2023 Was a Year Full of Mysteries
Our favorite tales of puzzles and perplexities.
At Atlas Obscura, we’re obsessed with the unknown. Whether it’s a tale of ghostly murder that still induces chills two centuries later or a taxidermy marvel that seems to defy reason, we love a rabbit hole with no clear end in sight. This year, we followed a “huntress of lost treasure” in pursuit of one of the great wedding dresses of history, accompanied scientists looking to uncover the meaning behind thousand-mile-long hexagonal patterns etched into salt flats, and marveled at a gravitational hole lurking at the bottom of the Indian Ocean.
The Mystery of the World’s Largest and Deepest Gravity Hole
By Frank Jacobs, Big Think
Since 1948, scientists have been scratching their heads as to why the world’s largest gravitational anomaly lies buried at the bottom of the Indian Ocean. About 1,200 kilometers off the tip of the Indian subcontinent, the Earth’s gravitational pull is much weaker than any other place on the planet. The reason why has to do with a continent-sized bubble of magma and 20 million years of tectonic history.
The Mysterious Norwegian Art of Painting on Dead Fish
By Jessica Leigh Hester
The University Museum of Bergen in Norway is home to a particularly perplexing taxidermy collection. A series of freakishly lifelike fish sit suspended in clear alcohol, a century after their passing. If left to the ravages of time, these long-dead fish would fade to a pale brown or white, yet each of these specimens is still bizarrely brilliant, thanks to the paintbrush of an unknown master.
The Mystery Beneath the ‘Honeycomb’ Patterns of Salt Deserts
By Line Sidonie Talla Mafotsing
Chances are high you’ve seen photos of Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni, a glittering salt flat that sprawls over 3,900 square miles. Barren as the surface of the moon and impossibly photogenic, the Salar de Uyuni is covered in a raised hexagonal pattern. The same string polygons also line Death Valley’s Badwater Basin Salt Flat, much to the bafflement of generations of geologists. Now, researchers think they’ve found the cause of this phenomenon, which hinges on the movements of the vast expanse of salt water lying just beneath the surfaces of these formations.
The Elusive, Maddening Mystery of the Bell Witch
By Colin Dickey
“A good ghost story terrifies because it leaves something unsettled, unanswered, unfinished,” writes Colin Dickey. Perhaps that is why more than 200 years after a series of terrifying events befell the farmer John Bell and his family we’re still talking about it. In 1817, in Red River, Tennessee, a malevolent, extremely verbose spirit who came to be known as the Bell Witch allegedly took up residence in a homestead. As the months went by, the ghost’s tactics escalated from swiping pillows to constant verbal harassment to violence, finally culminating in the death of the patriarch. To this day, no one knows what really happened, but the mystery continues to inspire everyone from rock bands to the makers of films like The Blair Witch Project.
Unveiling the Mystery of a Royal Wedding Dress Lost for 179 Years
By Ronan O’Connell
Empress Elisabeth of Austria (“Sisi” to her friends and currently something of a posthumous sensation, thanks to The Empress on Netflix) married Emperor Franz Joseph in 1854. The ceremony itself was shrouded in secrecy—no illustrators, journalists, or other people who might document the event were able to attend. As a result, historians have spent the better part of two centuries speculating on what exactly the bride wore. Dr. Monica Kurzel-Runtscheiner, director of Vienna’s Imperial Carriage Museum, has been on the trail of Sisi’s wedding gown for years.
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