All posts by Matt Sisak

Flannan Isle Lighthouse

Photo obtained from https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/flannan-isle-lighthouse

Background Info

The Flannan Isle Lighthouse was a remote lighthouse was manned by 3 men in the early part of the 1900s. On December 15th when another boat passed by the found that all the keepers had vanished without a trace. When they looked inside they found the beds overturned, the light off, chairs and tables overturned and the keepers gear still on the hooks. No bodies from this were ever found and no storms were reported in the area. There is not much known about this incident since it happened so long ago but there are many theories from flash floods, storms, UFO stuff, and kidnappings. (some are a bit outrageous).

My Thoughts

Honestly I think the only reasonable explanation would be some kind of pop up storm that technology couldn’t detect at that period in time. There’s a lot of people who believe the UFO theory but personally I think its to far fetched. I still think this case is worth discussing even with a lack of information because it is that interesting to me anyways. Id love to know what you guys think below!

Death of Elisa Lam

Photo credits to Natasha Ishaks blog at https://allthatsinteresting.com/elisa-lam-death

Background Info

The Cecil Hôtel in Los Angeles, this is where Elisa Lam was found dead in 2013. Now that may not seem interesting but its how she died that’s interesting. Elisa went missing on January 31st 2013, the surveillance system captured some weird footage of the day she went missing though. Cameras in the elevator showed her visibly scared and nervous (will link a video below) and it also appeared as if she was talking or arguing with some one the cameras could not see. Her body was eventually found in the water tank of the hotel some days later after quests reported funny tasting water. But the unknown part here is what happened to her, and how did she get there. Lams body was completely drained of all fluid and she was cut open. The corner reported that Lams body had a lot of prescription medication in it but no illegal substances or alcohol. The cameras in the hotel did not show anything besides Lam Alone in the elevator and no other footage has been released or has shown anyone besides her on the day she disappeared.

My Thoughts

Personally I think she was murdered. you can find some pretty out there theories but none of them seem physically possible. Seeing as she was cut open and harmed it seems far more likely that she was murdered and put in the water tank by someone who had access to it and knew the hotel well. that does not explain everything though like the elevator scene and no reports or footage of anyone with her. Id love to know what yall think below though!

Elevator Video

Sources

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TjVBpyTeZM&feature=youtu.be
  • https://allthatsinteresting.com/elisa-lam-death

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370

Background Info

Phot credits to https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FMalaysia_Airlines_Flight_370&psig=AOvVaw2wPN0q4w57TSllvk1uPRt1&ust=1605812572846000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAIQjRxqFwoTCPj365HkjO0CFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD (Wikipedia)

This is one of them I would guess most everyone knows or remember since it happened not that long ago and was a fairly large news story. The date was March 8, 2014 and along with the 239 passengers and crew on the flight the flight vanished with no distress signals, radar detection, or warning. The flight was going from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing when it vanished from radar and communications. About 38 minutes after takeoff over the south China sea is when ATC last communicated with the aircraft and after that they lost everything. The weird part is several parts of the aircraft washed up in the Indian ocean in 2016. Obviously people began to search for this, government organizations across a couple countries like Australia and China spent a couple years searching for anything but found nothing.  The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) proposed initially that a  hypoxia event was the most likely cause given the available evidence, but there really isn’t much data to support that. Its widely accepted that it was most likely a hijack of some sort but it is unknown why, how, or who would have done this. Experts say given the data that it was most likely lost in the Indian ocean. Like stated before many countries helped aid the search 34 ships and 28 aircraft from seven different countries helped and found nothing.

My Thoughts

Personally I agree with the hijack theory to an extent. I just don’t understand like many of you I am sure how hardly any parts of the plane were found. Yes they did find some parts of the airplane but hardly any of it or even any curtail parts. It seems highly unlikely that you cat find a massive plane like that after years of searching. I would think most airports would be monitored and we would have known if it landed somewhere so that pushes the question of where else it could go. Some popular theories are things like The Malaysian government knowing what happened but not releasing the info, the plane was landed at a defunct military’s airstrip or makeshift airstrip of some kind for “future use”, and lastly the government did it on purpose for whatever reason. The one I like the most is that they hijacked the flight and landed it at some sort of defunct or abandoned airstrip and hid it. It makes the most sense since no big or major parts have ever been found and there’s probably a lot of places they could have landed it due to old bases from the war or heavy tree cover especially if they (whoever did this) planned this out. The two problems with this way or theory is 1, what are they using the plane for, and two nobody even 100% knows it was a hijacking for sure, its just the one that makes the most sense given they never found the bodies, people or aircraft. Id love to know what you guys think in the comments!

