50 of the Strangest Unsolved Mysteries from Each State Part 1

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Every state harbors unpleasant secrets—here are 50 of the strangest ones from around the country, and why we may never learn the real truth.

Alabama: The Brasher-Dye Disappearance

The Dye brothers, Billy Howard and Robert, disappeared in 1956 along with their cousin, Dan Brasher. They were last seen leaving a relative’s house in rural Jefferson County in a 1947 green Ford, but no one even noticed they were missing because they were known to be heavy drinkers and often disappeared for days while sleeping off a binge. When a missing person’s report was filed, investigators’ questions were met with silence or tall tales—for example, of a bulldozer burying a car under a highway. The case remains unsolved.

Alaska: The Investor murders

In 1982, an $850,000 fishing boat named the Investor was seen burning off of the coast of Craig. Inside, eight bodies were found (the owner, his pregnant wife, their two daughters, and four crewmen) They’d been shot to death and left to burn. One possible suspect was tried, but he’s been acquitted due to a lack of hard evidence. Authorities still haven’t determined a motive. The case is Alaska’s biggest and most famous unsolved mystery.

Arizona: Searching for Robert Fisher

Robert William Fisher (born 1961) is one of the FBI’s ten most wanted fugitives. He’s wanted for the murder of his wife and two kids and for blowing up the house in which they lived in Scottsdale on April 10, 2001. Fisher, the only suspect in the case, disappeared the night of the fire and hasn’t been seen since. It’s possible he committed suicide, but equally possible he’s living under an assumed identity. The FBI is offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to his arrest.

Arkansas: The Gurdon Light

Ever since the 1930s, a floating light appears above the railroad tracks near Gurdon sometime in late October. It’s not in dispute whether the light appears because thousands of people have seen it. What remains a mystery is what causes the light. Some believe it’s the ghost of William McClain, a railroad worker murdered in 1931, according to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas. Others believe it’s a natural phenomenon caused by swamp gas or rock quartz beneath the land. It was featured on television’s Unsolved Mysteries in 1994 and remains unsolved to this day.

California: Did anyone survive the “Escape From Alcatraz”?

The supposedly escape-proof prison named for Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay claimed the lives of 33 prisoners who attempted to flee. But not necessarily John Anglin, Clarence Anglin, and Frank Morris: In 1962, they escaped from their cells through holes they’d drilled in the wall of their cell. Unfortunately, that’s where the story ends. “What happened next remains a mystery,” reads a portion of an FBI history of the investigation, according to NBC News. The case was closed in 1979, but people (including the families of the escapees) still wonder.

Colorado: The Black Forest haunting

Within weeks of moving into their home in the Black Forest area of Colorado Springs, “all hell broke loose” for the Lee family, according to Our Community Now. There were flashing lights, footsteps, orchestra music, strange smells, and even sightings of ghostly faces. The Lee family lives there to this day, still reporting the same phenomena. No one can explain what it is, although a Hopi shaman who was called in to consult claims the house is located on a “rip in the space-time continuum,” where spirits can move freely between worlds.

Connecticut: The shallow graves beneath New Haven Green

In 2012, Hurricane Sandy caused a tree to fall on New Haven Green. Tangled in the roots was a human skull, dating back around 200 years. An archeological dig followed, yielding more body fragments, as well as coffin nails. It’s suspected more than 5,000 bodies are buried under the Green and that they may have been “dragged out in the middle of the night, wrapped in a sheet, and buried in shallow, unmarked graves.” Some theorize the people died during a terrible epidemic—though no one’s sure of what.

Delaware: The inexplicable murder of Jane Marie Prichard

Jane Marie Prichard was conducting botany experiments in Blackbird State Forest in September 1986 when she was shot to death; campers stumbled across her body later. Many hunters were in the forest that day, but investigators quickly ruled out an accidental shooting, according to Delaware Online. What they couldn’t figure out and still haven’t, is why someone wanted Prichard dead, and who might have killed her. The case remains cold to this day.

Florida: The spontaneous combustion of Mary Reeser

In July of 1951, authorities found the body of 67-year-old Mary Reeser in her St. Petersburg apartment. Or more accurately, the pile of mostly ash that once was Mary Reeser’s body (part of her lower leg and some of her spine remained). Apparently, her body had been almost entirely cremated, which is mind-boggling when you consider that cremation requires three hours of burning in a 3,000-degree fire. Even more bizarre—only Reeser’s body had burned: The rest of her apartment was intact, even a pile of newspapers beside her body.

