I've been watching History's Greatest Mysteries on Tubi, mainly because I love Lawrence Fishburne's voice, which falls into the very limited range of sounds I can still hear at present (I also think he's an amazing actor.) Because most of the mysteries presented have yet to be solved, I've been thinking about what the possible solutions could be. Writers by trade have to be problem solvers, and we often think in directions other people don't. So here are:
Ten Solutions to Unsolved Mysteries (If I were writing books about them)
Atlantis: A continent inhabited by a highly advanced civilization and destroyed by a mysterious natural or man-made disaster that made it sink under the ocean. Solution: Atlantis is entirely invented. Plato based his fiction on some real historic events and then highly embellished them, which added all those tantalizing but ultimately meaningless clues.
Bigfoot: People have been chasing after this large, mythic creature said to be inhabiting the forests of North America for decades. Solution: They're bear sightings. I know, that's not as intriguing, exotic or terrifying, but they're just bear sightings.
D.B.Cooper: The skyjacker who famously jumped off a plane after receiving the $200K ransom he demanded has never been found (a little of the money has) and no one knows who he was/is. Solution: If it were my story, I'd have the skyjacker make it appear like he jumps off the plane by tossing off the parachutes (one is stuffed with the money and has a homing beacon.) He then puts on a flight lineman's garments, hides until the plane lands, and disembarks before the aircraft is searched. He leaves the airport, finds and retrieves the money, buries a little of it to make it look like he landed, and goes off to live a very comfortable life on a tropical island that doesn't have allow extradition.
Jack the Ripper: An unidentified serial killer who murdered prostitutes in late 19th century London. Solution: There isn't one. We don't have enough evidence to reveal the killer's identity and we never will. As such, accepting that we will never solve this case is the solution to it.
Jimmy Hoffa: The former Teamsters' President with alleged ties to organized crime disappeared in 1975 and has not been seen since. Although several mobsters have claimed to have murdered him, Hoffa's remains have never been recovered. Solution: He was executed by the mob, transported to a mob-controlled funeral home, and cremated in order to destroy his remains, which are probably in an urn or urns somewhere with the ashes of another deceased person(s).
King Arthur: Said to be one of the most famous rulers of Britain, this mythological king created the knights of the round table, killed all sorts of terrible creatures and went on adventures. Solution: Nope, he didn't exist, either. He's a fictional conglomeration of real life kings and rulers turned into inspirational myth, likely developed by the Welsh.
The Loch Ness Monster: a mythical creature said to inhabit Scotland's Loch Ness. Solution: It's a hoax. All the photographs are fake. P.S. The Scots are laughing at you for believing in this b.s.
The Shroud of Turin: a length of 14th century linen imprinted with the image of a naked man said to be the crucified Jesus Christ. Solution: Like most medieval religious relics, it's a fake created to shore up the Catholic religion's claims about Christ.
Stonehenge: a prehistoric megalithic structure built on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, the purpose of which has never been determined. Solution: It's a prehistoric open-air church (and before you scoff, think about all the cathedrals that were built in the Middle Ages. Stonehenge looks like an earlier version of the same.) The people who built it gathered there periodically to worship their gods, practice rituals and maybe even hold weddings, feasts or funerals.
The Voynich Manuscript: an illustrated codex, hand-written in an unknown script; the parchment pages have been carbon-dated to the early 15th century. No one can read it and the illustrations are bizarre to say the least. Never solved, although some Canadians used AI to study the manuscript, which they claim is written in Hebrew. Solution: the book is a practice text created by an manuscript-making apprentice who was honing his skills at hand writing and illustration. He used a language like Hebrew on which he based his writing, which is not coded but nonsensical, as are the illustrations.
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