Amazing Mysteries that Science Just Can’t Explain

When confronted with mysteries in life we are all too quick to head over to Google in order to try and find out the answer. Google itself is an invention borne by the work of scientists years and years before our usage. In that same way we have grown to assume that science can answer every question that is lobbed at us, or at least go a long way toward giving us an adequate answer. Yet, science isn’t a perfect art and the very nature of our reality means that we will always be hunting for answers. So we decided to discuss the most amazing mysteries that science hasn’t been able to explain.

Cows will face directly north or south while eating, always.

Let’s face it: nobody is sitting around trying to figure out the what direction most animals face while they are eating. For instance, our cat would sit on its head if it meant that it could get a few extra treats. Fortunately there are scientists out there much smarter than us. Utilizing satellite images pulled from Google Earth, a team of researchers found that cows always stood facing the magnetic poles within the Earth while eating or resting. Always. Spooky, right?

Why do we need sleep?

When you consider how much time we spend sleeping it seems like a given that we really need it. And we do! We do really need to sleep in order to stay healthy and stay alive. However, scientists aren’t sure why this is exactly. Every creature on the planet experiences some form of sleep and right now one of the leading theories is that we sleep for ‘brain maintenance’. Crazy!

UFOs

Special Agent Fox Mulder was h*ll bent on proving that UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects) exist — many people have seen things in the sky that they just cannot identify, ranging from aircraft to meteors. Now whether or not any of those objects and lights were specifically alien spacecraft is another matter entirely; given the vast distances and efforts involved in just getting to Earth from across the universe, such a scenario seems unlikely. Still, careful investigation has revealed known causes for most sightings, while some UFO incidents will always remain unexplained.

Why did some mammals turn back to the ocean?

Evolution is one of the most consistent and heralded scientific theories around today and it has survived for numerous years and likely will continue to do so. Still, we are left with some questions. We understand why evolution would bring animals out of the water and onto land, but what would cause the inverse to be true such as what happened with the ancestors of seals? Evolution from within the waters is a much trickier situation and one that doesn’t make sense with our current scientific understanding.

Magnets

Scientists understand how magnets work to a degree but what they don’t understand is this: why do natural magnets ALWAYS have a north and south pole? Further, no matter how many times you cut a magnet in half you will always get a magnet that has a north and south pole. Pretty strange right? Scientists can generate lab made magnets that only have a north or south pole, but out in the wild this is simply not the case — it has never happened simply put we just don’t know why. You know what, let’s just set magnets aside entirely. Why do they even exist?

Psychic powers and ESP

It’s no surprise that psychic powers and extra-sensory perception (ESP) rank among the top unexplained phenomena if for no other reason than that the belief in them is so widespread. Many people believe that even intuition is a form of psychic power, a way of accessing some special knowledge about the world or the future. Researchers have long tested people who claim to have psychic powers and the results have so far been negative or ambiguous. Some have argued that psychic powers cannot be tested, or for some unknown reason diminish in the presence of skeptics or scientists. If this is the case then science will never be able to prove or disprove the existence of psychic powers.

A Cats Purr

Is there anything more symbolic of domesticated contentment than the purr of a cat? If there is we haven’t heard of it. If you have a cat then you know just how content your kitty is when they are purring and there is little more rewarding for a cat owner than to bask in the love of an adoring cat. Yet, this simple act of purring has kept scientists on the edge of pulling out their hair for as long as they’ve been studying our feline friends. Scientists today cannot figure out how exactly cats manufacture their purring. Scientists to this day don’t have a solid answer down but the leading hypothesis is that cats use the vocal folds in their larynx in order to create the vibrating sounds we interpret as purrs. Why do domesticated cats all choose to do this? No idea.

The Placebo Effect

If you are a child of the ’90s then the most iconic ‘placebo effect’ moment occurred in the Michael Jordan/Looney Toons crossover Space Jam. In that film our cartoon heroes drink from a bottle labeled ‘Special Stuff’ and then they are suddenly able to defeat the vile MonStars in a game of basketball along with the help of Bill Murray and Michael Jordan (oh weren’t the ’90s incredible?). The thing is, the placebo effect is real and has been shown to repeatedly occur in controlled tests by leading scientific studies. As long as your brain believes that your medication will work then it likely will. Pretty crazy right? It seems like our brain is willing our body to heal through the power of our faith in a sugar filled dummy pill. The craziest thing of all is this: even when we realize that it is just a placebo, the effect continues to work. The placebo effect isn’t just restricted to pills either as it can be found widespread in your life.

