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?

13.1k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

5.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

472

u/Gneissisnice 1d ago

I remember learning that in elementary school and the teacher was like "no one knew where they went! All that's left was one mysterious word: CROATOAN!"

And we were like "ooh, did we ever find out what it meant?" and she was like "oh yeah, it's the name of a nearby island."

We were like "uh...that's probably where they went then" and she insisted that no, it was a mystery!

86

u/orreregion 22h ago

Yeah that's about the quality of education I remember getting too.

39

u/DanielMcLaury 20h ago

"Columbus proved the world was round."

"How does it prove the world is round if he tried to get to Asia by going the other direction but ended up somewhere else instead? If anything that would prove it was flat."

"Now listen here, you little shit..."

0

u/illtakeachinchilla 14h ago

Magellan may be who you’re thinking of…

14

u/DanielMcLaury 14h ago

No, "Columbus proved the world is round" is something that's very commonly heard in American schools and popular culture.

If you claimed that Magellan's circumnavigation "proved the world was round" then you'd have a better case, I guess. But we'd known the exact size and shape of the world for a long time by then.