As anyone who has explored the depths of the Internet would tell you, it’s a pretty weird world out there. From fetishes you didn’t even know existed to websites maintained entirely by bots, there’s no dearth of bizarre things to be found in the online world. However, those areas are still just niches and almost no one seems to care about them.

When it gets truly weird is when you get more than just a handful of people to go along with your bizarre, out-of-place idea. These Internet fads don’t stand out because they exist—as the Internet is home to much weirder stuff—but because they convinced a bunch of regular individuals to get on board.

10 ‘Naked Butts In Front Of Pretty Scenery’ Photography

No one likes a picture of a naked butt online unless you’re specifically looking for that, and you’d probably be banned from most social media platforms if you post one. However, it’s a completely different matter altogether when you do it with a pretty landscape in the background as the recent viral trend proves.

Carefully and successfully walking the line between art and buffoonery, users on Instagram have taken to photographing their bare butts in exotic, beautiful places. Before anyone could ask, “Why the hell are you doing that,” it was too popular to contain. Many people include it in their travel itineraries as we speak.

You can still see the pictures on an Instagram account called Cheeky Exploits. We’re guessing that it has something to do with body positivity, though that’s not explicitly clear from the photos or their captions. It’s highly likely that people are just doing it because everyone else is.^[1]

9 Hot Water Challenge

In case it’s not immediately clear through common sense, pouring scalding water on yourself for no reason other than to see if you can is a terrible idea. It’s one of those everyday things that may seem like a harmless mistake, but it actually ends up killing more people than you’d expect. In the US alone, around 100 people die every year due to burns caused by hot water.

So, when some people on the Internet thought it’d be a great idea to turn the hot water challenge into a viral trend, it raised some understandable red flags. Everyone was suddenly pouring hot water on themselves or others or just drinking it with a straw and then posting the evidence all over YouTube and Instagram.

As you’d expect, many people were seriously burned. Medical professionals across the world advised against jumping on this particular bandwagon.

The worst of it was when an eight-year old girl died after being dared to drink hot water through a straw after her cousins saw videos of the challenge on YouTube.^[2] Due to the injuries caused by this type of challenge, the trend has thankfully ebbed and the Internet audience has finally learned its lesson. Oh wait, it didn’t . . . 

8 Salt And Ice Challenge

For a species that counts burning to death as one of its biggest fears, we sure love to come up with ingenious ways to burn ourselves for fun. The salt and ice challenge is another one of those.

As you accurately guessed, you put salt and ice on a part of your body. The trend has apparently fizzled out for now, but videos of people doing it can be traced as far back as 2012. It was only recently that it became popular in a big way, though, causing parents and health experts to issue warnings.

While salt and ice may not seem dangerous at first, they combine to create a dangerous chemical reaction that causes serious burns and injuries. The combination of the salt and ice results in something very similar to frostbite.^[3]

7 Furry Nails

Although we were unable to track the user who started it all, the Internet fashion trend of doing up your nails in the form of fur has spread far and wide ever since it first gained traction.

Essentially, it requires you to painstakingly attach strands of fur to your nails. Even if we ignore its ethical implications—and the people doing it claim that it’s all faux fur—the simple fact that it doesn’t really look good or fashionable is why this trend baffles us.

There may be some legit benefits to it, like added insulation during winter, though we were under the impression that gloves do that job quite well already. It may not be as popular now as it was around a year ago. But why it was popular at any time is a question we all need to ask ourselves.^[4]

We may think that this one is a bit less dangerous than the others on this list. However, that’s only if we’re talking about bodily injuries. Looking at something so aesthetically displeasing still harms the brain in other ways.

6 Condom Snorting

We all know the most popular uses of a condom—to fight against the spread of STDs and avoid unwanted pregnancies. The Internet, however, has long disputed that those are the only applications.

We’ve seen everything from DIY furniture-fixing kits made with condoms to condom blow-up challenges surface on YouTube, which were all fine as long as they weren’t hurting anyone. The most recent condom trend to hit the Internet, however, took it a bit too far.

It entails snorting a condom up your nostrils until it comes out of your mouth. We don’t need to tell anyone why that’s a horrible idea as condoms are made to not break or dissolve under any conditions. Aside from the danger of choking to death, this can cause bacterial infections or rashes in the nasal cavity. However, that didn’t stop it from blowing up on YouTube.^[5]

Thankfully, this challenge has largely subsided now, and teenagers are (hopefully) back to using condoms for their intended purpose.

5 Parent Shaming

Having arguments with your parents was a healthy and natural part of growing up. However, with the advent of the Internet, that’s not the case anymore. “Parent shaming” refers to an increasingly popular trend of taking your parental complaints online—whether it’s about your folks refusing to buy you the latest gaming console or embarrassing you in front of your friends. Almost anything goes.^[6]

If you’re feeling bad about the parents at the receiving end of this, don’t. Child shaming is a countertrend. There are around 30,000 clips of parents disciplining their kids on social media platforms, and the types of punishments range from grounding children to setting their Christmas presents on fire.

4 Funeral Selfies

If you’ve spent enough time on the Internet, you know about the creative and creepy ways that people have used corpses throughout history. One particularly unsettling example is Victorian-era corpse photography when people would prop up their dead loves ones to get a photo with them.

Now if you thought that was a thing of the past, we’d like to tell you that it absolutely was. Then modern-era Internet users picked it up again and turned it into a fad.

Many people on Instagram and Facebook are now taking selfies alongside corpses of their dead relatives. The living relatives are often found to be smiling or cheerful about the whole thing.^[7]

For some, it may even be a part of the mourning process. Although from all the photos we’ve seen of the trend, mourning doesn’t seem to be a part of the process. It’s a horrifying combination of the modern craze of taking selfies wherever we can and the age-old tradition of being photographed with the dead.

3 100 Layers

With the deluge of Instagram beauty influencers and YouTube vloggers consistently coming up with new ways to look better, beauty trends are often hard to define. Are we supposed to shave off our eyebrows now? Are bangs back in fashion? Can we make DIY lipsticks from things found in the kitchen?

All of those questions have wildly different answers depending on whom and when you ask. Some people got fed up with that and came up with a whole new trend as a statement against the generality of the term “beauty” nowadays. The trend is putting 100 layers of something on yourself and making videos of it.^[8]

It can be anything—from 100 layers of tape to makeup to clothes—as long as it’s precisely 100 and you put it up on the Internet for everyone to see. While we can’t say if it’s still all the rage, the mere fact that it caught on is something we’re still grappling with.

2 Fire Challenge

For some people online, pouring hot water on yourself or giving yourself frostbite with salt and ice was not an efficient way of causing burns. So they took to actually setting themselves on fire.

We especially love Wikipedia’s matter-of-fact and dry definition of it: “Fire challenge is an activity which refers to the application of flammable liquids to one’s body and then setting the liquids aflame, while being video recorded.”

If you’ve seen people pouring lighter fluid on themselves and lighting it up on Facebook, that’s not a one-off Internet weirdo. Worryingly, it’s a growing trend on video-sharing sites like YouTube. Needless to say, it is extremely dangerous to attempt.

While we don’t understand the motive behind any of the trends on this list, we particularly don’t grasp this one as it entails actually burning yourself for a bunch of fake Internet points. That is, of course, if your video goes viral. Otherwise, you just burned yourself for nothing.

