The Unhingery Of Unsolved Mysteries (1987-2002)

Join me for these fascinating stories of tonight's Unsolved Mysteries. I'm obsessed with the original Unsolved Mysteries series. It all started when I was editing my last video on 1960s space age fashion, Shameless Plug. I was slowly spiraling into insanity as one does and decided I needed some calming ambiance in the form of 11 seasons of an unhinged retro mystery television series. Nothing says relaxing like a show that traumatized countless children in the late 80s and early 90s, right? While I was too young to bore witness to the original series in its heyday, I do remember watching reruns as a child in the 2000s and to put it simply, merely hearing that theme song forever altered my brain chemistry. So here it is, the lore of the original Unsolved Mysteries series as told by a random 20-something girl on YouTube. No one asked for this and you're welcome in advance. I should also mention that aside from just re-watching the episodes myself, there were several sources that were hugely helpful in my research. One being the Unsolved Mysteries documentary, which I will certainly link below. The other being the Unsolved Mysteries wiki, unsolved.com, as well as several subreddits, specifically rslashunsolvedmysteries. Thanks to their work, this video is made possible. In case you're unfamiliar with the original series, allow me to set the tone. The year is 1992. It's a dark and stormy night and you're home alone, so you decide to do a little channel surfing to pass the time and maybe distract yourself from things that go bump in the night, when suddenly, you hear it. It's the horrifying soundtrack to your imminent missing persons case, slash long lost twin findings, slash haunting, slash alien abduction. Famed Hollywood legend Robert Stack spawns seemingly from nowhere, wearing a trench coat. Always a trench coat. He skulks in the shadows, recapping the horrors in that ominous baritone. It's a story about how one man became close with his boss, who moved him into his house before locking him in his basement, stealing his identity and letting him starve to death. This is obviously going to happen to you, but not before your home is taken over by a bunch of Civil War era ghosts. Two were playing cards. Another stood by the window, peering through the curtains. But one phantom seemed more forceful than the rest. He looked at me and he says, I want this chair closer to the fireplace because I'm cold. You're also cursed. Remember that hole you were digging? That weird ass creature you found inside? Well, it's too late. You and your family now have bad luck for all of eternity. You could be a long lost twin, or even a twinless twin, whatever that means. You will be haunted by the single most disturbing Uncanny Valley artist sketch you have ever seen in your life. This man is probably hiding under your bed, in your garage, right behind you. Here's the shadowy outline of Sharon Johnson, not her real name. She will hear your screams. Don't worry, you're home, safe in your living room. Uh, but you might want to steer clear of that chair over there because it's haunted as f*** and ruining your life. The chair was no longer known merely as Busby's chair. Now it was the chair of death. And whatever you do, don't answer the phone. Hello? Having fun yet? Unsolved Mysteries was really the first of its kind in that it was a cross-genre series that featured true crime, unexplained phenomena, missing persons, lost loves, myths, and legends, as well as other related categories. That is 20 to be exact. These were unsolved true stories. Well, for the most part, but we'll get to that. The idea for the show first came from John Cosgrove and Terry Dunn Muirer, who pitched a special to NBC in 1985 titled Missing, Have You Seen This Person?, which aired in 1986. And the success of these specials led Cosgrove and Muirer to broaden the series to include mysteries of all kinds. Thus, Unsolved Mysteries was born in October 1988 in the form of a series of specials. Notably, NBC did not promote or market these specials. Traditionally, they wanted to test the waters organically. Would people really watch stories without endings? And spoiler, but yes, they absolutely would. These did exceptionally well. When the show officially went to series, it quickly became water cooler TV, as the boomers might say. By its fourth season, Unsolved Mysteries was either in the top 20, if not the top 10 each week. Viewers were returning to hear about these mysteries with the hopes of even maybe helping solve them. The show uniquely engaged its own audience as part of its storytelling process. Fans could and often did help solve these cases. The show itself often helped create its own endings with its call to action tagline. For every mystery there is someone, somewhere who knows the truth. Perhaps that someone is watching. Perhaps it's you. Methods for sourcing these stories in the late 80s and early 90s naturally were a bit different than they are today. Initially, show researchers would cold local police stations and newspapers for these stories, and that sounds like the most fun job. They had contacts in each state who would assist in finding interesting leads, as well as a clipping service. This entailed sending newspapers to their contacts all over the country, who would physically go through the papers and clip out stories based on the vast range of Unsolved Mysteries categories. They would look for the mysterious, the unexplained, the unusual, and critically the relatable. These were often average, typical people from average, typical places, so you can really understand how viewers identified with them and became invested and wanted to help. The majority of these mysteries eventually would actually come from the viewers themselves. They first opened a PO box, which along with lots of fan mail to our man of the hour, Robert Stack, included letters from viewers wanting to share their own stories. Season one, episode eight, includes a segment titled Main Petition, wherein a 16-year-old girl named Joyce McClain sadly had her life taken from her. This was a small town story that typically wouldn't have been on the radar or covered if not for the town garnering 6,000 signatories to get on the show, and her killer was actually found in 2016, just by the way. Later, they opened their 800 number, which connected to a telecenter in LA with up