Roanoke

The enigma surrounding the Roanoke settlement is filled to the brim with intrigue. English colonists on Roanoke Island were running low on supplies in 1587. If nothing changed for the better, things might have turned out disastrously. Brave explorers set forth from the settlement in search of supplies.

It took years for them to reappear because the weather and environment worked against them. It was them against nature in an era before the United States even existed. In 1590, when they eventually return home, the colony is desolate. Not even a body, not even a soul, is left. There are only vacant structures and the cryptic word CROATOAN etched into a tree.

What might have occurred? Never were the colonists discovered. What might "Croatoan" mean? How might a colony as a whole suddenly vanish? They even created an entire season of American Horror Story around it because it was so fascinating.

This method of presenting the riddle has the drawback of omitting certain crucial information. The first, and most important, is that the word "Croatoan" is in no way a riddle or random nonsense. It was the name of the local tribe that also resided on the island and had a reputation for being incredibly amiable.

There is a ton of proof that the colonists just moved in with their native companions since they were out of supplies and couldn't wait for their explorers to return. They were accepted into the tribe and made friends and neighbors.

The colony was never lost, in actuality. They shifted. It was corroborated by historians and archaeologists. Years later, the notion that anything strange occurred was introduced, and not without a whiff of racism insinuating that the indigenous peoples were the bad guys in this situation.