Georgia: The Bleeding House

One night in 1987, Minnie Winston saw blood on the floor of her Atlanta house. Terrified, she ran to find her husband. He was fine, but there was more blood… everywhere. On the walls, oozing from the floor, seeping up from under kitchen appliances. She and her husband called the police, who found no evidence of a break-in. What they were able to surmise was that the blood had come from a living human. No one has ever figured out where or whom the blood came from. 

Hawaii: What happened to Lisa Au

More than 35 years ago, 19-year-old Lisa Au disappeared without a trace, her car abandoned along a highway in Kailua. Her body turned up ten days later, naked and decomposing. The coroner couldn’t determine the cause of death, but police consider the case a homicide—perhaps Hawaii’s most notorious since the police believe that Lisa may have been abducted by someone posing as a police officer.

Idaho: Strange mutilations

The towns of Jerome and Bliss have been plagued by bizarre mutilations since the 1970s—human, cattle, and deer (genitals removed, the bodies drained entirely of blood, and no discernable footprints or other forensic evidence left at the scene). The official explanation by law enforcement is “cult killings,” but no arrest has ever been made, and no cult has ever been identified.

Illinois: The Mad Gasser of Mattoon

During the 1940s, law enforcement received more than two dozen cases of “gassings,” in which the victims reported paralysis, coughing, nausea, and vomiting after smelling a strange, noxious odor in their homes. No physical evidence was ever found, however, and the victims always survived. Some believe the “attacks” were a case of mass hysteria. Others believe the “Mad Gasser” actually existed or that the “attacks” were really the result of paranormal activity. The truth may or may not be “out there.”

Indiana: The mysterious fire poltergeist

In 1941, a farmer in Odon had breakfast with his family and then headed out to his barn to begin his chores. Then he noticed smoke coming out of an upstairs window in his house. He ran back, and with the help of the volunteer fire department put out the fire in an upstairs bedroom—only to have another fire break out in another room. All day long, as soon as they put out one fire, another would start elsewhere in the house—28 in all. Believing his house to be haunted by poltergeists, the farmer tore it down and built a new one. The cause of the fires has never been determined.

Iowa: The boy with no appetite

In Cedar Falls, there lives a boy who never gets hungry or thirsty. It all started in 2013, when the boy, Landon Jones, who’d been completely fine up until then, came down with a bacterial infection in his left lung. Ever since then, he’s never felt hunger or thirst. He only eats and drinks because he is reminded to do so. No one knows what caused this affliction.

Kansas: The baffling disappearance of Randy Leach

In 1988, Randy Leach, a teenager from Leavenworth County, disappeared from a high school party and has never been found. What makes the case stranger is there’d been rumors of satanic cult activity in the county in the days before Randy’s disappearance, and the party site had been cleaned meticulously before investigators arrived; soon after, it burned to the ground. Most people who’ve cooperated in the investigation have turned up dead, and county officials decline to pursue further leads. There are theories about what really happened that night, but we may never know the truth.

Kentucky: The meat shower

Not a meteor shower—a meat shower. One day in 1876 over a farm in Kentucky, the sky rained down chunks of meat of indeterminate origin (was it bear? mutton? No one knew). The only explanation anyone has ever been able to offer is that the meat was the prey of vultures, who had gorged themselves and then vomited while flying overhead.

Louisiana: The Unknowable Marie Laveau

Marie Laveau lived in New Orleans at the turn of the 19th century, and charmed, titillated, and unnerved the community with her practice of voodoo. Laveau told fortunes and created potions and charms on request. She held spiritual ceremonies that led people to become possessed; she also could magically heal the sick. However, stories of her feats have been passed along from one generation of voodoo practitioners to the next, making it impossible to know the truth behind the tales.

Maine: What happened to Sarah Ware?

In 1898, the brutally beaten body of 52-year-old Sarah Ware was discovered in a wooded area of Bucksport. She’d been missing for two weeks. Her killer is believed to have been a neighbor, but when the blood-stained hammer believed to be the murder weapon disappeared, the neighbor was acquitted. The case still haunts the town to this day, not just because the case was never solved, but also because the circumstances of her burial are so strange: her head and body are buried separately, with no gravestone.

Maryland: House of horrors

In 2017, a Bethesda house fire revealed a disturbing find: The body of a man in the basement. Further investigation revealed a mysterious network of tunnels below the foundation of the house that extended all the way to the street. The house owner, Daniel Beckwitt, has since been charged with the death of Askia Khafra (the body in the basement); investigators allege that Beckwitt hired Khafra to dig the tunnels but put him in danger due to the unsafe work environment. But the purpose of the tunnels and Beckwitt’s motives remain a mystery.