to 50 operators, including members of law enforcement manning the phones. Once a given show aired, they were immediately flooded with tips, and if a promising lead came in, the operator would physically hold up a red flag, so there would sometimes be five or six visible red flags at a given time, and then they would pursue them. Am I the unsolved mysteries telecenter? And this would sometimes occur within minutes of airing, as such is the case with Arthur Frankfort. This was a man who would prey upon the vulnerabilities of lonely single women in their 60s by earning their trust, dating them, eventually moving in with them, only to rob and leave them. Within minutes of the broadcast airing, two viewers called to the telecenter to report that they recognized Frankfort, and he was apprehended. Often, the information provided in these tips would warrant an iconic update. So that was obviously a good sign. Updates on unsolved mysteries were follow-ups to previously aired cases, and would often reveal that a case had been solved, which was made even cooler when a viewer was credited with providing a tip that cracked the case wide open. The capture of a criminal suspect always brings us great satisfaction. Tonight, another fugitive is in custody, thanks to your calls. A missing woman's case from the very first episode of the very first season was solved in this way. The story was about Gail Delano, who went missing in 1986 from Maine. A forensic administrator all the way in Alabama had watched the broadcast and recognized her as a woman who sadly had passed away by her own volition. They were able to make a positive identification, and the case was subsequently closed. In season three, a young Missouri mother had been sentenced to life in prison after being accused of poisoning her baby with antifreeze, but she actually didn't do that, thank god. She had frantically rushed her three-month-old son to the hospital after he became critically ill in a very short period of time, and tragically doctors were not able to save him. So not only did this poor woman lose her infant, but then she was re-traumatized by being falsely accused of poisoning him. I'm not going to go into the details, but it really just didn't make sense. On the night of the broadcast, several physicians called in who were familiar with a rare metabolic disorder called methylmalonic acidemia, or MMA. These are two faculty members from St. Louis University, one the chairman of the biochemistry department and the other the director of the metabolic screening laboratory. They were able to run tests on the baby's frozen blood serum and determined that he had passed away from MMA, not antifreeze, a conclusion that had been drawn due to faulty initial testing. The mother was granted a new trial and thankfully released from prison. She and her husband later sued all involved with incorrectly diagnosing her son with ethylene glycol poisoning, and they settled out of court. And what if I said to you, Fans of the show will recognize this as a reference to season three's Stockton Arsonist tape. This was a particularly disturbing segment which showed a videotape of a presumed arsonist filming a house fire and narrating it. Even the fire captain of the California Department of Forestry said he had trouble sleep after viewing that one, and I don't really blame him. And viewers were freaked out as well. This episode alone prompted 1,600 calls to the telecenter, which was among the most they'd ever received for a single case. And within minutes of broadcast, several viewers from Redwood City, California called to identify the location of the burning house. This case was fully solved, and it turned out to be two teenage boys who also claimed responsibility for more than a dozen other fires. And Unsolved Mysteries is still actively updating cases, at least to my knowledge. Okay wait, so when researching for this video, I saw it mentioned several times that the tip line, while no longer active, is really weird, if you call it, and even scary. I don't know, this sounds like something out of a creepypasta or an ARG attempt, so let's call it together. I've been specifically holding off on this very moment so that I could do it with you. Going forward, you'll have the opportunity to receive a $100 retail rebate voucher, which can be used to buy purchases at major retailers like Walmart, Target, and many more. The $100 rebate voucher is yours today for just $1.95 if you subscribe to one of our gaming programs, so make sure you have your credit card with you. It feels like somebody wants to tell me something! Okay, that just seemed like a scam, which definitely can be scary, but I don't think that was right. Let's try that again. I saw other people who called, and they said that there was like a strange growling sound or something. I don't know. If I find a clip of someone else calling that number, then I'll include that. Anyway, let's get on with it. There were several aspects that made this show truly special, the iconic host being one of them. Robert Stack, in your immaculately pressed trench coat, you will always be famous to me. He was such a perfect host, and the people loved him. How could they not? He was an icon, he was a legend, he was the moment. A super pro, as one producer would say. They shot a lot of his stand-up scenes on location at night, in the fog, in the dark, in the cold, in the trench coat. But in all seriousness, the crew remembers him so fondly, and he just seems like such a great guy. Sweetheart, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know. We had this scene where Bob had to hold a dog, and no matter how we had him hold the dog, the dog was squirming, and Bob Stack was having trouble. There was a particular episode in season three about Elliot Ness, who Robert Stack himself played in the 1959 to 1963 series The Untouchables. It's so cute, you can just feel how excited he was to get to tell the story. My man was positively giddy. He was also a profoundly good sport, and participated in a parody of the show and himself in the 1998 film Basketball, or Baseketball, I'm not really sure how to say that. And it is now imperative that I show you that clip. Joseph R. Cooper, perhaps the most loved sports figure in the country. Batman. According to Mrs. Elsie Melcher, a neighbor who asked not to be identified. According to Angelique Bones, a nosy bitch who lives up the street, he