Top 10 Unexplained Mysteries of The World... Explained

Here are my top 10 unexplained mysteries of the world. Or at least, so some people claim. I'd like to offer some rational explanations for these so-called mysteries, including the direct evidence that debunks them.

Unexplained Mystery #1: Bigfoot (aka Sasquatch)

He's big, he's hairy, and he's starred in his own TV show.

Bigfoot is world-famous for spooking the bejesus out of hikers and hunters in North America. Scientists consider Sasquatch to be the result of folklore, misidentification and a whole lot of hoaxes.

However, many people still believe these humanoid creatures exist around the world, just like the Yeti of the Himalayas.

One of the most famous unexplained mysteries in the world today, Bigfoot has been described as an ape-like creature, some 6-10 feet tall, weighing more than 500 pounds, and covered in dark brown or reddish hair. Witnesses give him large eyes, a heavy brow ridge and a crested head, much like a male gorilla. Footprints allegedly belonging to Bigfoot are 24 inches long.

Is Sasquatch really one of the great truly unexplained mysteries of the world? Somewhat disappointingly, the most famous footage of Bigfoot at Bluff Creek, California, was shot down by a man called Bob Heironimus. Years after the event, he claimed he wore an ape costume for the filming.

It's also virtually impossible that a prehistoric, bipedal, apelike creature could exist, simply because the breeding population of such an animal would have to be so large that many more sightings would be reported.

What's more, with so many Bigfoots (Bigfeet?) running around, we would have found much more physical evidence of them, such as fecal matter, hair, footprints, and even numerous corpses and skeletons. We have myriad such evidence for dinosaurs, and they preceded us by 65 million years.

Nevertheless, Bigfoot's cousin - the Yeti (aka the Abominable Snowman) - has a strong alleged presence in the Himalayan regions of Nepal and Tibet. Teams of scientists continue to seek out photo evidence which is also thin on the ground - yet many locals accept the reality of a breeding Yeti population as read.

Unexplained Mystery #2: Crop Circles

In the 1960s, the earliest crop circles were primitive circular patterns of flattened crops, often created in mysterious circumstances overnight.

During the last 20 years, though, crop circles have evolved to be far more complex. They now form geometric shapes like the DNA double helix, or fractals like the nautilus shell. Whoever creates these mysterious patterns has become rapidly more advanced in just a period of a few decades. A bit like man.

The first crop circle, recorded in 1966, was discovered by an Australian sugar cane farmer who claimed to see a saucer-shaped spaceship rise up from a swamp before flying away. This was around the time that flying saucers became really popular in sci-fi literature, and ever since, our obsession with alien visitation has fuelled the frenzy.

As unexplained mysteries go, this one has been debunked numerous times. There is ample evidence to show how crop circles are a man-made hoax.

In 1991, two men from Southampton, England, admitted they had been creating hoax crop circles for 15 years. They could make intricate patterns using planks, rope, hats and wire - and could create a 40-foot circle in 15 minutes. The only reason they came clean was because one of the men was running up considerable mileage on his car and had to convince his wife he wasn't having an affair. He still publicly demonstrates the art today.

Further studies have dismissed claims that alien saucers have been leaving excessive nitrate deposits at crop circle locations. The trace deposits are explained by the nitrate-based fertilizers used by farmers to grow their crops.

Other paranormal fans claim that there is a mysterious energy left behind within crop circles and people go there to mentally make contact with an extra-terrestrial energy. What could create such a widespread psychological effect?

Science refers to this as The Placebo Effect - where the mind can produce powerful effects on the body simply because the person expects it to. Indeed, the mind is so powerful (and science fully accepts this) that it can sometimes heal the body just as well as medicine when that medicine is replaced by a sugar pill, even when the patient knows it's a fake.

Unexplained Mystery #3: UFOs and Area 51

The first reported UFO sighting happened in Texas in 1878, when a local farmer reported seeing a large, dark, circular flying object flying "at wonderful speed".

