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Echoes of the Past
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History's mysteries, told with the sources on the table.

Unexplained events, enigmatic places and shadowy figures. In every case: what is documented, what is still a hypothesis, and where to check.

The cases in time

Each dot is a case, placed by how far it is from today. The shape of the dot tells you where it stands.

  • Solved
  • Partly explained
  • Open
  • Under debate

Swipe to see the whole timeline.

Unexplained events
  1. The Plague of Athens: the disease that destroyed the greatest Greek empire and that no one has yet identified with certainty Athens, Greece, 430 BC Under debate
  2. The Voynich manuscript: the book in an unknown language that has defeated a century of codebreakers Beinecke Library, Yale University, United States, 1421 Under debate
  3. The Dancing Plague of 1518: four hundred people who couldn't stop dancing, and some died trying Strasbourg, Alsace, France, 1518 Under debate
  4. The Tunguska event: the largest explosion in modern history left no crater Tunguska, Siberia, Russia, 1908 Partly explained
  5. The Battle of Los Angeles, 1942: fighting an enemy that didn't exist, or that no one identified Los Angeles, California, United States, 1942 Partly explained
  6. Fermi's great silence: if the universe has billions of stars, where is everybody? Los Alamos, New Mexico, United States, 1950 Under debate
  7. The Dyatlov Pass incident: nine hikers found dead in the snow and no explanation that fully closes the case Kholat Syakhl, Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia, 1959 Under debate
  8. The Wow! signal: 72 seconds of transmission from space that no one has repeated or explained Big Ear radio telescope, Ohio, United States, 1977 Open
  9. Flight MH370: what the data reveals and why the largest missing aircraft in history has still not been found Southern Indian Ocean, west of Australia, 2014 Under debate
  10. The Well of Barhout: Yemen's "Well of Hell" that locals have avoided for centuries Al-Mahra, Yemen, 2021 Partly explained
Enigmatic places
  1. Göbekli Tepe: the temple built 7,000 years before the pyramids, by hunters without farming Göbekli Tepe, Şanlıurfa, Turkey, 9,500 BC Partly explained
  2. Queimada Grande Island: the "most dangerous island in the world" is in Brazil, and almost no one can visit it Queimada Grande Island, São Paulo coast, Brazil, 9,000 BC Partly explained
  3. The Great Pyramid of Giza: hidden chambers, extreme precision and what modern scanners found Giza, Egypt, 2,560 BC Partly explained
  4. Dwarka: the city the Mahabharata says sank, and what archaeology found in the sea Dwarka and Gulf of Khambhat, Gujarat, India, 1,500 BC Under debate
  5. Derinkuyu: the 18-level underground city hidden beneath an ordinary house Derinkuyu, Cappadocia, Turkey, 800 BC Partly explained
  6. The Nazca Lines: who drew them, why, and why they only make sense from above Pampa de Nazca, between Nazca and Palpa, Peru, 100 BC Partly explained
  7. Nan Madol: the city built on the ocean that the world forgot for centuries Nan Madol, Pohnpei, Micronesia, 1100 Partly explained
  8. Sacsayhuamán: the stones that survived the conquest because they were too big to steal Sacsayhuamán, Cusco, Peru, 1438 Partly explained
  9. Easter Island: the moai, the collapse of a civilization and the script no one has deciphered Easter Island (Rapa Nui), Chile, 1722 Partly explained
  10. The Zone of Silence: the Mexican desert where, legend says, radios die, compasses fail and meteorites fall in droves Bolsón de Mapimí, Durango, Mexico, 1970 Partly explained
Shadowy figures
  1. Nicolas Flamel: the medieval scribe who grew too rich and left a testament no one can explain Paris, France, 1382 Partly explained
  2. The Man in the Iron Mask: an identity hidden for 34 years Pignerol, Sainte-Marguerite, and the Bastille (Paris), France, 1669 Under debate
  3. The Count of Saint-Germain: the man who seemed centuries old and never denied it Versailles, Eckernförde and other European courts, 1784 Under debate
  4. Cagliostro: the alchemist who fooled kings, or the man who knew things he should not have known Europe, from Palermo to San Leo (Italy), 1791 Under debate
  5. Kaspar Hauser: the boy who came out of nowhere and was stabbed before he could tell his story Nuremberg and Ansbach, Bavaria, Germany, 1828 Under debate
  6. Mitar Tarabich: the illiterate peasant who supposedly foresaw humanity's future Kremna, Zlatibor, Serbia, 1899 Under debate
  7. Rasputin: what the secret Russian files revealed and what they still hide St. Petersburg, Russia, 1916 Partly explained
  8. Anastasia: the DNA that solved the mystery and the questions it left behind Ipatiev House, Yekaterinburg, Russia, 1918 Partly explained
  9. Nikola Tesla: the experiments the US government seized and what really happened to his papers Hotel New Yorker, Manhattan, New York, United States, 1943 Partly explained
  10. The Isdal Woman: found dead in a Norwegian valley with no identity, no past and suitcases full of false leads Isdalen Valley, Bergen, Norway, 1970 Open
  11. D.B. Cooper: the only unsolved hijacking in American history and the hijacker who vanished into thin air Southwestern Washington State, United States, 1971 Open

New in the archive

Unexplained events

Explosions without craters, signals from space, planes that vanish from radar: documented events that science is still trying to close.

See all 10 cases

Enigmatic places

Temples older than writing, cities on the sea and under the ground: real places that still hold their questions.

See all 10 cases

Shadowy figures

Alchemists, impostors, prophets and people who vanished without a trace: real people whose stories outgrew the records.

See all 11 cases

How we tell each case

  • The sources come at the end of every article, for anyone who wants to check.
  • The case status separates what is proven from what is still a hypothesis.
  • The images are illustrations made for the blog, and the captions say so.

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