took with him only a toothbrush, a wallet, a steamer trunk, and a plane ticket to Calcutta. If I like her, he could be hanging by his neck in his ******* closet. Scenario number one, he's hanging by his neck in his ******* closet. By all accounts, Robert Stack just really loved the show. He was always wanting to know more about the backstories, but he was also a healthy skeptic. While he was certainly invested in the true crime cases, apparently he found some of the paranormal segments to be eye-roll inducing. Apparently while recording these, he would often turn to his producer in between takes and exclaim, oh come on Raymond! Which is so funny. I myself have mixed feelings about the paranormal bits. They're really a mixed bag, so I'll place them in the following categories. So there are some genuinely intriguing stories that simply have no explanation. Inside, Kevin found the last thing he ever expected. The message he had put in the bottle almost two decades earlier. It was accompanied by a note from two strangers. There are some that, while ridiculous, are so earnest that they're endearing. Looks like people came and drew it with a stick eons of years ago. Yeah. And I turned and there was this beautiful rock with these markings on them. I'd never seen anything quite like it. I got a very immediate feeling that this rock had something to say. Oh mystery rock, how I love thee. And then there's some that are just so beautifully out of pocket. Prior to ingesting any kind of love potion, be sure to consult your physician. And remember, giving someone drugs or aphrodisiacs without their knowledge and consent may be a crime punishable by law. When in doubt, try a box of chocolates or a dozen little things. All of these are generally harmless and fun in their own way. However, there were also many, many of these paranormal stories that more or less indulged people's sad delusions or were straight up fraudulent. But more on that later. The series producers would go to each filming location themselves. Episodes were shot in the actual places and with the actual people involved in each mystery. A lot of the time they ended up traveling to these faded little Maptop towns and residents would be really excited to participate as it was pretty unusual for them to have an entire professional film crew rolling up. The locals are remembered by the crew as always being welcoming and happy to help in any way possible. In recreating certain scenes, local law enforcement would provide helicopter and vehicle support and oftentimes a police department would act as themselves in the episodes, which also meant that they would sometimes have to answer calls and take off in the middle of filming. There are so many interesting production stories. For an episode about the Roswell mystery, they built a two-scale replica of a UFO that allegedly crashed into a gully in New Mexico. They created these alien figures based on eyewitness accounts, no doubt. There were scenes with fires and explosions and shootouts and airplanes and war zones and just stories of all kinds that required the crew to get really creative in their interpretations. In season two, there was an episode about a lucky choir and this one's actually really wild. In Nebraska, a choir was set to practice at their church during their usual time. The 15 members were all to arrive punctually no later than 725 and oftentimes they would arrive early at around 715. This particular night, however, all 15 members were late for separate varying reasons. One got a little too into their radio program, another's baby spilled on her dress and the mother had to iron a new one, a clock was set back five minutes, one overslept, someone was struggling with math homework, a car wouldn't start, one was working late, and others were just feeling lazy, not wanting to leave the warmth of their home for the cold winter air. By 725, no one had yet arrived and by 727, the church literally burst into flames. The members then arrived all one by one, shocked to find that all 15 of them had just missed the explosion, which is amazing. So to recreate this scene, Unsolved Mysteries got permission to blow up an old abandoned church with dynamite. They were going for a big boom, but nothing too dangerous. But someone miscalculated something because the explosion they created was so massive that it caused damage for six miles. I believe it was a director who just nearly got taken out by a giant piece of glass. So they got their footage, but it was basically a second miracle that no one was hurt or worse. Rain Boy from season five is a standout to many in online forums. This was a supernatural story of a boy who made it rain, indoors, and ruined everyone's lives while he was at it. You made it rain in the living room. You made it rain at Pat's place. This is all your fault! To create these scenes, they created a wet set, which involves setting up water flow at 30 degree angles and installing in-ceiling sprinklers. So they needed to waterproof the living room, furniture, walls, and floors. In between takes, they would have to squeegee everything off and set up these industrial strength dryers. A wardrobe supervisor's living nightmare, I'm sure. This episode also featured levitating harnesses and bungees, so to sling the actors across the room. Because you know that old expression, when it rains, indoors, people are gonna fly across the room and crash into walls and ----. Or something. And actually, the group had their own little unsolved mysteries moment happening during this story. They had all been staying at the same hotel, and on the last day of leaving, apparently they all woke up to two inches of water in all of their rooms and in the hallway outside. Naturally, they called the hotel manager, but they couldn't find any plumbing issues or anything. Like, literally no way to explain it. I don't know. Kind of spooky. This is all your fault! The commitment of the film crew was truly amazing though, and production was really a labor of love. The episodes were shot on film, which of course means a lot of lighting. And scenes could take hours, especially considering that they were essentially making these mini-movies with elaborate set designs, props, and of course, actors. As aforementioned, the reenactments were done by the actual people involved in a given story. But of course, there were instances where reenacting a scene from real