5 Historical Mysteries That Had Painfully Dumb Explanations

Galen is seen as one of the first proper scientists -- but with an emphasis on "first." Because while he was a pioneer of many medical methodologies, like anatomy and pharmacology, he was also very much a guy taking a lot of wild stabs in the dark (a quality you really don't want in a surgeon). And one of those stabs was this scroll, in which Galen wrote down his theory of "hysterical apnea" -- a condition whereby women's uteri suffocate if they don't receive enough fluids. In other words, if they don't get regular visits from the bone train, their junk literally gets so thirsty that they die of dehydration. Not a great contribution to science, though historians are still debating its value as a Greco-Roman pickup line.

The researchers referred to the communications system as "fast repetitive ticks," or FRTs, and these FRTs just happened to sound exactly like the whoosh of a submarine. The discovery cleared the Russians of any wrongdoing, set the Swedish navy's mind at ease, and won Wahlberg and Westerberg an Ig Nobel prize to boot. Maybe diplomats should try blaming things on fish more often.

And the hammers aren't the only weirdly straightforward message we've recently decoded from the Viking world. For many years, archaeologists wondered over Viking runes carved using a form of early cryptography called jotunvillur. Could they be secret messages of great religious or political importance? Nope. Also in 2014, a researcher named Jonas Nordby cracked the code and translated one of the most ancient riddles to ... "Kiss me." Turns out those runes were the Viking equivalent of text speak, a collection rude boasts and love notes that youths scratched on stones like Dwarven graffiti. 2014 may have been a good year for Viking history, but it sure was an awkward one for Viking historians.

Undeterred, the party's inside meteorologist, director Khalid El Fadli, risked life and limb (and one assassination attempt) to continue his search for proof. Eventually he managed to obtain the documents and ship them out right before Gaddafi cut off all communications with the outside world. So what did all of these dangerous weather-related spy hijinks reveal about this meteorological phenomenon? That reading thermometers is hard.

Turns out that the weather station used a somewhat complicated Bellani-Six thermometer, and some new hire accidentally added a whopping 7 degrees centigrade to the actual temperature. Slightly deflated, the team presented its findings to the World Meteorological Organization and the record was disqualified. The new record high temperature is probably whatever it is outside on the day you're reading this. We're all fucked.

According to Steller, the beast, simnia marina danica, stands at about six feet long with a head like a dog, including pointed ears and whiskers hanging down from the upper and lower lips. It also has a long, round, fat body, thick with hair the reddish complexion of a sunburned cow. Definitely not a looker, according to Steller, but also something you wouldn't easily miss. And yet not a single other person has managed to find a Steller's Sea Ape. Sounds like another made-up monster to join the ranks of marine cryptozoology, except everyone agrees that Steller was a reputable man of science who wouldn't ruin his reputation by inventing a lame cryptid. Surely Steller's Sea Ape had to exist. And they were right, except it wasn't a sea ape, but a sea man.

The Sea Ape is in fact Captain Vitus Bering. At least according to deep-sea ecologist Andrew Thaler. He says that Steller created the ape as a snarky workplace caricature of a much-hated boss. And the evidence stacks. In his diary, Steller's descriptions of Bering (who wasn't much beloved by his crew) are suspiciously similar to how he described the sideburns-rockin', angry-jowl-sportin' sea ape.

And Steller clearly disliked his sea ape as much as his captain, writing that he fantasized about shooting it several times. The sea ape was also the only creature in his notes that Steller did not officially log or mention in his reports, a big clue to its perceived scientific value. But perhaps most damning of all: Steller named his mustachioed menace simnia marina danica, or "the Danish Sea Ape." And Bering happened to be the only Dane on the ship's crew.

Christian Markle is still a mystery that people can't solve for decades. Go on and hit him up on Facebook

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