MYSTERIOUS X WORK WITH DAN

The Beast of Bray Road

What do you think about this? Sightings of an upright, wolflike creature along Wisconsin’s Bray Road go back to 1936, and journalist Linda Godfrey documented dozens more after 1991. Escaped exotic animal, or something Wisconsin has quietly lived alongside for generations?

Confederate Treasury Gold

What do you think about this? After Richmond fell in April 1865, the fleeing Confederate treasury lost track of 39 kegs of Mexican silver, over 9,000 pounds, believed buried near Danville, Virginia. Ground surveys suggest it’s still there. Buried under a graveyard, or gone for good?

Nephilim

What do you think about this? Genesis says the Nephilim were the offspring of the sons of God and human women, and the Book of Enoch, found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, tells a much longer version of that same story. Ancient metaphor, or history mostly left out of the Bible we know?

Machu Picchu’s Intihuatana Stone

What do you think about this? Machu Picchu’s Intihuatana stone is one of the only Inca sun markers the Spanish never found and destroyed, carved so precisely it casts almost no shadow at the equinox. Astronomical instrument, or something outsiders were never meant to understand?

The Piri Reis Map

What do you think about this? The 1513 Piri Reis map, found in Istanbul’s Topkapi Palace, was compiled from twenty older source charts the admiral said he copied, all of which have since been lost. Lost cartography, or a coincidence that only looks like one?

Villisca Axe Murder House

What do you think about this? On June 10, 1912, eight people were found killed with an axe in Villisca, Iowa, every mirror in the house covered with cloth, and the case has never been solved. Cold case, or does that house still remember?

The Maya Long Count Calendar

What do you think about this? On December 21, 2012, the Maya Long Count calendar’s thirteenth baktun rolled over, and the only inscription that mentions that date describes a god’s return, not an apocalypse. Reset, or warning we still have not translated right?

The Max Headroom Hijacking

What do you think about this? In November 1987 someone hijacked two Chicago TV signals in one night, appearing in a Max Headroom mask for ninety seconds before vanishing. It took real equipment and real skill. Nearly forty years on, nobody has been identified. Who was it?

The Thylacine

What do you think about this? The last thylacine anyone can prove existed died in a Hobart zoo in September 1936. Ninety years on, farmers and rangers still report a stiff tailed striped animal crossing a road at dusk. A misremembered dog, or a survivor out in the bush?

JAL Flight 1628

What do you think about this? In November 1986 a Japan Airlines 747 was shadowed over Alaska for the better part of an hour by something the captain said was larger than an aircraft carrier. Speaking up cost him his cockpit. What did that crew really see?