Creepiest Mysteries Ever Solved

Today we're counting down our picks for the top 20 creepiest Mysteries that were finally solved.

For this list, we're looking at puzzling crimes and historical events that were eventually resolved.

1. The fate of the Franklin Expedition

For centuries explorers sought out a Northwest Passage between the Atlantic and Pacific through the Arctic Ocean but their expeditions often ended in disaster. One of the most famous was British royal Navy officer John Franklin's in 1845.

His expedition ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, never returned. Search parties recovered only artifacts and human remains. With the passing of time however, we've pieced together the full story. The ships got trapped in packed ice and the crew died from starvation, hypothermia and disease. The sunken Erebus and Terror were finally found in 2014 and 2016 respectively.

2. Pierre April

Imagine waking up in a ditch with only $17 in your pocket and no idea who you are or where you came from? That's what happened to amnesiac Pierre April in May 1992.

April was found wandering the Streets of San Diego and taken to a shelter. Pieces of his life started coming back to him including faces and talents but nothing came of his attempts to connect to his past life. In September his case was featured on an episode of Unsolved Mysteries.

This episode was seen by an old colleague of April’s named Carol. She found the show's tip line and told them all they needed to know. April was happily reunited with his family and his memory has since recovered.

3. Umbrella Man

The assassination of John F Kennedy in November 1963 prompted countless conspiracy theories. Some of the more interesting ones were about a figure spotted in photos and films of the event, who had been brandishing an umbrella despite the sunny weather.

Could he have been complicit in the assassination? He remained a mystery for 15 years until 1978 when Louis Steven Witt came forth.

Witt identified himself as the umbrella man and said that the umbrella was meant as a symbolic protest against Kennedy. An umbrella had been the trademark accessory of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, infamous for initially appeasing the Nazi party. Witt said ‘It was a reference to Neville Chamberlain's umbrella”.

And with that one of the world's most tantalizing Mysteries fizzled out with a disappointing answer

4. The Paulding light of Michigan

Speaking of horribly disappointing answers let's discuss the Paulding light.

Paulding is a small community in western Michigan that houses a famous piece of folklore. One popular Legend says that the light is produced by the Wayward Spirit of a train conductor killed when his locomotive derailed just outside of

Town. Onlookers can spot a bright light flashing on and off at the end of a valley. The people of Paulding have many Supernatural explanations for this light including ghosts.

One particularly creepy story claims that it's a grandparent looking for their lost grandchild with a flickering Lantern but the truth is far more boring. Turns out it's actually just headlights from a nearby highway.

5. The Somerton Man

One of Australia's enduring Mysteries may have been finally solved.

In the summer of 2022 on December 1st, 1948 a body was found in Adelaide Somerton Park. He was wearing American clothes embroidered with the name Keen. Inside his pocket was a scrap of paper reading ‘tamam shud’ Persian for ‘is finished’.

The book that this paper was torn from was eventually located and investigators found cryptic text written on the cover. Investigators looked for people with ‘no date of death’ on that tree and there was one that stood out in July 2022. DNA helped identify the man as Carl Webb.

It’s also now believed that the cryptic text found in the book were the names of horses as Webb often gambled on horse racing and finally the clothes were likely passed down from his nephew who once lived in the United States