- 7 months ago
From enigmatic creators to vanishing figures, history's greatest mysteries await. Join us as we count down the most perplexing individuals whose lives remain shrouded in secrecy and intrigue! These enigmatic figures left behind tantalizing clues but few answers, challenging historians and capturing imaginations for generations.
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00:00We don't know if he lives or if he dies. That adds to the mystery.
00:05It's like having a novel without a final chapter.
00:08Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the most enigmatic historical figures that left us with more questions than answers.
00:16Tell me about your problems, Johnny.
00:17Peter, you always play psychologist with us.
00:21Number 30. The Green Children of Woolpit.
00:24Tall tale or weird moment in history, the truth may never be revealed.
00:28Back in the 12th century, citizens of Woolpit were shocked when two children with an unmistakably green hue stumbled upon their village,
00:35speaking a strange language and only eating green beans.
00:38When one learned English, she revealed that she and her brother came from a place where the sun never shone.
00:43In modern times, people have tried to figure out if they even existed.
00:46Some are adamant that it was merely a folktale, while others insist that they were real and suffering from a nutrient-deficient diet.
00:53We are now the only ones left, and you must learn that we're determined to survive, and that there's nothing you can do to stop us.
01:02With no historical records to verify the true events, it's a Middle Ages conundrum that may never be solved.
01:08Number 29. Satoshi Nakamoto.
01:24For some people, Satoshi didn't just invent a new kind of currency.
01:29He invented a libertarian weapon designed to undermine the state.
01:34He created one of the first cryptocurrencies, yet we don't even know his real name.
01:39Bitcoin was released in the late 2000s under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto.
01:43He was involved for the first few years, before going off the grid in 2011.
01:48Since then, people have attempted to find his identity.
01:51Even the supposed facts he's offered, such as his birth date, are instead seen as historical references.
01:56It seemed to resolve itself in 2014, when an engineer with the same birth name came forward, only to later contradict himself and claim he'd never heard of Bitcoin.
02:05There are several other suspects, but all have denied being the creator of a revolutionary currency.
02:11I just believe that somebody put that fictitious name in there.
02:15Satoshi Nakamoto and Bitcoin.
02:18Number 28. George Salmanazar.
02:20This could be history's first troll.
02:22After arriving in London from his worldly travels in the early 18th century, George Salmanazar soon gained the public's attention.
02:29He told them he was a citizen of Formosa, which is now modern-day Taiwan.
02:33He then went on to describe the country, from the temperament of its people to a supposed statue where infants were sacrificed.
02:39Yet it was all a lie.
02:41He had never lived there, and was just making things up, including an entire alphabet.
02:46Salmanazar managed to fool the citizens for years before he finally confessed.
02:50Why he decided to tell such an elaborate lie for so long is truly puzzling.
02:55With his memoirs omitting some information, we may never know his true intentions.
03:00Number 27. Mary Toft.
03:02In 1726, doctors were perplexed when they heard about a woman who seemingly gave birth to a rabbit.
03:08Mary Toft immediately became a medical marvel, with several professionals studying the flesh of her supposed offspring.
03:14Sarah, you must say hello to little ones.
03:16No.
03:18It is macabre.
03:18It wasn't until the case was brought before King George I that things fell apart.
03:23The royal had sent experts out, and they were skeptical when she couldn't produce anything.
03:27It was then discovered that her husband was buying rabbits, supposedly for this purpose.
03:32When she was found out, Toft was incarcerated for fraud, and the medical profession took a huge hit to its credibility.
03:38Why she did this, or if it was her own idea, are questions that are still left unanswered today.
03:43Number 26. Man of the Hole.
03:45We'll never know his name, but we'll always remember the tragic legacy tied to him.
03:58The Man of the Hole was the last remaining member of an indigenous Amazonian tribe that had been the victims of an intentional genocide in the late 20th century.
04:06They were completely uncontacted beforehand, meaning their language and tribe name were all but wiped out.
