The Isdal Woman: Europe's Most Famous Unidentified Person | Answers With Joe 

The fact you could identify a Soviet lady spy by the perfume they wore is so outlandish and camp that I love it.

Glad to see someone point out that, "this is still another human being at the end of the day."... a class act added to a story that has long since dehumanized the Jane.... no matter her profession... awesome job, per usual, Joe and entertaining as always!

As someone with a degree in psychology, I think the fifth theory is very plausible. She might have some form of paranoia and or psychosis. This would explain almost everything. She might have thought she was followed, so she traveled all the time, used different wigs and names. We can also find religious symbols on her belongings, it is common for psychotic people to be religious. Her strange odor could mean lacking hygiene, wich is common in psychosis or cold even have to do with occult protection spells made from garlic she used. Strange behaviours like moving furnitures around and changing rooms also hint to mental illness. A spy wouldn’t do that, as it attracts quite a lot of attention. She might have had weird beliefs and rituals corresponding to that. Also her death, which probably was a suicide, fits to psychosis. Schizophrenic people offen have depression and 10% commit suicide. And this often takes place in a very violent or weird manner. Besides taking the sleeping pills (what would have been enough to kill her) she lit herself on fire which must have been extremely painful. Maybe she thought she had to do it for some reason.

theory 5 is honestly the first thing I thought of, the tragic last days of the Isdal womans life sound very much like a bipolar manic episode with psychotic features. scratching off labels on your meds, wearing wigs to "avoid detection", cutting tags out of clothing, going from country to country, constantly switching hotel rooms and moving furniture, behaving erratically, hooking up and going out with random guys, smelling like b/o because showering isnt a priority when you think someone's after you, swallowing a bunch of sleeping pills because you cant take it anymore, deciding to go camping on a whim, and accidently setting yourself on fire in your altered state on another note: it kinda frustrates me how everyone just defaults to paranoid schizophrenia whenever paranoia is brought up. other mental illnesses can cause paranoia and psychosis, and both of those things can appear by themselves :/

The people of DNA Doe Project can verify that there are people out there who have been unidentified for years....yet, their family, for various reasons, never really looked for them or reported them missing. Then, the DNA people come to their door and say, "hey, we think we found your daughter (sister, cousin) deceased" The family then says, "Oh! We just thought she didn't want to hang around with us!" It happens. Not everyone actively pursues missing family members.

The Isdal woman is fascinating and tragic. I have a background in mental health and theory #5 is plausible for a few reasons. 1. Her strange odor. Personal hygiene is often an issue for those struggling with depression, bipolar, schizophrenia and other mental disorders. The Isdal woman's body odor could indicate that she was not taking care of her hygiene properly due to some kind of mental illness. 2. Her paranoia. Isdal woman's many identities and constant movements could suggest that she believed she was being stalked. Perhaps experiencing gangstalking, a delusional disorder that causes sufferers to believe that they are constantly being harrassed and stalked by ordinary people around them and that these people aren't ordinary at all but are agents of the State or aliens or the New World Order. People who claim to be victims of gangstalking have been known to abandon their lives and their families and friends to go into hiding, moving frequently. 3. Her death. The Isdal woman probably took her own life and that too indicates that she may have been struggling with mental health issues. 4. Spy or Schizophrenia? The behavior that made people think Isdal woman was a spy would also fit someone who was delusional but functional enough to appear somewhat normal to those around her. Moving furniture around, moving location frequently and keeping a log in a code could indicate she was a spy but more likely indicates she was having a delusional episode and thought she needed to evade something or someone. Perhaps being a spy was part of her delusions?

Something that I’ve always found heartbreaking is the thought that there are people who die unremembered; not just forgotten… but they leave the world knowing no one was left to remember them.

Joe, I am 67 years old and do not write fan letters BUT ...I want to tell you that I enjoy your personality and how you present your stories. You have a great way of telling them and you make me smile. So thank you! I wish the best for you and your family.

