36 Unsolved American Mysteries That Need More Attention
Nothing inspires human imagination more than a good detective tale. However, beyond the books and TV shows, there exists a world full of its own range of astounding and often unsolved mysteries.
I personally find a good detective tale irresistible. The mystery of the Bermuda Triangle gobbling up ships and planes kept me up nights as a kid. So, I was more than happy to go down the rabbit hole for this piece.
Without any more ado, here’s a list of 36 epic unsolved American cases that carry this pulp fiction connoisseur’s personal seal of approval:
1. The Somerton Beach Case
Want to save this post?
Enter your email below and get it sent straight to your inbox.
In the late 1940s, a body was discovered on Somerton Beach in Australia. The gentleman in question was sharply dressed and slumped against a wall, with a paper with a mysterious quote sewn inside a hidden pocket. The quote from Rubáiyát translates to “It has ended.” Several months later police found the exact book from which the paper was torn from. It led them to a woman who, while acting suspiciously, claimed not to know the man. And thus, all the trails grew cold and no one ever solved the mystery of the Somerton Man.
2. The Disappearing D.B. Cooper
In 1971, Daniel Cooper hijacked an entire plane and demanded exactly $200,000 by 5 p.m. in cash exclusively in $20 bills, put in a knapsack. He also wanted two back parachutes and two front parachutes. When they landed, he wanted a fuel truck ready to refuel. When authorities met his demands, he let go of most of the hostages, excluding some crew members. He forced the remaining crew to head for Mexico City while staying under 10,000 feet. Sometime later and somewhere between Seattle and Reno, Cooper exited the plane and, to this date, has never been located.
3. The Case of the Black Dahlia
22-year-old Elizabeth Short or Black Dahlia’s mutilated body on a cold January morning in 1947, Los Angeles. The body had been drained of blood and cut up with surgical finesse. Nine days after the discovery, the presumed killer sent a note with Short’s belongings and ids. When police still could not find the attacker, the murderer apparently ended their own life, leaving behind a pile of clothes and a note at the edge of the ocean beyond Breeze Avenue in Venice.
4. The 1920 Wall Street Bombing
In September 1920, amidst the bustling lunch crowd of Wall Street, an unpresuming fellow left a cart opposite the Assay Office and vanished into the crowd. A few minutes later, the cart exploded, its metal fragments killing 30 people on the scene and injuring hundreds more. The death toll rose as the day wore on. Initially believed to be an accident, authorities later put together the bomb circuit but couldn’t determine the explosives used. Witnesses proved useless in identifying the perp. While later evidence seemed to point at Italian Anarchists, nothing ended up getting proven. With no new leads, the case grew cold and remains yet unsolved.
5. Elisa Lam’s Death
Another January winter, this one in 2013, witnessed the gruesome ending of Canadian tourist Elisa Lam. She checked in on January 26th and never checked out. Eighteen days after she went missing, she was found floating naked and quite dead in the hotel’s water tank. Lam had been behaving strangely prior to her disappearance. She had bipolar and took meds for it but neither those nor alcohol seem to have contributed to her death. There was also no sign of trauma of any kind on the body. Does it mean she climbed the tank and closed the 20-pound heavy lid from inside all by herself? The question remains unanswered over a decade later.
6. JonBenét Ramsey’s Odd Death
In December 1996, little JonBenét Ramsey apparently went missing from her own home. Her mother discovered a ransom note and, thus, the search began. Only eight hours later, though, the little girl’s body was discovered in the basement of their home. The only people in the house other than her were her parents and brother. At the time of her death, JonBenét was already a well-known beauty queen and pageant winner, much like her mother. The case, thus, caused a nationwide stir. Despite that, no one ever solved the murder of the young girl.
