Episode list

A new arcade game arrived in Portland Oregon in 1981 but was pulled from arcades just weeks after it arrived. It's never been seen again.

Gobekli Tepe is a prolific discovery and dates to a time when humans were literally mere decades from being cavemen. Who built these, how did they build them, why did they build them?

Six weeks after the JFK assassination, a KGB agent who had been working for the CIA defected to the US, claiming to have information about Lee Harvey Oswald. Yuri Nosenko's defection eventually led to purges in the CIA and still haunts the agency, with allegations of cover-ups of information relating to the assassination, and hints at the possibility of a mole in US intelligence.

The body of Elisa Lam was discovered in a water tank on the top of the Hotel Cecil in Los Angles on February 19th, 2013. How she got there, why she was there, and what happened to her in the days before her death are still unknown. The only thing that is known for sure is that she was alive on the 1st of February exhibiting unusual behavior. What happened to this girl?

December 18th, 1996, an unidentified woman commits suicide in the children's section of a cemetery. She leaves two $50 bills to cover the cost of cremation. She was found on a clear plastic sheet, next to the sheet was a Christmas tree, adorned with gold balls and red ribbons. All signs point to her perhaps being well off. Despite this, she has never been identified.

The ghost ship Mary Celeste was found in December 1872 in the Atlantic Ocean west of Portugal, with her lifeboat gone and the crew missing.

In the summer of 1483 the 12 year old boy king of England, Edward V, and his 9 year old brother Richard, Duke of York, were moved into the Tower of London by their uncle the future king Richard III. The boys were never seen alive again. Bones were found in the Tower of London 200 years later that are believed to be theirs but the real question is what happened to them and whodunit?

In August 2007, a severed foot in a running shoe washed up on a beach on the Salish Sea (in Canada). Since then, 12 more feet have been found.

In April 1943 a woman's skeleton was discovered in a hole in a hollow tree in England; months later, mysterious graffiti began to appear which gave the corpse a name.

The Viking Ulfberht swords, made between 800-1000CE, were the most prized and advanced pieces of weaponry in the Viking arsenal. No one knows how the Vikings got them or who really made them.

Since the early 1980's, linoleum tiles have been found embedded in asphalt all around the world. They bear the inscription "TOYNBEE IDEA, IN MOViE '2001,RESURRECT DEAD, ON PLANET JUPITER". Their origins are unknown.

Team Sideways tackles the maddening mystery of how a jumbo jet loaded with hundreds of passengers could simply - vanish. Without a trace.

Strange round stones are being found in a mine in South Africa, they typically have 1 to 3 ridges around their circumference and predate the material surrounding them.

On August 15th, 1977, Jerry Ehman was working on a SETI project when he detected a 72-second long blast that crescendo-ed in a noise 30 times louder than the background. Jerry circled the text recording of this noise, commenting "Wow!" next to it in red pen, inadvertently naming the phenomenon. Nothing like it has been recorded since.

In June 2011, a team of Swedish treasure hunters discovered a 200' wide saucer-shaped artifact at the bottom of the Baltic Sea. Is the Baltic Sea Anomaly a natural formation, something man-made, or - a spaceship?

The Voynich Manuscript, written about 500 years ago in an unknown script, has eluded all attempts at deciphering it. What does the text mean? What do the illustrations actually represent? Where did it come from? Thinking Sideways looks at it from every angle and enlists the help of Dr. Stephen Bax in trying to understand what it is all about.

In the early 1800's a hotel owner was entrusted with a locked box, when he eventually opened it he found that it contained 3 coded messages. The coded messages were supposedly described the location of a buried treasure. Only one of the cyphers has been broken. The answer to the others, like the treasure itself, has never been found.

A mysterious "humming" noise is being heard by people world wide. So far the source of this constant, and potentially maddening, noise remains undiscovered and unexplained.

An old Polish intelligence file reveals the confession of a Nazi war criminal that the Germans were developing something which might have changed the course of WWII. Was the Nazi Bell a super weapon? An anti-gravity device? A time machine? And where did it disappear to?

This week we look at three smaller mysteries that are similar and try to get to the bottom of things.

At around 3am on February 25th, 1942, the US Army began firing at an unknown object, or possibly multiple objects, over Los Angeles. After half an hour of intense shelling the firing stopped and when the smoke cleared nothing was found. No enemy aircraft. No enemy wreckage. No enemy casualties. If there was nothing there then what were they firing at?

In 1518 in Strasbourg, Alsace, a woman began dancing in the street and danced for 4 to 6 days. Within a month, 400 people were dancing in the streets. Many died from heart attacks, stroke or exhaustion.

German man exclaims "Now I understand!" to his wife, scrawls an unintelligible word on a piece of paper. Hours later he's found naked and near death in his wrecked car. Turns out he was injured by being RUN OVER by a car.

A British professor has published photographs showing what he says are proof that fairies are real. Are they though?

Often referred to as America's stone henge, the Georgia Guidestones are a set of monolithic structures that were erected in Georgia in March of 1980. There are five slabs, which are astronomically aligned and have 10 "new world commandments" carved into their surface in several languages. An additional stone tablet, which is set in the ground a short distance to the west of the structure, provides some notes on the history and purpose of the Guidestones. The stones were commissioned by a man who's identity has never been revealed.

A man calling himself Albert Johnson led the Mounties on their biggest manhunt ever, performing almost superhuman feats of evasion and survival before he was eventually brought down.

