5 Mysteries That Have Totally Been Debunked

Back in 1964, Jim Templeton, a fireman from the English city of Carlisle, was spending an afternoon out with his family when he snapped a photograph that would take the world by storm. Templeton was taking candid shots of his young daughter without much thought, but when he got home and had the film developed, he noticed what has now become known as the the Solway Spaceman.

The photo shows what many people say is a person in some form of space suit. 1964 places the incident right in the middle of the space race, and the photo made headlines around the world. Kodak even analyzed the photo and their experts said it was authentic, lending to the spaceman theory.

Templeton noted that only he, his daughter, and his wife were on site when the photos was taken. So who was this mysterious spaceman? The answer lies in the other photos taken on the film roll.

Other photos show Templeton's wife wearing a dress that lines up with the look of the spaceman. The photos taken on the roll just prior to the mysterious one show the wife in a position that would place her near the correct spot of the spaceman.

It's also noted that Templeton took the photos with a viewfinder that let him see 70% of the frame. This meant that he was unable to see the full frame of the photo, and thus missed his wife standing in the back. The photo itself was also overexposed, thus leading to the strange look of his wife's back.

The Patterson film is a short motion picture of an unidentified subject which the filmmakers have said was a Bigfoot. This brief clip, and the photos from the recording, went on to become the most striking evidence for the existence of the Bigfoot creature. It would go on to capture the attention of the public, something that continues to this day, especially if you turn on any small TV network looking for some easy to make content.

At the time, Patterson was out making a movie with a whole bunch of money about, well, Bigfoot. So that means that Patterson was in the middle of the woods, taking some meandering photos and film clips, with a boat-load of money, only to run into Bigfoot. The film is quite shaky, making it hard to properly identify the creature (a smart move), but when stabilized using modern technology, something surprising (or not surprising depending on who you are) happens.

It totally looks like a guy in an ape suit...

The footage, when stabilized, is almost laughable. This bumbling looking guy in an ape suit looks even worse when he turns to the camera for no apparent reason. Wild animals tend to not strike a pose in the center of a frame. As someone on reddit noted:

"Moreover, Bigfoot is, by its nature, assumed to be an animal that is conscious of its anonymity and therefore trying to keep it. (unless we are really that bad at tracking a bumbling ape...). So for such an animal to be trouncing through an open dead forest like my grandfather walking across the kitchen to get his meds is kind of insulting."

And all of this still ignores that fact that the owner of Morris Costumes came forward to say that he sold Patterson an ape costume. Patterson told Morris that it was going to be used for some sort of prank, and as gorilla suits were common among sideshow acts, Morris thought nothing of it.

On July 12th of 2008, a strange creature washed on shore at the Ditch Plains beach. The story of this creature appeared in the newspaper The Independent, because apparently it was a slow news day. The story claims that Jenna Hewitt and three friends found the creature with Hewitt saying:

"We were looking for a place to sit when we saw some people looking at something… We didn't know what it was… We joked that maybe it was something from Plum Island."

The paper dubbed the creature "The Hound of Bonacville," and the photo would take off with all sorts of stories coming out about it. Some said it was an alien creature, or even a failed experiment by the government.

Unfortunately, the truth isn't quite as exciting or fun, which is why some people tend to ignore it. The Montauk Monster is a mammal that is suffering from the effects of decomposition. So, if anyone would have bothered to check with a trained Zoologist instead of their uncle who "read some things online," they would have found their answer.

The Montauk Monster is nothing more than a simple raccoon. Those little living trash cans aren't quite as cute when missing all their hair and, you know, being dead.

This photo taken back in 1941 is purported to show a time traveler hanging out and and enjoying his time in the past. The photo pops up in nearly every online list of "mysterious" photos and is often cited as proof of time travel by people who have never cited something in their lives.

People point out how strange this young man looks in the crowd, noting his very modern glasses, shirt, and future camera. It's almost as if a modern-day hipster created a time machine, but you totally wouldn't know anything about it because it's pretty underground.

The problem with the time travel claim, other than being complete bullshit, is that nothing in the photo is actually out of order. You could actually recreate it in 2018 if you wanted to. Stick a person in their twenties among a group of people in the fifties and tell me they wouldn't look like a time traveler.

But even looking at the man in the photo, it's not hard to do a tiny bit of research to see he's no time traveler. The side-shade glasses were around, even popping up in films, and his sweater just shows he was a fan of the local Montreal Maroons hockey team.

And as for that future camera? Well, it looks far more like a Kodak 35 Rangefinder than something from the future. Considering we have cameras in our pockets more powerful, it wouldn't make much sense that camera technology reverted to 35mm film in our near future.

The Wem Ghost Girl has been held up as some of the most compelling evidence of ghosts being real. In 1995, Tony O'Rahilly, a sewage farm worker and amateur photographer, was snapping some photos of a 90-year-old building that was going down in flames across the street.

One of his photos taken looks to show a young girl in what also seemed to be period clothing, standing in doorway of the building as it burned to the ground. She seems to have no expression on her face and is admittedly creepy, for 1995 at least.

For years this was definitive proof of ghosts being real by people that have no idea what they are talking about. Then along came an old guy that called bullshit on the photo. Oh, and unlike all ghost hunters, this guy had hard proof of his claims.

This old man found a postcard from 1922 of the town of Wem that featured a familiar sight. And by sight I mean it featured the girl in the ghost photo. She's standing in the same spot and the images are identical.

But when the photo was checked it was deemed fake, something that experts would have told anyone, and in fact did when approached by the BBC about it. The town still touts the fake ghost with a fake death story because those tourist dollars are very much not fake.