When Netflix released their feature film Bird Box in 2018, many viewers were left questioning what the “monster” was that drove everyone to suicide. One of the online theories is that the monster represented “mass hysterical contagion,” nowadays known as mass psychogenic illness (MPI), where a single individual suffers a psychogenic illness that spreads to a much larger group.

SEE ALSO: 10 Indications That Western Society Is Collapsing

Generally, women and girls will succumb to MPI more than men, as they are more likely to be triggered by another affected individual. Unlike the film suggests, nobody has reportedly died from the symptoms, which include hyperventilation, dizziness, panic, faintness, abdominal pain, sickness, headache, weakness, and itching.

These following real-life cases of mass hysterical contagion all ended nearly as quickly as they started. However, the sufferers will not easily forget just how frightening and disturbing such an outbreak can be.

10 The Twitching Teenagers

In October 2011, cheerleading captain Thera Sanchez woke up from a nap to find herself violently twitching and jerking. Two weeks later, a senior from the same school named Lydia Parker began humming and swinging her arms around involuntarily. Eventually, the numbers swelled from two to 20 people (mostly teenage girls) affected at Le Roy Junior/Senior High School, near Buffalo, New York.

Parents were becoming increasingly concerned that the tics were caused by the school’s water supply or that the playing fields were contaminated. However, the country’s leading environmentalists agreed there was nothing that would cause these symptoms.

According to Dr. Laszlo Mechtler, who treated 15 patients at the Dent Neurologic Institute, the symptoms were worsened by social media and press attention. Mechtler explained, “One thing we’ve learned is how social media and mainstream media can worsen the symptoms. The mass hysteria was really fueled by the national media, social media—all this promoted the worsening of symptoms by putting these people at the national forefront.”^[1] By the end of the school term, many of the teenage girls who were affected had returned back to normal.

9 June Bug

In June 1962, 62 workers at a dressmaking textile mill in South Carolina began to show symptoms of nausea, dizziness, and “a breaking out over the body.” The workers believed that the outbreak was caused by bug bites after receiving a fabric shipment.

However, investigation by the US Public Health Service, concluded that there was no reliable evidence that the contagion had been caused by an insect. Instead, it was explained that working conditions in the 1960s were so poor that the stress spread both physically and mentally between coworkers. The “June Bug” itself also could have been manifested by the initial untrained medical staff, who were not familiar with such symptoms.

The June Bug outbreak can also be explained as a social contagion, which is where groups of people who have strong social ties are affected in the same way. The majority of the coworkers were women who were the main providers for their families, which meant spending many long hours together.^[2]

8 Tarantism

In Italy from the 15th to the 17th century, tarantism was a form of hysteria that was associated with a bite from a tarantula. The term is derived from the town of Taranto, Italy. Those who were convinced they had suffered a tarantula bite would experience heightened excitability and restlessness. They would break out into a form of frenzied dancing which would allow them to be “cured.”

In 1693, a doctor in Naples suffered two tarantula bites in order to disprove that they would result in any of the typical tarantism symptoms. In front of six witnesses, he experienced no physical changes.

Tarantism gave rise to the tarantella, in which couples dance quickly and flirtatiously with each other. Composers Frederic Chopin, Franz Liszt, and Carl Maria von Weber have all written tarantella music.^[3]

7 Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic

In 1962, the country of Tanzania (then known as Tanganyika) suffered a laughter epidemic that began with an outbreak at a girl’s school before spreading to the surrounding communities. More than 1,000 people were affected by chronic laughter that lasted several months. Symptoms also included hysterical crying, aimless running, and violent outbursts which could last anywhere between a few hours to more than two weeks. Fourteen schools were closed due to the epidemic.

It is believed that in this particular case, one schoolgirl fell ill with anxiety-induced laughter, which then set off other girls, and a chain reaction occurred throughout the region. Researcher Christian Hempelmann noted, “We build up some magical psychic pressure, and laughter lets us release it. Statistically in this case, this did not release anything. These people were suffering, expressing their suffering through that. Nothing got better because they laughed.”^[4]

6 False Anthrax Alarms

On October 5, 2001, a letter that tested positive for anthrax killed the Sun newspaper’s picture editor Bob Stevens, and the world went berserk. The anthrax antibiotic, Cipro, was one of the fastest-selling drugs on the market, and in Dallas, an airplane was forced to make an emergency landing when potato chips that were crunched into the carpet were mistook for anthrax. In England, Canterbury Cathedral and the London Stock Exchange were evacuated due to false alarms. During the month of the anthrax fatality, there were four letters sent in the US mail that tested positive for anthrax but more than 3,000 cases of both false alarms and hoaxes.

Also during October, newspapers reported huge rises in sales as people were in desperate need of more information, and the media was blamed for overhyping the anthrax threats. Steve Caprus, executive producer of NBC Nightly News, stated that all journalists must “deal with facts—not hyping or being overly dramatic.”^[5] Over the months that followed, five people died from inhaling anthrax, and 17 others were infected after exposure.

5 St. John’s Dance

In 1374, there was an outbreak of uncontrollable dancing in the streets of Aachen, Germany, which still baffles experts even to this day. The writhing of the bodies, sometimes referred to as “St. John’s Dance,” would drive sufferers to exhaustion.

In his 1888 book The Black Death and The Dancing Mania, Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker describes:

They formed circles hand in hand, and appearing to have lost all control over their senses, continued dancing, regardless of the bystanders, for hours together, in wild delirium, until at length they fell to the ground in a state of exhaustion. They then complained of extreme oppression, and groaned as if in the agonies of death, until they were swathed in cloths bound tightly round their waists, upon which they again recovered, and remained free from complaint until the next attack.^[6]

4 Elsa Perea Flores School

Elsa Perea Flores School in Tarapoto, Peru, fell victim to an outbreak of hysteria affecting nearly 100 children at the school. During the summer of 2016, the children, mostly aged between 11 and 14, claimed they saw terrifying visions of a man in black trying to kill them and also experienced seizures. They experienced fainting attacks, muscular convulsions, delirium, and repeated screaming.

One pupil described her experience, saying, “It’s disturbing for me to think about it. It’s as if someone kept on chasing me from behind. It was a tall man all dressed in black and with a big beard and it felt like he was trying to strangle me.”^[7] Another added, “Several children from different classrooms fainted at the same time. I got nauseous and started vomiting. I heard voices. A man in black chased me and wanted to touch me.” Locals put the hysteria down to demonic possession and claimed that the children must have been playing with an Ouija board before the attacks.

3 Blackburn Fainting Frenzy

During the summer of 1965, more than 300 people in Blackburn, England, began to suddenly faint with no prior symptoms. Princess Margaret was scheduled to visit the newly restored Blackburn Cathedral, and the crowds gathered in their thousands to await her arrival. Then, one by one, people began to collapse on the ground. The ambulance staff who attended the scene said the fainting was due to being stood around in the hot sun.

The following day, 98 pupils at St. Hilda’s Girls’ School also began to suddenly faint without explanation. They were rushed to the hospital, and mattresses were laid out in the hallways to cope with the sudden rise in patients. One ambulance driver recalled, “As fast as we took them away, new cases from classrooms in other parts of the school were being brought in.”^[8]

A year later, a report in the British Medical Journal by a pediatrician and a London psychologist confirmed that this was a case a mass hysteria or, as noted, an “epidemic of over-breathing.”

2 Resignation Syndrome

A mystery illness observed in Sweden has been dubbed “resignation syndrome.” Children of asylum-seekers would withdraw completely, unable to open their eyes, speak, or even walk. Eventually, they did recover, but the illness baffled medical experts for more than two decades. Dr. Elisabeth Hultcrantz, a volunteer with Doctors of the World, revealed, “When I explain to the parents what has happened, I tell them the world has been so terrible that [their child] has gone into herself and disconnected the conscious part of her brain.”

Resignation syndrome was first reported in the 1990s. From 2003 to 2005, more than 400 cases were noted. Karl Sallin, a pediatrician at the Astrid Lindgren Children’s Hospital, said, “To our knowledge, no cases have been established outside of Sweden.” More recently, in 2016, Sweden’s National Board of Health stated that numbers had decreased; there were 169 cases that year.^[9]

1 Coca-Cola Scare

In June 1999, Coca-Cola withdrew 30 million cans and bottles from the shelves in Belgium after more than 100 people claimed the product made them ill. It was reported throughout the country that many people, including children, became suddenly sick with “stomach cramps, nausea, headaches and palpitations” after drinking bottled Coca-Cola. After the Belgian government was swamped with complaints from citizens concerned about airborne toxins, an investigation took place. However, four members of Belgium’s Health Council suggested that the epidemic was a case of mass hysteria.

In a public letter, the health council stated, “It is probably significant that a company with such high visibility and symbolic image was involved in this episode. Besides the important role of the media, the scale of the outbreak may have been amplified by the radical measures taken by the health authorities, as well as deficient communication by the Coca-Cola company.”^[10] Coca-Cola quickly recovered from the epidemic, and sales were back on the rise within weeks of the event.

Cheish Merryweather is a true crime fan and an oddities fanatic. Can either be found at house parties telling everyone Charles Manson was only 5’2″ or at home reading true crime magazines.
Twitter: @thecheish

Instagram can be a sordid place. It may appear to be all avocado toast and #duckfaceselfies on the surface, but scrape away that digital veneer and you reveal a much dingier side to the social media platform. As well as pink-haired pre-teens and flash-in-the-pan celebrities, Instagram is home to all manner of shady characters—from violent Taser-wielding cyberbullies to militant terrorists. And while the site claims to be “simple, fun & creative”, the darker fringes of Instagram are having a huge impact on its users. A recent study by the Mental Health Foundation found that almost half of young adults have suffered some anxiety linked to the pressures of social media.

SEE ALSO: 10 Creepy Things Social Media Does To Control Your Mind

9 The Human Skull Market

In recent years, a niche circle of people has emerged online with a passion for collecting human remains. The macabre hobby has gained something of a cult following on social media. Since 2016, when eBay banned users from selling human body parts, the avid network of traders has used Instagram to buy and sell human skulls. Henry Scragg, one of the kingpins of the Instagram skull market, boasts over 33,000 followers. In the past, artifacts have been known to retail for the best part of $20,000 (£16,000).

Instagram is home to a number of illegal black markets—weapons, stolen artifacts, and rare animals to name a few. But unlike those illicit trades, the people who sell human remains online aren’t actually violating any laws. For the most part, bones are covered by the “no property rule” and therefore have no legal provenance. While some US states do technically place legal restrictions on the skull market, traders have found that in the majority of cases these laws go unenforced.

The collectors claim to be part of a respectful, if rather morbid, community; one that is often misunderstood by outsiders. However some historians are concerned by the “dark echoes of colonialism” that haunt this supposedly eccentric pastime. Some traders have received further criticism from historians and archaeologists for falsely decorating their skulls to resemble “tribal” aesthetics. ^[1]

8 Baby Adoption Scammers

An increasing number of couples in the US are turning to Instagram to adopt a baby. Long waiting lists are driving wannabe parents away from traditional agencies and onto social media. And while many do find success, others end up as victims of a cruel and emotionally traumatic scam.

Imposters pose as pregnant women to convince couples that they are being offered their babies, then disappear leaving the aspiring parents devastated. In some cases the scammers have strung couples along for months, letting them believe they are on the cusp of adopting a gorgeous newborn baby, only to pull the rug from underneath them at the last minute.