Between 2005 and 2009 eight women were murdered, the police investigation has been focused on finding a serial murderer. Writer Ethan Brown reveals disturbing facts that point towards many residents of Jefferson Davis Parish and, even more disturbingly, the local police department.

Coral castle was built by Edward Leedskalnin between 1923-1951 when he passed away. Ed quarried all of the stone himself and said that he moved the several ton stones single handedly around the property using the secrets of the ancient Egyptians. Over 1,100 tons of stone were erected without any mechanical assistance according to legend. So how did he move all that stone?

Often linked to the Philadelphia project, the Montauk project is an "all but the kitchen sink" series of conspiracy theories related to alleged secret projects starting in the 1980's... or the 1940's. Official reports claim they were "simply" working on psychological warfare, but there might also be a 50-story titanium pyramid below the radar building in which a yeti and the USS Eldridge from the Philadelphia Project manifested. We explore all theories in this riveting episode.

In December 1900 three lighthouse keepers were discovered to have vanished from the island of Eilean Mor. There were the usual inexplicable clues-a meal left uneaten, a chair knocked over-which indicated a hasty exit.

The Mongolian Death Worm is a cryptid that has never officially been captured (though Westerners have been trying since 1922). The creature lives in the Gobi desert and only surfaces in the months of June and July, supposedly after heavy rains. It reportedly can spit acid at AND/OR electrocute anyone who gets near it. And someone wants to find it why?

On August 7th, 1973, radio operators in California picked up the terrified cries of a young boy who identified himself as Larry. Larry was unable to tell authorities where he was, or even what state he lived in. As the days drew on, the signal from his radio became weaker, the search for Lost Boy Larry was called off as he was presumed dead. Was this a hoax, or did a young boy get cooked to death in an overturned truck?

In December 1910 Dorothy Arnold, a wealthy New York socialite, left her family's Manhattan home to go shopping, and never returned. Despite a massive search and extensive investigations, no trace of her was ever found.

This week we look at three similar nautical mysteries and try to get to something to float to the top.

The Irish Crown Jewels were discovered to be missing on July 11, 1907. No one knows who took them or why but for a century there has been plenty of finger pointing over who the thief must have been.

Following a kidnapping of the president of Glico industries, a crime organization calling themselves the Monster with 21 Faces begins systematic extortion attempts on confectionery giants Glico and Morinaga.

Netta Fornario, a student of the occult, left home for an extended stay on island of Iona; months later, she died while apparently performing some sort of ritual, leading to accusations of, among other things, murder from beyond the grave.

Gary McKinnon hacked into NASA and several other government agencies' computers. He swears he found evidence that we have a fleet of space ships and that they are staffed by "non-terrestrial" officers-humans in space, not space aliens. Did he really find that kind of information or was it all in his head?

On February 9th, 2004, 21 year old Maura Murray set out on a car trip, telling her employer and professors it was because of a death in the family-a lie that puzzles investigators to this day. Despite many alleged sightings and bad tips, her disappearance has remained a mystery for the past decade. Was this a case of startlingly well planned out foul-play? Did she run away? Is she still alive?

In 1967, Jim Thompson, a former spy with the OSS, more recently a very successful businessman in Bangkok, Thailand, left the house where he was staying (in the Cameron Highlands of Malaysia)... and never returned. And no trace of him was ever found.

According to local legend a Gateway to Hell is located in Stull, Kansas. Each year on Halloween Satan uses this gateway to visit the earth. What is he doing and why is the gateway located in a tiny town in the middle of Kansas?

Also known as the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run, this mystery circles around a still unidentified serial killer responsible for at least 12 grisly murders in the Cleveland area in the 1930's. The murder's MO? Dismemberment of low-class citizens, making the bodies often impossible to identify.

For 18 months in the years 1918-19, a serial killer terrorized the citizens of New Orleans, his favored method of murder earning him a grisly nickname: "The Axeman". The murders have never been solved.

Jack the Ripper terrorized London in 1888, 5 women are attributed to having died horrifically by his hand but no one is certain if that number is correct. Who was he, why did he do it, and where did he go?

Everyone knows that humans were in the New World long before Columbus arrived but no one knows exactly how they got there. On foot, in boats, across the Pacific or the Atlantic ocean?

In 1992, Stardust casino employee Bill Brennan walks out of work with half a million dollars belonging to the casino. He hasn't been heard from since.

After her death by suicide in 2010, Lori Erica Ruff (nee Kennedy) was discovered by her family to have been living under a false name, and that her real name was Becky Turner, except - Becky Turner died in 1971 at the age of 2.

For centuries strange "booming" noises have been heard in coastal regions all around the world. Some say they are part of a government conspiracy, others say it is the sound of the continental shelf shifting. What is making all the racket?

"Not all mysteries are solvable, but prize comes in the pursuit." Called "the most elaborate and mysterious puzzle of the internet", Cicada 3301 is the name given to an organization that posts complex puzzles for public consumption on or around the 5th of January every year. First surfacing in 2012 via a post on 4chan, users were given a month to solve a set of increasingly complex puzzles. Who is behind this group, what is the end goal of the puzzles, and how could anyone solve them?

In October 1949, Jean Spangler, a 26-year-old aspiring actress, left her home and never returned. Her purse turned up 2 days later, with a cryptic note in it; 2 days after that, a very famous movie star called the LAPD out of the blue to deny that he knew anything about it, or her. Jean was never found, where did she go and what happened to her?