The Act of Yawning

Yawning itself isn’t very exciting. In fact, the yawn is commonly used as a symbol of boredom or fatigue. Yawning is a part of our life pretty much from birth and it persists with us all throughout. No matter where you live or were born, you yawn — that’s just how your body works. The only tricky thing is this: we don’t know why exactly we yawn. There are many theories floating around as to the pervasiveness of our yawning but nothing is concrete. One theory explains that we yawn due to a subtle lack of oxygen flow, thus probing ourselves into the act of gulping down some extra oxygen. As I wrote this I began to yawn. Crazy world we live in, right?

The Voynich Manuscript

Alright, we’ve played around with some lighter mysteries and now we deserve to dig a little deeper. Next up we’ll talk about the unintelligible Voynich Manuscript. The Voynich Manuscript is a 246 page book that is filled with botanical illustrations along with written word that modern man has so far been incapable of deciphering. Carbon dating places the book at around 1400 but our inability to translate the words in the manuscript has made it near impossible to place in terms of which civilization or culture it belongs to. Right now researches are tentatively calling it a book on medicine but there is no clear reason as to why it is incapable of being translated.

The Stone Balls of Costa Rica.

Stonehenge is a majestic place to visit and one that is undoubtedly filled with great mystery and nobility. Was Stonehenge a religious or spiritual place? Was it created to welcome aliens to Earth? Who knows? In Costa Rica there is a similar mystery haunting locals but it doesn’t quite have the curbside appeal of Stonehenge: giant stone balls. All over Costa Rica you can find perfectly spherical stone balls that range in size from bowling balls all the way to about eight feet in total size. These balls are littered throughout the country and the perfect craftsmanship makes them unlikely to have been made by locals with crude tools. Nobody knows where they came from or how they got there.

Powerful Cosmic Rays

Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity has been instrumental in the world of science for many reasons. One of those reasons is its application to the GZK Limit. The GZK Limit sets a proposed ceiling on how powerful cosmic rays can be when they hit Earth and filter through our atmosphere. However, scientists across the ocean at the Akeno Observatory of Japan have found powerful cosmic rays that have routinely blown through this ceiling. The source of these powerful rays has never been identified and further research has come up dry when trying to get an answer. Surely, there’s no Marvin the Martian pointing his gun at our planet. So what’s the deal? Activities like this remind us that while we have come so far, there is just so very far to go.

The Vanishing of Pilot Fred Valentich

Flight is one of the greatest marvels of modern man but continued incidents leave us wondering just what is going on in our sky. Back in 1978 a pilot by the name of Fred Valentich simply vanished while flying his plane. The Australian pilot was flying a Cessna 182L on a training mission. While in the air Valentich radioed in to command, located in Melbourne, and reported that an object was flying over him at a high rate of speed. Metallic scraping sounds followed his voice and soon all transmission was lost. Fred Valentich and his airplane were never seen or heard from again. Did Valentich run into an alien spacecraft and get abducted? Did Valentich stage the whole thing and simply vanish with the plane? The truth is that we will never know and perhaps that is the greatest sadness of all. There is no closure to this great mystery and there likely never will be.

The Cocaine Mummies

Cocaine is pretty prevalent in the modern world and it sort of seems like a timeless drug. The fact is that it hasn’t always been there and that’s why German scientists, who tested the remnants of Egyptian mummies, were so floored by the prevalence of the drug. Back in 1992 scientists were testing the chemical make up of Egyptian mummy remains. Inside the bones, skin, and hair of these embalmed people the scientists found evidence of cocaine and tobacco. These drugs weren’t in Egypt at the time as the drug was cultivated in the Americas. There has been no documented trading between the two communities so the scientists were understandably baffled. Where were these mummies getting their fix?

The Bloop.

If you are like me then nothing should scare you quite as much as the ocean. The ocean is deep, wide, and full of mysterious unknowns. In truth, we have barely even scratched the surface of the mysteries that the ocean holds — and that is why The Bloop is so terrifying. Way back in 2007 the Unite States NOAA department (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Admin.) located a powerful, long, and loud sound emitting from underwater. The sound seemed almost animal like but it registered as louder than even the largest known sea creatures in the ocean could emit. Immediately theories about Cthulu or some other beast of the deep began to fill the internet. The truth is, we will likely never know what made the haunting, deep, and powerful sound.

just what is on Mars?

