Tag: unsolved mysteries

47-Year-Old ‘Wow! Signal’ Mystery Solved? Arecibo Observatory Scientists Think They Have an Answer

A team of scientists from the Planetary Habitability Laboratory (PHL) at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo believe they may have finally solved the 47-year-old mystery of the infamous “Wow! Signal.”

Detected by the Ohio State University Big Ear Telescope on August 15th, 1977, the Wow! Signal got its name because astronomer Jerry R. Ehman was so impressed he wrote “WOW” in the signal printout’s margins. Since then, the signal has continued to fascinate the scientific community, including the possibility that it may have been sent by an extraterrestrial civilization light years from Earth due to its high power, strong signal-to-noise ratio, and narrow bandwidth.

Unfortunately, various efforts to detect a repeat of the signal, which had a frequency and duration that didn’t match any known natural phenomenon, have come up empty, leaving the exact nature and origin of the potentially artificial signal unsolved. Several efforts in the ensuing decades have tried to offer potentially natural explanations for the signal. However, those attempts have also come up short of providing a definitive solution, leaving scientists to wonder if the Wow! Signal was indeed of extraterrestrial origin.

Now, the PHL’s lead researcher, Professor Abel Méndez, and his colleagues say that the vast amount of data they collected with the Arecibo’s iconic 305-meter telescope before it collapsed in 2020, as well as additional data collected by the facility’s 12-meter telescope since 2023, has led them to a potentially ‘astronomical’ solution to this enduring mystery.

“The Wow! Signal may have been caused by a unique astrophysical event: the sudden brightening of a cold hydrogen cloud due to stimulated emission from a transient strong radiation source, such as a magnetar flare or a soft gamma repeater (SGR),” Méndez told The Debrief. “These rare events might cause hydrogen clouds to momentarily shine much brighter, potentially explaining the fleeting nature of the Wow! Signal.”

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Mysterious monolith appears on hiking trail near Las Vegas – sparking wild speculation about where it came from

A mysterious metal monolith has appeared on a hiking trail near Las Vegas, leaving officials baffled as to how it got there.

The mirrored monolith was found near Gass Peak, about 25 miles from Sin City by Las Vegas Metro Search and Rescue.

Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) officials confirmed the object was found on the popular hiking trail last weekend.

Posting about it on Facebook along with some images, they wrote: ‘We see a lot of weird things when people go hiking like not being prepared for the weather, not bringing enough water… but check this out!’

The post quickly garnered more than 1,000 likes and hundreds of comments. 

Many commenters joked it had landed from outer space. 

One Facebook user mused: ‘Maybe, it’s a portal going to different location.’ 

Another commenter jested: ‘I don’t care what it is… but can someone go up there and pray to it or something… ask it to lower our rent.’

While the LVMPD deemed the monolith a ‘mystery,’ one commenter wrote in response: ‘It’s not “mysterious.” Someone built, put in a truck, drove it out there, and set it up. It’s not a big deal.’

The peculiar-looking metal slab is one of many which have been found across the world in recent years.

In late 2020, dozens of similar looking monoliths began popping up across the US as well as the UK, Canada, Romania and further afield, often before eerily disappearing.

The silver structures in the UK were found in Glastonbury, Cornwall and the Isle of Wight.

More recently, a 10ft monolith was found in on a hilltop near Hay-on-Wye in Wales

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The girl who never came back: New York socialite who vanished in 1910 is America’s oldest missing persons case – here are the top theories about her disappearance

Dorothy Arnold was 25 when she disappeared from her Upper East Side mansion with today’s equivalent of $1,000 on an icy Monday morning in December 1910. 

The eldest daughter of perfume importer Francis R Arnold left her jewelry and passport at home and strolled towards Central Park, never to be seen again, according to The Charley Project which tracks missing persons cases. 

Her disappearance has stumped detectives for more than 100 years, making her case the oldest recorded missing persons case in American history and what the Times has called ‘one of New York’s greatest mysteries’. 

‘A hundred years later, I don’t expect any kind of resolution,’ Jane Vollmer, Dorothy’s great-niece told the National Geographic last month. 

Full name Dorothy Harriet Camille Arnold, the socialite’s last words to her mother were ‘I’ll telephone you’ as she stepped out of their Manhattan mansion on East 79th Street. 

Arnold gave different accounts of her plans for the day to different people – telling one friend she was shopping with her mother, and her mother that she wanted to go by herself. 

She set off toward Fifth Avenue and stopped at the Park and Tilford’s candy store where she paid for some chocolates using her father’s credit card at 1.45pm. The clerk told investigators at the time that she had appeared to be in high spirits. 

Arnold went on to purchase a book at Brentano’s on 27th and Fifth, before bumping into a friend who she chatted with for a few minutes, telling them she was headed for Central Park. 

Her mother waited to meet her for lunch at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel that day, but she never turned up. 

When she didn’t return home that night, the family grew concerned. Fearing bad publicity from contacting the police, they hired a private investigator.   