7. The Tylenol Tragedy
On a cursed day in September 1982, seven people died in Chicago after taking poisoned Tylenol pills. On that day, 27-year-old Adam Janus died after taking the pill at a hospital. When his family visited to mourn their loss, they too died from taking the pills. That’s how the investigators ended up connecting the dots. They found four other victims had died the same way. The medicine bottles in question shared the same control number. Someone had knowingly mixed cyanide with the meds. The company ended up recalling the drugs in question but not before several more lives were lost. This led to the introduction of safety seals on medicine bottles. Decades later, no one has a clue about who the original perp was.
8. The Journey of Mary Celeste
At the beginning of December 1872, the British-American ship, Mary Celeste, was found floating in the Atlantic Ship. Everything aboard the ship was intact yet there was no sign of life anywhere. It was as if a ghost ship, with all passengers having disappeared or succumbed to some horrible fate.
9. Tupac’s Terrible Fate
In 1996 Vegas, Tupac went into the MGM to watch a Mike Tyson fight before leaving with the CEO of Death Row Records, Suge Knight. Tyson got into a fight in the lobby of the hotel with a well-known gang member. Soon after, Tyson and Knight left in a car, followed by their bodyguards. At an intersection, a Cadillac pulled up to the car and shot at the passengers. Tyson got shot 4 times. His last act was to spew expletives at first responders. He succumbed to his injuries 6 days later.
10. The Watcher at 657 Boulevard
The Broaddus family purchased a house in 2014. Shortly before they moved in, they received a haunting letter in their mail. The letter went, “Dearest new neighbor at 657 Boulevard, allow me to welcome you to the neighborhood. How did you end up here? Did 657 Boulevard call to you with its force within? 657 Boulevard has been the subject of my family for decades now and as it approaches its 110th birthday, I have been put in charge of watching and waiting for its second coming. My grandfather watched the house in the 1920s and my father watched in the 1960s. It is now my time. Who am I? There are hundreds and hundreds of cars that drive by 657 Boulevard each day. Maybe I am in one. Look at all the windows you can see from 657 Boulevard. Maybe I am in one. Look out any of the many windows in 657 Boulevard at all the people who stroll by each day. Maybe I am one.” They received a second letter with eerily specific details about them. When they had to delay their moving, they received one final letter stating that the house was missing them. Traumatized, the family sold the house six months after they bought it.
11. The Mystery of the Circleville Letters
In 1976, Circleville, Ohio, was traumatized by a series of letters from an unknown sender. The writer accused the school bus driver and school superintendent of having an affair. They also sent a warning to the bus driver, Mary Gillespie’s husband, Ron, asking him to end the affair or risk losing his life. Ron died in a car crash soon after and there was also evidence of bullets being fired. Police ruled it an accident and a letter arrived again, talking of a cover-up. Later, when an attempt was made on Mary’s life, her brother-in-law, Freshour, was taken into custody. But the town kept receiving the letters even with him in jail so he was released thereafter. Till date, no one has any idea who the true sender of the letters is.
12. The Disappearing Sodder Siblings
On Christmas eve in 1945, a fire broke out in the house of George and Jennie Sodder in the middle of the night. They escaped the fire with four of their nine children. When they tried to rescue the other five, they found their ladder missing and their trucks unresponsive. They couldn’t reach emergency services and the fire fighters arrived only arrived seven hours later. Surprisingly, no one could find the remains of the five children in the fire. There were also several reports from witnesses who had spotted the children with strangers. Only one of the remaining Sodder children is alive today and she still doesn’t believe her siblings died in the fire.
13. The Sound of Spies
A strange yet highly specific kind of mysterious illness plagued American agents stationed in Cuba in 2016. In December, one CIA agent checked into the American embassy in Havana complaining of dizziness and nausea. Two more agents fell ill with the same “disease” days later. By 2018, 26 American and 13 Canadian agents had been afflicted with concussion-like symptoms after hearing some strange sounds from their rooms. Witnesses claim to have heard shrill, beam-like sounds as if pointed at their room. To date, no one knows what the actual source of the noise was.