I actually think theory number 5 is the most plausible out of all of them. Mental illness with psychosis, paranoia, or mania (or all 3) is enough to explain all of this. People severely underestimate how powerful and bizarre mental illness can be.

I am surprised that 'Vengeful husband' never came up... The number of women I have encountered that fear a current or ex husband, switching hotel rooms, moving things around their room to make it easy to hide or escape, or difficult for people to get in through windows, or whatever else. There are a thousand reasons this could have been such a situation. Further, I am SHOCKED that 'forced to take the pills' was not mentioned. Considering how common this was at the time, and still is, to make a murder look like suicide. Force her to take the pills thinking she will die. She doesn't die, but is loopy, force her to take the rest, still doesn't die. Set her on fire...

I'm intrigued by the eerie similarities between this case and "Jennifer Fairgate" who allegedly committed suicide in an Oslo hotel in the mid 1990s. It would be nice to think that she might eventually be positively identified so that she can finally be given her name back. May she rest in peace, poor woman.

This sounds like something one lady I know, who is a Paranoid Schizophrenic, would do. The point that sticks out to me in the video is how this woman moved the furniture out of her room or around her room. My friend sometimes thinks the furniture or the ceiling fan is a way for evil people to see and hear her. At one point, she truly thought a neighbor was talking to her through the air vents and threatening to rape and kill her. Using different names and moving around constantly fits with this mental illness. The patient is trying to outwit the imaginary people they are hiding from-- but never can, because those people are always with them, in their head. My friend "sneaks around on herself" sometimes-- which doesn't make sense as a sentence, unless you know someone like this. Again, she tries to outwit the people she thinks are talking to her-- but those people are always with her, so she never can. But she keeps trying to do things and/or communicate so "they" won't be able to find out, or she does things as "signals" to others that "they" are spying on her and threatening her. At one point, my friend hung bizarre, seemingly random, items on her wall and took photos of them with her phone. The items were things that meant something to her late husband-- movies he liked on DVDs, his sports cap with his favorite team, a blanket, etc. In her mind, the evil people who were watching her through "the black web" (what she thought "the dark web" is) would post those pictures to the "black web," because they were always taking videos of her, and people who knew her late husband would see them (somehow) and come to help her. She has tried tearing the ceiling fan out. She pulled wires out of her walls via her air vents. She hung towels around her rooms, etc. Also importantly... She refused to shower properly, and always showered in her underwear, because she thought people were always watching her. If someone thought they needed to keep imaginary "evil people" away in the early 1970s, then using garlic would make sense. (It supposedly works for vampires, after all.) That, and a fear of bathing because she thought she was being watched all the time, would explain the woman's smell, imo. In the worst phases of my friend's paranoid episodes, my friend cannot sleep or rest. Taking sleeping pills would be a logical prescription for this, in the early 1970s. No one gets ahold of that many sleeping pills who either isn't a doctor, a pharmacist, or a patient. The pills might have been hers (in which case she was prescribed them, which fits with the paranoia symptoms), or were given to her by someone else (which would mean her killer had access to the medications). I don't think she set herself on fire, although maybe that is possible, I'm admittedly no expert on that. During a manic/paranoid episode, I know it is possible for mentally ill people to not react normally to medications, including sleeping pills, and stay awake with doses that would knock out a large animal in moments. I've seen that happen. Is it possible she prepared the fuel etc to incinerate herself, took most of the pills over the course of a few minutes, then (when she felt then starting to kick in) quickly took the rest of the pills and triggered the blaze? Maybe. I don't know. But I do know all of her behaviors sound like things that my paranoid schizophrenic friend would do. I also know that paranoid schizophrenics tend to alienate friends and family. Their condition is very hard to deal with, and it's impossible to truly help them if they believe what they are experiencing is real, and refuse to seek help. I hope the DNA Doe Project can give her a name, before everyone who knew her, who might be able to explain her behavior, is passed on and dead.

