Category: Investigative Files

Among cases that are found at the margin of the “strange” genre (and so are often included in lists of paranormal phenomena) are varying types of “hidden identity,” which present varying degrees of difficulty to expose. Some whimsical impostures are inadvertently exposed. For instance, young Deborah Sampson (1760–1827), prompted by a desire for adventure, assumed …

“Unexplained” mysteries are intriguing to read, but compilations of such may exaggerate mystery by omitting facts. It is certainly easier to present some supposed enigma than to try to explain it. Here are three short cases from World War II that readers may enjoy trying to solve, together with my proposed solutions. (One is a …

“Ah, Watson,” said Sherlock Holmes, gazing absently out the window into the swirling fog. “I’ve been mulling over a case from before our time.” Seated beside the fire, I turned to him. “I should be glad to hear of any case you find instructive,” I replied. “Well,” said he, “It occurred in 1860, one your …

In memory of Michael Dennett   As what some would call a skeptical cryptozoologist, I prefer to think of myself as a paranatural naturalist—one who first considers allegedly paranatural/paranormal entities as hypothetically natural creatures, then seeks to identify them. Here I focus on North America’s hairy man-beast. Sasquatch or Bigfoot, long presumed to be a …

It has been given various descriptors—including “a perfect crime” and “a classic locked-room mystery”—but when I heard of the case and learned that mystery writer Raymond Chandler had designated it an “impossible murder” (Hunt and Thompson 2019, 37), it seemed to have my name written on it. After all, fellow investigative writer Massimo Polidoro once …

Among the borderlands of the paranormal, few exploits are stranger than those relating to supposed extraterrestrial phenomena. Take, for example, the fate of flying saucer writer Morris K. Jessup, who became entangled in various UFO conspiracy theories. Jessup led a life that threatened to become frustratingly comic, except that its mix of far-out alien claims …

I knew I was a detective at the age of eight, but my career did not actually begin until I was twenty-five in 1969. In the more than half a century since, I became various kinds of sleuth—ranging from paranormal to literary to homicide—including police-licensed private investigator for the first American detective agency, the Pinkerton’s. …

Ghost ships are said to be “sufficiently abundant” in certain locales as “to make them a hazard to navigation” (Beck 1973, 395). Some—seen in storms or fog—are probably mirages. (For example, a fiery, phantom-ship mystery I investigated in Nova Scotia was solved by witnesses who cited fog in front of the moon coming over the …

American writer Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914?)—in his collection of mystery and horror tales, Can Such Things Be? (1893)—included a trilogy of stories of incredible disappearances. They are not mere accounts of missing persons such as those that police and private detectives are involved in every day. Instead, in each instance the disappearance has elements of the …

In October 1985 in Salt Lake City, Utah, two bombing murders drew attention across the United States. Then a third bombing occurred, but the victim survived. When detectives went to his hospital room to interview the man—a young Mormon who sold rare historical documents—they caught him in a lie about how he had reached in …

In amazing sea voyages seven centuries ago, Polynesians discovered and settled the island country they called Aotearoa—today’s New Zealand. Their descendants became the Maori people, with a distinct culture that was less nomadic, more dependent on garden food (such as gourds and sweet potatoes), and largely directed by utu (“reciprocity”), whether as gift-giving or by …

The astonishing story of Charles Coghlan’s coffin has been among the most intriguing claims in the annals of the mysterious, raising the very insistent question: Could a corpse actually develop a “homing instinct”? Could it direct its coffin—freed from its vault by a great natural disaster—across ocean waters many hundreds of miles away back to …

Among the earliest recorded ghost stories in Alaska is the tragic tale of the lovelorn bride of Baranof Castle. I encountered the promontory once topped by that historic site—and later learned of its captivating legend—when I arrived at Sitka in 2006 on a Center for Inquiry cruise.1 Baranof Castle The great rock outcrop known as …

China’s Forbidden City is a 178-acre ancient palace complex in the heart of Beijing. Constructed in the early fifteenth century, it is not only a national treasure but also a UNESCO World Heritage site (since 1987)—fittingly so, because it is the largest such palace site in the world. Double walled and ringed with a wide …

Lizzie Borden took an axe And gave her mother forty whacks; When she saw what she had done, She gave her father forty-one! —Anonymous On August 4, 1892, in the Massachusetts seaport and cotton-mill town of Fall River, a unique double axe murder occurred that shocked the citizenry at the time and continues to fascinate. …

A poltergeist is said to be a sort of prankster entity, after the German word for a “noisy” (poltern) “spirit” (geist). Poltergeist phenomena include mysteriously thrown objects, strange noises, or unusual fires (Nickell 1995, 79). Those who promote belief in poltergeists often attribute the effects—fiery or otherwise—to the repressed hostilities of a child or other …

