Top 8 Mysterious Things That Are Still Mysteries (5-8)
5.) Toynbee Tiles- This is a strange one but for reasons that aren’t sinister or other-worldly. There’s no murder to figure out, no disappearance and no megalithic structures. The Toynbee tiles are simply mysterious messages found embedded in the asphalt of streets in over 20 American cities, and a few in South America as well. The tiles are thought to have been created and laid by one man/woman originating in Philadelphia circa the 1980’s.
All original, non-copycat tiles are either the same or a close variation of the first discovered message that read:
TOYNBEE IDEA
IN KUBRICK’S 2001
RESURRECT DEAD
ON PLANET JUPITER
The message seems like fragmented thoughts spliced together to make one unintelligible sentence, but which make obvious reference to the Kubrick film: 2001: A Space Odyssey. I’ve never seen the movie, but from everything I’ve read there is little connection between the movie and resurrecting the dead on Jupiter.
Toynbee is thought to be a reference to a “famous” historian by the name of Arnold. As for the rest of the message, several theories are available and none of which really give a sane motive for the placement of these license-plate-sized messages on the ground. Even more strange is that they’re all placed on major public thoroughfares, yet no one has seen a person put them there. To read more about them and see pictures of the various tiles, visit here.
6.) Death of Mary Reeser- The official cause of death as stated by the coroner is accidental death due to negligence of a lit cigarette, although for everyone else involved in the case, that simply just did not make sense. When her remains were found, all that was left were ashes, a left foot with slipper, back bone and a substantially shrunken skull. For all intents and purposes, it appeared to be the first documented case of S.H.C. (spontaneous human combustion). I’m not here to speculate one way or the other; I’m here to lay out facts for you to decide on your own, but from what I’ve seen…the circumstances present strange evidence that entertains the idea of S.H.C.
Death by fire isn’t a rare phenomenon, or even all that uncommon, but the evidence observed by investigators make this one of the more mysterious deaths to ever have been discovered.
Mrs. Reeser was found by the land lady July 2nd 1951 when the woman arrived at the door with a telegram. When her knocks went unanswered, she decided to let herself in but found the knob to be “uncomfortably warm”. What she then saw next would be the subject of much speculation to this day. Normally, when a person is burned to death anything within a certain distance of the flame is at least singed if not completely until extinguished by external forces. Aside from most of Reeser’s body, the apartment and objects occupying said space were left almost completely intact. Everyone was stumped as to how a person could essentially be cremated while objects only a few feet away remained largely untouched. The investigators were stumped so much so that the FBI was contacted. To this day, it remains a mystery. To check out the pictures and case for yourself, go here.
7.) Stone Spheres of Costa Rica- This is another one that draws the alien-conspiracy-theorists out from under their tinfoil hats.
The stones were discovered in the 1930’s when clearing out the jungle for banana plantations. At first they were bulldozed out of the way, and then upon word of treasure inside, the workers drilled holes in order to stick dynamite inside and blow them apart. These actions drew the attention of the government who were then able to stop the destruction and have archeologists come study them. These studies were then finally published in 1943.
Aside form alien theory, a second popular idea is that they came from Atlantis (I think alien construction has a better likelihood than originating from a mythical city but…whatever, I digress.
Local legend however, states that native inhabitants had access to a potion able to soften the rock in order to easily form them, called gabbro. Though there is one respected researcher from the Geo-polymer Institute in France who supports the idea, there is no archeological or geological evidence which supports it.
Little is known about how or why the large spheres were made, but it is approximated that they where built between 200 BC and 1500 AD (big window).
They are purported to be almost perfect in shape and range in size from a few centimeters to 6 ½ feet in diameter and number in the hundreds. Mysterious stones? Perhaps. Mysterious use and creator? Probably not…just some really old-fashioned ingenuity and a whole lot of time and/or manpower. To read more on these stones, click here.
8.) The Somerton Man- Also known as the Taman Shud case, this mystery involves murder, intrigue, codes and a completely unknown victim which occurred in November of 1948.
The Somerton Man was found, back against a wall on a public street. He was fully clothed in expensive attire and had a half smoked cigarette on the lapel of his jacket. There were no signs of a struggle, no marks or bruises, and upon autopsy, no cause of death. Consistent with poisoning, his stomach was found full of blood as well as having heart failure, though no trace of poison could be found. Deepening the mystery, when his clothes were searched (which only contained an unused rail ticket, a used bus ticket, cigarettes and matches) no money or identification could be found, and all of the labels from his clothing were removed.
A couple months later, an unclaimed suitcase was found in a locker at the bus station the dead man had been at, on the same day the mystery man died. The label from the case had also been removed. Inside the luggage were clothes, a brush for stenciling, a knife and scissors with sharpened points; all labels from these items had been removed as well.
Again, a few months later, something else was discovered; a hidden pocket in the man’s trousers revealed a piece of rolled-up paper with two words: Taman Shud. It’s the last two words in a book containing a 900 year old Persian poem telling the reader to live life to the fullest with no regrets. Taman Shud translates to: The End.
After the details of the case were made public in an attempt to bring someone forward who might be able to identify the man, a doctor from Glenelg stepped up with a copy of the book…the last page which contained the two words found in Mr. Mysterious’s pocket was missing. Forensically proven to be a match to the scrap of paper, the doctor told his story of how on November 30th, the book had been tossed into the front seat of his car via an open window in his absence, but thought nothing of it until the case was publicized.
On the back of the book, faint pencil markings were found forming four lines of capital letters which code experts were unable to decipher. Nothing new since has been discovered and to this day, the man’s identity remains unknown. Taman Shud.
For 20 pages of research on the unknown man, click here.
[Note- I promise I will be getting back to my angry roots starting tomorrow. Also, I’m really sorry I haven’t replied to anyone or read their posts. I’ve been swamped at work and at home and haven’t even written a post in 2 weeks. I will step it up though tomorrow…promise.]
graysonjack
angry rant 
Wow. This was really interesting. I hadn’t even heard about these! Now I think I am going to spend the next couple of days just reading up on all this! Fortunately, you provided some links in this post. That will really help!
Look forward to more lists like this. But do rant every so often!
Like the pair of posts. No worries about replies – been in your shoes before so I know how it rolls.
Rad! Never heard about the tiles before