#5 was actually my first guess. Even today that particular mental illness is frequently untreated. The symptoms cause the victim to believe there is nothing wrong with them and also that doctors cannot be trusted. So even when somebody tries to get help for them, it doesn't always work so well.

Accidentally found him, and now I'm addicted to his videos

7:06 "A number on clothing items, with the labels cut out" The Somerton man, a man that died on the beach in Australia under mysterious circumstances, also had clothing with the labels cut out. Both have been suspected of being spies.

I have an uncle who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and unmedicated bipolar disorder. This story, sad as it is, has screamed mental illness to me for the very start. He even was around her age at this time. The way that folks with severe mental illness experienced the world back then was a lot different than today.

Sad situation brings me down. So many people out there have died in mysterious ways never to be solved. Lonely souls forgotten and invisible. No matter who she was or what she did, her life mattered and she deserved a better end.

I knew a woman like this. She would travel from town to town constantly staying in motel rooms no more than a couple nights. she had physical problems but she would never go to the hospital or doctor. She told me that she was on the run because someone or something was chasing her...she also said she heard voices and satan was trying to get her. She had been going for years and her family didnt know where she was. I think that's what was going on with this woman plus people can build up an amazing resistance to pills if they take them for many years she probably took a bunch of pills and was able to make it out to that spot and then took some more she may have let herself on fire with a cigarette or something like that

Hey Joe, could you please make a video about Jacobo Grinberg? He was a Mexican neurophysiologist and psychologist. He dedicated himself to studying Mexican shamanism, oriental disciplines, meditation, astrology, and telepathy through the scientific method. But he mysteriously disappeared on December 8, 1994, without leaving a single trace. People say that it was secret agencies who kidnapped him, since he supposedly discovered telepathy. Would love a video on this topic!

I live just a short hike away from Isdalen in Bergen where the woman was found so it's funny that Joe is presenting this case to an international audience when it's this close to home.

“Sounds like overkill to me” that’s the funniest dad joke I’ve heard in a long time. A bit macabre, but funny never the less.

Very interesting. I live in Bergen but have never heard of this woman before. I actually went for a walk up into Isdalen yesterday. Chilling stuff.

@Joe Scott I know this will get buried, but I do have a tiny bit of insight into this case. In the early 1970’s, it was very popular for women to have a collection of different wigs and falls. My mom brought part of her collection with her on her and my father’s honeymoon. People assumed he was with a different woman each night and would comment to him. My parents would just laugh it off. But, this was part of popular fashion back then.

The idea that I immediately had was that she was attempting to hide/flee from someone, who caught up with her in the town near where she died/was killed. Thanks for bringing this cold case to life for me ...

I like Joe for not only being fixated on stories happening in America, but even as an American also taking stories that have happened in Europe. I already was pretty well surprised when he talked about the Kaspar Hauser case. And I must admit, as a German living in Germany and doing German things, this makes me even a bigger fan of his channel. Wouldn't you, if he mentioned your homeland? FOREVER JOE SCOTT!!! (Tom's good too, but I'm more the Joe guy)

She was an excellent spy. She’s still invisible, even in death

There was an eyewitness who said they saw a man walking after her on the mountain. I do think she struggled with anxiety but that someone was chasing her. It may have just been an abusive spouse.

Just want to say Joe, I love how you always strive to remind people of the real points in these stories. No matter what else, she was a person who lived, breathed and no matter her issues was deserving of a more dignified end than being burned alive. People focus on the mysterious and salacious but forget the rest. Thanks for your take as always (I have read/watched a lot on this case but this is one of the best.)

The concept of carbon monoxide poisoning did make me consider that something had affected her mentality. One of the side affects of carbon monoxide is memory loss. I assume the carbon monoxide was only from the fire, but it's possible that she was exposed to some other toxin or trigger that made her severely unaware or incoherent, which could explain why she ended up taking so many pills. Perhaps even a lack of sleep causing hallucinations, memory loss or severe distress. There have been people who take excess sleeping pills because they're desperate to sleep. If they were sleeping pills she took, that may have been why. The real confusing part though is the sole print on her knee? Unless it was a light impression from her boots being on her lap, then how did it get there?

