5 Strange Mysteries Solved by Reddit and the Internet

In the summer of 1995, a car carrying two men in their 20s crashed in Virginia, tragically taking their lives. The driver was immediately identified by his family, but the young man in the passenger seat remained unknown. As his photo became public domain, a Reddit user uploaded it to several forums, where it quickly gained traction. Then the Internet did its thing…

After a fatal accident in June of 1995 near Emporia, Virginia, the identity of one of the passengers remained a mystery, and his description didn't fit with any missing-person database.

The young man had long dyed-red hair and a ‘Grateful Dead’ t-shirt, carrying nothing more than a dollar in quarters, a yellow Bic lighter, and two scalped ‘Grateful Dead’ concert tickets.

For almost two decades, and after several rounds of testing, this John Doe remained unknown, becoming a favorite of online true-crime fanatics, and appearing in several articles time and time again.

One day, some people interested in the case opened a Reddit forum dedicated to the missing man now nicknamed ‘Grateful Doe’ which initially attracted 800 users.

As the authorities released a digitally reconstructed image of the man's face in 2012, a user uploaded it to the Reddit threads and other web sleuth websites alongside other artists' renditions of the man. The image also circulated in jam-band and ‘Grateful Dead’ forums.

Doe's face and information became an almost immediate success, going viral and getting half a million views in over two days.

The man was then recognized by his former roommate, as well as his half-brother. Doe was identified as Jason Callahan, a South Carolina native who had gone missing years before.

Around the same time, a woman from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, spotted ‘Grateful Doe’’s photo in a Facebook group, positively identifying him as Jason, a 19-year-old hitchhiker that had left home to follow his favorite band.

The woman claimed to have filed a missing report for her son but assumed he had simply run away.

Jason Callahan was officially identified in 2015, and the young man remains one of the most impressive accomplishments for armchair digital detectives.

Today, the ‘r/GratefulDoe’ subreddit community is dedicated to finding closure for more families whose loved ones have gone missing or unidentified.