People have always been obsessed with true crime for several reasons.
Whether it is from the psychological standpoint of criminals who act on violent impulses or from the perspective of bereaved families seeking justice, mysteries initiate viewers to channel their inner detective to solve a case.
Unfortunately, many cases remain unsolved, which only drives people to find closure for the victims' families or some kind of purpose for themselves.
Curious to hear about the unsettling cases that continue to elude us, Reddit Thealexiscowdell1 asked:
"What is the greatest unsolved mystery of all time?"
Art Of Thievery
"Isabella Stewart Gardner museum heist. I watched a Drunk History and my favorite theory is that some guy in Southie just has those paintings tacked on his wall."
– LadyNightlock
Where Is Shelly?
"The whereabouts of Shelly Miscavige 🤔🤔🤔🤔"
– Classic-Row-2872
"Absolutely would love to know. My guess is she’s been dead for years for trying to leave his crazy a**."
– Wannabe_Writer89
"She's in the hole. They bring her out whenever the cops start asking questions."
– GoldandBlue
"That’s been confirmed by the FBI that she’s holed up in a Scientology compound. Apparently she wasn’t trying to escape when they checked on her, so they couldn’t do anything legally at that point."
– rageus88
Infamous Serial Killer
"Seen the ones I would've said, so here's another..."
"Zodiac Killer."
– funseeker999
"They had some pretty good suspects for Zodiac. But give the time period, it isn't surprising that he wasn't caught. Especially once potential copycats started f'king around."
"He probably went to prison for an unrelated crime and died there, or just got old and sick. The Golden State Killer shows that these guys can and do retire. BTK was another one who might have gotten away with it if he didn't decide to stir up sh*t with his letter to the press."
"Doesn't mean they don't remain a**holes, but an ahole doesn't immediately mean serial killer, and most their loved ones will say it fits in retrospect but didn't at the time. Green River Killers wife refused to believe it until they mentioned the DNA match."
"Zodiac could have lived a whole life with no one suspecting him."
– valleyoftheballs
Loss Of An Innocent Life
"Who killed Jon Bennet Ramsey."
– Whomadethebed
"All I know for sure is nobody was in that house Christmas night but the four people who lived there. One of them killed her, the parents covered it up, and the mother absolutely wrote the ransom note."
"I support the theory that the parents intended to get her body out of the house using a large suitcase (as the note instructed) and stage a successful kidnapping. It was hare-brained, but they were tired and desperate. The reason the ransom amount was John's bonus was because that's what they knew they had available for withdrawal in their bank account without having to access other assets."
"The reason the instructions told John to be sure to take a nap first was that they were EXHAUSTED after a long holiday full of celebration and a sleepless night and knew what the next day held. They were desperate for some rest. No kidnapper in the history of kidnappers instructs people to nap first before delivering their money."
– GreyGhost878
Some mysteries have their origins dating back centuries.
End Of An Era
"Bronze Age Collapse, probably."
– ProbablyHornyMaybe
A Bit Of History
"While the specifics of the collapse are always going to be an extremely interesting and unsolved mystery, I really like systems collapse theory is a general explanation for what happened. For users who haven’t heard of this theory before, it essentially stipulates that by the late Bronze Age, the civilizations of the eastern Mediterranean had grown to an unprecedented, but likely unsustainable degree."
"Bronze working had provided an incredible boost to these societies, but getting the copper and tin needed to make bronze wasn’t easy. The tin used in bronze production was especially hard for these ancient societies to acquire, and we have strong evidence that they built robust trade networks to import it from as far away as Afghanistan."
"However, the period of 1300-1150 BCE saw a wave of interconnected misfortunes that highlighted the weaknesses inherent to that system. To start, we have evidence that this period was marked by a century of reduced rainfall, punctuated by years at a time of intense drought."
"This already put a strain on Bronze Age civilizations, but the situation got even worse when groups of migrant peoples from the west, often called the 'sea people' started showing up in massive numbers. It’s likely that these people were refugees from other societies in the Mediterranean collapsing under the weight of continued drought, and they quickly came into conflict with the civilizations of the eastern Mediterranean."
"Adding a final complication, the sea peoples practiced a form of warfare that was particularly effective against chariots, which formed the core of the armies of eastern Mediterranean civilizations. Chariots were the fighter jets of their day, and could not simply be replaced when lost, so constant battles with the sea peoples began to quickly degrade military effectiveness."
"Finally, we see evidence that major civilizations began to break down under the combined strain of hunger and war. Cities were either sacked or abandoned by a starving populace, severing links in the critical Bronze Age trade network. That disruption to trade made bronze production harder, which in turn left remaining civilizations less able to feed their populations and fend off military threats."
"Every new city that fell increased the pressure, and made it more likely other civilizations would fail. Ultimately only the two strongest states of the period, Egypt and Assyria, were able to survive, although the power of both was badly diminished."
– ColdNotion
Wiped From History
"What happened 4000-5000 years ago that pretty much ended the Mediterranean civilizations in the east ? There is like a thousand years of missing written history."
– sardoodledom_autism
Where's The Body?
"The location of Genghis Khan's burial."
– doublestitch
"I would say Alexander's burial location is a bigger mystery. Genghis Khan was born and rose to power on the almost unfathomably vast Eurasian steppe, and no doubt was buried somewhere on it in a mound whose location only the highest ranking Mongols knew."
"Alexander, on the other hand, ruled a highly urbanized empire and died where the oldest cities in the world were, surrounded by literate people who loved and admired him, yet today we don't know his final resting place."
– CrimekingSon
Some unsolved phenomena don't involve crime.
I Wonder
"What is consciousness."
– SqoobySnaq
"Why is there something rather than nothing?"
"Seriously, not just 'why do WE exist?' That's small time. The real question is why does anything exist? Why is there matter? Why is energy a thing? Why are the laws of physics a thing?"
"There's no satisfactory answer no matter what you believe."
"Science? Where did all this matter and energy come from? I know the surface answer is 'the big bang.' but why? What was before that? And what caused it?"
"Religion of any sort? OK, God(s) created all of existence as we know it. Where did they come from? Why does he/she/they exist? What was before them? What made them?"
– PinkThunder138
"Yes. We exist in time and space... How did either come into being? Then add matter asking the same question... mind boggling."
– dasuglystik
"The most panic enducing version I heard of this is 'there are only two possibilities. Either once there was nothing and then there was something. Or there has always been something."'
"Just thinking of either make me so uneasy"
– juggling-monkey
"It's your brain trying to comprehend something it cannot. It only knows existence, even though you know at one point you did not exist (as a human)."
"I grew up quite religious, and I remember being terrified of heaven. Existing, forever? Like, I will always be around? It gave me nightmares. At least with not existing, it's not good or bad, it's just nothing."
– BoulderFalcon
The Laundry Conundrum
"How do two socks go in the dryer and only one comes out?"
– TadpoleVegetable4170
"That’s what lint is made of, socks."
– hutchwo
Sometimes it takes years, decades, heck, even centuries for the truth to come out.
Unfortunately in many instances, some revealing secrets are carried to the grave, never to be revealed.
Now, as for those missing socks from doing laundry, that is one phenomenon we may never have answers to.
What mysteries keep you up at night?
