Unexplained Mysteries

The Buzzer

UVB-76, also known as “the buzzer” is a radio signal of unknown origin. No one has discovered its purpose or why it keeps happening. It is suspected that the signal is of Russian origin.

Tamam Shud case

On December 1, 1948, an unknown man was found dead at Somerton Beach in Adelaide, Australia. He was sharply dressed and had no ID or belongings on him. Furthermore, the tags on his clothes had been removed. Police later found a secret pocket in the waistband of the man’s pants containing a rolled piece of paper bearing the Persian words, “Tamam Shud”. The translation means “the end” or “finished”. Weeks later a man came forward with a copy of a book he claimed had been thrown into his car. When authorities inspected the book they found the last page, where the words “Tamam Shud” should have been, torn out. Even more baffling were the codes written on the back of the book with a phone number. The case eventually went cold and remains one of Australia’s greatest mysteries.

D.B. Cooper

On November 24, 1971, an unidentified man hijacked an aircraft in the airspace between Portland and Seattle. The man purchased his ticket under the Alias “Dan Cooper” but became known as D.B. Cooper because of a news miscommunication. He managed to extort 200 000 in ransom and then parachuted away from the plane. Despite the extensive manhunt, the hijacker was never found. It remains the only unsolved air piracy case in the history of commercial aviation.

Japan’s Ghost Boats

For the past couple of years, mysterious boats have kept washing up in Japan. In 2008, nearly a 100 dilapidated boats were found by the coast guard. Sometimes they’re empty, sometimes they carry corpses or skeletons. Authorities think they’re coming from North Korea but nothing has been proven yet. One theory suggests the boats were carrying refugees driven out to sea by the political conditions in North Korea. Another theory is that the ships belong to fishermen forced to take risks and venture further to bring in more fish.

Max Headroom Broadcast Intrusion

On the evening of November 22, 1987, two television stations in Chicago had their broadcast signals hijacked by an unidentified person wearing a Max Headroom mask and costume.

The first hijack interrupted a WGN-TV sportscast at 9pm for 28 seconds. The second one, a PBS Dr Who broadcast, was interrupted near 11pm for 90 seconds.

In both videos the person can be seen swaying back and forth and the audio is either buzzing or distorted. In the PBS hijack he even insulted WGN sportscaster Chuck Swirsky, hummed the theme song of a tv series and got spanked by a female figure with a flyswatter.

Both tv stations failed to stop the intrusion and the people behind the elaborate prank have never been found.