14. The Unsound Sleepers
In 1917 started a nightmare that afflicted half a million people by the time it stopped its ramage in 1928. Dubbed the “sleeping sickness”, it swept across Europe, North America, and India. As a result, thousands of people all over the world suddenly woke up unable to move whilst being fully conscious. Many suffered from the condition for a lifetime, interspersed with moments of mobility. Horrible part is, doctors say that whatever caused this sporadic yet terrifying nightmare of a disease to afflict people is still out there.
15. Where is Walter Collins?
In March 1928, little Walter Collins vanished from the home he shared with his single mother in LA. Only five months later, the police brought back a boy, claiming to the mum and the world that it was Walter. Except for Christine, the mom, who knew it wasn’t. The police continued to convince and blame her for being a bad mother. Years later, authorities conceded that Walter may have been a victim of the convicted child-murderer Gordon Stewart Northcott. Northcott’s mother even confessed to killing Walter. Thus, the real Walter was never found, leaving one wondering how and why this tragedy unfolded.
16. Paula Jean Welden Goes Missing
18-year-old Paula Jean Welden went for a walk from her college on December 1st, 1946, and never came back. Authorities mainly searched the trails near her college, especially since locals claimed to have seen her. One witness — a waitress — claimed to have even served an agitated Paula. Paula’s father mysteriously disappeared for 36 hours after that, claiming to have been following the lead. Thus, he became the primary suspect. Despite multiple reported sightings, though, young Paula was never found again.
17. The Ohio Neurosurgeon Murder Case
The strange blurring of fact and seemingly hallucinatory recounting of what transpired is what makes this such a riveting case. To outsiders in a small community in Lake Erie, Ohio, Dr. Samuel Sheppard and his wife Marilyn led a happy existence with their child. On a night in July, 1954 they had a party, and the doctor retired downstairs around midnight. He called a close friend at 5:30 am informing them that his wife had been killed, the latter arrived to find him shirtless and holding his own neck, in a state of shock. The police arrived on the scene and Sheppard kept harping on a ‘white form’ attacking his wife who was found dead upstairs, and how he had been hit and regained consciousness but the white form evaded a chase along the shores of the lake.
Found guilty of second-degree murder and imprisoned, the doctor had his life sentence overturned later. He maintained his innocence, but the case remains an eerie mystery.
18. The curious case of the Jamison Family
A more recent case in memory, on October 8, 2009 the Jamison family (a couple in their forties and their six-year-old daughter) were last seen by a man living the remote mountains in southeastern Oklahoma. They were apparently scouting land to live in a shipping container they had made home in Eufaula.
Their abandoned truck was found eight days after the family’s disappearance by hunters and it had some money, cell phone, GPS, and their pet dog Maisy who was malnourished yet survived somehow.
A day later, a search party commenced but yielded no favorable findings. Almost a month after that, by pure chance, some hunters found their scattered skeletal remains, no cause of death has been established though.
19. Hair-raising in Pascagoula
In 1942 at Pascagoula, Mississippi, some people would wake up and realize quite alarmingly, that locks of hair had been snipped off. Blonde hair of young girls was what the unappointed barbed preferred, and it caused quite the consternation and gossip in the town. Allegedly, chloroform was used to ensure the victims didn’t wake up, with only one witness catching a glimpse of the said person. The instance that led to a more serious search and eventual arrest was when the criminal, nicknamed ‘The Phantom Barber’, used an iron pipe to attack a couple. William Dolan who was also known as a Nazi sympathizer at such a terrible time (World War 2), was arrested much to the relief of everyone, but later passed a lie detector test and was released early.
20. Alleged Alien wreck in Aurora
Conspiracy theorists like this one. In Aurora, Texas before the turn of the 20th century, an airship resembling a cigar had apparently crashed into a windmill. The form of the pilot and an unrecognizable language on papers was witnessed. Military intervention was suspected by speculators, and how they cleverly confiscated the wreck. Mutual UFO network, a US based non-profit organization with their civilian volunteers could not get enough cooperation from the cemetery where the pilot is supposed to be buried.
