Unsolved Mysteries
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91 free Unsolved Mysteries trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
10 free unsolved mysteries trivia questions with answers. Think you know about the world's greatest unsolved mysteries? Test your knowledge with our engaging 91-question trivia quiz covering famous disappearances, unexplained phenomena, and historical enigmas. From the Bermuda Triangle to the Voynich Manuscript, discover how much you really know about these captivating unsolved cases.
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Q 01Which network launched 'Unsolved Mysteries' as a weekly series on October 5, 1988?
NBC
NBC turned a run of hit specials into the weekly series and kept it for nine seasons, until CBS picked the show up in 1997.
Q 02Which trench-coated host narrated Unsolved Mysteries for eleven seasons on network television?
Robert Stack
Robert Stack fronted four specials and eleven seasons and stayed with the show until 2002, the year before he died; two other actors had fronted the first three specials before he took over.
Q 03What element does the Netflix revival of 'Unsolved Mysteries' notably drop from previous iterations?
A host or narrator
A host or narrator: the Netflix episodes play as documentaries with no presenter, though the longtime host's silhouette still appears in the opening credits as a tribute.
Q 04Which actor hosted the very first 'Unsolved Mysteries' special in January 1987?
Raymond Burr
Raymond Burr, TV's Perry Mason, fronted only the pilot special; another actor took the next two before the show settled on its permanent host.
Q 05Unsolved Mysteries correspondent Keely Shaye Smith later married which James Bond actor?
Pierce Brosnan
Pierce Brosnan met Keely Shaye Smith on a beach in Mexico in 1994; she presented the show's case updates in the mid-1990s, and the two married at an abbey in Ireland in 2001.
Q 06Unsolved Mysteries' longtime host won an Emmy playing which real-life lawman on TV?
Eliot Ness
Eliot Ness: the host won a 1960 Emmy as the Prohibition agent in The Untouchables, then mocked that stern image in later comedies such as Airplane!
Q 07After CBS cancelled it in 1999, which cable channel picked up Unsolved Mysteries with new episodes in 2001?
Lifetime
Lifetime aired new episodes in 2001 and 2002, the last made with the longtime host, who died in 2003; in 2008 another cable channel repackaged the old segments with a new presenter.
Q 08Which actor took over as host of 'Unsolved Mysteries' during its revival on Spike TV from 2008 to 2010?
Dennis Farina
Dennis Farina, a police detective for 18 years before he turned actor, hosted the Spike run, which mostly repackaged the original segments around his narration.
Q 09Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers vanished in June 1962 after escaping which prison?
Alcatraz
Alcatraz: the three left dummy heads in their bunks and launched a raft made from about 50 raincoats; no bodies were ever found, and US Marshals kept the case open for decades.
Q 10What did parents write to Unsolved Mysteries asking to have changed because it terrified their children?
The theme music
The theme music: composer Gary Malkin recalled parents begging for a new tune because their children were terrified of it, and a producer said kids would run from the room when it began.
Q 11How much ransom did hijacker D. B. Cooper demand in 1971 before parachuting from a Boeing 727?
$200,000
$200,000: Cooper demanded $200,000 in cash plus four parachutes, then jumped from the Boeing 727 over southwest Washington; he had bought his ticket as Dan Cooper, and a press error produced 'D. B.'
Q 12Who cracked the Zodiac Killer's first cipher in August 1969?
A married couple
A married couple, Donald and Bettye Harden of Salinas, solved it within about a week; both were amateurs, and she broke in by guessing that the message would contain the word 'kill'.
Q 13The undeciphered Voynich manuscript has been held since 1969 by which university's rare book library?
Yale
Q 21Which crime novelist vanished in December 1926 and was found days later at a Harrogate hotel?
Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie's abandoned car set off a huge police search; she turned up at a spa hotel where she had registered under the surname of her husband's mistress.
Q 22Three lighthouse keepers vanished in December 1900 from which Scottish isles?
The Flannan Isles
The Flannan Isles: the relief ship arrived on December 26, 1900, to find all three keepers gone; one set of oilskins was still indoors, suggesting its owner had rushed out without it.
Q 23How did the thieves who stole 13 works from Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990 get inside?
