The Bermuda Triangle legend began after the disappearance of Flight 19. On the afternoon of 5 December 1945, five Navy bombers set off on a training session from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The planes, known collectively as Flight 19, should have been in the air for three hours, but for some unknown reason, all five planes never made it home. A total of 14 experienced men headed into the clouds, so what happened to them during what should have been a routine trip?
Well, according to NAS Fort Lauderdale Museum, Flight 19 completed their assigned exercise and on their way back the squadron commander, Lieutenant Charles Taylor, reported he was lost. Over the next three hours, Taylor led his squadron further away from land, where many believe they ran out of fuel and crashed into the ocean. Units from the U.S Navy, Army and Coast Guard joined forces to undertake one of the largest searches in history, but nothing was ever found.
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Lost for over 100 years, the SS Waratah remains one of the greatest nautical mysteries of all time. In July 1909, the passenger steamship set sail for Cape Town, on her second voyage. Then, one day, she vanished without a trace. Weighing almost 10,000 tonnes, the 500-foot (152m) liner was carrying 211 people and to this day no remnants of the ship, or its ill-fated passengers, have ever been found.
Some have theorised that the ship was capsized by a freak wave, but no evidence can prove the notion. The marine explorer, Emlyn Brown, spent decades searching for the Waratah shipwreck, but after extensive sonar research and numerous dives, he declared defeat in 2004. Though it's been over a century since the spectacular ship disappeared, no one has quite been able to explain what happened during that fateful journey.
A tragic tale of loss, the story of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 shocked the world. The plane disappeared on 8 March 2014, during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The Boeing 777 was carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members when it suddenly diverted off course before vanishing. Strangely, the plane’s internal reporting system and transponder were both switched off. Then, at 2:22 AM, the Malaysian military radar lost contact with the aircraft somewhere over the Andaman Sea.
Many believe the unidentified object to be an extraterrestrial flying saucer and stories of government cover-ups have circulated ever since. Then, some five decades after the story hit the news, the U.S. military stated that the balloon could have been part of a highly classified atomic espionage project. While this is a far more likely scenario, who really knows what happened in Roswell all those years ago...
For centuries, daring adventurers have been seduced by Mount Everest's beauty and scale, and even today just over half the people that attempt to reach its summit actually succeed. So imagine the added challenges of making the ascent in 1924. In June of that year, George Mallory and Andrew Irvine set off on the final stage of their summit climb. They were last seen on the mountain’s Northeast Ridge, just 800 feet (243m) from the very top of the world's highest peak...
Sadly, they never came down from the mountain and remained missing until Mallory’s frozen body was discovered in 1999. Their deaths were never in doubt, but what happened, and whether they managed to reach the summit, remains a great mystery. All we know for sure is that a photograph that Mallory wanted to leave on the summit was missing from his body. If the pair did reach the top, they would have been the world's first, preceding Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay by almost 30 years.
Where the treasure went remains one of the world's biggest travel mysteries and countless people have dedicated their lives to trying to find it. Amazingly, an anchor thought to be from The Merchant Royal was found off the coast of Land's End, Cornwall, England, in March 2019, giving treasure hunters new hope. Could the ship's 100,000 pounds worth of gold and 400 bars of silver one day be found? It's really no wonder that the Merchant has become known as the "most valuable shipwreck never found".
A true feat of archaeology, the Pyramids of Egypt have to been seen to be believed. One of the "Seven Wonders of the Ancient World", these spectacular creations soar as high as 481 feet (147m) and were constructed around 2,550 BC. Today, the pyramids typically attract millions of tourists each year, and for good reason. As well as being entirely imposing to look at, the structures were built as tombs for the country's pharaohs – yet exactly how remains a puzzle.
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To form the Great Pyramid, the largest of Egypt's three Pyramids of Giza, more than 2,300,000 limestone and granite blocks needed to be dragged and lifted into place. Each stone is said to weigh 2.5 tonnes, which is about the same as 25 refrigerators. Yet, with no modern equipment, how did the Egyptians achieve such a feat? A modern theory suggests that the workers used a ramp-like contraption to haul heavy rocks and though not conclusive, it does shed some light on how this wonder came to be.
As one of the world’s greatest nautical mysteries, the Mary Celeste still baffles historians to this day. The spectacular vessel set sail from New York City in November 1872 and was found just over a week later, abandoned and adrift in the Atlantic Ocean. The ghost ship was found by the crew of the Dei Gratia, who discovered her perfectly intact and full of cargo.
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The Celeste wasn’t damaged or flooded, and a captain would only abandon ship as a last resort. So what happened? Many have speculated and while some blame pirates, others believe a giant sea monster might have pulled her down to the depths. In 2007, documentarian Anne MacGregor tried to piece together events. She believes the Mary Celeste faced rough seas and with no way of determining whether his ship would sink, the captain decided to jump overboard.
