The everything paranormal/unexplained/bizarre/mysterious thread

Kryptos
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kryptos

"Kryptos is a sculpute by the American artist Jim Sanborn located on the grounds of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Langley, Virginia. Since its dedication on November 3, 1990, there has been much speculation about the meaning of the four encrypted messages it bears. Of the four messages, the first three have been solved, while the fourth message remains as one of the most famous unsolved codes in the world. The sculpture continues to be of interest to cryptanalysts, both amateur and professional, who are attempting to decipher the fourth passage. The artist has so far given two clues to this passage.

The ciphertext on the left-hand side of the sculpture (as seen from the courtyard) of the main sculpture contains 869 characters in total : 865 letters and 4 question marks.
In April 2006, however, Sanborn released information stating that a letter was omitted from this side of Kryptos "for aesthetic reasons, to keep the sculpture visually balanced".

There are also three misspelled words in the plaintext of the deciphered first three passages, which Sanborn has said was intentional, and three letters (YAR) near the beginning of the bottom half of the left side are the only characters on the sculpture in superscript.

The right-hand side of the sculpture comprises a keyed Vigenère encryption tableau, consisting of 867 letters.

One of the lines of the Vigenère tableau has an extra character (L), which Sanborn has indicated was accidental.

Sanborn worked with a retiring CIA employee named Ed Scheidt, Chairman of the CIA Office of Communications, to come up with the cryptographic systems used on the sculpture.

Sanborn has revealed that the sculpture contains a riddle within a riddle, which will be solvable only after the four encrypted passages have been deciphered.

He has given conflicting information about the sculpture's answer, saying at one time that he gave the complete solution to the then-CIA director William Webster during the dedication ceremony; but later, he also said that he had not given Webster the entire solution. He did, however, confirm that within the passage of the plaintext of the second message which reads "Who knows the exact location? Only WW.", "WW" was intended to refer to William Webster.

Sanborn also confirmed that should he die before the entire sculpture becomes deciphered, there will be someone able to confirm the solution."

Solution of passage 1

Method : Vigenère
Keywords: Kryptos, Palimpsest

BETWEEN SUBTLE SHADING AND THE ABSENCE OF LIGHT LIES THE NUANCE OF IQLUSION

Solution of passage 2

Method : Vigenère
Keywords: Kryptos, Abscissa

IT WAS TOTALLY INVISIBLE HOWS THAT POSSIBLE ? THEY USED THE EARTHS MAGNETIC FIELD X THE INFORMATION WAS GATHERED AND TRANSMITTED UNDERGRUUND TO AN UNKNOWN LOCATION X DOES LANGLEY KNOW ABOUT THIS ? THEY SHOULD ITS BURIED OUT THERE SOMEWHERE X WHO KNOWS THE EXACT LOCATION ? ONLY WW THIS WAS HIS LAST MESSAGE X THIRTY EIGHT DEGREES FIFTY SEVEN MINUTES SIX POINT FIVE SECONDS NORTH SEVENTY SEVEN DEGREES EIGHT MINUTES FORTY FOUR SECONDS WEST X LAYER TWO

On April 19, 2006, Sanborn contacted an online community dedicated to the Kryptos puzzle to inform them that the accepted solution to passage 2 was incorrect. He said that he made an error in the sculpture by omitting an "X" used to separate sentences, for aesthetic reasons, and that the deciphered text that ended "...FOUR SECONDS WEST ID BY ROWS" should actually be "...FOUR SECONDS WEST X LAYER TWO".

The coordinates mentioned in the plaintext: 38°57′6.5″N 77°8′44″W are for a point that is approximately 150 feet southeast of the sculpture.

Solution of passage 3

Method : Transposition
SLOWLY DESPARATLY SLOWLY THE REMAINS OF PASSAGE DEBRIS THAT ENCUMBERED THE LOWER PART OF THE DOORWAY WAS REMOVED WITH TREMBLING HANDS I MADE A TINY BREACH IN THE UPPER LEFT HAND CORNER AND THEN WIDENING THE HOLE A LITTLE I INSERTED THE CANDLE AND PEERED IN THE HOT AIR ESCAPING FROM THE CHAMBER CAUSED THE FLAME TO FLICKER BUT PRESENTLY DETAILS OF THE ROOM WITHIN EMERGED FROM THE MIST X CAN YOU SEE ANYTHING Q ?