Sources

  • https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/mh370-malaysia-airlines/590653/
  • https://www.google.com/search?q=mh370&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=Nsi-7TMi7HNWdM%252CLxWo6U9GH3_WxM%252C%252Fm%252F0_x6q01&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kQvVQ-Qn6G_WTFdznnD8m1gvwMtTA&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjBx8z844ztAhVWQ80KHYysA4wQ_B16BAgnEAM#imgrc=Nsi-7TMi7HNWdM
  • https://www.businessinsider.com/mh370-theories-dead-ends-unanswered-questions-ahead-of-major-new-report-2018-7

Roanoke Colony

Photo credits https://sometimes-interesting.com/2012/12/01/roanoke-the-lost-colony/

Background Info

I feel like everyone has heard of this colony at one point or another in some class, online forum, or other talk. Its pretty interesting though, lets say you have a city and one day everyone’s gone without a trace. Well that’s exactly what happened to the Roanoke Colony. The colony was settled by the English explorer Walter Raleigh in 1585, they had a fair amount of struggles with food supplies and attacks from Native Americans. After a while in 1587 they sent out a ship to get more supplies from England but the war made them take longer than expected so they returned in 1590 but nobody was around, they all vanished. There is no signs or anything to lead us to where they all went even after many people investigated the site. What makes this case weird is that when he returned the colony was fortified with the word Croatoan carved into the wood.

My thoughts

This is honestly so cool to me, well as cool as missing people can be. Its just crazy how a whole settlement of people just vanish. What any normal person would think is that oh they all just died, since medicine wasn’t really a thing back then, but then you’d think you would find graves or some sign of a struggle but no there wasn’t any. No remains or anything. If I had to make a guess its that they just moved, but that wouldn’t explain the carving or why they built up a fort around the colony. None of the details add up and all these years later we still have no clue what happened. One popular theory is that they all joined an Indian tribe called the Croatans but there really is no solid evidence for that.

Sources

  • https://sometimes-interesting.com/2012/12/01/roanoke-the-lost-colony/
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roanoke_Colony
  • https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/roanoke-colony-deserted

Sodder children disappearance

Background Info

Maurice, 14; Martha 12; Louis, 9; Jennie, 8; Betty, 5 these were the names of the 5 Sodder children who disappeared in Fayetteville on Christmas Eve in 1945. On that night The two parents George and Jennie and 9 kids went to sleep, but in the middle of the night the family home caught fire. 5 of the children never made it out, the weird part is no body’s were ever found. Its pretty much unanimously agreed that no fire like that would ever cremate a body completely. There was an extensive search, billboards, and other attempts to find leads, or any information on what happened to the 5 children. As of now we have no leads, theory’s or any possible ideas to what actually happened that night.

Photo source https://thetruecrimefiles.com/sodder-children-disappearance/ Doug MacGowan

My Thoughts

This on puzzles me, it seems like there is no scientific or reasonable explanation for what happen on that night. If I had to guess I would say that they just got lost somehow running away from the fire, although there are flaws with that theory as well. After all these years we still have no idea and probably never will have any idea what happened. This is one of my favorite cases just because nobody at all has any sort of idea what happened to these kids.

Sources

  • https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-children-who-went-up-in-smoke-172429802/
  • https://thetruecrimefiles.com/sodder-children-disappearance/

Dyatlov Pass incident

Background Info

Back in 1959 7 men and 2 women went on a ski trip in the North Ural mountains of the Soviet Union. After a while nobody has seen he group and they began to worry since a large snowstorm went through that area during the time they were supposed to be there. It was found that they pitched a tent on one of the slopes the night they all died. After a while of not hearing from the group a search party was organized and they found the bodies of the group naked and frozen to death. The weird part about this case is that the tent was sliced open with a knife from the inside, all of the party’s belongings were still inside the tent except for the skis. Another weird thing worth mentioning is that some but not all of them had signs of internal trauma, and there were traces of radiation on the clothes some of them had on. Nobody knows what happened, why it happened, or even how any of this happened but some people came up with some crazy theorizes. Some of the crazy theories I have come across where yetis and aliens, while some more realistic ones could be an avalanche.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/71/Dyatlov_Pass_incident_02.jpg/220px-Dyatlov_Pass_incident_02.jpg
photo credits to Wikipedia

My Thoughts

Personally I am going to take the more reasonable approach to what I think happened. The avalanche theory makes the most sense to me however that does not explain the half of it. We analyze this case and there are just way to many outliers and weird occurrences to even come close to finding out what happened. If the military and authorities cant figure out what happened all these years later I do not think anyone ever will.

Sources

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyatlov_Pass_incident
  • https://www.snopes.com/news/2017/12/28/dyatlov-pass-incident/
  • https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/04/europe/dyatlov-pass-incident-scli-intl/index.html

The disappearance of the USS Cyclops.

Photo obtained from https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.history.com%2Fnews%2Fbermuda-triangle-uss-cyclops-mystery-world-war-i&psig=AOvVaw22go4Oc74R11p4t2T1cuzy&ust=1603579786923000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=2ahUKEwjr1-it5svsAhXRUawKHaczCe0Qr4kDegQIARB-

Background Info

The USS Cyclops was a Unite states navy ship that went missing in 1918. The ship was headed to Baltimore and had to pass through the Bermuda triangle where it vanished with its over 300 crewmates without a trace. The funny thing is there were no distress calls or anything, no warnings, no other ships reporting anything wrong . Its been over 100 years and we still have no information at all on this. There so many theories to what could have happened, like mechanical failure, to much cargo and so on. To this day no wreck, bodies, cargo, or anything from the ship has been found.

