50 Real Photos That Remain Unexplained To This Day

Have you ever taken a photo and seen a mysterious shadow lurking in the corner? People say that eyes can play tricks on us, but what about the times there’s visual proof of those tricks? “Photoshop exists,” you might say. But did it really exist in 1992, when Carlos Diaz took a photo of a possible UFO in Tepoztlán, Mexico?

Some folks might say that it’s still a hoax. Others, however, are inclined to believe that there are just some things in this world that we can’t logically explain, and that’s okay. Folks on Reddit have shared many such photographs. We’ve gathered the most interesting ones here for you to be creeped out or entertained about!

#1

The Voynich Manuscript is pretty cool.
15th century text in an unknown language, yet to be deciphered.

#2

The mysterious part of this picture is not what is in it, but what is not in it. What could possibly be in the kitchen that has these guys so mesmerized?

#3

Probably the cat pushing a watermelon out of a lake.

#4

I like the old UPS truck and sewing machine combo.

american_hoser:

Oh wow. I can actually explain this. Takes place at Princeton lawnparties (annual weekend long formal event) circa 2004. The UPS truck got stuck for about a week after trying to drive down a walking path that was too narrow, and ended up rolling down the hill towards the tennis courts. They’ve since built a new residential college (Whitman) in that area. I’m still not sure how they got the UPS truck out.
The sewing machine, I have to presume was for repairing a tux. And clearly the guy is drunk, because that’s how lawnparties work.

#5

To date, no one positively knows who these children are or where the picture was taken.

One woman came forward saying the girl looks just like her daughter, Tara Calico, who now has been missing for over 30 years.

“Tara Leigh Calico (born February 28, 1969) is an American woman who disappeared near her home in Belen, New Mexico on September 20, 1988. She is widely believed to have been kidnapped. In July 1989, a Polaroid photo of an unidentified young woman and boy, both bound and gagged, was televised to the public after it was found in a convenience store parking lot. Family friends thought the woman resembled Calico and contacted her mother, who then met with investigators and examined the Polaroid. She believed it was her daughter after taking “time, growth and lack of makeup” into consideration, and noted that a scar on the woman’s leg was identical to one Calico had. Scotland Yard analyzed the photo and concluded that the woman was Calico, but a second analysis by the Los Alamos National Laboratory disagreed. An FBI analysis of the photo was inconclusive.”

#6

The tulip ghost staircase is kind of freaky. Anything that predates Photoshop with s**t like this freaks me out a bit.

blitzballer:

Taken in 1966 by the Reverend Ralph Hardy, who was visiting the Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England on vacation.
However, the really interesting thing about the Tulip Staircase Ghost photograph is how scrutinized it was immediately after it was taken thanks to the Hardy family allowing the photo to be examined by experts in both the paranormal and photography fields.
After noticing the odd apparitions in their vacation photo after returning to Canada, the Hardy’s allowed The Ghost Club back in England to examine the photograph. Later the picture would be examined by the Kodak Film Company
Neither examination could prove the photo away as a fake and in fact the examinations provided this factual data on the photograph:
The photo did not seem to have suffered from photographic tricks or manipulations.
Each photo was accounted for in the roll. Neither the shot before nor after the ghost capture contains any image (both were of other architectural features of the Museum; one of a colonnade and one of a figurehead) that might have ‘bled’ over to the staircase shot.
The photograph was taken with a Zeiss Ikon Contina with Kodachrome 35mm color film. The picture was taken in natural daylight with no flash.

#7

I like the photo which captured a person outside a cabin that went up on reddit about a year ago.

Maby not so much unexplained as creepy, from what I remember they did see footprints in the snow as I recall.

OP:

Up North at my cousins cabin and decide to take a panoramic photo. Look outside. There’s someone standing outside.

eastb01:

This might be easily explained. At least in Maine, people go and rob cabins in the winter, looking for medicine and other valuables. It’s easy because the cabins are deserted. So, this guy probably wanted to break in, but saw people and just decided to leave and look for some other cabin.
TL,DR, it’s a nonchalant burglar.

#8

I still cannot wrap my head around this picture. Is it normal for llamas to do that? or did this dog just walk in at the worst possible time?

#9

The Loretto Chapel Staircase is somewhat unexplained. The story goes that the nun’s needed a staircase and prayed to St. Joseph, patron saint of Carpenter’s, when a mysterious man came and offered to help construct a staircase over the next couple months, but he disappeared without receiving pay or thanks and could not be found. Within the staircase there is not any support or nails to be found and the staircase makes two perfect 360 degree turns.

#10

I remember seeing this picture one day.

This group picture of some soldiers was taken in 1919 so no Photoshop has been used here. The photographer didn’t see that shadowed face when the picture was taken. First later some of the soldiers saw the picture and recognized the face as a fellow soldier named Freddy Jackson, who died in an accident caused by an airplane propeller two days earlier. If it’s real I actually feel sorry for that poor guy.. He still thought he was alive and wanted to be part of the group photo.

Haunted Britain:

This photograph, taken in 1919, is of the men and women of Goddard’s Squadron, the RAF Squadron who served at HMS Daedalus in WWI, which was actually a land-based seaplane airfield, and has since been renamed RNAS Lee-on-Solent. At first, the photo seems fairly typical for the time, however upon closer inspection it appears there is an extra figure who was not accounted for at the time.
If you look across the very top row, the face of a man can clearly be seen standing behind the right shoulder of the airman fourth from the left. This face has been identified by a number of people as Freddy Jackson. Freddy was an aircraft repair mechanic in Goddard’s Squadron who had recently been k**led in a propellor accident before this photo was taken. His death certificate can be seen in photo 3.
The photograph has attracted substantial attention since its release. The phantom face does not appear to match any other faces in the immediate area of the photo, which reduces the chance of it being a double exposure caused by one of the subjects moving. Also, to fake a photograph of this nature would have required advanced techniques for the time, not to mention a military unit hoaxing a ghost photograph of a recently deceased comrade would have likely been in particularly bad taste, especially following WWI.
The photograph of Freddy Jackson and his Squadron remains a mystery to this day, and has left many skeptics scratching their heads. Squadron Leader Sir Victor Goddard, the man who took the photograph itself is adamant, likely many others, that he inadvertently captured the ghost of Freddy. What do you think?