Stonehenge is perhaps the most famous prehistoric monument in all of Europe. Erected in the late Neolithic period, some 5,000 years ago, the UNESCO World Heritage Site has inspired and confused people for centuries, but several key questions remain to be answered: who built Stonehenge, how did they do it and why?
Many have questioned how the stones were transported and erected – especially given the fact that they weigh, on average, 25 tonnes. The stones were sourced 20 miles (32km) away, from England’s Marlborough Downs, and while some believe they were relocated naturally by glaciers, most think they were moved by humans. Yet without modern machinery and superhighways, how this was done remains a baffling mystery. Could the country's waterways hold the key?
Do you believe in ghosts? Well the residents of St. Louis in Saskatchewan, Canada, certainly do. Despite the fact the train line on the outskirts of the village was removed many years ago, the community continues to see mysterious lights floating above the old tracks, as if a ghost train were passing through. Each apparent first-hand account is the same: the lights get closer, then disappear before they reach the railway crossing in the heart of St. Louis.
A local resident told Global News that he's seen the lights at least 50 times and many believe they're created by a former railway conductor, who was reportedly decapitated by a train in the 1920s. Could the village of St. Louis be possessed by a resentful ghost? A couple of high school students attempted to find out. They theorised that car lights were being dispersed by diffraction, but many debunked this idea since the phenomena purportedly dates back to before cars were invented.
Beautiful and curious in equal measure, the Nazca Lines can be found covering an expansive coastal plain in Peru. Spanning around 200 miles (322km), the area boasts more than 300 giant geoglyph designs, apparently etched into the ground. From spiders to cacti, the creations were formed by the ancient Nazca people more than 2,000 years ago, but why and how remains a mystery. Since the shapes are almost invisible from ground level, how did the culture go about creating such large and intricate patterns?
Some of the etchings span 1,200 feet (370 meters) and are staggeringly complex. Of course, there are plenty of myths and legends surrounding the Nazca Lines and their origins. Archaeologists believe the shapes were formed by removing rocks and earth to create an image outline, while others think the site is an extraterrestrial airfield. The why remains the biggest puzzle, though. Were they created for water or fertility rituals, or did the Nazca people rely on the shapes for astrological purposes? No one really knows...
On 2nd July 1937, American aviator Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, set off for New Guinea. The journey was to be one of their last, as they attempted to fly around the globe. Their next calling point was Howland Island in the Pacific Ocean, but Earhart and Noonan never made it. Though it’s unclear exactly what happened, it’s thought that the pair were hit by bad weather and rapidly ran out of fuel.
Their plane lost contact and despite an extensive search, the pair were never found. Of course, many theories have emerged about what might have happened. Some believe the duo were living as castaways on a remote isle, while others think they were captured by the Japanese after landing on the Marshall Islands. In 1940, human remains were found on Nikumaroro Island and it’s thought they could belong to a woman of around Earhart’s height, but no conclusive proof has been uncovered.
The Carroll A. Deering has become one of history's most discussed maritime mysteries – and for good reason. In the August of 1920, the commercial schooner set sail from Norfolk, Virginia, to Rio de Janeiro, with a hull full of coal. The crew successfully delivered their cargo and set off on their return journey, albeit with a new captain after their original skipper, William Merritt, fell ill. The boat was last seen on 29 January 1921, by a lightship keeper who described the crew as “milling about" suspiciously.
Just two days later, the schooner was found aground and abandoned on Diamond Shoals, off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. The boat's sails were set and its lifeboats missing. Even more strangely, the crews' personal belongings, important navigational equipment, the anchors and logs were all missing. The FBI investigated the incident, but no trace of the crew was ever found. Many believe there was a mutiny among the shipmates, or that pirates climbed aboard, but we may never know the truth behind this fascinating tale.
Not all puzzles involve ghostly disappearances, as Easter Island proves. Beautiful and rugged, the remote Polynesian isle is secluded in the Pacific Ocean and is celebrated for its imposing moai statues, created sometime between AD 1250 and 1500. The Dutch Admiral Jacob Roggeveen first came across Easter Island, known natively as Rapa Nui, on Easter Sunday in 1722. He was fascinated by the monolithic stone statues, some as tall as 33 feet (10m), weighing more than 80 tonnes.
Roggeveen noted that there were no trees to provide leverage for moving the structures, so how did they do it? Scientists have theorised for decades and while some think they were strapped to tree trunks and dragged into position, others claim they were rolled on makeshift sleds. In 2012, archaeologists Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo came up with yet another theory; that the Rapanui people walked the moai into place using ropes and manpower. No matter how these UNESCO-protected creations were achieved, Easter Island will never cease to be captivating.