Wilbur’s Top 10: The World’s Greatest Unsolved Mysteries (Solved by Me)
By Brian Wilbur
Throughout the history of the world, man has come face to face with the unexplained. This column lists ten of the most profound unsolved mysteries that we have seen in modern history. Scientists, archeologists, psychologists, and other experts are at a loss to explain these curious events. However, fear not, because I am smarter than all of them combined and have solved the mysteries using logic and massive brain power. Prepare to have your mind blown, in awe of the power of my deductive reasoning.
The Bermuda Triangle
Sailor lore states that the area of the ocean in the shape of a triangle from Miami to Bermuda to Puerto Rico is a place where people and vessels disappear under mysterious circumstances. The Bermuda Triangle is famous for the number of plane crashes, ship sinking incidents, and disappearances since the 1940’s. Some reasonable theories suggest that aliens are to blame, that the laws of physics don’t apply in this region, or fourth dimensional pirates are ambushing unsuspecting victims with vortex guns. The debate continues to this day.
Brian Wilbur solves the mystery: There really is not a mystery here. The Bermuda Triangle is a massive area of sea (a half million square miles) that sees heavy traffic of ships and planes everyday. If you look at the evidence, there have been no more incidents of ship wrecks there than in other parts of the ocean that see a similar number of boats pass through. Many of the incidents that originally created the lore of the Bermuda Triangle were not mysterious at all with close examination of the evidence. Other famous incidents did not even happen within the triangle but were used by writers anyway so that they had an interesting story to tell and millions of books to sell. The media and public went along because everyone loves a good mystery. The Bermuda Triangle legend is a fabrication of the western media.
The Pyramid of Giza
The Great Pyramid of Giza was built as a tomb for the ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Khufu around 2560 BC. The structure stands over 450 feet tall, made of over 2 million solid stone blocks. The wonder is how ancient people using ancient technology were able to construct such a massive monument. Each solid stone block weighed 2 tons and had to be transported many miles, then they had to be lifted hundreds of feet into the air, perfectly and strategically placed without the use of cranes or heavy machinery. Sounds difficult, but on top of that if the laborers were able to work day and night, non-stop laying 12 stones per hour, moving around 600-800 tons per day, the construction of the pyramid would take 20 years to complete. And that is only talking about the base structure, not the casing stones which are no longer present on the pyramid. How is it possible that the Khufu pyramid was built by ancient men?
Brian Wilbur solves the mystery: Slave labor combined with skilled labor. In short, lots and lots of workers. I’m not talking thousands, I’m talking millions of contributors over the course of the construction; a job that took at least 20 years to complete. Today we take our technology for granted and difficult tasks seem impossible without the assistance of machines and/or fancy lasers. Before the advent of construction aids, humans built stuff with good old fashioned brawn and patience. We are selling our ancestors short by saying that the building of the pyramids was impossible without help. The Great Pyramid of Giza is an impressive display of what humans can accomplish, and (thanks to me) is no longer an unsolved mystery of the ancient world.
Near Death Experiences
Sometimes, although rare, a person can briefly be declared dead because they have no vital signs, but are able to come back to life through resuscitation and other medical techniques. Even rarer are those who survive these near death experience and have a story to tell about the afterlife. However this has happened enough times, and the stories sound so eerily similar that you have to wonder if these people actually witnessed the beginning of what happens to us when we die. Most accounts describe a beautiful bright light that is warm and welcoming as if God is guiding them towards the after-life. The feeling is as if your soul is floating above your body and moving towards the afterlife. NDEs have been reported since ancient times, have been described by reputable honest people, and have a profound reaction to those who have had an experience. The evidence that this phenomenon exists is convincing.
Brian Wilbur solves the mystery: These experiences are real but they are not of a spiritual nature. The brain is a powerful and mysterious human organ with undiscovered ability. One such ability is creation of these NDEs in those who are very close to death and on their way out of the living world. But why does our brain do this? So that we go out peacefully and not send distress signals to our loved ones who are watching us die. Dieing puts us into a deep enlightening sleep, tapping into the unused regions of the brain leaving us in a state of nirvana before we exit this life. I know this for a fact because I’m smart.
