Knowledge Quiz

Myth or Fact? The Famous Mysteries Quiz

This quiz puts 18 famous claims to you, all of them believed by millions of people. After each question you'll see the real answer, drawn from agency records and archaeological findings — because the interesting part of these stories isn't the mystery itself, it's why they've lasted so long.

18 questions · General Knowledge

By: Quizzes Team · Updated: September 6, 2026

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Questions Overview

Do disappearances happen more often in the Bermuda Triangle than in other busy areas of the ocean? Yes, noticeably more often · No, not more often · Only during hurricane season The US National Ocean Service (NOAA) puts it plainly: there is no evidence that mysterious disappearances occur with any greater frequency there than in any other large, well-travelled area of the ocean. The "triangle" isn't a statistical anomaly.
Is the "Bermuda Triangle" an official geographic name? Yes, it's marked on nautical charts · No, it isn't officially recognised · Only on US charts According to NOAA, the US Board on Geographic Names does not recognise the name and does not maintain an official file on the area. Its boundaries also shift depending on who's telling the story — in some versions the area doubles in size.
What is the position of the US Navy and Coast Guard? They accept a supernatural factor may be involved · They recognise no supernatural explanation for disasters at sea · They have closed the area to shipping Both recognise no supernatural explanation for disasters at sea. The assessment NOAA quotes runs like this: the combined forces of nature and human fallibility outdo even the most incredulous science fiction.
Where do most Atlantic tropical storms and hurricanes pass? Far away from this area · The majority pass through it · They head only for the Mediterranean The ordinary but decisive fact NOAA points to: the majority of Atlantic tropical storms and hurricanes pass through the area. In the days before reliable forecasting, those storms claimed a great many ships.
What is the real navigational risk created by the many islands of the Caribbean? Magnetic disturbances · Shallow water and narrow passages · Permanent fog The density of islands creates many areas of shallow water, which are treacherous for ships. What mystery-hunters usually skip over is exactly this kind of ordinary maritime risk.
Where was the Mary Celeste, the famous ship found without her crew, actually discovered? In the middle of the Bermuda Triangle · Off the Azores, far outside the triangle · On a Caribbean reef The Mary Celeste was found in 1872 near the Azores — thousands of kilometres outside the area described as the triangle. The story was only later absorbed into it, which is a textbook example of how these legends grow.
What did the US Navy inquiry conclude about Flight 19, lost in 1945? They were destroyed by an unknown force · They lost their bearings and flew until the fuel ran out · They were attacked by a submarine The loss of the five-aircraft training flight is explained by disorientation, bad weather and fuel exhaustion. A search aircraft was also lost, which inflated the legend; that plane most likely exploded in mid-air.
Is the "Devil's Sea" off Japan officially designated as dangerous? Yes, the Japanese authorities declared it so · No, no such official status exists · Yes, but only closed to fishing boats For this area, usually paired with Bermuda in the retellings, there is likewise no official hazard status and no unusual loss statistic. These "twin triangle" stories tend to multiply by being copied from one another.
What is the most supported explanation for the disappearance of Amelia Earhart in 1937? She was captured and held prisoner · The aircraft ran out of fuel and went down at sea · She lived on under a different name The evidence points to the simplest reading: the aircraft failed to find the tiny island it was aiming for, ran low on fuel and came down in the ocean. The capture and secret-identity stories rest on no documentary evidence; the wreck has never been found, which is a different matter entirely.
How were the Nazca Lines made? By removing the dark stones on the surface · By burning the patterns from the air · By natural wind erosion The lines were made by removing the dark surface stones to expose the lighter ground underneath. Comparable figures have been reproduced repeatedly with nothing more than string and stakes; enormous scale does not imply advanced technology.
Do the great statues on Easter Island have bodies? No, they are heads only · Yes, their torsos are buried underground · Bodies were added to some later Excavations showed that the figures long assumed to be "heads" have torsos buried beneath the ground. Centuries of accumulated soil and debris covered them. The island's real puzzle is not the statues themselves but how they were moved and raised.
Did the Druids build Stonehenge? Yes, as their temple · No, it was built long before the Druids · The Druids only hauled the stones Work on Stonehenge began roughly two thousand years before the period in which Druids are known. The Druid connection is an interpretation floated in the seventeenth century and has nothing to do with the monument itself.
What is known about the huge circles in crop fields? Their origin is still entirely unknown · In 1991 two men explained that they had made them · They were proven to be caused by lightning In 1991 two Englishmen explained that they had made the patterns with a plank and a length of rope, and reproduced one in front of journalists. It has since become a craft that artists continue.
What can be said about the most famous photograph of the Loch Ness monster (the "surgeon's photograph")? It was confirmed as authentic · It was admitted to be a hoax · It was proven to be a water bird For this celebrated 1934 image an admission later came that it was a staged hoax, made with a head fixed to a toy submarine. The photograph carried on circulating long after the confession.
How do US Air Force records explain what came down at Roswell in 1947? They accepted it was a spacecraft · It belonged to a classified surveillance balloon programme · No explanation was ever given According to Air Force reports, the debris came from a classified high-altitude balloon programme designed to monitor nuclear tests from a distance. What was being covered up was the programme, not a spacecraft.
Does Area 51 really exist? No, it's entirely invented · Yes, its existence is officially documented · It's only a film set Documents released by the CIA in 2013 officially confirmed the site and its purpose: it was a testing ground for high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft. The secret was aircraft programmes, not aliens.
Can the Great Wall of China be seen from the Moon with the naked eye? Yes, as the only human-made structure · No, it cannot · Only at full moon It cannot. The wall is very long but very narrow, and much the same colour as the ground around it; picking it out from lunar distance with the naked eye is impossible. Astronauts report that even from low orbit it is hard to make out except in favourable conditions.
Who built the Egyptian pyramids? Enslaved captives · An organised and paid workforce · An unknown civilisation The workers' settlement and workers' cemeteries found beside the pyramids point to an organised workforce that was fed regularly, treated when injured and buried with respect. The army-of-slaves story is an invention of much later periods.

