381 replies to this topic

[jcpdiesel21]

I don't know what it is about this show, but every time I am home sick or off of work or school, I have to sit down and watch the two-hour block of Unsolved Mysteries on Lifetime. It's like a rule or something.

This is going to sound incredibly morbid, but my favorite stories are the wanted and murder mysteries. They're so creepy and interesting to hear about. The "unexplained" stories can be fun, too. I used to get really scared by those during the show's first run. I remember watching those stories up in my parents' bedroom and looking over my shoulder the whole time because I kept getting scared. Even though they were kind of sweet and heartwarming, the "lost loves" stories are kind of lame in comparison with the others.

Robert Stack is like a walking corpse on this show; he's so serious. And he always wears that tan trechcoat.

I love the "updates" that they have added to the older cases that have been found. It's nice to know that the show did help make a difference and help catch some criminals.

[nohwheregirl]

This was always my fave show as a kid. There are many days out of the week when I can work from home and I always have UM on in the background. Keep an eye out this week. They're showing some really really old episodes.

[katymo]

Oooh I love Unsolved Mysteries! As cheesy as the music is, it still gives me the creeps every single time from when I was a kid. I always hated the lost loved ones stories too, while I was always glad the people found each other, I didn't like watching them at all.

It's funny this thread popped up now, I remember seeing the story on UM about the prison warden's wife and an escaped murderer leaving the prison grounds together, whether by consent or not. Then a couple of days ago they were found living on a chicken farm together, with the wife claiming she stayed with him because he threatened to kill her family. Creepy.

[jcpdiesel21]

Yes! Other fans! I was afraid I was the only one.

[mom2tee]

I realize this is a location joke, but dad2tee does the most awesome Robert Stack impersonation.

"If you ... (have any information)"

Something about the inflection in his voice and my hubby nails it.

I love the adoption stories. Or should I say story, because I am pretty sure it is always the same story about a family with 52 children who fell on hard times in the 1940's. And I always love the reunions. There are always one or two that "look" like the turned out relatively normal. Then there are the rest in trucker hats and overalls. Good times.

[lurk3000]

My favorites are the Unexplained that deal with ghosts, bigfoot and UFOs. They filmed one of the UFO segments here in my hometown. I wasn't around at the time. But my sisters ex boyfriend had a bit part.
Anyone else have the DVDs?

[Phenobarbara]

The last episode I watched was when, at the end of the mystery when Robert Stack asked if anyone had any information, he added that the criminal was armed, dangerous, and "last seen in Merced, California." A small town 15 minutes from my hometown. Scary shit, yo.

[Sibella]

I fast-forward through the Unexplained ones. I'm into the murder and missing-persons ones. Cheeze appeal comes in the ones with reenactments of the 1960s and '70s.

I was fascinated by the story of Liz Carmichael and the Dale car...there's a book someone ought to write.

[lotusbear]

I remember back in the 80s when this show was on during primetime. I was about 9 and my brother was 6 and one night we watched a ghost related episode and by that time, everyone else had gone upstairs to sleep before us. We were so frightened the two of us scratched and clawed at eachother to get up the stairs first.

[FlyingDuchess]

Man, I used to watch this show all the time when I was a kid. Until I got freaked out by the Halloween special and my mom told me I couldn't watch it anymore.

Sometimes I watch it on Lifetime now. It's just not the same. The older stories seem SO OLD. And I'm gonna have to second the "trucker hats and overalls" comment above; most of the people featured on this show seemed like they were a couple of legs short of a table. The newer stories, filmed when the show made its comeback in the late 90s, are pretty interesting, though for a while it seemed like Lifetime kept showing the same episodes over and over again.

I prefer the Unexplained. They stand the test of time.

[erik316wttn]

This show seriously gave me the creeps. My Dad would watch it all the time when I was a kid and I had to leave the room because Robert Stack just freaked me the fuck out.

[robirds]

I love this show! Always have, and I'm not sure why. I wish they had let it continue to run the way America's Most Wanted has. It's so much less depressing that AMW, and they picked interesting stories usually.

Lately though, I've found a whole new element of nostalgic entertainment from Unsolved Mysteries... between reruns of this and the Love Connection on GSN... seeing all of the kooky 80s clothes in their glory, the feathered hair and blue eyeshadow... it all just KILLS me! 80s fashions are just so hysterical to review! Ahhh, good times.

That said, one thing that's started really creeping me out when I watch U.M. though... is that I become overwhelmed with wanting to know what ever happened to these people. It's morbid but as I'm watching I know there's a 100% chance that quite a few of the older people interviewed are dead by now (since it's 20 years later). I really wish I knew if there was any closure for these people. Sometimes they'll update, but they obviously aren't doing that anymore since Robert Stack himself has been dead a while & it's usually his voice announcing the updates.