04:12Following his discovery in 1996, the Teneru man became legendary for building dozens of huts with his signature deep pit in the center.
04:19He passed away in 2022, taking with him the last remnants of his now-extinct culture.
04:31He serves as a permanent reminder of the horrors of colonialism, and how it can create mysteries that will never be solved.
04:37Number 25. Somerton Man.
04:39One of the intriguing things about the case is that all the clothes the man was wearing had the labels removed off them.
04:48And so this is what made some people think, oh, maybe this guy's a spy.
04:53There's a chance his identity has been found, but that doesn't mean the mystery has ended.
04:57On December 1st, 1948, the body of a man was found on the shores of Somerton Park.
05:03He was found with no identification and several strange objects, including a coded piece of paper that translated to, it is over.
05:11Several theories began pouring in, with the most popular being that he was a spy on a mission gone wrong.
05:16What do you think?
05:17Oh, well, there's so many theories on there.
05:19I think spy. I think Russian spy.
05:21In 2022, the body was exhumed.
05:24It was found that he was Carl Webb, an instrument maker.
05:28If that is his identity, then it will be a great stepping stone to learning his exact cause of death and the events leading up to it.
05:35And this is where he met his end.
05:37Right here.
05:38And to take your secrets with you.
05:40And take your secrets with you.
05:42Number 24. Nicholas Flamel.
05:44Nicolas Flamel.
05:47Oh.
05:49Jacob Kowalski.
05:51You may recognize the name from the fictional Harry Potter series,
05:54but the real version was even more fascinating.
05:57In life, Nicolas Flamel was a draftsman who created several public documents.
06:01After his death in 1418, he was posthumously thrust into the spotlight as an alchemist who discovered immortality.
06:07Early in the 14th century, a Parisian scribe called Nicolas Flamel had a strange dream.
06:15In it, an angel appeared and showed him a series of symbols and bizarre pictures.
06:19These claims started popping up in the 1600s, 200 years after his death.
06:24How he came to have this reputation is still unknown, as he seemingly lived a normal life for the time period.
06:30Several works published after his death date have been credited as his, muddying the waters even further.
06:35The assertions have circulated for so long that some have wondered if there's some truth to them, but we'll never know for sure.
06:41Continued sightings of Flamel, even up to 400 years after his death, fueled the legend of his immortality.
06:48These sightings also supported the common belief that the magical substances conjured up by alchemists could not only transmute metals,
06:56but might also do strange things to human beings.
06:58Number 23, Madame Blavatsky.
07:01She's known by some as the mother of modern spirituality, but her tales are still scrutinized.
07:06When Madame Blavatsky moved to the United States to start the Theosophical Society, she was already an enigmatic figure.
07:12In 1874, her master sent her back to the United States, where there was an increasing interest in the occult.
07:19She claimed to have traveled the world before going to Tibet to be trained by the masters of the ancient wisdom.
07:25She was a believer in the occult, and the group she founded strove to prove that it could lead to harmony and equality.
07:30Her claims have been questioned by several writers, who've accused her of plagiarism and being in an altered mindset while writing.
07:37Despite the criticisms, she's still an influential figure within esotericism and the New Age movement.
07:43Did you know she'd always had a habit of moving one foot when she was concentrating?
07:48Strange, she continued that movement almost to the last moment.
07:52Number 22, Socrates.
07:53In 469 BC, Socrates was born, the son of a midwife and a stonemason, into a city in the midst of a tumultuous transformation.
08:06It may seem impossible for one to be both incredibly well-known and enigmatic.
08:10Socrates was a well-known philosopher in ancient Greece, whose lessons and philosophical methods are still revered today.
08:16Despite that, he never actually wrote any texts of his own.
08:19Socrates, hmm, now what?
08:26I don't know.
08:29Philosophize with him.
08:30All of his teachings have been passed down by word of mouth, primarily through the form of dialogues written by his students.
