Perfectly Awesome

The 15th century Voynich Manuscript is a historical marvel, written in an undecipherable language and intricately illustrated on vellum.

Once a subject of Victorian fascination, the mokele-mbembe myth is now fodder for creationists on a quest to disprove Darwinism

The Polaris explorer Charles Francis Hall has long been rumoured to have been poisoned in 1872. A preserved snow bunting might be crucial evidence for the theory

Tales of strange, nocturnal people haunt the region—and so do theories about who they were, from a lost Welsh "tribe" to aliens.

Nigel Pickford has spent a lifetime searching for sunken treasure—without leaving dry land.

Outside Leadville, spelunkers are following a hunch that a pioneer journalist’s fantastical cavern could be right below their feet.

First described in Texas in the mid-90s, what are these disturbing figures—and what do they want?

A multicultural, interfaith family in 1970s San Francisco reported a series of unexplained phenomena. Then a priest with a dark past stepped up.

Cryptic characters lurk in California's mountains. Or maybe it's just the weather.

Some say the true death worm has already been found—slithering beneath the sands of the Gobi.

The two disappearances of Tom Phillips and his children.

The former undertaker collects human brains, talks to them, and hopes they won’t haunt her.

A classic ghost story has something to say about America—200 years ago, 100 years ago, and today.

A writer of haunting, uncategorizable songs, she once seemed poised for runaway fame. But only decades after she disappeared has her music found an audience.

Finding a piece of the elusive cosmic body that devastated a Siberian forest a century ago could help save Earth in the centuries to come

Local sleuths help find a suspect in gay porn actor Bill Newton's murder. His dismembered head and feet were found in a Hollywood dumpster in 1990.

Tales of odd phenomena stoke our imagination even as they tease us.

Five years ago, the flight vanished into the Indian Ocean. Officials on land know more about why than they dare to say.

“MDZhB” has been broadcasting since 1982. No one knows why.

In 1708, the Spanish galleon San José sank in a deadly battle against English warships, taking with it billions in treasure. Centuries passed until a secretive archaeologist found the wreck, but now nations are again warring over who may claim the gold and glory.

In the mid-sixties, Candace Mossler was one of the most widely known socialites in Houston. She was in her forties, vivacious and full of charm, with wavy blond hair, deep-blue eyes, and a surgically enhanced figure that was often remarked upon in the many newspaper columns written about her.

The North Texas teenager went missing in the late eighties. For years, no one knew where she was, or even if she was still alive-no one, that is, except a mysterious young woman two thousand miles away.

For eight years, a man without a memory lived among strangers at a hospital in Mississippi. But was recovering his identity the happy ending he was looking for?

What can hyperpolyglots teach the rest of us?

It was the most shocking crime of its day, 27 boys from the same part of town kidnapped, tortured, and killed by an affable neighbor named Dean Corll. Forty years later, it remains one of the least understood—or talked about—chapters in Houston's history.

The young woman who mysteriously drowned in the Ropers Motel pool in 1966 might have remained anonymous forever, if not for cutting-edge genetics, old-fashioned genealogy—and the kindness of a small West Texas town.

This week the police disinterred a body, found on a beach in 1948, that has puzzled investigators for decades. “There’s lots of twists and turns in this case, and every turn is pretty weird,” one said.

The mission, still a secret to this day, was so dangerous many men bid emotional goodbyes...

The long read: In 2019, the body of a man fell from a passenger plane into a garden in south London. Who was he?

A walk on the weird side of history

Cryptid enthusiasts say this is evidence of Bigfoot.

The Russian ship called the Ivan Vassili began its life in St. Petersburg in 1897, where it was built as a civilian steam

We know how to stop solid minerals converting to a liquid state mid voyage – so why does it still happen?

Breaking news: a credible solution to the Bouvet Island lifeboat mystery has been found. See comments for 22-27 May 2011, 12 November 2011, 17-20 March & 9 April 2016, and 28 December 2023. The…