Crop Circles
You know the story, one day a farmer has a perfectly normal field of crops. The next day he wakes up and his crops have shapes and/or designs in them with no explanation or evidence of who or what created them. They are big enough so that the picture can only be viewed from the sky to see that they are geometrically perfect in their design. Believers find it hard to believe that a person or group of people would be able to make such elaborate and large crop circles at night when it is completely dark and they have had no practice. Making crop circles is tough enough during the day time and having a detailed plan to reference. Others note that the way that the crops are bent down, with the break a few inches from the root instead of at the root could not have been done by a man stepping on a wood plank. Therefore the only logical explanation is aliens right? UFOs are marking the Earth for places to land or whatever.
Brian Wilbur solves the mystery: Of course crop circles were made by pranksters trying to get a reaction. The people who say that the crop circles couldn’t possibly be made by men because of this or that are fueling the desire to make crop circles. The culprits are laughing their heads off when dorks says that aliens must be behind the designs. Imagine what a boost to the ego it would be if investigators were dumbfounded by the “supernatural finding” when in reality you and your buddies got liquored up one night and had fun with some wood planks and a flood light. Anyone who doesn’t think that crop circles were created by people as a hoax need to email me their home address so that I can drive over and slap you for being stupid.
The Mystery of Wal-Mart
The great mystery of Wal-Mart is how do they stay in business with such low prices!? If you look at the Forbes top ten list of the most wealthy people in the world, about half of them are Wal-Mart kids. The company must obviously be one of the most profitable companies in the world. Not only does Wal-Mart stay in business, they make millions upon billions of dollars each year. The mystery baffles the mind. What kind of voodoo tricks are they pulling over there?
Brian Wilbur solves the mystery: I’ve discovered a shocking revelation to this intriguing paradox. Wal-Mart has an overwhelming reputation as the low price leader in the industry. When you have that type of rock solid reputation, consumers no longer feel the need to price compare because they assume that Wal-Mart must be the lowest. The store chain uses this to their advantage. When you walk into a Wal-Mart store you see the sales displays of the ultra cheap items. You see the 30 pack of beer for .99 cents, the plasma screen TV for 20$, the giant bags of candy for a nickel, and instantly you are lured into a false sense of security. “This is the Wal-Mart I remember with the unbeatable prices” you might say. You are now eating from the palm of their hand. With your guard down, they gouge you on the prices for everything else in the store. The items could be bought for similar or cheaper prices at stores like Target, Sam’s Club, Winco, or (gasp!) the grocery store. This clearly explains the mystery of Wal-Mart’s profit margins. You’re welcome consumers. Thanks to me you won’t be duped anymore.
The Future Seen By Nostradamus
So check it. There was this French dude from the 1500s who claimed to be an all knowing seer. How he wasn’t burned at the stake for such a claim during a period of religious fundamentalism is unknown. Nostradamus published collections of his predictions called quatrains that have been studied for hundreds of years. Here are a few examples of his seeing ability:
“The great empire will be torn from limb,
The all-powerful one for more than four hundred years:
Great power given to the dark one from slaves come,
The Aryana will not be satisfied thereby.”
Many think that this predicted that Barrack Obama would win the presidency.
“Out of the deepest part of the west of Europe.
From poor people a young child shall be born.
Who with his tongue shall seduce many people
His fame will increase in the Eastern Kingdom.
In the year that is to come soon, and not far from Venus.
The two greatest ones of Asia and Africa.
Shall be said to come from the Rhine and Hister
Crying and tears shall be at Malta on the Italian Shore.”
This passage suggested that Nostradamus predicted the events of World War II, to the point of almost naming Hitler by name.
According to others, Nostradamus has also correctly predicted other events such as the French Revolution, the rise and fall of Napoleon, the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and many others. How was this seemingly ordinary medieval man able to see the future?
Brian Wilbur solves the mystery: If I wrote down a book of nonsense sentences proclaiming them to be prophecies of the future, eventually one of them would come close. For example, let’s say I wrote “The drunken mongoose will fling his venom through the breeze and topple the strong walls of sand from the dessert.” Between now and the next 800 years, some world event would mirror or resemble my sentence in a very loose, metaphorical way. If Nostradamus really knew what was going to happen in the future then why didn’t he just come out and say it in plain French instead of talking gibberish for hundreds of pages? Simple, because he was no more prophetic than Elmer Fudd.