Mars is the one planet that we’ve turned into a pop culture phenomenon for potential life outside of our planet. Research into Mars keeps uncovering more and more questions. For example, scientists are capturing dark and extensive streaks near the surface of the planet that only show up during the warm season of the planet. Scientists don’t detect water in these areas so we are left with nothing but some pictures and more questions. What are these streaks and where do they go when it gets cold?

Why is being right handed the norm?

When you meet someone who is left handed you probably immediately go, ‘Whoa, that’s cool!’. What you don’t take time to realize is this; why should being left handed be such a rare thing? Conservative estimates show that 70% of the world’s population is right handed and extreme estimates conclude that almost 95% of the world is right handed. Why? What makes this happen? At some point in time we must have decided that being right handed is ‘correct’.

A whale of a theory

Turns out that humpback whales have a unique talent – they can sing and can even teach each other songs. Once upon a time, it was once considered as part of the mating ritual but that myth has been debunked, and the phenomena still remains unexplained.

What does a black hole feel like?

For a long time the prevailing opinion was that you wouldn’t feel much of anything if you fell into a black hole, at least not until you passed through the Event Horizon. Now scientific calculations believe that you would head straight into a giant wall of fire, burning instantly to nothing. We likely will never know the answer to these gigantic questions.

Bigfoot

For decades now, a large, hairy, manlike beast named Bigfoot has occasionally been reported by eyewitnesses across America. Despite the thousands of Bigfoot sightings, not a single body has been found. Not a single one has been killed by say, a hunter, a speeding car, or even died of natural causes. While in the absence of hard evidence such as teeth or bones or even hair and a body, these claims are all from eyewitness accounts and ambiguous photos and films.

Since it is logically impossible to prove a universal negative, science will never be able to prove that such creatures like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster do not exist, and it is possible that these mysterious beasts are closer then meets the eye.

Why is life so diverse near the equator?

The further you move away from cold climates and toward the equator, the more diverse life will become. Alexander von Humboldt, a Prussian explorer, first noted how biodiversity was massively more diverse and extraordinary near the equator as opposed to anywhere else on the planet. There are more types of people, flowers, creatures, and even diseases in this area. Some will point to the warmth as a result but scientists still aren’t sure what is causing this to happen.

Where are all of the aliens at?

And no, we aren’t talking about the kind that Donald Trump seems so obsessed with. If you play the statistical game of averages we’d expect to have run into some lifelike creatures from out of this world. If you follow the concept of nearly limitless planets and galaxies then it stands to reason that there would be another planet full of life out there. Perhaps they just don’t want to talk to us. We can’t blame them: again, Donald Trump.

How has water always existed on Earth?

The Earth is so old that it is hard to really put it into words and numbers won’t do it justice. We’ll just say that at one point in time the sun was too far from the planet in order to melt the ice on Earth. However, research shows that liquid water has been on the planet for nearly 4 billion years — coinciding with the evolution of life. Our main question is simple: how was the water in liquid form?

What happened to the Eil Malk Jellyfish?

We know that species of animals everywhere are constantly dying out, mostly due to human intervention. In the year 1998 all of the jellyfish in Eil Malk Lake were found to have died out. In the year 2000 the jellyfish had all returned as if nothing was amiss. Where did they go? How did the jellyfish come back?

Why is sexual reproduction a thing?

Let’s avoid any discussion of the bible in this mystery. Ask yourself: why is sexual reproduction a thing? Why would evolution mandate literally half of a species, all men, be incapable of producing offspring? What is the reason for this clearly disadvantaged gender? The leading theory talks about reduction in potentially negative mutations but there is still no concrete reason as of yet.

What is happening with Saturn’s hurricane?

Hurricanes on Earth are huge and terrifying and they are the result of warm and cold ocean currents coming together. In 2013 a hurricane was spotted on Saturn that showed up as 20 times larger than any hurricane ever recorded on Earth. Where did the hurricane come from? There are oceans on Saturn. Furthermore why doesn’t the hurricane ever vanish? Just what is going on there?

How do butterflies know where to go?

