Whodunnit? I love a good mystery. Of course, there is the fictional kind that we can read in novels or watch on the screen. But the true-life mysteries are even better in my book. The things that simply slip into the unknown.
Let’s differentiate first. Mysteries and conspiracy theories are not the same thing. However, plenty of those conspiracy theories are born from unsolved mysteries. And so it goes.
More often than not, a human, a willful human, is responsible for whatever happened to create the mystery. We are a deceitful lot, we are. Just recently in the news, Lady Gaga’s two dogs were kidnapped, as her dog-walker was critically injured by gunshot during the heist. The dogs were returned Friday night by a woman who just “found them” abandoned. We may never know the whole story behind that mischievous romp.
But here are a few ongoing mysteries, from across the U.S., in states where I know a person or two.
Ohio.
In 1976, residents of Circleville began receiving harassing letters. They’d open their mailboxes, and there they were. Letters, taunting, and threatening people with tidbits about their personal lives. One resident was murdered during the course of this. And another escaped an attempted murder. The police thought they had the guy and arrested Paul Freshour. But while he was in jail, the letters continued. Freshour was eventually released. The identity of the letter writer remains unknown. I don’t think this still goes on. If it did, I’d be moving out of Circleville, or finding new police.
South Carolina
Starting in the summer of 1988, Browntown residents began seeing what’s now referred to as the “Lizard Man.” He was a seven-foot-tall creature with red eyes and incredible, superhuman strength. The first sighting of this beast involved a car being “mauled” by the thing. And since that time, more sightings have been logged across the state. “To this day, the mystery hasn’t been solved,” reports the Smithsonian, and there have been sightings as recently as 2015. I never saw Lizard Man in Charleston, but I did see some other things.
Washington
In 2002, a man from Tacoma named Jason Padgett ran into some trouble. He was a furniture salesman, a jock, and a self-described “partier,” but mostly a normal, average kind of guy. One night he was attacked and beaten by two men outside a bar, leaving him with a severe concussion. When he recovered, he had acquired the ability to “visualize complex mathematical objects and physics concepts intuitively,” according to Live Science. Padgett is joined by 15 to 25 cases of this so-called “acquired savant syndrome.” These people develop incredible abilities after suffering a head injury. Hard knocks turned good.
Montana
There is a place just 13 miles from Glacier National Park where you can pass through a portal. And there, the laws of nature are set aside. They call it a gravitational anomaly. This thing forces trees to grow sideways and makes people appear as much as six inches shorter than they really are. There is a shack in the Vortex—called the House of Mystery—and some crazy things happen there. You can see a marble roll on an incline, traveling upward, and a rope hanging from the ceiling, falling into a curve. Wobbly.
Delaware
Jane Marie Prichard was conducting botany experiments in the Blackbird State Forest in September 1986. By some unknown circumstance, she was shot to death. I’m not sure how much time elapsed, but campers stumbled across her body later. Apparently, many hunters were in the forest that same day. Again, the details are sketchy, but investigators quickly ruled out an accidental shooting. But they don’t know why someone wanted Prichard dead and who might have killed her. The case remains cold to this day. My guess is, it will remain cold. Chilling.
Colorado
This may be my favorite.
A family, called the Lees, bought a new home somewhere in the Black Forest area of Colorado Springs. As soon as they moved in, “all hell broke loose” for the Lee family. The things that occurred ranged from flashing lights, footsteps, orchestra music, strange smells, and even sightings of ghostly faces. They continue to live there to this day, and all of the same phenomena occur regularly. No one can explain what it is. They’ve had “experts” come in and assess. One Hopi Shaman claims the house is located on a “rip in the space-time continuum,” where spirits can move freely between worlds. Woot.
Hey. Be safe out there. The world is a mysterious place.
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“The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery.”
― Anais Nin
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“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious.”
― Albert Einstein
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“Nothing whets the intelligence more than a passionate suspicion, nothing develops all the faculties of an immature mind more than a trail running away into the dark.”
― Stefan Zweig
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Unsolved Mysteries, in the bigger show.
