People
625 people in 95 mysteries
Researchers, witnesses, makers and the missing: everyone the mysteries' records name, with what they did in each.
M 4 on this page
MV
Miloje VasićSerbian archaeologist who excavated Vinča-Belo Brdo from 1908 and published Preistorijska Vinča · 1869–1956
MSMitch StanleyAmateur astronomer who saw the formation through a telescope
MPPhoenix Lights, 13 March 1997
Mladen PopovićLead author of the 2021 and 2025 studies, University of Groningen
MKDead Sea Scrolls: dating, scribes and provenance
Moritz KinzelBuilding archaeologist, DAI Istanbul
Göbekli Tepe
N 13 on this page
NJ
N. J. KromDutch archaeologist; recorded the site in 1914
NFGunung Padang
Nat FriedmanCo-founder and funder of the Vesuvius Challenge
NTHerculaneum Papyri and the Vesuvius Challenge
Natalie TchernetskaIdentified the Hyperides undertext
NBArchimedes Palimpsest
Nathan B. EnglishGeochemist; strontium timber sourcing
NKGreat houses of Chaco Canyon
Necmi KarulDirector of the Karahan Tepe excavations and the Taş Tepeler project, Istanbul University
Göbekli Tepe
Neil GemmellGeneticist, University of Otago; led the 2018 eDNA survey
NMLoch Ness
Neil M. JuddSmithsonian excavator of Pueblo Bonito, 1921 to 1927
NXGreat houses of Chaco Canyon
Ni XijunPalaeontologist, IVPP and Hebei GEO University; co-named Homo longi
NPWho were the Denisovans? The Harbin "Dragon Man" cranium
Nick PopeFormer UK Ministry of Defence official and UFO writer; died April 2026 · died 2026
NVAmerica's missing scientists, 2021–2026
Nicolae VlassaRomanian archaeologist at the Cluj museum who found the Tărtăria tablets in 1961 · 1934–1984
Nicole OresmeTheologian and bishop of Lisieux; wrote on false relics · 1323–1382
NWShroud of Turin
Nigel WilsonPalaeographer; transcriber and editor
NGArchimedes Palimpsest
Norman GolbProponent of the Jerusalem-libraries hypothesis
Dead Sea Scrolls: dating, scribes and provenance
O 6 on this page
OD
Oliver DeveauFirst mate of the Dei Gratia; boarded and sailed in the derelict
ORMary Celeste
Oliver Robert GurneyOxford Assyriologist who published the Ur tuning text UET VII 74 (1968) and first read the string list Nabnitu XXXII. · 1911–2001
OMHurrian songs of Ugarit
Olivier MassonEpigraphist; corpus of Cypriot syllabic inscriptions (ICS, 1961 and 1983) · 1922–1997
OOOlof OhmanFarmer who found the stone
OGKensington Runestone
Orly GoldwasserEgyptologist who argued that Canaanite workers who could not read Egyptian invented the alphabet in Sinai
OSProto-Sinaitic and Wadi el-Hol: the first alphabet
Oğuz SoysalTurkish Hittitologist, author of the standard Hattic lexicon (2004) and co-editor of the Ortaköy bilinguals
Hattic, Kassite and the half-read languages of the cuneiform archives
P 26 on this page
PL
Patricia L. CrownArchaeologist; cacao residues and Room 28
PDGreat houses of Chaco Canyon
Paul DevereuxBritish researcher of "earth lights"; led a field visit to Marfa in March 1994
PHMarfa lights
Paul H. G. M. DirksGeologist; led the geological and dating work
PHHomo naledi and the Rising Star burial claims
Paul HorleyPhysicist; carving technique and new tracings
PIRongorongo
Paul IversenEpigrapher; the Corinthian calendar argument
PDAntikythera Mechanism
Paul-Marie DuvalFrench archaeologist of Roman Gaul · 1912–1997
Gallo-Roman dodecahedra
Pete HegsethSecretary of War · born 1980
PBUS government UAP disclosures
Peter BrownPalaeoanthropologist, University of New England; described LB1