Every year the Monarch Butterfly will go on a great journey, thousands of miles, for their migration. The journey will months upon months. Monarch Butterflies lay eggs when they reach the end of the journey and then they die off, having a life cycle of just six months. Soehow the newborn butterflies know the exact route home. How do they know where to go?

Where is all of the lithium?

Are you ready for a lesson in science? Lithium is considered the lightest metal that we know of. Lithium itself has an atomic number of just 3 and despite its size the material is used extensively: bombs, metal work, batteries and even medicine. What strikes scientists as truly bizarre is that we don’t know why it is so rare. Everywhere you’d think to find lithium we end up finding just a fraction of what should be there.

What are the Pyrophyllite Spheres?

South African miners found a collection of metal spheres within Pyriphyllite deposits. These spheres were carbon dated to be over 2.8 billion years old, predating intelligent life by quite a large margin. The craziest thing about these spheres is that they have markings on them and are balanced more accurately than we can even make them today. Creepy!

Tomato , To-mah-to

Did you know that tomatoes actually have more than 30,000 genes, whereas humans have between 20,000 to 30,000. This used to be known as the C-value paradox. Back in 2003 botanists decided to call it an “enigma” instead which was never given a clear definition, I mean it takes more genes to create a tomato than a human – how is that even possible?

The Taos Hum

Turns out that some residents and visitors alike in the small city of Taos, New Mexico, have for many years now been annoyed and puzzled by a rather mysterious and faint low-frequency hum in the desert air. Oddly enough, only about 2 percent of Taos residents report hearing the sound. There are some who believe it is caused by unusual acoustics; others suspect mass hysteria or some secret, sinister purpose. Doesn’t matter if the noise has described as a whir, hum, or buzz and whether psychological, natural, or supernatural no one has yet been able to locate the sound’s origin. The thing is, a survey revealed that those who claim to hear the sounds actually hear many different sounds, suggesting the experiences may be subjective, not actually objective sounds (and pretty certainly not one particular sound).

A Sixth Sense

Whether you call it a gut feeling, a sixth sense, intuition or something else altogether, we have all experienced the phenomena of intuition at one time or another. Of course, gut feelings are often wrong but they do seem so right much of the time. Psychologists have noted that people subconsciously pick up information about the world around us, which leads us to seemingly sense or know information without knowing exactly just how or why we know it. However these cases of intuition are quite difficult to prove or study, and psychology may only be part of the answer.

Missing Persons

People do disappear for various reasons, such as runaways, accidents, a few are abducted or killed, but most are eventually found. However when it comes to the truly mysterious disappearances, science is not on our side. Think of the crew of the Marie Celeste, Jimmy Hoffa, Amelia Earhart, and Natalee Holloway, some people who just vanished without a trace. When missing persons are found, it is always through police work, confession, or accident but never by ‘psychic detectives’. When evidence is lacking and leads are lost, even police and forensic science can’t always solve the crime.

Ghosts

Just think of the Shakespeare play MacBeth or television shows like Medium and Ghost Whisperer, spirits of the dead have made appearances in our culture and folklore over centuries. Many people have reported seeing apparitions of strangers and departed loved ones. Though definitive proof for the existence of ghosts remains rather elusive, sincere eyewitnesses continue to report seeing, photographing, and even communicating with ghosts. Of course ghost investigators hope that one day they will prove that the dead can contact the living, providing a final answer to the mystery.

Deja Vu

Deja vu is a French phrase which means ‘already seen,’ referring to the puzzling and mysterious feeling of having experienced a specific set of circumstances before. Someone might be having a conversation with someone they have never spoken to before and sense that the conversation is eerily and intimately familiar. Some even attribute deja vu to psychic experiences or glimpses of previous lives. As with intuition, research into the human psychology can offer more of a naturalistic explanations, but ultimately the cause and nature of the phenomenon itself remains a total mystery.

The Body/Mind Connection

In terms of medical science, that is only the beginning of understanding the ways in which the mind influences the body. The body’s ability to heal itself is far more amazing than anything that modern medicine could ever create. While there may be many unexplained phenomena, the explainable science of the body and mind might just be among the most amazing phenomena of all. Even if we’re still trying to figure it all out.

Near Death Experiences

In cases where people were once near death have sometimes reported some mystical experiences (like going into a tunnel and emerging in a light, seeing their loved ones, a sense of peace, etc.) which might suggest an existence beyond the grave. Still such experiences are obviously profound but no one has ever returned with proof or verifiable information from “beyond the grave.”

