Setareh Janda
Updated December 7, 2021 13.6k votes 3.5k voters 472.8k views

Part of the allure of enduring mysteries is that they don’t have answers – and in the absence of answers, anything is possible. Still, the best kind of creepy mystery is a solved one, especially if it involves lost lives or wronged people.

Many mysteries that have long stumped professional and amateur investigators have now been cracked. Whether a dark true crime story, a historical event, or a natural phenomenon, the best-solved mysteries in history have been answered through scientific analyses, thorough investigations, accidental discoveries, and a little bit of luck.

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• Photo: Lankner / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0

1
Azaria Chamberlain’s Parents Claimed A Dingo Stole Her, But Authorities Refused To Believe Them

In August 1980, Michael and Lindy Chamberlain of Australia and their three children – Aidan, Reagan, and 9-week-old Azaria – went camping near Uluru in the Northern Territory.

The camping trip ended in tragedy when they discovered Azaria was missing from the campsite. A bereft Lindy told authorities a dingo (a wild Australian dog) had taken her baby from the tent.

Though the medical examiner initially accepted Lindy’s story, other authorities remained unconvinced. Instead, they detained, convicted, and imprisoned Lindy for the murder of her daughter – even though Azaria’s body was nowhere to be found.

What happened to Azaria?

Azaria’s body has never been discovered, but a key piece of evidence has. In 1986, a tourist fell from Uluru (a large rock in the area) while hiking. The search for the tourist actually turned up the dress Azaria had been wearing when she disappeared – and it was found near a dingo den. Lindy’s original story, it seemed, was correct.

In 2012, Azaria’s death certificate was finally changed to state death by dingo.

What do you think?

Unbelievable explanation?

• • Photo: Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office / Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

2
It Took Decades For The Identity Of The Golden State Killer To Be Revealed

The so-called Golden State Killer began his spree in California in the 1970s: He typically went into homes, where he raped and sometimes murdered.

The culprit eluded detection. His tendency to commit offenses in different parts of the state confounded investigators, who initially didn’t realize one person was responsible. As a result, his identity remained a mystery for decades.

But DNA testing finally solved the mystery. In 2018, former police officer Joseph James DeAngelo was caught. Investigators identified him through DNA that a relative had uploaded to a genealogy website.

Unbelievable explanation?

• • Photo: After George Back / National Archives of Canada / Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

3
Researchers Discovered Vanished Ships From The Franklin Expedition After More Than 150 Years

In 1845, Captain Sir John Franklin and his crew set off on an expedition to find a route through the Northwest Passage on two ships: HMS Erebus and HMS Terror. But the entire expedition was lost in the Canadian Arctic.

The hunt to locate the lost expedition happened soon after officials in Great Britain realized it had gone missing. Franklin’s wife, Jane, was especially instrumental in organizing search parties to find her husband and his crew.

Though the searches turned up objects associated with the expedition, as well as a few gravesites, the ships went undiscovered.

It turns out the search parties overlooked key sources: The Inuit knew what happened to the Franklin expedition, but European colonizers in the 19th century weren’t interested in hearing what they had to say.

In 2014, researchers finally found the wreck of HMS Erebus. They made the discovery with the help of Inuit historians. Two years later, they tracked down the Terror, too.

Unbelievable explanation?

• • Photo: Unknown / National Portrait Gallery / Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

4
The Remains Of King Richard III Were Finally Discovered Beneath A Parking Lot

King Richard III of England was slain at Bosworth Field on August 22, 1485. But what happened to his body?

Although Richard’s life definitely ended at Bosworth Field, many believed his body was lost to time. Historical records indicate that Richard’s remains had been taken to Greyfriars Church in Leicester. The problem? The church no longer exists. Greyfriars was a casualty of the Dissolution of the Monasteries, where Roman Catholic buildings were demolished and orders were disbanded during the English Reformation.

In 2012, researchers located the site of Greyfriars Church beneath a parking lot in Leicester. With the location of the church found, investigators excavated it to find Richard’s remains. In early 2013, they announced that a skeleton they had discovered was in fact the remains of Richard III.

