50 Lateral-Thinking Puzzles That Are Harder Than They Seem
Updated: May 21, 2024
These lateral-thinking puzzles require some serious out-of-the-box thinking to solve. Are you up to the challenge?
There are riddles, and then there are riddles. Lateral-thinking puzzles fall into the latter category. Among the trickiest riddles out there, these brain games will give your noggin a serious workout. That’s because they’re not as clear-cut as your average riddle—in fact, they require a significant amount of inventiveness to get you to your answer. They might even have multiple answers!
We’re not going to lie: These riddles are challenging. But they’re also a whole lot of fun. Ahead, learn exactly what lateral-thinking puzzles are and how to solve them. Then, of course, put yourself to the test and see how many of the puzzles on our list you can figure out. Get ready, get set and … go!
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What is lateral thinking?
Lateral thinking is a creative method of problem solving in which you look for an out-of-the-box solution. Instead of evaluating the problem (or puzzle, in the case of this article) in a linear way, you come at it with unique angles to make the less-obvious connection. This doesn’t mean your thinking is completely random—you’re making creative connections based on the facts.
The father of lateral thinking, Maltese physician, psychologist and inventor Edward de Bono, believed this method would help people explore more possibilities for outcomes rather than simply accepting things the way they expected them to be. This would ultimately make them more critical thinkers and better problem solvers.
What’s the difference between lateral thinking and vertical thinking?
When you engage in vertical thinking, you’re using conventional logic to go straight for the “right” answer. With lateral thinking, you’re approaching the problem from alternate angles, coming up with a solution that is more complex and less straightforward. There are a few ways you could come up with a “correct” answer—and, as noted earlier, there might even be more than one plausible answer. These solutions are more about creativity than correctness.
How to work on a lateral-thinking puzzle
When you’re working on a lateral-thinking puzzle, look at the scenario presented and try to find context clues. Sometimes, the most correct answer is actually the most obvious, which is why you don’t land there immediately. Other times, the correct answer is really hard to get to because you have to create the rest of the scenario yourself and fill in the blanks.
We pulled together some lateral-thinking puzzles—a mix of classic setups and brand-new challenges—that will demonstrate how these riddles work. See how many you can get right. No peeking!
Classic lateral-thinking puzzles
1. A man who lives in a 30-story building decides to jump out of his window. He survives the fall with no injuries. How did that happen?
Answer: He may live in a 30-story building, but he jumped out a first-floor window.
2. Laura is restrained all night long, with her hands pinned to her sides, and cries out occasionally, while someone watches her on a video camera. No one is alarmed, and Laura is happy in the morning. Why?
Answer: Laura is a baby who is swaddled, and her mother is watching her via a baby monitor. Though she cries out a few times during the night, she goes back to sleep and is well rested in the morning.
3. A man is condemned to death. He has to choose from three rooms to accept his punishment. The first room has a firing squad with guns loaded. The second room has a blazing fire. The third room is full of tigers that haven’t eaten for six months. Which room should he choose?
Answer: The room full of tigers. If the tigers haven’t eaten for six months, they’ll be dead.
4. Three-year-old Lily goes missing, and her parents are devastated. They desperately try to find her, searching everywhere and putting up flyers asking for her safe return, but the FBI and even local law enforcement refuse to help. Why?
Answer: Lily is a dog.
5. A woman lives on the 30th floor and hates taking the stairs. Every day, she takes the elevator down to the lobby floor to go to work. When she comes home from work, she takes the elevator to the 20th floor and walks the rest of the way up, except on days when it rains. Those days, she takes the elevator all the way up. Why does she walk the last 10 flights of stairs if she hates it so much?
Answer: The woman is too petite to reach the button for the 30th floor. She can only reach the 20th-floor button. On days when it rains, she uses her umbrella to hit the button for the 30th floor.
6. A man pushes his car until he reaches a hotel. When he arrives, he realizes he’s bankrupt. What happened?
Answer: He’s playing Monopoly, and his piece is the car. He lands on a space with a hotel and doesn’t have the money to pay the fee.
7. A woman opened a door, screamed and was found dead a few minutes later. No gunshots were heard in the area. What happened to her?
Answer: She was on an airplane, opened the door while the plane was in flight and fell to her death.
8. Sam wouldn’t stop playing video games, despite his father’s pleas. To keep Sam from playing video games all the time, his dad grabbed a hammer and solved the problem. Now he can play video games, but Sam cannot. What did the dad do?
Answer: The dad built a shelf out of Sam’s reach and put the video-game console up there. The dad can still reach it to play, but Sam cannot.
9. After a night of partying with her friends, a woman arrives home and finds that she cannot enter the house. She’s sure that she’s at the right home, but she can’t get inside. Why not?
