Mysteries of The World: Real Life Mysteries: The World's Top Ten Real Life Mysteries Explained

We all love a good mystery, don’t we? And by all, I mean each and every one of us are, or will be, captivated at one time or another by a decent, real-life mystery; either one of the world’s best, or something on a smaller scale such.

But writing a book on just one of these would have been relatively easy. The challenge came from researching lots and lots of them and then condensing them down in a way that I know you, the reader, who continue to pay my wages, enjoy reading. And that is short, sharp informative sections you can read on the train, bus queue or while waiting to pick the kids up after you arrive at school to find them in detention.

In other words, the challenge was to explain the mystery in a way you can enjoy and absorb in about ten minutes. Inevitably some information will be missing, for which I apologize in advance. But the missing information isn’t critical to the basic story; the ‘core’ details of the mystery in question should all be there. In some cases, such as the sections on The Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot and crop circles, there are literally thousands of examples that I could have used of course, but, in each case, i’ve kept it down to just a handful.

And this brings me to an important point. Given that I am a fan of the unknown and the unexplained, I have not set out to be a mystery buster in this volume. Instead I just wanted to tell the story, provide some little-known detail and offer a rational explanation wherever I could. I wanted to provoke a bit of thought and conversation, but leave you to decide the answer for yourselves: does the story remain a mystery, in your view, or have you managed to piece together a theory of your own that you ca then share with your friends. Although, to be fair, I must admit there are some cases where I just couldn’t resist presenting my own ideas and giving full rein to my scepticism, but don’t let that stop you enjoying yourselves.