Mysteries You Probably Never Heard of Part 5

A rather well known Gorilla named Koko had highly developed sign language skills. That alone is fascinating, but the true curiosity here lies in her final conversations about the concept of death.

Koko was chatting with a woman named Francine Patterson who was her close friend. During the chat Francine shows Koko an image of a skeleton

“Is this alive or dead?” Koko signed, “Dead, draped.” “Draped” means “covered up.”

“Where do animals go when they die?”
Koko said, “A comfortable hole.” Then she gave a kiss goodbye.”

Considering the mind of this intelligent animal and its personal thoughts on death compels me to want to discuss it with her personally. Unfortunately Koko passed away on June 19th 2018. She lived to the age of 46 and takes her wisdom with her. Rest well Koko.

During the Han dynasty in china there was a woman known as "Lady Day" who was the Marquise of Dai. When her body was discovered in a tomb about 2000 years after her death it included documents and other items that helped with uncovering her story.

The mystery comes in the form of a mysterious liquid surrounding her body. Experts theorize that this may have something to do with the state the body was in. It was INCREDIBLY preserved. Eye lashes still intact and blood (Type A) found still in her body. Although she certainly wasn't ready to get up and do a dance it is still a compelling puzzle to contemplate how they managed to keep her body in such great condition!

In October of 2006, Derek Amato made a miscalculation and when diving into a pool suffered a severe concussion. The price he paid was notable hair loss and memory loss, but Derek suddenly found himself seeing reality in a whole new light. Derek is now classified as having Musical Savant Syndrome. He literally became a genius of music composition! When asked to describe the experience he said "As I shut my eyes, I found these black and white structures moving from left to right, which in fact would represent in my mind, a fluid and continuous stream of musical notation." We should see if we can find some of his compositions!

Once upon a time in Strasbourg, Alsace in July of 1518 a woman called Mrs. Troffea began dancing uncontrollably in the streets.In a short time she was joined by 34 other people and eventually spread to 400!

Doctors eventually decided that it wasn't the work of demons or other supernatural influences and agreed to build a stage and encouraged the infected to "dance it out".

Records indicate at one point up to 15 deaths a day from exhaustion or heart attacks! Making this what we at mystcon think of as "The Darkest Stage Show".

To this day there is no conclusive cause or reports of this happening again (that we are aware of) but the newest theories point to Ergot a type of mold that can cause people to hallucinate.

Imagine for a moment the spectacle of this stage in the center of town with hallucinating people dancing to death. The sound of their feet on the wood moving ever closer to their demise with each passing step.

Where is Cleopatra? Did you know that Cleopatra, one of the most iconic characters in history, rests in a tomb that has never been found? While this isn't earth shattering it causes a raised eye brow for sure. To some degree I think we all expected she had been found by now. Perhaps clues can be found in a statement made by Octavian who said that she "should be buried with that of Antony in splendid and regal fashion". Hopefully in our lifetime someone will find this ancient queen and help finish an open ended story of her times on this earth.