Earlier this year, the BBC reported on Samantha and Dave Stewart from Michigan who were left in tears after the pregnant teenager they were hoping to adopt from turned out to be a fake account. “They don’t ask for money,” Samantha posted on Instagram shortly after the supposed mother cut off communication. “They don’t ask for material things like a lot of scams do. They want your time, emotional investment and quite frankly someone to talk to while promising you what you are desperate to find: your future child.”

And there lies one of the issues in clamping down on this scam. Because the victims are defrauded emotionally, but not financially, most US states do not have the legal power to hold the scammers to justice.^[2]

7 Exploitation of Grief

On Saturday July 13 2019, Bianca Devins, aged seventeen, traveled hundreds of miles from her home in New York to attend a concert with 21-year-old Brandon Clark. She never returned home. In the early hours of Sunday morning, Devins was killed by a knife to the throat.

Soon afterwards, images of Devins’ bloodied corpse began to emerge online, which were then shared across Instagram. The images, which came from Clark’s account, included a photograph of her torso with the caption, “I’m sorry Bianca.” Another was a selfie that Clark had taken lying on a tarpaulin that was allegedly covering Devins’ body.

It took the site several hours to remove the disturbing images, by which point they had been shared hundreds of times. Some social media users capitalized on the events in hope of gaining more followers and increasing their popularity, posting comments like, “FOLLOW ME!!!& DM !! me for full video and picture”. Clark, who was subsequently charged with Devins’ murder, saw his social media following surge. According to one BBC report, some twisted individuals even edited images of Devins’ body into vile memes. Users who attempted to flag up the distressing images to Instagram’s moderators claim their reports were rejected.

In the aftermath, Instagram was heavily criticized for not addressing the images sooner and allowing users to exploit Devins’ traumatic death for personal gain. The response to Devins’ murder—which happened months after Australian gunman Brenton Tarrant live-streamed the notorious Christchurch mosque shootings on Facebook—poses a number of questions about the ethics of moderation of social media.^[3]

6 Terrorist Propaganda

Instagram is the latest social media site to be targeted by terrorist propaganda. In 2017, The Times reported that more than 50,000 accounts had some links to ISIL militants. Supporters of Islamic State are able to spread their extremist message to a wide audience through posts and stories on the image-sharing site.

With traditional sites like Facebook and YouTube cracking down on terrorist content, organizations are migrating onto the newer platforms for publicity. As well as Instagram, militants in Syria are said to be using Snapchat to communicate amongst themselves and search for new recruits.

The content of their online propaganda tends to vary. At times it includes videos of public executions or images decapitated “kafirs”, a term that refers to non-believers. But besides the violent imagery, Islamic State also broadcast scenes of locals completing regular upkeep such as repairing roads and harvesting crops. As Neil Doyle, a journalist specializing in Islamic terrorist, told reporters, ISIS is attempting to “paint areas it controls as paradise on earth.”^[4]

5 Unattainable Weight Loss Claims

Social media is notorious for wreaking havoc with users’ body image. There is a widely documented history of people, especially young women, feeling ashamed and disgusted when they compare their own bodies to images of highly airbrushed models. A recent study by the Mental Health Foundation revealed that one in eight adults has thought about taking their own life for reasons linked to body image anxiety.

Now a new market has emerged on Instagram to profit from users’ insecurity and negative body image. Exploitative companies have popped up on the platform peddling supposedly “miraculous” weight loss products, often with celebrity endorsements. Famous faces like the Kardashians and Cardi B have come under fire from body positivity campaigners for promoting detox teas and slimming lollipops. Several of these products are known to have a damaging impact on people’s mental and physical health.

Instagram is taking some steps to clamp down on these unscrupulous businesses. But, with almost half of young adults reporting some body anxiety due to social media, the advocates of body positivity have definitely got their work cut out.^[5]

4 Black Market Verification Ticks

Instagram’s blue tick is one of the internet’s biggest status symbols. The verification check is bestowed upon an elite club of celebrities, influencers and brands. In a sense it is Instagram’s seal of approval, a sign of certification and credibility. Blue-ticked accounts are given pride of place at the top of searches and are able to access exclusive features on the platform.

The hunger for social media credibility has spawned an entire underground market centered on the blue tick. Although Instagram insists that the symbol is not for sale, the digital black market is described as an “open secret” among users desperate for attention online. A number of shady sources claim to be able to provide one for a fee. That tiny blue icon can retail for as much as $15,000 (£12,000).

It may seem like a ridiculous thing to spend money on, but the blue tick is a highly coveted symbol, and a growing number of people have good reason to want one. Influencers—people who promote brands and products to their vast audience of followers—rely on verification to secure sponsorship deals. Brands are more likely to favor blue-ticked accounts, and these sponsorship deals can correspond to huge money. A study by Mediakix suggests that advertisers are shelling out over $1 billion each year on Instagram influencers. That little blue checkmark is a giant boost up the social media pecking order.^[6]

3 Toxic Siberian Lake

Nestled in the rolling hills of Siberia, an exquisite turquoise lake seems like an idyllic setting for a selfie. Over the summer, swarms of socialites have flocked to the city of Novosibirsk to be photographed against the backdrop of the glimmering waters. Nicknamed the “Maldives of Novosibirsk”, the lake has become such an attraction that it now has its own Instagram page, complete with photos of people kitted out in beachwear, practicing yoga and generally lapping up the view.

But all is not as it seems. Rather than an aquamarine paradise, the lake is actually a toxic dump. What appears to be a freshwater pool is in fact a waste site filled with refuse from a nearby power station. Years of depositing waste ash has made the water highly alkaline, and that alluring shade of blue is actually caused by calcium salts and metal oxides. At the base, the slurry is said to be so thick that it is near impossible to free yourself. And who knows what chemicals linger in the air?^[7]

2 Cyberbullying Gets Out of Hand

Cyberbullying is never pleasant. But for one Australian teenager, the digital torment spiraled wildly out of control.

It all began when 19-year-old Yasemin Ercan was called a “dog” on Instagram by a former schoolmate, aged 18. Ercan was livid. To extract her revenge, she arranged to meet up with her old school friend at a shopping centre near Melbourne. But when the 18-year-old pulled into the carpark, Ercan and another man climbed into her vehicle armed with a Taser. The victim was forced to drive around for 20 minutes, until Ercan and her accomplice decided to stop the car and get out. Ercan then slapped and spat on the teenager, a court heard, before attacking her with the Taser.

She had now been charged with various offences including kidnapping and intentionally causing injury. Ercan is also facing trial for threatening to inflict serious injury, after messaging her ex-schoolmate that she would stab her in the throat, shoot her in the head, and “smash the f——” out of her. Ercan was banned from all social media platforms following her arrest in 2018.^[8]

1 Blackfishing

Over the past few years, a new trend has emerged on social media. Users, particularly young white women, are altering their appearance to make themselves look black or mixed race. Users have been known to take melanin hormones, inject their lips and even pay for nose jobs to resemble a black woman.

Nineteen-year-old model Emma Hallberg was one of the first to be taken to task for imitating black women. Although the social media star was born in Sweden, she presents herself online as having dark skin, thick lips and frizzy permed hair. And while she has never overtly claimed to be black, she has never denied it either.

Accounts like Hallberg’s with an avid following are often sponsored to promote brands and products. Black rights activists claim this creates a racist digital culture in which influencers are able to profit by stealing from a culture that they do not naturally belong to.

This mimicking of black identity has even been given a more extreme name by the Black Twitter community: ‘niggerfishing’. The term comes from ‘catfish’, a word for someone who takes on a deceptive alter ego online, usually to dupe others into relationships.^[9]

A person blackfishing should not be confused with a trans-black person such as Rachel Dolezal, the difference being that a trans-black is one who believes he or she is the racial form of a transgender: a black woman or man born in a white body.

In 1995, two Stanford University students created a search engine called Backrub. Renamed Google, the company was registered three years later. Today, Google is influential, wealthy and valuable. Anything except content. The company is obsessed with targeted advertising which manifests in disturbing ways. People are tracked without consent online and in the real world, while devices eavesdrop on their conversations. Forever gorging on private lives, Google grabbed Fitbit, has one foot in the banking business and also caused a scandal with its secret Project Nightingale.

See Also: 10 Of The Creepiest Locations On Google Maps

10 Employees Eavesdrop On The Public

The company released a popular AI home device called Google Assistant. A verbal command activates the system and tells it to record an audio file. In 2019, a leak released recordings of unsuspecting Dutch speakers. The Belgium public broadcaster VRT analyzed around 1,000 clips. Disturbingly, over 153 were accidentally captured. The owners had triggered Assistant without meaning to. Really confidential information was taped and transferred to Google. Indeed, some of the files contained names, addresses and some people even discussed their sex lives.

When confronted, Google admitted it was a security breach. One that enabled its contractors to listen to private discussions without consent. Previously, a spokesperson said that workers listened to recordings from Assistant to improve AI language skills. They claimed to use a mere 0.2 percent and removed all the personal data. The leak proved that this was not the case.^[1]

9 Google Promotes Risky Companies

Many people trust Google when they search for investment opportunities. But a consumer watchdog called Which? found the trust was misplaced. Savers who searched for things like “cash Isa comparison,” and “best cash Isa,” were shown related ads marked as “promoted.” The ads flogged products that promised high returns without saying anything about risk.

Which? asked volunteers, who were really looking to invest, to view the premium ads. Less than a third opted for trusted companies. Worryingly, 34 percent picked unknown firms with high returns. The two companies involved gave little to no information about any risks involved. There was no warning from Google, either.

Which? was not alone after concluding that Google cared more for paid ads than customer protection. On a previous occasion, The Daily Telegraph discovered that Google’s algorithm led people searching for low-risk investments to high-risk firms beaming with profits. Which? said that savers had already lost millions because ads hide the truth about how quickly investments can go wrong.^[2]

8 The Ultimate Stalker

Google wants to know your movements. To keep a civilized front, the company pretends to give customers the chance to opt-out. Afterward, users can feel smugly anonymous. In 2018, Associated Press found that users are still tracked even when they explicitly tell Google to mind its own business. For the sake of the experiment, a team member turned off all tracking options on his phone and was shocked by how accurately his route was followed. Worse, his home address was also recorded.

Whenever you open Google Maps, it records your position. So do automatic weather updates. Even just by using the search engine, a person’s location is determined to a creepy degree – accurate to the square foot. Several other services on iPhones and Android devices act as a beacon for Google, betraying the user’s movements and choices.

Responding to AP’s investigation, Google said that their policies were transparent and users could disable tracking and delete records. AP determined that nothing was transparent or easy with Google. The instructions to stop tracking are difficult and confusing. Deleting records is so tedious that few would waste their time with it.

Critics claim the mass tracking is symptomatic of Google’s desire to boost advertising revenue. It seems to be working. Google started tracking users for this purpose in 2014. By 2017, its ad revenue rocketed to $95.4 billion.^[3]

7 DeepMind Is Disturbingly Aggressive

DeepMind is Google’s artificial intelligence system. In 2016, the AI showed incredible promise. It beat the world’s best Go players and perfectly mimicked human voices. More importantly, the system started to learn on its own. A year later, Google staff wondered if DeepMind would play nice with others during a stressful situation.