Police: "Could you pick her out of a lineup?" Everyone across Europe: "Absolutely, that BO is unmistakable."

It’s nice to see how much love and care are given to people even if they are not known and even after they are gone. For example, they didn’t just burry her. They tried to give her a service that they think served her. It’s nice to see kindness.

joe, this is one of my favorite mystery cases, and im so happy you covered it!!!! THANK YOU!

If this video does well and you want to do more, I recommend the lady of the Dunes. And the possibility that she was in 'Jaws' as an extra wearing the same clothes she died in.

I’ve been fascinated by this case for a long time. Listened to ice valley each week. Did some research. You covered it really well and added details that most don’t bother to research. This is the best coverage if this tragic case I’ve ever seen, and I’m obsessed enough to have watched them all lol. Thankyou for covering this so well, and with the compassion that she deserves.

joe i have watched you for years and i kind of went through a stagnant period where i didn’t watch many videos, although i kept on supporting through patreon, and i can honestly say you have rekindled my love for the channel. the latest vids have been very good and i really like the content! keep it up!

I never heard of this case. It is so sad. I hope that someday, perhaps there will be closure. Thank you Joe for your honest, gracious reporting if this.

Thanks for reminding us that she was a person first, long before she became a mystery.

What immediately comes to my mind is those two tall European blond twins who left Ireland and came to England and there behaviour became insane. I’m wondering if the isdel woman had the same kind of temperament.

I remember watching a documentary about this many years ago. The thing that really stayed with me from that one was a guy that was interviewed who was out walking his dog that very morning in the same area. According to him he walked past "this mysterious woman" who was with two men. No one in the entourage spoke a single word, and as they passed him he caught eye contact with her. He immediately felt she was trying to communicate something to her. Possibly that she was in danger. That memory had stayed with him throughout his life. I don't know what the documentary was called or if it holds any water, but it's a chilling recount.

I love learning from you, Joe! You always make everything so interesting and fun.

Joe, thank you for telling these stories with compassion. I love that you explore these mysteries with humanity.

This video was very interesting, like all of his videos. The small touch of humour was ok to break the tension on the horrific death of the Isdal Woman. Love your channel, please don't stop your style.

Really enjoyed this, very informative and precise. I would highly recommend the Mystery Scope documentary on it as well. They did a 4 part series. Thanks once again for the upload Joe!

I stumbled upon this channel today and I’m glad I did. Can’t stop watching.

Loved that video about Peter Bergman so I know I’m going to love this one! These videos are so good. I sometimes go into a rabbit hole after watching them and start looking into their lives and what evidence we have after watching them. Thanks so much Joe!

Brilliant video, I love your mystery videos, you have a great knack for telling a story in general but the ones who deal with unknowns are the best.

I enjoy learning from you Joe never a dull video,this one especially.

Great video, as always. This is a much more respectful and realistic take than others Ive seen on this topic. I was excited to read the book, only to find that it seems to only be available in e-book :(

even tho i'm norwegian, i've never heard of this story, but i'm intrigued by this story, and grateful that joe brought it up. recommend the plaza woman if you're looking into another norwegian unsolved mystery

Death In Ice Valley is a truly fascinating and wonderfully atmospheric podcast ... can’t recommend it highly enough. Thx Joe! 😀👍

I just love all your videos!! ❣ The way you present them keeps me hooked..

Really impressed with your videos! Thank you for being measured, and also all inclusive. Very well done!

I really love these more mysterious videos and I'm glad everyone else does too. GIVE US MORE!!!

A Sickly Sweet Body Odor is a common result of various medical disorders.

I love your channel!!! Been watching here and there for a couple of years and appreciate your content and approach!

"A taxi driver went as far as calling her sexy". I cracked up at this I don't know why lol.