life would be too emotional and, like, triggering, naturally. But not to fear, because Unsolved Mysteries had a solution. They would source talent from these small local theater groups, and as one producer affectionately put it, Unsolved Mysteries was America's little theater. So the main priority was that the actors looked like the real people being interviewed as much as possible. So as to not confuse audiences, which meant that their ability to act wasn't as important. Good to see you! Who the hell is Phoebe? Traffic design was their passion. There was an episode in season 7 called Fugitive Squirrel, wherein the actor looked so much like the real fugitive, not an actual squirrel, much to my chagrin, that someone called in saying they spotted the suspect eating at a local restaurant, and he was then arrested, but it turned out to be the actor. So the Unsolved Mysteries team, Eversolution Oriented, started giving the actors these cards to carry to prove that they were not, in fact, the bad guys that they were portraying. I'm just imagining someone being apprehended for some heinous crime, and being like, No, see? I'm not the real bad guy. I just played him in a show. Here's the card to prove it. And the police are like, Mm, sounds fake, but okay, you got me this time. And that actually kind of happened in reverse. Okay, not in those terms, but for an episode in season 2, they were filming a robbery scene, and they had these two guys come into improv, and for lack of better words, they absolutely crushed it. They were so convincing, and frankly scary, that they just had to ask what they did for work. And they said, Oh, us? We're robbers. No, like, we're actual robbers. Needless to say, they got the part. In season 6, Daniel Dae Kim of Hawaii Five-0 and Lost Fame played a cameo. Cheryl Hines was in a season 9 episode called Wanted Nanny. I think she noted that this mystery had been solved when asked about it on Twitter, so that's cool. But my favorite pre-stardom celebrity appearance in Unsolved Mysteries has to be season 5's Texas Most Wanted, with none other than a 23-year-old Matthew McConaughey, shirtless in the Texan summer heat, by his own request, of course. He has a very dramatic death scene, and you can just tell he was destined for greatness. There was truly a range in acting ability, and I personally think it adds to the viewing experience. You're Brad Bishop, aren't you? Oh my god. This show had charm, if nothing else. Which brings me to my final point on the actors, and that is their styling. More specifically, the wigs. When will you wear wigs? Again, they really tried their darndest to make these actors look like the real people they were portraying, and boy were their efforts valiant. There's an entire Instagram account dedicated to the wigs of Unsolved, at Wigs of Unsolved, and it's just, it's so good. Unsolved Mysteries, the time capsule that you are. As goofy as it is at times, there's something truly eerie about the tone and presentation of the show. Like I said, this show traumatized a lot of kids. The music, the often emotionless or over-emotional acting, the deadpan interviews, rainy visuals, the Robert Stack. You're on a dark, lonely road. The shadows seem to reach for you. All add to this very creepy atmosphere. For me, I think this has a lot to do with viewing the show through a modern lens. Benign, naturally occurring elements of retro television can become somewhat unsettling, especially paired with the show's subject matter. I think this is in a similar way that analog horror as a genre seeks to imitate this era, and there are several episodes that both freaked me out as a child watching reruns and as an adult re-watching for this video. There was the case of Matt Flores, a young Operation Desert Storm war veteran who returned home and had a daughter with his wife before starting a promising career with a computer company in Silicon Valley. Matt was on his ninth day of training, and he was shot in the back of the head at point-blank range in his work parking lot. Despite more than 20 people being present, no one saw the shooter. The investigation was further hindered by the fact that this event occurred just out of sight of security cameras. The only substantial clue to date is a 1991-1994 two-door sport model Ford Explorer with a distinctive black trim. This car was seen entering the lot 20 minutes before the event and then leaving briefly and returning shortly before the incident. There was investigation into several theories, including a possible road rage incident, as well as some strange occurrences with both his military history and his new job and personal life, but no real substantial evidence was ever really uncovered. I guess the popular speculation is that it could have been a case of mistaken identity. I don't know why this scared me so badly as a child, but because the CCTV footage of the car was in black and white, they couldn't determine its color, but they could determine that it was not black, white, dark green, or dark blue. I don't know. It's so specific, yet seems so indiscriminate at the same time. To this day, every time I see an old Ford Explorer, I get chills. Spontaneous human combustion. Season 9's up in smoke is a core memory for many, and I see why. Because we had to literally set somebody on fire. So how do you do that? Well, we used something called a fire suit. While they did feature a strong dissenting opinion, as with many of the pseudoscientific concepts that they gave airtime to, they left the idea of spontaneous human combustion, or SHC as they call it, as open-ended. Perfectly normal person bursts into flame without warning and without apparent cause. That, combined with the uncharacteristically gruesome visuals, left viewers freaked out. Mike? The Fletchers say that smoke suddenly began to billow from Kay's body. This prompted an influx of calls, not to offer tips, but to express to the show their newfound fear that they too might combust spontaneously. There was Season 6, Threats and Harassment, about an elderly couple terrorized by phone calls and break-ins. Lots of people were terrified by the UFO and alien abduction stories. I tend to skip them. And then there were plenty of episodes that featured one of those aforementioned terrifying composite sketches. I think about those at night. While they did cover a lot of more localized stories, the show also featured some pretty infamous cases. Notably, the Circleville letters were in which Unsolved Mysteries actually got a letter from the Circleville person? The Circleville guy? The Circleville letter writer. The nature of the letter was warning them to not cover the story, so they ignored that, of course. They covered the Unabomber, the Oakville blobs, as well as plenty of serial killers and famous figures like Elvis and Tupac Shakur. There are also plenty of episodes that have a real sentimentality to them, like Season 9, Episode 2, Message in a Bottle. On July 16, 1978, 9-year-old Kevin Reeder and his mother tossed a message in a bottle in Cayuga Lake in Ovid, New York, hoping for a response. 