Posing as police officers
Yale: its Beinecke Library was given the book by dealer Hans Kraus, who had bought it in 1961; carbon dating puts the vellum in the early 1400s, yet its script has never been convincingly read.
Q 14The Mary Celeste was found deserted but seaworthy off the Azores in 1872 by which Canadian ship?
Dei Gratia
Dei Gratia, under Captain David Morehouse, came upon her adrift; his crew sailed the empty ship to Gibraltar to claim salvage, and the hearings there never explained what had happened.
Q 15Who governed the 'Lost Colony' of Roanoke when it was settled in 1587?
John White
John White sailed home for supplies in 1587 and could not get back until 1590, when he found the settlers gone and the word 'CROATOAN' carved on a post.
Q 16How many Soviet ski hikers died in the 1959 Dyatlov Pass incident in the Ural Mountains?
Nine
Nine: all nine hikers died after cutting their way out of the tent in February 1959 and fleeing into the cold; six succumbed to hypothermia and three to severe injuries.
Q 17Which university's Big Ear radio telescope picked up the 1977 'Wow!' signal?
Ohio State
Ohio State: its Big Ear radio telescope recorded the signal on August 15, 1977, and astronomer Jerry Ehman circled the reading '6EQUJ5' on the printout, writing 'Wow!' beside it.
Q 18From which constellation did the Wow! signal appear to come?
Sagittarius
Sagittarius: the signal lasted the full 72 seconds that Big Ear could watch one point of sky, and years of repeat searches of the same patch never picked it up again.
Q 19Jimmy Hoffa, who vanished in 1975, had led which US labour union from 1957 to 1971?
The Teamsters
The Teamsters became America's largest union under Hoffa, who was jailed for jury tampering; he vanished in 1975 while trying to win back control and was declared dead in 1982.
Q 20The 'Somerton Man' case takes its other name from the Persian phrase 'tamám shud', torn from which book?
The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám
The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám: the scrap, meaning 'it is finished', lay in a hidden fob pocket; police later traced the very copy, found in the back of a stranger's parked car, with what looked like a code written inside.
Posing as police officers: two men in uniform talked their way in on March 18, 1990, handcuffed the two guards in the basement, and spent 81 minutes removing 13 works.
Q 24What reward did the Gardner Museum set in 2017 for the return of its stolen art?
$10 million
$10 million: in 2017 the museum doubled its standing reward to $10 million for information leading to the recovery of all 13 works, which include Vermeer's The Concert and Rembrandt's only seascape.
Q 25Jim Sanborn's cipher sculpture Kryptos stands at which US agency's headquarters?
The CIA
The CIA: Jim Sanborn's Kryptos, dedicated at CIA headquarters in 1990, carries four coded passages; a CIA analyst cracked three with pencil and paper in 1998, a year before a computer scientist published the same answers.
Q 26The Beale ciphers supposedly locate a treasure buried around 1820 in Bedford County, in which US state?
Virginia
Virginia: the 1885 pamphlet places the treasure near Bufords in Bedford County, Virginia; only the second of the three ciphertexts, keyed to the Declaration of Independence, has ever been decoded.
Q 27Oak Island and its 'Money Pit' lie off which Canadian province?
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia: the story goes that a teenager found the pit in 1795; two centuries of digging since have cost six lives and millions of dollars without turning up a treasure.
Q 28Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanished in March 2014 en route from Kuala Lumpur to where?
Beijing
Beijing: the Boeing 777 left Kuala Lumpur for Beijing on March 8, 2014, with 239 people aboard; military radar tracked it turning west across the Malay Peninsula after it vanished from civilian screens.
Q 29In 1980 a boy found part of D. B. Cooper's ransom money buried on the banks of which river?
The Columbia
The Columbia: eight-year-old Brian Ingram, clearing sand for a campfire in February 1980, dug up three rotting bundles of $20 bills whose serial numbers matched the ransom.
Q 30The name 'Jack the Ripper' originated in which missive sent to the press in 1888?
The 'Dear Boss' letter
The 'Dear Boss' letter reached the Central News Agency in September 1888 signed 'Jack the Ripper'; police officials came to suspect that a journalist had written it to keep the story selling.