21. Cyclops in the Bermuda Triangle
In 1918, USS Cyclops (at the time – The largest ship in the navy) disappeared on its journey to Baltimore. This was in the heart of the infamous Bermuda Triangle, with the last message coming across as ‘Weather fair, all well’. More than 300 people were in the collier and no SOS was recorded. As per the U.S. Navy, all attempts to locate the ship were unsuccessful and they concede it is a baffling mystery that remains unsolved. A possible German strike, or the ship captain having a drunken history have been thrown around as possible explanations.
25. Chicago TV Blip
1987 was one of the glory years of television, it held the attention of people the way the internet does in this day and age. Two TV stations were compromised with some strong signals to the station, the person who appeared on screen for a few seconds remains unknown to this day. He wore a mask and sunglasses and there was some strange dancing and a choppy voice. The mask was of the fictional character Max Headroom, which was a CGI seeming satirical take played by an actor. No one has claimed responsibility for this incident.
26. The Incomprehensible Manuscript
A Polish bookseller called Voynich found a rare gem of a manuscript in a Jesuit college in Italy in 1912. The unconventional and strange drawings along with the unrecognizable language of the writing intrigued him. Named eponymously, this was brought over to the US and now finds itself as a precious part of the Yale University ‘s Bienecke Rare book and Manuscript library. Thanks to carbon dating, we know it is from the early 15th century, and this Voynich Manuscript has had cryptologists stumped and spending days trying to decipher the meaning. Theories abound : it is an unknown script, or the work of a medieval con artist, or ascribing present words to the writings against the zodiac drawings and plants. The code has not been cracked, and a forgotten world or culture potentially awaits.
27. What goes on in Area 51?
The US Air Force facility in Nevada has been a rich ground for conspiracy theories, and not without reason. Many people have reportedly seen UFOs nearabout Area 51. The cagey nature of the government and 24-hour surveillance along with a television interview of Robert Lazar who claimed to work at the facility has led to an intense speculation on the underground nature of its research wing. Anything related to aliens or extraterrestrial life gets a lot of traction.
The U.S. government has not helped in this regard, providing little to no information about what is the nature of the research inside the facility. Satellite imagery was censored until recently, so the myth of Area 51 will continue.
28. Will the actual Bitcoin founder please stand up?
Halloween fell on a Friday in 2008. It was on that fateful day that a post was made on a cryptography mailing list linking a white paper about Bitcoin. The author of this is Satoshi Nakamoto, and it is an alias name. Probable candidates have denied it. The email and language used is evasive as they are from an encrypted provider and uses a mix of American and British spellings. It is an enduring crypto mystery, and no one really wants to own up to it.
29. The vanishing of Tara Calico
Tara borrowed her mother’s pink bike to go for a ride and to play tennis one September day in 1988 (Belen, New Mexico). She never did return. This was a young woman who had plans on becoming a mental health professional.
What is uncanny is a photograph surfaced in Florida of someone who looked like her along with a boy who went missing in the same year, in the same area. And a book by V.C. Andrews was beside the woman and that happened to be Tara Calico’s favorite writer. Tara’s mother didn’t think it was her in the photograph, and she died along with her husband so the case reached a dead end in terms of probing further. There have been big developments and breakthroughs of the kidnapping in 2023, Valencia County Sheriff said –
“Currently, the identities and specifics of the persons of interest are sealed by the court and will remain so until a court order otherwise”
30. The Way Wood Drowned
On Nov 29th, 1981, the body of the incredibly famous Hollywood actress, Natalie Wood, was found floating face down in the Pacific Ocean. The investigation that followed revealed an incredibly twisted story involving her husband, Wagner, and costar and crush, Walken. Obviously, multiple arguments had ensued between the three while they were partying on a yacht anchored near the shore. The night before she was found too there seemed to be some ongoing argument. A woman had been heard screaming for help but no one paid that any heed because there was a loud party nearby. Later on, Wagner and Wilken claimed Wood had gone to bed early after getting bored with a political discussion. So, how had she ended up floating near a dinghy, especially since her mother had drilled fear of drowning into Wood’s heart since childhood?