08:36What's more is that constructing a completely accurate biography for him is practically impossible,
08:41thanks to several sources containing conflicting information.
08:44This means that even the information we do have is shaky at best, and that we may never know the complete unbiased truth about him.
08:52We're told that Socrates' last words, as the lethal hemlock took effect, were,
08:57Crito, we owe a cop to Asclepius.
09:00With this cryptic message, even on the brink of death, he kept his followers and future scholars guessing.
09:08Number 21, Banksy.
09:10Banksy is never authenticating street art.
09:16He puts every work he does on his website.
09:19It may be hard to believe, but even those in the modern age can be mysterious.
09:23Banksy's subversive political graffiti may be well-known, but his true persona is kept under lock and key.
09:28His unique approach and disdain for the art industry only adds to his perplexing persona.
09:33He conceals his identity with various methods, such as masks and altered voice recordings.
09:37The thing is that most normal art is built to last, like, hundreds of years.
09:43It's cast in bronze, or it's oil on canvas, but street art has a short lifespan, so it needed documenting.
09:51There are many who are speculated to be him, including a local counsellor who was forced to give up his position due to the rumors.
09:58There are some reports that claim to have revealed Banksy's name.
10:01Even if they're true, the person behind the alias is still completely unknown, and could be for the rest of his life.
10:07I'm one of the few television journalists, perhaps the only one, who has actually met the artist in person, and I can tell you, that's definitely not him.
10:19Mystery surrounds the death of Edgar Allan Poe.
10:22Beginning in the 1930s, his resting place was visited by a shadowy figure known only as the Poe Toaster.
10:28Every year on Poe's birthday, a man wearing a wide-brimmed hat and white scarf would visit Poe's grave and toast the dead writer with a bottle of cognac.
10:36After a brief visit, the man would leave behind both the unfinished bottle and three roses.
10:41You know, again, roses, cognac, you know, speaking to the Poe's in Latin as a tribute, you gotta love it.
10:51On occasion, the toaster would also leave a note, one of which read,
10:54Edgar, I haven't forgotten you.
10:56Despite visiting Poe every year for over 60 years, no one knows who this man was, or even if it was more than one person.
11:04Back in 2009, the mysterious person all of a sudden just disappeared.
11:09So the Maryland Historic Society and Poe Baltimore held a competition to find a new Poe toaster.
11:15And keeping this tradition alive, this man's identity is remaining a mystery.
11:20Number 19, the Count of Saint-Germain.
11:23Any man who goes by multiple names is bound to be mysterious.
11:27The Count achieved popularity in the 18th century for supposedly making great achievements in various academic fields.
11:33Throughout his life, the Count went by various names and monikers,
11:36including Chevalier Schöning, Prince Ragotze, and the Marquis de Montferrat.
11:40He was also sardonically dubbed the Wonder Man by French philosopher Voltaire, owing to his many exaggerated claims.
11:47Others called him the man who would not die.
11:50The Count never wanted to be known, and he told deliberately confusing and contradictory stories to keep his identity secret.
11:57To this day, no one knows much about his personal life, not even his real name.
12:02Saint-Germain neither confirmed nor denied anything said about him.
12:07How old was he?
12:08100?
12:09200?
12:102,000 years?
12:11He either smiled or responded with cheerful evasiveness.
12:16Number 18, Sergei Tretiakov.
12:18There's something about a good spy story that captures our imaginations.
12:22Spy stories have been popular for decades, with James Bond being the genre's primary figurehead.
12:27But unlike many movie heroes, spies are actually real, and their life stories are endlessly fascinating.
12:33Take, for example, a Soviet officer named Sergei Tretiakov.
12:36Tretiakov worked for Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service, but he also served as a double agent who fed the American government valuable information.
12:44So you say that we're still a target for Moscow?
12:48Yes.
12:50Yes.
12:51Tretiakov eventually defected to the United States in October 2000, being given $2 million and a new identity.