This is a paraphrased quotation from Howard Carter's account of the opening of the tomb of Tutankhamun on November 26, 1922, as described in his 1923 book The Tomb of Tutankhamun. The question with which it ends is asked by Lord Carnarvon, to which Carter (in the book) famously replied "wonderful things". In the November 26, 1922 field notes, however, his reply was, "Yes, it is wonderful.".

Solution of passage 4

Method(s) : Unknown
No solution to Part 4 has been publicly acknowledged by either Mister Sanborn or Mister Scheidt to be correct.

Clues given

When commenting in 2006 about his error in passage 2, Sanborn said that the answers to the first three passages contain clues to the fourth passage. In November 2010, Sanborn released a clue, publicly stating that "NYPVTT", the 64th-69th letters in passage four, become "BERLIN" after decryption.

Sanborn gave The New York Times another clue in November 2014: the letters "MZFPK", the 70th-74th letters in passage four, become "CLOCK" after decryption. The 74th letter is K in both the plaintext and ciphertext, meaning that it is possible for a character to encrypt to itself. This means it does not have a weakness, where a character could never be encrypted as itself, that was known to be inherent in the German Enigma Machine. It is believed that the "BERLINCLOCK" plaintext may be a direct reference to the Berlin Clock.

Sanborn further stated that in order to solve passage 4, "You'd better delve into that particular clock," but added, "There are several really interesting clocks in Berlin."

Sabina & Ursula (NSFW)

Carlos Castaneda and the Cleargreen Cult

"In the spring of 1998, shortly after the death of New Age writer and philosopher Carlos Castaneda, five women closely connected with Castaneda and his movement, called “Tensegrity,” vanished from the Los Angeles area. Their names were Florinda Donner-Grau, Taisha Abelar, Amalia Marquez, Kylie Lundahl, and Patricia Lee Partin. Aside from Partin, whose remains were discovered in 2003, all of the women remain missing to this day. The story behind their disappearances is strange, tangled and somewhat disturbing.

Peruvian-born Carlos Castaneda was a graduate student in anthropology at UCLA in the early 1960s when he published a book called The Teachings of Don Juan which purported to detail his apprenticeship with a Yaqui Indian called Don Juan Matus. Supposedly this Don Juan took Castaneda on various spiritual journeys and showed him new ways of knowledge based on Native American mystical traditions. It was all a hoax. Don Juan did not exist, and various investigations proved that Castaneda fabricated many important events in his past.

Castaneda dropped out of sight in 1973 and, while continuing to write, repackaged his philosophy as Tensegrity, which he said was derived from the teachings of (the nonexistent) Don Juan and various Native American philosophies. While pushing the Tensegrity system—it was promoted mainly through workshops—Castaneda amassed a number of female followers who typically changed their names and went into seclusion with him. A number of these women were also apparently his lovers.

On April 27, 1998, Castaneda died of liver cancer in Los Angeles. This began the chain of events that ended with the disappearances of five of his disciples, which I’ll get to each in turn."

read more here.

The Case of Magdalena Zuk


The entire case is full of holes. It's said she was most likely drugged, raped and murdered. That's the current theory. I don't necessarily agree with everything stated in the video, but I do, however, agree that there are inconsistencies. How it all transpired is very bizarre and ultimately tragic.

KIC 8462852
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KIC_8462852

"KIC 8462852 (also Tabby's Star or Boyajian's Star) is an F-type main-sequence star located in the constellation Cygnus. Unusual light fluctuations of the star were discovered by citizen scientists as part of the Planet Hunters project, and in September 2015 astronomers and citizen scientists associated with the project posted a preprint of a paper on arXiv describing the data and possible interpretations. The discovery was made from data collected by the Kepler space telescope,which observes changes in the brightness of distant stars to detect exoplanets.

Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain the star's large irregular changes in brightness as measured by its unusual light curve, but none to date fully explain all aspects of the curve. The leading hypothesis, based on a lack of observed infrared light, posits a swarm of cold, dusty comet fragments in a highly eccentric orbit. Another hypothesis is that of a large number of small masses in "tight formation" orbiting the star. It has been speculated that the changes in brightness could be signs of activity associated with intelligent extraterrestrial life constructing a Dyson swarm. The SETI Institute's initial radio reconnaissance of KIC 8462852, however, found no evidence of technology-related radio signals from the star.

KIC 8462852 is not the only star that has large irregular dimmings. However, all other such stars are young stellar objects called YSO dippers that have different dimming patterns. An example of such an object is EPIC 204278916.

Current events:

As of 19 May 2017, a new dip in luminosity has been detected. Additional observations are being coordinated. The Fairborn Observatory in Arizona notified fellow watchers that the star was 3% dimmer. Several observatories, including the Keck telescopes and amateur observatories, are watching and taking spectra of the star."

The Unsolved case of Henry McCabe
Source 1
Source 2
Source 3 - Contains the voicemail
Source 4

"McCabe — a 32-year-old Mounds View resident, married father of two and Minnesota Revenue Department employee — was reported missing Sept. 8.

McCabe’s wife, who was out of state at the time, told police she’d been contacted by one of her husband’s friends, who said McCabe had been at a club in Spring Lake Park on Sunday, Sept. 6, and had been dropped off at a gas station sometime after 2 a.m. Sept. 7 (Labor Day).

The wife also said she received a voicemail from her husband’s phone around 2:23 a.m. Monday, “where he is heard yelling, screaming, and making weird grunting noises,” according to a search warrant affidavit filed in Ramsey County District Court last week.

Police reports indicate at least one other friend was with McCabe and Kennedy at the club that night. Kennedy told police the other friend took McCabe’s wallet in an effort to stop him from buying more drinks because he was “very intoxicated,” the search warrant said.

After they left the club, Kennedy and McCabe reportedly got into Kennedy’s car. Kennedy was going to take him home, but McCabe asked to be dropped off at a Fridley SuperAmerica gas station instead, the search warrant affidavit said.

McCabe’s phone pings from the night he disappeared placed him in Spring Lake Park and Fridley, according to police. The last ping — about the time his wife said she got a call — came from a tower in New Brighton.

Phone records showed McCabe’s phone made three calls after he was last seen. Investigators have requested Kennedy’s phone records to compare where his phone “pinged” (where the phone’s signal bounced off cell towers; those pings are logged by the phone carrier). That information “can help determine where William Kennedy went and find Henry McCabe,” the search warrant said."


Since that article his body has been found (see sources 1&2). What makes this case bizarre is that there were no wounds found on the body. Cause of death is said to be drowning in fresh water. Some people think that he was murdered via waterboarding. I hate the fact that some are turning this into a bigfoot case or saying the sounds heard in the voicemail were of a "demonic" nature" . But I'll agree that it's definitely a peculiar case.

The Mysterious Case of Chuck Morgan

Case Details:

"On March 22, 1977, in Tucson, Arizona, escrow company owner Chuck Morgan left his home as usual, and then disappeared. Morgan was a potential witness in a state land fraud case involving a known organized crime boss. On March 25, three days later, Chuck stumbled back home at two in the morning. Chuck’s wife, Ruth Morgan, woke up to a thump at the back door:

“I was in bed and the dog started barking. I got up, went to the door and opened it and there was Chuck. He was missing a shoe and had one plastic handcuff around one ankle and a set around his hands. When he motioned to his throat, and didn’t say a word, I asked him, ‘Can you talk? Can you write?’ He shook his head, ‘yes,’ so I went and got a tablet and a pen. He wrote that his throat had been painted with a hallucinogenic drug and that the drug could drive him irrevocably insane or destroy his nervous system and kill him. I wanted to call a doctor and the police, but he was adamant that that would be signing a death warrant for the entire family.”

Over the next week, Ruth nursed her husband back to health. Before his voice returned, he began to hint to her that he had a secret identity as an agent for the federal government:

“He wrote, ‘They took my Treasury identification.’ That was the first I’d heard of it. Then he told me he had been working for them for about two or three years. And that was it.”