The AI’s psychosis blossomed. Two “agents” of the AI were created to compete against each other. The game’s objective was to gather the most virtual apples. They stayed placid until the apples started to run out. What could only be described as greed, sabotage, and aggression, the agents turned violent. They opened fire on each other with lasers. When an agent got hit, it was temporarily unable to pick fruit. The remaining AI could then steal everything.

The Google team found a disturbing trend. The smaller and less intelligent the agents, the more peaceful they were. However, the purpose of AI is to become more complex and sophisticated. But those were the ones that whipped around, fangs bared, when things did not go their way. In another game, two agents even worked together to kill a third DeepMind agent. While the research involved simple games, the outcome was worrying. In a real-life situation, AI might not care about human life when it makes the decisions but meets with resistance.^[4]

6 Project Nightingale

Project Nightingale was the biggest data transfer in medical history. The second-largest healthcare provider in the United States, Ascension, moved massive amounts of healthcare data to Google. In fact, the tech company was promised the medical information of 50 million Americans.

In 2019, a whistleblower revealed the toxic deal. The anonymous Google or Ascension employee, one of around 300 assigned to Project Nightingale, released a video showing the confidential files and spoke to several media outlets. The proof was also provided that none of the patients ever gave their consent to have their records transferred to Google. Disturbingly, the information contained intimate details, including medical conditions, addresses, names, treatments and lab records. Not even their doctors knew that Ascension had made the deal with Google.

Google insisted nothing was illegal but the whistleblower, speaking for several concerned Nightingale workers, felt otherwise. If nothing was wrong, then why were the project secret and the patients never told? Riding on these questions, the workers feared the information would be misused for targeted advertising, abuse, the creation of new AI or to be shared with third parties.^[5]

5 Cache

The day after Project Nightingale was exposed, Google made an ironic announcement. Despite the gross breach of trust with millions of people’s medical data, the company said it was moving into banking. You know, trust them with your money and financial information.

The track record of tech giants taking on the banking industry is dismal. Facebook’s cryptocurrency Libra is floundering. Apple’s attempt to establish a credit card also hit a wall after facing accusations of discriminatory credit limits. Amazon continues to woo lethargic banks to establish personal accounts for its customers. Despite this, Google wants to launch a checking account service called Cache in 2020.

An independent survey showed that 58 percent of consumers trusted Google’s future financial products. However, others remain concerned that technology companies are compiling too much information on their clients. The worst-case scenario is that linking everything back to such businesses could create a dependency the public cannot break free from. In other words, tech companies could trap their future clientele instead of giving them the freedom to bank elsewhere or pay through other channels. It is also slightly concerning (and most certainly conspiracy-theory invoking) that the banking services for Google’s Cache service will be supplied by CitiBank—the same bank that chose former President Obama’s entire 2008 cabinet.^[6]

4 The Fitbit Takeover

Fitbit’s story is a fairytale. Not the Disney version, but the original tales where everything ended badly. When the wristband was introduced, it turned into a fashionable health accessory. Millions of people could track their weight loss, movements, sleeping patterns, and heart rate, among other things. In 2015, Fitbit suffered a disastrous public listing. For years afterward, sales dropped and the firm buckled under stronger competitors like the Apple Watch.

In 2019, Google once meandered into the health industry. In a takeover that cost $2.1 billion, the company was a step closer to accessing Fitbit users’ personal health data. Considering Nightingale, this was not the best news. In fact, the move caused such alarm that Google was cornered by regulators. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) responded after Tom Watson, the Labour deputy leader, complained to them about what he called a “data grab.”

While the investigation is ongoing, Fitbit said the merger would not allow user information to be abused for ads. However, a former Google employee on the company’s privacy team said the acquisition was primarily motivated to get the private details collected by the wristband. Google is already guilty of amassing information from people’s browsing habits, just to zap them with ads. For this reason, the Fitbit denial is plausibly a big fat lie.^[7]

3 Google Versus 50 Attorneys General

In 2019, the company was slapped with a historic investigation. A group of 50 attorneys general, from Washington DC, 48 states and Puerto Rico accused the tech giant of causing an “existential threat” to smaller internet retailers in the US. How exactly? By hogging digital advertising and skewing sales in its favor through the use of its search engine and links placements.

The inquiry is not just concerned about unfair competition. Should their suspicions pan out, this would also mean that consumer rights are being harmed. Nobody likes having their choices limited or being funneled towards one retailer like sheep. A spokesperson for the investigation said that no single player should be allowed to monopolize an industry.

This was not fresh paranoia. In the past three years, Google shelled out €8.2bn (£7.4bn) in fines after European watchdogs found the company’s search engine did exactly that. It promoted Google’s own services while sidelining other businesses’ bids to appear in the search results.^[8]

2 Chrome Is Spyware

Roughly 10 years ago, two new browsers challenged Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Chrome quickly rose to the top, offering users a quicker and safer way to surf. Firefox remains the second-largest browser. The two continue to fight for the top spot. One day, the deciding factor could be privacy. People are increasingly getting fed up with online snooping – and Google is proving to be a spymaster.

In 2019, a tech expert browsed for a week and then checked to see how many cookies landed in his dragnet. Incredibly, there were 11,189 requests to place cookies on his desktop, which Chrome would have allowed but for one thing – he used Firefox. The latter automatically blocked the tiny trackers. During the test, an analysis of Chrome’s design unearthed a disturbing detail. The browser strongly resembled surveillance software.

Google no longer seems to care about user privacy. After all, knowing everything about a person increases the odds of a sale. Google remains the world’s largest advertising corporation but Mozilla, which produced Firefox, is a nonprofit with no interest in mining people’s lives. While Firefox and Apple’s Safari browser allow benign cookings (for ads and remembering items in shopping carts), they are actively fighting spy cookies. Google is making no such effort.^[9]

1 Google Strangled Amazon’s FireOS

As far as retail giants go, Amazon is a titan. As its influence grew, Amazon decided to break into the smartphone business. Their designers created an operating system called FireOS. In 2012 and 2013, the company tried to license the system, which interested several manufacturers. After all, it was a highly modified version of Android.

Not amused by the new rival, Google kicked Amazon where it hurt. It basically held the manufacturers hostage. Should they accept a deal with Amazon, they could not run FireOS on any products. They risked losing the right to sell Android phones that came with important Google apps. Effectively, Google’s Android Licensing practices have closed the market except for one company – itself.

This selfish behavior, which ultimately cost Amazon millions and the public a great phone, was revealed in 2018. This story was mentioned in the European Commission report against Google’s business ethics. The Commission ultimately fined Google $5 billion, but FireOS never recovered. These days, the system only runs on a few Amazon devices.^[10]

I was inspired to create this list by all those disturbing movie fans who are sick of being recommended A Clockwork Orange, Midsommar, and a Serbian Film. We’ve been there. We’ve done that. It’s time for some original content.

Top 10 Harrowing Depictions of Insanity In Movies

If you’re looking for violence, gore, or just over-all creepy then you’ve come to the right place. We’ve searched high and low for the most out-there movies that will make you squirm and cringe to your heart’s content.

WARNING: The selected trailers contain disturbing footage. We advise discretion when viewing if there is a risk that a child will see or hear the content.

10Slaughtered Vomit Dolls, 2006, Lucifer Valentine

This is definitely a bold start to our list. Prepare yourself for a surreal, vile, exploitation horror. Slaughtered Vomit Dolls is the story of a teenage stripper-turned-prostitute, Angela Aberdeen, with severe bulimia. As her bulimia gets worse she starts to suffer from hellish hallucinations and satanic nightmare. She begins to experience visions of the deaths of her friends, other strippers, and others around her.

If you have a weak stomach I would suggest skipping this film, but who am I kidding? You’re here for that exact reason! If you’ve yet to be properly grossed out by a movie, then this is the perfect start.^[1]

9Sick: The Life & Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist, 1997, Kirby Dick

If you want a real life story that will make you laugh, squirm, and maybe even cry, then Sick: The Life & Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist is the film for you. Sick is a documentary about Bob, an artist and performer with cystic fibrosis. He is also a sadomasochist. To him, BDSM is a type of therapy used to regain control over his body that he feels he has lost his handle over. This film is a nice break from the gore and violence that this genre is usually known for. Flanagan’s agreement to participate in this project under the condition that his death would also be included in the final product just adds to the oddness of the production. It is an intense and weirdly human experience that will leave you shocked as the credits roll.^[2]

8 The 120 Days of Sodom, 1975, Pier Paolo Pasolini

This World War II horror drama is not for the faint-of-heart. When eighteen teenagers are rounded up by fascist libertines, they are forced to endure one hundred and twenty days of mental, physical, and sexual torture. This film contains intense scenes of degradation and torture, sexual violence, and high impact violence.

This is consuming piece of media that has been the subject of much discussion. Not only is it a shocking film, but it is also deep set political themes. So if you like a little politics in your horror then this movie is right for you.^[3]

7Guinea Pig: Flower of Flesh and Blood, 1985, Hideshi Hino

This film is the second installment of the Guinea Pig series, and it is arguably the most disturbing. It’s most notable for the several controversies surrounding the film. It is said to have inspired real life serial killer, Tsutomu Miyazaki, who abducted and murdered four girls in Japan. It also sparked controversy in the U.S. when actor and lunatic Charlie Sheen became convinced that it was an actual snuff film and reported it to the FBI. It is worth watching just for the conspiracies that surround it. This short film revolves around an unknown assailant dressed as a samurai. He kidnaps a woman and takes her back to his home where he proceeds to dismember her. She is arranged into a flower of flesh and blood (Hey! That’s the title!). It is a vile masterpiece that will have even the most avid disturbing movie fans flinching at the sight of it.^[4]

6The Snowtown Murders, 2011, Justin Kurzel

Nothing fills movie goers with anticipation more than seeing ‘based on true events’ before the film begins to roll. This is part of what makes The Snowtown Murders such an alarming movie to watch. This retelling of the most notorious serial murders in Australia is filled with incest, pedophilia, murder, and more. All of which make it hard to watch. Jamie, a 16-year-old boy, is taken in by his mother’s boyfriend. They form a self-appointed ‘neighborhood watch’ going after pedophiles and homosexuals. Violence under the guise of vigilantism eventually leads to a spree of violent physical abuse and murder. This is a tale of manipulation and family corruption. Crikey . . .^[5]

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5I Spit on Your Grave, 1978, Meir Zarchi

If revenge is your cup of tea, then you are going to love I Spit on Your Grave. This movie garnered controversy for its graphic depiction of gang-rape which takes up 30 minutes of the movie’s run time. The aspiring writer who is left for dead by her four rapists systematically hunts each of them down. The writer got his inspiration from an actual rape that occurred in New York City. It is all out revenge porn. Propellor disembowelment included!^[6]

4Visitor Q, 2001, Takashi Miike

Released in the same year as the much better known Ichi the Killer (see bonus item), Visitor Q is just as focused on sexual deviance and violence. At the center of this film is the story of a perverted family whose lives intertwine with a mysterious stranger.

