15. Lake City Pills
When Reddit user, ReligionOfPeace passed away in 2009, his friend – another Reddit user,
called 2-6 – announced his passing on the forum in a moving remembrance. The post said “ReligionOfPeace had died
at 79”. A eulogy for a friend. Innocent enough, right? That might have been all there was to the
story had 2-6 not posted “That Old Guy’s Image Host.” The Reddit world became obsessed about uncovering
who ReligionOfPeace was and figuring out what in the world the “Old Guy” meant. Reddittors began their search. In following ReligionOfPeace’s activity
on the site, some discovered he was moderating the board of the subreddit /r/jailbait. And “That Old Guy’s Image Host”? Well, it was the image host he used to run
his uploads. The strangest thing: the site’s URL was
lakecityquietpills. Didn’t really broadcast the fact that inappropriate
content was hosted on the site. All of this didn’t sit right with Reddit
researchers. Then a breakthrough came: messages were hidden
in the source code on the lakecityquietpills site. In 2009, the site’s admin threw an additional
message into the code. It said, “Icqp milo died.” This, most assume, is the real name of ReligionOfPeace. But it’s the code below the passing announcement
that really starts to get weird: “Four – Italian/Spanish speakers. No euro w/w. must be bondable.” “Need 5 fluent Portuguese, no euro w/w.
6 month private gig.” Now, what’s this kind of site doing, cramming
details of international travel in its source code? What does it all mean? There was also a gathering for Milo’s will
announced later in the code. It gets weirder. The code was updated to include the party’s
budget, which apparently cost nearly $100,000. It didn’t take long until the Plaintext
code was encrypted into ciphers – that’s thousands of lines of code – similar to
an internet numbers station. Gleeful Redditors were full of theories. But it’s all fun and games until someone
loses their life. And that’s, purportedly, what happened. A link was discovered between one of the coded
international assignments and an assassination in Dubai of a senior Hamas military commander
by a suspect whose credit cards were from MetaBank of Storm Lake, Iowa, nearby – you
guessed it! – Lake City, Iowa. This corresponded quite neatly to the theory
that Lake City Quiet Pills referred to bullets manufactured at the Lake City Army Ammunition
Plant. This also fit neatly into 2-6’s signature
on a Fark bulletin board: “Dispensing Lake City Quiet Pills to lousy bastards in need
of permanent rest since 1968.” Though the mystery of Lake City Quiet Pills,
Milo, and the gang has never been solved, seems as if the assassin theory is getting
warmer. 14. The Markovian Parallax Denigrate [mark-oh-vee-an
pair-all-ax den-i-grate] This age-old internet mystery hit the scene
in the early ‘90s. In fact, it’s the oldest unsolved internet
mystery out there, and it all started on Usenet, a Web chat community that existed before web
chatting became a real thing. Markovian Parallax Denigrate was the username
of an individual who delivered some of the strangest spam the world has ever seen. Some Usenet users reported it when they realized
the random words or phrases that appeared in messages across the community boards indicated
that the spammer was of human intelligence. One of the pieces of spam read:
“jitterbugging McKinley Abe break Newtonian inferring caw update Cohen
air collaborate rue sportswriting rococo invocate tousle shadflower”
While the message may seem like nonsense to you, some Usenet users saw something in this
spam. These messages filled discussion groups by
the hundreds. Despite the fact that the most computer-savvy
individuals in the community had examined these messages and tried to uncover how and
who created and distributed them, nothing and no one could be nailed down. Eventually Usenet gave way to the World Wide
Web, and the unsolved mystery of Parallax and his disorienting unarchived spam were
forgotten. Two decades later, and a Reddit user, named
A858DE45F56D9BC9, is churning out similar spam, in the shape of strings of numbers. A858 stumps the community, as well and will
appear later on this list. Perhaps it’s the Markovian Parallax Denigrate
up to his old tricks? Someone please solve this internet mystery
already, before it does my head in. 13. Internet Black Holes
A black hole in outer space is something whose gravitational pull sucks matter and radiation
into a mysterious dimension and basically disappears it to a place that no human will
ever know. These exist on the internet as well. If you’ve ever sent an email zipping through
the web, normally it arrives within seconds in the inbox of your correspondent, right? But sometimes, they never get the email…or
they claim they didn’t, anyway. This is due to a thing called the “internet
black hole.” We know as little about these collapsed stars
