The Unsolved Mysteries Coming From The 1970s

Many people recall the 1970s as a “simpler time,” when children were free to roam around and hitchhiking was viewed as harmless. Platform shoes, perms, and major social and political upheaval characterized the decade. The Watergate crisis rocked American politics, the Vietnam War continued, and marginalized groups fought for civil rights. The globe was still split between capitalism and communism, but by the end of the decade, there were fewer concerns about a communist takeover.

The 1970s were anything from straightforward, though. Curiosity in alien visits increased, the Satanic Panic spread, and serial killers plagued local communities. Amid all this turmoil, the decade produced some of the most perplexing mysteries in history—mysterious riddles that still fascinate and perplex us today.

D.B. Cooper

Surprisingly, hijackings were frequent in the early days of aviation. According to Vox, there were more than 130 hijackings in the United States between 1968 and 1972. Of these, the instance of “D.B. The only unsolved airline hijacking in America is Cooper.

An FBI-described man in his mid-forties boarded a plane from Portland, Oregon, to Seattle, Washington, in 1971. He discreetly sent a flight attendant a note requesting $200,000 in cash and four parachutes, claiming to have a bomb in his briefcase. The passengers were freed after the jet touched down in Seattle, and Cooper was given his parachutes and ransom.

Cooper was never seen again after he got out of the plane with the money during the subsequent flight to Mexico City. His destiny is still unknown after years of research. A child by a river in 1980 recovered $6,000 of the ransom. In 2011, the FBI discovered a possible suspect, however the individual had passed away years prior. Cooper probably died a long time ago, but his story is still fascinating.

Jeannette DePalma

When a teenage girl named Jeannette DePalma disappeared in 1972, panic broke out in a sleepy New Jersey suburb. Death on the Devil’s Teeth authors Jesse P. Pollack and Mark Moran claim that the 16-year-old never came back after leaving home to hitchhike to a friend’s place.

Rumors of Satanic rituals were stoked when her decomposing body was found six weeks later in the woods on a cliff known locally as “the Devil’s Teeth.” According to the New York Post, her body was encircled by crosses and logs placed like a coffin. Despite not finding any narcotics in her system, investigators noticed signs that she might have been strangled.

Weird NJ editors looked into the issue again in 1997, but police said that all the evidence had been destroyed by Hurricane Floyd in 1999. They rejected occult explanations after gaining access to the remaining files in 2021. Richard Cottingham, a serial killer, made remarks that Pollack disclosed in 2022 that suggested he might have killed DePalma. But no charges have been brought.

Jimmy Hoffa

One of the most notorious cold cases in American history is the 1975 disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa. Hoffa was a prominent person who served as president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters for a long time, but his ties to organized crime made him controversial (via Britannica). His connections to the Mafia stoked rumors regarding his whereabouts.

According to The New York Times, on July 30, 1975, Hoffa met New Jersey Mafia chief Anthony Provenzano at the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Michigan. No one ever saw him again.

Theories concerning Hoffa’s death have varied over time, from ludicrous to believable. The 2019 movie The Irishman tells the narrative of how some people think Frank Sheeran, a mob member, killed him, while others think federal officials kidnapped him and threw him into Lake Michigan. According to another theory, he was buried in Michigan beneath a swimming pool.

According to The New York Times, the most recent and credible idea is that Provenzano had Hoffa executed, put him in a steel drum, and buried him in a dump in New Jersey. Following a tip from a former employee, the FBI looked into the location in 2021 but discovered no evidence.

The Oakland County Child Killer

At least four children were kidnapped and murdered by an unidentified murderer in the Oakland County, Michigan, area between 1976 and 1977. Mark Stebbins, Jill Robinson, Kristine Mihelich, and Timothy King were identified as the victims.

According to Tommy McIntyre’s book “Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing: The Search for a Child Killer,” the children shared three important characteristics: they were all between the ages of 10 and 12, they all resided in wealthy Oakland County areas, and it was shown that the same person killed them.