Massachusetts: The Black Flash of Provincetown

From 1939 to 1945, the people of Provincetown were terrorized by a being they called the “Black Flash.” The figure first appeared to a group of children—tall, dressed in black, and growling ominously. In 1945, a group of policemen actually reported seeing the figure leap a 10-foot fence. About a month later, a man threw boiling water at the figure, sending it screaming into the night. It was never seen again.

Michigan: What exactly is the Paulding Light?

In 1966, a group of teens reported having seen a mysterious light above a valley in Paulding. Scientific explanations such as swamp gas have been rejected in favor of the more popular paranormal theory that the light is from the lantern belonging to local brakeman who was killed while attempting to stop an oncoming train. Michigan Tech students believe it’s a phenomenon created by headlights from a nearby road, but the mystery remains officially unsolved.

Minnesota: The frozen girl, defrosted

In 1981, Jean Hillard’s car went off the road near Langby, and the next day, her frozen body was discovered, her eyes wide open, her flesh frozen so solid that doctors couldn’t pierce it with a hypodermic needle. Her body temperature was too low to register on a thermometer. But when Hillard thawed, she was very much alive and made a full recovery.

Mississippi: Phantom Barber of Pascagoula

In 1942, Pascagoula was plagued by a series of peculiar home invasions: “The intruder took locks of hair from each of the people whose homes he broke into,” according to Southern Living. Although one man became a suspect, he was never formally charged and passed a lie-detector test; no one has ever figured out who the Phantom Barber really was or why he did what he did.

Missouri: How Robert Rayford contracted AIDS

In 1969, 16-year-old Robert Rayford was hospitalized in St. Louis for extreme, unintended weight loss and a host of infections. The doctors had no answers, and Rayford died. A few years later, HIV, the virus that causes AIDS was discovered in this country; subsequently, medical testing of Rayford’s blood revealed that he had the virus. Somehow, Rayford, who’d never been out of the country and never had a transfusion, had died of AIDS nearly a decade before it was discovered.

SOURCE: READERS DIGEST

Lauren Cahn Updated: Feb. 02, 2023

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Published by pat frederick

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80 thoughts on “50 of the Strangest Unsolved Mysteries from Each State Part 1”

  1. Morning All!
    sorry I disappeared yesterday.
    we napped in our chairs and whenever i tried to get up and move, hubby stirred–so i sat back down–and then i fell asleep again.
    last night was just a repeat of the previous night. he is finding it difficult to find a position he is comfortable in and can breathe well in for long. sigh

    Liked by 1 person

  11. Laura Loomer:

    FROM THE BOTTOM TO THE TOP!

    Source tells me that the “top” in the video below seen plowing

    @SenatorCardin’s staffer @Aidanmaesec in the Senate building from behind is George Gauger!

    Georg Gauger is a Current student at Elliott School of International Affairs, which is right down the street from the US Senate. Georg Gauger also worked for the German Government.

    In a screenshot from Aidan’s Instagram the day he filmed his sex tape, he tagged Georg on Instagram in the picture below,..

    Since I identified Aidan yesterday as the Senate staffer who was getting railed inside the Senate building, following

    @henryrodgersdc

    original report about the video, Aidan has been fired and Georg has DEACTIVATED his Instagram account.

    As I exposed today, Aidan is registered as a foreign agent.

    Why was a foreign agent working for a US Senator? And how did Georg, who is German, get access to the US Senate??

    The US is so compromised.

    Liked by 1 person

  13. Liked by 1 person

  15. so weird thing at walmart yesterday.
    I wanted to get a new can of lysol–cuz we’re sick and i like to spray the rooms. My can, which I bought when the covid crap was hitting has an “expiration date” of 10/23…we’re still using it. I picked up one of a dozen different scent varieties of lysol yesterday and checked their expiration dates—every last can had a date of 7/22!
    wth?
    I don’t know if it matters or not but seriously? if they put a date on it, they do it for a reason is myopinion

    Liked by 1 person

  16. after walmart, we went to the KFC drivethru. our bill was $12.08 and the person on the speaker said…would you like to round that up to $13.00 and donate $.92 to (some) charity? Hubby said no, we have the change…there was silence and then a very disappointed “oh” on the other end…”just pull ahead then…”
    since when am i obligated to give to some charity I haven’t vetted?
    I save change for just such reasons…

    Liked by 1 person

  21. Trump was greeted with loud cheers at the UFC fight in Las Vegas last night. As Rachel just said, his energy is incredible! A rally in NH earlier, then he turns back time and flies to LV for the fight.