This movie contain explicit sexual scenes, incest, and intense violence. The fact that it is filmed in a ‘home movie’ style just adds to the creepiness and uncomfortable nature of this film.^[7]

3Michael, 2011, Markus Schleinzer and Kathrin Resetarits

Michael is a slice of life film . . . If you consider slice of life to be five months following the life of a pedophile keeping a 10-year-old, Wolfgang, in his basement. It is a deeply distressing piece of work that leaves viewers in utter suspense and horror. The relationship between Michael and Wolfgang is depicted almost like a father and son, which makes knowing the truth all the more horrifying. The cliffhanger ending leaves viewers shocked and deeply distressed.^[8]

2Murder-Set-Pieces, 2004, Nick Palumbo

Fashion photographer by day, rapist and murderer by night, Murder-Set-Pieces follows a German serial killer in America. The Photographer’s demented childhood plagues him into adulthood, leading him to commit unspeakable acts of violence. He lures girls under the guise of them modeling for him. Instead he proceedes to rape, torture, and kill them. All while photographing the whole graphic experience. The utter brutality of this movie is what makes it notorious, It is also why it has been censored in several countries as well as banned in the UK (which is always a promising sign for a disturbing film fan).^[9]

1Vase de Notes (Wedding Trough), 1974, Thierry Zéno

Saving the most disturbing for last . . . This is the oldest film on this list but it is certainly not the tamest in any way. Wedding Trough is a film that has been given many other (very accurate) names. A mentally handicapped farmer falls in love with his pig. He rapes and impregnates the sow, and when the mutant piglets are born he hangs them. This film relies heavily on shock value and grotesque imagery to disturb the audience.

This movie contains real and simulated animal killings, zoophilia, and coprophagia. It is a volatile creation that might even make the most seasoned disturbing film viewer gag.^[10]

+8MM, 1999, Joel Schemacher

This, and the following bonus item, are added simply because they are too disturbing to ignore on a list like this. They are the close-contenders that missed out on appearing in the top 10 due to the fact that they are too well known in the disturbing genre.

It is rare to see household names in a disturbing films list, but we find both Nicholas Cage and Joaquin Phoenix in this next flick. 8MM is the story of a private investigator, Tom Welles, hired by a widow who discovers a ‘snuff film’ amongst her late husband’s possessions. Welles is tasked with discovering whether or not the film is authentic. It is a mystery thriller that plays heavily on the emotional disturbance and inner conflicts of the characters. While this film is more tame than some of the other picks on this list, the subject matter is still extremely eerie. This is a high quality film that is often overlooked by beginners to the disturbing film genre. It is a definite “must-see” – even for those with weaker temperaments who will manage it better than other films on this list.^[11]

++ Ichi the Killer, 2001, Takashi Miike

This is probably the most well known film featured here, which it should be because it is a truly excellent film. It also makes for the second mention of Takashi Miike (see item 4). Unfortunately, it is still often missing from other disturbing movie lists. Ichi the Killer follows Kakihara, a sadomasochistic enforcer for the yakuza. He comes into contact with Ichi while searching for his missing boss. Ichi, being the psychotic killer that he is, inflicts pain on Kakihara that he could only dream of. If you are looking for a movie about sexual deviance, anarchy, and graphic violence, Ichi the Killer is my best recommendation—in fact, if it weren’t so famous it would be the first item on this list.

This film is particularly notorious for being outright banned in several countries. Besides just the graphic content, the neon retro visuals are also what make this film particularly enjoyable to watch. It is a fluorescent spatter of adrenaline and violence.^[12]

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Classical music usually soothes with its dulcet tones. Usually. But sometimes it is raw and shocking. Sometimes it expresses the side of man that we avoid the consideration of. This list looks at ten such pieces of music. None of these pieces pre-date the 20th century which, when you consider that art mimics society, is rather condemnatory of our time. Some of these items contain nudity, flashing images, and scenes of horror. Now, turn up the volume and steel yourself . . .

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10 Too Terrifying For The Exorcist

Argentine composer Lalo Schifrin, best known for writing the theme to Mission Impossible was asked by William Friedkin to produce the soundtrack for The Exorcist, which he was directing. Schifrin wrote the theme and it was placed in a trailer. However, then the unexpected happened. In his own words: “The people who saw the trailer reacted against the film, because the scenes were heavy and frightening, so most of them went to the toilet to vomit. The trailer was terrific, but the mix of those frightening scenes and my music, which was also a very difficult and heavy score, scared the audiences away.”

According to Neil Lerner’s Music in the Horror Film: Listening to Fear, Friedkin had asked Schifrin for a score that “did not sound like music” and which was “tonal and moody.” But it proved too disturbing for the audience to handle and apparently Friedkin threw the score out the window. Listen to the theme above (followed by the more delicate track for the closing titles) but be warned: it starts with a bang.

9 Jack The Ripper, Lesbians, Whores

Whores. Lesbians. Jack the Ripper. These are not things we normally associate with opera. But here we are. Lulu is a superb opera formed in the mind of one of the greatest 20th century composers: Alban Berg. He was a student of the more famous (in general circles at least) Arnold Schoenberg (whose Pierrot Lunaire is below) and he used the same compositional technique: 12 tone rows. In Lulu, Berg surpassed his teacher and fellow member of the Second Viennese School Anton Webern (the first school comprised Mozart and Haydn) in his ability to take the strict rules of serial composition and produce something lyrical.

In this, the final scene of his opera (incomplete on his deathbed), the main character Lulu is stabbed to death by Jack the Ripper after she has had sex with him for money, while the disgraced Countess Geschwitz (Lulu’s lesbian lover) looks on in horror. In its day you can imagine the controversy and shock that would have been experienced by a viewing public unused to homosexuality and candid discussions of prostitution and murder. I am excited to say that the Metrpolitan Opera will be staging Lulu next year.

8 Eerie Repeating Numbers

American composer Philip Glass would be more typically found on a list of beautiful music because his minimalist style is usually quite calming and more “classical” sounding. Here, however, we see a part of his 1976 opera Einstein On The Beach which, as you will see, involves recitation of numbers with seemingly unrelated and random excerpts of text, backed by a mind-numbing track on synthesizer with a choir repeating numbers over and over and over and over . . . In other parts of the opera the singers recite the solfeggi (“do re me”, etc) and a violin takes the place of the main character of Einstein in recognition of his love for the instrument. This is definitely a creepy and disturbing piece of classical music.

Here is a more formal staging of the same excerpt from above, and here is a crazy scene in which you can be certain every performer is wearing an earpiece to keep track of where the hell they are in the four and a half hour long performance. This is the first of three operas Glass refers to as his “Portrait trilogy”, the other two cover Mahatma Gandhi and Pharaoh Akhenaten.

7Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima

When the theme written for The Exorcist by Lalo Schifrin (item 10 above) was rejected, William Friedken settled on a more famous existing piece of music: Threnody For The Victims of Hiroshima by acclaimed Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki written in 1960. The piece uses tone clusters to produce a sound world rather than the tunes and harmonies we are used to in music. In fact, most of the written score allows the players to actually pick whatever notes they want to play. It is a disturbing and penetrating piece of music long studied in schools as an example of modern classical music.

The Threnody was also used during the much-talked-about long scene of a nuclear explosion seen in the Twin Peaks return of 2017. The scene is pretty amazing and you can watch it here. Sadly Krzysztof Penderecki died one month ago of a long illness. Here is further viewing: a video of the master himself conducting his work Polymorphia, also used in The Exorcist.

6 The Banshee

Scritching, scratching, scraping and squeaking are the various noises mostly associated with this bizarre piece of piano music by the very highly regarded American composer Henry Cowell. (Actually those sounds are not atypical for much of Cowell’s work.) This composer was a teacher of John Cage (as was Arnold Schoenberg—see Pierrot Lunaire below) who, in turn, was an inspiration for much of the more avant garde music of pop singer Björk Guðmundsdóttir.

Another highly recommended piece by Cowell is The Tides of Manaunaun (written while Cowell was 15!) which you can listen to here. Much of the playing is performed with the entire arm against the whole piano keyboard creating a disturbing sound world.

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5 Black Angels

Black Angels is for electric string quartet and was written by American composer George Crumb in 1971. As you can see in the perforce, a variety of other instruments are involved and played by the various quartet members. These include wine glasses filled with liquids and percussion instruments—skip to 12:57 to hear these being played. It was written during, and in representation of, the Vietnam war and the troubles in the contemporary world. Like Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, the piece also appeared on the original soundtrack for the movie The Exorcist (it plays partly through the end credits).

4 Helicopters, Camels, And Trombones

Yes that is a fake camel on the stage. No I don’t know why (I guess they couldn’t train a real camel to do the leg movements!) The music is all over the place, the characters are not all human (the leading man is actually a trombone performer, not a singer), and the third scene involves a string quartet flying around the sky above the opera house in four separate helicopters (yes really). This may not be as frightening as some of the pieces on this list but it is certainly disturbing. Perhaps it is the very sinister notion of helicopters as musical instruments; is that where we, as a society, have come to?

That said, as bizarre as it sounds, this performance is a legitimate opera by Karlheinz Stockhausen and is, in fact, just one of the six he completed (one for each day of the week, though he died before writing his seventh). This one is Wednesday From Light, but you may also want to look at Donnerstag Aus Licht (Thursday From Light) which is equally insane and written earlier.

3 Faust: Taken By The Devil

Alfred Schnittke may one day be, to the twentieth century, what Mozart was to the 18th. He wrote enormous amounts of music in a variety of styles but, through all of it, he remained true to a very particular quality: eclecticism. In this piece of music we see the Alto solo in his Faust Cantata – a piece in the same form as the well-known Messiah by Handel in which soloists stand in a line and perform songs between choral pieces. In this cantata we see the perfect example of Schnittke in a nutshell.

The outstanding singer (Iva Bittova) belts all over the place, yells, grunts, growls and takes liberties liberally. The orchestra includes unexpected instruments—the most weird being the flexatone played by a soloist beside the singer in this video, but also piano, electric guitars, jazz drums, and organ. And even the choir gets a bizarre modern makeover with directions to whistle at various stages of the composition. This is a superb performance of a stunning piece of music. It is creepy and hellish, and will have you on the edge of your seat for the sheer guttural power of it.

2 Descent Into Insanity

Pierrot Lunaire by Arnold Schoenberg was a groundbreaking piece of chamber music when it was first written in 1912. In the video performance here we see chopped up people, cockroaches crawling around, transvestites, and an insane narrator marching through it all nonchalantly as she descends into madness. Pierrot Lunaire is a chamber music setting of the German translation of poems by Belgian poet Albert Giraud.

Be warned: this video contains full frontal nudity. Though Schoenberg pioneered the use of the twelve-tone row in serial composition, this piece is atonal meaning it lacks a harmonic or tonal center but is free from the formal device of serialism, the system for which he ultimate became most famous. His students were equally disturbing in their compositions as evidenced by Lulu above (item 9).

1 Doom, A Sigh

“Doom. A Sigh, is based on two songs that Istvan Marta, a Hungarian composer, recorded during a 1989 visit to Romania. The first, sung by Mrs. Pieter Benedek, 58, evokes her long dead parents, and the second, sung by Mrs. Gergel Imre, 46, recounts the scene of a bloody battle.” For assisting in the making of these recordings, the people involved were fined by the Romanian government and Istvan Marta, the composer, was told, in no uncertain terms by the government, to never return. He didn’t. Words cannot do justice to this mournful and extremely tragic piece. Just listen to it.

