Unsolved History – Investigating Mysteries of the Past

By Stefan Isaksson

Unsolved History – Investigating Mysteries of the Past
Joe Nickell
University Press of Kentucky
179 pages
ISBN: 0813191378

Joe Nickell is just as productive as he is scientific, and that says a lot. A LOT.

To most people, Nickell is probably most known as paranormal investigator for CSICOP with his own column in the magazine Skeptical Inquirer, but Nickell has more than that up his paranormal sleeve. He has, among other things, worked as a private investigator and published several books dealing with investigation techniques and camera work (for instance, books with such titles as Camera Clues, Detecting Forgery, and Crime Science), in short, books that any careful investigator of both paranormal and “normal” mysteries ought to know about.

And Unsolved History is one of these books where Nickell offers advice to anyone interested in learning how to do a thorough investigation of mysteries that are more historical in nature than they are paranormal. Among the nine cases in the book, only two are well-known among students of the paranormal: the Nazca-lines in Peru and the Shroud of Turin. The other cases are pure historical mysteries, but that doesn’t matter much. Nickell is as thorough as ever.

To the average Swedish reader, however, most cases are probably unknown, for example the mysteries regarding American adventurer Jonathan Boone, the alleged silver mines of Jonathan Swift, and the famous “Bixby letter” supposedly written by president Abraham Lincoln (which most Swedes actually have at least heard of, since it was featured in the blockbuster Saving Private Ryan). But then again, it doesn’t really matter if you know about the cases beforehand or not, because Nickell always makes sure to supply enough background material. Some of the chapters tend to get a little tedious after a while, but that’s made up by the extensive bibliography which has tons of books worth consulting for anyone interesting in doing their own investigations of the cases in the book (or other historical cases).