There have been reports of people—especially kids—being admitted to the hospital due to severe burns after attempting this challenge. However, that hasn’t done anything to discourage other proponents of this viral phenomenon.^[9]

1 Pimple Popping

As most of us have been told at some point during our adolescence, popping a pimple yourself is almost never a good idea. Doctors and surgeons are qualified to do it in case it gets worse, but most pimples are temporary occurrences that go away on their own. It’s just one of our body’s many mechanisms to fight off infections, which usually don’t require any intervention on our part. Also, pimple popping is a bit gross.

That’s why the Internet video phenomenon of people popping zits—as well as removing botflies from the body—is so fascinating. We have no idea what’s fueling it, but right now, plenty of people are searching online for videos of other people doing it.^[10]

Some say that the process is immensely satisfying to watch, which makes sense as some people are just weird. However, why so many others are getting in on it remains a mystery to us.

You can check out Himanshu’s stuff at Cracked and Screen Rant, or get in touch with him for writing gigs.

Some people will do anything for 15 minutes of fame, and the internet makes it even easier to make a fool of yourself in the name of likes. Phenomena like the Ice Bucket Challenge are harmless and raise money for good causes, but others have proven to be incredibly dangerous. Some have resulted in disfigurement, jail, and even death for those foolish enough to perform them.

WARNING: The videos on this list contain footage that is disturbing, stupid, or dangerous. Please use discretion so young people or stupid people won’t be exposed to the content.

Top 10 Problematic Mukbangers On YouTube (And Why We Can’t Stop Watching Them)

10 The Fire Challenge

The Fire Challenge was an internet fad where people poured a flammable liquid over parts of their body and set it on fire. They were supposed to quickly put it out, but naturally, such a feat landed several children in the hospital with second and third degree burns. One 12 year old girl was engulfed in flames when the rubbing alcohol she smeared over herself got out of control (possibly due to flammable perfume she was wearing.) Aside from the grave bodily harm the “challenge” can inflict on those who attempt it, it has also landed at least one woman in jail for contributing to the delinquency of a minor when she helped her son film his own Fire Challenge.^[1]

9 The Condom-snorting Challenge

The Condom-snorting challenge is exactly what it sounds like—snorting an extended condom through your nose. The idea is that it will come out of the back of the nasal cavity, where it can then be pulled out of the mouth. Youtubers have been doing this for laughs, but it is actually very dangerous. The nasal cavity is sensitive, and you can do long term damage both with the condom and the chemical lubricants it might have on it. More importantly, since you are snorting a long piece of stretchy plastic into your airway, it can easily keep going past your nasal cavity into your lungs. This has happened during at least one condom-snorting challenge, which resulted in the snorter having to endure surgery, and suffer through months of illness.^[2]

8 Banana Sprite Challenge

The Banana Sprite Challenge is based on the (extremely unscientific) claim that your body cannot digest bananas and Sprite at the same time. The claim, baseless as it may be, says that since your body cannot digest these two substances together, it will reject both, causing you to vomit. There are several Youtube videos (that we don’t recommend watching) of people attempting the challenge, and then vomiting everything back up.

To be clear, the vomiting is less likely caused by the indigestibility of the banana-Sprite mix, and more likely the sheer volume of food and drink the challenge requires. The challenge is to eat two bananas as quickly as you can, then chug a liter of Sprite. Eating and drinking that much so quickly could easily produce vomiting, regardless of the combination.^[3]

7 Salt and Ice Challenge

The Salt and Ice Challenge is a very dangerous internet phenomena where people (including children) have been putting salt and ice together on their bodies. Mixing salt and ice causes a chemical reaction that induces frostbite, and the challenge involves seeing how long you can withstand keeping it on your body. The internet is brimming with pictures of second and third degree burns suffered by those who attempted the challenge.^[4]

Unfortunately, and probably because of the ease of acquiring the ingredients for the challenge, several young children have been rushed to the emergency room with severe burns on their arms after giving themselves frostbite. One child even said that he left it on for so long because it “didn’t even hurt” when they burned themselves.^[5]

6 Cinnamon Challenge

The Cinnamon Challenge is to eat a tablespoon of cinnamon in 60 seconds without drinking anything. It sounds easy, but is actually extremely hard—and dangerous, according to doctors. The problem isn’t actually eating and digesting the cinnamon itself, which is, after all, a common spice. The problem is that trying to eat that much cinnamon will trigger the gag reflex, which causes you to inadvertently inhale cinnamon dust.

Cinnamon dust can be extremely harmful to the lungs. It is caustic, meaning that it can burn or corrode tissue. This is not a problem for your stomach, but getting a caustic compound in your lungs can be damaging. The cellulose matrix of cinnamon also cannot be metabolized, which means that getting it out of your lungs can be a nightmare. Doing the challenge once probably won’t give you “cinnamon lung,” but it can trigger an asthma attack, which can be fatal for some people.^[6]

10 Of The Most Bizarre Modern Internet Trends

5 Kylie Jenner Lip Challenge

Kylie Jenner is a reality TV star known for her plump lips. Some teens have taken to temporarily enlarging their own lips with the Kylie Jenner Lip Challenge, in which they put their lips and mouths inside a container, and then suck the air out to create a vacuum. The lack of air pressure inside the container caused by the sucking causes their lips to temporarily plump, creating the short-term appearance of large lips.

Unfortunately, this not only looks ridiculous, but can be painful, damaging, and cause permanent damage. The swelling expands blood vessels and can tear the sensitive skin of the lips, and make them bleed. Some who attempted the challenge sucked for so long that stitches were needed to repair the damage to their inflated lips.^[7]

4 Hot Pepper Challenge

While hot pepper eating competitions are not uncommon, some Youtubers had their own private challenges to see if they could down some of the hottest peppers in the world. “Monkey see, monkey do” unfortunately applies to middle schoolers who wanted to test their own pepper-eating mettle during their school lunch. A middle schooler brought in a Carolina reaper pepper to school to attempt the challenge with their friends.^[8]

Eating such hot peppers straight, though, can result in vomiting, breathing problems, and other complications—which is exactly what happened to the 30 middle schoolers who tried to down them in their cafeteria. The principle had to call emergency services, just like another principle the very next day when 40 students put ghost peppers in their lunches.

In another challenge at a restaurant, one man ate a ghost pepper-topped burger and began vomiting uncontrollably. It caused Boerhaave’s syndrome, a tear in his esophagus that led to a collapsed lung. The condition is potentially fatal, and landed him in the hospital for almost a month. (We assume that he also lost the restaurant’s challenge.)^[9]

3 24 Hour Fort Challenge

The 24 Hour Fort Challenge is where someone creates a “fort” in a large store where they can hide out for 24 hours, avoiding security, and ultimately spending the night until opening. The challenge seems rather harmless to those who participate, so there are hundreds of posts on youtube from those who have accepted it. Hiding out in a store after it closes, though, is essentially trespassing. It can and has led to criminal charges being filed against individuals who have undertaken it.^[10] And while some people are potentially ruining their futures for the sparse fame of uploading a youtube video, younger children are taking the challenge and causing large-scale searches when their parents call the police to report them missing.^[11]

2 Hot Coil Challenge

Thanks to the power of the internet, anyone can create any kind of challenge they want, no matter how dangerous or dumb. A pair of Youtubers created the Hot Coil Challenge, where they turn on their stove and press their forearm over the red-hot coils to withstand the burn as long as they can. Naturally, the member of the pair that pressed his arm to hot coils gave himself 3rd degree burns, which he showed off on the expletive-ridden video.^[12]

This challenge was so absurd that it was restricted on Youtube for viewers over 18. And perhaps because of its obvious danger and consequences, the challenge has fortunately failed to gain traction among teenagers seeking to permanently disfigure themselves.^[13] Still, there are always people willing to do anything for views, and a few copycats exist.