18 years later, in February 1996, after moving to Florida and then Texas, Kevin had returned to Ovid and actually received a response in the form of a letter from a couple claiming to have found the bottle in San Diego, California. Much to my delight, this note made reference to the police song Message in a Bottle. However, it didn't include a return address or any identifying details other than the names Bruce and Rosa. Dr. Richardson, an expert on global currents, said the journey of the little bottle that could was pretty unlikely, but not impossible. He speculated that the bottle could have traveled through the Erie Canal, St. Lawrence Seaway, Atlantic Ocean, then south along the eastern seaboard towards Europe, West Africa, South America, the Cape of Good Hope, the Indian Ocean, the southeastern Pacific, and finally along the Pacific coast to San Diego. It's probably more likely that someone physically took the bottle to San Diego after finding it or that they wrote they were in San Diego and actually weren't. The show didn't explore that possibility, I don't know why, but it's more fun to believe. Even Mr. Stack was a bit mirthful about this one. There was a doppelganger story that really stuck with me. In December 1943, newly commissioned Army Air Corps Second Lieutenant Ken Palmer was on a train to Wisconsin when he had a brief stop in Cincinnati. Here he noticed someone staring at him in his peripheral and turned to realize that it was his exact double. Both men were even more stunned to find they had the same last name, so thinking they must be related somehow, they exchanged information about their families but found no common relatives or locations. However, the stranger knew specific details about an old family legend involving a lost treasure in India. Ken later confirmed these new details with his father. Despite exchanging contact information, Ken had a little Polar Express moment and lost the slip of paper that he put into his pocket, and he never saw this guy again. Besides knowing the man's last name was also Palmer, he said his first name might have been Robert or James. He was a technical staff sergeant in the Army Air Corps, living in the eastern United States, possibly New Jersey. I know this is one of those stories that people would tend to write off, but there's just something so eerie to me about the prospect of running into your own lookalike with the same last name. If it's true, there has to be more, like someone's not telling someone something, but Ken never got closure. There's just something about Ken. He was so sweet. He was so genuine. Doggone it, how many times are you going to walk across the station and see that double out of all the people in the United States? Exactly, Ken. These lost love segments are actually my favorite category. They're stories of people seeking someone special that they had lost due to adoption, wartime, or simply time passages. Sometimes they're looking for a family member, a former lover, or someone they never got to thank. A lot of these stories end up being solved, and the updates often involve footage of their reunion, and these moments make me weep. They are so touching. This show impressively could go from terrifying to heartwarming in just a matter of minutes. But as I said earlier, it was simultaneously sometimes so corny. When I was researching for this video, my mom sat down with me to watch a few episodes, and she was remarking how she hadn't remembered it being so hokey. Again, I think that's just the nature of retrospect, but people really set themselves up sometimes. I feel like the ideal experience for you is if I present this without any context, so allow me to take you through the highlights. So this man sees a ghost. Wake up, Alan. Alan, get up. Doc says this. When Alan Mann of Lake Wales, Florida, began claiming that he had a ghost in his bedroom, his parents poo-pooed the idea that their house was haunted. And immediately follows it up with this detail. Until Alan got married, and his 16-year-old bride, Linda, moved into the house. And then we get to hear from the father. That was all the proof they needed. They had a ghost, and her name was Kramer. Alan's father, David, was having none of it. I thought I was living with a bunch of flakes. There's a lot to unpack here. I looked up this episode on Reddit because... what? And one user pointed out that while, quote, it is still wrong to marry underage people, so true, Alan was apparently 19 years old at the time, which would make the age gap three years. But not the end. I quote once again, 45 plus he looks like in that clip. And then, much to my delight, there were plenty eager to point out just how much this actor looks like Guillermo from What We Do in the Shadows. Gizmo, is that you? It's moments like this that were enhanced by the truly beautiful acting. There was a time they did a segment on Bigfoot, so they rented the costume from Harry and the Hendersons, found an actor who was 6'7", Bigfoot indeed, and they put him in that Sasquatch costume. And it looked like this. It turned just slightly and then proceeded to walk down the trail as though I wasn't even there. I love this show. When filming a scene outside of a bar, they ended up terrifying a bunch of drunk people, which led to the actor, still in costume, being chased down the street. But then there's stories that just make you think, how did they even give this airtime? Or as Robert Stack would say, oh, come on, Raymond! Season 3, episode 11 is one such occurrence, wherein they featured a supposed psychic called Katie. Fans of the show know who I'm talking about. Oh, Katie. Katie had many claims to fame, including, but certainly not limited to, sweating gold, crying