Perhaps she was sick? End stage liver disease can make breath and sweat smell like garlic and rotten eggs. Liver cirrhosis (whether alcohol or drug induced or not) can cause brain dysfunction and confusion. That could have also impacted her behaviour.

If I were to have a guess I'd say it sounds like suicide, she probably went out there fully intending to comit suicide, took the first load of pills hoping that would kill her, after they didnt work she took some more, then shortly after when they werent working she lit herself on fire as she was pretty much out of options at that point. Probably through mental illness, if she was paranoid maybe she just couldnt take it anymore feeling like being followed so decided to end it

Good coverage of this case. Also worth looking into reports about the Bergen Police investigation and how it was troubled by the Secret Police.

Thanks Joe. I look forward to watching your videos.

Hi Joe ! Could you make a New Year Special where you look back on the past year and sum up all the new science discoveries made and where they might lead us to?

That's so sad...but the last bits of information (that there is an organization like the DNA Doe Project out there...and that they not only gave her a decent burial but endeavored to give her the type of ceremony & service she might have wanted) made me feel hopeful, in the possibility of closure for her case and others...and hope in humanity in general.

I’m glad I found your channel. I binged like 9 eps last night

Thanks for the video!!!!

I always wonder about age estimates based on eye witnesses, as a 24 year old who gets shouted at semi regularly by shop keepers who think I'm a 15-16 year old skipping school. I just have chronic baby face when I'm not wearing makeup and I'm 5ft tall so I will probably be getting ID'd for a long time. I'm just used to it now, it's a constant stream of "is your mom home?" 😭. Since people have an idea in their heads of what someone in their mid 20s looks like, I don't think they'd match that up with me if I went missing and someone had indeed seen me on the street. I know a gal who's 32 and has scoliosis so she's 4ft 11, a few days ago a delivery driver asked her "is your mummy home?" when she answered her own front door.

I was watching your vid abt the skinwalker ranch moments ago, then you upload a new vid hahaha. Thanks Joe!

I've come to love this channel because your explanations of things always help ground me a bit lmao I can be quick to fall for the sensationalized theories of things but the way you explain it and just lay out the facts really helps me see the more mundane explanations for things. I still find these cases incredibly interesting and I dont completely throw out the more sensational theories but this channel does help me see that they are often not the most likely answers, even when others make it seem that way

Glad you mentioned the Death In Ice Valley podcast. Well worth a listen to anyone interested in this story.

The fact that she could take that many of those pills and still walk talk and breathe means she had a high tolerance. So her strange behavior could easily be explained by the fact that she was geeked up on these pills. And I don't know if they tested for speed or not, but it is not uncommon for people who take sedatives like that to also take uppers. So imagine someone taking Ambien and smoking meth. Strangest thing to me is the fact that she had money. Crazy people that have schizophrenia don't tend to have a lot of money. Also, drug addicts don't tend to have a lot of money. So, has anyone ever searched for medical records of any doctor who prescribed excessive amounts of this medication to a woman? Her death could be the result of her drug-induced insanity. I was a paramedic and we got calls for people who were smoking meth who thought midgets were living under their house and they wanted us to come get them out. And they always thought the FBI was staked out in the woods watching them. And one of them ran through town going door to door running into businesses screaming that someone was trying to kill him. I know that no one was trying to kill him because he said I was trying to kill him.

I love the DNA Doe Project!! They do truly great work.

Another well presented video, handled with humanity and grounding humour. I appreciate the weekly reminder as to why subscribing was a wonderful thing to do 😉

Loving the content my guy! Subbed yesterday when i found the channel

I would love to see you do a video on amusia. The condition that some people have that makes it so they cannot detect pitch. You touched on it in a previous video but I forgot to suggest it then. I learned about the condition in a book called The Singing Neanderthals which seeks to find the origins of language and music. Good read but a little over my head at times. Love your channel!! Sorry for the off topic comment but I wanted to suggest it.

Genuine constructive feedback: You probably want to give the content warning BEFORE showing the photo of the naked dead woman whose body was completely burned and maybe then give people a few seconds to minimize the window before you move on with the story.

thanks Joe this case fascinated me since I learned about and Jennifer Fairgate

Interesting and effective story. You did a great job.

