The Creepiest Mysteries In Red Dead Redemption 2

I don’t think I will ever forget the first time I played Red Dead Redemption 2, since this Rockstar Games masterpiece sparks something I absolutely love about video games: sharing your discoveries and theories with other players.

I mean, yeah, Arthur’s Morgan story is an incredible journey that everyone should experience, but nothing beats the feeling of being a free cowboy with a deep, complex (and often unsettling, I must add) sandbox to explore.

There is just something truly magical about exploring this Western world while talking and discussing it with friends and also strangers online (who eventually became new friends), since it is so densely packed with hidden tasks and tiny details for you to find.

And many of these mysteries are actually quite creepy, and a surprising number of them remain unsolved to this day, even several years after their initial release. Keep in mind that the game was released back in 2018, so people have had nearly a decade to dig through every inch of the map – and, somehow, it seems that we still haven’t reached the bottom of the well.

Since I woke up feeling nostalgic and enjoying the smell of the Old West this morning, I thought it was time to revisit some of these mysterious encounters in Red Dead Redemption 2. So, shall we take a look at some of the most unsettling secrets buried in the heart of America?

Oh, and a little spoiler for you: the top spot might actually surprise you, because it involves a mystery that was only uncovered seven years after the game first launched.

8 The Strange Man

Don’t Mess With The Devil

The enigmatic identity of the Strange Man is a mystery that actually began in the first Red Dead Redemption as a “Stranger” side mission. It involved a mysterious man appearing on a cliff to basically test John Marston’s morality, cryptically claiming to be an “accountant.”

Players quickly began to suspect he wasn't exactly human (or even real), viewing him as a supernatural figure like Death, God, or the Reaper – especially since he famously takes three bullets from John’s revolver without even flinching.

His presence was so impactful that he eventually returned for the sequel, where you can find a portrait of him in a cabin in the Lemoyne swamps that gradually finishes itself after some visits (talk about supernatural, huh?). Some people can even trigger a special encounter, where you can actually see him standing right behind John Marston in a mirror inside the cabin.

And the most interesting thing about this mystery is that Dan Houser himself, co-founder of Rockstar Games, eventually confirmed that the Strange Man is some sort of entity that reflects on the protagonist, representing “a kind of manifestation of John Marston’s shadow.”

7 The Ghost of Bluewater Marsh

A Tragic Echo in the Swamp

I first played Red Dead Redemption 2 during the launch week and still remember I was happily exploring the swamps when, suddenly, heard strange noises were heard, like someone was whispering just out of sight.

I actually stopped my horse and took off my headset, thinking the sound was coming from inside my own house. But no, the whispers were coming from the game – what I discovered when I turned Arthur around and came face-to-face with a literal ghost in the middle of the fog.

I don’t think I have ever galloped away so fast (I’m ashamed to admit I left my horse, Roach, behind in pure terror), but hey! I was scared. And it took me days to work up the courage to go after this mystery at the time, since no one had any clue about it.

The first thing I discovered was that the ghost only appears on foggy nights in the Bluewater Marsh area of Lemoyne (between 9pm and 3am), and that she whispers some loose phrases about her past. But what truly terrified me is that, if you get close enough to her, you will see that she is standing near a rope hanged on the tree.

So yeah, this is where she took her life in the past. That was basically everything I got at the time, but other players eventually managed to dig up more information about the ghost. Supposedly, this is the ghost of Agnes Dowd, a woman who murdered her father after he murdered her lover – pretty tragic.

6 Pleasance Grave

Ill With Sin

Right between Scarlett Meadows and Bayou Nwa lies the abandoned town of Pleasance, which hides one of the darkest backstories in the game for me. At first, it looks like a simple godforsaken place of decaying buildings and graves, but a closer look reveals signs of a massive massacre.

For instance, a sign on the outskirts claims that the town was founded in August 1883, while every single tombstone in the cemetery lists the exact same date of death: September 17th, 1883. This means the town lasted only a month before the entire population was wiped out in a single day – so, whatever happened to them, happened pretty hard and fast.

And when you take another walk in the abandoned town and pay attention to doors and windows on the way, you notice that some messages have been written, featuring warnings like “stay out!”, “plague”, and “unclean with sin”.

The simple mention of a plague certainly made many players believe that the town was the victim of a strong disease. However, others claim that the messages about having sinners around suggest a darker fate, such as the local church actually being a devil worshipper place.

This theory gets strong when you explore the church and literally can’t find any known religious symbols or items that we are used to, such as Jesus portraits and crosses, pointing to the fact that they may have been really worshiping something else.