diamonds, and speaking in foreign languages even she, nor anyone else, knows. But Katie helps the police solve crimes in the psychic way. That is by seemingly assuming the role as both culprit and detective. Her duality. In one burglary investigation, Burr withheld the location of the crime scene from Katie. That's it. That's the house. This is the house, sir? Katie not only found the house, she described the oriental art inside and said that something had been stolen from a box in a blue room. As we walked in, in the entryway, it was all oriental art. Walked into the room that the, the bedroom that the items were taken from, and it turned out the bedroom was blue as well. She had said it was taken from a box, Now Katie, I don't want to point fingers, but is it possible you have all this information about the stolen art from the box because you stole the art from the box? On another occasion, Katie sniffs out the devil's lettuce and lets investigators know that a massive amount of marijuana would soon wash up on shore. And what do you know? A massive amount of marijuana soon washed up on shore. Now Katie, I don't want to be accusatory here, but is it possible you knew about the drugs on the beach because you had something to do with the drugs on the beach? Is she a prophet or is she a kingpin? There is no telling. Katie did have a difficult upbringing. She was one of 10 children born into an impoverished family in Tennessee. She had to drop out of school after only the first grade to help care for her mother, who had very sadly begun suffering from psychogenic paralysis. As such, she has been described as functionally illiterate, but allegedly has been observed and videotaped writing in quatrains in medieval French, which were, and I quote, ostensibly from Nostradamus and similar in both style and content to Nostradamus's actual quatrains. Okay. One time Katie saw a ghost. This man opens the door and he comes in and proceeds to go back to my bedroom. Unsettling, I'd say. But, uh, yeah. This wasn't just any ghost. A few days later, she and her husband just so happened to have been looking through a family photo album that Katie just so happened to have never seen before, for some reason. She immediately recognized her own father-in-law, that is her husband's deceased father, as the ghost in her bedroom. And she had also never seen a photo of him, for some reason. That's him. That's the man I saw. That's my dad. Now, Katie, but in one of the most unhinged moments of the series run, Unsolved Mysteries attempted to have a spare witness to Katie doing what she does best, that is sweating gold. More likely the gold, using the words loosely, will appear on her cheeks, under the eyes, the abdomen, forearms. Here we have something which is a medical marvel. I'm obsessed with how this man says abdomen. Abdomen. This is the phenomenon for which she is best known, even earning her the title of the gold leaf lady. Many claimed, keyword, to have observed the spontaneous manifestation of gold foil. And according to a so-called skilled magician, it seemed impossible to fake. So it must be true. The man who attempted to investigate Katie for more than a decade was a guy called Bertolt Schwarz, and he was a psychiatrist, parapsychologist, and ufologist. The right guy for the job, if you ask me. Analysis of the foil revealed it to be not gold, but brass, composed of roughly 80% copper and 20% zinc. This raised issue with the theory that Katie was sweating the foil through her pores, as such amounts of metal in her system would have been lethal. Despite extensive efforts, Schwarz never actually captured the emergence of foil on camera. In fact, no one did, not even Unsolved Mysteries. Sticking to their usual formula, producers had envisioned blending dramatizations of Katie's experience with interviews featuring Katie, eyewitnesses, as well as experts. The point when she actually caused the gem to appear, she had the gem palmed in her hand, just like this. And when she reached her hand up to her eye, it was a simple matter to turn about her ring. After days of intended filming passed without success, they planned a six-hour stakeout to try and capture the foil's appearance live. Alas, when it came time to film, my girl Katie's patience was run thin, and no such event was ever recorded. Maybe gold sweat was just the friends we made along the way. Season 3, episode 11, Kicks of the Dead, featured a psychic artist of a whopping 100,000 plus portraits. The spirits are not resting, and neither is she. She got her start when another medium told her, Hey, did you know you're a psychic artist? And she said, No, I did not. Thank you for telling me. With good results, obviously it's not always good. But when we do get good results, we get quite nice likenesses of people's relatives who have passed into the world of spirit. Today, Karl Poge lives in a small town in England. For the last 40 years, she has possessed and been possessed by her unusual ability. I'm not trying to be a non-believer, but how is this different than those people on TikTok who are like, Do it if I drew you. Is this not just like a fun coincidence with just a touch of motivated perception? She conveniently draws people who have been long dead. And being that this episode aired in 1990, her clients seemed to all be middle aged. And I mean, these are just vague drawings of like late Victorian and early Edwardian looking white British people, are they not? It wasn't so much the picture that she drew that I recognized, so much as the description she was giving. No hate to this woman, but to me, this just feels like textbook, three vampire cold reading tactics, but make it art. A producer on the show actually sat with her to do two sketches. And when she did not recognize either of them, much to Coral's frustration, I went home and my mom said, those are my grandparents. And she went and got photos of my great grandparents, who I had never met and didn't know that what they look like. And the pictures that she showed me were so close to the sketches, they ended up using them in the episode, you know, against a photograph of the real people. Whatever helps, Coral was one of several so-called spirit channeler artists. As he whips color across the page, Gasparetto seems a man possessed. If Gasparetto's astounding assertions are true, as every gesture is directed by the spirits of long dead masters who continue