+ Magnificently Macabre

I am wrapping the list up with something that is incredibly entertaining to watch but only a touch disturbing (in contrast to the other items on the list). This is a famously difficult piece to perform – for the singer, the orchestra, and most especially the conductor. Yet here we see an amazingly talented Canadian soprano and conductor, Barbara Hannigan, perform Mysteries of the Macabre, taken from the opera Le Grand Macabre (1974–77) by Hungarian composer György Ligeti) singing, acting, AND conducting. This is unheard of and this performance is nothing short of amazing because of it. The raucous standing ovation at the end is well deserved and you can see the toll this piece takes on the performer in Hannigan’s face.

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Amusement parks are built to be place of thrills and entertainment, wonder and awe. They should give fond memories and bring smiles to faces. But, some parks are shrouded in mystery and misfortune, causing fear and shivers instead. In this list, we will discuss ten parks that have a past dark enough to ruin any fun.

10 Lake Shawnee Amusement Park

The rusted and overgrown rides of Lake Shawnee Amusement Park serve as a reminder of the failed West Virginia attraction, but its eerie past lives on in folklore for the area.

To start, the park was built over a Native American burial ground, with an archeological dig uncovering thirteen bodies, mostly children.^[1]

But that’s not the darkest history of the land.

In 1783, Mitchell Clay was the first European settler to make a home in the area, which was heavily inhabited by the Shawnee Native American tribe.

While Clay was gone to town one day, the Shawnees surrounded three of the Clay children, who were working in the fields. Bartley was shot first. Tabitha, hearing the gunshot, ran to her brother, where she was attacked and cut by a knife, her body dismembered. Both of their scalps were taken by the Shawnee group. Their brother Ezekiel was captured and burnt at the stake.

A historical marker on the road leading to the park commemorates their memories.

One could wonder if the tragic history of the grounds is the reason for the six deaths that occurred at the park, eventually leading to it being closed down in 1966, and many locals, including the park’s new owner Gaylord White, claim the park to still be haunted.

9 Holy Land, USA

With a Hollywood-style sign and a cross marking its entrance, Holy Land in Waterbury, Connecticut is hard to miss as you drive along Interstate 84.

Originally opened in 1960, the theme park contained replicas of famous biblical scenes, including the Last Supper, Garden of Eden, and an inn featuring a “no vacancy” sign. The park saw more than 50,000 visitors each year while it was open until owner John Baptist Greco closed the park in 1984 in order to expand it. Before he could reopen the park, however, Greco died, and the park was bequeathed to a group of nuns who maintained the grounds but never reopened it.

People still found a way in, though, and vandalism and trespassing occurred, destroying many of the parks statues and attractions.

In 2010, Chloe Ottman and her friend Francisco Cruz decided to explore the park. The two had been friends for a couple years, and Chloe clearly thought they were just in for a night of creepy fun and underage drinking at the old park. Cruz, however, had different motives, and after Chloe refused to have sex with him, he raped and killed her, stabbing her in the neck, under the giant cross before throwing her body and belongings in the woods.^[2]

Though he initially helped with the search to find Chloe, Cruz confessed to her death and led police to her body.

He was charged with capital felony, murder, and sexual assault and sentenced to fifty-five years in prison for his brutal act, leaving the park with a more sinister reputation.

8 Gulliver’s Kingdom

Japan is known for having some interesting ideas when it comes to parks and architecture, and one of their most interesting, and largest failures, was Gulliver’s Kingdom, located at the base of Mount Fuji.

The theme park, based on the Jonathan Swift book, cost $350 million to build and featured a forty-five meter long statue of Gulliver himself, with the main attraction being a bobsled ride, making it not exactly your typical amusement park.

The location of the park, however, makes it even stranger.

Right next to the park is Aokigahara Forest, better known as “suicide forest,” which is considered the second most popular suicide location after the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

The doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo, the group behind the Sarin gas attacks^[3] on the Tokyo subway, also had their headquarters and nerve gas production facility in the nearby village of Kamikuishiki. Residents and park goers claimed they could smell the chemicals when they were on the park grounds.

The park was thoroughly demolished in 2007, leaving nothing behind except for the strange memories and photographs and the questions as to why anyone thought it would be a popular attraction.

7 Rocky Point Amusement Park

Rocky Point Amusement Park in Warwick, Rhode Island was one of the most popular attractions in the state, drawing crowds to its over twenty-five attractions and the famous Shore Dinner Hall and Palladium Ballroom. Most Rhode Islanders have a fond memory of visiting the park while it was open.

Through all the happiness and memories, there is a dark mark on the park’s past.

In August of 1893, Maggie Sheffield, a five-year-old girl, was killed by her father Frank while they attended the park. Frank had suffered a head injury shortly before Maggie was born, making him incredibly mentally unstable. Though it is not known exactly what made him flip on that late-summer day, after a meal at the Shore Dinner Hall, he took his daughter to the shoreline, where he smashed her head in with a rock, killing her.

Frank was found not guilty of his daughter’s murder due to reason of insanity.^[4] Maggie’s death is the only murder in the park’s long history.

The thrills of the park left Maggie’s murder quickly forgotten, and Rocky Point carried on for over one hundred years.

Unfortunately, due to financial issues, the park was forced into foreclosure and closed in 1995, ending over 150 years of family fun in Rhode Island.

6 Joyland Amusement Park

When it opened in 1942, Joyland was considered the biggest amusement park in the southwest, featuring a train, Ferris wheel, merry-go-round, Tilt-a-Whirl, and a roller coaster, it’s main and most infamous attraction.

The park would eventually grow to include a log flume ride, a haunted attraction ride, swings, bumper cars, and many other carnival-type attractions, as well as host concerts and outdoor festivals.

Though the park experienced a handful of ride-related deaths, the murder of a park employee would throw some shadows over the park in 1982. Michael King, an employee, would get into an altercation with four men, aged 17 to 21, after the men snuck into the park after hours. King was stabbed to death, and police arrested the men responsible, letting the two underage boys go, and brought charges up against Dwight Sayles and Victor C. Walker.

Sayles would plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter and given five to twenty years in prison, with the eligibility of parole in eight years.^[5]

After the murder, the park would continue to operate and grow in size, adding another rollercoaster, but tragedy would continue to plague it. A park maintenance employee would be killed after getting hit by a rollercoaster and, in 2004, a thirteen-year-old girl would be injured after a thirty-foot fall from the Ferris wheel, which would lead to a series of financial issues and disputes that would eventually bring the park to close.

The 57-acres of Joyland were purchased in 2018 by Gregory and Tina Dunnegan, tent company owners who plan to bring new joy to the abandoned park by making it into an outdoor event venue for weddings, concerts, and traveling carnivals.

5 Kejonuma Leisure Land

Kejonuma Leisure Land was once a thriving amusement park in Tohoku, Japan, boasting the typical park rides such as a train, Ferris wheel, and carousel, as well as a driving range, and a campsite. Today, however, nature has taken over the structures, leaving the park to look like a ghost town, and ghosts are what it is more infamously known for.

The legend of the park begins with a beautiful woman who lived near the lake that sits on the site of Kejonuma Leisure Land, which was well-known for housing an abundance of snakes. The woman became pregnant, and when she gave birth, the baby was a serpent who escaped into the water. Every night, the woman could hear her serpent-baby cry, driving her mad, and she eventually committed suicide by drowning herself in the lake. It is said her and the baby’s cries can be heard at night.

The translation for “Kejonuma” is literally “ghost woman,”

With how superstitious the Asian culture can be at times, it is no surprise the story of Kejonuma Leisure Land is mentioned in every article about the park, but it did not stop nearly 200,000 people visiting the site each year while it was open, leaving many to question the validity of the curse.

The park officially closed in 2000, citing a drop-off in visitors due to Japan’s declining birthrate and economic crisis, but the notoriety of the curse keeps the legend of the park alive, and those interested can buy the park,^[6] as it is currently up for sale.

4 Dreamland Park

Dreamland Park began with a dark past that would continue to get darker. Built in the 1930s, the park would be open for less than two decades before it was shut down for rampant gambling and ties to the mafia.

Then, in 1969, Dreamland Park would make headlines again when two decomposing bodies would be found in the woods on the grounds of the park.

Due to the wooded and secluded area surrounding it, the park was a popular destination for couples to have a romantic drive and a little private time. On the night of August 12, 1969, Marilyn Sheckler, 18, and Glenn Eckert, 20, would set out for a drive to the park and never be seen alive again.

Their decomposing remains would be discovered feet from each other, in shallow graves, nearly two months later by state police. Autopsies would conclude that Marilyn had been raped repeatedly, and beaten, her head severely fractured, while Glenn had been shot in the forehead and side of the head and had also been beaten.

Investigators immediately suspected members of the Pagan motorcycle gang, as they had arrested ten members of the gang for beating and stabbing three men in the parking lot of Dreamland Park on the same night Marilyn and Glenn were last seen. Robert Martinolich, 22, and Leroy Stoltzfus, 24, would ultimately be arrested for the murders of the couple.

Martinolich and Stoltzfus would both be found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole. Each wold maintain their innocence and appeal their cases until they each died while incarcerated.^[7]

3 Magic Harbor

Just four miles south of Myrtle Beach, Magic Harbor Amusement Park had all the makings of a fun attraction — a roller coaster, bumper cars, Tilt-a-Whirl, arcade, hedge maze, Ferris wheel, and other all-ages rides, but it never really succeeded. Financial issues, changes in ownership, and deaths attributed to the park’s failure.

After the park closed on Labor Day, 1976, Franklin Loftis shot and killed the park’s owner Harry Koch and his sixteen-year-old stepson Carl Derk outside their trailer on the grounds of the park. Koch’s wife Carol survived the attack by hiding under the trailer. For years, the case went unsolved, making it the oldest cold case in Horry’s County history, until Loftis was charged. It was determined Loftis shot Koch over a wage and workman’s compensation dispute after Loftis, a carpenter for the park, was injured on the job.

Loftis was given two life sentences for the murders and was denied parole multiple times. Koch’s surviving wife had no desire to keep up Koch’s plan of expanding Magic Harbor, and the park went into foreclosure, was bought back by the bank, and then changed hands multiple times until it was sold to Geoffrey Thompson, president of the largest amusement park operation in Europe.

It seemed like the park’s luck was about to turn around with Thompson managing, but in 1984, tragedy would strike the park again.

Thirteen-year-old Sherri Lynn Depew was launched out of the park’s Black Witch rollercoaster. She died from her injuries, and her father sued Magic Harbor for $12 million, claiming negligence by the park for failing to supervise the ride properly.^[8]. Thompson tried to claim the girl had failed to stay seated and follow safety guidelines for the ride, but the bad publicity alone was enough to hurt the park’s reputation once again.

In the mid-1990s, the park was closed and the land was bought by the neighboring campground, resulting in all of the buildings and rides to be completely demolished.

2 Brandywine Springs

Brandywine Springs Amusement Parks was a Wilmington, Delaware attraction from 1886 to 1923, and a solid example of early twentieth century fun.

There was a castle house, train, wooden rollercoaster, restaurants, pavilion, and a magnificent archway leading into the park.

In 1916, tragedy would strike the park when Catherine Bouidecki was shot and killed and Areti Nichols was shot by Samuel Gongas, who then set fire to the park’s restaurant, railway, and photography gallery, as well as some concession stands. Gongas was infatuated with Bouidecki, who was a waitress at the restaurant, and was apparently upset she turned down his advances, prompting him to snap and kill her.^[9]

The park would close in 1923 when automobiles made it easier for people to travel and the park admission declined. Concrete slabs and muddy pools are all that remains of the amusement park today, but local historians are working on excavating and marking sites of where the major attractions stood, putting up signs and photographs to educate those who walk through the site.