Ahhh, but then I go back to focusing on the feathered hair and it's good times again. Blue eyeshadow... hee.

[Tabbyclaw]

As a small child, I was certain that part of being in Heaven was being able to get the answer to any question you had ever had about anything, and I was planning to spend the first few months after I died just finding out what happened to everyone on Unsolved Mysteries.

[jcpdiesel21]

I saw an episode on Lifetime yesterday where the first half was devoted to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination and James Earl Ray's declaration of the whole thing being a conspiracy set up by a man that he met named Raul. It was really interesting.

The 80's fashions in the older episodes really crack me up, too. The hair, the eyeshadow, the gaudy earrings, they're all so awesome.

[MethodActor05]

I always like the Ghost stories and the murder mystery stories. They had one on the mystery ones the Martha Moxely case and this one about a 16-year old Las Vegas girl that got killed in the 1980's, which was made especially sad by the fact that the girl was so convinced that she would die before turning 16, was thrilled when she did make 16, and died three months afterwards.

I would reckon that Cold Case serious got inspired by this show...the whole flashbacks, cheesy music, and all.

And of course, the ghost stories scared the shit out of me.

Edited by MethodActor05, May 31, 2005 @ 1:15 AM.

[Phenobarbara]

and this one about a 16-year old Las Vegas girl that got killed in the 1980's, which was made especially sad by the fact that the girl was so convinced that she would die before turning 16, was thrilled when she did make 16, and died three months afterwards.

I remember that one. Her sister (or mother, or some female relative) said during the show that on the morning of her 16th birthday, she came bounding down the stairs exclaiming "I made it! I made it to sixteen!" Then she died shortly after. Pretty sad and scary.

[Smilla]

Thank god for this thread. I had no idea you could still watch Unsolved Mysteries on Lifetime. I avoid Lifetime like the plague, and would never have noticed otherwise. I've really been longing for U.M. lately (it's a Robert Stack thing). Got to love the TWoP.

[Anyone Bueller]

Add me to the list of people who were scared shitless by this program when we were kids. In fact, I would get scared before the program actually began (i.e., when the man with the scary voice would say that this is "not a news broadcast"). Anyhow, one of the cases that really freaked me out was the two teenage boys who were found dead on the railroad tracks. It was first ruled an accident, but later, it was discovered that they were killed elsewhere and then placed on the tracks.

Another good one was the two women with the same first and last name, who lived in the same city, were both murdered within three days of each other. Spooky.

I wonder if either case was ever solved?

Edited by Anyone Bueller, Jun 26, 2005 @ 10:21 AM.

[ruby red]

Hey, I'm 19, and I still get freaked out when I hear the music for this show starting up. Plus, Robert Stack's voice scares the hell out of me. It's so fucking creepy. Of course, I'm like a moth to a flame because I can't not watch this show when I come across it.

I guess I'm in the minority because I love the ones where the people try to find their lost loved ones. I especially love it when they do updates and the loved ones have been found. But my favorites are, of course, the murder and disappearing stories. I remember seeing one about this guy who was a journalist and trying to expose government secrets. He ended up dead and the official ruling was that he killed himself, but his family suspected that the government had him offed. There was another story where this mass murderer was found one county away from mine, and I think that was the day I stopped watching Unsovled Mysteries for about five years.

I remember watching this show and Rescue 911! with my dad way back in the day. Shatner had nothing on Stack though. UM owned.

[Smilla]

Another good one was the two women with the same first and last name, who lived in the same city, were both murdered within three days of each other. Spooky.
I wonder if either case was ever solved?

I wonder that about a lot of cases featured on UM. I've occasionally been known to Google case details to see if explanations have arisen or muders have been solved. This one that never fails to freak me out whenever I think of it concerns a string of (as in, at least four) rape stranglings that happened in, I believe, the Seattle area during the late '80s/early '90s. One creepy-ass aspect of these muders was that police believed the killer enjoyed taunting them, and was leaving really unsettling clues to this effect at the crimes scenes (surgical gloves to indicate to the detectives that they would find little physical evidence, etc.). Before watching that episode, I'd always thought that serial killers adept enough to kill and not get caught, were above that kind of thing; that the "killer taunting the keystone cops" was a veritable cliché of film and t.v. Guess not. And as far as I've been able to tell, this killer has never been apprehended.

Edited by Smilla, Jun 26, 2005 @ 3:49 PM.

[RhondaGC]

I guess I'm in the minority because I love the ones where the people try to find their lost loved ones. I especially love it when they do updates and the loved ones have been found.

