4 Fascinating Unexplained Car Mysteries
Life is full of unexplained phenomena, and that certainly applies to automobiles. Though these man-made machines operate by the laws of physics, they can sometimes defy science and leave everyone scratching their heads. Put on your conspiracy hat and check out these fascinating unexplained car mysteries.
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Toynbee tile in Philadelphia
Photo: Wikimedia Commons vs CC
Toybnee tiles
How did these license plate-sized tiles covered in gibberish phrases appear overnight embedded in highly trafficked asphalt roads? In the 1990s and 2000s, “Toynbee tiles” — named after the first word on many of the plaques — appeared in many cities across the eastern United States.
No one knows what they meant or how they were seemingly instantly embedded in the concrete without anyone seeing. Many people have theories about their origins and meaning, but nothing has been confirmed.
Levitating car accident
Low-res dashboard and security cameras have produced many bizarre clips of inexplicable things happening on the road, like ghostly faces in windshields and cars appearing out of nowhere.
One of the most famous unexplained dashcam footages is from a security camera in China in which multiple vans at an intersection suddenly lift off the ground and bounce through the air. The official explanation is that the vehicles became caught on a cable entangled in a nearby street sweeper, but many people are skeptical of reason’s plausibility given certain details in the footage.
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Replica of James Dean’s 1955 Porsche 550 Spyder, nicknamed “Little Bastard”
Photo: Brad Hammonds
James Dean’s Little Bastard
If you believe that cars can be cursed, then James Dean’s Porsche 550 Spyder would be evidence of that.
The car’s baffling reputation goes beyond being the vehicle in which James Dean died. George Barris bought the wrecked remains and sold parts of it, but everyone who came in contact with the scrapped parts got into wrecks shortly after. He eventually sold the Porsche for a display at a traffic safety exhibit in California, but the exhibit mysteriously erupted in flames. The car survived the inferno and had been en route to another exhibit when the Porsche rolled off the trailer and killed the driver. It was sent back to Barris but never returned to his house, and no one knows where it went.
Vanishing into thin air
Cars just don’t appear and disappear out of nowhere … or do they? Thanks to the internet, many people have reported personal stories of seeing vehicles vanish in the blink of an eye. While it’s possible that sometimes this happens when a car suddenly turns out of sight, many of these cases don’t have a clear explanation. How can a whole vehicle disappear when there’s nowhere for it to hide?
Sources: Jalopnik, Atlas Obscura, Unexplained Mysteries
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