Why always the same triangle? The simple counting error behind the mystery

The Bermuda story is the best example there is of how a mystery gets built. The US National Ocean Service sums it up in one sentence: there is no evidence that disappearances there occur any more often than in other large, well-travelled areas of the ocean. The key phrase is "well-travelled". This stretch between Florida, Bermuda and the Caribbean is one of the busiest shipping and flight corridors on earth, and where there is a lot of traffic there are a lot of accidents. On top of that, most Atlantic tropical storms pass straight through it, and the shallow waters between the islands are genuinely treacherous.

Then there's the elasticity of the boundary. The "triangle" isn't a real place: the US Board on Geographic Names doesn't recognise it and keeps no file on it. Because the borders move with the telling, a loss that happened outside can be brought inside when it's needed. The Mary Celeste is the classic case: she was found off the Azores, thousands of kilometres away, and was only later relocated into the story.

"Unexplained" and "not looked into" are not the same thing

The most common line in mystery writing is that science can't explain it. In most of these cases there is an explanation, it's just less interesting than the story: disorientation, bad weather and fuel exhaustion for the flight lost in 1945; two men explaining in 1991 that they had made the crop circles; a later confession of a staged hoax for the famous Loch Ness photograph. Corrections don't make the news because there's nothing in them to pass on. The story stays in circulation; the correction doesn't.

Why "people back then couldn't have done this" is wrong

The Nazca Lines, the Easter Island statues, the pyramids and Göbekli Tepe are all told through the same template: this would take advanced technology, therefore somebody else did it. The record says the opposite. The Nazca Lines were made by removing dark surface stones to expose the lighter ground beneath, and similar figures have been reproduced many times with simple methods. On Easter Island the figures assumed to be "heads" have torsos buried underground. Beside the pyramids sit a workers' settlement and workers' cemeteries, evidence of an organised workforce fed regularly and buried with respect.

There's a side to this template that goes unnoticed: every time it's used, the effort and skill of the people who actually did the building is handed to somebody else.

Four questions for testing a mystery claim

What's the first source? When was the claim made, and by whom? The Bermuda narrative in its current form was shaped by popular books written decades after most of the events.
Are the boundaries fixed? If an area, a period or a definition shifts with the teller, you're looking at a story rather than data.
Is there a comparison? To say "a lot of losses happen here", you need another area with similar traffic to compare it against. That comparison is almost never made.
Has anyone claimed responsibility? As with the crop circles, some mysteries have had their authors step forward years ago and demonstrate the method.

So are there no real mysteries?

There are, but they sit elsewhere. The Voynich manuscript has still not been deciphered. Amelia Earhart's aircraft has never been found. How the Easter Island statues were moved for kilometres is still argued over. The difference is this: in those cases nobody says "science can't explain it, therefore it's supernatural" — there simply isn't enough evidence yet. Unknown and unexplainable are not the same word, and most mystery stories are built in the gap between them.

Note: the explanations in this quiz rest on the institutional and reference sources listed below. If a particular item interests you, you can follow the sources and check it yourself.