Well, then, I'm right there with you! I love the lost love stories, especially when there is an update. And watching this show has made me realize that it was apparently not that uncommon for families to split up during the depression and for the next couple of decades. I mean, I know it's probably a relatively small percentage of the number of families overall, but I'm surprised by the sheer number of those kinds of stories they are able to locate.

I also tend to really like the "unexplained" stories. My favorites are the woman in St. Louis, or someplace like that, who has had visions all her life that have led her to believe that in a previous life (at the turn of the century) she was this girl who ended up drowning herself when she got pregnant. That one is particularly eerie because the lady has been able to verify several facts about this girl--whose life she lives out in her dreams. Very weird.

And my other favorite is their investigation into what happened to Amelia Earhart. Don't know how reliable it is, but the evidence they claim to have that she landed on an island in the S. Pacific and that the US military found her plane and that a native island woman witnessed her execution is fascinating. Makes a good story, anyway, whether it is true or not.

Man, I love this show. I tend to watch it for 2 hours on Lifetime everyday, too. And for all those afraid they are too old to be scared by the ghost stories, etc.,I'm *37* and some of those ghost stories scare the bejeebers out of me! I've had to stop watching those segments.

[jcpdiesel21]

I remember seeing one about this guy who was a journalist and trying to expose government secrets. He ended up dead and the official ruling was that he killed himself, but his family suspected that the government had him offed.

This story was on just last week! It was fascinating. There wasn't an update, so I wonder if the family found out any more new information.

[maiana]

I remember seeing one about this guy who was a journalist and trying to expose government secrets. He ended up dead and the official ruling was that he killed himself, but his family suspected that the government had him offed.
This story was on just last week! It was fascinating. There wasn't an update, so I wonder if the family found out any more new information.

I think I may have seen another show featuring this story. Recently on Montell Williams with Sylvia Brown where she confirmed to the family that the man in question "knew too much" or something and was executed and buried somewhere specific and if they looked there they would find him. Fascinating.

The show that gave me chills was the one about the female singer from Seattle who was just about to make it big and she was found in the middle of the road lying on her back and arranged in a very specific way and they couldn't figure out why, what the motive was and who did it. Was there ever an update on that story? I remember checking a supposed "update" website a few years ago and there was nothing.

[maiana]

As a small child, I was certain that part of being in Heaven was being able to get the answer to any question you had ever had about anything, and I was planning to spend the first few months after I died just finding out what happened to everyone on Unsolved Mysteries.

Oh.My.GOD! We're like the same person!

[formergr]

maiana, I believe that story was featured on A&E's City Confidential, and IIRC, they did find the guy recently when a DNA match popped up.

OK, I found it. Her name was Mia Zapata, and they did find the guy. You can read about it here. If you ever catch the City Confidential on Seattle, they covered the case well.

[Metairie]

As a small child, I was certain that part of being in Heaven was being able to get the answer to any question you had ever had about anything, and I was planning to spend the first few months after I died just finding out what happened to everyone on Unsolved Mysteries.

Oh.My.GOD! We're like the same person!

That makes three of us! The nuns at school always said that all of our questions would get answered in Heaven.

[Anyone Bueller]

Does anyone remember the case when the teenage girl was at a pay phone, talking to her boyfriend, and she tells him that a suspicious man is hanging around and he's making her nervous/uncomfortable? So while she's telling her boyfriend this, the man comes up from behind, grabs her and throws her into his truck. The boyfriend hears the kidnapping, and jumps into his car and races to the area she was calling from. He passes a truck (with fish artwork on the back windshield) and hears his girlfriend screaming from it, so he turns around and starts chasing it. Unfortunately, he's driving a piece of shit, and his car dies on him. I felt so sorry for him, watching helplessly as the truck drove away.

One of my favorite "unexplained" cases was about all the people who were late for choir practice (for one silly reason or another) at their church. When they finally showed up, the church had just exploded.

[sunny605]

One of my favorite "unexplained" cases was about all the people who were late for choir practice (for one silly reason or another) at their church. When they finally showed up, the church had just exploded.

I LOVE that one! It's on the DVDs and it just gives me chills to watch it.

Is everyone in this thread really the same person? I'm with you guys on wanting to spend time in heaven finding out the answers to these mysteries. And I've googled several cases to try to find out if they've been solved.

Another good one from the DVDs is from "Legends," about John Wilkes Booth. They present very convincing evidence that someone else was killed instead of him.

[Smilla]

I love the lost love stories, especially when there is an update.

Those are great. I'm a sucker for all that stuff.

Also, there are DVDs? Excellent.

[lurk3000]

There are several box sets. 1. Ghosts 2. UFOs 3. Legends 4. Psychics 5. Bizarre Murders
6. Miracles

Edited by lurk3000, Jun 28, 2005 @ 4:37 AM.