1 Blue Whale Challenge

The most horrible of internet “challenges” was perhaps the Blue Whale Challenge. It was allegedly the brainchild of Philipp Budeikin, who pleaded guilty to creating the challenge in 2017. His challenge consisted of inciting those he called “biological waste” to ultimately commit suicide.^[14]

The “challenge” involved getting those who accepted to do 50 days of increasingly horrifying self-harming activities that culminated in suicide. It also had those who participated delete all evidence of the “Blue Whale Challenge” from their computers before commiting the final act.

Budeikin was caught after one of his participants gave up near the last stages of the challenge and told the police. He was held on charges of inciting 16 teenage girls to commit suicide, and ultimately found guilty on two counts. Unfortunately, he is believed to be only one of many administrators of the challenge. Due to the challenge’s nature, it is difficult to verify exactly how much of it is actually taking place and how much of it is just an internet rumor. But at least two american teenage suicides are suspected of being linked to it.^[15]

Top 10 Shocking Things Your Child Sees On Youtube

About The Author: Mike has a lot more time to write lists recently.

The Internet has changed human life like most other technologies in our history couldn’t. We can now stay connected with faraway friends, look up videos of dogs singing a wide variety of songs, and post multiple photos of our kids on Facebook even if no one wants us to.

SEE ALSO: 10 Ways The Internet Is Destroying You

That’s only on the surface, though, as it also has many things you’d only run into if you knew what to look for. Anyone who has explored the furthest edges of the Internet knows that it’s a weird and unsettling world out there. Even the most ardent explorers, however, may not have heard of some of these creepiest corners of the web, and we’re here to fix that.

10 Plane Crash Info

Visit Plane Crash Info Here

Advancements in aviation technology in the past few decades or so have made sure that traveling in an airplane is now a much safer affair than it used to be. A lot fewer people die in crashes these days than they used to, so much so that it isn’t unheard of for all the passengers of a crashed flight to have made it out without a scratch.

Still, that doesn’t mean that planes don’t seriously crash with fatalities anymore. Crashes still happen, though they just sound like numbers to the most of us unless it happens to someone we know. If you want to really understand what goes on just before a plane crash, all you need to do is visit Plane Crash Info.

It’s a regularly-updated database of all plane crashes in history, with detailed info on exactly how they happened. Its most unsettling – and heartbreaking—section is ‘Last Words’, with audio clips from CVR (Cockpit Voice Recorder) just before the crash. While the intention here is to legitimately document plane crashes for the sake of record keeping, some of those recordings are quite disturbing.

9 Real Time Death Counter

Visit Real Time Death Counter Here

It’s difficult to quantify exactly how many people die around the world at any given point in time. It’s not because we don’t have the technology to do it, it’s just that death isn’t a very noteworthy event to keep a track of, as it (unfortunately) happens so often. What maybe a loved one for some of us may just be another person out of billions of others who just ran out of time for someone else.

That didn’t sit too well with Brad Lyon, who decided to create a real time simulation of all the deaths in the world. It’s quite accurate, too, as it’s based on accurate numbers taken from every country. We know it doesn’t make for the best screensaver, but if you’re ever in the mood for a visual representation of the fragility of life, this might be the best place for it.^[]

8 Death Row Last Words

Visit Death Row Last Words Here

It doesn’t matter where you stand on capital punishment, many U.S. states still regularly use it for serious offenders. While 29 states have it as a method of punishment on paper, it’s the state of Texas that’s really addicted to it. Around one third of all cases of capital punishment since it was resumed in the U.S. are from Texas, which is also probably due to its size.

If you’ve always wondered what death row inmates say just before they die, you’re in luck. Texas records details of all of its death row inmates, and you can access it if you have enough time and mental space for it. It’s not all creepy, either, as many of those last words are heartfelt messages to loved ones, too.

7 The Fifth Nail

Visit The Fifth Nail Here

If you’ve never heard of the killer known as Joseph Edward Duncan III, you haven’t been paying as much attention to as we’d like. By far one of the most violent criminals in U.S. history, he’s currently on death row for the rape of multiple kids and brutal murders of the Groene Family in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. While we’d spare you the details of the crime in question, just the fact that the judiciary handed him three death sentences and nine life sentences should tell you something about how gruesome it was.

If you don’t want to hear anymore about this, we’d completely understand. If you do, though, there’s a regularly updated blog called The Fifth Nail you can check out. It contains his personal accounts of the murders as well as his general outlook on the world (which he sent to someone outside the prison to publish). Just reading one post there is enough to tell you that’s there’s some messed up stuff in there.

6 Murder Auction

Visit Murder Auction Here

Murder has been a part of society for as long as one can remember, which is probably why we all collectively decided that maybe we should criminalize it at one point in our history. Regardless, it’s still an uncomfortably-widespread occurrence in almost all countries, as any more than one murder is ‘uncomfortably widespread’ for us. Regardless of our opinion on it, though, there’d always be someone willing to end another person’s life as long as their reasons are convincing enough for them.

Somewhere deep down, though, we’re all fascinated by murderers and serial killers, as they represent the extreme end of what we all could do if there was no law stopping us. For everyone whose fascination goes a bit beyond watching serial killer documentaries on Netflix, a website called Murder Auction features artifacts from convicted killers and other violent criminals you can buy. They’re not really related to the murders, as everything found at a crime scene is still the government’s property, though you could get your hands on things like paintings and love notes written by some of the most infamous serial killers.

While we haven’t personally ordered anything from there—as we’re pretty sure that would put us on some kind of a government list—it’s unsettling to know that the option to buy something like that is out there.

5 The Cannibal Café Forum

Visit The Cannibal Café Forum Here

Being a cannibal is no joke. Apart from the ethical and legal implications of it, there’s surprisingly little information online on how to go about being one if you’re interested (not that we endorse going that route to be honest). What utensils do you use to cook another person? What kind of seasoning do you garnish it with? Which part of the body do you start with?

For those who’ve always had an academic interest (hopefully) in details like that, there’s The Cannibal Café Forums. It’s now a defunct website, though Google has done a good job of archiving it, and other versions of it may also be active on the dark web. It features everything from going about finding a victim to people making requests to cannibalize themselves, as that’s also apparently a kink people have.

4 Reborn Dolls

Visit Reborn Dolls Here

We’re not sure about you, but we find dolls to be inherently creepy toys for multiple reasons. For one, it’s clearly an inanimate object made to resemble a real person, even if we know that it’s not meant to be a real person. Much more importantly, though, there’s something about their eyes that scares the creeps out of us, especially when they follow you around the room no matter where you go.

If you’re not convinced by those arguments, we’d like you to check out a website called Reborn Baby Dolls. In a horrible misjudgment of popular opinion on dolls, someone called Deborah King figured that they need to be more human-like than they usually are. To that end, she takes regular dolls and rebuilds them to seem more human-like by a variety of homemade techniques, and posts them there for appreciation. We’d like to clarify that none of these dolls are for sale or any monetary profit; she just does it because she thinks other people would like looking at it.