Another early sighting occurred in the UK in 1916, when a pilot reported seeing a row of lights that rose and disappeared into the sky.

As with crop circles, after UFOs were popularized by science fiction in the 1950s, the number of sightings went through the roof. Theories to explain the paranormal phenomena range from the good old Extraterrestrial Hypothesis (aliens from another planet) to the Interdimensional Hypothesis (aliens popping over from a parallel universe).

Although I do heartily believe that there is other intelligent life out there (and tons of it - the universe is so mind-bogglingly huge, perhaps even infinite) I don't believe aliens are visiting us, let alone in 1950s-style flying saucers.

In a vast number of sightings, the so-called UFOs can be explained as airplanes, helicopters, weather balloons, comets, meteors and even the five planets which can be seen with the naked eye.

This is supported by the fact that in photos and videos, many UFOs are debunked as being dust on the camera lens or simply all-out hoaxes (which is easy to do now with PhotoShop). Meanwhile, night-time alien abductions are attributed to the hallucinogenic effect of sleep paralysis.

Meanwhile, UFO conspiracy theories center around Area 51 in Nevada, about 90 miles north of Las Vegas. The site houses a large airbase that was selected in the 1950s for testing of a U-2 spy plane. It has since become America's testing ground for secret "black budget" aircraft before they go public.

Unexplained Mystery #4: The Belmez Faces

In 1971, in the small Spanish village of Belmez, Maria Pereira claimed a human face spontaneously appeared on her cement kitchen floor. It wasn't long before she destroyed the floor and replaced it - and a new face promptly appeared.

More and more faces continued to appear on the floor of Maria Pereira's kitchen, attracting thousands of visitors every day. Some were male, some female, some large, and some small. In time, she discovered that the house, built around 1830, apparently stood above a graveyard used by the Romans, Spanish Muslims and then Medieval Christians.

But did Maria Pereira just paint the faces herself?

If so, she never benefited financially from all the attention. She lived a simple life in that same house and eventually died in 2004.

Paranormal fans suggest that the faces were manifested on the floor by telekinesis. This notion was based on the absurdly unscientific claim that the expressions on their faces used to change with the mood of Maria Pereira.

Finally, modern technology has saved the day for this unexplained mystery.

Scientists have found it possible to analyze the molecular changes in the whitewash and prove that some fakery was involved.

Many now believe that the paintings were actually created by Maria's mischievous son, Diego Pereira, who dedicated years to spooking his long suffering mother.

Unexplained Mystery #5: The Out of Body Experience

This one falls directly under my personal remit.

Out of body experiences, often cited as a literal "exiting" of the physical body in soul or ethereal form, aka astral projection, is superbly explained by a certain type of lucid dream. I've experienced many vivid OBEs myself while practicing lucid dreaming techniques and the process has even been replicated under laboratory conditions.

So, is this proof of the spirit? The afterlife? Alternate dimensions?

Not quite. As lucid dreamers know, we are entirely capable of creating a perfect replica of the real world inside our dreaming minds. When we are dreaming consciously, this can even look, sound and feel as vivid as waking life. This is the great appeal of lucid dreaming.

An OBE, then, is a lucid dream which is initiated from an awareness of lying in bed. Instead of throwing our awareness right into a fanciful dreamworld, we become absorbed in the process of "falling asleep consciously". We become aware of sleep paralysis (aka REM atonia) which prevents the body from acting out its dreams. And we project our dream-self into the bedroom by rolling or floating out, ghost-like.

The instinctive interpretation is that we have projected out-of-body but this fallacy is overcome when you recreate the experience for yourself in the context of a lucid dream. Indeed, many famous out of body explorers use identical techniques to go out-of-body as we lucid dreamers use to enter the dreamworld.

Out of body explorers have long tried to prove the validity of their experience by trying to obtain data from faraway locations. Unfortunately nothing truly definitive has been recorded under verifiable conditions