100 of the World's Greatest Mysteries: Strange Secrets of the past Revealed; E. Randall Floyd
Written: Apr 17 '06 (Updated Apr 17 '06)
Product Rating:
Pros: very interesting, 100 great stories, hard to put down, easy read and packed with information
Cons: none
The Bottom Line: This is an intriguing and information source of stories about 100 of the world's greatest mysteries. This is a highly recommended read.
three_ster's Full Review: E. Randall Floyd - 100 Of the World's Greatest Mys...
I am big into mysteries that haven't been solved, or moments in history that haven't quite been explained. When it was on television I always watched Unsolved Mysteries, and years later, I now have a keen interest in reading theories of the unexplained. Things that cannot be explained surround our everyday life, and this book sheds light on what the author felt were 100 of the strangest and oddest mysteries of them all. 100 of the World's Greatest Mysteries, was an attempt by author E. Randall Floyd to show some of the best mysteries in the history of the world. Nothing was in a subject that couldn't be breached here, and Floyd does a great job of combining both those mysteries from our ancient past, with some current ones that defy explanation. Sometimes the mysteries have many theories as to why they have occurred, but at other times, some of them are so far out there, that no rational explanation can be found for why something has happened. With 100 different mysteries enclosed in this one book, it is a wonder that I hadn't heard about it until very recently. It was actually just by chance that I even found the book.
Walking into Barns and Noble, I was glancing around at some of the books about oddities and mysteries, and saw a copy of 100 of the World's Greatest Mysteries: Strange Secrets of the past Revealed facing forward with an easily read title. It grabbed my attention, and there was nothing I could do but grab a copy. I turned out to be a very wise decision, because enclosed in the book were many mysteries that I had some knowledge of prior to reading, but there were others, which were truly shocking in their presentation and this readers interpretation. I know by this point of my review you must be extremely curious about what all of those mysteries were, but I don't want to give too many of them away in my review of this book. I will touch on a few just to pique the interest of those reading my review though. Flipping open the book, you find some of the sections that the book is split into. The chapters are arranged according to subject matter, and include: General Mysteries, Unexplained Phenomena, Curiosities and wonders, and History. This is a smart thing to do, because you may want to read a particular section and not want to have to go through all of the stories to find the next interesting one in your topic.
One of the first mysteries covered is what happened to the dinosaurs. Several theories are talked about, and the topic is well covered, but in the end, you are left to wonder for yourself which one of these theories is actually the truth. With something like this taking place far before we have any kind of records (other than fossils), it's hard to argue against someone else's theories on the mystery. With some of the others though, it can boil down to a debate based on the facts presented. For instance, one of my favorites in the book involves Dan Cooper (better known as D.B. Cooper), who hijacked a passenger plane a little over 20 years ago. Demanding a ransom that was paid when the plane landed, he had them take off again, only to jump out of the jet over the Washington/Oregon border while going faster than 200 miles per hour. That was the last anyone had heard about him, or the $200,000 in cash that he jumped out with. Theories would surface that he perished, and others would come forward years later claiming that they knew him, but of course the truth about what really happened to Cooper is a mystery that might never be solved.
It is stories like these that make the book so interesting, and once you start reading into it, it is a really hard one to put down. One of the mysteries that I found the most intriguing were the stories of things falling from the sky. They have documented stories of it raining snakes in Ireland for more than 5 minutes, which to the rest of us, doesn't seem to ring very true. With witness accounts, and a trustworthy source as the main storyteller, it seems like something must have happened, but to any sane person, it is hard to fathom how this could have occurred. It is stories like these that make you stop and think for a minute and wonder if there are weird things going on that just can never be explained. The book contains 100 stories that are of varying degrees of interest to me, but on the whole this compilation of 100 of the world's mysteries really came out a winner in my opinion. This is one of those books that can be extremely fun and interesting to read, and could appeal to just about anyone. The best thing though, is that you could come away with many stories that you could impress your friends with. 100 Of the World's Greatest Mysteries is a book that I highly recommend purchasing, because it presents many great mysteries and theories, but lets the reader decide for themselves what they choose to believe has really happened.
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