THEY SAY THAT truth is stranger than fiction.
These seven mysteries are testament to that. From unexplained disappearances to creepy sounds, they boggle the mind.
1. UVB-76
UVB-76 is a shortwave radio station that broadcasts a constant monotonous buzz. Its signal has been traced to Russia, but to date, nobody has been able to ascertain what its purpose is or who exactly is behind it.
Occasionally, the buzzing broadcast has been interrupted by voice messages or music. In 2010, a short excerpt of Dance of the Little Swans taken from Swan Lake was broadcast. Voice messages such as this one have also sometimes been heard.
So, what is it? A Cold War relic? A top secret military station?
Many listeners believe that it is a numbers station used to communicate encrypted messages, while others maintain that it is used to transmit messages to military units in Russia.
Either way, its buzz is pure spooky.
2. The disappearance of Dorothy Arnold
Dorothy Arnold was the daughter of a prominent wealthy family in New York. On December 10th 1910, she departed her home to buy an evening gown. That day, she bought a book and chatted with a friend before going for a walk through Central Park.
She was due to meet her mother for lunch at the Waldorf Astoria, but failed to show. She was never heard from again.
The socialite’s disappearance spawned a worldwide search and attracted intense media coverage. (Her family even sailed to Europe at several points during the investigation to escape “cranks and letter writers”.)
So what happened to her?
Her father believed she was murdered with her body disposed of in a reservoir in Central Park, but there was nothing to support this. Her boyfriend, meanwhile, claimed that Arnold, who had been trying to forge a career as a writer, was depressed after her stories were rejected and died by suicide.
Nearly one hundred years later, the case remains unsolved.
3. Solway Firth Spaceman
In 1964, Jim Templeton was taking a photo of his daughter. When the photo was developed, he spotted what appears to be an astronaut lurking in the background. Kodak confirmed the authenticity of the photograph and so began decades of intrigue.
The photo received massive attention and was reproduced widely in the press. Templeton maintained that there was nobody else was around when the photo was taken and later claimed to be visited by two men purporting to be from the government, who had questions about the photo.
Years later, analysts concluded that the figure was possibly Templeton’s wife, standing with her back towards the camera and her dress appearing white due to overexposure.
We like the creepy astronaut theory better.
4. The Hum
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The Hum is a low frequency humming or droning noise that isn’t audible to all people. People from several locations have reported hearing such a noise, but the reason behind it remains unclear.
In Taos, New Mexico, extensive work was carried out to try detect the source of the noise. Researchers found that it wasn’t do with any environmental factors, but we still remain none the wiser as to the reason behind it.
Although not everybody can hear it, those who can report accompanying symptoms of headaches, nausea and more.
The Hum is not just confined to New Mexico or ‘Murica, however – it has even reached Ireland.
In 2012, Kerry TD Michael Healy-Rae reported a “very unusual and very annoying” noise in Beaufort, Co. Kerry that matched other descriptions of The Hum.
5. The mystery of ‘Peter Bergmann’
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In June 2009, a man with a European accent boarded a bus in Co Derry and asked to be taken to Co Sligo. Upon arrival there, he checked into Sligo City Hotel under the name Peter Bergmann and gave an address in Austria.
After spending a few days in Sligo, the man’s body was found washed up in Rosses Point with his belongings scattered on the beach.
When the Gardaí later went to positively identify him, they found that the name and address he provided were false. Upon examination of CCTV footage, they discovered that the man wandered around Sligo each day with a plastic bag. Gardaí believe that he was disposing of personal possessions.
Five years later, the man’s true identity remains a mystery. The disappearance is now the subject of an Irish short documentary called The Last Days of Peter Bergmann.
6. Severed feet
Over the past seven years, fifteen severed feet have been found washed up on the coasts of the Salish Sea in British Columbia (Canada) and Washington (USA). Four have been traced to missing persons, but where the other eleven came from remains a mystery.
Let’s repeat that again: fifteen feet.
What makes the whole thing so mysterious is that no other body parts have surfaced. Police say foul play isn’t suspected and the feet likely became separate from bodies that were decaying in the water for some time, but that doesn’t make it any less creepy.
7. Béla Kiss
Béla Kiss was a Hungarian serial killer who murdered 24 young women, pickled their bodies in a giant metal drum and drained their blood.
A rather unsavoury character, so.
After the gruesome discoveries, a detective named Charles Nagy was assigned to the case and tried to locate Kiss. After receiving intel that Kiss was recuperating in a Serbian hospital, Nagy went down there only to find that the killer had placed the dead body of a soldier in his bed and escaped.
His subsequent whereabouts remain a total mystery. Some report that he was in the French Foreign Legion, while there were other rumours that he was working as a janitor in New York City.
No story could ever be verified, however, and his final location and total number of victims remains unknown.
