The Strangest Unsolved Mysteries in Every State

Alabama: The Brasher-Dye disappearance

The Dye brothers, Billy Howard and Robert, disappeared in 1956 along with their cousin, Dan Brasher. They were last seen leaving a relative’s house in rural Jefferson County in a green 1947 Ford. Unfortunately, no one noticed they were missing because they were known to be heavy drinkers—favoring moonshine—and often disappeared for days while sleeping off a binge. When a missing person’s report was filed, investigators’ questions were met with silence or tall tales—for example, of a bulldozer burying a car under a highway. The case remains unsolved.

Alaska: The Investor murders

In 1982, an $850,000 fishing boat named the Investor was seen burning off the coast of Craig. Inside, eight bodies—the owner, his pregnant wife, their two daughters and four crewmen—were found, shot to death and left to burn. One possible suspect was tried, but he’s been acquitted because of a lack of hard evidence. Authorities still haven’t determined a motive. The investigation into the murders is no longer underway. “The case is closed,” Tim DeSpain, spokesman for the Alaska State Troopers, told People in 2017. But the Investor slayings are still no closer to being solved. The case is Alaska’s worst unsolved mass homicide.

Arizona: The murder in room 18

When the Drift Inn Saloon opened in Globe in 1902, the ground floor operated as a bar, while the upstairs served as a brothel called the International House. In October 1906, in room 18 of the brothel, a miner named Joseph Ludwig was murdered. After that, someone took his body a mile up the canyon and slit his throat, tore out his heart and blew him up with dynamite. To this day, the identity of Ludwig’s murderer is unknown.

Arkansas: The Gurdon light

Ever since the 1930s, a floating light appears above the railroad tracks near Gurdon sometime in late October. It’s not in dispute whether the light appears, because thousands of people have seen it. What remains a mystery is what causes the light. Some believe it’s the ghost of William McClain, a railroad worker murdered in 1931. Others believe it’s a natural phenomenon caused by swamp gas or rock quartz beneath the land. The case was featured on TV’s Unsolved Mysteries in 1994, and it remains unsolved to this day.

California: The disappearance of survivors who escaped from Alcatraz

The supposedly escape-proof prison named for Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay has claimed the lives of 33 prisoners who attempted to flee. But that doesn’t necessarily include John Anglin, Clarence Anglin and Frank Morris: In 1962, they escaped from their cells through holes they’d drilled in the walls. Unfortunately, that’s where the story ends. What happened next remains one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in the USA. The case was closed in 1979, but people—including the families of the escapees—still wonder.

Colorado: The Black Forest haunting

Within weeks of moving into their home in the Black Forest area of Colorado Springs in 1990, all hell broke loose for the Lee family. There were flashing lights, footsteps, orchestra music, strange smells and even sightings of ghostly faces. The Lee family lives there to this day, still reporting the same phenomena. No one can explain what it is, although a Hopi shaman who was called in to consult claims the house is located on a “rip in the space-time continuum,” where spirits can move freely between worlds.

Connecticut: The shallow graves beneath New Haven Green

In 2012, Hurricane Sandy caused a tree to fall on New Haven Green. Tangled in the roots was a human skull, dating back about 200 years. An archeological dig followed, yielding more body fragments, as well as coffin nails. It’s suspected that more than 5,000 bodies are buried under the Green and that they may have been removed in the middle of the night, wrapped in sheets and buried in shallow, unmarked graves. Some theorize the people died during a terrible epidemic—though no one’s sure what it was.

Delaware: The murder of Jane Marie Prichard

Jane Marie Prichard was conducting botany experiments in Blackbird State Forest in September 1986 when she was shot to death. Campers stumbled across her body later. Many hunters were in the forest that day, but investigators quickly ruled out an accidental shooting. What they couldn’t figure out and still haven’t is why someone wanted Prichard dead, and who might have killed her. The case remains cold to this day.