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Five Mysterious Ancient Artifacts That Still Puzzle Archaeologists

Archaeologists are often described as “stumped” or “baffled” by their discoveries. But, in reality, specialists have a good grasp of what most historical objects were created for. But there are a few exceptions to this rule. 

The following list is a selection of intriguing mystery objects. They’re a great example of why digging up the past continues to hold great fascination for professionals and public alike. 

1. Neolithic Stone Balls 

The elaborately carved stone balls found predominantly in Scotland and dating from the later Neolithic period (circa BC3200-2500) are one such mystery. 

Over 425 balls have been found. They are generally the size of a cricket ball and made from a wide variety of stones. Their surfaces are sculpted, sometimes into raised circular discs and sometimes with deep incisions defining knobs and lobes in high relief. Decoration takes the form of spirals or concentric shapes, echoing those found on pottery and monumental stones of the era. 

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It’s one of Australia’s most baffling cases – a mother, her daughter and friend who disappeared while under the spell of a cult leader. Now, a retired cop has lifted the lid on what he thinks REALLY happened

A retired policeman is on a mission to solve one of Australia’s most baffling missing persons cases, which began 17 years ago with the disappearance of an entire household who were members of a doomsday cult. 

Barry McIntosh, whose interest in the case is personal, served 35 years with Victoria Police and hopes to search a remote patch of Western Australian bushland with cadaver dogs.

Mr McIntosh is the uncle of Chantelle McDougall, who was last seen alive in July 2007 with her British-born partner Gary Felton, their six-year-old daughter Leela and friend Tony Popic.   

Ms McDougall, 27, had fallen under the spell of 45-year-old Felton, a self-styled spiritualist who had assumed the identity of an English workmate called Simon Kadwell.

At the time of their disappearance, Ms McDougall and Leela had been living with Felton in a rundown farmhouse at Nannup, about 280km south of Perth, with 42-year-old Mr Popic.

Mr McIntosh is convinced Felton was involved in the deaths of his niece, her daughter and Mr Popic and is determined to find their bodies.

‘[Felton] spoke of providing Chantelle and Leela with a drug that would provide a peaceful death and that Tony would bury them all,’ he says.

‘Tony would then walk into the bush to take his own life.’ 

The charismatic Felton – ‘Si’ to his acolytes – was the founder of Truth Fellowship and had 40 online followers of what has been described as an international doomsday cult.

Felton called his followers The Forecourt and spoke to them through a chatroom known as The Gateway where they would discuss teachings from his book, Servers of the Divine Plan.

That book warned about Earth’s pending doom but promised a new world of higher consciousness once a 75,000-year ‘cycle’ had run its course.

Neighbours at Nannup said ‘off the planet’ Felton was obsessed with electromagnetic fields and deeply paranoid.

Felton, who did not work and relied on the subservient Ms McDougall and Mr Popic for financial support, slept during the day and stayed up all night on his computer.  

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Scientists may have solved mystery behind Egypt’s pyramids

Scientists believe they may have solved the mystery of how 31 pyramids, including the world-famous Giza complex, were built in Egypt more than 4,000 years ago.

A research team from the University of North Carolina Wilmington has discovered that the pyramids are likely to have been built along a long-lost, ancient branch of the River Nile – which is now hidden under desert and farmland.

For many years, archaeologists have thought that ancient Egyptians must have used a nearby waterway to transport materials such as the stone blocks needed to build the pyramids on the river.

But up until now, “nobody was certain of the location, the shape, the size or proximity of this mega waterway to the actual pyramids site”, according to one of the study’s authors, Prof Eman Ghoneim.

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ARCHAEOLOGISTS UNEARTH NEW CLUES THAT COULD HELP SOLVE CENTURIES-OLD “LOST COLONY” MYSTERY

In 1587, John White and a group of approximately 115 English settlers landed on Roanoke Island off the coast of present-day North Carolina. The colony they sought to establish marked the second attempt to create a long-term presence in the New World under the direction of Sir Walter Raleigh, who instructed them to establish a city bearing his name in the vicinity of the Chesapeake Bay. However, much like the earlier failed effort under Governor Ralph Lane in 1585, White and his fellow colonists soon began to face challenges that included strained relations with the region’s Indigenous inhabitants.

With hopes of garnering additional support for the colony, White sailed back to England, leaving his daughter Eleanor Dare, her husband Ananias Dare, and their infant daughter Virginia—the first English child born in America—behind on Roanoke Island. By the time he returned in 1590, following delays imposed by the Anglo-Spanish War, White found the settlement had been deserted. The only potential clues regarding the whereabouts of the colonists had been an inscription of the word “CROATOAN” carved into a palisade, along with the letters “CRO” found carved into a nearby tree, seemingly in reference to a nearby island located 50 miles to the south.

For centuries, historians have attempted to resolve the mystery of Roanoke’s famous “Lost Colony.” Theories about the fate of the colonists range from their assimilation with local Indigenous tribes to their possible death resulting from attacks by them. Others have proposed that the colonists may have died in a failed attempt to return to England or even that their fate may have been linked to the arrival of the Spanish prior to White’s return in 1590.

