The Why Files

For 600 years the Voynich Manuscript has stumped scholars, cryptographers, physicists, and computer scientists. Now, a researcher in Germany has claimed to have finally decoded the most mysterious book in the world. The Voynich Manuscript is a 240-page medieval codex written in an indecipherable language, full of bizarre drawings of strange plants, astrological symbols and... lots of... naked women. The Voynich Manuscript defies classification and has also defied comprehension

Most of us have heard of the Bermuda Triangle, where planes and ships have mysteriously gone missing in the Atlantic Ocean for decades. Did you know there is a similar place in Nevada? The Nevada Triangle. In a region of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in Nevada and California, 2,000 planes have been lost in the last 60 years. In this remotely populated area of more than 25,000 miles of mountain desert, many of the crash sites have never been found.

Humans are weird animals. Sure we're terrified of ghosts, monsters, snakes, spiders and all kinds of other things; both real and imagined. That's normal. Healthy, even. So why do we actually ENJOY being afraid by experiencing these things on purpose. There is a science of fear that explains why being frightened can be fun, at least for some people

It was October 1943. The day the US Navy mastered time travel, teleportation, and invisibility. Actually, they didn't master anything. The experiment had disastrous consequences for the crew of the USS Eldridge.

If hell has a sound, I bet it sounds alot like the Aztec Death Whistle. The Aztec Death Whistle sounds like a shriek of death mixed with howling wind. It's so unnerving, that the significance of the horrifying sound of the Aztec Death Whistle has fascinated and perplexed scholars for years

We've scoured the internet for the best time travel stories we could find. You may know some of them. Some are hoaxes. A few have been debunked. But there are a couple of stories that defy explanation

Since World War One, numbers stations have been transmitting coded messages to spies around the world using shortwave radio. And they're still transmitting right now.

Cyberwar is being waged right now in your name. No matter what country you call home, your government is engaged in highly dangerous combat on the Internet. Infrastructure around the world is under siege and everyone is at risk

If you believe Nostradamus, you better start kissing your mommies and saying your goodbyes

Any challenge of established scientific dogma is labeled pseudoscience. Isn't that a bit arrogant? Isn't pseudoscience only pseudoscience until it's actual... science? But people are afraid to go up against the establishment

How the great pyramids of Egypt were built has been the subject of debate for a long time. The fact is, no one really knows for certain exactly how some of these megaliths were constructed. Some researchers think ancient cultures may have mastered levitation through sound which allowed them to easily manipulate massive objects

It's one of the most recognizable, and most visited landmarks in America. But Mount Rushmore has a secret

November 22nd, 1987 was a pretty normal evening for television viewers in Chicago. That night, like every night, Dan Roan was covering sports on WGN-TV, Channel 9. Then suddenly, the signal was disrupted and screens across the city cut to black. Engineers at WGN-TV thought their transmitters were failing. They weren't. A few seconds later, something crazy happened. WGN's broadcast signal had been hijacked in what is now known as "The Max Headroom Incident"

In Dumbarton, Scotland, there's a 19th-century gothic bridge that crosses a 50-foot ravine. It's *officially* called Overtoun Bridge. But it's *unofficial* name is the "dog suicide bridge."

It's estimated that there are 40 billion Earth-like planets in the Milky Way that could support life. Certainly a few of these should have given rise to intelligent life. And if so, where is everyone?

Was Polybius real? In 1981, an arcade in Portland was the scene of countless gamers coming down with migraines, having heart attacks, seizures and strokes. Local teens were suffering from amnesia and having hallucinations. All due to a mysterious game that seemed to arrive out of thin air. The game was called Polybius. And even though playing the game was dangerous, it was highly addictive and caused some teens to become hyper-aggressive. Fights started breaking out at the arcade. One player was stabbed to death. All traced back to people who played Polybius. Why would the government allow the public to play such a dangerous game? Because the government created it

Heard of Janet Airlines? No? Good. That's exactly what the US government wants. One of the government's biggest secrets is hiding in plain sight. In Las Vegas. Janet is the top-secret government airline that doesn't exist.

New York City has skyscrapers of all shapes and sizes. But why does this 500 foot tall, 29-story building have no windows, no lights and no markings at all? Because it's a top-secret NSA spy station built to withstand nuclear war. Officially, this is an AT&T telecommunications building. But thanks to leaked documents, we now know that 33 Thomas Street is actually a top secret NSA mass surveillance hub

Edison versus Tesla. One of history's greatest rivalries. They would never admit it but as different as these men were, they also had many similarities. For instance, they also both dabbled in paranormal technology. Nikola Tesla was convinced he could invent a device to communicate with the spirit world. And Thomas Edison was convinced he could get there first

According to a German historian, the year is actually 1724. He says our calendar is a lie and a big chunk of the Middle Ages never happened

How do you join a cult without knowing it? Here's how it happened to thousands of people in San Francisco just a few years ago

Does a human head remain conscious after being separated from its body? It sure does. But just how long do you actually survive? Not that long. But, if we look at other animals, some of them can survive for longer than you think

As long as people have been alive, they've wanted to stay alive. But what if -- instead of preserving our *bodies* -- we could preserve our *consciousness*; by uploading it to a powerful computer. This is called *mind uploading*. And one startup has developed a procedure to do exactly this

Do some horror movies use sounds of a *specific frequency* to amp up the scare factor? Yes. Can infrasound and ultrasound damage the human body? Yes. Has sound been used as a real-world weapon? Yes. Is sound being deployed by America's enemies to cause serious physical harm? Yes

In 1945, Soviet children presented the ambassador with a gift to commemorate the friendship of the US and the Soviet Union. A hand-carved wooden replica of the Great Seal of the United States. The ambassador was so pleased with the carving that he hung it in his office at the official ambassador residence in Moscow: the Spaso house. But the wooden carving was more than just a decoration. Now hanging on the wall, just behind the ambassador's desk was a state of the art, high-frequency listening device that was completely undetectable

When the first human visits Mars, it will be the biggest scientific breakthrough since landing on the Moon. Probably bigger. But what if I told you the CIA and United States Military have already been to Mars? But they didn't use space-ships to get there. They used psychics

On April 19, 2010, a Muslim cleric in Iran blamed earthquakes on women who dressed - immodestly. Jen McCreight was a student at Purdue University when she heard this. She didn't like the idea of natural disasters being blamed on sinful women so decided to do something about it.

The Dyatlov Pass Incident has been a mystery for over 60 years. Theories include a military cover-up, a KGB operation gone wrong, a bigfoot attack and of course -- aliens. One researcher believes he knows what happened that night

Terrifying predictions of Edgar Cayce Edgar Cayce gave over 14,000 psychic readings. He made a number of predictions about future events — many of which have come true. And some of them are terrifying.