The discovery of Richard’s bones also gave researchers an opportunity to explore the king’s physical condition. They found that, though Richard had scoliosis, he wasn’t the hunchback of popular imagination. They also concluded that he was infected with an intestinal parasite. His demise seems to have been terrible – he was likely overwhelmed by a group of soldiers.

Unbelievable explanation?

Video: YouTube

5

The Cadavers Of Two Missing Women Were Found After 40 Years When A Creek’s Water Level Was Low Enough To Reveal Their Car

Teenagers Cheryl Miller and Pamella Jackson were supposed to attend an outdoor party near their hometown in South Dakota in May 1971. But they never made it. For decades, the mystery of the young women’s disappearance haunted their community.

Decades later, Miller and Jackson’s families finally got an answer.

In September 2013, a drought caused water levels in the area to drop. The water level in a nearby creek was low enough to reveal an old Studebaker, wheels-up in the shallow water.

It was soon clear that Miller and Jackson’s remains were in the car; investigators even found Miller’s purse still inside.

The discovery helped authorities determine that it had been a tragic incident. Somehow, the driver lost control of the vehicle as they headed to the party, and the Studebaker ended up in the creek, trapping the passengers inside.

Unbelievable explanation?

• • Photo: Bain News Service / Library of Congress / No known restrictions

6
A Man Unjustly Convicted In A Racially Motivated Trial Had The Truth Come Out In The 1980s

In 1915, Leo Frank was lynched in Atlanta for a crime he likely didn’t commit.

Two years earlier, Frank – who managed a pencil factory – was accused of murdering Mary Phagan, a 13-year-old who worked in the factory. Frank’s conviction said more about the prejudices of the era than about what actually happened to Phagan. Though there was no evidence against Frank, the court was motivated by antisemitism to convict him. He was sentenced to capital punishment.

Georgia Gov. John Slaton wasn’t convinced of Frank’s guilt, however, and commuted his sentence to life imprisonment in the hopes that he would eventually be exonerated.

Members of the public roused themselves into an antisemitic frenzy and took matters into their own hands: They captured Frank and lynched him.

If Frank wasn’t responsible for Phagan’s demise, who was? The most likely suspect is Jim Conley, the janitor in the factory who first pointed his finger at Frank. In 1982, another employee at the factory gave new evidence that Conley, not Frank, was responsible.

Frank has yet to be officially pardoned.

Unbelievable explanation?

• • 7
A Mysterious Quadruple Slaying Was Finally Pinned On A Notorious Serial Killer After 13 Years

Chesnee, SC, became the scene of a horrific incident on November 6, 2003: Somebody shot four people inside the Superbike Motorsports store. There were no survivors, and authorities had no idea who was responsible.

Thirteen years later, authorities accidentally solved the mystery while investigating another case. Following the trail of Kala Brown and Charles David Carver, two missing persons in South Carolina, police searched the property of a man named Todd Kohlhepp. There, they found Brown chained up. Police apprehended Kohlhepp.

Following his detention, Kohlhepp admitted to the Superbike slayings, in addition to a string of other incidents.

Unbelievable explanation?

• • Photo: Romanov Family / Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

8
The Remains Of Grand Duchess Anastasia Were Discovered After Rumors Alleged That She Had Somehow Survived Her Family’s Slaying In 1918

On July 17, 1918, Russian Czar Nicholas II, his wife, Alexandra, and their five children were slain. Due to the secretive nature of the act and subsequent disposal of the remains, some have alleged that Anastasia, the czar’s youngest daughter, somehow survived.

In the years after the event, several impostors stepped forward claiming to be the lost grand duchess. The legend of Anastasia’s escape even inspired a play, along with film and musical adaptations.

Alas, it seems that Anastasia didn’t escape her murderers. In 1991, the remains of Nicholas, Alexandra, and three of their children were unearthed. DNA analysis two years later confirmed their identity.

What happened to the remains of the other two children? Some claimed this was proof Anastasia really survived.

