Mental Floss

MYSTERY

The facts of these ships is unknown.

The true fate of many of these ships will never be known, but speculation suggests that storms, piracy, mutiny, accidental bombing, and even the attack of a giant squid could be responsible for their vanishings.

Claire Cock-Starkey




Their pasts were shrouded in mystery.

History is loaded with people who have disappeared without a trace; rarer are the ones who seem to have emerged from nowhere.

Meg Van Huygen












Your giftee would die to receive these presents.

Humans have a strange and lasting fascination with the dark and macabre. Lucky for you, we’ve compiled a list of the best gifts for true crime fans that will appeal to any murder mystery lover.

Hannah McDonald
A 2013 photo of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, showing the vacant frame from which Rembrandt's The Storm on the Sea of Galilee was stolen.

Unsolved crimes are exhaustively covered in the media, but chances are, there’s at least one crime from history in this list—from unsolved art heists to mysterious crimes committed against (or by?) royals—that you’re not familiar with.

Jon Mayer