10 UNEXPLAINED PARANORMAL EVENTS (VERY STRANGE) - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2025

Today, the world seems smaller and more predictable. We can travel anywhere in just a few hours, and thanks to our Internet connection, we know exactly what is happening in far away places almost instantly. As if this were not enough, science is capable of understanding almost all the phenomena that occur in nature.

However, despite all our advances, many paranormal events continue to occur around us that we cannot easily explain. Some of them are very strange, like the appearance of ghosts or the existence of people with powers.

Others, on the contrary, are more "everyday", but also have an air of mystery that has prevented the reasons why they have occurred from being explained. Today we bring you a list of the strangest paranormal phenomena on record, and for which a satisfactory explanation has not yet been found.

List of unexplained paranormal phenomena

Reincarnation: children who claim to remember their past lives

Gus Ortega and his parents

The existence of reincarnation is one of the most important beliefs of religions such as Buddhism. According to these disciplines, after death, the soul leaves the body and re-enters another, taking with it the experiences it has previously lived even though it cannot consciously remember them.

We have always wondered what happens to our minds when we die, but science has not yet been able to find a satisfactory answer. However, certain cases of people claiming to remember some of their past lives could suggest that reincarnation is not simply an absurd belief.

One of the strangest cases in this sense is that of Gus Ortega, born in Colorado (United States). Since he was one and a half years old, this boy began to make statements and say certain things to his parents that seemed to indicate that he was the reincarnation of his grandfather.

It all started as a result of a family photo that the boy was shown when he was 18 months old. At that moment, the little boy pointed to the portrait of his grandfather (whom he had not met because he died before his birth), and said with surprise the following: "That's me!"

From that incident, the boy was revealing details about the life of his grandfather that it was impossible for him to know, with increasing frequency. So strange is the case, that it is being studied by psychiatrists experts at the University of Virginia, near the town where Gus was born.

Nandana Unnikrishnan, the girl with telepathy

Nandana Unnikrishnan and her parents. Khaleek tymes

The ability to read someone else's mind or transmit your own thoughts from a distance is part of all kinds of stories and legends. However, it has never been seen that it can be carried out outside of movies, books and comics… until now.

Nandana Unnikrishnan is not like other children of her age. Not only because of her autism, but also because of an extremely unusual ability that she has displayed since her earliest childhood: by all indications, the young Indian woman has telepathic powers.

In various experiments, some carried out by skeptical institutions such as the Indian Psychiatric Society, Nandana has been shown to be able to detect her mother's thoughts and emotions without any physical or spoken contact between them. On one occasion, for example, she was able to write a complete poem that her mother had mentally transmitted to her.

Although we do not know exactly what this ability may be due to, the more experiments are carried out on the young Indian woman, the more convinced the experts are that her powers are real. However, many more experiments are still needed to try to better understand how they work and where they come from.

The strange case of the time traveler

Supposed photo of John Titor (man with sunglasses)

Another of the most common themes in science fiction books and movies is time travel. Our curiosity about the future and our desire to know what happened in our past makes us wish we could move through time in a simple way, but unfortunately it seems that science has not yet been able to do so.

However, some strange cases make us think that time travel may not be as far away as it seems at first glance. Although there are many of them, the most famous is probably that of John Titor, a character who apparently would have traveled to the past with the mission of recovering important files from a computer.

This statement alone would not serve to demonstrate alleged time travel. What is really disconcerting about the case has to do with a photograph taken in Canada in 1941, in which you can see a man dressed in more typical clothes of the current century. In it, he can be seen dressed in a sweatshirt, T-shirt, modern sunglasses and a 21st century camera.

John Titor, who registered on several well-known American forums and made predictions about the future, claimed to be the man in the Canadian photo. This has been studied by experts on the subject, who have determined that it has not been manipulated in any way.

Unfortunately, we have no way of checking whether what John Titor claimed was really true or not; but, if it were, we would find ourselves before the first documented case of a trip in time.