12:58He lived in Florida for 10 years before dying in 2010, with some suspecting that he was assassinated by Russian forces.
13:05In reality, he supposedly choked on a piece of meat.
13:09Number 17, Monsieur Shushani.
13:11The gravestone of Monsieur Shushani reads, quote,
13:14The wise Rabbi Shushani of blessed memory.
13:17His birth and his life are sealed in enigma.
13:19That about sums it up.
13:21These beautiful words were written by Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor and writer of the famous memoir, Night.
13:27Wiesel was one of Shushani's many pupils.
13:29It was said that Monsieur Shushani had a vast understanding of academic subjects,
13:33including an encyclopedic knowledge of the Talmud, the primary text of rabbinic Judaism.
13:38Shushani hoped that his teachings would speak for themselves, and they did.
13:42To this day, no one knows anything about his personal life, and his real name remains a complete mystery.
13:49Number 16, Kasper Hauser.
13:51This German man had a very short life, dying at just 21 in 1833, yet he left behind a lasting legacy.
13:59Hauser claimed that he spent most of his early life locked in a dungeon.
14:03Hauser himself didn't enter the public record until 1828, when the 16-year-old was found wandering the streets of Nuremberg.
14:10One popular rumor of the time posited that Hauser was of royal lineage, and that he was hidden away for many years.
14:16Others, including expert psychiatrists, argued that Hauser was a swindler.
14:20The story gets even more mysterious, as Hauser was stabbed on December 14th, 1833, and died three days later.
14:27Hauser told an elaborate story of his stabbing, but contemporary writers theorized that he had stabbed himself for publicity.
14:35Number 15, Fulcanelli.
14:37Unsurprisingly, not much is known about Fulcanelli, a French alchemist.
14:41We certainly don't know his real name, and we don't know much about his upbringing or credentials.
14:46But what he is known for are two far-fetched incidents of transmutation.
14:51In 1922, Fulcanelli and his pupil Eugène Consulier supposedly changed 100 grams of lead into gold.
14:58He purportedly performed this feat again at the Château de Leray in 1937,
15:03this time transforming lead into gold and silver into uranium.
15:07Unfortunately, Fulcanelli disappeared from recorded history after World War II,
15:11having vanished during the liberation of Paris in 1944.
15:15He was never heard from again, leaving his life and works a tantalizing mystery.
15:20Number 14, Sidney Gottlieb.
15:22Surely you've heard of Project MKUltra.
15:25If not, it was a secret and highly illegal experiment conducted by the CIA on unsuspecting and unwitting citizens.
15:31The CIA spent 25 years and $25 million on secret mind control research.
15:38Brainwashing could be a powerful ideological weapon, and the U.S. had to have it.
15:44And when the agency didn't undertake its own studies, it funded someone else's.
15:48The project hoped to uncover secret brainwashing and mind control techniques that could force suspected criminals to confess.
15:54It was a very controversial study, and was halted in 1973 after 20 years of covert operation.
16:00Everyone from unwitting housewives, to soldiers, to even criminals, like gangster Whitey Bulger, is tested.
16:08You know, what the CIA really dreamed of was sort of like a drug you could give to someone,
16:13get them to commit all sorts of unspeakable acts,
16:16and they wake up the next day and they don't remember what they've done.
16:18This contentious project was headed by a man named Sidney Gottlieb,
16:22whose work during MKUltra was both highly dangerous and shrouded in mystery.
16:26For example, he often dosed unwitting subjects with LSD.
16:29In 1953, he personally dosed bacteriologist Frank Olsen,
16:34who died under violent and mysterious circumstances just nine days later.
16:39Number 13.
16:40Ötzi.
16:41Of course, there are no great biographies of Ötzi, who is about 5,000 years old.
16:45But despite his age, we do know a few key details about his personal life.
16:50Back in 1991, two German tourists were walking in the Ötztal Alps
16:54when they stumbled across a mummified body frozen in the ice.