According to ClickOn Detroit, the killer had suffocated every victim (save Robinson, who was shot in the head) and would leave their bodies on the streets, staged with their clothing washed. Along with noting that all of the youngsters had been fed and cared for while in captivity, investigators also found that both boys had experienced sexual assault before passing away.

The Wow! Signal

The likelihood of intelligent life beyond Earth is a belief shared by millions of individuals. One astronomer could have discovered a hint in 1977. referred to as the “Wow!” The Big Ear radio telescope, which was devoted to SETI, the hunt for extraterrestrial intelligence, picked up this enigmatic communication.

Astronomer Jerry Ehman noticed the code “6EQUJ5” while going over computer printouts. This code indicates a strong, narrowband signal coming from the area of the Sagittarius constellation (via Astronomy.com). Ehman was shocked by the odd sequence and wrote, “Wow!” in the margin. After 72 seconds, the signal was never picked up again (via Bigear.org).

Decades of conjecture followed when astronomers were unable to locate the source of the signal despite intensive searches. According to astronomer Antonio Paris’ theory, it might have been brought on by a passing comet (Live Science). Some speculate that it might have been an abnormal fast radio burst (FRB) or a malfunction in Big Ear’s equipment. Even now, the “Wow! signal is still a fascinating enigma.

The Mysterious Circleville Letters

The Circleville letters, which first surfaced in the 1970s, only had a Columbus, Ohio postmark and no return address. Gizmodo claims the letters were filled with frightening charges and threats, saying the writer was aware of the recipients’ every action and would reveal their secrets if they didn’t comply. According to CBS, the letters abruptly ceased in 1994 following Paul Freshour’s release from prison. The culprit was never identified by the authorities.

One letter from 1977 accused Gordon Massie, the school administrator, and Mary Gillispie, the school bus driver, of having an affair. Ron, Mary’s husband, was threatened with death if he didn’t put an end to it. Ron, who had been harassed for months, tackled the problem with a gun but was discovered dead in his car after it collided with a tree. At first, police determined that the collision was caused by alcohol (via Gizmodo).

Mary barely escaped a booby trap in 1983. A crate with a loaded rifle was used to rig a sign along her bus route (CBS News). Mary’s ex-brother-in-law, Paul Freshour, had an alibi but was unfairly convicted. The letters continued to circulate in the interim, and the offender remained unknown.

Charles C. Morgan’s Death

A successful escrow agent and loving family guy, Charles C. Morgan was discovered dead in Tucson, Arizona, in 1977 under suspicious circumstances. When Morgan arrived home a few days later, wounded and under the influence of drugs, his initial disappearance in March sparked suspicion. He disclosed to Ruth, his wife, that he had been doing covert work for the United States. Treasury on a case with at least one mafia member (Unsolved Mysteries) for two years.

After two months, Morgan vanished once more. His body, still in his bulletproof vest, was found 40 miles from Tucson, close to his car. No fingerprints were discovered on the handgun that had been used to shoot him in the back of the head (Tucson.com). “Chuck is all right. Ecclesiastes 12, 1 through 8,” a strange woman said over the phone to the Morgan home just days before his death was discovered, before hanging up. She later claimed to be one of Morgan’s associates and informed authorities that he had intended to reimburse a mob-hired hitman (Unsolved.com).

Morgan’s underpants was fastened with an odd piece of evidence: a $2 bill featuring names in Spanish and a map of the Arizona-Mexico border. His death was determined to be a suicide despite the strange details. Subsequently, journalist Don Devereux discovered that the FBI had no documentation of ever collaborating with Morgan.

Frederick Valentich

Twenty-year-old Australian Frederick Valentich vanished inexplicably in 1978 while flying over the Bass Strait in his rented Cessna 182L. Valentich was heading to King Island for a dinner date when he told air traffic controllers that an unknown flying object was pursuing him. He said the thing hovered over him and was sometimes stationary, according to Plane and Pilot Magazine. The last transmission he made was concerning engine roughness, which he stated around an hour into the flight.