Uri Geller and the night of the bent spoons

Possibly one of the most shocking and strange moments in the history of Spanish television occurred in the program «Directísimo», by José María Íñigo. This famous presenter welcomed Uri Geller, an Israeli mentalist who claimed to have powers such as the ability to bend metal with thought or to fix broken watches with his willpower alone.

These statements are very typical of magicians, illusionists and charlatans; But the curious thing about Geller is that he claimed to be able to demonstrate it live, in front of hundreds of spectators. And not only that: he also claimed that anyone could learn to do it. This is precisely what he tried to replicate in José María Íñigo's program.

That night, thousands of viewers stared at his screen, while Uri Geller held an ordinary-looking spoon. As I looked at it, the cutlery began to bend; and suddenly, it broke into two halves completely cleanly. Afterward, the Israeli collected several clocks from the public and fixed them with the power of his mind.

But the strangest thing happened later. In an already legendary moment, hundreds of people started calling the show claiming that they had believed in their own ability and that their silverware had also broken or their watches were starting to work again. So many viewers wanted to share their experience, that the television lines completely collapsed.

Geller, meanwhile, remained totally calm on the television set, as what was happening was exactly what he expected. Even today, no satisfactory explanation can be found for what happened that night, although the mentalist has continued to amaze millions of people around the world with his incredible mental abilities.

Mind over matter: Nina Kulagina, the Russian child prodigy

But if Uri Geller became famous for his exhibitions on televisions around the world, we cannot forget who is probably the person who has come closest to convincing scientists and researchers that he had mental powers: Nina Kulagina, a child prodigy born in Russia in 1926.

During the Cold War era, Nina rose to fame within her native country due to some strange movies in which she could be seen moving various objects apparently without touching them in any way. The young woman claimed that these movements were due to the power of her mind, with which she could affect the material world.

Nina Kulagina thought that she had inherited her powers from her mother. The first time she realized that she had the ability to move objects with her mind was when, being angry as a child, the things in the room she was in began to move on their own. Later, she said, she learned to control her powers and could use them at will.

The young Russian claimed that before she could use her telekinesis, she had to go through a period of meditation during which she removed all thoughts from her mind. Later, her vision would blur, and she would begin to feel severe pain in her spine, at which point she was able to move objects with her thought.

Numerous international researchers studied the case of Nina Kulagina, including two Nobel Prize winners. In one of the most famous experiments they did with her, it is said that the young woman was able to speed up, slow down and finally stop a frog's heart, simply by concentrating on it.

Today, many people believe that the existence of Nina Kulagina is proof that individuals with supernatural powers really exist. However, many skeptics claim that the young woman was a fraud. Unfortunately, we may never find out what the truth about the case was.

The "Stargate Project", or how the CIA tried to master remote viewing

But not all the strange events that have occurred throughout history have involved anonymous individuals. During the Cold War, the United States and Russia participated in what is known as the "Psi race," in which both superpowers tried to be the first to understand and be able to apply all kinds of mental powers.

One of the most famous attempts in the United States was Project Stargate, in which the CIA tried to use remote viewing in order to apply it to espionage. The study was carried out between 1978 and 1980, but the reality about it was not known internationally until 1995.

According to sources close to the CIA, one of the founders of the project carried out an experiment with Djuna Davitashvili, a Russian shaman who was able to describe the environment of an individual who was thousands of kilometers away at that time. In another experiment, a retired police officer was able to describe a Russian laboratory after having described the coordinates of the laboratory.

The Stargate Project was abandoned; But the attempt was so serious that the Russian government carried out a formal investigation to try to determine if there really had been any breach in its national security. Today, many people believe that the results of the experiment are still being used by the CIA in certain tasks.

Life on other planets? The history of the Roswell Incident

The existence of intelligent life on other planets has generated much debate both in scientific circles and among the general population. However, thousands of people around the world claim to have had some direct contact with aliens, either having seen flying saucers or even being abducted by them.