1 Pripyat Amusement Park

Maybe the most horrific history behind an amusement park is one that never came to be.

Pripyat Amusement Park in Pripyat, Ukraine was supposed to open on May 1, 1986, but five days before its scheduled opening, the Chernobyl disaster occurred nearby, resulting in thirty deaths in the months following the explosion.

The park consisted of attractions, bumper cars, swing boats, a swing-carousel, and a Ferris wheel. The Ferris wheel still stands today, unfinished and towering over the scene of destruction and the bumper cars are the strongest area of radiation in the park due to the overgrown vegetation.

It is believed the park was opened early for one day, April 27, to calm people from the disaster before they were forced to pack up their belongings and be bussed out of the city, never to return.

Today, the whole city of Pripyat, including the unfinished amusement park, is a destination for “dark tourism,”^[10] guided tours through the Chernobyl ruins and abandoned towns.

Tracy spends her days writing and designing in a tourist town where she lives with her dog.

Most horror fans have by now probably binge-watched their favourite horror movies a couple of times or are, at the very least, planning a horror movie marathon if lockdown doesn’t end soon. Scary movies featuring creepy kids are often more popular than slasher films or other types of horrors. For instance, Regan from The Exorcist will probably always come to mind first for her head-turning performance, as well as those weird kids from Children of the Corn. And who could forget diabolical Damian from The Omen or the ghost twins from The Shining. Some still feel a chill when they think about the jump-rope girls in Nightmare on Elm Street slowing singing ‘One, two, Freddy’s coming for you…’

On this list are 10 more child characters with the potential to make you have nightmares. Oh – this list has spoilers.

10 Horrific Inspirations For Terrifying Horror Movies

10 Mercy and Jonas

In The Witch, viewers are introduced to possibly the evillest twins after the Grady sisters in The Shining terrified audiences in 1980. While Mercy and Jonas, fraternal twins, may look like normal, everyday children at first glance, it soon becomes apparent that there is something very wrong with them. They accuse their older sister, Thomasin, of being a witch and taunt her every chance they get. They also delight in claiming to have forgotten their prayers, angering their deeply religious parents. At one point they writhe around on the ground during prayers, as if possessed. Moreover, they have creepy conversations with the family’s goat, Black Phillip. It also becomes clear that their playmate is truly evil as Black Phillip is, in fact, Satan himself. In disguise. The twins’ cute faces belie their intentions at first, which makes the unfolding of their true nature even more unsettling to watch.^[1]

9 Doris Zander

Doris Zander is a bit of an odd duck right off the bat. This is obvious even before she becomes possessed, her eyes turning white, creeping the living daylights out of another character in Ouija: Origin of Evil by exclaiming: “Do you know what it feels like to be strangled to death? First, you feel the pressure in your throat. Your eyes water, and you start to taste something very, very sour in your mouth. Then it’s like someone lights a match right in the middle of your chest, and that fire grows. It fills your lungs, and your throat, and all the way behind your eyes. And finally, that fire turns to ice; like pins and needles of ice are sticking into your fingers, your toes, your arms. You see stars, then darkness. And the last thing you feel… is cold.”

Doris goes on to draw stitches on the mouth of one of her dolls, claiming her deceased father did it “to stop the voices.” She also causes the death of two characters and just when you think they are finally rid of her demons at the end after her own mouth is sewn shut, she runs upside down on the ceiling in a mental hospital, giving viewers a jump-scare they are not wont to forget in a hurry.^[2]

8 Rhoda Penmark

In the 1956 movie, The Bad Seed, an innocent looking girl named Rhoda turns out to be pure evil too. Released four years before the critically acclaimed movie, Psycho, the film explores the psychopathic side that resides in a young girl who treats humans like they are absolutely nothing and regard their emotions as something alien.

Eight-year old Rhoda murders three people by means of drowning, arson and with the help of a staircase. While these killings happen off screen, the black and white film still manages to instil an uneasy feeling in viewers as they come to the realization that Rhoda is psychotic despite her big-eyed innocent look. After beating one of her fellow students and leaving him to drown, Rhoda arrives home from school early and asks for a peanut butter sandwich and a glass of milk before going out roller-skating as if nothing happened. While their handyman burns to death in the cellar after she started a fire and locked him in, Rhoda plays ‘Au clair de la lune’ on the piano over and over while he screams in pain and is engulfed in flames.^[3]

7 Samara Morgan

A list like this wouldn’t be complete without everyone’s favorite creepy kid, Samara Morgan. While she wouldn’t scare most people in 2020, when Samara crawled through TV screens in 2002, she pretty much freaked out everyone who laid eyes on her.

Sure, she has a good reason for being evil considering she was thrown into a well and left for death. But as expected, this elicits little sympathy considering that she is now a vengeful spirit with long, wet black hair hanging over her deformed face. Even before she became this unnerving, haunting spirit, she was able to burn awful images into the minds of her adoptive parents. She could also burn these images onto transparent film. She caused horses to commit mass suicide and is eventually thrown into the well after being suffocated by her adoptive mother.

Samara wasn’t done with the world after dying. She created a videotape which she cursed so that anyone who watched it would die 7 days later.^[4]

6 Stephanie

Stephanie is another sweet little girl with evil on the inside. Not only is she abandoned at home by her parents during an apocalyptic event (because they realized all is not well with their daughter), she also keeps the corpse of her brother in his room after she kills him.

Her parents eventually come back and bury their son’s body. The corpse returns to the house via the attic window, but Stephanie seems unaffected by this. Soon it becomes apparent that there is no apocalyptic monster on the loose. Instead, the young girl herself is the monster. And she’s not alone. After torturing and killing her parents and leaving them at her brother’s grave, she uses her telekinetic power to destroy the neighborhood in tandem with other telekinetic children around the world.^[5]

10 Creepy And Improbable Horror Movie Plots That Actually Happened

5 Brandon Breyer

What would happen if Superman used his powers for evil instead of good? While the movie Brightburn never explicitly states that its main character is Superman in an evil form, Brandon Breyer’s backstory closely resembles that of Kal-El. He crash-landed, presumably from another planet, and landed up in Brightburn where a married couple found and raised him.

Yet this is where the similarities to Clark Kent end. Brandon crushes a girl’s hand after she calls him a pervert in front of his peers. He uses his powers to kill the girl’s mother by piercing her eye with a shard of glass and then attacking her. He picks up a truck, with his uncle inside, and drops it forcefully to the ground, leaving the man with his jaw torn loose and bleeding to death. Brandon also kills his adoptive parents and causes a passenger plane to crash killing all 268 people on board. Oh, and he also dons a very creepy laced mask throughout the film.^[6]

4 Luke Lerner

Babysitting will never be the same again. After being scared out of her mind by what looked like a home invasion while babysitting, 17-year-old Ashley realizes the 12-year-old she’s looking after is the one that orchestrated the entire ‘attack’. Luke Lerner has a crush on Ashley and attempts to seduce her. When he is rebuffed, he becomes incredibly angry especially after Ashley calls him ‘mental’ for planning the home invasion prank.

Luke goes on to hit Ashley with a gun and with the help of his friend Garrett they also knock out and tie up Ashley’s boyfriend when he arrives at the house. Luke eventually kills his own friend and stabs Ashley. When she does not die, Luke tells his mom that he is worried about his babysitter and asks to go the hospital. This last scene happens during the credits, leaving the viewers to draw their own conclusions.^[7]

3 Michael Myers

Michael Myers is arguably one of the most unnervingly creepy characters ever created. He never speaks. He only terrifies his victims with his white mask and heaving panting while he stabs or chokes them.

Perhaps the scariest thing about Myers is that he finds you where you feel safest. That, and the fact that he started killing at the age of six when he murdered his own sister in cold blood while wearing a clown mask, makes for a very disturbing character. Sam Loomis, Michael’s psychiatrist, says of 6-year-old Michael that he had the devil’s eyes and an emotionless face. He also says that he spent seven years trying to keep Michael locked up because living behind the boy’s eyes was pure evil.

He was not wrong. After spending 15 years in an asylum after murdering his sister, Michael Myers escaped and spent another 23 years hunting down the rest of his family, killing several others that got in the way.^[8]

2 Eli

12-year-old Eli befriends the bullied 12-year-old Oskar in Let The Right One In and shares her secret with him; she is a vampire and has been twelve for a long time. Eli feeds on her neighbors and lives with a much older man.

In the film, she scales a hospital wall in search of a patient’s blood, and she cannot stand sunlight or eat food. Being a vampire, she must be invited in to be able to cross a threshold. When Oskar does not invite her in, she bleeds from her eyes, nose, and mouth in a very disconcerting scene. She eventually slaughters Oskar’s bullies, severing one’s head and arm. Throughout the film, Eli continually needs to feed on blood resulting in many casualties. Toted as a romance horror film, there is a lot more horror than love.^[9]

1Charlie

Everything 13-year-old Charlie does in the movie, Hereditary, is creepy. From the clicking thing with her tongue to the way she gasps for air when she ingests peanuts (which she is allergic to). She also snips the head off a bird with a pair of scissors. She keeps the head in a box alongside other animal heads. When she finally loses her own head, literally, she continues being creepy in the afterlife with her brother hearing the clicking sound when he least expects it.

Towards the end of the film it is finally revealed that Charlie wasn’t being the strangest and creepiest kid in the world on purpose. She was temporarily possessed by the demon Paimon, and her own soul was freed when she was decapitated while being driven to the hospital by her brother.^[10]

Top 10 Classic Horror Movie Misconceptions

Some movies exist for the sole purpose of freaking people out. Or just grossing them out. To achieve this, some studios spend a lot of time on creating truly creepy props. On this list are just some of the movie props that have given viewers more than a few chills over the years.

Warning: Some of these images are rather disturbing and not suitable for sensitive viewers.

Also: potential spoilers ahead.

Top 10 Creepy Scenes In Movies

10 Bear suit – Midsommar

The movie Midsommar was truly nothing to write home about, but the scenes with the old folks jumping off a cliff and suffering horrific injuries (including a face smash) are fairly disturbing. However, arguably the most horrifying part comes towards the end of the film when one of the male characters, Christian, is dressed up in a bear suit and burned alive.

The bear suit has recently been put on auction alongside a mallet also used in the film, to raise funds for charities that are helping communities and front-line workers during the Covid-19 crisis.^[1]

9 Throwing star – Jeepers Creepers 2

While The Creeper is not going to go down as the scariest monster in movie history, he does some pretty disturbing things in the Jeepers Creepers films. Like chopping off a police officer’s head with a battle axe and making one of his throwing stars from the belly button of college student, Darry Jenner, after killing him. All the throwing stars he uses are made from the bones, flesh, teeth and fillings of his victims.^[2]

8 Life-sized Regan dummy – The Exorcist

This might be the very last thing anyone would want to see in the dark of night inside their home. Or anywhere for that matter. The Exorcist film still holds up after all these years and this life-sized dummy is about as creepy as the Regan character itself. The dummy’s head is not only freaky-looking but can spin 180 degrees (as seen in one of the most memorable scenes in the movie), which in and of itself is rather unnerving.

