The Why Files

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 smells of the universe are not universal. Different objects in space, like comets, planets, moons, gas clouds each have their own distinctive aroma. The sci-fi show The Expanse describes the moon as having a gunpowder stink and it made me wonder how did they come up with that description. Does the moon really smell like gunpowder? Turns out it does.

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. Enjoying fear seems like a contradiction, but horror movies are a billion dollar business. And throw in horror TV, and horror gaming? That's billions more. Halloween spending is about 8 billion a year. And roller coasters? The scarier the ride, the longer the line. So we are definitely fascinated by being afraid. Let's find out why.

The Philadelphia Experiment. 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.

The Aztec Death Whistle. 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. I'm going to play the sound of the Aztec Death Whistle for you today.

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

2022 Predictions: Earthquakes, Asteroids and Zombies? If you believe the predictions of Nostradamus and you enjoyed 2020, you're gonna love 2021.

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."

THE KARDASHEV SCALE. We have no idea what an alien civilization would look like. Humans are evolved primates. What if an alien species is reptilian? Or more like an insect? Or a hybrid of these? Or maybe something completely unique that we couldn't even imagine. There is only one set of universal laws that every species must follow. Physics. Specifically energy.

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.

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.

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 English

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 spaceships to get there. They used psychics.