I think mental illness is the most probable explanation. My mother has a friend who suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, and she has a habit of changing her cell phone number often, or getting a whole new phone, because she believes her family members have gotten ahold of her number and all the information about her from it and that they have malicious intentions towards her. So I find the Isdal Woman's actions reasonable if she were suffering from a mental illness or some type of fugue state. Additionally the amount of luggage she had seems a bit cumbersome if she were a spy.

I think the Isdal Woman was on the run from someone or something. And the fact that she ended up dead... It seems like a lot of trouble to go through to unalive yourself.

Love your work! The overly long and misplaced pauses though.. :)) More power!

I love these mystery type videos!

Duuude you gotta talk about the "Metaverse". I would love to see your opinion on that one.

"Bergen is surrounded by mountains" made me laugh because that just beans mountains in german and i could assume something similar in Norwegian

Love your channel!,

The Somerton Man found Adelaide Australia might be of interest to you. Love your work!

Joe this was a very good summary, anyone interested in this should also check out a British-Norse co-op production podcast called "Death in ice valley" where they re-visit the case and do scientific tests and test different other hypotheses that could explain the identity.

Ohh Hiked up Ulriken every week when working in Bergen. Really nice and only took like 45 min. Had a beer or coffee at the top and enjoyed the view of the City. Even though it is an amazing view it is not even remotely one of Norways nicest! They are in completely different league than the rest of us!😂 Remember reading about this case!

The eerie parallels between this case and the case of Jennifer Fairgate’s decades later are astonishing.

So cool! Suddenly Joe became so local. This happend in my hometown Bergen :D

Video added 16 seconds ago. 200 + views. Hell yeah, Joe!

The overkill joke was great, I died laughing😂

This is an awesome story. The best part is it hasn't been driven into the ground by every RU-vidr.

The Podcast is really good!!

I love that you managed to keep your sense of humor despite the grimness of the topic. The "what have I become?" bit was hilarious.

I have a theory. Women with chronic liver disease, what would make her breath smell like garlic, which she would try to hide with cheap perfume; and what could cause hair loss hance the wig. Her condition was caused by some last-stage disease or alcoholism. She decides to kill herself but plans a goodbye trip around Europe with her final destination being this beautiful mountain where she could die while looking at something nice. Once she arrives she takes the pills but she possibly changes her mind last minute. She staggers back the way she came from but because she can hardly walk from the overdose she trips and falls. Two things might happen. The can of hairspray explodes from the impact then possibly: If she was an alcoholic the white thermostat might have an alcoholic beverage in it, which would made her accident much worse and probably contributed to the complete evaporation of the thermostat. She might tried to hide her identity for religious reasons since suicide is a sin, and the cards in her notebook suggest she might have been quite religious and didn't want her family to know what happened.

Your sensitivity towards her is truly moving.

I was amazed at the thumbnail for this video, that pic you (I assume it was you seeing as I have never seen it elsewhere) rendered from the sketch of her, looks identical!!!

I would opt for either theory 1 or 5, although you have argued very well for each of the 5 theories, I think that only those 2 would be able to explain all the incosistencies found. There must have been either complex interests we dont know of and cant understand (which would be the case if she was a spy, not necessarily of the Soviet Union, spying is common) or she must have had a mind which seems very irrationally to others (in case of schizophrenia) and we therefore struggle to understand her behaviour. Either way, I liked your approach, your openess and empathy for the victim, no matter what happened.

As someone with a mother that suffers from severe mental illness, I gravitate toward that theory. I could 100% see my mother doing these things and taking too many pills either on purpose for some paranoid reason or just because she kept forgetting that she already took one. Mental illness can lead to all sorts of bizarre actions that could leave all sorts of mixed signals as to what really happened.

fascinating case

Watching this from Bergen. I've been to Ulriken multiple times but never knew this was so close