    Liked by 1 person

  22. Fox News Poll of Primary voters released this morning: Trump 69% (up from 62%); ConRon 12% (down from 13%); Haley 9% (down from 10%); Vivek 5% (down from 7%); DoughnutBoy 2% (down from 3%); Asa Hutchinson 1% (same)

    Liked by 1 person

  23. Hmmm…Fox weather: by tomorrow, there will be a big weather system moving up the coast that will encompass the entire east coast – in some cases in the south, up to 5″ of rain, winds up to 50-60 mph; it will be off the NE coast Monday into Tuesday. Snow in the interior states.

    Liked by 1 person

  25. hubby decided we were try something different with the firewood since his asthma is still not the best…he backed the truck into the woodshed and i loaded the back with firewood and then he parked it in the garage. we can unload at our leisure.

    Liked by 1 person

  26. Liked by 1 person

    1. Tarik Johnson
      @elleonCEOTK
      Message to Congress:

      I have said this repeatedly and I will say it again. We need investigations into the actions of Yogananda Pittman (who led the J6 set-up) and J Thomas Manger (who is arguably the most corrupt politician in the country and the leader of the J6 cover-up). I’m not asking anyone in Congress to believe me. I’m just asking you to investigate it. This is not an unreasonable request. God bless you all.

      Tarik K Johnson
      Former Lieutenant US Capitol Police

      Liked by 1 person

  32. “The Free Energy Files (Pt. 1) – What is “Free Energy”? Free Energy isn’t “free”, but it is revolutionary – which is exactly why the Powers That Be have hidden it for so long.”
    JORDAN SATHER
    DEC 17, 2023

    EXCERPT: “Part 1 of an exploration into the nature of Free Energy, true science, Deep State suppression of humanity’s advancement and the brilliant minds who have studied these topics. Future installments will be linked here when they are published.
    _____
    Welcome to the Free Energy Files. This article is the beginning of a series detailing one of the most important, revolutionary topics of our time that’s also one of the least talked about, known, and understood – as well as being of the most hidden, propagandized, and suppressed. Many scientists and inventors have met their untimely demise under mysterious circumstances (“suicided”) for working to change humanity for the better by trying to undo the dogmas of mainstream science and bring disruptive technology to the public.

    If left unhindered, technological progress in any industry occurs exponentially. The first iPhone was released in 2007, with each subsequent release becoming more and more advanced. Social media platforms released around the same time in the mid 2000s experiencing increasing progress every year. Over the last couple decades, the internet went from being a figment of people’s imagination to changing every aspect of our lives. Numerous other examples could be used to describe what should be exponential increase of technological progress.

    Unfortunately two areas of our world that have not seen this sort of exponentially advancement are electricity creation and propulsion mechanisms.

    The Wright brothers first achieved winged flight in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina in 1903. Here we are 120 years later still using Bernoulli’s principle to lift our airplanes and controlled explosion via combustible fuel to propel them. Gasoline powered vehicles were first introduced in the 1880s, and 150 years later we are still using the same propulsion mechanism with them, as well. Sure, there are sensors and screens and computerized components that make our planes and cars feel more fancy and modern, but the underlying mechanisms of lift and propulsion are still the same and have not followed the exponential advancement curve.

    The same could be said for the ways we generate electricity to power our homes and cities. Over a century of using gas, coal, and oil in our power plants with transmission wires to move the electrons around.

    Ah, but here in the 21st century we are finally advancing with electric vehicles, battery powered tools and alternative energy like wind and solar power! We are sold this idea by the Powers that Be, that these energy sources are the pinnacle of human achievement and necessary to save our world from “man-made climate change” – complete horseshit. Yes, the climate is changing, but the main cause of this is due the magnetics of our galaxy and Sun, not due to humans. A conversation for another time….”

    https://jordansather.substack.com/p/the-free-energy-files-pt-1-what-is

    Liked by 1 person

  35. Liked by 1 person

  40. I am adding a short daily prayer to the board. I would invite each of you, if you wish, to also add one or maybe two of your own liking. I do not want to stifle anyone but please limit yourself to one or two religious postings. here’s one I found that I liked.

    Like

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