5 More Mysteries That Have Totally Been Debunked

You'll find crystal skulls pop up in online lists of spooky items that have been found around the globe. The story about these skulls was even used as the centerpiece of the worst Indiana Jones film, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Television shows often make some pretty wild claims about these skulls, like that they are alien super computers, all the while saying that ancient humans simply did not have the tools to create these skulls. And to be fair, the last part is actually mostly true.

While collectors and conspiracy theorists like to claim that these skulls are pre-Columbian era artifacts, the reality is is a lot more boring. Television programs have shown "experts" looking at these skulls and noticing strange auras and spirit energy, but when the skulls were tested by actual professionals, using electron microscopy and X-ray crystallography, they turned out to be bunk.

It's always a shame when actual, legitimate scientists ruin all the fun. When the results came in from several skulls held by the British Museum and Smithsonian, they showed very small rotary marks in the teeth, eye sockets, and even on the cranium. Researchers even manged to find out that the crystal came from Brazilian rock crystal from somewhere in Europe.

A few other skulls still exist out there in the hands of collectors, including the most famous one, the Mitchell-Hedges Skull, but after the results from the analysis on the ones held by museums, you better believe others won't be bringing theirs forward for testing anytime soon. At least not by anyone with a degree in science.

In 1959 a group of ski hikers in Russia took a fun trip up the Kholat Syakhl. For those that aren't aware, Kholat Syakhl is Russian for "Mountain of the Dead," so when they all wound up dead under mysterious circumstances, people took it as a sign. To be fair, what they found of the missing hiking team was pretty creepy, with three of the hikers found with cracked skulls and crushed ribs. Add in the fact that no defensive wounds of any kind were found on the bodies, and you have a mystery on your hands.

But things only got weirder from there, as other members of the team were found dead under similarly strange circumstances. One member was missing their tongue, while others were found striped down to their underwear, something frowned upon when out hiking in the snow, with traces of radiation on the bodies. These mysterious deaths led to a number theories about their deaths including it being a Yeti attack, alien abduction gone wrong, or the Russian government.

But those that looked into the matter beyond simply watching one of those spooky list videos on YouTube, or posting in "amateur" (heavy emphasis on amateur) detective forums found that the deaths of the hikers weren't all that mysterious, or even that spooky. In fact, some simple research shows exactly what happened to the hikers.

The missing tongue can be chalked up to an animal eating it for lunch as the soft tissue inside an open mouth is pretty irresistible, especially when it probably smells of people food. As for the crushed bodies that didn't fight back against those pesky aliens or Yeti? Well, a simple avalanche explains that away pretty easily.

But even still, there are skeptics out there that point to the naked bodies, their bleached skin and the, dun, dun dun, radiation! So I'll hit these in rapid fire: paradoxical undressing, naked bodies left out in the sun and snow for days, and that wasn't a thing that happened.

Okay, that last bit might shock a lot of people, but nowhere in the original reports was radiation ever listed, let alone detected. Same with the strange UFO lights that people sometimes claim to have see. Those "spooky" things were added much later by people not tied to the investigation, and wouldn't you know it, those are the things that people stuck too.

The story of the Flannan Isles Lighthouse is a spooky one that has been floating around the internet for quite some time. Back in December of 1900, three men working at the Flannan Isles Lighthouse mysteriously dispersed while on duty. A supply ship found the island empty when they docked trying to find out what in the world was going on.

Things only got more strange when those searching found nothing out of the ordinary on the island. There were uneaten meals just sitting on the table and only a single chair was knocked over. They found the logs which also stated that a massive storm creeped up on the men, but no reports of a storm was noted.

The mystery stayed with the public, with many claiming all sorts of weird possibilities for these three experienced men simply vanishing. Some noted that a ghost ship had taken them, alien abduction was pitched, because that's always pitched, and some even say the storm was a temporal anomaly that time-jumped the men to some of place in time. What none of these people mention, and what turns out to be the case, is that bad weather lead to the men's deaths. To be fair, this is a lot less interesting than them being time travelers.