31. The Keddie Cabin Murders
On April 12, 1981, in Keddie, California, the Sharp family and their friends went to bed in Cabin 28 at the Keddie Resort Lodge. Later, Sheila Sharp woke up to find most of her family and friends brutally murdered and her 12-year-old sister missing. Sheila had been at the adjoining cabin that night and escaped the slaughter. Three years after the incident, an anonymous tip led to her sister’s remains in another county. Two suspects were identified, one of them the abusive husband of a woman Sheila was counseling. The man fled Keddie soon after the murders. Despite a lot of evidence, somehow local authorities just stopped investigating, letting go of their prime suspects without even questioning them properly. And, thus, ended the case of the Keddie Cabin slaughter, despite no one knowing who the perpetrator is decades later.
32. The Gardner Museum Heist
In March 1990, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston was looted in what went on to be one of the greatest art thefts in history. 13 art pieces were stolen, among them are Rembrandt’s Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee and A Lady and Gentleman in Black from their frames, Vermeer’s The Concert and Flinck’s Landscape with an Obelisk, and a small self-portrait etching by Rembrandt. The combined value of all the art was well over $500 million. On the night of the heist, there were two inexperienced guards on duty. One of them first responded to a fire alarm a little after midnight, only to find no fire. A little later, he let in two people dressed as cops through the employee entrance against museum policy. He and the other guard were quickly outwitted after that, and the robbers soon made off with their loot.
33. Dorothy Arnold Goes Missing
On the morning of Dec. 12, 1910, Dorothy left her home on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and told her mother that she was headed downtown to buy an evening dress. While out to buy the gown, she bought chocolates and a book for herself. Later, she met her friend and they chatted about the party they were going to attend. The friend left soon after but Dorothy was never seen again.
34. The Creepy Murder in Room 1046
In Jan 1935, a certain Roland T. Owen checked into room 1046 of Hotel President in Kansas City. He had brown hair, no luggage, was between 20-35 and was wearing a suit. The next few days, he spent most of his time in a dimly lit room. Hotel staff reported him waiting for someone named Don. They witnessed Owen have phone conversations with Don and heard loud voices coming from the room at night. On the day Owen met his doom, he was found by a bellboy in a horrid condition. He had been stabbed multiple times and had the telephone wear wrapped around his wrists and neck. He went comatose on the way to the hospital and succumbed to his injuries soon after. But, in the few minutes of conscious he had left when everyone first found him, he told them that no one was responsible for his condition.
35. The Boy in the Box
At the tail end of February 1957, the tiny body of a 4 to 6-year-old boy was found in a box. The boy was naked and had small medical scars all over him. He was wrapped in a blanket. It was determined that blunt force trauma had killed him. Despite a nationwide search, no one ever discovered who the boy was. There were no hospital records and no missing persons report. It was as if he had never existed.
36. The Strange Demise of Charles C. Morgan
In March 1977, escrow agent Charles C. Morgan went missing after leaving his home in Arizona. He reappeared three days later with a hallucinogenic drug in his throat and handcuffs around his wrists and one ankle. He confessed to his wife that he had been working as a spy for the US Treasury and warned her not to call anyone for help for the safety of their family. The abductors had taken his ID. Morgan went missing again two months later. Nine days after that, his wife received a phone call from a strange woman saying that he was fine. Two days after the call, Charles’ body was found wearing a bulletproof vest. He had been shot in the back of his head and had codes and names hidden in his underwear. When the police found gun residue on his hands, they ruled the death a suicide. Ruth, his widow, vehemently denied that possibility. Despite that, no proof was ever found proving otherwise.
