A photograph captures a single moment by freezing whatever is happening at that instant. Sometimes a photograph captures things that we cannot explain. They could be anomalies or things that didn’t necessarily exist at the time the photograph was taken. They could be pictures of people whom no one could identify and their presence in those photographs is inexplicable. They could also be strange occurrences that no rational person could find an explanation for. So, here are some of those unexplained photographs and the stories, or rather mysteries, behind them.

1 In 1989, a Polaroid photo of an unidentified young woman and a boy, both gagged and bound, was shown on television after it was found in the parking lot of a convenience store. To this day, no one knows who these children are or where the picture was taken. 

On July 15, 1989, a woman found the photo in a parking space where a white Toyota cargo van was parked when she arrived at the store in Port St. Joe, Florida, driven by a man with a mustache in his late 30s. After the photo was shown on television, one woman came forward saying she was “convinced” the young woman is Tara Calico, her daughter, who disappeared on September 20, 1988. Another woman also came forward saying that she was “almost certain” it was her son Michael Henley. The Polaroid officials who examined the photograph said that it was taken after May 1989 since the film used was not available until then.

It was believed to be unlikely that the boy in the photo was Henley as his remains were discovered in the Zuni Mountains seven miles off his family’s campsite in June 1990. The identity of the woman was also inconclusive. While Tara Calico’s mother and Scotland Yard were convinced it was Tara Calico, analyses by Los Alamos National Laboratory and the FBI were inconclusive. A six-person task force was assigned to re-investigate Calico’s disappearance in October 2013, but no arrests have been made to date.(source)

2 This 1998 NASA photo shows an unidentified object that many conspiracy theorists believe to be a “Black Knight satellite,” a spacecraft in polar orbit around the Earth since the 1960s having technology neither Russians nor Americans were capable of at that time. 

The first instance of this rumor happened when, in 1954, UFO researcher Donald Keyhoe told the newspapers that the US Air Force reported that two satellites orbiting Earth were detected. This was, however, considered tongue-in-cheek as Keyhoe was promoting a UFO book he wrote at that time. In 1960, TIME reported that the US Navy detected a dark object which later turned out to be just “…the remains of an Air Force Discoverer VIII satellite that had gone astray.”

In 1963, astronaut Gordon Cooper supposedly reported a UFO sighting while in orbit on Mercury 9 which was also confirmed by a tracking station, though there is no evidence of it. Scottish author Duncan Lunan in 1973, suggested that the long-delayed radio echoes heard by amateur radio operator Jorgen Hals of Norway and others in the 1920s could possibly originate from a 13,000-year-old alien space probe. Regarding the 1998 photo, NASA stated that it was most likely space debris, maybe a thermal blanket lost in previous missions.(source)

3 Since the 1930s, Norwegians have witnessed nocturnal lights known as “Hessdalen lights” that appear out of nowhere and seemingly for no particular reason.

In the village of Hessdalen Valley, unusual lights have been reported since at least the 1930s. They are of unknown origin, appear at day and night, above or below the horizon, in either bright yellow, white, or red colors, and seem to float through and above the valley. They last anywhere from a few seconds to over an hour. They sometimes move at great speeds and at other times just sway back and forth slowly. According to a hypothesis, it could be a result of ionized iron dust from nearby mines, or the ionization of air and dust by alpha particles during radon decay.(1, 2)

4 In 2000, an anonymous woman mailed two photographs to the police of what she believed to be an escaped orangutan in her backyard. The animal was never caught or identified through such pictures became popular among Bigfoot enthusiasts as “skunk ape” photos.

The anonymous woman mailed the two photographs to the Sheriff’s Department of Sarasota County, Florida, along with a letter in which she complained that the animal entered her backyard on three different nights and stole apples. The “skunk ape,” also known as the “swamp cabbage man,” “stink ape,” “Florida Bigfoot,” or “Myakka skunk ape” is said to be a Hominid cryptid believed to be found in Florida, North Carolina, and Arkansas. It is claimed that its appearance is accompanied by a very unpleasant odor. Before 2000, reports of sightings were quite common in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1974, a sighting of large, foul-smelling, hairy creature walking on two legs was reported in the suburbs of Dade County, Florida. The United States National Park Service considers “skunk ape” to be a hoax.(source)

5 During the assassination of John F. Kennedy, a woman was observed who might have photographed the events that occurred when the President was shot. However, she has never been identified and none of the pictures she took ever surfaced. 

In 1963, an unidentified woman wearing a headscarf similar to that worn by Russian women, giving her the nickname “Babushka Lady,” was seen in various films and photographs taken at that time. She is seen to be holding a camera and standing on the grass between Elm and Main streets. After the assassination, she was seen crossing Elm Street. None of any photographs or films taken clearly captured her face because she was either facing away from the camera or had her face obscured by her own camera. So, neither she nor the photographs she had taken that day were ever found.(source)