Answer: Her friends took away her keys because she’d had too much to drink. They called her a cab to get home and kept her keys, which meant she didn’t have her house key.
10. Every two weeks, a woman sits down and writes two words on 60 sheets of paper. Why does she do this?
Answer: The woman owns her own business with 60 employees. Every week, she signs her name on their paychecks.
11. A man is stranded on a deserted island. There are no means of transportation available to him anywhere, yet he somehow manages to escape without swimming away or anyone coming to the island to rescue him. How did he do it?
Answer: When the tide went out, it exposed a massive sandbar that led to a populated island, which he was then able to walk to.
12. A woman walked up to a man behind a counter and handed him a book. He looked at it and said, “That will be $4.” She paid him and walked out without the book. He saw her leave but did not call her back. Why?
Answer: She was returning an overdue library book.
13. A man and wife are on the side of the road in their parked car when a stranger suddenly enters the vehicle. However, the couple is not alarmed. Why?
Answer: The woman is pregnant and gives birth in the car. The stranger is the baby, and the parents are happy to meet their new bundle of joy.
14. A man walks into a bar and asks the bartender for a glass of water. The bartender pulls out a gun and points it at the man. The man says, “Thank you,” and walks out.
Answer: The man had hiccups and the gun scared them out of him, to which he said, “Thank you.”
15. John goes to the same woman every day for advice. He trusts her implicitly and always follows her directions, but he has no intention of ever meeting her, and he never asks her about herself. What’s stopping him from developing a more meaningful relationship with her?
Answer: The woman is not a real person. She’s the voice on his car’s GPS.
Loving these classic puzzles? Check out these other tricky brainteasers that will leave you stumped.
Hard lateral-thinking puzzles
16. A woman married 10 different men over the course of her lifetime, but she never got divorced, she wasn’t widowed and she wasn’t a polygamist. How is this possible?
Answer: She was an actress, and she “married” 10 different men while playing different roles.
17. A man is racing through the streets at 200 mph. He passes men, women and even children. Cops see him go by, and yet he never gets a ticket. How?
Answer: He’s a driver in the Monaco Grand Prix.
18. A woman books a flight to London in the morning, makes reservations in New York for lunch and buys Cirque de Soleil tickets in Vegas for an 8 o’clock show—all for the same day. How will she make it to each of these places in time?
Answer: She won’t. She’s a travel agent booking reservations for three different clients.
19. A man stepped on top of a diamond, which caused his leg to break. What happened to him?
Answer: He was a skier on a black diamond slope who broke his leg in a crash.
20. A man isn’t alarmed to see sharks swarming around him, despite there being blood in the water. How did he survive this encounter?
Answer: He was in a shark-diving cage, and the company that organized the experience put blood in the water to attract the sharks.
21. Tom was walking through the woods when all of the sudden, he was shot repeatedly. He survived the attack without serious injury. How is that possible?
Answer: He was playing paintball.
22. Loud voices were heard coming from a room behind a door. However, when the room was checked, there was only one person sitting inside quietly. This person was completely sane, so what’s going on?
Answer: The person was watching TV.
23. If you were alone in a dark room, with only one match and an oil lamp, a fireplace and a candle to choose from, which would you light first?
Answer: The match. You can’t light any of the rest of the objects without first lighting the match.
24. Joe was born in 1955 and died in 1980 at the age of 75. How can this be?
Answer: He was born in hospital room #1955 and died in hospital room #1980.
25. A woman enters a house that isn’t hers. She doesn’t live there and isn’t related to anyone who does. Though the homeowners are home, they say nothing when she leaves with some of their stuff. Who is she, and what did she take?
Answer: She’s the housecleaner, and she removed the trash.
26. Two men enter a bar. They are served identical drinks. After taking a few sips, one lives and the other dies. What happened?
Answer: One of them is deathly allergic to an ingredient in the drink; the other is not.
27. A man is driving down the highway at 65 miles per hour in a 65 mph zone. He passes three cars going 60 miles per hour, then gets pulled over by a police officer and is given a ticket. Why?
Answer: He’s driving the wrong way down the highway.
28. You are standing in a room in front of three light switches in the off position. They are connected to three lightbulbs behind a door in another room. You can do anything you want with the switches, but only one can remain on at a time. When you walk into the next room, you need to know which switch is connected to which bulb. How can you do that?
Answer: Turn on the first switch and leave it on for five minutes. Then turn it off and turn on the next switch and go into the other room. You now know that the second switch turned on the light that is currently on. The first switch you flipped turns on the bulb that is still warm. The switch you never flipped is connected to the bulb that is still cold.
29. A family has a chicken coop for their one dozen chickens. One night, a tornado ripped through the neighborhood and sadly killed all but eight chickens. How many chickens did the family have the next morning?
