Random Mysteries That We Wish We Knew The Answers To (12 items)

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  (#7) The Town Full Of Twins Is Still A Mystery To Science

  Linha São Pedro is a tiny German settlement near the city of Cândido Godói in Brazil. It's mostly known for basically bursting with twin births. The amount of twins born here exceeds the national average by more than 10 times, and no one knows why.

  There was talk of a Nazi experiment. Argentine historian Jorge Camarasa’s book Mengele: The Angel of Death in South America blames Josef Mengele. Camarasa says that Mengele made frequent trips to Linha São Pedro in the '60s. After that, the incidence of twin births mushroomed. 

  Scientists disregard this theory, stating that Mengele could not have affected the outcome of twin births.
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  (#1) The Boys Of Yuba County Never Came Home

  In 1978, five California men with varying intellectual and mental disabilities went to watch a basketball game and never came home. They all lived with their families. Their mental state was such that they were often called “boys” rather than men, although they were in their 20s and 30s.

  Inexplicably, the men drove 70 miles east from the basketball game. Instead of going home, they drove to a mountainous, snow-covered road. There, they abandoned their car and disappeared into the night. Later, a snowstorm caused authorities to call off the search.

  In the thaw, authorities found the bodies of Bill Sterling, 29; Jackie Huett, 24; Ted Weiher, 32; and Jack Madruga, 30. The fifth man, Gary Mathias, 25, was still missing. Strangely, Weiher had starved to death in a trailer full of food and with an unlit propane tank heater. The other three bodies were outside. Two of their families were only able to recover bones.

  No one knows what happened to the boys of Yuba County and why they perished in the snow. Mathias remains missing.
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  (#3) The Lake Bodom Murders Remain Unsolved Half A Century Later

  The Lake Bodom murders, to date, remain Finland’s most notorious mystery. On June 4, 1960, 15-year-olds Maila Irmeli Björklund and Anja Tuulikki Mäki went camping at Lake Bodom. With them were their 18-year-old boyfriends, Nils Wilhelm Gustafsson and Seppo Antero Boisman. 

  The next morning, hikers discovered three of them, stabbed and bludgeoned to death. The sole survivor was Gustafsson, who had a concussion and several broken facial bones. 

  A nearby camping store owner was a suspect, as was an alleged ex-KGB spy. Shoddy investigating ensued, and there was no DNA to match. Neither suspect was ever arrested.

  In 2004, Gustafsson went on trial for the murders, but there was no evidence to prove his guilt. He was exonerated the next year. To date, no one knows who murdered the three young teens that fateful June day.
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  (#12) The Mystery Of The Phoenix Lights

  In 1997, hundreds of people in Arizona, Nevada, and the Mexican state of Sonora saw lights in the sky. The lights first appeared in a V-shape formation, and then as a cluster of stationary lights, spherical in shape.

  The US Air Force later claimed the lights were high-intensity flares, and the government has refused to acknowledge any other explanation. 
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  (#4) The Mystery Behind Étienne Bottineau And The Arrival Of Ships

  Today, it's easy enough to map a ship and learn its exact course and time of arrival. Not so much in the 18th century. Yet, in French-colonized Mauritius, a Frenchman named Étienne Bottineau could. He predicted the arrival of ships as far as 350-700 miles from the island.

  He called it the science of nauscopie, and won many a tavern bet. He could predict the arrival of fleets, down to the time and number of ships. He called nauscopie “the art of discovering ships and land at a great distance.”

  No one knows how he did it. By the time Bottineau tried to go to France and try his talent there, the French Revolution was underway. No government official lent him an ear. Later, he perished of unknown causes in Pondicherry, India. To date, no one knows how he did it and what nauscopie truly is.
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  (#6) A 10-Year-Old Teen Murder Remains Unsolved

  Seventeen-year-old Blake Chappell went to the East Coweta High School homecoming dance in Sharpsburg, GA, on October 15, 2011. He was supposed to spend the night at a friend’s house, but he left to visit his girlfriend. The Georgian teen was later seen walking back to his friend’s house, but he never made it.

  His mother recalls the last conversation they had. He said, “Mom, I had so much fun, it was the best day of my life, I got to hang out with my friends and dance.” When Blake went missing, his mother reported it to the authorities and, for two months, the search continued.

  During the months Chappell was missing, his mother Melissa received a strange phone call, in which she heard only the sound of a television set for several minutes. She stated that she called out her son's name several times, but received no reply.

  Finally, in December 2011, authorities discovered his body. Blake Chappell had been shot.

  Police investigated and ultimately cleared a suspect who had assaulted Chappell only months prior to his disappearance. The man in question was the stepfather of Chappell's former girlfriend, who had ran away from home to visit Chappell. This individual had reportedly also threatened to kill Chappell over his relationship with the girl, but authorities found no evidence tying him to the boy's disappearance and murder.

  The police haven't released any further details. The case remains open, if cold.

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