3 The Simulation Argument

Visit The Simulation Argument Here

We’ve all heard of the simulation argument, that the world isn’t actually real at all and we’re living in a kind of a simulation. While certain glitches like inconsistent weather patterns and whatever the hell Bjork is supposed to be lend credence to that theory, most of us don’t pay much attention to it. After all, if we were sentient and intelligent beings in a simulation, how is it that none of us are smart enough to have figured it out yet?

According to some, though, we already have by the way of a website called The Simulation Argument. It features blogs and studies by reputed authors to make the argument for the world actually being a simulation. Spend enough time on it (trust us, we have), and there’s a good chance you’d be convinced of it, as some of the arguments presented there are nothing if not reasonably put.

2 Edarem

Visit Edarem Here

‘The creepiest guy on YouTube’ is a tall claim to make, as YouTube is filled with all sorts of creeps and nightmares out to steal your hopes and dreams. Though if there’s someone who could legitimately fit that description, it’s Edward Muscare, also known as Edarem.

On first look, it just seems like a regular old guy trying his best to scare the kids. Take a look at any of his videos, though, and you’d realize that his videos are some of the most unsettling on the entire website. Some of them are outright creepy and look the part, though for the others, you’d have to pay a bit more attention and know his personal history to understand why they’re creepy. What may look like a video of just an old guy awkwardly dancing to Pretty Woman gets really disturbing once you realize that he was imprisoned for sexual battery. He eventually died in jail, though his creepy legacy lives on in the form of his videos that’re still up for anyone to watch.

1 Real Crime Scene Photos

Visit Real Crime Scene Photos Here

As we said before, crime scene photos are almost always restricted to police and government records, as they’re usually quite gruesome and unsettling in cases of violent crimes. That doesn’t mean that there’s no way to get your hands on them, as anonymous sources on the inside have been trading information with journalists for as long as those professions have existed.

The crime photos section of Crime Online isn’t the only website documenting photos of real crime scenes online, though it’s definitely the most professionally-managed. Here, you can find crime scene photos from most serial killers, including Manson and Bundy. Not all of them feature dead bodies, either, which may actually make it worse. There’s something much more unsettling about, say, a photo of utensils once used to cook human remains than that of the actual remains. Pictured here is a crime scene photo of Jeffrey Dahmer’s kitchen.

About The Author: You can check out Himanshu’s stuff at Cracked and Screen Rant, or get in touch with him for writing gigs.

There’s no dearth of stories of the Internet being used for malintent. From scammers out to take your money to online harassment to those dark parts of the web we don’t speak of here, the worst of Internet somehow perfectly coincides with the worst of humanity.

SEE ALSO: 10 Ways The Internet Is Destroying You

On rare occasions, though, the Internet can be used for good, too, as many of these online crime solvers have proven. They succeeded where professional crime agencies and police departments couldn’t, either due to good old incompetence or simply not having the crowdsourced tools only the Internet can muster.

10 Hit And Run

Catching someone after a hit-and-run used to be a pretty difficult task in the pre-Internet days, as there’s usually little evidence to go on in those cases. If you’re lucky (and still alive), the driver may leave some conclusive evidence behind. That may still not be enough, though, unless they outright drop their driving license or a swab full of their saliva at the scene.

We’re not saying that the Internet has improved conviction rates in hit-and-run cases, though we know of at least one instance where the culprit was caught because of the online community. It happened in Washington, where a cyclist was hit and killed by a collision, though the cops didn’t have a clue as to the perpetrator. The photo of the scene was eventually uploaded to Reddit, asking other people for help identifying vehicle parts.

While the poster likely just did it out of curiosity, things got serious when an ex state car inspector was able to pinpoint the precise make and model of the vehicle in question. Unfortunately for the man responsible, not many people in the area owned a mid-1980s Chevrolet Silverado at the time, which led to his arrest and eventual conviction.^[1]

9 Shaky Footage

America is by no means new to extra-judicial killings by cops, except that now – thanks to modern technology like cameras – it’s way more difficult to get away with it. That doesn’t mean that it still doesn’t happen, though they just have to make sure there’s no one around to witness or record it.

That realization, however, was lost on Michael Slager; a police officer in South Carolina convicted of shooting and killing an unarmed black man called Walter Scott. He wasn’t immediately charged, though, as the footage shot by witnesses at the scene was too shaky and inconclusive to get a conviction. That was, of course, until a Canadian student online saw the video and decided to stabilize it.

Daniel Voshart was studying cinematography focused on image stabilization at the time, and wanted to do something about what he perceived to be a racially-motivated crime. He worked on the video and posted it as a GIF on Reddit, which – apart from later proving to be conclusive evidence – mobilized the online community in support of the victim.^[2]

8 Pushed To Suicide

When the 18-year-old Nadia Kajouji committed suicide off a bridge on the Rideau River in Ottawa, her friends and family were justifiably devastated. She was going through a lot, including a previous miscarriage along with pressure at school. (Needless to say, if you or anyone around you is feeling the same way, please reach out to someone around you.)

As the story unfolded, though, it was soon discovered that she didn’t take the decision on her own. She had spoken to someone called Cami D (real name Melchert-Dinkel) on an online forum a few weeks before the suicide, who had convinced her to take the final step. His identity was later discovered by Celia Bay, an online counselor, who also discovered that he had been doing this for a while. All in all, he had convinced five or six people to commit suicide in the past, and was charged with one count of attempted assisting suicide and one of assisted suicide, thanks to Celia.^[3]

7 Rape

Debate around sexual assault on campus and jock culture has been raging on for a while, though the Steubenville High School case was one of the first few cases to happen in the age of social media. We’d spare you the horrific details of the crime, though as a summary, a minor was raped by a bunch of her peers in August, 2012. It happened over the course of the night and across locations on and off campus.

While the main perpetrators accused in the crime were later convicted, we often forget the role of the Internet in those convictions. Because of the local influence of the accused, the authorities were, at first, reluctant to take the case seriously. That was until Anonymous – a global and controversial – group of online hacker vigilantes posted a bulk of evidence online. Apart from forcing the authorities to reopen the case, it also brought the conversation to the national stage. It included confessions by the accused, photos and videos from the night and other incriminating material.^[4]

6 Stolen Laptop

Having something like your laptop or phone stolen is devastating news. It’s not about the monetary value of the thing – even if gadgets these days are admittedly quite expensive – but rather your personal information on it, as there’s usually no way to recover that. That was probably what was going through Sean Power’ mind when his Macbook Pro was stolen, along with his phone and some documents.

It wasn’t all bad, though, as he had a software on his laptop that alerted him of its whereabouts whenever it was online. He hadn’t lodged a police complaint or was in the city at the time, and did the only thing he could think of; ask his 12,000 Twitter followers to help. To his surprise, one of his followers managed to successfully retrieve the laptop, along with all the other documents in the bag.^[5]

5 Online Vigilantes Help Speed Up Minor Rape Case Proceedings

The alleged gang rape and eventual suicide of 17-year-old Rehtaeh Parsons in Canada made news around the world. Accounts differ on exactly what drove her to suicide, though many believe that the circulation of her photographs online and cyberbullying were the primary factors. While similar crimes have definitely happened before, the involvement of social media and the relatively-new phenomenon (at the time) of online harassment gave this one a tragically unique angle.

