent or intelligence behind another animal, I don't have a problem with it staying hidden. . Unless it gets into Bigfoot wit its sometimes assumed intelligence.

 

[Orange Rhymer]

Anyone else not a big fan of cryptids? The Loch Ness Monster is fun but I struggle to be interested in any others.

I like MothMan and the Jersey Devil.
But I truly believe these 2 are excellent insights into mass hysteria and the incoherence of personal/group narratives.

The rest of cryptids fall into 'local cash grabs', 'amusing home-town memes', and failed attempts at becoming famous.

 

[Yak-130 Mitten]

Can soneone recommend a good youtube channels of mystery/creepy variety?

I dont care what they do outside of their videos, as long as the vids are focused on the topic, I am most likely going to be interested.

 

[Orange Rhymer]

Creepy Factory Ghost Stories - Me Edition

I closed down a facility 7 months ago. We had a suspected break-in, and my superiors asked me to check it while I was in the area (on a biz trip to close down another factory).
I'm very familiar with the shop and office. I hard-target searched each office looking for signs of theft or forced entry.
I found neither. In fact, there were at least $1k - $2k worth of office equipment and furniture still present (that I neglected to dispose of).

The office is still well-heated, but I kept getting a chill in the main hallway.
The large conference room with double doors opens into that hallway, so my search progressed into that room.
Corner of my eye - a small man-sized figure in what appeared to be a black body-stocking froze in place, then ran across my vision and disappeared when his vector intersected the opposing wall.
I jumped back and reached for my knife out of reflex, assuming the figure was a burglar. As the blood returned to my brain, I started questioning wtf just happened.
I went into the room, seeing no sign of anything - lights on or off.
Then a violent thumping erupted from the HVAC system in the maintenance room. Scared the shit out of me.

I completed my tour of the 100k sq. ft. building with no other incidents.

Hope you enjoyed my ghost story, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Spoiler: Explanation

Dark office, dark room and I was on painkillers due to years of factory abuse. Plus the expectation of a potential burglar. Mind plays tricks on you...
There was nobody.
The HVAC noise was the heater turning on/off and the resulting expansion/contraction of the metal ducting. Happens a lot, actually.

 

[XYZpdq Jr.]

Creepy Factory Ghost Stories - Me Edition

I closed down a facility 7 months ago. We had a suspected break-in, and my superiors asked me to check it while I was in the area (on a biz trip to close down another factory).
I'm very familiar with the shop and office. I hard-target searched each office looking for signs of theft or forced entry.
I found neither. In fact, there were at least $1k - $2k worth of office equipment and furniture still present (that I neglected to dispose of).

The office is still well-heated, but I kept getting a chill in the main hallway.
The large conference room with double doors opens into that hallway, so my search progressed into that room.
Corner of my eye - a small man-sized figure in what appeared to be a black body-stocking froze in place, then ran across my vision and disappeared when his vector intersected the opposing wall.
I jumped back and reached for my knife out of reflex, assuming the figure was a burglar. As the blood returned to my brain, I started questioning wtf just happened.
I went into the room, seeing no sign of anything - lights on or off.
Then a violent thumping erupted from the HVAC system in the maintenance room. Scared the shit out of me.

I completed my tour of the 100k sq. ft. building with no other incidents.

Hope you enjoyed my ghost story, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Spoiler: Explanation

Dark office, dark room and I was on painkillers due to years of factory abuse. Plus the expectation of a potential burglar. Mind plays tricks on you...
There was nobody.
The HVAC noise was the heater turning on/off and the resulting expansion/contraction of the metal ducting. Happens a lot, actually.

I like when the story makes it sound like over in Spoopy Dimension there's some rando telling basically the exact same story about seeing something weird that just stood there so he dipped asap because you're both just some schmucks in your respective dimensions who got a glimpse through a barrier

 

[Dysnomia]

There are plenty of good, interesting documentaries on the case, but if you want to see a really fucked up one, look up "Casting Jonbenet".

