Historical Mysteries That Still Have Scientists Scratching Their Heads

By Editorial Staff in Amazing On 3rd December 2016

It is hard to believe that there are still so many unsolved mysteries from the past. Scientists in recent years have been able to figure out many things that were unknown because of advances in technology like carbon dating and DNA sampling. They can pinpoint down what a dinosaur had to eat before dying or how old a mummy's tomb is but yet there are still many things that are left unexplained. When you consider what we have already been able to achieve in such a short space of time, you would think that science would have had a crack at these historical riddles, but no such luck! These are some of history’s biggest mysteries, and ones that scientists are still desperate to solve.

#1 The “Mothman”

It's a mystery that has a few twists and turns. In 1966, four teenage boys in West Virginia reported to the local police that they had seen a very large man-like creature, with a wide wing spread, flying over the city just before dark. The creepy winged-beast was said to have possessed glowing red eyes and large bat-like wings. Of course, in 1966, this was big news in a WV town, so the local sheriff called the press together to explain what the boys had witnessed. When the story was published, the creature was given the name of Mothman. In 1967, a bridge near the town collapsed, killing 46 people. All four of the Mothman witnesses were among the dead.

#2 The First “Flying Saucer” Sighting

Kenneth Arnold of Washington state is believed to be the fist person to have witnessed the arrival of what we know today as UFOs. In June of 1947, Arnold spotted nine "bat-winged" objects hovering over the Cascade Mountains of Washington. He called police and the local reporters, and claimed that the strange objects moved like a saucer would if you "skipped it across the water." As the story began to circulate, the term "flying saucers" was coined and a sci-fi phenomenon was born. That was over 70 years ago, and several hundreds of thousands of sightings, yet there still has been no definitive answer to the sightings of the flying saucers.

#3 Jack The Ripper

It has been over a full century since a man lurked the foggy London streets and killed at least five women with their own scarves. The man came to be known as Jack the Ripper, and experts are still desperate to identify the iconic shadowy killer in a top hat and cape. Though there has been a lot of speculation and theories, and a few leads, no real evidence has been uncovered to put a face to the mysterious serial killer. The name Jack the Ripper originated when a series of letters were sent to the police in an effort to taunt them about the Ripper's whereabouts. In recent years many still interested in one of the world's oldest cold cases, believe the ripper was actually a female.

#4 Cleopatra’s Tomb

The tomb of Cleopatra has never been located. Many excavations have been carried out through Egypt and near the town of Alexandria, where many tombs are buried from Cleopatra's time period. It has been passed down for years and years that the Queen of Egypt was buried with her lover, Marc Anthony after their deaths in 30 BC. However, the tomb has not been located in over 2000 years. Still not clear whether the Egyptian queen was murdered or committed suicide, some believe that there may never have been a tomb erected for her. Most likely because her relationship with Marc Anthony was mired in scandal, her resting place may have never been recorded and deemed insignificant, leaving her buried in an unmarked grave with the peasants.

#5 Jimmy Hoffa’s Remains

Jimmy Hoffa went missing in Michigan in 1975, never to be seen again. The disappearance of the infamous union leader and once convicted criminal has fascinated and bewildered the American public for over 40 years. A judge officially declared the crime boss as dead in 1982, though many doubt he was actually dead, or if he was, his whereabouts were in question. For many years now people have claimed to know where his dead body was located, and nothing legitimate has turned up despite extensive and costly searches. Hitman Richard Kuklinski, known as âÂ€Â˜The Iceman', claims to have killed Hoffa and dumped his body at a scrap yard. A more recent testimony in 2015 from former mobster, Philip Moscato, claims that Hoffa was shot dead before being stuffed into a 55-gallon drum and buried near the Pulaski Skyway in New Jersey. The FBI searched and found nothing.

#6 The Devil’s Footprints

This mystery is very old, dating back to the late 19th century, though still unanswered. Residents of Southern Devon awoke to find a single line of hoof-like prints in the snow, and they came to many interesting conclusions, including that it was the tracks of Satan himself. The markings traveled in a single line for over 40 miles. National newspapers at the time could not a find a "satisfactory solution" to explain the mysterious prints, as no known animal or man could (or would!) walk this distance overnight in a single line. To this day, the well-known tracks remain a question and have never been seen in the area again.