Roswell UFO Crash
In the summer of 1947, strange debris was discovered in the dessert town of Roswell, New Mexico. Witnesses came forward with stories of the strange metallic material and the newspapers took off with a story about a crashed flying saucer recovered by the US military. The military would not divulge any information after the initial reports and the cover up was on. The military personnel involved would not talk for many years, but in the 1970’s one of them spilled the beans. He said that the crashed aircraft was not of this world and that alien bodies were recovered. The UFO/alien craze has been buzzing ever since. What was really found in Roswell that day? Was it nothing supernatural like the government would like you to think? Or was it a ship not of this world?
Brian Wilbur solves the mystery: Aliens do exist, oh yes they do. You better believe it. They fly around in saucers abducting people, cows, goats, and perform kinky experiments. You’ll find out more about aliens later on in this column. However the Roswell incident was just a military weather balloon from Project Mogul. The aliens were too busy chilling in Las Vegas with Frank Sinatra to crash land a ship on July of 1947. You can take that to the bank and cash it.
Amelia Earhart
Amelia Earhart was a 40-year-old porn star who decided to become a pilot. I haven’t found any sources that confirm she was a porn star, but she might have been, who knows right? Anyway, Amelia was attempting to become the first woman to circumnavigate the globe in 1937. She was a pioneer for women pilots setting numerous records and was widely considered to be among the best women pilots in the world. The publicity stunt was a hit amongst western journalists. They would wait for Earhart to reach a checkpoint, wire in pre-written stories, and sell newspapers like hotcakes. Well on July 2nd, Earhart did not reach her checkpoint at Howland Island. In fact her plane and crew were never seen again. Despite a huge determined effort to find her, not a single trace of evidence suggesting what happened to her was found. Earhart had disappeared without a trace and without warning, sparking the most famous and baffling missing persons case in history.
Brian Wilbur solves the mystery: Her plane crashed and sank to the bottom of the ocean. I don’t see what the big deal is. The sea is a massive abyss and we have only explored 10% of the ocean. Rescue parties would have had to have been extremely lucky to find any wreckage and the fact that they did not is not a surprise.
Shroud of Turin
The Shroud of Turin is a piece of cloth that has the outline of a man’s face who appears to have died via crucifixion. The artifact is stored in a Christian church and many believe that it is the shroud that Jesus was buried in. Weird, since any rag I’ve ever put on my face hasn’t permanently left an imprint on my face. Nobody really knows how the imprint got there and nobody has been able to perfectly reproduce the effect, although some have come very close. Carbon dating suggests that the shroud was created in the Middle Ages, over 1,000 years after Jesus although articles contend that the piece that was tested did not represent the entire shroud. The shroud perfectly fits the description of Jesus’s burial cloth, blood stains and all, as told in three different Gospels in the Bible.
Brian Wilbur Solves the mystery: It’s fake.
Atlantis
Various ancient scrolls and documents, most notably from the Greek philosopher Plato, reference this island that housed an advanced ancient civilization. Atlantis was supposedly a naval power that conquered a vast empire spanning multiple continents. They were an sophisticated society with technology far advanced from the rest of the ancient world. Legend has it that after a failed attempt to invade Athens, Atlantis sank into the ocean and disappeared forever, buildings, island, people and all were never seen again. Was this civilization simply a myth? Many believed so, until in 1968 the Bimini Road was discovered. The road is a pavement style pathway or road at the bottom of the ocean which appears to be the remains of a sunken city. Was this the lost city of Atlantis? If not, then what happened to the naval and technological powerhouse of the ancient world?
Brian Wilbur Solves the mystery: I discovered the truth about Atlantis from a source whom I cannot name, but I assure you that this is a legitimate source. He told me that Bigfoot used to live in Atlantis but got mad because everyone would make fun of him for being hairy. Well he flew to Mars on a rocket to alert his alien allies to come to Earth and punish the city of Atlantis. The aliens came down in flying saucers and, using a giant wormhole gun, they teleported the entire city to an unnamed planet in the Milky Way. That left Bigfoot without a place to stay so he decided to live out the rest of his days in the Pacific Northwest. Mystery solved!