The cops had initially closed the case, as they found little to no evidence linking the gang rape to the suicide (despite there being literal photographic evidence of it). They had to reopen it due to mounting pressure from people online, especially from hackers affiliated with Anonymous. We maintain that any kind of vigilantism is bad – as the line between vigilantes and mobs is a rather thin one – though in this case, the hackers definitely made sure that the case doesn’t go cold.^[6]

4 Omni-Potent

As anyone who has truly gone to the absolute depths of the Internet (for research purposes, of course) would tell you, there really is some horrifying stuff out there. We’re not just talking about illegal drugs and bizarre kinks here, but real snuff movies, child pornography and hired killers. It’s a difficult place to police, too, as most of those corners are hidden behind the dark web and other elaborate privacy measures.

That didn’t sit too well with a hacker called Brad William, who decided to do something about it. Originally operating anonymously under his alias Omni-Potent, he designed a virus to infect over 3,000 computers of suspected child predators. While a lot of the evidence he ended up gathering was incriminating, the authorities never acted upon most of it, as it’s not admissible in court because of being obtained illegally.

That doesn’t mean that he didn’t help at all. His evidence did end up securing a few convictions and outing suspected child predators.^[7]

3 Grateful Doe

Anyone who grew up in or around Greensville County in Virginia would have heard of Grateful Doe. It was an unofficial name given to an unidentified victim of a car crash that killed two, as no one knew who he was for 20 years due to the extent of his injuries. All they had to go on was a tattoo on his arm, two tickets to a Grateful Dead concert and a note addressed to a certain Jason.

All of that changed when Grateful Dead fans online decided to make a page dedicated to identifying him, which drew quite a bit of attention to the otherwise closed case. Fortunately, one of the photographs posted there prompted a woman to contact the admin. As it turned out, the unidentified body was that of her son Jason Callahan who had gone missing around that time (they just assumed that he ran away from home), which was later confirmed by DNA tests.^[8]

2 Hate Crime

Social media is more often in the news for causing hate crimes than preventing them, especially in today’s polarized society. In many of those cases, it’s not possible to ascertain the identities of the assailants, as most of them happen in secluded parts of the city at night (if they’re smart about it, anyway).

So, when a couple of men were beaten up by a group of assailants in Philadelphia for their perceived sexuality back in 2014, it looked like it’d go down the same way as all of those other cases. Fortunately, the authorities decided to release the pictures to the public, and someone on Twitter was able to correctly identify them.^[9]

1 Murder

No matter how much we try to get people to not murder each other, it has been a part of human society for as long as one can remember. Even with our best technology, it’s quite difficult to solve all murder cases out there, as incriminating evidence is still quite hard to obtain. On the other hand, some murder cases get solved by the most unexpected people, like amateur detectives on the Internet.

Case in point; the murder of a certain homeless man in Florida named Abraham Shakespeare. While the police originally had no leads on the suspect, frequent visitors of the online crime-solving forums called Websleuths suspected a woman Shakespeare had transferred all of his previous lottery winnings to. Things got even more bizarre when the woman herself joined the discussion, and eventually confessed to the murder. The moderators made sure that none of her words were edited, which was enough for the cops to get a conviction.^[10]

About The Author: You can check out Himanshu’s stuff at Cracked (www.cracked.com/members/RudeRidingRomeo/) and Screen Rant (https://screenrant.com/author/hshar/), or get in touch with him for writing gigs ([email protected]).

The Internet is a place where everyone knows your name. But not your real name, obviously. Your username might reflect your likes or dislikes. It may be aspirational or whimsical, funny or angry. You choose your username to reflect the person that you resemble, or, at least, the person that you would like other people to believe that you resemble.

But there are other names on the internet. Names that are assigned to you by other users. Names which are a kind of short-hand way of alerting other users about the sort of person you really are.

They are stereotypes, of course, and it is hoped that few people embody all their traits in real life, although you never know.

However, we have prepared this handy guide for you. If you are called any of these names over the internet, it might be a good time for you to take stock of your life.

Top 10 Tone-Deaf Celebrity Coronavirus Messages That Are Cringey AF

10 Becky

Becky is young. She obsesses over her hair, makeup and clothes and spends a lot of time on social media, where she posts pictures of everything she eats and drinks. Becky is not interested in politics or social issues, and would much rather talk about her favorite subject – Becky.

Becky loves hanging out in Starbucks. She is the one wearing the Uggs and checking her makeup with her phone.

Studies have shown that Becky is also particularly skilled at oral sex. We are not entirely sure which studies these are, but Beyonce knows. On the day Beyonce turned black, Becky with the good hair even made into one of her songs.

Natural Habitat: Coffee shops, nail salons and spas.

Chances of seeing her in the wild: low, unless you frequent beauty salons a lot.

9 Chad

Chad is young, easily bored, and stupid. But he is good looking. Which is just as well because it is pretty much all he has going for him.

Chad usually has a big smile and perfect white teeth, and he loves to laugh. His favorite jokes are pranks at other people’s expense. He particularly likes the ones where people get hurt. Those are really funny.

Chad is a bit of a douche. Some Chads are rich, some are poor. None of them work hard. In the evenings, Chad drinks too much and aggressively hits on random women.

Women who fall for his dubious charms soon discover that Chad is a selfish lover. Women who do not fall for his charms are obviously lesbians.

Natural Habitat: Pool parties he wasn’t invited to.

Chances of seeing him in the wild: High, especially if you’re having a pool party

8 Norman

Norman wants you to WISE UP. He wants you to LISTEN and BE PREPARED. Because Norman knows.

Norman knows about the deep state alien invasion cover up which is threatening our very existence. Norman haunts internet message boards day and night, spreading the word that THEY are out there, and they are out to get ya’

Norman is over 50, overweight and overwrought. He refuses to eat food unless it comes from a tin. Contamination, people!

Not to be confused with Harold, who just hides the pain and gets on with it.

Natural habitat: The bunker at the bottom of his garden.

Chances of seeing him in the wild: None. Unless you are also in the bunker.

7 Janet

Janet is not trying to sell you something.

She is Offering You An Opportunity. An opportunity to buy a house, some makeup, or maybe some jewelry that looks like it was made by an 8-year-old. Which it probably was.

Janet does not take no for an answer. Her smile is so loud she can’t hear you. She is busy projecting her successful lifestyle. Which is Awesome. #Herbestlife.

Don’t want what she’s selling? Too bad, because Janet isn’t listening. She’s got bills to pay, and that tat in the garage is not going to sell itself.

Natural habitat: Outside the school gates, and social gatherings that she invited herself to.

Chances of seeing her in the wild: Pretty high. After all, she’s offering you an opportunity. You don’t want to turn your back on opportunity, do you?

6 Felicia

Felicia is used to getting her own way. Her handbag has the word Diva on it, picked out in rhinestones. Felicia expects everyone to drop whatever they are doing, the moment that she wants something. And she always wants something.

If you don’t meet her ridiculously high standards, Felicia will complain. And she will keep on complaining until she gets her own way, while at the same time letting you know that she does not expect to be treated this way.

She is a PERSON, you know. She has feelings. She has a right to be treated with respect, and should never have to buy her own lunch, wash her own car or carry her own shopping.

Felicias come in all ages, sizes, and colors, but they all have high-pitched voices and long hair, which they toss about whenever they are annoyed.

Bye Felicia

Natural Habitat: On their own YouTube channel, complaining about the unfairness of life.

Chances of seeing her in the wild: Unlikely, unless you are dating one.

10 Studies Proving Everything You Believe About Millennials And Boomers Is Wrong

5 Sharon

Sharon is a Mom. She has no other defining characteristics. She only has 2 or 3 children but drives a car big enough to accommodate the entire school football team and their kit, because she doesn’t want to leave anyone out. A stalwart of the PTA, Sharon is the first person to volunteer to fund raise for the new school library, run after school clubs or chaperone the school dance.