Was Chuck Morgan really a Treasury agent, secretly fighting organized crime? And who was it that abducted him?

In the 1970’s, the mafia established Arizona as a narcotics pipeline and a haven for money laundering. More than 500 racketeers set up shop there. What made Arizona attractive to crime syndicates was a state law which allowed anyone to buy up land through numbered blind trust accounts. This meant they could launder money and it couldn’t be traced.

Chuck Morgan had done real estate escrow work for at least one mafia family, and possibly helped with the purchase of gold bullion and platinum, a more convenient way to launder money. Journalist Don Devereux investigated.

Chuck's Story:

“He was around the edges of a couple of very large organized crime groups in Arizona at that time. It was very easy to get in over your head, and I suspect that over the years, Mr. Morgan was in that kind of situation. He was doing, perhaps, upwards of a billion dollars of escrow work in bullion and platinum. These were transactions that only existed on paper. He was a straight businessman that probably got a little a too close to the flame.”

Ruth knew little of her husband’s work:

“Chuck mentioned to me once that there was money laundering going on, but nothing that he himself was involved in. He told me, ‘The less the girls and you know, the better off you will be.’”

After his kidnapping, Chuck took no chances. He wore a bulletproof vest and made sure he was the only one who drove his daughters to and from school. But two months after his first disappearance, Chuck vanished again. Nine days later, Ruth Morgan received a mysterious phone call. An unidentified woman gave her a reference from the Bible:

“This woman said, ‘Ruthie?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ She said, ‘Chuck is all right. Ecclesiastics 12, 1 through 8’. And then she hung up.”

The passage reads, in part:

“Men are afraid of a high place and of terrors on the road. Remember him before the silver cord is broken and the golden bowl is crushed. Then the dust will return to the earth as it was and the spirit will return to God who gave it.”

Two days later, Chuck’s body was discovered. He was wearing his bulletproof vest and had died from a single bullet fired at close range into the back of his head. The bullet came from his own .357 magnum, which was lying beside him. The investigators also found a piece of paper with directions to the murder site written in Chuck’s handwriting, and a pair of sunglasses which definitely did not belong to him.

The police made one additional discovery. Chuck had clipped a $2 bill inside his underwear. Written on the bill were seven Spanish names, beginning with the letters A through G. Above them was the notation, “Ecclesiastes 12,” with the verses one through eight marked by arrows drawn on the bill’s serial number. This was the same Bible verse the mysterious female caller had given to Chuck’s wife. On the back of the bill, the signers of the Declaration of Independence were numbered one through seven, and there was a roughly-drawn map. The map led to an area between Tucson and Mexico, to the towns of Robles Junction and Salacity, both known for smuggling.

Despite the unusual evidence, many in the sheriff’s department believed Chuck’s death was a suicide. They claimed he had shot himself in the back of the head."

read more here.

YOGTZE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YOGTZE_case

"The YOGTZE case refers to the death of unemployed German food engineer Günther Stoll, which occurred on 26 October 1984. It is one of the most mysterious unsolved cases in German criminal history.

Background:

In 1984, Günther Stoll, an unemployed food engineer from Anzhausen was suffering from a moderate case of paranoia. Prior to his death, he occasionally spoke to his wife of "them," unknown people who supposedly intended to harm him. He mentioned "them," specifically, on the evening of 25 October 1984 (at approximately 23:00), before suddenly shouting "Jetzt geht mir ein Licht auf!" ("Now I've got it!"). He then wrote the six letters "YOG'TZE" (it is not conclusive if the third letter was intended to represent a '6' or a 'G') on a sheet of paper before instantly crossing them out.

Shortly thereafter, Stoll went to his favorite pub in Wilnsdorf, where he ordered a beer and fell on the ground, injuring his face. Witnesses stated that he was not under the influence of alcohol and that he suddenly lost consciousness.

He awoke and drove away in his VW Golf I. It is not known what he did in the next two hours. At around 01:00 on 26 October 1984, he went to Haigerseelbach, where he grew up. There, he talked to a woman he knew from his childhood and mentioned a "horrible incident." Since it was so late at night, the woman advised him to go to his parents' place, and talk to them instead. He then left.