People Are Struggling To Solve This Flies Cries Riddle

One of the earliest known examples of famous riddles comes from the mysterious Sphinx. In this old legend, the creature will devour any traveler who can't answer her riddle. The wording of her riddle depended on who you asked, but it could be summarized as, "what is that which has one voice and yet becomes four-footed and two-footed and three-footed?"

The Greek hero Oedipus bested her by answering "man," but ever since we've been trying to trip each other up with similarly tricky riddles. Nowadays, they tend to take the form of solving the mystery behind a bizarre situation or figuring out the trick in a seemingly meaningless sequence of numbers or paragraph. Yet, the classic riddle simply has you identify a mysterious object with a few vague clues.

Today, we're going back to that classical style. Try to figure out what we could possibly be talking about in this puzzling riddle.

COMMENT and tell us what your first answer was before you figured it out.

Firstly, we're talking about something that can fly with no wings.

However, this thing exists in the real world so Superman is out.

It also cries, but sheds no tears.

Since this wording is a little confusing, we'll just say it has no tear ducts.

Finally, darkness follows it everywhere it goes.

So it can fly without wings, cry without shedding tears and darkness follows it everywhere.

So what is it?

Think about it and remember to fulfill all three categories when you have your answer.

If you can't figure it out or want to check if you're right, the solution is on the next page.

You may find yourself thinking of something that fits two out of three requirements but doesn't quite nail it.

An attack helicopter flies without wings and you could argue darkness follows it everywhere, but it doesn't cry. Well, I suppose it can leak fuel, but it's not supposed to do that.

A guitar is also close without being correct.

A guitar can cry and could be followed by darkness if it's part of a gloomy band, but it doesn't fly. At least, it doesn't fly very far.

So what flies, cries and always comes with darkness?

It's a cloud. A cloud doesn't have wings but hangs out in the sky. It doesn't have tear ducts but cries rain. And when it's gearing up to do that, things usually get pretty dark.

COMMENT and let us know what you thought it was.