Dark Mysteries

 Faces in the Floor! In 1971, some mysterious marks appeared on the floor of a house in Belmez, Spain. They looked just like faces. Over the next few years, the faces would disappear and then come back. Weird! Were they the faces of long-dead people who had lived in the house – or fakes? #Mystery

 When a genuine Norse coin dating to the early 11th century was found among Native American ruins in Maine in 1957, it seemed to offer an intriguing piece of evidence that Vikings did indeed travel further south than Newfoundland long before the time of Christopher Columbus. And it could be so – but experts have their doubts. The fact that the ‘Maine Penny‘ was the only Norse artifact found at the site seems to indicate that it came to the site through native trade channels from Viking sources in Labrador and Newfoundland.

 

 Hooker's lips, scientifically known as Psychotria elata, is a tropical plant native to rainforests in Costa Rica, Ecuador and other Central and South American countries. The most eye-catching part of the plant is its beautiful pair of red bracts that look like "luscious lips," from where the plant acquires its common name. Its gorgeous and distinctive shape helps the plant attract pollinators such as hummingbirds and butterflies. The flower of the plant is not as notable as its bracts, which is white and fragrant and usually emerges from the center of the "red hot" bracts between December and March. People in Central America gift the plant to their family and friends to show their love, especially on Valentine's day. Its bark and leaves are also used by locals to treat several diseases including skin irritation. 

Millions of circular patches dot the desert landscape in the African country of Namibia. These eerie ovals of soil surrounded by rings of grass are known as “fairy circles” because their defined shape and pattern look as if they've been created by small spritely creatures. They can range in size from about 12 feet to about 114 feet. While scientists have many theories, including creepy crawlies like sand termites, recent research seems to indicate that the pattern is created via plants competing for scarce water.

 The Knights of the Golden Circle, or KGC for short, were a secret society of wealthy Southern loyalists formed just before the Civil War, devoted not just to defending their values (i.e. owning all the slaves they wanted) but conquering parts of Mexico, Central America, and Cuba to create a Confederate empire. Their members had an abundance of gold and weapons, and purportedly some infamous members, including Jesse James (whose robberies may have contributed to the KGC secret stash) and John Wilkes Boot In fact, the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln may have been a KGC plot from the beginning, at least according to word-of-mouth legends. The KGC disappeared just a few decades after the war ended, or so it appeared, leaving behind one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of the world. There's still speculation that they just went deeper into hiding, and continue their plots to overthrow the US federal government.