Identity Unknown : History's "Whowazits?"

Here is a random sample of various events where at least one of the main ‘characters’ remains unknown to this day.

The Baker Street Robbery



The Baker Street robbery occurred on the night of September 11th 1971 in London, England. A team of thieves tunnelled into the Lloyds, Baker Street Bank Vault and stole some £500k of cash and other valuables from safety deposit boxes. The criminals were well equipped using a combination of tools, including a thermal lance and explosives, to create the tunnel into the vault from underneath a nearby shop two doors away. The gang even employed a lookout on a rooftop overlooking the bank equipped with a ‘walkie-talkie’ radio to provide early warning reports.

Not everything went to plan. A ham radio operator overheard several of the gang’s radio transmissions and contacted the police whilst the heist was going on. Police were sent frantically to hundreds of banks within the area in hope of catching the criminals red handed. But the police also bungled during the raid. Whilst the burglars were inside the vault, officers on the scene left as there was no damage visible from the outside of the vault door. They wrongly assumed the robbery was occurring elsewhere.

Despite rumours that everything was hushed up by dark forces within the British establishment, a number of men were charged in connection with the burglary two years later. However, the true mastermind behind it all has never been apprehended according to the police.

The story didn’t end. In 2008 the film “The Bank Job”, loosely based on the tale, was released and stories forgotten long ago began to resurface. One is that a number of the deposit boxes contained child pornography and the raiders left much of it on display so the owners could be dealt with (it’s only taken 40 odd years if that is true).

The other lingering story is that one of the safety deposit boxes, belonging to Michael X, a well known Caribbean criminal contained explicit pictures of the Queen’s sister, Princess Margaret. The subplot being that MI5 were actually the masterminds behind the heist and the reason why the real Mr. Big has never been revealed.


Further reading:
www.mirror.co.uk...
www.dailymail.co.uk...
www.telegraph.co.uk...


DB Cooper



November 24th, 197, a guy calling himself Dan Cooper (the media mistakenly called him DB Cooper) boarded Northwest Airlines flight No. 305 in Portland bound for Seattle and hijacked the plane. The plane landed in Seattle where he demanded $200k, four parachutes and food for the crew before releasing all the passengers. With just three pilots and one flight attendant remaining, they took off from Seattle with the $200k demanded(in marked bills). In the 45 minutes after take-off, Cooper sent the flight attendant to the cockpit and parachuted out of the plane with the money somewhere north of Portland.

The Air Force followed Cooper's plane. The military conducted a major search in the suspected landing areas. But no trace of D.B. Cooper was ever found.

In 1980 a boy called Brian Ingram, found three bundles of cash a couple of inches below the sand near Columbia River whilst digging into the sand just north of Portland. The Cooper serial numbers were matched, and became the first hard evidence since 1971. The FBI conducted searches in the area once again to no avail. A number of likely culprits have been discussed down the years but the debate continues as to who DB Cooper really was.

Further reading:
www.abovetopsecret.com...
en.wikipedia.org...


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The Unknown Assassin of Sweden’s Prime Minister

February 28th 1986, the Prime Minister of Sweden, Olof Palme, was on his way home with his wife in downtown Stockholm after a night out at the movies. A man holding a handgun leaped out of the shadows and pointed the gun at the couple. His wife, Lisbeth, was shot in the back whilst Olof was shot twice in the stomach. A local taxi driver called for assistance whilst two local girls ran to the assistance of their Prime Minister. Unfortunately the wounds were fatal and Olof Palme did not survive the attack.

Whilst many other world leaders would have been protected by a security detail, Palme believed in open government so regularly walked around Stockholm and went on his summer breaks without bodyguards.



Palme’s anti-apartheid views have led claims that the South Africans were behind the murder plot. Others blame CIA funded right wing groups, extreme right elements within Sweden and links to arms dealing with India. A drug addict, Christer Pettersson, was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder in July 1989. Several eye witnesses placed him at the scene of the crime, yet no motive was ever found for the killing nor the murder weapon.


The verdict caused instant controversy. The court's two judges voted for acquittal but six lay assessors contested the decisions. In October 1989, Pettersson was cleared.

Pettersson died in September 2004 and allegedly confessed to the killing on his death bed stating the Prime Minister was dressed like a drug dealer he intended to kill and it was all a mistake. However the case remains open and unsolved despite many claims from various Swedes that they fired the bullets....

Further reading:

www.abovetopsecret.com...
en.wikipedia.org...




 
The Tiananmen Square “Tank Man”

Despite being one of the iconic news pictures of the 20th century the identity of the brave man who stopped the tanks has remained a mystery to this day.