In the Middle Ages in Europe, the mentally ill—or those considered so—were kept in various settings, ranging from benign monasteries to “fools’ towers” where apparent madmen were housed. In London, the Priory of Saint Mary of Bethlehem evolved into a hospital (now six centuries old) that cared for the poor and aged and “lunatic.” Bethlehem, …

A “wonderful sea-snake” was repeatedly seen in the area of Gloucester Bay and Nahant Bay, Massachusetts, in August 1817 and again in 1819. Although attracting “hundreds of curious spectators,” plus a large reward for “his snakeship” alive or dead, the great creature escaped any such fate (Drake 1883, 156–159). The visitations have been reported in …

An article in the March 4, 2019, New Yorker gave the regrettable impression that some people could do what science—and common sense—say cannot be done: see something (usually a tragedy) before it has occurred. (The magazine followed other outlets that have recently hawked paranormal claims—The New York Times regarding UFOs in 2017 and 2018 [Nickell …

On August 27, 1963, two Pennsylvania coal miners were rescued after two weeks of being trapped underground. The pair would soon relate how, confined in the pitch black, they had witnessed humanoid figures, bathed in strange light, and saw a door that opened onto marble steps leading to a great celestial city with angels playing …

At the turn of the twentieth century in Wyoming, the “range wars” claimed many victims, among them fourteen-year-old Willie Nickell (yes, one of my distant cousins).1 This is the story of his murder and the hanging of his killer—a legendary lawman and now “ghost.” It begins over a quarter of a century earlier in my …

The Kraken—a massive sea monster—legendarily rose out of the ocean to pluck sailors off ship decks or even to grasp whole vessels and carry them to the depths.

Can we finally solve the mystery?

In contrast to mystery mongers, I insist that mysteries should not be fostered but investigated with the intent of solving them. I like them so much I have never really cared whether some case could be pigeonholed into a specific category, let alone what that category might be. “Probing Paranormal, Historical, and Forensic Enigmas,” I …

Supported by records citing eyewitness testimony, St. Joseph of Copertino was a seventeenth-century religious marvel who laid claim to the power of levitation.

How could a press that represents all of the universities in the Commonwealth of Kentucky publish such nonsense—even in an age of fake news and fake science?

Its immense popularity today belies the fact that the panda was once among the world’s most obscure creatures, “as mythical and elusive as Bigfoot” (Edwards 2009). Bigfooters are prone to emphasizing such creatures that were only discovered comparatively recently—for example a giraffe relative, the okapi (1901), and a “living fossil” fish, the coelacanth (1938)—because they …

Can people live for years without food? Some have claimed to, including certain holy persons. One nineteenth-century marvel in Brooklyn alleged not only to have lived without sustenance but to have experienced a nine-year trance state, possessed clairvoyant abilities, and recovered from paralysis and blindness. She was Mollie Fancher, a woman whose well-nourished body made …

Whenever someone relates his or her ghost encounter, a story is born. And, as folklorists know well, stories tend to evolve in the retelling—changing and becoming embellished by others over time. Thus are created variants, evidence of the folklore process at work. When a writer creates an imitation tale, the product is called “fakelore,” but, …

Joe Nickell solves the case of an unlikely ghost, hidden in Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave

The death of six-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey went unsolved for two decades. 
Psychics were worse than useless, but the author’s proposed solution resulted from evaluating the best evidence.


Strange mysteries may be found almost anywhere, but they seem especially plentiful and interesting in Australia.

The ability to see pictures in random forms—as in clouds, tea leaves, and inkblots—is known as pareidolia… Some publicized examples I have made pilgrimages to examine include the face of Jesus in the skillet burns of a tortilla…

I analyzed the Perrons’ claims of demonic activity and showed that they were consistent with the effects of strong winds, misperceptions, schoolgirl pranks, vivid dreams, simple suggestion, role-playing, and other factors.

Tai chi es una abreviatura de taiji quan, “boxeo máximo supremo”. Concebido hace siglos como un arte marcial, ahora también se practica —“Tai chi taoísta”— como técnica de ejercicios.

Tai chi is a shortened form of taiji quan, “Supreme ultimate boxing.” Conceived centuries ago as a martial art, it is now also practiced—as “Taoist tai chi”—as an exercise technique…

Before trying to explain something, first be sure that it really occurred.

Residents in the neighborhood in the mid-twentieth century reported that “sometimes when they looked up at the small window facing the street they could see a faint glow and a figure inside the tower, swinging gently from side to side.”