Answer: Still 12—four dead and eight alive.
30. Everyone hates when Susan snores, because it’s loud and annoying, but today in particular, her snoring is causing you to panic. Why?
Answer: Susan is a taxi driver, and you’re her passenger.
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Dark lateral-thinking puzzles
31. A man talks in great detail about a gruesome murder he planned and carried out, but he isn’t arrested. Why not?
Answer: He’s on a talk show, discussing the plot of his new book.
32. A man aimed his gun at his victim and pulled the trigger. He very quickly realized his mistake, and minutes later, the killer was dead too. What happened?
Answer: The killer and the victim were on a snowy mountain, and he fired his gun near a cliff with snow. The shot triggered an avalanche that he couldn’t outrun.
33. Lucy commits a murder every single day, yet no one reports that the victims are missing. She even keeps trophies of the killings and displays them for the rest of her family to see, yet no one calls the police. Why?
Answer: Lucy is a cat, and she’s killing mice and birds, then leaving them as “gifts” for her owners.
34. There are explosives in a building, and everyone is told to evacuate. The explosives detonate, and the building is destroyed, but there is no investigation or subsequent arrest. Why?
Answer: It was a planned building demolition.
35. Jack and Jill were found dead on the floor the living room, surrounded by broken glass and water. They don’t have any obvious signs of trauma, and no weapons are found nearby. What happened?
Answer: Jack and Jill are fish, and someone knocked over their fishbowl.
36. More than 50 vehicles are involved in a fiery accident. The crash is so large that military and emergency vehicles arrive at the scene. However, there are no injuries despite the size of the crash. How?
Answer: The crash is part of a video game.
37. There is a dead man alone in a field with nothing near him except an unopened package. How did he die?
Answer: He jumped out of a plane, and the unopened package was his parachute that failed to deploy.
38. A woman grabs a man’s ring and pulls on it. They both die minutes later. What happened?
Answer:Â She pulled the ring out of a grenade, which then exploded.
39. An international group of highly skilled people are shocked to find one of their colleagues murdered. The man is surrounded by blood, but there are no footprints around the scene of the crime. Authorities in several countries know what has happened, but none can arrest the killer. Why not?
Answer: The man was an astronaut who was murdered on the International Space Station. Blood splatters more in space than it does on Earth, and there are no footprints due to the weightlessness of the killer. The arrest will have to wait until the astronauts come back to Earth.
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Lateral-thinking puzzles for kids
40. Sally is in perfect health, yet she weighs nothing. She adheres to a special diet but otherwise goes about her day as usual. One day, when she gets home from work, she weighs 130 pounds. How can this be?
Answer: Sally is an astronaut who has recently returned from space.
41. Twelve men entered a hot area where temperatures soared to temperatures not compatible with life, but they didn’t die. How is that possible?
Answer: They were gingerbread men baking in an oven.
42. George is unemployed without a penny to his name. He lives in a mansion he doesn’t pay for and has all of his needs met. George isn’t a criminal, so how does he get away with it?
Answer: George is 6 years old.
43. A boy learns about a man who was murdered in the theater. He tells all of his classmates about it, but nobody goes to the police. In fact, though the boy seems to know all of the details of the man’s death, nobody questions him at all. Why?
Answer: The boy is giving a presentation on Abraham Lincoln to his class.
44. A woman had two sons. They were born at the same hour on the same day of the same month in the same year. However, they were not twins. How could this be?
Answer: They’re triplets—there is a third child.
45. Sandy entered a busy restaurant where people were eating during the dinner rush. When everyone saw Sandy, they dropped their silverware and ran out. Why?
Answer: Sandy is a lion that escaped from the circus visiting the town.
46. Six pieces of coal, a carrot and a scarf are lying on the lawn, but no one put them there. How did they end up on the ground?
Answer: A snowman was built in the yard, and the snow has since melted, leaving the eyes, nose, mouth and scarf on the ground.
47. A man dives for lobsters for a living. One day, he finds himself face to face with a shark and has no way to defend himself, but he isn’t worried. Why?
Answer: It was the diver’s day off, and he went to an aquarium. The shark that confronted him was in a tank and behind glass.
48. Three people enter a room, but only two walk out. The room is empty. Where is the third person?
Answer: The third person is a baby who crawled out of the room.
49. There are a dozen eggs in a carton. Twelve people each take a single egg, but there is one egg left in the carton. How?
Answer: The 12th person takes the egg and the carton, leaving the egg inside.
50. A child eats breakfast at 7 a.m., lunch at 7 a.m. and dinner at 7 a.m.—all on the same day. How is this possible?
Answer: The child is on a long airplane ride and traveling through different time zones.
Here are more of the best riddles for kids that will keep them entertained and challenged.
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Originally Published: July 15, 2021
