Unsolved' Mysteries That Have Been Solved
1: What's the Secret of the Bermuda Triangle?
Unless you've never been near a drug store paperback rack and don't surf cable channels
late at night, you've undoubtedly heard of the Bermuda Triangle, aka the Devil's Triangle. It's
an area of water between Florida, Puerto Rico, and Bermuda that, according to pop
mythology, contains some sort of malevolent force that causes ships, planes, and people to
disappear, never to be seen again.
Some have put the blame on extraterrestrial invaders capturing humans for study, on
inter-dimensional vortices, and even on oceanic flatulence (methane gas erupting from
ocean sediments) [source: NOAA].
But the real mystery of the Bermuda Triangle is why people are still so eager to believe in it.
Back in 1975, librarian and pilot, Lawrence David Kusche published his investigation of the
phenomena. When he actually reviewed the official reports on ships that paranormal
authors had depicted as vanishing inexplicably, he found that they usually sank in bad
weather or suffered explainable accidents, and that wreckage sometimes was recovered
[source: Nickell].
Similarly, the U.S. Coast Guard's website notes that the service "does not recognize the
existence of the so-called Bermuda Triangle as a geographic area of specific hazard to
ships or planes," and says that after reviewing accidents there, nothing has been found that
couldn't be explained.
2: Why Did the Mayan Civilization Collapse?
For a long time, people have been puzzled about one of the freakiest societal collapses in
human history. Why did the Maya people abandon dozens of cities they'd built in the
Yucatan peninsula in the 700s or 800s C.E., and allow what had been a highly developed
civilization to turn into ruins?
Some have theorized that the Maya were probably defeated in battle by rival peoples or that
the ruling class was overthrown in a peasant revolt. Others have advanced more outlandish
explanations, such as an invasion by UFOs [source: Stromberg].
But in a study published in 2012, Arizona State University researchers, who analyzed
archaeological data with an eye to figuring out environmental conditions in the Mayan
heyday, found evidence to substantiate a theory first advocated by historian Jared Diamond
in his 2005 book "Collapse." The Maya, the researchers discovered, had burned and chopped
down so much of the forests that they had altered the land's ability to absorb solar radiation,
which in turn made clouds and rainfall scarce. That exacerbated a naturally occurring
drought and caused erosion and soil depletion, which caused agriculture to fail. With less
food available, workers were forced to leave the lowland cities to avoid starvation, and
everything collapsed as a result [source: Stromberg].
3: Was 'Umbrella Man' Involved in the JFK Assassination?
One of the weirdest enigmas of the 1963 assassination of President John F.
Kennedy in Dallas was the presence of "umbrella man." This blurry figure is seen in
photographs raising a black umbrella along the presidential route, even though the
sky was clear. Some saw him as proof of a conspiracy -- an advance man who was
signaling the sniper. Others suspected that he might actually be an assassin himself,
firing a poison dart gun concealed in his parasol [source: Gentry].
But when the U.S. House of Representatives reopened the JFK investigation in the
late 1970s, a 53-year-old Dallas warehouse manager named Louie Steven Witt came
forward and testified that he was "umbrella man." Granted, his explanation was a bit
bizarre: Witt disliked JFK's father, former U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom
Joseph P. Kennedy, whom he faulted for supporting British Prime Minister Neville
Chamberlain's appeasement policies toward Hitler. Chamberlain's trademark was his
ever-present umbrella, and Witt chose that day to brandish a big, conspicuous one in
an effort to needle the president. He brought along a visual aid to the hearing -- a
battered black umbrella that he claimed was the one he'd used that day. A
committee staffer popped it open, to reveal that it didn't contain a weapon [source:
Gentry].
Witt added, "If the Guinness Book of World Records had a category for people doing
the wrong thing at the wrong time in the wrong place, I would be No. 1" [source:
Gentry].