For White, the inscriptions left at the deserted colony were clear evidence of the colonists’ relocation to Croatoan Island. An agreement had been made that in the event of their departure, they would leave behind a “secret token” indicating their whereabouts, or if they were imperiled, they would instead leave a cross pattée indicating such circumstances.

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Woman sets out to solve 100-year-old cold case MURDER of her great-great-grandmother – after her family spent years being plagued by the mysterious death and the wild WITCHY conspiracy theories surrounding it

A woman has set out to investigate the 100-year-old cold case murder that has plagued her family for decades.

Jo Piazza, from Philadelphia, had grown up being told that her great-great-grandmother Lorenza Marsala was killed in Sicily before she could join the rest of the family on their move to America.

The mom-of-three, who is an author and podcast creator, was forced to unravel a whole host of wild theories about the death – including speculation that the village had turned on her because she was a witch or that she owned land the mafia wanted to get their hands on.

Jo said that members of her family had tried to warn her off delving into the case at the risk of ‘opening old wounds’ – but she was undeterred. 

The intriguing tale began after Jo’s father passed away back in 2015.

She was pregnant at the time, newly married, had recently relocated and lost her job, telling Today: ‘I didn’t have time to grieve… All of it is a blur.’

The doting daughter was forced to clear out some of his belongings so her mom could have a fresh start – with one item being his computer.

But Jo came to regret throwing it out after coming across some emails from her dad when she was cleaning out her inbox a few years later.

She said that she had responded to most of them at the time but there were a handful that had gone unopened.

‘One caught my eye. It was his grandfather’s birth certificate. He had remarked on the fact that the mother’s name, Lorenza, was so beautiful. “She was the one who was murdered,” he reminded me in all caps,’ she shared.

Jo revealed that her father had become ‘obsessed’ with discovering the truth about her death – even making several trips back to the island.

However, he eventually had to limit his research to that which she could do online after suffering a rare form of muscular dystrophy.

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Mystery of America’s first fatal nuclear disaster – with rumors still rife over 60 years later that explosion in remote Idaho town was triggered by one man’s murderous rage amid LOVE TRIANGLE

The SL-1 accident is the only fatal nuclear reactor event to ever occur on US soil.

An earth-shattering explosion at the Stationary Low-Power Plant Number 1 (SL-1) in January 1961 saw all three technicians on staff killed during what was meant to be routine maintenance of the government lab’s nuclear reactor.

Following a painstaking operation, the men’s bodies were retrieved – at the cost of 790 others being exposed to radiation out in Idaho‘s Lost River desert.

The three men were then wrapped in hundred pounds of lead, interned in steel coffins and buried under a slab of concrete to prevent any further spread. The lab was also considered lost and was buried a few hundred yards away.

But rumors surrounding the incident still swirl today, with some speculating the disaster was in fact a murder-suicide triggered by a sordid squabble after one of the crew members engaged in an affair with another’s wife. 

Indeed, one report claims that the man responsible for the explosion had received a phone call from his wife asking for a divorce just minutes earlier – while the co-worker accused of sleeping with his wife was later found pinned to the ceiling directly above the blown reactor.

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Jam Master Jay: Two Men Found Guilty in Murder of Run-D.M.C. DJ

A JURY FOUND two men guilty of murdering the pioneering and world-famous DJ Jam Master Jay in 2002 at the conclusion of a federal trial on Tuesday. The verdict ends decades of speculation about why Jay, whose real name was Jason Mizell, had been killed. The jurors delivered the decision after weeks of testimony at the U.S. District Court – Eastern Division of New York courthouse in Brooklyn.

Karl Jordan Jr. and Ronald Washington were charged with murder “while engaged in a narcotics trafficking conspiracy and firearm-related murder,” per the Department of Justice.

“More than two decades after they killed Jason Mizell in his recording studio, Jordan and Washington have finally been held accountable for their cold-blooded crime driven by greed and revenge,” United States Attorney Breon Peace said. “That the victim, professionally known as Jam Master Jay, was a hip hop icon and Run-DMC’s music was born in Hollis, Queens, in this very district, and beloved by so many, adds to the tragedy of a life senselessly cut short.”

In 2020, U.S. attorneys indicted Jordan and Washington of conspiring to kill and conducting the murder of Mizell after a drug deal went bad. Mizell, U.S. attorneys claimed, had begun selling cocaine when Run-D.M.C.’s popularity started to fade, and that when a drug dealer refused to work with him if he included Washington in their plan for distribution, Washington and Jordan planned Mizell’s death.

In 2023, the government added another man, Jay Bryant, to the indictment, claiming that he helped Jordan and Washington gain access to Mizell, who was playing video games at a recording studio at the time of his death. Bryant is set to be tried in January 2026. Jordan and Washington each face a minimum of 20 years, with sentencing set for a later date. Jordan has also been charged with conspiracy to distribute cocaine and will be tried at a later date, per the DOJ.

Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall instructed attendees to remain calm, though it was anything but once the verdict was read. “Y’all just killed two innocent people,” Washington yelled after the verdict was announced. A supporter of Jordan screamed, “Bullshit. Bullshit. He didn’t do it. The Feds made the witnesses lie.”

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