5 Missing Gavin

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

One of the quirkiest mysteries in the game involves Nigel, a man you can find wandering the map desperately looking for his friend, Gavin, during the entire game.

In his first appearances, he seems perfectly healthy, despite relentlessly looking for his missing pal. But as time passes, you see him slowly consumed by the insanity of never finding his companion. And by the time of the epilogue, he has completely lost his mind.

Naturally, players (including me) spent a lot of time trying to find a Gavin NPC to help Nigel out, but no one ever found a trace of him in the world. Many have lost faith that the character exists, while others still believe that there is more to tell about this story.

However, mysteries like this one eventually grabbed the attention of data miners, who dug through the game files and found something bizarre: a character model labeled "CS_Gavin" that, when triggered, is actually Nigel himself.

This has led many to speculate that Nigel is literally Gavin, and has suffered some kind of psychological break so severe that he is literally searching for his own lost identity. Well, who knows?

4 UFOs

I Want to Believe

Your eyes are not deceiving you, and I promise that I’m not tricking you: you can literally witness UFO sightings in Red Dead Redemption 2 – a sci-fi mystery that many players definitely weren't expecting in a Western.

Jokes aside, this happens in two specific spots. The first is a shack north of Emerald Ranch filled with what appears to be dead cultists and a note mentioning an alien cult (yes, you didn’t read that wrong). But if you return to the shack at night, the interior erupts in a green glow, and you can see a glimpse of a flying saucer quickly flying away.

The second spot is right at the top of Mount Shann, just after midnight during the half-moon, if you are lucky. Keep looking at the view until another UFO, with its glowing, green lights, appears for a few seconds.

What’s really cool about this mystery is that UFO sightings actually ramped up in the late 1800s in real life, making this “absurd” secret surprisingly historically accurate for the era!

3 The Legendary Catfish

Gotta Catch 'Em All!

One of the longest (and funniest) side quests in the game involves catching different types of fish in specific regions for a famous angler called Jeremy Gill. You basically complete this narrative line little by little during the game, until you finally reach its final task.

It consists of catching a legendary catfish that supposedly no one has ever seen, and when you help Jeremy to finally hook the notorious fish, he ends up being yanked into the lake by the fish’s immense force and disappears.

The quest simply ends there, and the game offers no clue if you can still try to catch the catfish or not, which has led to many confused players until today, and has become a true mystery.

However, since the gamer’s curiosity is very strong, some data miners were digging through the game files and eventually stumbled upon a model for the legendary catfish, but it is an unfinished, distorted asset sitting at the bottom of the lake.

So that basically confirms that we can’t really catch it, but also that Rockstar probably left the fish (even unfinished) as a deliberate “one that got away” mystery for the community to find.

2 The Disappearance of Princess Isabeau

The Royal in the Files

The disappearance of Princess Isabeau Katharina Zinsmeister is one of the most famous unsolved cases in the Red Dead community – and I must confess, probably the one I most strongly defend, that there is still something missing from this story.

Basically, you can find a missing person poster offering a $100 reward in case you find Isabeau Katharina Zinsmeister, who is literally a princess and has gone missing in 1884 at the age of five (while the game is set in 1899). However, no one has been able to find it or trigger its secondary mission (if it exists, that is).

But it seems that data miners are here to the rescue of Red Dead fans, since they dug in and found a fully textured NPC model for her in the game files. And she matches the description perfectly, by including birthmarks on her face and hand, and also already being a young adult, since five years have passed since she went missing.

Another important detail is that the model is named "CS_PrincessIsabeau," with "CS" likely standing for "cutscene." This suggests there was meant to be a way to find her and trigger a cinematic, but how to do so organically within the game remains a total mystery to this day.

1 Spider Webs Puzzle

The Seven-Year Secret

We have finally reached one of the biggest current mysteries, largely because it was only discovered in early 2026, meaning it took over seven years after the game's initial launch for players to find it!

This one basically involves finding some weird spider webs and pole carvings scattered across the map. Then, when you overlay their locations directly on the map, you get the distinct shape of a spider.

And by following the spider's "legs" on the map, it will lead you to a trail that ends up on a site called “Dodd’s Bluff,” west of Fort Wallace. The trail currently ends there, and has left the community really divided.

Some, like myself, believe that there is still something to find out about the spider webs and pole carvings, while others are already satisfied with the theory that it is simply an elaborate prank by Rockstar due to the “bluff” mentioned.

Whatever the case, this is still a fresh, ongoing mystery that proves the magic of Red Dead Redemption 2 can still captivate us, even nearly a decade after its release!