as those in our universe: nothing at all. They are one of those unsolved internet mysteries
that exist in cyberspace. They suck information in and don’t spit
it out again. These mysterious black holes have existed
as long as the internet has. It’s been almost universally acknowledged
that sometimes data simply doesn’t reach its destination. But where it goes, no one knows. The greatest minds of internet technology
have investigated the matter – everyone from hackers, government IT agencies, and
technology firms – and, yet, no one has traced one of these inexplicable blips of
data to its arbitrary destination, which leads some to believe in these mysterious vortexes
that suck the data in and send it into some unknown oblivion. Others believe these so-called “black holes”
aren’t internet malfunctions but, rather, a purposeful rerouting of information, in
order to collect user data. In fact, this may be true in some cases. In 2013, one suspected black hole supposedly
rerouted personal information from US users to a suspicious address in Iceland. Why? What for? Are people stealing your data this very second? Or are we destined to be as ignorant of internet
black holes as we are of the real thing? The phenomenon is beyond me. 12. Bitcoin Inventor
Satoshi Nakamoto [sat-oh-she nack-aw-moe-toe] – do you know him? Yeah, neither does anyone else. And, yet, the inventor of Bitcoin – the
online currency that’s now utilized all over the world – is famous…infamous, one
might say, for being a wealthy, ingenious, and top secret shadow. In 2008, Nakatomo published a paper that was
released on the Cryptography Mailing List, which basically invented Bitcoin protocol. Bitcoin’s team was open-source, and though
Nakatomo worked with others, he never mentioned anything about who he was or what he did. Then, as suddenly as he came, he vanished
from the Bitcoin forum, with his last post regarding building a new DoS.
Satoshi Nakamoto isn’t even the inventor’s real name, so some have surmised that it could
be an entire group, not just an individual. But we don’t really know. What we do know is that Nakamoto is rolling
in Bitcoins, with around a million to his name. Converted to US dollars, that’s been valued
at anywhere from $400 million to $1 billion, which is why his goldmine is now termed the
“Bitcoin billion.” Needless to say, the inventor, whoever he
may be, is filthy rich. The last anyone heard from the mysterious
Nakamoto was when he told someone in 2011 that he’d “moved onto other things.” Perhaps these “other things” involve settling
down in a tropical paradise and retiring on his big Bitcoin payout. Then again, Nakamoto has never once pulled
a coin from his internet wallet. So who is he? Where is he? Why did he invent a new global currency and
then disappear into thin air? Will he retire on a desert island with his
billion-dollar bank account someday? And, most importantly, will this internet
mystery ever be solved? Come out, come out, wherever you are, Satoshi
Nakamoto! We’re dying to meet you! 11. Oct282011
Have you ever wanted to join a cult? Well, if you were online in 2011 and didn’t
hop on Oct282011, you just missed your chance. Oct282011 seemed to be a recruitment page
for some dark and ominous cult. When the website popped up with this future
date, alongside a strange text that mentioned “mysteries behind the eyelids,” it had
many internet users up in arms. What did it all mean? The date, October 28, 2011, fell by the wayside. And nothing happened. But then, people started to give the number
a ring. In calling the number, they’d hear an eerie
silence and then a beep loud enough to burst an eardrum. Some claimed to have heard distant but distinctive
breathing. Others heard voices that were described as
“awful” and “muffled.” One caller couldn’t even describe what he’d
heard, it was so “disturbing” and “disgusting.” And another very imaginative caller claimed
to have heard “something heavy being dragged across the floor.” “It’s him again,” someone whispered
into the phone when one caller phoned the number six times. Granted, if this was my number, and someone
kept calling, I’d probably say the same thing. The strangest thing is that when Reddit just
started nosing in to investigate, the site suddenly went dark. Perhaps the site changed hands, because banner
ads are now plastered all over to glean some revenue off those still curious in Oct282011. Nothing more of the ominous cultish page remains. We just wonder if anyone got recruited through
their phone call… 10. A858
As mentioned previously, a Reddit user, similar to the Markovian Parallax Denigrate, appeared
in the Reddit community five years ago. The subreddit thread, called r/A858DE45F56D9BC9,
was comprised of only jumbled letters and numbers. Believing the hodgepodge of numbers and letters