Synchronized Firefly Light

There is a species of glowing beetles known as the Synchronous fireflies, which are indigenous to Tennessee’s Great Smokey Mountains, these are a rare and striking sight. They have the incredibly unique ability to synchronize their blinking. How they are able to do this is still not known!

Are you a lefty?

Did you know that 70-95% of people are right handed and only 5-30% of people are left handed? That’s 9/10 people that are right handed and somewhere in the mix are ambidextrous people. However, no one knows why that is!

Naga Fireballs

There is a rather odd occurrence in both Thailand and Laos, with reports of glowing red orbs that rise from the famous Mekong River. Several thousand fireballs supposedly are known to rise a few hundred meters high, and then disappear. This is a case that defies explanation.

Life on Mars

The Viking was sent to Mars in 1976 and with it, it carried three experiments to test for life on Mars. One result came up positive while the other two experiments did not, therefore the positive result was dismissed. However, back in 2012 a team of scientists re-examined the data using a brand new technique and they proceeded to challenge the no-life verdict. So, life on Mars could be a thing. Time will tell!

H20

So just how did liquid water exist early on in Earth’s history? Well, early on in Earth’s history, the sun would have been fainter than what it is now, and it surely wouldn’t have had a big enough power output to melt any of the ice on Earth. From geological evidence, we do know that there was liquid water at the surface of our great planet between 3.8 and 2.4 billion years ago, when life first evolved. While there are a few theories out, no one really knows.

So Phytoplankton, Eh?

Here’s one you probably never, ever think about but scientists can’t tell us anything, basically, why do some regions of the ocean have incredibly low levels of phytoplankton? We do know that are regions of the ocean in the Antarctic that have high nutrient levels but somehow, the level of phytoplankton, which is a type of tiny plankton that create their own food using sunlight, is rather low. Surprisingly low, in fact. Marine biologists have some ideas, but no clear winning answer, so it’s known as the Antarctic paradox.

You Are My Sunshine

Think back to elementary science class and start mulling over just why the sun’s atmosphere is so much hotter than its surface. Are you a little confused? You can’t come up with an answer? Don’t worry, you’re not alone, even scientists can’t explain it. The corona, or the sun’s atmosphere, extends more than a million kilometers from its surface and reaches temperatures of two million degrees. However when you compare the mere 5,000 degrees that the surface of the sun reaches, there is still no answer as to why that is.

Streaks on Mars

The black streaks you see in the picture below are on Mars and here’s what we DO know. They show up during warm seasons and travel downhill, before they disappear again when the weather turns cold. Scientists believed the streaks might come from frozen water that heated up and then flowed downhill, but the measurements from Nasa’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter didn’t find any water.

Where Art Thou, Amelia Earhart?

Back in 1937, Amelia Earhart attempted to complete an around-the-world flight but POOF! This famed aviator disappeared over the Pacific Ocean without a trace. Many people and other pilots speculated that she ran out of gas or crashed into the ocean or some believe she landed somewhere on Gardner Island. The truth has never been found out.

The Confederate Treasury

During the Civil War, the Confederate Secretary of the Treasury, George Trenholm, liquidated a few of the South’s assets. President Jefferson Davis and his men were said to have left with loads and loads of fortunes in gold, jewels and silvers but when they were captured, all they had were some confederate banknotes. And somehow, 4,000 kilograms of Mexican silver dollars were just gone. Some believe the silver was buried and will only be dug up again when the South rises again. Some say it’s buried in Danville, Virginia. Some say it’s with a secret society known as the Knights of the Golden circle. Bottom line, no one knows!

Where’s the Lithium?

Way back when temperatures in the Universe were super high, there were isotopes of hydrogen, helium, and lithium synthesized in extraordinary amounts. Currently though, hydrogen and helium are still verrrry abundant and much of the mass in the Universe is built up of this but somehow, there is only a third of lithium-7 around. While there are loads of ideas running around, no one actually knows the reason behind this.

Exploding Stars

What most of the processes of star formation and solar system formation is known, there are many researchers who don’t know what happens when a star explodes. All we know is that when a star does explode, it is known as a supernova.

Dark Energy

Here’s what we know, dark energy seems to make up 73% of everything that exists, however, it still isn’t visible nor can it be measured. We just need the energy to balance out the mathematics of the Universe, but we may not ever detect this dark energy. Bit freaky.