10 of the World’s Biggest Unsolved Mysteries

“Assassin’s Creed,” “The Da Vinci Code,” “Indiana Jones,” “Scooby Doo.” Okay, maybe not “Scooby Doo.” The point is, we love mysteries, codes and cryptic puzzles. Why are some messages coded? What secrets do they hide? And why are some mysteries just never solved? So, grab your magnifying glass as we delve into a sample of the world’s 10 biggest, UNSOLVED mysteries:

CASE #1: Kryptos

Aptly sitting outside of the CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., is the encrypted “Kryptos” sculpture. Designed by artist Jan Sanborn, the sculpture is so mysterious that not even the CIA has cracked it!

CASE #2: The Wow! Signal

Not to be confused with Blizzard’s MMORPG, “The Wow! Signal” was discovered in 1977 by Jerry Ehman, which was speculated as the first intentional message from an alien world.

The signal lasted for 72 seconds and appeared to have been transmitted in the Sagittarius constellation near a star called Tau Sagittarii.

The real mystery was that all attempts to locate the signal again ended in failure, leading to much controversy on its origins or if it was something else entirely.

CASE #3: Tamam Shud

An unidentified dead man. A cryptic message left behind. Does that sound like the beginnings of a mystery story to you?

It is, and it’s a doozy!

In December 1948, an unidentified dead man was found on Somerton beach in Adelaide, Australia. A tiny piece of paper was found in a hidden pocket sewn within the dead man’s trousers. The words “Tamam Shud” was written on it, which translates as “ended” or “finished,” and is a phrase used on the last page of a collection of poems by Omar Khayyam.

The mystery deepens when a scribbled code was found in a copy of Khayyam’s collection, believed to have been left by the dead man himself.

The case was never solved.