The Truly Baffling Case of the Ancient Voynich Manuscript

It contains over 113 unidentified plant species, astrological drawings of Zodiac symbols, images of what appear to be pregnant women wading in fluids, and sketches of over 100 species of medicinal herbs and roots, complete with watercolors and continuous pages of text that might be recipes, with flowers marking the margins. The delightfully bizarre book, known as the "Voynich manuscript," dates back to the 15th century. And no one knows what the hell any of it means. In 1912, Polish-American bookseller Wilfrid M. Voynich acquired the puzzling 240-page collection of strange drawings and writings, which would come to be named after him. Since then, researchers have tried--to varying results--using artificial intelligence to decipher the weird collection, though many of those efforts end up discredited.