ENGLISH PROJECT WORK

MYSTERY A mystery is something that is difficult to explain or understand . Mysteries are also stories where problem , crime , or puzzle must be solved . Mysteries often contain secrets or hidden qualities that must be solved. There may be information that is unknown and must be explained. Professional detectives seek out clues to solve mysteries.

ORIGIN The origin of the mystery is uncertain, but it can be traced back to ancient time . As long as there has been crime , there has been mystery .The very first mystery was published in 1841 by Edgar Allan Poe. The title of his book was The Murders in the rue Morgue. He inspired many others to write mysteries.

In 1903 the first mystery movie was made based on a THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY. The 1920’s brought books we still read n enjoy today including AGATHA CHRISTIE’S novels and THE HARDY BOYS ,

THE WORLD’S BIGGEST UNSOLVED MYSTERIES

1. Voynich ManuscriptNamed after the Polish-American antiquarian bookseller Wilfrid M. Voynich, who acquired it in 1912, the Voynich Manuscript is a detailed 240-page book written in a language or script that is completely unknown. Its pages are also filled with colorful drawings of strange diagrams, odd events and plants that do not seem to match any known species, adding to the intrigue of the document and the difficulty of deciphering it. The original author of the manuscript remains unknown, but carbon dating has revealed that its pages were made sometime between 1404 and 1438. It has been called "the world's most mysterious manuscript." Theories abound about the origin and nature of the manuscript. Some believe it was meant to be a pharmacopoeia, to address topics in medieval or early modern medicine. Many of the pictures of herbs and plants hint that it many have been some kind of textbook for an alchemist.

The fact that many diagrams appear to be of astronomical origin, combined with the unidentifiable biological drawings, has even led some fanciful theorists to propose that the book may have an alien origin.One thing most theorists agree on is that the book is unlikely to be a hoax, given the amount of time, money and detail that would have been required to make it.

2. Beale CiphersThe Beale Ciphers are a set of three ciphertexts that supposedly reveal the location of one of the grandest buried treasures in U.S. history: thousands of pounds of gold, silver and jewels. The treasure was originally obtained by a mysterious man named Thomas Jefferson Beale in 1818 while prospecting in Colorado.Of the three ciphertexts, only the second one has been cracked. Interestingly, the U.S. Declaration of Independence turned out to be the key — a curious fact given that Beale shares his name with the author of the Declaration of Independence.

The cracked text does reveal the county where the treasure was buried: Bedford County, Va., but its exact location is likely encrypted in one of the other uncracked ciphers. To this day, treasure hunters scour the Bedford County hillsides digging (often illegally) for the loot.

3.Phaistos Disc

The mystery of the Phaistos Disc is a story that sounds like something out of an Indiana Jones movie. Discovered by Italian archaeologist Luigi Pernier in 1908 in the Minoan palace-site of Phaistos, the disc is made of fired clay and contains mysterious symbols that may represent an unknown form of hieroglyphics. It is believed that it was designed sometime in the second millennium BC. Some scholars believe that the hieroglyphs resemble symbols of Linear A and Linear B, scripts once used in ancient Crete. The only problem? Linear A also eludes decipherment. Today the disc remains one of the most famous puzzles of archaeology.

Today the disc remains one of the most famous puzzles of archaeology.

4. Tamam Shud caseConsidered to be one of Australia's most profound mysteries, the Tamam Shud Case revolves around an unidentified man found dead in December 1948 on Somerton beach in Adelaide, Australia. Aside from the fact that the man could never be identified, the mystery deepened after a tiny piece of paper with the words "Tamam Shud" was found in a hidden pocket sewn within the dead man's trousers. (It is also referred to as "Taman Shud.")

The phrase translates as "ended" or "finished" and is a phrase used on the last page of a collection of poems called “The Rubaiyat” of Omar Khayyam. Adding to the mystery, a copy of Khayyam's collection was later found that contained a scribbled code in it believed to have been left by the dead man himself.

Due to the content of the Khayyam poem, many have come to believe that the message may represent a suicide note of sorts, but it remains uncracked, as does the case.

5. The Zodiac letters

The Zodiac letters are a series of four encrypted messages believed to have been written by the famous Zodiac Killer, a serial killer who terrorized residents of the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The letters were likely written as a way to taunt journalists and police, and though one of the messages has been deciphered, the three others remain uncracked.

The identity of the Zodiac Killer also remains a mystery, though no Zodiac murders have been identified since 1970.

6. Rongorongo

Rongorongo is a system of mysterious glyphs discovered written on various artifacts on Easter Island. Many believe they represent a lost system of writing or proto-writing and could be one of just three or four independent inventions of writing in human history.

The glyphs remain undecipherable, and their true messages — which some believe could offer hints about the perplexing collapse of the statue-building Easter Island civilization — may be lost forever.