16:57This was Ötzi, who, to this day, is Europe's oldest mummy.
17:01Following intensive study, it was determined that Ötzi was born in present-day Bolzano around 3275 BCE.
17:09Ötzi's gear, well-preserved by the icy glacier, provides a critical insight into prehistoric culture.
17:16That's about all we know of the historic man, but we're getting more answers as the years progress.
17:21In 2023, Ötzi's entire genome was mapped, revealing darker skin, a penchant for baldness,
17:27and shared ancestry with Anatolian Neolithic farmers.
17:31Ötzi, the Iceman, lived and died five millennia ago.
17:35Yet his final resting place now lets us see that he was very much like one of us today.
17:41Number 12. Babushka Lady
17:42No presidential assassination has resulted in more conspiracy theories than John F. Kennedy's.
17:48Of the people present on that fateful day, questions persist about two figures.
17:53The first being the supposed second gunman,
17:56and the second being a little old lady wearing a scarf around her head.
17:59That piece of headwear resulted in the nickname we know her by today.
18:03The reason she's shrouded in speculation is that she can be seen filming footage of the events that afternoon,
18:08but her identity and film have never been recovered.
18:12Could the information she captured confirm or put to rest the conspiracy theories surrounding the event?
18:17It seems likely at this point that we'll never know.
18:21Number 11. Harold Holt
18:23The 17th Prime Minister of Australia
18:25Holt went out for a swim in the water of Cheviot Beach near Victoria in 1967 and was never seen again.
18:32The thing that's mystified followers of the incident ever since was the fact that zero trace of him was ever recovered,
18:37despite the fact that one of the largest search operations in Australian history commenced shortly after his disappearance.
18:43In Washington, where secret servicemen keep the president under strict surveillance,
18:48there was surprise that a prime minister could be allowed to swim without being closely watched.
18:52Speculations that Holt may have either taken his own life or faked his own death persist to this day.
18:58And even more sensational, some theories suggest he ran away with his mistress or was actually a Chinese spy.
19:05He had been claimed by the sea he knew and loved.
19:09Number 10. Tommy Wiseau
19:10I did not hit her. It's not true. It's bullshit. I did not hit her. I did not.
19:16Oh, hi, Mark.
19:17The room is just as strange and elusive as the man who created it.
19:22The personal life of Tommy Wiseau is shrouded in mystery, despite his nearly mythical status as a cult movie legend.
19:28Much of what we know about Wiseau comes from Greg Sestero's The Disaster Artist,
19:32but Sestero's information comes directly from Wiseau himself, and many of his claims have not been independently verified.
19:39Furthermore, Wiseau has a penchant for misleading and exaggerating stories,
19:43having given many contradictory accounts about his upbringing.
19:46As it is, Wiseau enjoys his privacy, telling Entertainment Weekly,
19:50quote,
19:51I think private life should be private life.
19:53The professional life should be the professional life.
19:55Get out! Get out! Get out of my life!
19:58Number 9. William Shakespeare
20:00Despite being undoubtedly one of the most well-known and highly regarded literary figures in history,
20:06there are few details of the man's life or work that are actually agreed upon.
20:10Sorry, is this what you do for entertainment nowadays?
20:13Yes, it is, yes.
20:15I think I prefer the theater.
20:16His birthday is celebrated as April 23rd,
20:19but likely only because some 18th century academic wrote it down wrong.
20:23He was probably educated at King's New School in Stratford,
20:27but there are no surviving records to back that up either.
20:30The largest question of them all, of course,
20:32is whether he actually wrote the works that led him to become famous to begin with.
20:36What makes this story so remarkable
20:37is the fact that the time's most celebrated playwright and actor,
20:41a man who must have been the toast of London,
20:43should have been considered a person untraceable.
20:47That is, of course, unless he was.
20:49Number 8. Tank Man
20:50We may not know his name,
20:52but we sure know the images of the supremely brave man
20:55standing in front of and blocking a large column of tanks leaving Tiananmen Square.
