The Unsolved Mysteries Iceberg pt. 5

It’s a short one this time as I’ve been unwell due to migraines, but there’s still some interesting cases here, as well as two unrepetant shitposts.

Apparently the red text I was planning on using to denote disturbing topics isn’t actually showing up on the blog, so instead I’m going to use *** three asterisk marks instead.

Odd Radio Circle

The Odd Radio Circle is a phenomenon that’s well-known in the field of American acoustic anomaly studies, but relatively obscure in the wider internet mystery-verse.

In 1981, HAM radio operators in and around the small town of Granite Cliff, Colorado started picking up mysterious signals coming from the woods near Mt. Ogden-Thorpe, an isolated peak far from local hiking trails. The signals seemed to be coming from a series of sources deep in the forest, arranged roughly in a ring shape with the mountain in its centre, hence the name given to the phenomenon. Analysis using more powerful transceivers revealed a repeating noise pattern similar to a classic “Numbers” station, overlaid on top of “mumbling” sounds that some have interpreted as muffled human speech. The mystery took a sinister turn when local hiker and Bigfoot enthusiast Norman Fowler disappeared after hiking out to one of the radio sources. Following this, the signals transformed into

Oh wait sorry, I zoned out and started writing fanfiction. The Odd Radio Circle is actually some astronomical thing, never mind.

Yeah Yeah Beebis I

I’m not planning on generally doing lost media entries in this series since it’s just not one of my particular areas of interest, but I’ll make exceptions for stories that are particularly spooky or interesting. Or, in this case, when they involve a funny phrase.

In 1989, a magazine listing for a mail-order video game service, which was apparently a thing at the time, included a game called Yeah Yeah Beebis I. In the following months the game showed up again in ads from the same magazine, as well as another subscription listing from a different source. Despite this, no evidence of such a game has ever been found and it’s not known if Yeah Yeah Beebis I ever actually existed.

There are various theories about this, like the game being a prank, a mis-print or a copyright trap intended to catch people who copied the listing, but some people think it might have been a poorly-translated reference to a real Japanese game called Rai Rai Kyonshis: Baby Kyonshi no Amida Daibouken. I guess that seems plausible, but I’m not sure how “baby” turns into “beebis”.

Lol. Beebis.

The Vela Incident

You just know it’s going to be a good story when it’s called “The [x] Incident”

In 1979, an American Vela Hotel satellite designed to detect the distinctive hallmarks of nuclear detonations picked up a flash of light in the Indian Ocean, near the South African-controlled Prince Edward Islands. The “double flash” was identical to those typically caused by nuclear explosions, which cause an initial bright flash which is then temporarily obscured by dust or debris (or in this case, water) kicked up by the blast, then a second flash as the explosion overtakes the obscuring material. The Vela satellites had a strong track record of accurately detecting these double flashes, so despite some alternate explanations like a meteorite being suggested, it’s the general consensus of experts to this day that the flash was indeed a nuclear explosion.

Which raises the obvious follow-up question: who set off the bomb? None of the nuclear powers active at the time claimed responsibility, nor would they have had any reason to carry out a nuclear test in secret in that part of the world.

Various candidates have been put forward, but the most likely culprit is thought to be South Africa, whose apartheid government is known to have been working on a nuclear weapons programme at the time. It’s likely that this test, and possibly earlier tests, were carried out in collaboration with the government of Israel, whose own nuclear weapons programme has been an open secret for decades. The test would have been carried out in secret because South Africa was a signatory to a treaty that forbade it from pursuing this sort of research; it’s possible that piggybacking on Israel’s nuclear weapons research was a way of introducing plausible deniability to the whole affair, should it come to light and risk causing a diplomatic incident.

How much involvement South Africa actually had in the detonation is an open question; some analysis characterises the incident as a South African nuclear test that Israel assisted on in some sort of diplomatic collaboration, while other sources think it was an Israeli test with South Africa just allowing the use of its maritime sphere of influence, possibly in return for nuclear research assistance for its own weapons programme. Some facts about the incident were never made public even after the end of apartheid, so the information that could clear up any lingering questions is not available at this time.

Jamison Family Deaths ***

The disappearance and (possible) murders of the Jamison family is a very mysterious and eerie case, one of those stories where the basic outline is strange enough but things get downright weird when you dig into some of the smaller details.

In October of 2009 Bobby and Sherrilynn Jamison and their six year old daughter Madyson piled into their pickup truck and set off to a rural area called Red Oak, apparently in a bid to buy a plot of land. After they didn’t return, police found the truck abandoned on a dirt road with most of the family’s possessions inside, along with their starving and dehydrated dog (the dog was fine). One of those possessions was $32,000 in cash, which was kind of suspicious on its own even if you don’t take into account any of the other circumstances.

More than four years later, hunters found skeletal remains belonging to the family in a remote area. No cause of death could be determined, and to this day the case remains unsolved.

So that’s pretty weird on its own. Did the family just happen to run into someone who killed them? Were they involved in something shady like drug dealing? Why didn’t their killer or killers take all the money in their truck?

Like I said though, the details are even weirder. Home security camera footage of the family packing for their trip showed Bobby and Sherrilyn moving around in a “trance-like” state and changing clothes multiple times. The footage also revealed that the family packed a mysterious brown suitcase when they left, which wasn’t in the truck after the disappearance and has never been located. What was in it? Drugs? Money? Did the killers take it?

There’s more, though. Apparently in the months prior to their ill-fated trip, Bobby and Sherrilynn Jamison claimed that they had seen “spirits” in their home and that they had been dabbling in witchcraft and black magic. That…probably doesn’t have anything to do with how they ended up dead, but it does support the idea that Bobby and Sherrilynn might have either been on drugs (apparently there were rumours of crystal meth use) or experiencing some mental health symptoms prior to their disappearance.

But there’s even more! When police went through Bobby’s cell phone, they found a recently-taken photo of Madyson, in an area close to where the truck was found. Some have interpreted Madyson’s body language in the picture as showing distress or fear and have suggested that it was taken by the family’s killer. Personally, I don’t know if I buy that–to me it looks more like the picture was just taken candidly, without either of the parents getting Madyson to stop and pose first, and nothing about her expression really suggests fear to me. I also don’t get why the killer would have put the phone back in the truck if they were the ones who took the picture. Still, it’s kind of eerie looking at the photo with the knowledge that this girl would soon be dead via unknown causes.

So what happened here? To me most of the facts of the case seem to point to either murder/suicide carried out by the parents, or accidental death as a result of exposure. It’s pretty clear that Bobby and Sherilynn were not in a sound mental state in the days leading up to the disappearance, and it’s possible that they killed their daughter and then themselves as part of some paranoid delusion. Or, maybe they accidentally died from an overdose and left Madyson to succumb to the elements. Most of the facts surrounding the case don’t seem to require the presence of a third party, and certain piece of evidence, like the fact that nothing was stolen from the car, point away from anyone else being present.

…But then again, there is that mysterious suitcase. Maybe the family gave it to someone else prior to their ill-fated trip, but it’s also possible that they really were murdered and whatever the suitcase contained was so important to the killer that they just weren’t bothered with the family’s money.