Florida: The spontaneous combustion of Mary Reeser

In July of 1951, authorities found the body of 67-year-old Mary Reeser in her St. Petersburg apartment. Or more accurately, the pile of mostly ash that was once Reeser’s body (her left foot and her shrunken head remained). Apparently, her body had been almost entirely cremated, which is mind-boggling when you consider that cremation requires three hours of burning in a 2,000-degree fire. Even more bizarre: Only Reeser’s body had burned, while the rest of her apartment was intact, including a pile of newspapers beside her body.

Georgia: The Bleeding House

One night in 1987, Minnie Winston saw blood on the floor of her Atlanta house. Terrified, she ran to find her husband. He was fine, but there was more blood everywhere—on the walls, oozing from the floor, seeping up from under kitchen appliances. She and her husband called the police, who found no evidence of a break-in. What they were able to surmise was that the blood had come from a living human. No one has ever figured out where, or from whom, the blood came.

Hawaii: The disappearance of Lisa Au

More than 35 years ago, 19-year-old Lisa Au disappeared without a trace, her car abandoned along a highway in Kailua. Her body turned up 10 days later, naked and decomposing. The coroner couldn’t determine the cause of death, but police consider the case a homicide—perhaps Hawaii’s most notorious, since the police believe that Au may have been abducted by someone posing as a police officer.

Idaho: Strange mutilations

The towns of Jerome and Bliss have been plagued by bizarre mutilations since the 1970s—human, cattle and deer (genitals removed, bodies drained entirely of blood and no discernible footprints or other forensic evidence left at the scene). The official explanation by law enforcement is “cult killings,” but others blame extraterrestrials for the bloody acts. No arrest has ever been made, and no cult (or alien) has ever been identified.

Illinois: The Mad Gasser of Mattoon

During the 1940s, law enforcement received more than two dozen reports of “gassings,” in which the victims reported paralysis, coughing, nausea and vomiting after smelling a strange, noxious odor in their homes. No physical evidence was ever found, however, and the victims always survived. Some believe the “attacks” were a case of mass hysteria. Others believe the “Mad Gasser” actually existed or that the “attacks” were really the result of paranormal activity. The truth may or may not be out there.

Indiana: The Odon fires

In 1941, a farmer in Odon had breakfast with his family, then headed out to his barn to begin his chores. Then he noticed smoke coming out of an upstairs window in the house. He ran back, and with the help of the volunteer fire department put out the fire in an upstairs bedroom, only to have another fire break out in another room. All day long, as soon as they put out one fire, another would start elsewhere in the house—28 in all. Believing his house to be haunted by poltergeists, the farmer tore it down and built a new one. The cause of the fires has never been determined.

Iowa: The boy with no appetite

In 2014, Landon Jones was a 12-year-old living in Cedar Falls. There was nothing unusual about him—except for the fact that he never got hungry or thirsty. It all started the year before, when Jones, who’d been completely fine up until then, came down with a bacterial infection in his left lung. For at least a year, he never felt hunger or thirst. He only ate and drank because he was reminded to do so. No one knows what caused this affliction, and it’s unclear whether Jones outgrew the condition.

Kansas: The baffling disappearance of Randy Leach

In 1988, Randy Leach, a teenager from Leavenworth County, disappeared from a high school party and has never been found. What makes the case stranger is that there had been rumors of satanic cult activity in the county in the days before Leach’s disappearance, and the party site had been cleaned meticulously before investigators arrived; soon after, it burned to the ground. Most people who’ve cooperated in the investigation have turned up dead, and county officials declined to pursue further leads. There are theories about what really happened that night, but the truth may never be known.

Kentucky: The meat shower

Not a meteor shower—a meat shower. One day in 1876, over a farm in Kentucky, the sky rained down chunks of meat of indeterminate origin (was it bear? mutton? No one knew). The only explanation anyone has ever been able to offer is that the meat was the prey of vultures, which had gorged themselves and then vomited while flying overhead.