Back in 1989 before the Berlin War had fell, more than a million students and workers occupied Beijing's Tiananmen Square. These were the start to the largest political protests in communist China. Protests went on for six week starting in April of 1989 and culminating in bloodshed on June 3rd 1989.

One image of the protests has endured of a solitary man standing up to the tanks. Despite some reports that the protester was Wang Weilin (王維林) no solid confirmation of his identity has ever been released. Some reports have the man being executed in the days after the event. Others say he was never traced. The commander of the tank has never been confirmed either.

More:
en.wikipedia.org...
www.independent.co.uk...

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DB Cooper is an American legend, I love trying to figure out where he might have landed. All's I know is if he did make it alive, he is/was having a hell of a time watching everybody try and find him.

Another great add to this would be the Zodiac Killer, and no I don't think for a second that the book just released by "his" son is true or the real killer.

Great thread hope more join in with others.

The JFK Assassination Babushka Lady



For those who are unaware, the Babushka Lady, is the unknown woman captured on the Zapruder film and other photographs from Dealey Plaza on the day of President Kennedy’s assassination.

She is captured but yards away from the President’s car as the bullets reign down wearing a brown overcoat and a scarf on her head. This led to her being dubbed the ‘Babushka Lady’. She was also seen carrying a camera and appears to be taking a snap facing the grassy knoll.

A woman named Beverly Oliver eventually came forward and claimed to be the Babushka Lady in 1970. Oliver said that after the assassination, two men who she thought were "either FBI or Secret Services" told her that they wanted to develop her film and would return it to her within ten days, but they never returned the film.

There were a number of inconsistencies that have left many unconvinced of her story.

Questions remain as to why Babushka Lady was covered up ? Was she trying to remain concealed for a reason? Many have pondered that she may have been a man in drag, a Soviet or Cuban spy, a, a secret service agent or even involved in the plot to kill JFK.

She remains one of the ‘ghosts’ of that dreadful day in Dealey Plaza.

More:



en.wikipedia.org...


The Falling Man Sept 11th 2001




Rounding this post up, 30 years after the Baker Street Robbery in 1971, the world changed forever.
This iconic image at the dawn of the 21st century is a very disturbing picture from a very disturbing day that cannot and will not be forgotten.

A number of attempts have been made to identify “The Falling Man” but he has never been positively identified despite being seen by billions across the globe.

More:

en.wikipedia.org...

The guy standing in front of the tanks has always been in my book a REAL hero.
More people should be like him.

originally posted by: VoidHawk
The guy standing in front of the tanks has always been in my book a REAL hero.
More people should be like him.

He should be one of everyone's hero's. It takes a lot of dedication and heart to do what he did.

The Baker Street robbery movie was shown on tv (uk) just a few nights ago. Weird you just posted about it

Very intriguing, if I remember correctly some of the info has been classified and cant be opened for 50 years? That in itself suggests there's some very nasty stuff being hidden from us.

Nice thread OP

a reply to: wutang717

The Zodiac Killer and Jack the Ripper are two great "famous unknowns". But probably best left for a later date unless someone else wants to pick up those stories.

a reply to: VoidHawk

I've never actually watched it LOL!

originally posted by: wutang717

originally posted by: VoidHawk
The guy standing in front of the tanks has always been in my book a REAL hero.
More people should be like him.

He should be one of everyone's hero's. It takes a lot of dedication and heart to do what he did.

Agreed

I sincerely hope he got away. All sorts of rumors about him, and many of his people think he did manage to escape.
I think the guy in the tank could also be a hero too, because I'm sure his radio would have been telling him to run the guy down, but he didn't.

a reply to: VoidHawk

That is so true, nobody ever thinks about the guy in the tank. His radio had to be going off hardcore telling him to just run him over. If I had to choose I would say the tank driver is long gone while the other guy is still alive.

As for the sealed file you were talking about, if that robbery happened in the 70's and you guess of 50 years is correct than, shouldn't we be able to see them in a few years?

a reply to: VoidHawk

I was in a timeline where dude did get run over by that tank.

But Berenstain bears were also called Berenstein bears.

originally posted by: wutang717
a reply to: VoidHawk

........................................
As for the sealed file you were talking about, if that robbery happened in the 70's and you guess of 50 years is correct than, shouldn't we be able to see them in a few years?

According to the Telegraph newspaper , Dick Clement, one of the scriptwriters of the Bank Job movie says.

In the film, these photographs are placed in the possession of a shady, real-life character called Michael X, a slum landlord and pimp who tried to present himself as a British version of the activist Malcolm X. His ownership of the pictures bestowed upon him a "get out of jail free card", whereby the courts overlooked his criminal activity.