The dummy now lives in The Museum of Moving Images, NYC.^[3]

7 Mutant Twin – Total Recall (1990)

Total Recall is not a horror movie, or even scary, but the scenes with the mutant twin are pretty freaky. Considering that the first Total Recall movie was released in 1990, the special effects used for the mutant baby, Kuato, hold up pretty well. In the picture above the body suit with Kuato attached is ‘hung out to dry’ in between shooting.^[4]

6 Jar of hands – Wrong Turn (2003)

Wrong Turn is a gorefest from beginning to end, with a cannibalistic family violently taking out anyone who crosses their path. During the film, one of the characters finds a severed ear on the ground, another is hit by a speeding car and yet another has her face split in half by an axe. During a particularly gruesome scene it is revealed that the murderous family has a collection of body parts stored in jars. These include teeth, organs and appendages.^[5]

Top 10 Disturbing Child Characters In Horror Movies

5 Deformed baby – The Hills Have Eyes 2

While The Hills Have Eyes 2 wasn’t the best horror movie and scored a measly 12% on Rotten Tomatoes, the graphic scene in which a restrained woman gives birth and is then killed, is about as disturbing as they come. It gets worse when the baby is shown to resemble the movie’s cannibalistic mutant killers.^[6]

4 Stapled Wall Corpse – The Collection

The Collection is a psychological slasher movie responsible for one of the most unsettling scenes in any scary movie. The killer in the film is called The Collector and from just this one picture, it is clear why. The prop, named Stapled Wall Corpse, is up for sale and looks just as disturbing as it did in the movie.^[7]

3 Charlie’s head – Hereditary

Hereditary features one of the most shocking decapitation scenes in movie history. As the scene progresses it is unclear whether the young girl, Charlie, who loses her head, is actually dead or not. It becomes crystal clear however when her head is shown lying in the middle of the road, covered in ants and flies.

It took some extremely detailed work to create the animatronic puppet that was used for the decapitation scene and the result is mind blowing and extremely creepy.^[8]

2 Reverse bear trap – Saw

The reverse bear trap is one of the most horrifying instruments of torture used in Saw. A victim’s head is locked inside the trap and secured with a padlock. In the first Saw movie, the trap had to be unlocked within 60 seconds or the trap would burst open and rip the victim’s face apart.

The reverse bear trap shown in this photo is a replica of the original prop.^[9]

1 Human guitar – From Dusk till Dawn

The horror action flick, From Dusk till Dawn, stars Quentin Tarantino, George Clooney, Harvey Keitel, Juliette Lewis and Salma Hayek. The plot centres around a group of bank robber brothers who end up at a strip club in Mexico, where they realize that the bar employees are vampires. The movie is filled with weird and disturbing scenes, but one stands out above them all. At one point, a band member plays a guitar made from a human torso with the head still attached and one leg protruding from it.^[10]

Top 10 Must-See Recent Genre-Defying Horrors

2015 marked the hundredth year since the Armenian Genocide began, where it is approximated that 1.5 million of the two million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire lost their lives. The Ottoman Empire’s meticulous cover-up of events, as well as the overwhelming scale of their systematic barbarism, means that the real number will never be known and greatly fluctuates from source to source. Such is the nature of genocide, that the perpetrators wish to eradicate any record of the victimized. From the sources that have survived, we have compiled the following ten disturbing facts about the Armenian Genocide.

10The Three Pashas Led the Ottoman Empire into War and Enacted the Genocide

The Three Pashas is the collective name given to Talât Pasha, Grand Vizier (the equivalent of Prime Minister); Enver Pasha, Minister of War; and Djemal Pasha, Minister of the Navy; during World War I.

Talât Pasha’s hatred towards Armenians was longstanding. In his memoirs, Danish philologist Johannes Østrup contends that Talât shared his intent for the complete annihilation of Armenians with him as early as 1910. He quotes Talât as saying, “If I ever come to power in this country, I will use all my might to exterminate the Armenians.”

His wish for power came true in 1913, by way of a coup. The following year, the Ottoman Empire entered World War I, and then a year later began the systematic murder of Armenians.

Following the Empire’s defeat in the war, all three fled the country. The new government vilified them as the reason for the Empire’s debilitating participation in the war, and they sporadically acknowledged the Three Pashas for their overwhelming crimes against humanity.

When referring to the massacres that took place under the Three Pashas’ rule, Abdülmecid II, the last Caliph of Islam from the Ottoman Dynasty, is quoted as saying, “They are the greatest stain that has ever disgraced our nation and race.”

9One of Hitler’s Early Co-Conspirators Was a Witness to the Armenian Genocide

Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter was the German vice-consul in Erzerum at the time of the Armenian genocide. He condemned the Ottoman Empire’s practices in his writings as a policy of annihilation.

Upon his return to Germany, however, he became deeply involved with the Nazi movement, developing a close relationship with Hitler. He was shot and instantly killed during the failed 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, marching with his arm linked to Hitler’s. Hitler would go on to dedicate the first part of Mein Kampf to Scheubner-Richter. While records of their conversations are scarce, it is a likely leap that Hitler was well-versed on Scheubner-Richter’s writings and experiences.

On August 22, 1939, Hitler gave a speech at his Obersalzberg home. It was a week before the German invasion of Poland, and he expressed to his Wehrmacht commanders his wish for the total annihilation of the Poles. Louis P. Lochner, who had sources within the Nazi government, claimed he had been given an original transcript of the speech, which he then published in his 1942 book, What About Germany? It quotes Hitler as saying, “I have put my Death’s Head formations in place with the command relentlessly and without compassion to send into death many women and children of Polish origin and language. Only thus shall we gain the living space we need. Who after all is today speaking about the destruction of the Armenians?”

Although it is a matter of content how much of a direct influence the Armenian genocide was on the Holocaust—the similarities are clear, as well as Hitler’s knowledge of the atrocities.

8Able Men Were Put to Death and the Remaining Armenians Were Marched into the Desert

The genocide’s starting date is often cited as April 24, 1915, when up to 270 Armenian community leaders were forcefully removed from Constantinople and moved to Ankara. Predating this, the Ottomans had moved all Armenian people in the army to unarmed labor battalions, to make their eventual extermination easier to enforce.

Once all able-bodied Armenian men of the Ottoman Empire were slain, women, children, the infirm, and the elderly were marched into the desert under the guise of resettlement. In total, up to 1.5 million Armenians died in the genocide. At the start of World War I, two million Armenians were living within the Ottoman Empire, meaning three out of four were killed.

Many Armenians died from starvation and dehydration. Females of all ages were habitually raped and left for dead. Mass shootings, drowning, burning, and poisoning were also common. People who managed to cling to life for the entirety of the death march were then placed in concentration camps, where they were massacred.

7ISIS Is Blamed for Destroying the Armenian Genocide Memorial Church in Deir ez-Zor

Construction of the Armenian Genocide Memorial Church reached completion in November 1990, and it was consecrated on May 4, 1991. The church was an important pilgrimage site for many Armenians. The greatest massing of people happening every year on the 24th of April, to mark the commencement date of the Armenian Genocide in 1915. Thousands would visit to pay their respects.

Deir ez-Zor, Syria, is significant because it was the final destination point for the Armenians who marched through the desert. The exact location of the church was once the site of a concentration camp, killing center, and burial place for the Armenians who managed to survive the death march.

The church was blown up on September 21, 2014, as Armenia was celebrating the 23rd anniversary of its independence, and mere months before the 100th anniversary of the genocide. ISIS have been labeled as the likely culprits.

6The Greek and Assyrian Genocides Happened at the Same Time

The Armenians suffered the most deaths during the Ottoman Empire’s attempts to eradicate Christian minorities, in and around the period of World War I, and thus, the Armenian Genocide is often the focus point of discussion. However, running concurrently with this was the genocide of both the Assyrians and the Greeks.

The Assyrian death count has been estimated to be around 300,000, with the killings largely happening around the Empire’s border with Persia. In the town of Midyat, where 25,000 Assyrians lost their lives, there was a small uprising, which was ultimately squashed by the Empire. For revolutionary acts such as this one, the Ottoman Empire’s murder of Assyrians has been classified by some Turkish historians as a response to rebellion, which can be classified as a massacre but not genocide.

The Greek death count has been estimated to be around 750,000. In 1923, a population exchange happened between Turkey and Greece, effectively ending the bloodshed, where two million people were forcibly removed from their homes. Approximately 1.2 million Christian Greeks were relocated from Trabzon, the Pontic Alps, the Caucasus, Asia Minor, and Eastern Thrace. In return, around 400,000 Muslims were kicked out of Greece and welcomed into Turkey.

5The Armenian Revolutionary Federation Took Retaliatory Action

Known as Operation Nemesis, between 1920 and 1922, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation assassinated seven prominent Ottoman and Azerbaijani officials responsible for the genocide. Djemal Pasha and Talât Pasha—two-thirds of the group known as the Three Pashas, were killed by the ARF.

Both had fled the invading allies at the end of World War I and were largely blamed as the reason for the Ottoman Empire’s entry into the war. They had been sentenced, in their absence, to death through their home country’s legal system. Their state executions would never happen.

The Armenian Revolutionary Federation tracked down Djemal Pasha in Tiflis, Soviet Georgia, and shot him dead, along with two aides. Talât Pasha was shot dead by Soghomon Tehlirian in Berlin on March 15, 1921. The ARF had told Tehlirian not to flee, in order to increase the visibility of the Armenian people’s suffering with the ensuing trial. It was a successful tactic—the trial attracting much international press coverage.

Tehlirian was acquitted of murder. His defense successfully argued that although he had killed Talât Pasha, the ordeal of the Armenian Genocide had affected his mental state. Tehlirian stated to the judge, “I do not consider myself guilty because my conscience is clear . . . I have killed a man but I am not a murderer.”

4The Three Pashas Used World War I as a Smokescreen for Genocide

It was key to the Three Pashas that acts of genocide should be carried out hurriedly while the fog of war was still in play. By doing so, foreign hands would be tied up with other pressing issues and would have no time to sort out any humanitarian crises.

They were even known to brag of their actions. Talât Pasha is quoted as saying to a German embassy representative, who brought up the genocide, “Turkey is taking advantage of the war in order to thoroughly liquidate its internal foes, i.e. the indigenous Christians, without being thereby disturbed by foreign intervention.”

Although the majority of atrocities took place during the war years, an official end-date is a matter of semantic contention, with some arguing it to be as late as 1923—five years after the Three Pashas fled the country following their defeat in World War I.

3Turkey Has Streets and Public Buildings Named after the Perpetrators of the Genocide

The denial of the genocide has been so successful that many Ottoman politicians who helped with the liquidation process are remembered favorably in parts of Turkey. The Three Pashas themselves lend their names to boulevards, avenues, highways, and municipal districts. They also have schools named after them.

In 2003, Cemal Azmi, also known as the “Butcher of Trabzon” had a school named after him, too. It is documented that he was particularly cruel to children, who he would drown by the thousands. A method often employed was to send boats out into the Black Sea and capsize them.

Young girls regularly met a worse fate. During the Trabzon trials in 1919, an eyewitness stated that Azmi would have orgies with Armenian girls in a hospital that he transformed into his own personal “pleasure dome”, after which the girls would all be killed.

Azmi is one of the seven notable leaders assassinated by the ARF as part of Operation Nemesis.