20:59It's absolutely extraordinary.
21:02You could look at him as unusually brave,
21:05but he probably wasn't.
21:07He was probably just an ordinary person
21:08who was so disgusted at what he had seen for the last few days.
21:13The day before, the Chinese government,
21:15in their Tiananmen Square massacre,
21:17slaughtered a large number of civilians and political protesters demanding reforms.
21:21Despite some extensive efforts,
21:24no one has been able to identify the Tank Man,
21:26and no one knows what happened to him.
21:28Some claim that he was arrested and executed.
21:31Others claim that nothing happened,
21:33and that he continues to live a quiet life on the Chinese mainland.
21:36We just don't know, and we likely never will.
21:39Number 7. Nikola Tesla
21:41The internet's favorite inventor,
21:43Tesla's expansive list of discoveries and theories,
21:46which includes the Tesla coil and alternating current,
21:49has resulted in a reputation as a mad scientist.
21:52His inventions helped America grow into a powerful industrial nation.
21:57His ideas created billion-dollar corporations.
22:02But Tesla was not a practical man.
22:06Always driven toward the next great breakthrough,
22:08he failed to protect his commercial interests.
22:11And when you discover that he created both a death ray and a supposed earthquake machine,
22:16allegedly experimented with time travel,
22:19and believed he knew how to make a building crumble
22:21if he could just discover the correct pitch through trial and error,
22:25it's not hard to understand why.
22:27Did Tesla, in fact, see into the future?
22:30Seemingly fearless about the potential dangers
22:32his creations may have posed to him and humanity as a whole,
22:35The image of him sitting alone working while electricity crackles around him
22:39has turned the man into an almost mythical figure,
22:42and the loss of many of his notes only increases that.
22:46Number 6. Alistair Crowley
22:48An English occultist, artist, ritual magician, and religious leader
22:52who is a heroic figure of freedom for some,
22:55but was also labeled the wickedest man in the world during his lifetime,
22:58Crowley is a unique figure.
23:00Considered by some a Satanist who was rumored to be a cannibal and murderer of children,
23:04the extreme fashion in which he lived led many to demonize him,
23:09the founder of a religion known as Thelema.
23:11It seems like at one time or another,
23:13every evil deed was attributed to Crowley,
23:16and as a result, the line between what the man did and didn't do
23:19is almost completely blurred.
23:21Crowley ultimately is as magnetic and exciting as he is repellent.
23:27There are aspects of his character which are very difficult to admire or even tolerate.
23:31Number 5. D.B. Cooper
23:33On November 24, 1971,
23:36a man identifying himself as Dan Cooper bought a one-way plane ticket to Washington.
23:41After the flight took off,
23:42the man in question politely told a flight attendant that he had a bomb,
23:46and he proceeded to hijack the flight.
23:48He demanded $200,000,
23:50four parachutes,
23:51and that a refueling truck be waiting for them when they touch down.
23:54The identity of D.B. Cooper has been a mystery since November 24, 1971,
24:00when a man calling himself Dan Cooper
24:02hijacked and threatened to blow up a passenger jet flying from Portland to Seattle.
24:07When his demands were met,
24:08they landed,
24:09and the man allowed all other passengers and non-essential personnel to debark before they took off again.
24:14Once they were back in the air,
24:16all remaining people other than Cooper were placed in the cockpit,
24:19and the calm, polite man presumably jumped from the plane with his ill-gotten gains,
24:24never to be heard from again.
24:26While probability now points to D.B. Cooper's death,
24:29without hard evidence,
24:33many people today still believe that he survived.
24:37Number 4.
24:38The man in the iron mask
24:39The man identified as Eustache Daugé is possibly the most famous prisoner of all time,
24:45purportedly spending 24 hours a day wearing a mask,
24:49sometimes described as velvet,
24:51often categorized as iron.