After in-depth discussions with McIndoe, Clement and Le Frenais suggested in their story that the robbery was masterminded by MI5, which was eager to get its hands on the photos and thereby neutralise Michael X's threat.

"That is all conjecture," continues Clement, "but certainly the Caribbean connection [to Princess Margaret] is a fairly obvious one. And while we've become so used to royal scandals since then, in 1971 it would have been a much bigger deal. There was a lot of sensitivity because of the Christine Keeler affair and they didn't want another scandal dancing around like that. "That's the theory, anyway.

But what is curious is that I have seen something that says that Michael X's file is buried until 2054, which is extraordinary. I mean, what the hell he had that was keeping him out of jail, and which was so important that they don't want it known about for another 50 years - well, it boggles the mind. Even if it was photographs of the Royal Family, you'd have thought that that wouldn't have had such a long after-life.

Source : Daily Telegraph, Feb 15th 2008

I am not sure about all the other files concerning the case. If I find out I'll update the thread.

a reply to: mirageman

But what is curious is that I have seen something that says that Michael X's file is buried until 2054,

I am not sure about all the other files concerning the case. If I find out I'll update the thread.

Thanks

I'm surprised this thread didn't go further, its been a bit quite recently and I thought this was one of the more interesting threads that got posted, ATS is weird sometimes.

a reply to: wutang717

I checked the UK National Archives site and the relevant file is MEPO 26/418 on the Baker Street Case.

The file was released on June 14th 2013 but as yet has not been digitised so sits in an office at Kew.

Looking at random as well it seems some unrelated police files from around that time have been locked until the middle of the century.

a reply to: VoidHawk

I was hoping a few more might chip in as well. However sometimes that's the way it goes. A lot of stuff on here is mainstream media regurgitation and as that's what people have just seen or read in the mainstream media it's probably what they get drawn to. Which is quite ironic in some ways but totally understandable.

I might still do a second part though.

a reply to: mirageman

WOW! Thanks for digging deeper, that Michael X sounds very interesting, I've never heard of him before and will be looking him up. It's hard to imagine what he may have truly had, had to of been something very, VERY top secret to seal the file for so long.

There is definitely a conspiracy here to find, it's to bad most have either forgotten or are just turning the blind eye.

A little of topic but would anyone remember how long the JFK files were sealed for? Just to try and gauge how classified whatever Michael X had was.

a reply to: wutang717

Michael X is someone I'd never heard of before either. I will definitely be looking into that one.

Edit : here is Michael X showing a pair of boxer shorts with John Lennon???




As I said earlier a lot of the Metropolitan police files from the 70s have not been digitised even though they have been released. Mysteriously some files are locked until the middle of the century. So who knows what's being hidden or even just forgotten?

As regards the JFK files well it's clear as mud as to what hasn't been released so far. Supposedly everything is due to be released by 2017.

The official government line.

It is a common misconception that the records relating to the assassination of President Kennedy are in some way sealed. In fact, the records are largely open and available to the research community here at the National Archives at College Park in the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Record Collection. Congress created the Kennedy Collection when it passed the Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992.

This statute directed all Federal agencies to transmit to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) all records relating to the assassination in their custody. The Kennedy Act also created a temporary agency, the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB), to ensure that the agencies complied with the Act. In addition to records already open at NARA prior to the passing the Kennedy Act, the Collection now consists of previously withheld records of the Warren Commission, records of the Office of the Archivist, and newly released materials from the Kennedy, Johnson, and Ford Presidential Libraries.

Other agency records in the Collection include records of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, records of the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and a small amount of material from a variety of other agencies, including the Office of Naval Intelligence. The Collection now includes over five million pages of records. With a very few exceptions, virtually all of the records identified as belonging to the Kennedy Collection have been opened in part or in full. Those documents that are closed in full or in part were done so in accordance with the Kennedy Act, mentioned above. According to the Act, no record could be withheld in part or in full, without the agreement of the ARRB.......


Source : US National Archives

However many other sources cite the CIA as holding on to several hundred, perhaps even more than a thousand, documents

a reply to: mirageman
Really close than for the JFK files, two and a half years. Like you said you could go look at that library but I'm sure once you do, you are tailed by one of the alphabet agency's.

Also doing some more research on Michael X, I have found that he was hanged because he was convicted of hacking and burning two people to death. So I guess he wasn't also able to get away with everything, but it still seems like he was just punished for that crime based off hearsay.

And he also used to be very buddy-buddy with John Lenin, who multiple times either bailed him out or paid for his lawyers.

The deeper you dig on this one the more you uncover.

All my info came from en.wikipedia.org...