Louisiana: The unknowable Marie Laveau

Marie Laveau, who lived in New Orleans at the turn of the 19th century, had charmed, titillated and unnerved the community with her practice of voodoo. Laveau told fortunes and created potions and charms on request. She held spiritual ceremonies that led people to become possessed; she also could magically heal the sick. However, stories of her feats have been passed along from one generation of voodoo practitioners to the next, making it impossible to know the truth behind the tales.

Maine: The murder of Sarah Ware

In 1898, the brutally beaten body of 52-year-old Sarah Ware was discovered in a wooded area of Bucksport, after she had been missing for two weeks. Her killer is believed to have been a neighbor, but when the blood-stained hammer believed to be the murder weapon disappeared, the neighbor was acquitted. The case still haunts the town to this day, not just because the case was never solved, but also because the circumstances of her burial are so strange: Her head and body are buried separately, with no gravestone.

Maryland: The house of horrors

In 2017, a Bethesda house fire revealed a disturbing find: the body of a man in the basement. Further investigation revealed a mysterious network of tunnels below the foundation of the house that extended all the way to the street. The home’s owner, Daniel Beckwitt, has since been charged with the death of Askia Khafra (the body in the basement). Investigators allege that Beckwitt hired Khafra to dig the tunnels but put him in danger due to the unsafe work environment. But the purpose of the tunnels and Beckwitt’s motives remain a mystery.

Massachusetts: The Black Flash of Provincetown

From 1939 to 1945, the people of Provincetown were terrorized by a being they called the Black Flash. The figure first appeared to a group of children—tall, dressed in black and growling ominously. In 1945, a group of policemen actually reported seeing the figure leap a 10-foot fence. About a month later, a man threw boiling water at the figure, sending it screaming into the night. It was never seen again.

Michigan: The Paulding light

In 1966, a group of teens reported having seen a mysterious light above a valley in Paulding. There are scientific explanations, such as that the light is actually swamp gas. But they have been rejected in favor of the more popular paranormal theory that the light is from the lantern belonging to local brakeman who was killed while attempting to stop an oncoming train. Michigan Tech students believe it’s a phenomenon created by headlights from a nearby road, but the mystery remains officially unsolved.

Minnesota: The frozen girl

In 1981, Jean Hillard’s car went off the road near Langby, and the next day, her frozen body was discovered with eyes wide open. When a friend took her to the hospital, her flesh was so frozen solid that doctors couldn’t pierce it with a hypodermic needle. Her body temperature was too low to register on a thermometer. But when Hillard thawed, she was very much alive and made a full recovery.

Mississippi: The Phantom Barber of Pascagoula

In 1942, Pascagoula was plagued by a series of peculiar home invasions: someone breaking into people’s houses and cutting locks of hair from women and girls. One man—57-year-old William Dolan—became a suspect when a bundle of human hair and a few pairs of barber scissors were discovered when his house was searched. Dolan was arrested, and he was sentenced to 10 years in prison, although he always maintained his innocence. About six years into his sentence, he passed a polygraph test and was released early. To this day, it’s unclear whether Dolan was the Phantom Barber, or if there was another stranger with shears sneaking into people’s homes.

Missouri: How Robert Rayford contracted AIDS

In 1969, 16-year-old Robert Rayford was hospitalized in St. Louis for extreme, unintended weight loss and a host of infections. The doctors had no answers, and Rayford died. A few years later, HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, was discovered. Subsequent medical testing of Rayford’s blood revealed that he had the virus. Somehow, Rayford, who’d never been out of the country and never had a transfusion, had died of AIDS nearly a decade before it was discovered.

Montana: The Vortex and House of Mystery

Just 13 miles from Glacier National Park you can pass through a portal in which the laws of nature are set aside: A gravitational anomaly forces trees to grow sideways and makes people appear as much as 6 inches shorter. A shack in the Vortex—called the House of Mystery—is the home to bizarre phenomenon: A marble rolled on an incline will travel upward, and a rope hanging from the ceiling falls in a curve.