Sharon loves to talk about her kids. She has joined lots of Mom websites and dispenses advice on the message boards, to new parents, whether they ask for it or not.

Her Facebook page is full of pictures of her children holding trophies. Some of these have been made by Sharon herself, because gosh-darn it, the kids are just so damn adorable they deserve a prize. Likely to insist that her children eat only organic food and wear natural fibers, but it’s because Sharon carries a first aid kit everywhere.

Sharon is a peaceful person who loves baking cookies and helping with homework. She is totally harmless. Unless you criticize you her children. In which case, it’s gonna get ugly.

Natural habitat: School or home. She is never seen anywhere else.

Chances of seeing her in the wild: Only if you know her kids.

4 Helen

Helen is Busy and Efficient. She has a Filofax the size of a house brick, and carries it everywhere.

She is the chair of the Condo Board, the Neighborhood Watch, and runs several charities. And has a seat on the local council. Helen is a stickler for the rules. Without rules, there is chaos. And chaos is Bad. Helen likes to delegate, but only so that she can tell you that you are doing it wrong.

Helen is usually over 50. She is always dressed for a business meeting, and her hair wouldn’t dare be out of place. She is far too busy for fun, and if she can’t have fun, she doesn’t see why you should want some either.

Natural habitat: The board room.

Chances of seeing her in the wild: You don’t need to find her. She will find you. And remind you that parking is for residents only, unless within the designated visitor parking areas, or if carrying a permit. Do you have a permit? Are you wearing your covid-19 mask?!

3 Kyle

Kyle is young, male and angry. He shaves his head every other day. His main source of food is the energy drink, but he has not yet figured out what that tab thing on the top of the can is for, so usually hammers a nail into the center of the can and tries to catch the liquid in his mouth as it spurts out onto the floor. This is perhaps the reason that he buys his energy drinks by the crate.

Kyle is a Bruce Lee fan. He has not actually studied martial arts, but he has watched all the films, which is practically the same thing. Kyle lives with his widowed mother. His bedroom wall is full of holes, where he has punched them in a rage. Or when being Bruce Lee.

Kyle does not easily articulate his feelings and prefers to communicate via a hole in the wall. He plays video games all night, fueled by the energy drinks and the occasional pizza, then sleeps most of the day, until his mom brings him breakfast around 4 in the afternoon.

And then he screams at her. God, mom, stop judging me! And where’s my energy drink? You know I can’t eat home cooked food!

Natural habitat: His bedroom.

Chances of seeing him in the wild: Not unless you’re the pizza guy.

2 Stacy

Stacy loves her boyfriend. A lot. She loves talking about him and she loves sleeping with him. And she really loves talking about sleeping with him.

Stacy has no interests in life except her boyfriend. They text, like, 100 times a day. Usually she texts him first, but he always replies.

He has to. If he doesn’t reply within 2 minutes, she sends a follow up message, which reads, ?, followed by ?????, and then, Why are ignoring me? Are you breaking up with me? At least have the decency to tell me to my face!!!!!

Stacy and her boyfriend, whoever he is, think exactly alike. Whatever he thinks, she thinks. Whatever he likes, she likes. Wherever he goes, there she is, right next to him.

Stacy does have female friends, but only so that she can have someone to talk to about how awesome her boyfriend is. None of the friends have met him, though, because she doesn’t want them stealing her man.

Natural habitat: Right by his side.

Chances of seeing her in the wild: Depends. Do you know her boyfriend?

1 Karen

Okay so this is meant to be a list of 10 rivals for Karen, but we got to first place and had no choice: Karen is her own greatest rival . . . and she’s winning.

Everyone has heard of Karen. An entitled woman, Karen has come to demand a certain amount of respect. Karen knows her rights. Even when she doesn’t.

Karen expects the sea to part for her, and traffic lights to turn green for her. Karen does not expect to be kept waiting. Never park in front of Karen’s house, or loiter outside it. Karen is special.

When roused, Karen is also dangerous. Karen has been known to resort to violence if people park over the line at the mall parking lot. And she has also been known to resort to violence when people criticize her for parking over the line at the mall parking lot.

Karen is special, and the rules that apply to you do not apply to her.

Natural habitat: Karen is everywhere.

Chances of seeing her in the wild: Guaranteed.

Top 10 Reasons Generation X Is Generation Best

About The Author: Ward Hazell is a freelance writer and travel writer, currently also studying for a PhD in English Literature

That abandoned house at the end of your street is pretty creepy. The story your older cousins told you about the guy with a hook for a hand calling the babysitter from inside the house (or something like that – you were too busy trying not to pee your pants to listen), that was really creepy. These are creepy things that happen in the real world. So, what about the internet?

C’mon, are you kidding?

Amongst the sea of mid-2000s of cat video montages, the panoply zoomers lip-syncing to 5-seconds of a pop song (that proves the world is doomed), and that damned Scottish bloke singing a sea shanty, there exists some of the creepiest, most mysterious and downright gross content. You don’t even have to plumb the depths of the deep web to find it – it’s right at the surface. The blurred line between the internet and real-life blur at this point.

Here’s a list of 10 of the creepiest things found online.

10 Creepy Images From American Courtrooms [Disturbing]

10 Out In The Cold

Russian YouTuber ‘Stas Reeflay’ (real name Stanislav Reshetnikov) focussed largely on gaming-based content. Finding it tough to compete in the genre, Stas also made some sketchy livestreams. Stas had done a fair few of these edgy streams, generating income by pepper spraying his girlfriend or forcing a friend of his to drink oil for donations. On December 2nd, 2020, things went too far on one of these streams. One viewer pledged $1000 for Stas to beat his girlfriend, Valentina, and lock her outside in the freezing cold.

This was in Moscow. In the winter.

Stas did what he’d been paid to do – As he locked Valentina out in sub-zero temperatures, soaking wet from some water he’d poured all over her, she proceeded to bang the door frantically for 2 hours. The viewers kept donating.

When Stas eventually pulled her back into his apartment she was unconscious and had turned a blueish-grey. Stas took Valentina and propped her up on his couch. When he failed to revive her, he continued to stream and take money.

She had been pregnant.

The paramedics came after Stas eventually called for an ambulance. They asked the YouTuber to refrain from filming them. He refused, allowing the 1500 or so viewers to continue to watch.

And donate.

He is awaiting trial.^[1]

9 r/ControllableWebcams

Most creepy or shocking threads on sites like reddit will leave you wondering “is this real?”. Indeed, many threads are essentially just creepypastas or ARGs (alternate reality games) masquerading as true stories in order to maximise engagement.

Not so on reddit board ‘r/ConrollableWebcams’—a community of people dedicated to watching feeds from hacked cameras, the links posted allow users to access random webcam feeds. Sometimes it’s a carpark. Sometimes it’s a workplace. Sometimes it’s a bedroom. Yes, we have entered a real-life deep web creepypasta here, folks.

Mods have tried their best to ensure that nothing too untoward occurs on this board, but there’s only so much control they can have (short of scrapping it outright, of course).

This egregious, gross intrusion into people’s right to privacy is more common than you’d think—Go check your Nest or Ring setup now!^[2]

8 Nizamul Khan

Another famous YouTuber has found himself on the wrong side of the law, this time in India. Nizamul Khan is a popular creator who specialises in motorbike stunts performed during skits, often featuring Nizamul’s girlfriend. The pair were said to be head-over-heels in love, with Nizamul planning on proposing to her. The problem? The girl’s brother, Kamal Sharma, vehemently opposed his sister’s involvement with Khan. Sharma forbade his sister from seeing Khan, going so far as to confiscate her phone.