Like the Dyatlov Pass incident, much of the weird stuff comes up a lot later. The crew that made it to the island noted that the men were likely washed out to sea by a rogue wave from the storm that very much did happen. Everything strange comes much later like some bad game of telephone. You see, the men that visited documented that they found the kitchen with nothing amiss or out of place, and no food being left out.

The island itself is and interesting one, as it's littered with lots holes that are called geos. When a large storm hits, these can quickly fill and the pressure from intense waves can send jets up the island. Those investigating noted that the topsoil was stripped and visible damage was seen, lining up with the storm that had occurred.

The explanation was that when the fast-moving storm seemed break, two of the men went out to secure the boat and supplies on the cliff-face as one man must always stay inside the lighthouse. This man then noticed the storm picking up quickly and ran to warn/help his friends, knocking over that one chair in the process. The three were then swept out to sea from a rogue wave, or from one of the jets from a geo.

This one is interesting because of the evidence for it. We have video from a dash-cam showing what many claim is a ghost car seemingly teleporting through a fence. This footage was taken by a police officer's dashcam and many point to it as the best footage for ghosts in the modern age.

During a chase down some country roads at night, a police officer was gaining ground on the suspect he noted was driving erratically when the car veered to the left and teleported straight through a solid fence. The video is pretty wild as the officer is unable to follow because of the very same fence the ghost car drove though.

YouTube investigators made some wild claims, but like most instances, when you break it down it has a pretty boring explanation. You see, it seems that all these amateur investigators failed to do the most basic of work; contacting the police department and/or officer involved.

The officer in question was actually happy to answer questions, saying there was nothing spooky about the incident. He was chasing a car that he suspected was being driven by a drunk driver (not a ghost man), and that when he gave chase the driver eventually veered left, like in the video.

The officer then said the vehicle did, in fact, hit the fence, but that he had managed to dislodge most of the metal clips holding the chain-link in place. Because of this, the driver managed to drive under it like one would through a carwash. So when the office drove up he could not pass as the fence didn't look out of order.

The mystery of the Loch Ness Monster, like Bigfoot, is one of the most enduring mysteries of our day. People are so nuts over Nessie that one man sold everything to by a van and spend twenty-five years living by Loch Ness in hopes of catching glimpse of the monster. Needless to say, he didn't find a single piece of evidence, gave up on his search, and presumably went on to reflect on wasting most of his life sitting in a van.

Much of the legend stems from a single photo from the early 30s that shows what appears to be a monster poking its head out from the water. This photo caused quite a stir as it was from a respected surgeon and colonel, with many claiming the monster could be a long extinct specious of dinosaur; and while many claimed it all to be a hoax, their voices were largely ignored because real science and research is totally boring.

All the claims about the existence of Nessie are pretty easily debunked. From the fact that the loch is too small to sustain a creature of that size, or that, until very recently in history the whole thing was frozen over, all signs point to this being bunk. You can also point to no bones being discovered of other creatures, or the giant dumps that a creature the size of Nessie would leave behind, you can see the writing on the wall.

But the biggest proof of this all being a hoax is the photo itself. You see, studies on the photo were keep to a minimum up until 1984 when a real professional, Stewart Campbell analyzed the photo for an article in the British Journal of Photography. He found that the object could be no longer than three feet, and that, at best, it may have been some marine bird of the like sticking its head out of the water. This can clearly be seen when looking at the very small, non-cropped photo.

But Campbell was wrong about that last bit. You see, the creature was actually a toy submarine with a tacked on sea-serpent head. In 1994 when Christian Spurling was on his death bed at the age of 90, he confessed to his involvement in a plot to create the fake monster. He stated that the plot involved both Marmaduke Wetherell and Colonel Wilson, the original person that claimed to have captured the image. Not very exciting, which is probably why it's left out of most explanations that don't involve aliens. Always with the aliens.