#7 Eternally Burning Lamps

Even those new lifelong light bulbs die out eventually, and candles, you can't keep them lit. Yet scientists discovered burning lamps in encased tombs thousands of years after they were lit in the Middle Ages. These mysterious everlasting lamps were sealed in tombs to help guide the dead into the afterlife. The freaky part is that they were still burning in 1972 when discovered and without any fuel. Since the first known discovery of these eternal lamps, many have cropped up around the world from England and North America to Egypt and China. There could be hundreds more tombs waiting to be uncovered that may hold more of these magical lamps. For now, experts are still very much in the dark about it.

#8 The “Screaming Mummy”

The discovery of a mummified human with a pained expression was discovered in 1886 and has both haunted and puzzled theorists ever since. Humans are normally only mummified after the human organs have been removed, but this mummy still had all of its organs intact. Because of this, experts believe the person was either buried alive or poisoned before being mummified. Some believe that the jaw simply hung open as the deceased victim's head rolled back, but others think the mummy to be the son of Pharaoh Ramses III, who was suspected of plotting to kill his father and likely met a painful end. Scientists have yet to discover the cause of death or the age of the mummy.

#9 The Turin Shroud

You can look online and find people selling the face of Jesus or Mary in toast, potato chips, or even on walls. But nothing has received as much attention as the shroud of Turin, which is said to have the face of Jesus withing the material of the cloth. The debate over the appearance and exact age of the shroud has been steeped in controversy for centuries. Some Christians believe it to be the material used in the burial wrapping of Jesus. Others believe it to be a painting, and some a photograph. Many different forms of analysis have been performed on the shroud and radiocarbon dating and spectroscopy has found the cloth to be at least from the time of between 300 BC and 1390 AD. With all the study of this cloth, experts are still unable to determine whether the shroud is a medieval fake or the genuine article.

#10 The Fate Of The Ark Of The Covenant

The chest that held the tablets of the Ten Commandments, the Ark of the Covenant, is still mystifying experts who have been looking for it for hundreds and hundreds of years. The story is that when Jerusalem was attacked by a Babylonian army in 587 BC, they destroyed the First Temple. Not only did this lay waste to a sacred place of worship for the Jewish people, the Ark of the Covenant was also missing. Centuries of stories have proclaimed to know the true whereabouts of the Ark, claiming it resides in Ethiopia today, whilst others say it was hidden by divine intervention and will not reveal itself until a messiah arrives.

#11 Babylon’s Hanging Gardens

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon are said to be one of the seven Wonders Of The World. Ancient writers and sources from around 450 BC claim the gardens to have been a magnificent world wonder, and one that supposedly scaled heights of over 300 feet and 56 miles in length. The problem is, archeologists and historians have yet to determine if the existence of the magical gardens ever existed. Visits to the ancient city's site in Iraq have found little evidence of gardens matching this description, and may never do so. This could either be because the gardens never actually existed or that the impressive structure was destroyed by earthquakes or many years of war damage.

#12 The City of Atlantis

Whether fact or fiction, the lost city of Atlantis first appeared in a story by Plato, which told of prehistoric Athenians battling it out against the inhabitants of Atlantis, which ended in the city's defeat and disappearance to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. For hundreds of years, explorers have been trying to locate this city. To this day there are still many scientists who feel the city and the story are fact and continue to search for signs of the lost civilization. Many believe Plato's story was fiction and based on real-life events in Greek history where a city was covered in volcanic lava and forced to relocate.

#13 The ‘Copper Scroll’ Treasure

One of the 980-something "Dead Sea Scrolls" found in Qumran by archaeologists in the 1950s, the ancient Copper Scroll is probably the most fascinating and elusive of the lot. Unlike the other scrolls that were written in papyrus or parchment, this was carved (as its name suggests) entirely into copper. The scrolls are said to date back almost 2,000 years, at a time when there were many revolts against the Roman Empire. Scientists believe it was hidden to prevent it being captured by the Roman forces and when you learn what its engravings are, it's not hard to see why. The Copper scroll is basically a grand treasure map, listing a vast number of gold and silver items and where to find them. Whether these treasures are real or not is still a mystery.

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