- Here are some cases for you to puzzle over if you get bored.
Not every crime gets solved. Some of them are so meticulously planned by such diabolical criminal masterminds that the police never manage to get on their trail.
Others, however, go unsolved partially because they’re just so weird. You sometimes even find it hard to blame the cops for not cracking these cases — how do you start an investigation when nothing about the crime seems to make any sense?
Here are five bizarre crimes that no one has ever managed to solve.
5. The Max Headroom Incident
On November 22, 1987, people in Chicago were watching the 9 p.m. newscast on WGN-TV. At 9:14 p.m., things got bizarre — the broadcast swapped to a man wearing a Max Headroom mask, his erratic movements accompanied by a loud buzzing noise.
The intrusion lasted for 17 seconds. By that point, the channel’s engineers regained control of the signal and went back to the news.
Then, at 11:20 p.m., the signal hijacking happened again, this time on WTTW as the masked man overtook a Doctor Who episode. This time, things really went haywire.
The masked hijacker went on a bizarre rant, during which he complained about “nerds,” pretended to defecate, sang songs, and ultimately revealed his bare buttocks while a masked woman spanked them with a fly swatter.
After about 90 seconds, the pirates cut their signal and Doctor Who continued as if nothing had happened. To this day, nobody has been able to figure out who sent the outlandish broadcast — or why they did it.
4. The Cape Intruder
Cape Elizabeth in Maine is generally a peaceful, picturesque place to live. But for a brief period in 2005, the locals were gripped by fear and confusion.
Between August 2005 and February 2006, several Cape Elizabeth residents woke up to find a young man staring at them. At times, the man — suspected to be in his 20s — was looming directly above the sleeping person.
As soon as the victim woke up, the youngster fled the home. And that’s it.
The Cape Intruder, as he was dubbed, never physically harmed or even touched anyone. He never broke or stole anything — he only stood and stared.
When reporting the incidents to the police, many of the victims felt like the young man looked like someone they knew. Two of them even named the same suspect, but no one was ever arrested for the break-ins.
The staring incidents stopped as suddenly as they had begun. Whoever the Cape Intruder was, he is still out there.
3. D. B. Cooper
On November 24, 1971, a man carrying a black briefcase boarded the Northwest Orient Flight 305 from Portland, Oregon, to Seattle. For his ticket, he had given the name “Dan Cooper.”
Shortly after the plane had taken off, Cooper handed a note to a flight attendant. He stated he had a bomb and it would go off unless his demands were met.
Cooper requested $200,000 ($1.5 million in today’s money) in $20 bills, placed in a knapsack. He also demanded two front and two back parachutes, implying he was planning to take a hostage. As his final demand, he wanted the plane refueled as soon as it landed in Seattle.
Cooper got what he asked for. Once the plane landed, a single airline representative delivered the money and parachutes to Cooper. He then agreed to let the passengers out of the plane.
With his loot and the plane refueled, Cooper directed the pilots to take a course toward Mexico City, flying as slowly as possible at a maximum altitude of 10,000 feet. When informed that the plane would need more fuel along the way, Cooper and the crew agreed to another stop at Reno-Tahoe International Airport.
However, Cooper never made it there. Soon after the plane took off from Seattle, Cooper instructed all crew to move to the front of the plane and close the partitioning curtain, before opening the rear door.
That’s the last they saw of him. Dan Cooper, his $200,000, and two parachutes disappeared from the plane, never to be seen again.
Investigators still haven’t been able to figure out who Dan Cooper was or what happened to him.
2. The Circleville Letters
In 1977, the residents of Circleville, Ohio, began receiving strange letters. They could only be described as hate mail, and many revealed dirty details about their recipients’ lives.
The majority of the letters were addressed to Mary Gillespie, a school bus driver. They accused her of having an affair with the local school’s superintendent. One letter was also sent to Mary’s husband, Ron, and said he’d better stop the affair or he would die.
Each of the letters bore the same, distinctive handwriting. They were also postmarked for nearby Columbus, so there’s pretty much no doubt that one person was behind the letters.
The case turned deadly in 1977 when the threat to Ron Gillespie’s life was fulfilled. Ron, who had told his children he would go confront the writer, died in a car crash. The revolver he had been carrying had been fired once — but at who?
In 1983, with the letters still coming, Mary noticed a sign on a school fence with an obscene message about her daughter. When she went to remove it, she found a pistol hooked up to a booby trap.
The same year, Ron’s sister’s husband Paul Freshour was sent to prison for writing the letters and setting up the booby trap. Yet, even with Freshour behind bars, someone just kept sending the letters.
The identity of the sender remains unknown. Some suspect Mary herself sent the letters in order to murder her husband, but no one really knows.
1. The Salish Sea Feet
The coast of the Salish Sea in British Columbia, Canada, is a beautiful region with forests and small islands. And, for some reason, severed human feet keep washing ashore.
On August 20, 2007, a young girl discovered a discarded sneaker on a beach in the area. Much to her horror, the shoe contained a disembodied foot.
Since then, people have found at least 20 other feet at the shores of the sea. The most recent foot floated ashore on January 1, 2019.
Not only is the abundance of severed feet bizarre, but so is the question of whether or not any crime has taken place. According to official investigations, most of the feet came from people who died either in accidents or through suicide.
Yet, even the police have admitted that it’s very strange that people keep only finding severed feet with no trace of the rest of the corpses. And since only a few of the feet’s previous owners have been identified, it’s impossible to say how some of them died.
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