Mystery and Crimes :) Deductions!

Write on the board:

Making Present Deductions:

We use the modals

Could / may /might + infinitive to say that something is possible

Must + infinitive to say that something is certain

Can’t + infinitive to say that something is impossible

e.g: They might be ghosts

Making Past Deductions:

We use the modals

Must + past participle to make a logical deduction about what has happened

Could / may /might + past participle to offer possible explanations for what happened

We use can’t + past participle to say that it is impossible that something has happened

 e.g.: It could have been an accident

Make copies of the texts below. Ask your students to get into pairs or trios and give each group a different unsolved mystery. Ask them to read and talk to each other about it.

After that, tell them to write possible explanations of what those mysteries could possibly be about (present deductions), and what could have happened,   ( past deductions).

Finally each group should talk about their mystery to the class, and also presents their deductions about the mystery. Allow the other students to make their own deductions about their mates’ mysteriy as well.

        Top unsolved mysteries of history.
                source: Wikipedia

Mary Celeste

Mary Celeste was launched in Nova Scotia in 1860. Her original name was “Amazon”. She was 103 ft overall displacing 280 tons and listed as a half-brig. Over the next 10 years she was involved in several accidents at sea and passed through a number of owners. Eventually she turned up at a New York salvage auction where she was purchased for $3,000. After extensive repairs she was put under American registry and renamed “Mary Celeste”. The new captain of Mary Celeste was Benjamin Briggs, 37, a master with three previous commands. On November 7, 1872 the ship departed New York with Captain Briggs, his wife, young daughter and a crew of eight. The ship was loaded with 1700 barrels of raw American alcohol bound for Genoa, Italy. The captain, his family and crew were never seen again. The ship was found floating in the middle of the Strait of Gibraltar. There were no signs of struggle on board and all documents except the captain’s log were missing. In early 1873, it was reported that two lifeboats grounded in Spain, one with a body and an American flag, the other containing five bodies. It has been alleged that these could have been the remains of the crew of the Mary Celeste. However, the bodies were apparently never identified

The taos hum 

 
The ‘Taos Hum’ is a low-pitched sound heard in numerous places worldwide, especially in the USA, UK, and northern europe. It is usually heard only in quiet environments, and is often described as sounding like a distant diesel engine. Since it has proven indetectable by microphones or VLF antennae, its source and nature is still a mystery. In 1997 Congress directed scientists and observers from some of the most prestigious research institutes in the nation to look into a strange low frequency noise heard by residents in and around the small town of Taos, New Mexico. For years those who had heard the noise, often described by them as a “hum”, had been looking for answers. To this day no one knows the cause of the hum.

Voynich manuscript

The Voynich Manuscript is a medieval document written in an unknown script and in an unknown language. For over one hundred years people have tried to break the code to not avail. The overall impression given by the surviving leaves of the manuscript suggests that it was meant to serve as a pharmacopoeia or to address topics in medieval or early modern medicine. However, the puzzling details of illustrations have fueled many theories about the book’s origins, the contents of its text, and the purpose for which it was intended. The document contains illustrations that suggest the book is in six parts: Herbal, Astronomical, Biological, Cosmological, Pharmaceutical, and recipes.

 Bermuda Triangle

The Bermuda triangle is an area of water in the North Atlantic Ocean in which a large number of planes and boats have gone missing in mysterious circumstances. Over the years many explanations have been put forward for the disappearances, including bad weather, alien abductions, time warps, and suspension of the laws of physics. Although substantial documentation exists to show that many of the reports have been exaggerated, there is still no explanation for the unusually large number of disappearances in the area.

The Babushka Lady

During the analysis of the film footage of the assasination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, a mysterious woman was spotted. She was wearing a brown overcoat and a scarf on her head (the scarf is the reason for her name as she wore it in a similar style to Russian grandmothers – also called babushkas). The woman appeared to be holding something in front of her face which is believed to be a camera. She appears in many photos of the scene. Even after the shooting when most people had fled the area, she remained in place and continued to film. Shortly after she is seen moving away to the East up Elm Street. The FBI publically requested that the woman come forward and give them the footage she shot but she never did.In 1970 a woman called Beverly Oliver came forward and claimed to be the Babushka Woman, though her story contains many inconsistencies. She is generally regarded as a fraud. To this day, no one knows who the Babushka Woman is or what she was doing there. More unusual is her refusal to come forward to offer her evidence.

 Marfa lights

The Marfa lights are unexplained lights (called ghost lights) that have been appearing on Mitchell Flat east of Marfa, Texas. The first published account of the lights was given in 1957, but Robert Reed Ellison (born 1880) reported them to his family and accounts of their appearances were spread by word of mouth. There are no verifiable written reports from before the 1950s. The lights are described as being the size of a basketball, floating in the air at around shoulder height. Colors are usually described as white, yellow, orange or red, but green and blue are sometimes reported. They usually travel laterally but have been seen to move rapidly in various directions. The lights sometimes appear in groups. Sightings are rare but there is a large amount of photographic and video evidence. Skeptics generally consider the lights to be related to traffic passing on the nearby US Route 67, or to be electric by-products of the predominantly quartz hills in the area. Because they usually appear in private property with terrain that is difficult to travel over, there are almost no reports of people being able to get close to the lights.

The Mothman

Mothman is the name given to a strange creature reported in the Charleston and Point Pleasant areas of West Virginia between November 1966 and December 1967. The creature was sporadically reported to be seen before and after those dates, with some sightings as recent as 2007. Most observers describe the Mothman as a winged man-sized creature with large reflective red eyes. It often appeared to have no head, with its eyes set into its chest. A number of hypotheses have been presented to explain eyewitness accounts, ranging from misidentification and coincidence to paranormal phenomena and conspiracy theories. The Mothman was first spotted in 1926 by a young boy. At the same time, three men were digging a grave in a nearby graveyard when they saw a brown human shape with wings soaring out from behind trees. Both incidents were reported independently of each other. There have been numerous sightings of Mothman though no photographic evidence exists at all.