There are many documented cases of this type, but by far the most famous is known as the "Roswell Incident", which occurred in 1947. In the summer of that year, a farmer from Roswell, New Mexico, discovered in his fields a large quantity of metallic remains of what looked like some kind of spaceship.

When the farmer notified the authorities of what had happened, a platoon of soldiers from the nearby Roswell Armed Forces base went to the field to take all the material.

The authorities claimed that they were the remains of a weather balloon, but the secrecy with which the operation was carried out and the speed of the response led many to believe that the remains came from a UFO.

Today, millions of people travel to Roswell each year to discover more about spacecraft sightings, as the city has become the world capital on this topic. The United States government continues to deny that the incident had anything to do with aliens, but many skeptics still hold to their theory.

Ourange Medan, the ghost ship

One of the most terrifying events on the entire list is the story of the Ourange Medan, a ship that became famous after being found in 1947 with its entire crew dead from an unknown cause. Millions of people around the world are convinced that what happened had to be caused by some kind of supernatural event, due to the strangeness of the circumstances.

In the summer of 1947, two ships of the United States Navy that were stationed in Malaysia received a distress message from another ship, this one of Dutch origin, which was stationed nearby. The captain of the Ourange Medan, the name given to the ship, called for help as "a large part of the crew had died."

The two American ships tried to get to the place where the Medan was docked as quickly as possible, but they received more similar messages along the way. The last one, which was sent shortly before they reached their destination, said simply "I die."

When they finally got close to the Dutch ship, it was in perfect condition; but when going up, the sailors realized that all the crew had perished. Furthermore, all the bodies without exception wore faces of horror, as if they were seeing something that would panic them.

Unfortunately, it was never known what could have happened to the Ourange Medan, since shortly after the investigations began, the ship exploded for unknown reasons and ended up sinking.

Death by dance: the mysterious epidemic of 1518

One of the strangest events in history, which has not yet been explained more than 600 years after it occurred, was the Great Dancing Epidemic that occurred in the city of Strasbourg in the summer of 1518. This curious name describes a terrible situation in which several people died, supposedly due to a case of mass hysteria.

It all started when, one afternoon in July 1518, a neighbor from Strasbourg started dancing uncontrollably in the middle of the street. Nobody knows why he started doing it; but over the next month, more than 400 people had joined it. During that time, many died of exhaustion, strokes, or heart attacks, no doubt caused by excessive exercise.

Sounds weird, right? However, all the records of the time state that the dance epidemic lasted for several weeks, and was gradually spreading. The local authorities, seeing that the problem did not diminish, began to search for answers.

Interestingly, the doctors of the time claimed that it was a blood problem, and that the only way to cure it was by making those affected dance even more.

In this way, the city leaders set up two squares where people could dance non-stop, and even hired professional musicians to give them even more energy. Still, many of those affected eventually died before the epidemic died out on its own.

Many theories have been created about what could actually happen during the Great Strasbourg Dancing Epidemic. Some think the causes were supernatural, while others speak of mushroom poisoning or fevers caused by a famine. Still, we will most likely never find out exactly what happened back then.

The miracle of the sun of Fatima

Around lunchtime on Sunday, October 13, 1917, strange events occurred in the town of Fátima, Portugal. Supposedly, before about 70,000 people, and even before journalists, the sun appeared, or what people thought was the sun.

Although it was raining and the day was dark, the clouds parted, it stopped raining and the sun appeared, turning on itself as if it were a wheel of fire, while glows of various colors came out of it.

Although this event was witnessed by thousands of people and there are even photos, there are researchers who give more feasible arguments. For example, Professor Auguste Meessen from the Institute of Physics at the Catholic University of Louvain has stated that the "miracles of the sun" cannot be taken seriously and that the observations described were optical effects caused by staring at the sun too long.

conclusion

Despite our skepticism and love of logic and science, there are still many strange events that we cannot rationally explain. In this list we have shown you some of the most famous cases of this type. Do you know any more?