2Armenians Have Not Received Reparations

The Ottomans seized the money and possessions of the Armenians. However, to this day, nothing that belonged to an Armenian before the genocide has been returned to its rightful owner. The widespread destruction and emotional duress have never been compensated for in any form, either.

Much of the argument against reparations stems from the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire, meaning the offending power no longer exists to be held accountable. In its place is Turkey, and those who favor Armenian reparations believe that Turkey is thus responsible for repaying the debts incurred by the Ottoman Empire. After all, all land and property that the Ottomans stole is now Turkish land and property.

There is a precedent in place with Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, who have received, on occasion, forms of compensation for the genocide they suffered. Thus, another, often argued, potential reason for Turkey’s denial of the Armenian genocide emerges—if there was no genocide, then survivors do not have to be legally treated in the same way as survivors of other genocides.

1Turkey Still Deny That a Genocide Ever Happened

Turkey, the successor state of the Ottoman Empire, has always denied that what began in 1915 was a systematic genocide of Armenians. Azerbaijan is the only other country whose government actively deny it was genocide. Many countries refuse to make a conclusive statement one way or the other.

Turkish governments have been accused of actively attempting to suppress usage of the term “genocide,” advising prominent politicians, journalists, and scholars, from around the globe, to adopt a policy of reduction or silence.

This denial of the term “genocide” becomes painfully ironic when considering that the word was first used by Raphael Lemkin in his 1943 book, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, to give a name to these specific atrocities and those of the Nazis. He defined genocide as, “A coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.” So, with this in mind, these atrocities are pretty much the textbook definition of genocide.

David is a freelance writer and Creative Writing MA student. You can read more of his articles at CultureRoast // Follow him // Like him.

When I first came upon this list in the submissions, I knew it would be a hit with our members. Herein is a rather shocking combo of true life stories of people caught in rather unfortunate situations due to the act of self-pleasure. Some are bizarre, some are disturbing, and many could well be considered crazy warnings of the dangers of indulging in this age-old practice.

See Also: Top 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Pornography

10 Caught Red Handed

The odd tale of 46-year-old Australian Keith Roy Weatherley,^[1] an out-of-work boilermaker, starts with him attracting the attention of the police for parking in a no-stopping zone near Nobby beach on October 26, 2008. Beyond his poor parking choice, he was also partially dressed and playing with something on his lap. The police thought it was a weapon and they asked him to exit the vehicle. After refusing, Weatherley led the police on a short and slow chase. 20 kilometers later, Weatherley still refused to get out of the car and he had to be pulled out of the vehicle, where police hit him with batons and sprayed him with mace.

That’s when they realized that Weatherley didn’t have a weapon. Instead, Weatherley was masturbating by sticking his penis in a 750 ML pasta jar.^[2] Where it really gets strange is that even when he was being beaten and arrested, Weatherley kept pleasuring himself.^[3]

After he was arrested, the police searched his car and found a homemade sex toy, pornography, women’s stockings and a Jack Russell terrier. He was arrested and fined $600.

9 Wet Scream

In July 1994, 33-year-old Robert Cheuvront was staying at the Scottish Inn motel in Lakeland, Florida. At about 12:30 AM he went swimming alone in the motel’s pool. At some point he decided to stick his penis into the swimming pool pump. He was found four hours later by a motel clerk after calling for help.^[4] The clerk turned off the pump, but his penis had become so swollen that it became stuck and he couldn’t remove himself. Paramedics had to lubricate him and pull on him for an hour until he popped out. He was treated for bruised genitalia and released from the hospital a short time later.

8 Burst Pipe

In January 2010, an unidentified 40-year-old South Hampton man decided to have sex with a stainless steel pipe.^[5] Because, you know, a steel pipe just screams sex toy. Once he was buried deep, the man found that he was unable to remove his pipe from the steel pipe. He went to the hospital where the staff was also unable to dislodge the man from his “date”. They had to call in the fire department and it reportedly took seven of them to remove it.

How they removed the pipe should be a lesson to anyone else who would ever dare dream of putting their penis in inanimate objects that aren’t sex toys. The seven firefighters used a four-and-a-half-inch metal grinder and had to be very delicate with their cutting. It they were off by even a millimeter, it would have ended up looking like a Saw movie.

They worked for 30 minutes, but luckily the firefighters were careful and the man left the hospital with lightly bruised genitalia.

7 You’ll Go Blind!

Unlike a lot of people on this list, Ashok Rajamani was just pleasuring himself in a normal way on March 17, 2000. He wasn’t doing anything freaky with weird objects or sticking things in places where they probably shouldn’t go. He was just a 25-year-old man who had masturbated countless times before. What was different about that day was that it was his brother’s wedding and he was staying in a hotel. And that session was different because when Ashok popped, something in his brain popped as well.

Ramajani’s orgasm caused him to suffer a Subarachnoid Intracranial Cerebral Hemorrhage, which was caused by Arteriovenous Malformation (AVM) which is a congenital birth defect, so he was born with it. People inflicted with AVM usually suffer a hemorrhage between the ages of 20 and 40. As the doctor^[6] on the case said “Many brain hemorrhages and aneurysms are urogenitally based, meaning that they usually happen when a person’s having sex, giving birth, going to the bathroom.” Luckily, Rajamani was able to call an operator for help and he was rushed to the hospital.

The hemorrhage wiped out most of Rajamani’s memory, left him half blind in one eye, and he now suffers from epilepsy. He wrote a book about his experiences called The Day My Brain Exploded: A True Story.^[7]

6 Sum Xing Wong

On August 6, 2008, 41-year-old Le Xing found himself alone on a park bench in LanTian Park in Hong Kong. The bench had holes in it; so of course, he lay down on top of it and stuck his penis in one of the holes. Because, hey, why not, right?

Xing’s penis became swollen and his little Xing got stuck.^[8] Luckily Xing had access to his phone, and, probably rather sheepishly, he called the police who came to help. Rescue workers first tried to drain some blood from his penis with the hopes that it would relieve enough pressure to free him. Sadly, it didn’t work and they had to cut the bench apart to take it to the hospital with Le Xing still attached to it. At the hospital it took four painful hours to release him from the bench. One more hour in the bench and doctors were going to have to amputate his penis.

5 Oooh Noooo . . . That Sucks

In May 1998, an unidentified 51-year-old man living in the ironically named Long Branch, New Jersey, was drunk and lonely, so he decided to do what probably every male of a certain age has considered since the invention of the vacuum cleaner. Yes, that’s right; the man stuck his penis in his vacuum cleaner. Unfortunately, what he didn’t know about his vacuum cleaner was that there were sharp blades in it and he chopped off half an inch off his penis. In order to avoid embarrassment, he called 9-1-1, and said that an intruder had broken into his house and stabbed him in the crotch while he slept.

While the man’s story may sound a bit funny, an amputated penis, or part of a penis, is deadly serious. This is especially true when erect because the man can bleed to death.^[9] Luckily, the paramedics were able to find the missing half inch in the vacuum bag and the doctors were able to reattach it, saving the man’s life in the process.^[10]

4 Fork That, Mate

According to WebMD,^[11] a lot of people begin goal-orientated masturbation around the age of 10. So to be fair to the unidentified 70-year-old man in this story, he may have just wanted to mix it up a bit after decades of doing it the same way. But before we go any further, please be advised that once you read this, you can’t unread it, so you’ve been warned.

In July 2013, it was reported in the International Journal of Surgery Case Reports (please be warned that the link is a medical journal and it contains graphic pictures) that the senior citizen had to go to the hospital in Canberra, Australia, because he stuck a fork in his urethra.^[12] And it just wasn’t a tine either; he stuck the handle in, going 10 cm deep. He put the fork in for sexual gratification and it became stuck, which led to bleeding. After it had been stuck for 12 hours, he went to the emergency room where the doctors used forceps and lots of lube to remove the utensil from the man’s penis.

3 Naughty Nanny

31-year-old British nanny Nicola Paginton was a healthy young woman and when she didn’t show up for work on October 15, 2009, her friends went to her house to investigate. Inside her apartment, they found her dead in her bed. She was naked from the waist down with a vibrator beside her and a pornographic movie was playing on her laptop.^[13] The coroner said that she suffered a heart arrhythmia that was most likely due to sexual arousal.

One of the most tragic elements of Paginton’s story is that if she had been having sex instead of masturbating, she would have had a better chance of surviving because her partner could have gotten help.

2 Nature Lover

As we’ve seen, some people have strange fetishes and will have sex with almost anything, and that brings us to the sad and tragic story of 44-year-old computer engineer Kevin Kirkland from Newport, Wales. On December 29, 2009, Kirkland and his friends went out drinking.^[14] At about 1:00 a.m., Kirkland left his friends and headed home. That’s when he decided to get into some drunken bondage… with a tree.

Using some rope, he tied up his penis and then tied himself to a tree. After he finished, he tried to free himself, but he found that he had tied himself up too well. While he struggled with the ropes, he managed to cut his wrists and he passed out. He was found naked except for his socks and boots the next morning by a man walking his dog. He died of hypothermia and blood loss.^[15]

1 Extra Precautions

Autoerotic asphyxiation is the practice where someone chokes themselves while experiencing an orgasm.^[16] The lack of oxygen mixed with an orgasm creates a rush similar to cocaine and it can be highly addictive. Obviously, it is a very dangerous practice. It is believed in the US, that there are 500 to 1000 deaths per year due to erotic asphyxiation, but it’s hard to judge because sometimes families will cover up the cause of death out of shame.^[17]

One of the more unusual cases of death by autoerotic asphyxiation is Reverend Gary Aldridge. On June 24, 2007, Aldridge, who was 51-years-old and once worked for Jerry Falwell, didn’t show up for services at his church in Montgomery, Arkansas.^[18] Worried for his safety, some members of the church went to his home and they made an unsettling discovery.^[19] Aldridge was dead inside his house, and he didn’t die naturally. He was hog tied and he was wearing a full scuba suit with a mask. The parishioners phoned the police, and they determined that Aldridge was alone when he died, so it wasn’t foul play, and they also determined that he didn’t commit suicide.

Four months after Aldridge’s death, his autopsy was released and it was revealed that he asphyxiated to death while masturbating.^[20] When he died, he was wearing two wet suits, a rubberized mask with openings for the mouth and eyes, rubberized underwear, and he was wearing diving gloves and slippers. Besides being hogtied, there was also a plastic cord wrapped around his neck, which choked him to death. And finally, there was a dildo covered with a condom in his anus.

+ Lickity Clit

Okay, this one is just straight up weird and that is saying a lot when you compare it to the rest of the entries on the list. In fact, it is so weird it became the source of an urban legend—we even covered it on 10 Urban Legends About Sex That Turned Out To Be True.

It was reported in the American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology in 1990, that an unnamed 29-year-old woman went to an abortion clinic because she had missed a few periods and she thought she was pregnant.^[21] When being examined, the doctor found a 7 centimeter long and 3 centimeter wide piece of gray flesh inside her. It turns out the woman’s husband was a hunter who brought home a deer. The woman decided to detach the tongue and used it to, uh, pleasure herself. The tip broke off and lodged in her vagina where it stayed for several months. Lovely, huh?^[22]

About The Author: Robert Grimminck is a Canadian freelance writer. You can friend him on Facebook, follow him on Twitter or on Pinterest, or visit his website.