Ten Incredible Unexplained Mysteries

Ten Incredible Unexplained Mysteries 

Unsolved ancient mysteries have captivated man for centuries. For most of us these enduring mysteries might unlock some secrets from our ancient ancestors. For others, including the worlds greatest minds, the challenge of deciphering these ancient codes and mysteries is an enigma that could lead to great fame and possibly fortune.  

Other are convinced that our ancient ancestors had access to incredible knowledge and technologies that have been lost over time and will not be gained again until man reaches a higher consciousness. Whatever you believe, these remain ten of the greatest mysteries still unsolved. 

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1. Damacus Sword

Mesmerizing Damascus Sword

The remarkable characteristics of Damascus steel became known to Europe when the Crusaders reached the Middle East, beginning in the 11th century.

They discovered that swords of this metal could split a feather in midair, yet retain their edge through many a battle with the Saracens. The swords were easily recognized by a characteristic watery or ”damask” pattern on their blades.

Such blades were reputed to be not only tough and resistant to shattering, but capable of being honed to a sharp and resilient edge.

The original method of producing Damascus steel is not known. Due to differences in raw materials and manufacturing techniques, modern attempts to duplicate the metal have failed.

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2. Pillar of Delhi

Mysterious Noncorroding Pillar of Delhi

Standing at the center of the Quwwatul Mosque the Iron Pillar is one of Delhi's most curious structures. Dating back to 4th century A.D., the pillar bears an inscription which states that it was erected as a flagstaff in honour of the Hindu god, Vishnu, and in the memory of the Gupta King Chandragupta II (375-413). 

How the pillar moved to its present location remains a mystery. The pillar also highlights ancient India's achievements in metallurgy. The pillar is made of 98 per cent wrought iron and has stood 1,600 years without rusting or decomposing.

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3. Costa Rican Spheres

The incomprehensible Spheres of Costa Rico

Hundreds of stone spheres have been documented in Costa Rica, ranging in size from a few centimeters to over two meters in diameter. Almost all of them are made of granodiorite, a hard, igneous stone. These objects are not natural in origin, unlike the stone balls in Jalisco, Mexico that were described in a 1965 National Geographic article. Rather, they are monolithic sculptures made by human hands.

The spheres have been endangered since the moment of their discovery. Many have been destroyed, dynamited by treasure hunters or cracked and broken by agricultural activities. At the time of a major study undertaken in the 1950s, fifty balls were recorded as being in situ. Today, only a handful are known to be in their original locations.

Theories abound about who made them and how but the bottom line is no one really knows. 

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4. Baigong Pipes

Captivating and very mysterious Baigong Pipes of China

Local legend speculates that Mt. Baigong in the Qinghai Province of China is an ancient extraterrestrial laboratory. Aside from the mysterious pyramid that crowns the mountain, three triangular entrances at the mountain’s base lead the way to hundreds of decrepit metal pipe-like structures of unknown origin.

The rusty tubes, ranging from needle-size to 16 inches in diameter, reach from deep inside the mountain to a saltwater lake 260 feet away. Many of the hollow pipes are uniform in size and seem to be placed purposefully. The ancient objects are embedded deep enough into the mountain wall and floor to preclude modern human handling. The inhospitable environment surrounding the mountain sees only the occasional nomad. Unless these wanderers developed secret advanced metallurgy skills, the pipes were not formed by 'human' hands.

What is astonishing is inside for there is a half-pipe about 40 centimeters in diameter tilting from the top to the inner end of the cave. Another pipe of the same diameter goes into the earth with only its top visible above the ground. At the opening of the cave there are a dozen pipes at the diameter between 10 and 40 centimeters that run straight into the mountain in what appears to be a sophisticated mounting technique. 

About 80 meters away from the caves is the shimmering Toson Lake, on whose beach 40 meters away, many iron pipes can be found scattered on sands and rocks. They run in the east-west direction with a diameter between 2 and 4.5 centimeters.

Oddly there are pipes located in the lake, some reaching above the surface and some remain buried below, scattered across the beach are similar pipes with the same shape and thickness. 

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5. Antikythera Mechanism

An exacting modern replica of the Antikythera Mechanism

The Antikythera Mechanism is one of the world's oldest known geared devices. It has puzzled and intrigued historians of science and technology since its discovery. It was recovered in 1900–01 from the Antikythera wreck, a shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera. The device seemed to have a range of interlocking gears made of bronze and a hand crank to give a turning movement to the geared mechanism, plus a display that showed information about the moon, sun and planets against a background of stars.

Taking all the available facts into account, the prevailing theory at the moment is that the device was a clockwork-like mechanism designed to display the progress and positions of the sun, moon, and probably all five of the other planets known at the time (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn) over a period of 19 years. In other words: it’s an analog astronomical computer. It had apparently been built several years before the shipwreck - most likely in 82 B.C. 

The levels of precision and astronomical understanding necessary to the functionality of the antikythera Mechanism perhaps attest to the strong possibility that this example of ancient genius in mechanics and science was not unique and that its designers and fabricators were capable of producing other examples of such, or similar, instruments.

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6. Voynich Manuscript

A language that is not understood and drawing of plants that don't exist at least on earth

The Voynich manuscript has been studied by many professional and amateur cryptographers, including American and British code-breakers from both World War I and World War II. No one has yet succeeded in deciphering the text, and it has become a famous case in the history of cryptography. 

The mystery of the meaning and origin of the manuscript has excited the popular imagination, making the manuscript the subject of novels and speculation. None of the many hypotheses proposed over the last hundred years has yet been independently verified.