On the 28th of October, 2020, Khan and two accomplices followed Sharma on his way home from work. The three attackers rode alongside Kamal whilst he had stopped his bike at an intersection. He was shot in the back and died. Nizamul Khan and his two co-conspirators are awaiting trial.^[3]

7 112Dirtbag

Maury Murray vanished after leaving her crashed car in a snowbank, seemingly to avoid police after a passer-by called them. If you want a deeper dive into the mystery of her vanishing, check out the video above.

In 2012, 8 years after Maura vanished, a lead seemingly popped up out of nowhere. A video posted to YouTube by a user named ‘112Dirtbag’ showed a middle-aged man staring directly at the camera and laughing, before ending the video with a wink and a message which read “Happy Anniversary”. Now, the username and the message suggested he knew something about Maura’s fate, if not directly responsible – the name is a reference to a quote from Maura’s father, speculating as to what could have happened to her; he said that perhaps some “dirtbag” on “route 112” could have abducted her. Furthermore, the video was posted exactly 8 years to the day that Maura went missing, making the final message incredibly troubling.

It turned out that this guy was just a troll. Alden Olsen, a Massachusetts resident, was cleared of any involvement. He has since started a blog about Maura’s case, seemingly trying to help solve it. So, we can assume Olsen was trying to bring more attention to the case (?!) By posing as the killer…

Although he has been definitively cleared of suspicion regarding Maura Murray’s case, one cannot help wondering why he, and many like him in other tragic cases, do this sort of stunt, inevitably compounding and exacerbating the misery of the victim’s loved ones.

Just stop.^[4]

6 Hungry?

With a prominent NSFW warning, this post on Reddit’s ‘r/IAmA’ board should also have a YMV warning too – ‘You May Vomit’.

User ‘u/IncrediblyShinyShart’ lost the use of one of his legs after a motorcycle accident. He spent some time in severe agony with doctors suggesting that should amputate the leg. When the user asked what would happen to his leg, he learned that it would be cremated and then dumped in a landfill. This wasteful action did not please IncrediblyShinyShart, so he took his amputated limb home after it was cut off below the knee. After initial plans to freeze dry the leg fell through due to the exorbitant costs involved, he resolved to getting a cast made. One problem remained—what to do with the leg?

Luckily for the newly legless poster, a friend of his was a chef… and he had a group of pals who’d often discussed if they’d be curious in tasting human flesh if it were ethically sound.

And so, they did. In some tacos, with some Mexican style veggies and seasoning, all topped with a splodge of tomatillo sauce.

“It had a very pronounced, beefy flavor to it. The muscle I cut was tough and chewy. It tasted good, but the experience wasn’t the best.” Later, one of the guests messaged IncrediblyShinyShart—”hey, just so you know, I pooped you out. Sorry”.^[5]

5 Weird Stores

On the r/TooAfraidToAsk subreddit, people have a space to ask the community any question that may be deemed too stupid, taboo or embarrassing in real life. In July 2019, one user named ‘u/icemanthrowawy123’ took a different tack – he wrote ‘Twelve mysterious and identical stores open on my street. What could be happening?’. The post quickly climbed to the top of the board; it wasn’t the usual ‘I shat my pants in public’-type post, typical of the average redditor.

He wrote that these ‘shops’ only sold out-of-date, mouldering Walmart foodstuffs and only took cash. Referring to the signage on all these random shops:

‘The names are all tiny variations off of each other like {townname MART} or {Market of Townname} and all clearly bought their signs from the same place as the fonts, colors, size, and shapes are identical. These stores see no business that I’ve ever witnessed yet have large staff numbers and are surviving way longer than the former stores that closed on this street’.

Could they be a front for money laundering a food stamp fraud scam? Some users thought so, but others doubted the veracity of the tale; the poster hadn’t provided any photos or further evidence, despite promising to do so. Silent since late 2019, it seems this was simply a creepy post made for clicks.

But you never know, maybe ‘they’ got him.

4 What Happened To Om?

Om Sayf is a Syrian refugee living in Turkey who gained a large following for her livestreams playing PUBG (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLhUu-4LyRM). Her star was on the rise until, on the 10th of Jan, 2021, she posted a video claiming she was quitting YouTube. She also left social media. Creator burnout? Maybe she’d gotten another job? Unfortunately not.

It seems that something far darker and more immediately dangerous for Om could be afoot. At the end of her ‘final’ video, she made a hand gesture that seems to be the new universal signal to indicate domestic abuse (https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/secret-hand-signal-allows-domestic-18387107).

Her fans peppered Twitter with concerned messages and calls for an investigation. She has since made videos that show she is indeed alive, if not confirming she is well. Although there is no resolution to this story yet, we can only hope that the Turkish authorities can provide her with the help she needs, whatever that may be.^[6]

3 “Ubisoft goes Steamworksm bye bye always on DRM”

Back to the weird and wonderful world of Reddit. A user called ‘YAYVIDEOGAMES’ made thousands of incoherent, garbled posts, all a variation of a single phrase—’Ubisoft goes Steamworks bye bye always on DRM’. Each post is unique, including bold, italic and differently formatted lettering, suggesting that each of his posts were typed out by u/YAYVIDEOGAMES. Embedded in many of the posts were a series of strange, sometimes creepy image files, including one photo showing a handwritten variation of his garbled message messily scrawled on a piece of paper. Furthermore, all of this was completed within just a few hours.

What was this? Was it some strange form of trolling, a guy losing his mind, a new and sophisticated bot? Nothing made sense—this was a real mystery.

Well, after some grade A online sleuthing from within the Reddit community, we finally have an answer to what went on here. It seems that YAYVIDEOGAMES was bedridden and suffering with chronic pain and the aftereffects of delusional paranoia During attempts to improve his situation by pharmacological intervention (opiates and anti-psychotics), the user made the repetitive posts whilst in a secure facility, either due to being in an altered state or to overcome his immense pain.

Not so mysterious, but still very harrowing, nonetheless.^[7]

2 Getting Proof Of UFOs, One Leak At A Time

‘Finally!’ cried all the true believers when this footage was leaked. Hold your horses, though, all this stuff is not proof of the existence of aliens, gang. It is simply proof that US authorities know and study the phenomenon of UFOs (and seem to have no idea what is going on).

In and of itself, this is as close to proof that UFO fans and fanatics have ever gotten—You must admit, sceptics, it’s all quite intriguing. Keep watching the skis… I mean skies (obligatory Simpsons reference complete).^[8]

1 Hell IRL

One of the prevailing dictums of the internet age has been “The Internet is not real life”. It is also true, however, that real people with real lives use the internet. The intersection of these converging ‘realities’ can be a scary place. Nowhere is this more evident than the tragic case of Brandi Worley and her husband, who took to reddit for advice under the username ‘u/Jasoninhell’.

The man took to the site in 2016 to seek advice about his terrible home life – a cheating manipulative wife who had cuckolded him, even chiding him to be kinder to his neighbour, with whom she had been having the affair. Jason, after taking the advice of reddit users, filed for divorce and sought custody of their two kids.

Three days later, Jason’s wife waited until he was asleep (he was sleeping in the basement, out of her reach), before stabbing her children to death and attempting to take her own life. She was convicted of the murder of 7-year-old Tyler and 3-year-old Charlee and sentenced to 120 years in jail.

