Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 went missing.
The last of these unanswered mysteries occurred on March 8, 2014, when a Boeing 777 carrying 239 passengers and crew members vanished into thin air while traveling from Malaysia to China. The greatest worldwide search operation in aviation history has yielded only 20 pieces of airplane wreckage. Malaysia’s Prime Minister has been reluctant to comment, other than to clarify that the plane vanished over the Indian Ocean. The lack of closure has spawned a plethora of theories, many of which are classified as “conspiracy theories,” which, according to Harvard professor Cass Sunstein, are a natural byproduct of “horrific and disastrous situations, because such events make people angry, fearful, and looking for a target.”
Theories include hijacking, capture by the US, crew suicide (the captain was reportedly experiencing marital issues), a fire aboard the aircraft, vertical entry into the water, a meteor impact, and even extraterrestrial abduction.
Despite three years and $160 million spent combing hundreds of square miles of water, the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 and the 239 people on board remains a mystery.