PDHomo floresiensis, the origin of the Flores "hobbits"
Peter DamerowHistorian of science; numerical systems and the proto-writing position · 1939–2011
PSProto-cuneiform: the archaic texts of Uruk
Peter SavodnikJournalist; visited Povarovo for Wired
UVB-76, "the Buzzer"
Peter ScheemakersSculptor of the relief · 1691–1781
PSShugborough inscription
Peter ScottNaturalist; co-named Nessiteras rhombopteryx
PMLoch Ness
Petra M. GoedegebuureHittitologist at the University of Chicago; argued in 2010 that Hattic is an active language with an ergative base
PLHattic, Kassite and the half-read languages of the cuneiform archives
Phil LobelBoston University marine biologist quoted on a biological source
PLBloop and NOAA's unexplained ocean sounds
Philip L. RichardsonPhysical oceanographer, Woods Hole; drift modelling
PMMary Celeste
Philip MorrisCostume maker; claims to have sold Patterson a suit
PMPatterson-Gimlin film
Philippa M. SteeleClassicist (Cambridge); catalogue and linguistic study of Eteocypriot, 2013
POPhilodemus of GadaraEpicurean philosopher; author of much of the opened library · -011–-003
PMHerculaneum Papyri and the Vesuvius Challenge
Piero MeriggiLinguist; 1971 sign list
PCProto-Elamite and Linear Elamite
Pierpont C. BicknellJournalist whose 1895 article made the legend
Lost Dutchman's gold mine
Pierre TalletEgyptologist, Sorbonne; director of the Wadi al-Jarf excavation · born 1966
PYHow the Great Pyramid was built
Ping YuanPhysicist, Northwest Normal University; led the team that recorded the 2012 ball
PSBall lightning
Piotr SteinkellerAssyriologist (Harvard); reviewer of ZATU and defender of Sumerian readings
PProto-cuneiform: the archaic texts of Uruk
PlatoAthenian philosopher; told the Atlantis story in the Timaeus and Critias
POEye of the Sahara and Atlantis
Ponciano Ortíz CeballosINAH archaeologist; registered and published the block
Cascajal block and Isthmian writing
Puzur-InshushinakKing of Awan and Susa, c. 2150 to 2100 BC; author of the bilinguals
Proto-Elamite and Linear Elamite
Q 3 on this page
QF
Qiaomei FuPalaeogeneticist, IVPP Beijing; led the Harbin and Xujiayao molecular work
QFWho were the Denisovans? The Harbin "Dragon Man" cranium
Qiaomei FuPalaeogeneticist, IVPP Beijing; senior author of the 2022 and 2024 studies
QXTarim Basin mummies (Xiaohe)
Qiu XiguiPalaeographer at Peking and Fudan Universities whose Wenzixue gaiyao (1988; English Chinese Writing, 2000) set out the structure of Chinese
R 8 on this page
RW
Rafał WieczorekChemist (Warsaw); Berlin tablet dating and glyph statistics
RPRongorongo
Rajesh P. N. RaoLead author of the 2009 entropy paper
RHIndus script
Ralph HimmelsbachFBI lead agent 1971 to 1980; author of NORJAK
Hijacking of Northwest 305 (D. B. Cooper)
Ramesses IIIPharaoh of Egypt's 20th Dynasty; recorded the Sea Peoples battles at Medinet Habu · -121–-115
RHLate Bronze Age collapse
Ran HonglinArchaeologist, Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology; first author of the 2025 report on the new pits
RGSanxingdui and its sacrificial pits
Raoul Gregory VitaleSyrian physicist and musicologist from Latakia who argued in 1982 that the Babylonian scale and the h.6 notation run downward. · 1928–2003
RNHurrian songs of Ugarit
Raymond N. RogersSTURP chemist; proposed the repair hypothesis
RDShroud of Turin
Rene DahindenInvestigator; last known to have the camera original
Patterson-Gimlin film
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