But that hope was put to rest in 2007 when a second grave was discovered near the first. DNA analysis proved that the remains of the czar’s son Alexei and one of his daughters – likely Maria – were in the second grave. That means Anastasia’s remains were in the first grave.

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Unbelievable explanation?

• • Photo: Wikipedia / Wikipedia

9
After A Texas Woman Took Her Own Life, Her Other Identity Was Discovered

When Lori Ruff ended her life in 2010, her husband was perplexed. Though he had shared his life in Texas with her, he began to question how much he actually knew the woman he married. A paper trail seemed to indicate that her name wasn’t actually Lori Ruff, and she had, in fact, taken on a number of identities over the years. Who was Lori Ruff?

The mystery was solved in 2016 when an investigator with the Social Security Administration and crowd-sourced sleuths found the answer.

It turned out that Lori Ruff was actually Kimberly McLean, a Pennsylvania woman who had apparently run away from home in 1986 when she was a teenager. She went on to adopt other identities for the next two decades.

Unbelievable explanation?

• • Photo: SDASM Archives / Flickr / No known copyright restrictions

10
A Plane Disappeared In 1947 – And It Took 51 Years To Find Its Wreckage

On August 2, 1947, a plane known as the Star Dust, operated by British South American Airlines, took off from Buenos Aires, Argentina, headed for Santiago, Chile. It never made it.

Minutes before the Star Dust was supposed to land in Chile, radio operators received a series of Morse code signals from the plane’s pilot that said the same thing: “STENDEC.” After sending the signal three times, the plane and its 11 passengers and crew disappeared.

What happened to the plane? And what did “STENDEC” mean? The mysteries prompted a string of theories – ranging from hypoxia to UFOs – to explain the Star Dust’s disappearance and the meaning of “STENDEC.” Was it an anagram of “descent”?

Some of the mystery was laid to rest decades later. In 1998, mountain climbers found detritus on Mount Tupungato in the Andes, and authorities suspected it was the Star Dust. Two years later, soldiers from Argentina combed through the site of the impact. The freezing temperatures on Mount Tupungato actually preserved the body parts of the passengers.

Though the plane’s wreckage has been found, the mystery of “STENDEC” endures.

Unbelievable explanation?

• • Photo: Flivver 99 / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 3.0

11
Michigan’s Creepy Paulding Light Has A Mundane Explanation

Paulding, MI, is home to a creepy occurrence. Since the 1960s, locals and tourists alike have watched a solitary light inexplicably appear and move around a hillside at night.

For decades, nobody knew what caused the light. Without real explanations, people made up their own. Among the more popular legends: The light was actually a ghostly spirit returned to earth.

In 2010, graduate students from Michigan Technological University officially laid the legends to rest. It was, they claimed after extensive experiments, simply a trick of light from headlights on a nearby highway.

When people pushed back against the explanation, researcher Jeremy Bos stood by his results:

The whole goal wasn’t to rain on anybody’s parade, it was just to try and excite people about science and answer a question for people who are looking for it. We have myths and fables and they’re valuable to us as humans and there’s no reason the Paulding light can’t be one of those… But to say that there’s no explanation for it? I want to say that there is if you’re looking for one.

Unbelievable explanation?

• • Photo: Chris Gunns / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0

12
Nobody Knew How Crop Circles Mysteriously Appeared In Fields Overnight

In the 1970s, an unexpected sighting in the English county of Wiltshire launched an international frenzy: a pattern appeared in a wheat field overnight. How did it get there?

Some people came up with an extraterrestrial explanation. Surely, alien visitors created the pattern, they reasoned. After all, the pattern looked to be in the shape of a “flying saucer nest.” Was it proof that extraterrestrial visitors had landed their spaceship in the field? The lack of a definite explanation prompted a string of conspiracy theories, especially as additional circles cropped up.

In 1991, a terrestrial answer finally laid the theories to rest. Doug Bower and Dave Chorley admitted they had created a slew of crop circles with the help of simple boards and ropes.

Unbelievable explanation?