to create new works from beyond the grave. Van Gogh, Monet, Renoir. We're all channeling new works of art through Louise. And this is why I don't really feel badly saying that while Coral was actually a talented artist, Louise's drawings were... It's just an energetical influence. Just learn to be passive. Look at these comparisons. The resemblance is uncanny. A painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir completed in 1877. Auguste Renoir, 1995. The channel through Louise Gasparetto in roughly five minutes. Claude Monet, 1880. Claude Monet through Gasparetto. Vincent Van Gogh, 1890. Van Gogh through Gasparetto. This next story seems to be a bit polarizing in the Unsolved Mysteries fandom. I've seen it referenced as both a beautifully filmed spooky reincarnation episode and also as one of the stupidest that they ever aired. So I had to check it out for myself and oh boy. This is the story of Georgia Rudolph, a woman from Macon, Georgia who claimed to be the reincarnation of a woman named Sandra Jean Jenkins from Marietta, Ohio. Okay, interesting. So I'm assuming they found a record of this Sandra Jean Jenkins and oh, what's that? There's no record of her ever existing. My whole childhood, I thought I was crazy because the drawings were of the girl that I would dream about and when I remember her, it's always the drawing. The face. This imaginary friend Sandra also had a partner named Tommy Hicks and supposedly both died in 1914. After the story was broadcast, there was a man named Jack Turnick who allegedly was a professor claiming that he was the reincarnation of Tommy Hicks. Oh, there's no record of him ever existing either. Right, update from me. Okay, I know I was just dunking on that segment but I found this. During that episode, Robert Stack explicitly states that Georgia Rudolph is not to be confused with Georgia Ann Rudolph who was a psychic that had been previously featured on the show. So there's Georgia Rudolph who claims to be the reincarnation of no one, I guess and then there's Georgia Ann Rudolph, the psychic previously featured only it turns out they were the same person because of course they were. I don't know why but that creeped me out more than anything featured in that episode. Did Unsolved Mysteries get bamboozled or did they know the whole time? I don't- it's so weird. It's so weird. That remains a mystery. There were several fake amnesia stories, one of which was I'm pretty sure just a guy's excuse to get a divorce. There's the group of people in Kentucky- I can't even get through this one. There's the group of people in Kentucky- After staring- There's the group of people in Kentucky who saw angel marks after looking directly at the sun. No, I'm not kidding. I'm losing it. Hundred people claim that they indeed had visions inspired by God. I mean look how bright the sun is. You've been looking at the sun? Not at- not- You know when you look at the sun long enough it plays tricks on your eyes but what we saw is away from the sun. I would never look at the sun. Look y'all the sun is moving. We looked at the sun there's like three rings around the sun the girl said look at the sun the sun is pulsating. Did you see the sun pulsating? Oh yes. Had you been looking at the sun for a long time? No I never even looked at the sun. I thought if you look at the sun long enough it could you know do something to your eyes. The man looking up at the sun. Oh come on Raymond. I should also mention that being in the late 80s and early 90s this was the height of satanic panic. There were several storylines that can only be summarized as but what if it was the satanic cult? The stigma surrounding satanism is still alive and well so I do want to make it quite clear that this is a religious ideological and or philosophical belief system to whom the symbol of satan is more or less resistance against I don't know arbitrary authority. I do not speak for satanists but I do know that scapegoating and ostracizing a group of people because you don't understand their beliefs and projecting your preconceived notions of them being sadistic and evil is objectively wrong and harmful. So don't do that. Sorry religious freedom rant over. To play you need nothing more than a set of special cards and a vivid imagination. The game isn't even the only time an episode featured investigators offering the medieval fantasy to satanic cult pipeline as a genuine theory. The second episode of the first season features a story about a boy named Kurt McFall who fell or was no pun intended it just that wasn't or was pushed off a cliff which is very sad but this wasn't just a guy this was a guy who enjoyed LARPing. This was a nerd. For the record I by no means mean that in a negative way I am LARP adjacent. LARPing friends I see you, I hear you, I love you. Not only was Kurt a LARPer he hung out with what appears to have been a Celtic neo-pagan group those are my kind of people. But anyway one of his friends was freaked out by this and was yapping about how he thought they were evil or something. Because it was the 80s non-Abrahamic practices and live-action role play were the perfect scapegoat for what otherwise appears to have just been a very sad unfortunate circumstance as is the modern consensus on this one. There's not even any concrete evidence to suggest any foul play so I don't know framing his hobbies and beliefs as some ooh spooky evil cult it just reeks of satanic panic. I won't bore you with another religious freedom rant I'm sure you get the point but yeah weird weird. Unsolved Mysteries was truly of its time which means that along with all the silliness there was some genuinely problematic stuff as I'm sure you've gathered. Slight content warning for this next section for which I will include a list of topics on screen. I did want to include these instances when talking about the show as they are very much part of its legacy and I think it's important to acknowledge. Coverage will be fleeting and nondescript but these topics are upsetting so I completely understand if you'd rather skip this bit so I will also have timestamped chapters in the description per usual. There were many many episodes of these so-called medical miracles which more often than not were religious propaganda at best and spiritual psychosis at worst both with a decent helping of harmful misinformation. I think the worst example of this is a young child who suffered