24:52This inmate spent over three decades imprisoned,
24:55with guards taking many special precautions with his care.
24:58Yet despite his fate,
24:59he was never said to be angry or to complain to his jailers.
25:03There are several theories as to the true identity of the prisoner,
25:06but the most popular calls him out as a relative of the king at the time,
25:10Louis Quetals,
25:11who would have threatened his claim to the throne.
25:13Alexander Dumas' theory is that it was the twin brother of King Louis XIV of France.
25:20And of course, you can't have two kings.
25:23So what better than put one in an iron mask and put him away?
25:27Whatever his true identity,
25:29his life will always be shrouded in mystery.
25:32Number 3.
25:33The Zodiac Killer
25:34The person known as the Zodiac Killer is a serial killer that terrified California
25:39during the late 1960s and early 1970s,
25:42and then stopped his attacks as quickly as they started.
25:45Confirmed to have killed five people and to have injured another two,
25:49the Zodiac claimed another 37 deaths were attributable to him
25:52in letters he sent to newspapers and investigators.
25:55As terrifying as Zodiac's official rap sheet was,
25:58in reality, he may have been even deadlier.
26:01This guy is just a killer, and you have no motive.
26:04In those letters, he gloated about his superiority over those who were looking for him,
26:08and even provided police with a cryptogram that he claimed would provide them with his identity if solved.
26:13When the code was eventually cracked, that was proven false.
26:16But it's those types of theatrics that made it all the more surprising
26:20when the letters and killings stopped unexpectedly.
26:22In 1974, he writes his last letter indicating he has killed 37 people.
26:28The Zodiac Killer has never been found.
26:31Number 2.
26:32Grigory Rasputin
26:33The man known as the Mad Monk was the focus of mystery.
26:37Recognized by many as a central figure in the collapse of the Russian monarchy
26:41and the Romanov dynasty due to his weakening of the Tsar's credibility,
26:44he was said to have mystical powers of healing and prophecy.
26:47Rasputin was instrumental in wiping out the 300-year-old dynasty
26:51and changing the history of Russia forever.
26:55The Russian people felt Rasputin wielded complete control over the entire royal family,
26:59which allowed the population to blame him for their country's ills.
27:03Just like his life, Rasputin's death is also the subject of conjecture,
27:07as some accounts claim that he survived poisoning and being shot in the back and head
27:11before he was finally drowned.
27:13Most historians reject this version of the story,
27:16but it's a great example of the myths that landed Rasputin in the second position on this list.
27:21No one can be sure whether Rasputin was simply a misunderstood peasant
27:25or a devil in the flesh.
27:28Whatever the truth, his image has become a modern icon of evil and darkness.
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27:51Between August 31st and November 9th, 1888,
27:55five sex workers were murdered in the Whitechapel District of London in grisly fashion,
28:00sparking the legend of Jack the Ripper.
28:02The murders shocked the Victorian world with their brutality
28:05and the world's most famous serial killer came into being.
28:10Remarkably similar to the story of the Zodiac,
28:12the Ripper also sent letters to authorities taunting them
28:15and providing them with evidence that could have led to his capture.
28:18In one case, even including what's believed to be part of one of his victims' kidneys.
28:22Despite the combined brainpower of millions of amateur detectives in the years since his crimes,
28:27the closest anyone has come to identifying Jack the Ripper came in 2014,
28:32when one armchair detective claimed DNA evidence identified him as Polish hairdresser Aaron Kosminski.
28:37But the conclusiveness of that test was called into question,
28:41so it's still anyone's guess.
28:43As a consequence, the murders are now turned almost into a street pantomime,
28:49and five sordid East End murders became an international phenomenon,
28:53and the unknown miscreant responsible for those murders was elevated to the realm of legend.
28:58Which of these mysterious people's secrets would you love to learn?
29:01Let us know in the comments.
29:03If I had to tell you who's the Jack the Ripper, that's that man.
29:13Let us know in the comments.
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