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Mysteries

Underwater photos revealed the John Evenson's giant propeller.

This Shipwreck’s Location Was a Mystery for 129 Years. Then, Two Men Found It Just Minutes Into a Three-Day Search

The “John Evenson” tugboat was helping another ship enter the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal in Wisconsin when it sank to the bottom of Lake Michigan in 1895

Some human bones, including this skull, found at the Tollense Valley battlefield were pierced with arrowheads.

New Research

These 3,000-Year-Old Arrowheads Are Pivotal Clues in the Mystery of ‘Europe’s Oldest Known Battlefield’

While no written records exist, new research has illuminated key details of the battle fought in northern Germany during the 13th century B.C.E.

A Bryde’s whale photographed in the Mariana Archipelago

Mysterious ‘Mechanical-Sounding’ Noise Near the Mariana Trench May Now Have an Explanation

An acoustic survey in 2018 and new analysis with A.I. suggest the sounds are vocalizations from the elusive Bryde’s whale

The researchers' A.I. model can spot geoglyphs' outlines 20 times faster than humans.

Cool Finds

See Newly Discovered Nazca Drawings That Depict Llamas, Human Sacrifices and More

An A.I.-assisted study identified 303 previously unknown geoglyphs in the Peruvian desert. The art features surprising figures, like orcas holding knives

An 1860 photo of New-York Tribune editor Horace Greeley, who challenged President Ulysses S. Grant in the 1872 election

Untold Stories of American History

This Defeated Presidential Candidate, Once the ‘Best-Known Man in America,’ Died in a Sanatorium Less Than a Month After Losing the Election

Newspaper editor Horace Greeley unsuccessfully ran against incumbent Ulysses S. Grant in November 1872. Twenty-four days later, he died of unknown causes at a private mental health facility

In 2022, researchers nicknamed the occupant of the lead sarcophagus "the horseman." Now, they say he's actually a 16th-century poet.

Cool Finds

Archaeologists Say They’ve Solved the Mystery of a Lead Coffin Discovered Beneath Notre-Dame

New research suggests the sarcophagus’ occupant, previously known only as “the horseman,” is Joachim du Bellay, a French Renaissance poet who died in 1560

Sarah Emma Edmonds is often credited as one of the handful of hidden female fighters who participated in the Battle of Antietam. But her account doesn’t match up with the historical record.

Women Who Shaped History

This Female Civil War Soldier Participated in the Bloodiest Battle in American History and Spied on the South—or Did She?

Historians say that Sarah Emma Edmonds exaggerated many aspects of her wartime experiences. Still, she bravely served in the Union Army, becoming one of hundreds of women who fought in the conflict in secret

The doomed porbeagle shark, just after being tagged and released by researchers in 2020.

Scientists Solve a ‘Murder Mystery’ After a Pregnant, Tagged Shark Got Eaten

It’s rare for apex predators to become prey, but researchers suggest they’ve documented the first known case of a porbeagle shark getting consumed by another animal

Painted in the 1640s or 1650s by Flemish artist Erasmus Quellinus II, the portrait first arrived at Chatsworth House in 1838.

Cool Finds

Missing for Four Decades, This Unusual Double Portrait of Rubens and van Dyck Has Finally Resurfaced

The 17th-century painting, stolen in a 1979 heist, turned up at an auction in France in 2020. It recently returned home to Chatsworth House in England

The front of the postcard features a print of The Challenge (1844) by English artist Edwin Henry Landseer.

Cool Finds

See a Mysterious Postcard That Was Delivered 121 Years Late

The handwritten note, which bears a 1903 postmark, recently arrived at a building society in Wales

A scan of a color copy of the original computer printout bearing the Wow! signal, taken several years after the signal's 1977 arrival.

Mysterious ‘Wow!’ Radio Signal Might Finally Have an Explanation—and No, It’s Not Aliens

The infamous signal recorded in 1977 might have been a laser-like beam of radiation from a hydrogen cloud energized by a powerful, magnetic star, preliminary research suggests

The Sodder children, from left to right: 14-year-old Maurice, 12-year-old Martha, 9-year-old Louis, 8-year-old Jennie and 5-year-old Betty

What Happened to the Sodder Children, the Siblings Who Went Up in Smoke in a West Virginia House Fire?

Authorities said the Christmas 1945 blaze was accidental, but the victims’ family believed otherwise, theorizing it was an act of arson designed to distract them while their loved ones were kidnapped

Andreane Rellou is an actor and filmmaker who saw the photos at the museum and took it upon herself to identify the two women.

Cool Finds

Amateur Sleuth Identifies the Mystery Women in a Museum’s Fabergé Frames

The portraits were on display at a museum in England, where staffers had been wondering about the two subjects for years

The Altar Stone lies at the center of the prehistoric monument in Wiltshire, England.

New Research

Stonehenge’s Massive Central Stone May Have Been Shipped From Hundreds of Miles Away

Researchers think they’ve solved the mystery of the monument’s Altar Stone, which could have traveled all the way from Scotland

One of the four newly translated cuneiform tablets

Newly Deciphered, 4,000-Year-Old Cuneiform Tablets Used Lunar Eclipses to Predict Major Events

Ancient Babylonians linked astronomical phenomena to pestilence, the death of kings and the destruction of empires

The anonymous sender secured the artifacts in foam cut-outs inside a cardboard flapjack box.

Cool Finds

The Mystery of the Bronze Age Ax Heads Mailed Anonymously to an Irish Museum Has Been Solved

A farmer stumbled upon the 4,000-year-old artifacts while working in his field in central Ireland

Benjamin Franklin lived in London for much of the time between 1757 and 1775.

Why Were There So Many Skeletons Hidden in Benjamin Franklin’s Basement?

During restorations in the 1990s, more than 1,200 pieces of bone surfaced beneath the founding father’s London home

This bronze helmet found near Corinaldo, Italy, belongs to the Piceni civilization.

Cool Finds

Aristocratic Tomb Discovered in Italy Offers Clues to a Mysterious Pre-Roman Civilization

The burial site, rife with Iron Age artifacts like a chariot and a helmet, likely belonged to a Piceni prince

When researchers excavated part of the ball court, they found a mysterious structure beneath it.

Cool Finds

Researchers Unearth Mysterious Structure Beneath Maya Ball Court

Featuring painted stucco walls, the structure likely dates to between 200 and 600 C.E.

In "Lady in the Lake," Natalie Portman plays a fictional journalist who investigates a pair of mysterious deaths. The cases are inspired by the real-life disappearances of Esther Lebowitz and Shirley Lee Parker.

Based on a True Story

The Real Story Behind the Baltimore Deaths That Inspired ‘Lady in the Lake’

A new mini-series offers a fictionalized take on two unrelated 1969 cases: the mysterious disappearance of bartender Shirley Lee Parker and the murder of 11-year-old Esther Lebowitz

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