More than 100 jars of human brains taken from the late patients of a mental hospital in Austin have reportedly disappeared form the University of Texas, according to The Week.

Although it may have been the next big project for the University of Texas to look for the jars filled with human brains, the mission may have failed before it even began, as Tim Schallert, curator of the brain bank, told The Atlantic that the school "never found out" what happened to the missing brains.

"They just disappeared," stated Schallert.

One of the missing brains preserved is reportedly believed to have belonged to clock tower sniper Charles Whitman, according to The Associated Press.

The missing 100 human brains reportedly makes up about half of the specimens the university had in a collection of brains preserved in jars of formaldehyde.

Although the brains have not been found, the co-curator of the collection, psychology Professor Lawrence Cormack, reportedly told the Austin American-Statesmnas that undergraduates and others may have been taking the brains for years "for living rooms or Halloween pranks."

The Austin State Hospital had reportedly transferred the jars of now missing brains to the university about 28 years ago. Six institutions, including Harvard, were interested in acquiring the human brains, but the University of Texas had eventually won the battle, according to a 1986 Houston Chronicle story.

The mystery of this case it that Dr. Jerry Fineg, former director of the Animal Resources Center, reportedly told The Atlantic that Schallert sent the human brains back to the Austin State Hospital, but both Schallert and the hospital confirmed that AHS never received the specimens. The location of the brains still remains unclear.