was a code of some kind, Reddit users started trying to decipher the posts. Redditors poured their lives into it. Theories about the origin and purpose of the
r/A858 thread were put forth. Some thought it was a test for recruitment,
similar to Cicada 3301; some proposed the idea that it was artificial intelligence;
others thought it was an “insidious government program.” Of course, it didn’t take long for redditers
to jump on it and try to solve it. The original subreddit creator offered no
advice or encouragement. However, occasional breakthroughs in decoding
some of the random numbers were encouragement enough. In August 2015 in the forum dedicated to decoding
r/A858, hexadecimal chains started to appear. Robert Guthrie of The Kernel, who was investigating
the matter, wrote, “It left the amateur code-breakers with perhaps more questions
than answers, but also with a renewed enthusiasm.” But the enthusiasm has stalled somewhat, since
the subreddit went private and users were advised to unsubscribe, with a message saying
r/A858 had “concluded.” That hasn’t stopped everyone, however. Some are still going at the archived posts,
trying to decode them in their entirety. “I only hope A858 actually has a purpose,”
one of these determined code-breakers said. “I don’t particularly care if it is a
good one.” From the mystery surrounding it, it may not
be. 9. The Mysterious Time Traveling John Titor
Ever wondered what the future holds? John Titor doesn’t, because he lives in
the future. Titor began appearing on a number of online
bulletin boards at the turn of the century. In 2000 and 2001, he claimed to be hailing
from the year 2036. His first post was on November 2nd, 2000 in
the Time Travel Institute forum, under username TimeTravel_0. His earlier messages were short and sweet,
discussing general time travel, but in January, he began posting in Art Bell BBS Forums under
the name John Titor. And this is when things started to get weird. Titor claimed to be an American soldier based
in Tampa, Florida, who was assigned by the government to a time-travel project. According to Titor, his grandfather had been
one of the first assemblers and programmers of the IBM 5100, and so he had been sent all
the way back to 1975 to snap up one of these ancient models. In 2036, apparently, they needed it to debug
several legacy programs. He cited “personal reasons,” as why he
showed up in the year 2000 to bandy about on online message boards. He claimed that he was “collecting pictures”
of his family that had been lost in a civil war that was imminent. As a military time traveler, Titor began predicting
the future to show he was the real deal. Some of his predictions were very vague, and
others not so much. He claimed that events beginning in 2004 would
wreak havoc on the world, destroying most world powers, and leaving America broken into
five different regions after a nuclear attack sent the infrastructure and environment into
shambles. Of course, Titor’s predictions didn’t
come to pass, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t build curiosity about a nuclear holocaust
and provoke numerous investigations by journalists, both real and amateur, into the originator
of these posts. An investigation in 2009 linked Titor with
a Florida entertainment lawyer, named Larry Haber, and his brother John, who was a computer
scientist. But their involvement was never proven, leaving
the internet mystery unsolved. 8. The Mysterious “Dark Web” & “Deep Web”
One of the greatest mysteries of the internet is the invisible, hidden portion of the World
Wide Web. Your average search on Google will lead you
to contents on the “surface web.” But there is a portion of the internet that
isn’t indexed by Google, Yahoo or other search engines. It’s called the “Deep Web” and, as the
name suggests, it can be deeply mysterious and even disturbing. The “Dark Web” is a portion of this non
SEO content. Not to be confused with the “Deep Web,”
which can be used for such common things as banking and email, the Dark Web – although
also inaccessible through traditional search engines – was MADE inaccessible for a reason. It’s a portion of the Deep Web that was
hidden on purpose, designed as a black market for illegal activities. The Deep Web, in general, is obscure, because
traditional search engines, when casting their nets across the World Wide Web, can’t catch
the content in some parts of the Web, as it’s buried too far down in sites. A 1996 article by Frank Garcia termed this
phenomenon as the “Invisible Web.” He described websites that you might find
on the Deep Web as follows: “It would be a site that's possibly reasonably
designed, but they didn't bother to register it with any of the search engines. So, no one can find them! You're hidden.” Denis Shestakov used the following iceberg
analogy to describe the difference between the Deep Web and the surface web:
“It is impossible to measure, and harsh to put estimates on the size of the deep web
because the majority of the information is hidden or locked inside databases. Early estimates suggested that the deep web
is 400 to 550 times larger than the surface web. However, since more information and sites
are always being added, it can be assumed that the deep web is growing exponentially
at a rate that cannot be quantified.” Although not an unsolved mystery, in and of
itself, there’s plenty of mystery in what exists in the Deep Web. And, worst of all, we’ll never know what’s
all out there. 7. Cicada 3301
The paranormal board on 4chan opened up the Pandora’s box of unsolved internet mysteries:
Cicada. Cicada was a basic image posted on the board
on January 4th, 2012. The white text backdropped in black read:
“Hello. We are looking for highly intelligent individuals. To find them, we have devised a test. There is a message hidden in this image. Find it, and it will lead you on the road
to finding us. We look forward to meeting the few that will
make it all the way through. Good luck.” Signed “3301,” many wondered where this
text originated – could it be some hacker group, an intelligence organization, a crime
syndicate, or a hoax to drive the internet mad? If it was the latter, it succeeded. And what could the image of the cicada that
followed this post possibly mean? This was a puzzle worthy of Sherlock Holmes,
and some Holmes-esque “highly intelligent individuals” did, indeed, solve it. They were required to crack codes, manipulate
images, and travel across the world to specified coordinates, where they collected clues. Still, the objective of the Cicada puzzle
was never revealed in full to them. One of the “highly intelligent” made it
to the end but, to this day, has no idea what is up with this internet mystery or who its
organizers are. Once he’d solved the puzzle, he was provided
access to a site on the darknet (more on that later), where he was tasked with developing
CAKES – the Cicada Anonymous Key Escrow System. Additional puzzles followed during the next
two years, and when the puzzle in 2013 began, those that completed the 2012 puzzle – the
“brood,” as they were termed – were suddenly dismissed from Cicada 3301 without
explanation. No new puzzles have appeared since. And, still, no one knows the purpose behind
Cicada 3301, who the puzzle taskmasters are, or what they wanted. Did they achieve their objective? To this day, it remains one of the most intriguing
unsolved internet mysteries. 6. Heaven’s Gate Cult
While earlier “cult” mysteries on this list have been speculative, Heaven’s Gate
Cult really did exist and, in fact, all members purportedly took their own lives 20 years
ago by swallowing a deadly combination of apple sauce and arsenic. And, yet, some in the cult seem to have betrayed
the pact. HeavensGate.com, once a recruiting page for
the cult, is still a fully-functioning page full of links to its crazy cacophony of dogma
mixing UFOs, aliens, Jesus, alien prophets, and comets. There are also plenty of video recordings
– testimonials from “students” and their leaders – from the mid-90s, before the group
took their own lives. They did so because they wanted to sublimate
to the spaceship that followed the Hale-Bopp comet. Yep, you heard that correctly. But that’s not even the most mysterious
thing about the site. Someone still seems to be alive and kicking,
as they fill any orders requested and even answer emails. Calling themselves “Telah” or, simply,
“we,” the guardians of HeavensGate.com aren’t hardcore cult members, but rather
a couple who were left behind to take care of the site and the cult’s legacy. Why and for what? That’s the mystery. Still, though the pair claim they are not
former cult members, they must be super bummed that they didn’t make it onto the spacecraft. 5. Creepy Video with Masked Man
Purportedly, a Swedish tech blog was sent a DVD they probably wish they’d never seen. Although not quite as haunting as The Ring,
the cryptic video contained satanic imagery and warnings in both the video and audio. An individual in a black bird mask, old school
doctor’s gear, and a shroud is at the center of the grainy video, gesturing. During the two-minute video, obnoxious screeching
sounds are heard in the background as the figure raises its hands, one of which contains
a blinking light. Morse code flashes into the video clip. As soon as the blog was up, the Internet was
swirling with theories. Could it be some sadistic person or group,
looking for a laugh? A satanic cult, recruiting followers? A prediction of the future? A clue about the past? Those who love puzzles began examining the
video. The Morse code that flashes - “38.897709,
-77.036543” – turned out to be the coordinates of the White House. The screeching “white noise” of the audio
was deciphered using a spectrogram. The images show a woman being restrained and