I watched it last night. It's bizarre. All these locals giving their opinion. What was with the "sex educator"? He looks like a major creepo. He brought his sex toys to the audition. Then he starts talking about how he's into breast torture. I'm sure his hard drive deserves a seizing.

The part at the end was like a weird sci fi mindbender short film. All those different Patsy, JonBenet, John and Burke actors all doing different scenes in the same rooms and then you see JonBenet come down the hallway in a feathered costume and start dancing. It really takes you to another realm.

I do think John Mark Karr gets off on claiming he's in love with JonBenet. I'm sure he has fantasies about being the murderer even though no evidence linked him in the end. I heard he trooned out. Too bad authorities lost his computer and had to drop the CP charges. You know he was diddling kids in Thailand. Why else would a pedo move there?

Several of the actors auditioning talk about the house being traipsed through by people despite it being a crime scene. It reminds me of what happened with Hinterkaifeck. Neighbors walked around the house and even ate food from it. It just hammers in how important it is to properly secure a crime scene to prevent evidence from being destroyed.

Da gubmint

That's why they won't do anything about it.

I saw a local article about how you should not attempt to shoot down the drones because it could injure someone or cause property damage and it's also illegal to shoot at aircraft. But it's only a matter of time before someone gives it a go.

Anyone else not a big fan of cryptids? The Loch Ness Monster is fun but I struggle to be interested in any others.

Nessie is cool. Maybe because I love prehistoric critters. I'm bored with Bigfoot because of all the retards in fursuits trying to get crypto cred. I think that Chupacabra may have been based on a dog with mange. Maybe a coyote or wolf depending on the local wildlife varieties. When it's dark and you are scared reasonable explanations can fly out the window.

 

[draggs]

Anyone else not a big fan of cryptids? The Loch Ness Monster is fun but I struggle to be interested in any others.

I'm tired of cryptids in places that aren't the deep ocean, or deep in the jungles of Central America/Amazon/Equatorial Africa/Indonesia, because there's basically no fucking way a large animal can exist outside of those 5 areas these days without any good evidence for it ever coming out. Those are the last frontiers on earth, places where you can be ten meters from a large animal and never catch a glimpse of it, and are still not well explored at all, so there's a good chance there's stuff there we haven't discovered yet. But shit like Bigfoot and Nessie, please

 

[Burd Turglar]

I'm tired of cryptids in places that aren't the deep ocean, or deep in the jungles of Central America/Amazon/Equatorial Africa/Indonesia, because there's basically no fucking way a large animal can exist outside of those 5 areas these days without any good evidence for it ever coming out. Those are the last frontiers on earth, places where you can be ten meters from a large animal and never catch a glimpse of it, and are still not well explored at all, so there's a good chance there's stuff there we haven't discovered yet. But shit like Bigfoot and Nessie, please

I love cryptids! I've been on the hunt for an honest politician my entire life.

 

[Dr. Butt]

I love cryptids! I've been on the hunt for an honest politician my entire life.

Hi, Dad.

 

[Begemot]

I like MothMan and the Jersey Devil.
But I truly believe these 2 are excellent insights into mass hysteria and the incoherence of personal/group narratives.

The rest of cryptids fall into 'local cash grabs', 'amusing home-town memes', and failed attempts at becoming famous.

I'm guessing you've read Keel's work on the mothman? I like the associated weirdness around the case.

 

[Orange Rhymer]

I'm guessing you've read Keel's work on the mothman? I like the associated weirdness around the case.

Yeah - a while back (when the mothman movie came out).
The whole case is fascinating.

 

[Mr. Racewar1488]

You want to know what The Mothman really was? It was a snowy owl that got lost and migrated too far south and group psychosis. A local shot it thinking it was Mothman and the sightings stopped. And no, I'm not going to post a source because I'm too lazy to look up the article I read years ago about this. Cryptids in America are always either bears (sasqautch), owls, or hoaxes.