My thoughts

Personally I think this is really an odd case. The fact that the Navy has no idea what happened to a boat they own is kind of concerning. You would think the Navy would know what went on considering they keep really good tabs on the boats they own. Something does not seem right here in my opinion if it sank some part of the ship would have been discovered somehow provided they had no communications whatsoever. This kind of reminds me of the plane that went missing a couple years back its just one of those weird things that happen that just make you question life or the world we live in. I honestly have no idea what did or could have happened to leave no trace of this ship anywhere.

Sources

  • https://www.buzzfeed.com/hanifahrahman/strange-unsolved-myseries
  • https://www.history.com/news/bermuda-triangle-uss-cyclops-mystery-world-war-i

The Black Dahlia

Background Info

http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1867198_1867170_1867291,00.html (Photo creds Time Magazine online)

Some people say this could be Hollywood’s most famous murder cases. Basically what had happened was Elizabeth Short was found dead in Los Angeles on January 15 1947 with her body cut in half. The Press and the media worked together tirelessly to locate and solve any clues left behind. The weird part about this case is that several people claimed to have done the crime but they were all let go since nothing proved they did it. To this day Her murder is still a cold case with no leads or suspects whatsoever.

My Thoughts

Out of all the cases I have researched for my blog this is the first one I had never heard of before. When researching this It was sort of hard to find information on. Honestly its another one of those cases that will never be solved and it seems to me like it gets no attention whatsoever anymore unlike the People in the topics of my old blogs. For example people to this day still talk about DB Cooper, Jack The ripper, and so on. although highly unlikely since those are more popular they are more likely to have new information found out about them. Id love to hear other opinions on this one since its alot shorter of a case!

Refrences

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Dahlia
  • https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/the-black-dahlia
  • http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1867198_1867170_1867291,00.html

D.B. Cooper Hijacking

Background Info

For those of you that do no know, D.B. Cooper hijacked a plane on November 24th 1971. Basically he used cash t buy a plane ticket to Seattle and then once the flight was in the air he handed a flight attendant a note. Basically the note requested that he get four parachutes, and $200,000 in $20 bills. He then made the plane take off again told them to fly to Mexico, and in the middle of the flight he jumped out of the plane with the money and was never found. Nobody knows what happened to him, if he survived the landing, or what his real name is. When the FBI found out the of course looked into it and had a pretty big list of suspects, most of them had to be let go. According to the FBI one man who is a favorite suspect named Richard McCoy, was arrested but later was let go since they had no evidence. Many think Cooper may not have survived at all, one major key thing in this theory was that someone found a case of $20 bills in the woods years later that had the serial numbers of the ones given to Cooper.

My Thoughts

I think this one is similar to the Jack the ripper case, in the sense that it will forever be a mystery. This is one of the more interesting cases in my opinion. Although more recent than other things I have written about, we still know nothing about who this man was.. we don’t see cases like this anymore these days with the advance of technology and crime scene investigation tactics. If I had to guess id honestly say there would be a very little chance he survived jumping out of a plane, especially if he didn’t know anything about parachutes and skydiving.

Sources

  • https://stock.adobe.com/search/images?filters%5Bcontent_type%3Aphoto%5D=1&filters%5Bcontent_type%3Aimage%5D=1&k=plane&order=relevance&safe_search=1&search_page=1&search_type=usertyped&acp=&aco=plane&get_facets=0
  • https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/db-cooper-hijacking

Zodiac Killer

Background Info

https://stock.adobe.com/search/images?filters%5Bcontent_type%3Aphoto%5D=1&hide_panel=true&k=killer&search_type=usertyped&asset_id=177186119

Lets start with some background info, for those of you don’t know the Zodiac Killer was a murderer in California between 1960-1970 roughly. The Zodiac killer terrorized the Californian police by sending them complex letters, ciphers, and symbols. To this day nobody even knows who was behind all the killings. One example of this is in 1969the San Francisco herald received a letter handwritten claiming to be from the killer. The letter was claimed to have said  “Dear Editor: I am the killer of the 2 teenagers last Christmas at Lake Herman,”. There are plenty more accounts of random events like this happening in the area. This is one of the most famous cold cases in the united states and it will probably stay that way. It was estimated that the person in question killed anywhere up to 37 people. Not even a suspect has ever been named or anything whoever the killer is may still be out there, one thing is for sure though the sure had some interesting puzzles.

My Thoughts

Honestly I don’t know where I stand on this one. In my personal opinion i think this case will never be and was never meant to be solved. People will always try since we do have photographs of the puzzles and letters the killer wrote but they are very complex and even the smartest people alive have yet to crack the code. Personally I would love to see this case solved or somebody even gain a lead but its just not reasonable to think like that anymore.

Source

  • https://www.biography.com/crime-figure/zodiac-killer