51 Legends And Myths Once Considered Hoaxes That Evidence Later Proved True

Well not quite a perfect fit, but the one that always sticks in my mind was that the Mongolians would always boil their water before drinking to "get rid of the tiny evil spirits'.

That's a pretty good description of germs and bacteria for the time period.

The discovery of viking/norse colony at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, Canada that was settled between 990-1050.
Rumors of Norse landings in North America were dubious, often alluded to in the Iceandic or Greenlander Sagas as the colony of Vinland. In 1961, a colony was located, excavated and dated to over 400 years prior to Columbus.

One of my favorites is Lake Nyos in the Republic of Cameroon.

The local legend was that an evil spirit or a monster lived in the lake and would come out at night to takes lives of anyone who lived too close to the lake. One of the local groups, the Bafmen, settled in the high ground near the lake due to the legends. Different groups moved into the area in the mid 1900's and lived closer to the water's edge, disregarding the customs of the Bafmen.

In 1986, nearly 1,500 people living near the lake were found deceased. Those who lived in the higher ground were fine.

It turns out the lake was very deep, and would essentially become carbonated. A land slide could trigger a release of CO2 from the lake waters. On that night in 1986, an enormous release occurred and since CO2 is heavier than air, anyone in the lower areas simply suffocated and didn't wake up.

So while the myth about the evil spirits wasn't entirey true, there really was something in the lake to fear!

Machu Picchu

" So you're telling me there are a bunch of people with a ton of gold living on the top of a mountain higher than any in Europe using advanced farming techniques and building magnificent​ temples? Nonsense"

Turns out, yes Mr. Conquistador, there was.

There was a tale of a massive eagle that stole babies in Maori legend. Pakeha (European settlers) didn't believe it until at least after 1871 when a dude found the 400+ year old remains of an eagle in a swamp. They were 20-33 lb/9-15kg and had a 8.5-10 foot/2.4-3m wingspan.

It would hunt its prey by diving at ~50mph/80kph toward the neck or head and the "striking force [was] equivalent to a cinder block falling from the top of an eight-story building."

It hunted Moa, which were 12 feet/3.7m tall.

It definitely could have stolen a baby.

It was widely regarded to be a myth that the first emperor of a united China, Qin Shi Huang, built a massive replica of his empire as his mausoleum. The stories said he had thousands of statues of soldiers constructed to guard his empire in the afterlife and had an underground palace with rivers of mercury. In 1974, more than 8,000 terracotta warriors were uncovered in Xi'an China.

I believe there exists an oral history of a tremendous wave striking the Pacific Northwest among various coastal tribes. It was broadly viewed as being nonsense before they uncovered evidence of a colossal thrust earthquake and tsunami from around 1700.

A dingo ate her baby.

It wasn't clear whether King Richard III was really deformed, or if people who wrote about him after he passed were just making it up. Some people thought he must have been physically normal, but writers added the deformity to make him seem more hateable. When his remains were found, there was evidence of severe scoliosis that would have made one shoulder higher than the other. Not a hunchback, but at least a bit lopsided.

The Japanese Divine Wind legend. Said to have saved the Japanese from two Mongol invasions and ultimately play a major role in the fall of the Mongol Empire.

Turns out it did happen, but the reason the Mongol's boats sank was because the Chinese ship builders intentionally built a fault into the ships that would cause them to sink once wind/sea conditions hit a specific level. The Mongols who knew nothing about ships were totally oblivious to the subtle built in error.

The Divine Mistake.

The coelcanth. It's a type of fish that was thought to be extinct for over a hundred million years, until it was found off of the coast of Madagascar in the 1930s by a fisherman. It's a pretty cool story – really makes you question what's out there.

In the 1960s there were rumours that the US government had been carrying out secret germ-warfare tests on its own citizens. These rumours were strongly denied.

Then in the 1970s, when pressed by Senate hearings, the military admitted that, between 1949 and 1969, such tests HAD taken place, most notably on the New York subway system.

Troy was once thought of as a myth.

Mountaineers found a small lake in the himalayas, absolutely covered in bones. As they searched, they found the bodies of at least two hundred, as well as potentially up to three times that many in the lake itself. All of them suffered blunt force trauma from what appeared to be a rockslide, but there was no sign of any such rocks.

According to legend, Raja Jasdhaval, the king of Kanauj, was traveling with his pregnant wife, Rani Balampa. They were accompanied by servants, a dance troupe, and others as they traveled on a pilgrimage to Nanda Devi shrine, for the Nanda Devi Raj Jat, which takes place every twelve years. As they traveled, they were overcome by a sudden, severe hailstorm with extremely large hail stones. The storm was too strong, and with nowhere to take shelter, the entire group perished.

It was long thought to be a legend, but now they think it actually happened, almost exactly the way it was said to have happened.

North Korean kidnappings of some Japanese people.

They were just rumors and a 'myth' for a while, but then NK came out and admitted that they totally did it.

Room 641A. It's a room inside an AT&T telecommunications backbone that was rumored to house beamsplitters to monitor all internet traffic in the United States. Once PRISM was released it was insane how accurate the conspiracy theories were.

Saraswati river in India was considered a myth, a stuff of mythological texts and such.

No one could actually confirm its existence, but there was a millenia long speculation about why did the river feature so much in late bronze age (Vedic) Indian literature if it was not real, alongside actual and real major rivers. It was even deified as a goddess, a prospect reserved for major rivers.

Yet no one had an idea about where it was later on.

Fast forward to 19th century, Indians and the British surveying the land discovered an entire dry river valley in the middle of the desert, not far from location mentioned in ancient texts. It roughly runs behind the modern India-Pakistan border.

Many wondered where the lush and prosperous Saraswati flood plain mentioned in Vedic texts went, and why did the river dry up.

The most common theory today is that the river, while real, suffered drastic effects in the massive climate change of late 6th century AD, and lost its course. The mention of it in imperial texts disappears by the next century. Parts of the river lingered around until 9th century but increasing desertification eventually destroyed it completely. And the river passed from memory.

It remains like that today, just a faintly recognizable river valley in the middle of the desert.

Gorillas. Giant squid. Before they were documented, they only existed in stories for a long time.

Giant Redwood trees were thought to be a hoax by a great many people back in the day.

There was an island that was rumored to have dragons on it. Explorers didn't find fire-breathing or flying lizards, but they did find the largest living lizard, and called it the Komodo Dragon.