brain damage and was subsequently exploited by her family. A year after her accident they took her to Yugoslavia which almost resulted in her life ending but they claimed that in her non-verbal state she had some sort of spiritual telepathic connection with the Virgin Mary and thus became a victim soul meaning she could take on the suffering of others and perform medical miracles herself. This one's so upsetting I really just don't have much else to say about it they just framed it as oh it's a mystery it's a miracle. Then there were times where they romanticized and I'm trying to figure out how to say this while keeping the YouTube censorship gods would be content let's say illegal age gap relationships such as the case of Mac McDonald a 20 year old man who was having relations with a 16 year old girl her mother tried to have him arrested understandably which led to him fleeing and their subsequent separation he later found out that she had been pregnant and decades later went on unsolved mysteries to try to locate the lost child and update a call to the telecenter had been made by this child's mother so who once was the 16 year old victim the child turned out to be a woman now in her 40s who had been raised by a very loving stepfather understandably she seemed really reluctant to meet this man it was just so uncomfortable in fact I'm pretty sure she said it was emotionally traumatizing for her it felt as though she thought meeting him was the right thing to do especially with how the show kind of gave him this sympathetic character edit and he also had said that should they be reunited the child would be entitled to his estate but this man has passed away and she wasn't even named a survivor in his obituary but hey they got some good old American television out of it right there are also a few episodes that didn't exercise any cultural sensitivity these are frequently episodes dealing with treasure and legends and I tend to skip these it's a tale as old as time white western imperial sentiment leads to the stealing of what are often significant or even sacred artifacts and then proceeding to disparage them and exoticize their meaning I mean it's just so disrespectful I don't have to explain this the San Pedro mummy comes to mind this was a story about amateur gold prospectors in the 1930s grave robbing a literal mummy from an indigenous burial site because of the mummy's distinguished features such as it measuring six inches tall and being extremely well preserved there was great interest and sensationalistic speculation in reality this was an infant who had suffered from anencephaly this was confirmed by x-rays done in the 1950s the mummy was later bought by a car salesman who used it in advertising for his business and today the mummy has been missing for decades should the mummy ever be found it would be subject to the Native American Graves and Preparation Act as it was the body of an indigenous child who had been stolen from their resting place and there's the time that unsolved mysteries did blackface you know I've seen this discussed online a few times and there's always people who try to justify it by either saying it was the 90s and also well maybe they just couldn't find a black actor while already deeply flawed those ideas fall apart immediately when you realize that there's a scene where they see the white actor in blackface next to an actual black actor how and why these are just a few examples of many this show also generally uses outdated or offensive language in views as such some episodes contain a disclaimer and they say something along the lines of this episode contains language and or views that are outdated and offensive and they don't reflect our current beliefs and they were wrong then and are wrong now anyway enjoy the show again I think it would have been disingenuous to solely focus on the chaotic good or creepy or silly stuff when these examples are also so ubiquitous unsolved mysteries was huge and mainstream media can often act as a barometer for the cultural backdrop so watching it back now these instances are so glaringly obviously wrong so progress is good that's my brave controversial take of today unsolved mysteries defining era ended when our beloved Robert Stack was very sadly diagnosed with cancer in 2002 production halted after his diagnosis and he passed away only a year later in 2003 after 11 seasons the original unsolved mysteries had finally come to a close the show was briefly revived in 2008 with a new host that is Dennis Farina to be exact but it wasn't really the same and a lot of episodes were just regurgitated from the original series it's been rebooted and revamped and I'm sure many of you have seen the recent Netflix rendition but the original series just had that something going on for all its faults and quirks unsolved mysteries is truly unrefutable and there was certainly a lot of passion and love that went into its making and it actually did a lot of good since its premiere in the late 1980s unsolved mysteries has helped locate half of the wanted fugitives it featured reunited over 100 lost loves and helped free seven people who had been wrongfully convicted and imprisoned it further helped solve an additional 260 plus cases involving murder, missing persons, and fraud unsolved mysteries? more like solved mysteries it's time to wrap up thank you so much for watching my sixth youtube video I hope you enjoyed this one as it was definitely a lot more chill and honestly it's probably the most fun I've had making a video yet as much as I love using my degree and doing the fashion history videos that research is much more reliant on academic literature and it's just more intensive and takes a lot longer so it was really fun getting to do a silly little deep dive on something that is both very interesting and nostalgic to me I have so many random topics like this now that I want to cover so if you liked this video definitely let me know I aspire to be one of those youtube channels that covers a topic that you've never maybe really given much thought to before but all of a sudden it's in your recommended and you find that it resonates for some reason there's a lot of channels that certainly do that for me and I'm really inspired by them so yeah I would really appreciate it if you liked and subscribed and maybe left a respectful comment and I will hope to see you in the next one okay bye