While each page displays plants, none of them has been identified but a more interesting aspect of this mystery is that the manuscript contains astronomical content. 

One series of 12 diagrams depicts conventional symbols for the zodiacal constellations. Each of these has 30 female figures arranged in two or more concentric bands. Most of the females are at least partly naked, and each holds what appears to be a labeled star or is shown with the star attached by what could be a tether or cord of some kind to either arm. The last two pages of this section were lost, while Aries and Taurus are split into four paired diagrams with 15 women and 15 stars each. Some of these diagrams are on fold-out pages.

The Voynich Manuscript is a true historical mystery but of what time and place is unknown. 

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7. Egyptian Mummies

Ancient Mummies in for modern day drug testing - they failed

Scientists found hashish, cocaine and tobacco in 9 Egyptian mummies, however, tobacco was  unknown in the Old World until the Spanish brought it back from the Americas in the Sixteenth Century.

"Apart from an ongoing investigation of hallucinogenic drugs in ancient societies, this preliminary study reports the identification of cocaine, hashish, and nicotine in Egyptian mummies. We took samples of soft tissue, bone, and hair from nine mummies. Drugs were detected by radio-immunoassay and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry."

Ancient Egypt has confounded the experts for centuries and this discovery within the mummies only adds one more element of intrigue.

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8. Bagdad Lights

The carvings show ancients using electricity that defy logic but make perfect sense.

One of the great mysteries of ancient Egyptian architecture is how were so many things built without electricity. Pyramids, tombs and temples had a vast network of hallways and tunnels, many were lined with painting and carvings. Was it all done in the dark? That is not very likely. 

Some have speculated that it was done with a series of mirrors or copper that reflected light into the vast array of pitch black corridors. To the logical mind that is pretty far fetched. 

Many still believe today that the only form of light the Egyptians used came from oil lamps, candles and torches. Well if that's the case where is the soot. Conspicuous by it absence is the soot or black grime or residue that these primitive forms of light emitted.  So, how did they do it? Easy, electricity

A Norwegian electrical engineer noticed that the object shown on the relief in the photo just above could work as a lamp. An Austrian scientist was able to construct a working model, and two well known authors in the AAS, Peter Krassa and Rainer Habeck, could even work out a real theory based on it. What we see is without question a form of bulb, with two arms reaching into it near its thick end, and a sort of cable at the other end, from where a snake is leaping out to touch the arms on the other side. The whole ensemble really looks like a lamp.

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9. San Pedro Mountain Mummy

The San Pedro Mountain Mummy - Known as the Tiny People Eaters

Oral traditions of many Native American tribes, including the Arapaho, Sioux, Cheyenne, and Crow, tell of "little people” who stand from just 20 inches to three feet tall. In some tribes they are known as "tiny people eaters,” in others they were known to have been spirits and healers, and some believed them to be magical, similar to leprechauns or fairies. In any event, the legends were well known among Indians across the nation, long before the Europeans set foot upon the Americas.

Though many believe these "little people” to be only the stuff of legends, several discoveries point to the contrary, the most significant of which, was a 14” inch fully formed mummy found in 1932. Called the Pedro Mountains Mummy, he was discovered when two men were digging for gold in the San Pedro Mountains about 60 miles southwest of Casper,Wyoming .

Many screamed hoax and scientist assembled to perform test. Anthropologists would soon be surprised to see that x-rays displayed a perfectly formed, manlike skeleton. The examines also showed that the mummy had been killed violently, as the spine was damaged, a collarbone broken, and the skull had been smashed in by a heavy blow. The soft substance at the top of the head exposed brain tissue and congealed blood. After the tests were complete, the scientists estimated that the mummy was a full grown adult who was approximately 65 years old at the time of his death. One odd finding was that its teeth were overly pointed, having a full set of canines.

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10. Man Made City of Nan Madol

The man made city of Nan Madol - were the building stone levitated into place as legend says?

If Nan Madol was anywhere else on the planet it would attract thousands of visitors a day. There truly is no other place on Earth like it. It is located in Micronesia in the western Pacific Ocean. The city, constructed in a lagoon, consists of a series of small man-made islands linked by a network of canals.

According to Pohnpeian legend, Nan Madol was constructed by twin sorcerers Olisihpa and Olosohpa from the mythical Western Katau, or Kanamwayso. The brothers arrived in a large canoe seeking a place to build an altar so that they could worship Nahnisohn Sahpw, the god of agriculture. After several false starts, the two brothers successfully built an altar off Temwen Island, where they performed their rituals. In legend, these brothers levitated the huge stones with the aid of a flying dragon.

The technologies of ancient civilizations continue to baffle scientific explanation. Nan Madol is a ruined city that lies off the eastern shore of the island of Pohnpei and was the capital of the Saudeleur dynasty until about AD 1500. The Megalithic city consists of a series of small artificial islands linked by a network of canals and is often called the "Venice of the Pacific". The name Nan Madol means "spaces between" and is a reference to the canals that crisscross the ruins.The original name was Soun Nan-leng (Reef of Heaven). 

Nan Madol required a tremendous effort and expertise so that the great number of stones, weighing anywhere from five to fifty tons, could be moved and raised to where they were needed. To erect walls 10 feet wide and up to 37 feet tall, 250 million pieces of rock(700 000 metric tons) had to be logged in from the quarry on the opposite side of the island. The locals say that the ancient builders used magic. A powerful magician living in the well inhabited region on the northwest of the island was solicited, With "sounds of varying pitch" he made basalt logs fly through the air like birds and settle down in their appointed places.