Mysteries Department
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People

625 people in 95 mysteries

Researchers, witnesses, makers and the missing: everyone the mysteries' records name, with what they did in each.

All mysteries
All mysteries1908 Tunguska event1979 Vela incident1I/'Oumuamua2004 Nimitz encounter and the Navy videosAmber RoomAmerica's missing scientists, 2021–2026Antikythera MechanismArchimedes PalimpsestBall lightningBeale ciphersBermuda TriangleBloop and NOAA's unexplained ocean soundsCarnac alignmentsCascajal block and Isthmian writingCicada 3301Copiale cipherCretan HieroglyphicCypro-MinoanDead Sea Scrolls: dating, scribes and provenanceDhofari scriptDisappearance of Amelia EarhartDorabella cipherDyatlov Pass incidentEarth flyby anomalyEaster Island moaiEtruscan: the readable language that cannot be fully translatedEye of the Sahara and AtlantisFast radio bursts and the origin of the one-off burstsFlor de la MarFranklin expedition (HMS Erebus and HMS Terror)Gallo-Roman dodecahedraGreat Sphinx of GizaGreat houses of Chaco CanyonGunung PadangGöbekli TepeHD 139139, the "Random Transiter"Hattic, Kassite and the half-read languages of the cuneiform archivesHerculaneum Papyri and the Vesuvius ChallengeHessdalen lightsHijacking of Northwest 305 (D. B. Cooper)Homo floresiensis, the origin of the Flores "hobbits"Homo naledi and the Rising Star burial claimsHow the Great Pyramid was builtHurrian songs of UgaritIberian language and Palaeohispanic scriptsIndus scriptInka khipus: the knotted-cord recordsKensington RunestoneKryptosLate Bronze Age collapseLinear ALoch NessLost Colony of RoanokeLost Dutchman's gold mineMalaysia Airlines Flight MH370Marfa lightsMars methane puzzleMary CelesteMeroiticMonte Sierpe, the "Band of Holes"Nazca LinesNebra Sky DiscOak Island money pitPatterson-Gimlin filmPhaistos DiscPhoenix Lights, 13 March 1997Phosphine in the clouds of VenusPictish symbol stonesProto-Elamite and Linear ElamiteProto-Sinaitic and Wadi el-Hol: the first alphabetProto-cuneiform: the archaic texts of UrukPuma Punku and TiwanakuRendlesham Forest, December 1980Ricky McCormick's notesRohonc CodexRongorongoRoswell, 1947San José galleonSanxingdui and its sacrificial pitsShroud of TurinShugborough inscriptionSkinwalker RanchSomerton Man (Tamam Shud)StonehengeStradivari "secret"Tabby's star (KIC 8462852)Tarim Basin mummies (Xiaohe)US government UAP disclosuresUVB-76, "the Buzzer"Unread cuneiform: half a million tablets and the limits of SumerianWhite Shaman MuralWho were the Denisovans? The Harbin "Dragon Man" craniumWow! signalYounger Dryas impact hypothesisZodiac ciphers
Linguist
Any roleArchaeologistLinguistAssyriologistAuthorCo-authorGeologistAstronomerDirectorPhysicistEpigrapherHistorianEgyptologistExcavatorEpigraphist
Any period
Any periodBefore 18001800s1900–19491950–1999Since 2000
With a portraitClear
AllABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ#

B 2

BM
Beáta MegyesiComputational linguist, Uppsala then Stockholm; transcription and decipherment
Copiale cipher
BD
Brent DavisLinguist; libation formula syntax
Linear A

C 2

CS
Christiane SchaeferLinguist, Uppsala; transcription and decipherment
Copiale cipher
CR
Claude RillyLinguist (CNRS); Northern East Sudanic identification · born 1959
Meroitic

D 1

DF
David F. Mora-MarínLinguist (UNC); reading order and distributional analysis
Cascajal block and Isthmian writing

E 1

EO
Eduardo Orduña AznarLinguist; numerals and the Basque-Iberian hypothesis; designed the Hesperia database
Iberian language and Palaeohispanic scripts

G 2

GT
George T. FlomLinguist; argued the inscription is modern · 1871–1960
Kensington Runestone
GC
Giuliano CastagnaLinguist (Beijing Normal University); South-east Arabian inscriptions, radiocarbon
Dhofari script

H 2

HH
Harald HaarmannGerman linguist, the main academic proponent of the "Danube script" as the world's earliest writing and an ancestor of Linear A · born 1946
HS
Harvey SobelmanAmerican linguist whose 1961 paper set aside sound values and analysed the Byblos texts by sign sequences to find word boundaries and gramma

J 3

JB
Jacques B. M. GuyLinguist; Mamari calendar structure
Rongorongo
Joe NickellInvestigator; archival and linguistic case for a hoax · 1944–2025
Beale ciphers
JS
John S. JustesonLinguist; Epi-Olmec decipherment
Cascajal block and Isthmian writing

K 3

KK
Kevin KnightComputational linguist, USC Information Sciences Institute; led the decipherment
Copiale cipher
KR
Kirsty RowanLinguist (SOAS); Afroasiatic hypothesis
Meroitic
KP
Konstantin PozdniakovLinguist; reduced sign inventory and statistics · born 1952
Rongorongo

M 3

ME
Markus EgetmeyerLinguist (Sorbonne); grammar of Cypriot Greek, co-editor of IG XV, the "Golgian" proposal
MM
Michael MäderSwiss linguist (University of Bern; Gesellschaft für die Entzifferung antiker Schriftsysteme) who transcribed the Byblos corpus into Unicode
MV
Miguel ValérioLinguist; signary and proposed values
Cypro-Minoan

P 2

PM
Philippa M. SteeleClassicist (Cambridge); catalogue and linguistic study of Eteocypriot, 2013
PM
Piero MeriggiLinguist; 1971 sign list
Proto-Elamite and Linear Elamite

R 3

RE
Rex E. WallaceLinguist, University of Massachusetts Amherst; author of Zikh Rasna and editor of the Etruscan Texts Project
Etruscan: the readable language that cannot be fully translated
RS
Richard SproatComputational linguist; non-script argument and statistical critiques · born 1960
Indus script
RS
Richard SproatComputational linguist; critic of entropy-based writing claims · born 1960
Pictish symbol stones

S 1

SR
Steven Roger FischerLinguist; procreation-chant reading
Rongorongo

T 1

TK
Terrence KaufmanLinguist; Epi-Olmec decipherment, Mixe-Zoquean reconstruction
Cascajal block and Isthmian writing

Y 1

YD
Yves DuhouxLinguist (Louvain); author of the standard edition of Eteocretan, 1982