A thorough search was conducted, but no wreckage, airplane, or corpse was ever located. According to the Herald Sun, the Department of Transportation’s investigation took into account several scenarios, such as the involvement of UFOs, spatial disorientation, a potential hoax, or a crash in which the aircraft was not retrieved.

In the past, Valentich had said he believed in alien sightings. He had gotten information regarding UFOs from the Royal Australian Air Force months prior, and he had told his partner about a UFO kidnapping a week before the flight. A more plausible theory, though, is that Valentich, a new pilot with only 150 flight hours, lost his bearings or inadvertently flipped the aircraft, which resulted in a fuel failure (Plane and Pilot Magazine).

The Val Johnson UFO Encounter

Minnesota Deputy Sheriff Val Johnson reported having an unusual encounter with a UFO in 1979. He claimed that a dazzling beam of light surrounded his squad car as he was traveling at night down a pitch-black country road. The Star Tribune claims that Johnson recalls going unconscious for roughly forty minutes before waking up with his squad car wrecked, his face burned, and a bruise on his forehead. The antennas were bent, one of the flashers had a hole in it, and the windshield was broken. Surprisingly, the car’s clock and his watch both stopped for about fourteen minutes. Johnson described the unidentified object that assaulted his car in his description of the occurrence.

According to MinnPost, the inquiry revealed that no planes were supposed to be in the vicinity at the time. After testing Johnson’s car, experts from Honeywell and the Center for UFO Studies concluded that some kind of electrical force was responsible for the damage. Nevertheless, the matter was eventually dismissed by the Marshall County Sheriff’s Office without drawing any findings. Visitors to Warren, Minnesota, can now view the case files about the enigmatic incident as well as Johnson’s wrecked patrol cruiser.

The Vela satellite controversy

Twelve unmanned surveillance satellites called the Velas were created to track the amount of radiation in the Earth’s atmosphere (Britannica). The enigmatic twin light that these satellites saw in the South Atlantic on September 22, 1979, was soon cloaked in secrecy because of the possible geopolitical ramifications. Authorities suspected South Africa and Israel of being involved, according to the National Security Archive. Should this turn out to be accurate, Israel would have violated the peace agreement that President Jimmy Carter mediated between Egypt and Israel. It was generally assumed that information about the incident was concealed by the U.S. government.

A team of specialists convened in November 1979 to look into the flash, but they were unable to pinpoint a specific cause. According to the National Security Archive, they speculated that it might have been a straightforward equipment malfunction or even a “reflection of sunlight from a small meteoroid or a piece of space debris” that was passing close to the satellite. Although no nation was identified as the cause, declassified papers that were later made public (Politico) indicated that the flashes might have been a low-level nuclear test.

The Zodiac Killer

The public was stunned by the Zodiac Killer’s string of killings from 1968 to 1969, which were made even more horrifying by the mysterious letters he sent to the media disclosing specifics of his atrocities (Wired). These letters, which were full of rants, threats, and hints, created an interest that still exists today. Among them were encrypted ciphers, one of which might have revealed Zodiac’s identity because it contained his name. At this point, he solidified his reputation and attracted a cult of amateur investigators who were keen to decipher his messages.

According to ZodiacKiller.com, Zodiac persisted in using cryptic messages to mock the public and law enforcement into the early 1970s. But his last letter, which threatened to assassinate four celebrities, including Black Panther member Eldridge Cleaver, was addressed to Channel 9 in Los Angeles in May 1978. Zodiac kept quiet after that.

The infamous “cipher 340,” which was subsequently verified by the FBI, was decrypted in 2020 by a team of amateur investigators. The mail contained a terrifying note that read, “I am not afraid of the gas chamber… because I now have enough slaves to work for me…” Even though the killings ceased, the FBI is still looking into the identity of the murderer.