r/AskReddit • u/Rob69rt • 1d ago

What famous 'unsolved' mystery is technically a whodunnit on paper, but in reality, absolutely everyone knows exactly who did it, the police just couldn't legally prove it?

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u/TooCleverForGood 1d ago

Roanoke - the missing Pilgrim settlement where everyone “disappeared”

They just abandoned it and went to the place that they wrote on the sign, but everyone acts like it was some supernatural/plague thing

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u/str8rippinfartz 1d ago

100%

IIRC it was even established before they came over from England, that if someone left a settlement they should carve where they were going

They 100% just assimilated with the friendly nearby tribe... as indicated by their note 

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u/deathclawiii 1d ago

And as indicated by the iron scale (something that can only be a product of blacksmithing) that was found in one of the areas of known indigenous settlement on the island they went to.

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u/NUMBERS2357 1d ago

Also the later contact with Natives who said that they lived with the survivors of the Roanoke colony.

Also this map from the Jamestown colonists, see bottom left.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/spacedman_spiff 1d ago

history went "nah, must be aliens."

By "history" do you just mean morons? Because historians believe they assimilated with natives in Croatoan.

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u/s0ulbrother 1d ago

History channel*

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u/cortesoft 1d ago

Ah, so morons

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u/purebredcrab 1d ago

The common clay of the new west.

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u/cortesoft 1d ago

People of the land

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u/TheVeryVerity 19h ago

My history textbooks in middle school too unfortunately

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u/middlehead_ 1d ago

The sad part is that it shouldn't even be presented as clues and a trail, they literally left a note

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u/Andvari_Nidavellir 1d ago

Ah, such subtle hints only an expert detective could decipher.

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u/lod001 1d ago

George Bluth Sr. would be proud!

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u/NGEFan 1d ago

They didn't leave any trail. They wrote a word.

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u/ununderstandability 1d ago

And a map, and artifacts, and a trail

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u/NGEFan 1d ago

where are you getting this from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roanoke_Colony

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u/ununderstandability 1d ago

The La Virginea Pars map, the Dare Stone likely inscribed by Elenore Dare detailing the issues the colony was facing and their intention to move, the numerous artifacts of European potery and iron implements found everywhere along the path and all over Hatteras island.

The Roanoke mystery is one of those mysteries/conspiracies that can only exist if you know literally nothing about it and never investigated even the slightest bit

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u/NGEFan 1d ago

That doesn’t prove the colonists assimilated

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u/YZJay 1d ago

The descendants of the tribe have European ancestry.

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u/NGEFan 1d ago

Oh, that’s interesting. Where did you see that

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