Now, five million and fifteen million are not both “about 80 per cent of the population of Mexico,” they are very different numbers. We’ve often wondered, how can historians be sure at all about numbers from yesteryear? Modern census surveys weren’t being done, no one was carefully loading and processing data by computer. Getting a […]
NY- September 16, 2008 , age 23 First Disappearance: September, always September, it turns out. Hannah was about to begin teaching school in Harlem the day before she disappeared. She left her apartment for a run. She took nothing with her. She started her run around Chelsea Pier, where she had been previously to attend […]
It was August 6th, 1945, on a clear-skied morning as the citizens of Hiroshima, Japan went about their everyday business. A single American plan flew overhead, passing by as usual, creating little noise or concern. Then, at 8:14am, the world as they knew it ended. A massive flash of yellow light so intense burned the […]
We need to endow acts especially dramatic acts and destructive acts with some meaning and hopefully some predictability. To cite an example coming from another species, the bizarre attack of the White Tiger that ended the long running Las Vegas show of Siegfried and Roy caused great concern in the community of the big cat […]
Note the able journalists, Moore and company, hit the important themes. Yes, it’s conceivable some “national security” issue justified the FBI sweeping though the place, closing it down, and imposing strict secrecy. But if so, a delicate security issue flowing from a small astronomy outpost…what in the world could it be? That story, should it […]
“No one wants to know who Christine was,” her brother said years later. “They want to sensationalize what happened at the end of her life.” He has a powerful point. How many people even know that Christine survived the loss of her first, early love, from death in an automobile accident? Or that she did […]
The highest paid spy in American history managed to pass polygraphs and keep under the radar, even… Read More “For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.” Just what was Ernest Hemingway trying to tell us, or to get us… Read More Robert Leroy Johnson is ranked as the fifth best guitarist of all time by Rolling […]
How many of us as kids were told by our parents that carrots are good for our eyes? The vegetable’s enduring reputation emerged as a propaganda campaign during World War II. In attempts to keep their innovative radar technology a secret, the British Royal Air Force credited carrots for their pilots’ increased success battling German […]
A local Ohio paper ran a small article in late June of 2017 that began with a bang: “No one knows how many bodies may lie beneath Schneider Park in West Akron.” That would catch the attention of the dead themselves. Besides being the kind of lead they teach as effective journalism, it also sums […]
In a book from 2015, Richard Belzer and his co-authors review a mystery which has evolved a little, but surprisingly little in some ways, across several years. Some of the early comments still ring true to many analysts: These authors refer to someone they respect who stressed, early on, “six important facts you’re not being […]
Here at Mind Over Mystery we often steer clear of the bloodiest, grisliest crime scenes. There’s a hundred other sites and podcasts that specialize in “true crime,” the bloodier the better– “it bleeds it leads” and all that. We focus on mental challenges, stories of crime and history and psychology and espionage and science that […]
BORN TO RIDE ROCKETS “It’s easy to see why NASA didn’t see it coming. NASA is more… Read More A TELEVISION FIRST She died with a captive audience. Eight minutes into her program, on-air… Read More Catch Him In A Lie “Catch Me If You Can,” the ultimate grifter memoir written by celebrated… Read More […]
It just doesn’t happen every day, as a matter of fact, the number of precedents that we can remember for this scenario are… well… zero, none. It was April 18, 2016, at the Creekside Church of Christ, in Midlothian, Texas. An individual in full police riot gear wandering–some would say shuffling–through the halls of a […]
Aaron Feis acted with extraordinary heroism. He draped himself over students as a school shooter went on a rampage. Although fourteen kids died at Parkland, the number would have been higher without the selfless acts of Coach Feis. The question is why? Why him, why then? It’s an issue we’ve looked at before and will […]