The mystery of his death is going with him to his grave. ibid.
The coroner recorded an open verdict into the death of David Lytton. ibid.
Art is full of mysteries. And mysteries need solving. This is Van Gogh’s famous Self Portrait, a self-portrait with bandaged ear at the Courtauld Gallery in London. It’s famous because Van Gogh’s ear is so famous. Everyone knows the story of him cutting it off with a razor. And this picture painted soon after in 1889 commemorates that tragedy. The Art Mysteries with Waldemar Januszczak: Van Gogh’s Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear, BBC 2020
It’s a picture full of mysteries: why does this easel look like a cross? Why is the bandage so prominent? And what’s this Japanese print doing here at the back? … And the biggest mystery of all, why did he cut off his ear in the first place? ibid.
It’s a hidden crucifixion; the easel at the back is his cross; and where Christ had his loincloth, Van Gogh has this grubby bandage that covers his wounds. ibid.
Sunday Afternoon on the island of La Grande Jatte: ever since it was painted in 1886 La Grande Jatte has fascinated people. It shows a parade of fashionable weekenders strolling along a riverbank in Paris. And everybody here is made entirely of dots. It’s one of the 19th century’s best known pictures and one of the most mysterious. The Art Mysteries with Waldemar Januszczak II: Seurat’s Island of La Grande Jatte & Les Poseuses
Les Poseuses: Why here in the corner Seurat has added La Grande Jatte. Why is it here? What’s it trying to say? Why are we getting two masterpieces at once? ibid.
The Bathers was also a picture with an important social message, a message aimed at Paris, the modern world. Look at all these factory chimneys belching smoke to the sky. ibid.
There was no more quintessentially English writer than Agatha Christie. Through her sensational murder mysteries she created a literary universe that captured our national spirit like no-one before or since. The magical worlds where she set her stories are in fact drawn from real places. Agatha Christie’s England, Channel 5 2021
Born 1890 in the Devon town of Torquay. The youngest to three children she lived a charmed life thanks to her American fathers large inheritance. ibid.
She introduced the world to Miss Marple when she published The Murder at the Vicarage. ibid.
In 1920 Agatha published her debut novel: The Mysterious Affair at Styles. The lead character was the now iconic Belgium detective Hercules Poirot. ibid.
‘Agatha absolutely abhorred the loss of empire, the changing attitudes to British dominance over the world. This big change in social values, the class system.’ ibid. J C Bernthal, Agatha Christie scholar
Arguably the biggest writer of the Twentieth Century. ibid.
Possessing and threatening the people she knows and loves. For the terrified young Agatha, evil is an ever-lurking presence waiting to be unveiled. Agatha Christie: Lucy Worsley on the Mystery Queen I, BBC 2022
A Pioneering radical writer and woman. ibid.
She was the quintessential English woman. ibid. historian
She taught herself aged 5 … Social status fragile.
It gave her the material to start writing seriously. In between her social engagements in Cairo, Agatha found the time to write her first full-length novel, Snow Upon the Desert. ibid.
This was the room in which Agatha first set eyes on Archibald Chrisie. ibid.
Also about the deadly simplicity of poisons ibid.
First up, Style Court, a country house. ibid.
For Agatha this ex-pat society was fascinating. ibid. II
Operation Husband continued … Agatha threw herself into the war effort … How did it affect her dreams of becoming a writer? ibid.
Agatha’s opinion of the doctors was gradually sinking. ibid.
The Mysterious Affair at Styles: filled with insights and characters she’d stored up over the years. ibid.
The men at Style are a pretty useless lot … The women of Styles are a much more effective lot. ibid.
Agatha turned out four novels in four years. ibid.
A gossip colomnist reported she had had a nervous breakdown. ibid.
December 1926, Agatha Christie has crashed her car … Then she vanishes. ibid.
I think there’s much more to this enigmatic and elusive novelist than meets the eye. Agatha Christie: Lucy Worsley on the Mystery Queen II
The famous detective novelist vanished, maybe even murdered or kidnapped … The perfect tabloid story. ibid.
What made this woman the best selling novelist in the world? Agatha Christie: Lucy Worsley on the Mystery Queen III
These Westmacott books really are her most personal her most intense work. ibid.
An infamous Cold War cold case. Nine hikers found mutilated on a remote mountain slope. Their injuries and the facts don’t seem to add up. History’s Greatest Mysteries s3e2: The Dyatlov Pass Incident, History 2022
The Soviet Union 1959: On February 26th high up in Siberia’s Ural Mountains … three cross-country skiers spot a solitary tent partially collapsed by snow. ibid.
Friends and family remark that the cadavers have an unnaturally orange appearance ... Exactly what are they covering up? ibid.
Supporters of the Yeti theory also point to photos of the bodies that show what appears to be abject terror. ibid.
1948: As Atomic fear grips the world and the Cold War ramps up, a well-dressed man is found dead on an Australian beach. Neither the FBI nor Britain’s MI5 know who he is. History’s Greatest Mysteries s3e4: The Body on Somerton Beach
Who is the Somerton man and how did he die? ibid.
Theory #1: He died of heart failure … Theory #2: Death by poisoning … Theory #3: A smuggler killed by smugglers … Theory #4: A spy killed by spies … ibid.
Our world is filled with mystery, mystery that lies in vast and unexplored places. In the relics of ancient civilisations whose truths are lost to time. In the secrets we keep and the ones that are kept from us, we seek answers to these mysteries no matter how fanciful they may seem. History’s Greatest Myths s1e6: Unexplained Mysteries
Paranormal investigator Don Phillips has made a name for himself tracking ghosts. Unsolved Mysteries s5e2: My Paranormal Partner, TV news
The problem is the spirits of the dead are something that shouldn’t be trusted at all. ibid. Barry Fitzgerald
Leicester, Gaynor, August 2011: The most haunted residential case I’d ever had. ibid. Don
I’ve never witnessed anything like that before. ibid. scientist/sceptic Steve Mera; Don & spirit-voice Becky pass blind envelope test
Cannock Chase: A blast of energy … Prior to my union with Becky, none of this was possible. ibid. Don
I have really no idea what his limitations are. ibid. Mera
Lisheen with Barry Fitzgerald & Steve Mera: ‘A ruined manor house … He’s like seeing it from the past.’ ibid. Mera
This was a jinn and came with the artefacts from the house. ibid. Fitzgerald
Seattle, Washington: Keith had been experiencing poltergeist activity … ‘Keith’s house was certainly haunted and we secured a lot of recordings.’ ibid. Don
Keith’s house was built on a native American burial ground. ibid.
Direct voice phenomena right here, right in front of us both. It’s Becky. It took me to my knees. ibid. Mera
Once this symbiotic relationship has developed, it’s very very difficult to break. ibid. Fitzgerald
I do think we are now looking at a possession with Don. ibid.
Becky is a part of me; I am a part of her. ibid. Don
The universe is a vast, beautiful and strange place. We understand very little of it. Over the course of human history hundreds of bizarre phenomena have crossed our paths. Strange Universe: In Outer Space Nothing is Normal, Amazon 2024
There is the sheer number of reports of UFO sightings. ibid.
Whether or not they are out there is still a mystery. ibid.
The quantum realm is a strange place where particles can exist in multiple states at once, and can even interact with each other without any physical contact. ibid.
Strange objects floating through space … Oumuamua is an elongated cigar-shaped object. ibid.
The search for Planet X is ongoing. ibid.
The space angels seen by Russian cosmonauts. ibid.
Is it really possible that aliens are abducting humans? ibid.