Nebraska: The Lucky 15

On March 1, 1950, the 15 members of the Beatrice’s West Side Baptist Church choir were supposed to meet for practice. All of them were known for their punctuality, but on this day, they were all running late—every single one. The reasons varied, but not a single one was present when a natural gas leak caused the complete destruction of the church. Even Snopes can’t discount the mystery here: Why and how was every single one of the 15 choir members spared a grisly death?

Nevada: Tupac Shakur’s murder

In 1996, hip-hop star Tupac Shakur was shot in Las Vegas during a drive-by shooting and died a week later, at the age of 25. It is thought that Shakur’s murder was the result of a competition between East Coast members of a Bloods gang sect and West Coast members of a Crips sect. No arrests were initially made for Shakur’s murder; in fact, no one was charged with the crime until 2023, when Duane Keith “Keffe D” Davis, a former Southern California street gang leader, was taken into custody. Davis pleaded not guilty and maintains his innocence. While the case was supposed to go to trial in March 2025, it has been postponed until February 2026.

New Hampshire: The disappearance of Rachel Garden

In 1980, 15-year-old Rachel Garden bought a pack of cigarettes at a market in Newton and was never seen again. The friend Garden told her family she was going to spend the night with denied having plans with her. A witness claimed to have seen Garden talking to three young men outside the market, but none of the men were charged. In fact, no one has ever been charged, and there are no suspects. Nearly 40 years later, the case appears to be hopelessly cold and remains one of the great American mysteries.

New Jersey: The phantom sniper

From November 1927 to January 1928, Camden was terrorized by what’s been described as a “phantom” or “ghost sniper.” Bus and car windows were shattered, and even a policeman was struck, but no bullets or casings were ever found, and no one ever saw an actual sniper. One witness reported hearing a man’s laughter. But no one else saw or heard a thing. The attacks suddenly stopped in 1928. To this day, no one knows why they began or what they really were.

New Mexico: UFOs in Roswell

It all started in the summer of 1947, when a Roswell rancher found mysterious debris in his sheep pasture. The Air Force claimed the debris belonged to a crashed weather balloon, but the citizens of Roswell didn’t buy it. They believed it came from a UFO. Fifty years later, the military revealed that the debris was from a top-secret atomic project. So it probably wasn’t a UFO—but what was it? And why has the U.S. government come up with at least two different stories about it?

New York: The Leatherman

During the second half of the 1800s, a leather-clad hermit wandered around Westchester and Putnam Counties, never speaking. And unlike other wanderers of that time period, not looking for work. He was, however, happy to accept a meal and returned once a year—on the same day—to the homes that were generous to him. He was known to sleep in caves. His body was discovered in 1889 in a cave on the Dell family farm in Briarcliff. To this day, it remains an unexplained mystery, and no one’s sure who he was or why he wandered.

North Carolina: The murder of Judy Carol Rawlings

On Oct. 5, 2001, 16-year-old Judy Carol Rawlings was reported missing from her family’s home in Randolph County, North Carolina. Fourteen days later, a hunter found Rawlings’s partially clothed body in a field about a half-mile away. According to Rawlings’s mother, she had last seen her daughter around 7:30 a.m. on Oct. 3, as she was leaving for a doctor’s appointment. She said that her mother—Judy’s grandmother—gave Judy permission to go riding on a four-wheeler with their 18-year-old neighbor, Tony Sierra. Sierra told investigators he gave her a ride on a four-wheeler, then left her at a gas station on Oct. 4. Rawlings’s murder has never been solved.

North Dakota: Eugene Butler’s crawl space

Niagara, about 40 miles west of Grand Forks, was founded in 1882 and has never been a big town. In fact, today, it has fewer than 100 residents. But back in the early 1900s, there were at least six more people there than anyone knew about at the time. In 1915, the bodies of six people who’d been bludgeoned to death were discovered in the crawl space of a house that had once belonged to the reclusive Eugene Butler. He died in 1911, several years after being committed to a mental hospital. Though some suspect that they were transient farmers, their identities remain a mystery to this day.