tortured, along with the eerie sentence: “You are already dead.” The origins of the file are a mystery. Turns out, someone tried to upload it to YouTube
twice before, under the account name AETBX. This uploader was asked about where he found
the video, and he claimed that an acquaintance had uncovered the disc “in a park outside
Spain” and delivered it to him. He said he didn’t create the file, nor did
he send it to the Swedes who later uploaded it to their blog. Was this a hoax? A viral campaign of sorts? A marketing stunt? It remains a mystery. 4. The Mysterious Chip - Chan
The South Korean mystery of Chip-Chan is quite a creepy one. She was broadcast in 2008 on a live webcam
stream on 4chan. Her body unmoving and contorted for nearly
ten hours, most viewers assumed she had passed away. But no, she is alive and well. But who is she? No one knows. Chip-Chan was discovered on 4chan’s /x/
(paranormal board). She is believed to be located in Seoul, Korea,
but exactly where, no one knows. According to Chip-Chan, a verichip has been
placed within her body by a corrupt cop – known as “P.” The chip controls her movement. And whenever she discovers where it’s been
implanted, “P” changes its location. She thinks it’s been implanted in her brain
now and she will soon pass away of cancer. Is there any truth to Chip-Chan’s story? If so, why would the police do this to an
innocent woman? Who is Chip-Chan and what is her history? Someone get over to Korea and dig up some
dirt! 3. Cryptic Websites
There’s plenty of garbage on the web, but some of this garbage has surfers scratching
their heads. One website is 973-eht-namuh-973.com. With a title page full of symbols, numbers,
and phrases that don’t make sense to the common man, some might theorize it’s artificial
intelligence. But click on the arrows, and you may second
guess that thought. You’ll enter into one of the most bizarre
slideshow galleries of your life. Disturbing pictures and paintings, creepy
words and nonsensical phrases, random strings of letters. Could be just some creepy human, trying to
unsettle visitors. What does it mean? Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. 2. The Celebrity Cache
Do you remember the cache of personal celebrity pics that was distributed for the world to
see? Again, 4chan was the chosen site for the culprit
to release all his/her high-profile stolen goods. The anonymous user posted private photos of
celebrities which he’d stolen from hacked iCloud accounts. Of course, the victims were mainly women;
women like Scarlet Johansson, Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, Kim Kardashian, and McKayla Maroney. The hacker or hackers involved are still a
mystery, although the FBI have been investigating the matter. Apple confirmed that it was a “targeted”
attack. We’re not professionals, but we could have
guessed that much… Before we get to number 1, my name is Chills
and I hope you’re enjoying the video so far. If you've ever been curious as to what I look
like in real life, then follow me on Instagram @dylan_is_chillin_yt, with underscores instead
of spaces. I also have Twitter @YT_Chills where I post
video updates. I'd really appreciate it if you followed me
and feel free to send me a DM if you have a questions or suggestions. If you’d like to see more of these videos
in the future, then hit that subscribe button because we upload new countdowns every Tuesday
and Saturday. 1. Tom Ling’s Strange Sites
Go to Mortis.com, if you want to be completely perplexed. The website consists of a single page with
a username and password box. Nothing lies beyond it…at least nothing
we can see. Computer experts determined that, in fact,
terabytes of info are hosted on the site, but no one knows what. Only the person with the right username and
password. That person would likely be Tom Ling. The owner of the mysterious site owns a multitude
of similarly weird sites, such as Cthulhu.net – another one-pager with only the words
“dead but dreaming” written in white against a black backdrop. Again, no explanation or directions, nowhere
to click. Of course, theories abounded as to what the
site’s purpose was. Was there some puzzle to solve? Was it there for nefarious reasons? Apparently, the FBI thought it was the latter,
because they shut it down. No explanation was given. This only led to even more conspiracy theories. Some believed Tom Ling wasn’t an individual,
but a group – and a shady government group, nonetheless. Mortis.com was also removed. Some say that right before it was pulled down,
a countdown had begun on the bizarre page. What was Tom Ling counting down to? We can only guess. Thanks for checking out this video. Be sure to subscribe because we upload new
countdowns every Tuesday and Saturday. Or if you're still not convinced, here are
some of our other videos that I think you'd like. Enjoy!