Ohio: The Circleville letters

In 1976, residents of Circleville began receiving harassing letters, taunting and threatening them with tidbits about their personal lives. After the murder of one resident and the attempted murder of another, police arrested Paul Freshour, but while he was in prison, the letters continued. Six months after Freshour’s release, TV’s Unsolved Mysteries aired a segment—only to receive its own short letter: “Forget Circleville, Ohio… if you come to Ohio, you el sickos will pay. The Circleville Writer.” The identity of the letter writer remains unknown.

Oklahoma: The Jamison family

In 2014, Bobby and Sherilynn Jamison drove out to look at a property in Red Oak they were interested in purchasing. Their truck was discovered days later, along with their wallets, IDs, phones, $32,000 in cash and their dog. Their remains, along with their young daughter’s, were discovered by hunters a month later. No cause of death could be determined, and no one knows what happened to them, although theories abound—including that the family faked their deaths and joined the witness protection program, and the family’s supposed involvement with cults and/or witchcraft.

Oregon: The mysterious shrieks of Forest Grove

The small town of Forest Grove is generally quiet, but in 2016, the quiet was shattered by reports of an otherworldly shrieking sound that seemed to emanate from nowhere and everywhere all at the same time. Some managed to record the screeching, which has been described as being like a train careening wildly on metal tracks—except there’s no train nearby. The shrieks ceased soon after, and no one has ever been able to figure out what caused them or where they might have been coming from.

Pennsylvania: The mystery head

In 2014, a woman’s embalmed head was discovered in a wooded area in Economy Borough. So far, police have been unable to identify the woman, who is thought to be somewhere between 60 and 80 years old. In addition to not knowing who she is, law enforcement officials don’t know the cause of her death, or the location of her body—making this one of the strangest unsolved mysteries in the USA. But this cold case gets even stranger: The well-preserved embalmed head was likely removed professionally, or at least by someone with medical expertise, according to police. In addition, the eyes had been removed and replaced with red rubber balls. Police have investigated nearly 200 leads and tips, but they are no closer to solving the case.

Rhode Island: Adam Emery’s disappearance

In 1993, Adam Emery disappeared just hours after being convicted of murdering 20-year-old Jason Bass in a road-rage incident. (Emery was out on bail pending formal sentencing.) Police found his car abandoned on Newport Bridge. Less than a year later, his wife’s remains were found in Narragansett Bay. Some believe Adam and his wife jumped to their deaths from that bridge, but the FBI still considers Emery one of America’s most wanted criminals.

South Carolina: The Lizard Man

Starting in the summer of 1988, Browntown residents began seeing what’s now referred to as the “Lizard Man,” a 7-foot-tall green creature with red eyes and incredible, superhuman strength. The first sighting involved a car being “mauled” by the creature. Once the sightings started, tourists began to descend upon Browntown to see if they, too, could catch a glimpse of the Lizard Man. Locals capitalized on this interest, selling Lizard Man T-shirts and other souvenirs. To this day, the mystery hasn’t been solved, and there have been alleged sightings as recently as 2015.

South Dakota: The strange fate of Tom Kueter

In 1994, Tina Marcotte called a friend to say she had a flat tire but that her former co-worker, Tom Kueter, was going to help her out. Marcotte was never seen or heard from again, and when Kueter was questioned by police, he disputed that he’d been in touch with Marcotte that day. The next day, Kueter himself was found dead: He had been run over by his own forklift. Was it an accident? Suicide? Homicide? And what happened to Tina Marcotte?

Tennessee: The Craigmiles Mausoleum

In 1871, Nina Craigmiles was killed at the age of 7 when the buggy she was riding in was hit by a train. Her family had a mausoleum built for her (and future deceased members of the Craigmiles family) out of white Italian marble. Shortly after Nina was placed there, red streaks and splotches began to appear in the marble. Efforts to clean the marble failed, and each time a family member’s body was placed in the mausoleum, more red stains appeared. There’s no scientific explanation for the stains, and some believe they are Nina’s tears.

Texas: The kidnapping of Amber Hagerman

Amber Hagerman was a 9-year-old Arlington Girl Scout when she was kidnapped while riding her bike on Jan. 13, 1996. A witness quickly told the police he’d seen a girl being forced into a black van. Despite a massive search, Hagerman was never seen alive again. Her body was found five days later, about four miles from where she had been taken. Her killer has never been found, but her abduction led to the invention of Amber Alerts: mass messages notifying the public of a child abduction.

Utah: Jean Baptiste’s great escape

Jean Baptiste was a gravedigger turned notorious grave robber. When his grave-pillaging came to light in the late 1800s, Baptiste was banished to a remote island in the Great Salt Lake: the equivalent of solitary confinement. Three weeks later, he was gone. What little evidence authorities could find indicated that he might have built a raft in order to escape, but he was never seen or heard from again.

Vermont: The Bennington Triangle

The Bennington Triangle refers to an area of Vermont surrounding Glastenbury Mountain where five people disappeared without a trace between 1945 and 1950. These include a trail guide who vanished in 1945 while leading a hunting party, college student Paula Jean Weldon—who disappeared the following year from a hiking trail—and James Tedford, who seemingly vanished from a bus headed for Bennington. Since the disappearances were clustered in the same time period, there’s speculation of a serial killer. Others believe there are interdimensional portals or vortexes within the Bennington Triangle. But not everyone suspects something suspicious: Some think the area’s rugged terrain and unpredictable weather are responsible for the incidents.

Virginia: The Old House Woods

In the quaint seaside town of Diggs, Virginia’s “Old House Woods” was once a popular hiding place for soldiers and pirates, so naturally, it’s become a hotspot for paranormal activity, including sightings of ghost ships floating overhead, ghosts of British Revolutionary War soldiers digging for gold, headless cow ghosts, a ghostly woman and accounts of skeletons dressed in armor wandering the woods. People have reported finding themselves filled with dread while walking in the forest. Horses are known to become spooked for no apparent reason. Even paranormal investigators are creeped out, often unable to continue their investigations.

Washington: How Jason Padgett became a math genius

In 2002, Jason Padgett, a furniture salesman, jock and self-described “partier” from Tacoma, was savagely attacked by two men outside a bar, leaving him with a severe concussion. When he recovered, he had acquired the ability to visualize complicated mathematical and physics concepts intuitively. Padgett is now one of 15 to 25 cases of so-called “acquired savant syndrome”—people who developed abilities after suffering a head injury.

West Virginia: The death of Danny Casolaro

In 1991, freelance reporter Danny Casolaro came to Martinsburg for a story he had been working on for a year. He was meeting with a source about a conspiracy theory known as “octopus,” which involved high-ranking government officials and an international cabal. Two days after he arrived, Casolaro was found dead in his hotel room. Authorities labeled it a suicide, but others believe he was murdered because he knew too much about a scandal involving the highest levels of government.

Wisconsin: The demon bunk bed

In 1987, the Tallman family brought a secondhand bunk bed into their home in Horicon. For the next nine months, the family was haunted by what appeared to be poltergeists: clock radios turning on by themselves, a paintbrush that dipped itself in paint and a chair and suitcase moving by themselves. Worse yet, the Tallman children fell ill, despite not having any previous health problems. There was also an unexplained fire. The Tallman family buried the bunk bed in a landfill and moved out of the house.

Wyoming: Devil’s Tower

Various Native American tribes view the Devil’s Tower National Monument as a sacred site and have their own origin stories about the massive stone structure. Science fiction fans may recall that the mythology of the structure played an important role in the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Geologically speaking, it’s made of volcanic material and is connected in some way to an existing or previously existing volcano. But precisely how it came to exist continues to confound scientists.

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