In 2018, Jason returned to reddit to give an update, stating that although he was still in mourning at the loss of his kids, he was doing better. Further he gave advice to always take the time to tell your loved ones what they mean to you and cherish your time with them, finishing with –

“Always make sure they know how much you love them, I had the fortune that the last thing my children ever heard me say was, “I love you, good night. I will see you in the morning.”^[9]

10 Creepy And Surreal Moments Caught On Video

About The Author: CJ Phillips is a storyteller, actor and writer living in rural West Wales. He is a little obsessed with lists.

The internet is a vital part of modern life. Without web access, all kinds of businesses and jobs would be unable to function. So, as you can imagine, there are plenty of people who would love to see the internet crumble.

Since Tim Berners-Lee launched the World Wide Web in the late 1980s, there have been numerous attempts to shut down the internet. Some of these attacks were carried out by coordinated military groups and governments in a bid for political control. Others consisted of one irate man ripping the wires out of a service box. From accidental cyber attacks to foiled terrorist plots, here are ten times people had a go – and in some cases succeeded – at shutting down the internet.

Top 10 Internet Stereotypes To Rival Karen

10 Texas Man Attempts To Blow Up The Web

In 2021, a man from Texas was arrested for plotting to blow up the internet. Seth Aaron Pendley allegedly planned to take out 70% of the web by destroying a data center in Virginia with a C-4 explosive. The US Department of Justice told reporters that Pendley planned to target the servers of the FBI and CIA. It is said that he wanted to tear down ‘the oligarchy’ that currently rules the United States.

Authorities were tipped off to Pendley’s plot by one of his friends. According to reporters, he was an active member of extremist websites where he went by the name of Dionysus – the Greek god of wine and ritual madness. He wrote on the forum MyMilitia about his desire to “conduct a little experiment.” He also boasted about taking a sawed-off AR rifle to the storming of the Capitol building but claims he left it in the car.

Had Pendley carried out his attack, it would not have destroyed 70% of the internet. The physical infrastructure is distributed across the world and backed up multiple times. Pendley now faces up to 20 years in federal prison if he is found guilty.

9 Man Tries To Destroy Internet To Hide Embarrassing Footage

Nobody likes to be humiliated online. But one man took his quest to hide embarrassing videos to the extreme. In 2016, a Chinese man known as Liu worried that someone would upload footage of him dancing to the web. So Liu decided to take matters into his own hands and set out to destroy the internet.

That summer, having recently moved to the city of Weifang, he had decided to join in with a public fitness dance. In China, it is common for middle-aged women to gather in the streets and take part in “granny dances.” Liu chose to join one of these granny dances, to the amusement of some of the locals. He told police that passers-by were giggling and recording him on their phones.

Liu thought little of it at the time, but a few months later he began to worry that the footage might be shared online. This was when he decided to take action. One night in August, Liu broke into four China Telecom service boxes and ripped out the insides. In total, he caused 10,000 Yuan ($15,000) worth of damage. But Liu was spotted multiple times on CCTV and subsequently arrested by local police.

8 Chad’s Year-Long Social Media Outage

For sixteen months, starting in March 2018, Chad faced the longest social media blackout in African history. Only 6.5% of people had regular internet access. People were unable to interact with their loved ones. Local businesses struggled to advertise online. Journalists had to fight to get their voices heard.

The government imposed the ban in response to growing dissent. Critics have described President Idriss Déby as a “democratically bankrupt” leader and accused him of mass censorship. They claim he is clinging to power, and that the social media ban was a desperate attempt to quell anti-government activists.

As IT experts CIPESA explained in a recent report: “African governments with democracy deficits, regardless of the number of their citizens that use the internet, recognise – and fear – the power of the internet in…empowering ordinary people to speak truth to power.”

7 Disruption As Mirai Botnet Attacks Dyn Servers

The web is rife with hackers and malware, but few caused as much damage as the Mirai botnet. The attack devastated US systems when it brought down much of the country’s internet in October 2016. It targeted the IT company Dyn, which controlled a large amount of online infrastructure at the time. The digital assault caused a major internet outage. It affected major websites like Twitter, Netflix, and CNN.

The Mirai botnet was a sophisticated kind of cyber attack, known as a distributed denial of service (DDoS). Computer servers are inundated with traffic until they become overwhelmed and the system shuts down. Experts estimate that Mirai was the largest DDoS attack in history. Hackers infiltrated a vast array of devices, including digital cameras and video players, then forced them to attack Dyn’s servers.

6 Houthi Rebels Sever Yemen’s Main Cable

Yemen is in the grip of one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world today. Since 2015, Houthi rebels have been locked in a devastating battle with Saudi-led coalition forces. The Houthis are known to use the internet as a weapon, plunging the country into a web blackout.

In July 2018, 80% of internet users were left stranded after rebel forces severed the country’s main fiber optic cable. The rebel forces slashed the cable while strengthening their defenses in the Red Sea port of Hodeidah.

“The rebels impose bans on social media networks and slow down the speed of the already weakened internet service,” explained telecommunications minister Lutfi Bashreef, “and this comes amid reports they intend to soon cut off the internet completely to cover their crimes.”

5 Myanmar Coup Government Introduce Internet Shutdown

As is the case with most modern political conflicts, in Myanmar the internet is a key battlefield. When the military junta seized power in February 2021, they were keen to suppress online dissent. The coup leaders quickly shut off all mobile data in the country, and wireless broadband soon followed. At least 535 have been killed since the military takeover.

But the people of Myanmar are refusing to bow down to the hostile forces. The night before the broadband blackout, there was a surge of people pointing to radio channels and communication apps that can be used without internet access. Protestors took to the streets for a defiant vigil, using candles to declare: “We will never surrender.”

4 Morris Worm, The Accidental Cyber Attack

In 1988, Cornell graduate student Robert Tappan Morris was working on a way to measure the size of the internet. Little did he know he would end up launching the world’s first cyber attack. Morris created a program that would jump from computer to computer, counting each one. Every time his program entered a new machine, it would send a brief signal back to a central server which kept count.

The trouble is his program, now known as the Morris worm, spread too quickly and ended up clogging up much of the web. The bug tore through the net, copying itself between each device and pinging back to the server. Morris had inadvertently invented the DDoS cyber attack – a type of digital assault that forces devices to overwhelm a server with traffic. His accidental offensive brought the internet to its knees.

3 Saboteurs Try To Cut Off Internet In Egypt

Three scuba divers were arrested off the port of Alexandria after attempting to slice through an undersea internet cable and bring down the Egyptian web. The Egyptian coastguard intercepted the team before they were able to cause any disruption.

In 2013, Egyptian naval forces published images online of three men tied up that they accused had tried to sabotage an internet cable. At the time of the attack, Egyptian online traffic was connected to Europe via eight cables. So cutting one of the cables would not have destroyed the web, but it would have caused a significant disturbance. The men refused to reveal the motive for their foiled attack, or if they were working for anyone.

2 India’s Long History Of Internet Shutdowns

In recent years, India has blocked internet access more than any other country. The blackouts began around the time that the government introduced a contentious citizenship law in 2019. Since then the country has seen a surge in protestors taking a stand against the Hindu nationalist regime. Authorities often respond by suspending the internet. They claim it is essential to “keep the peace.” But many Indians have accused officials of attacking their free speech.

The most prominent internet blackout occurred after Modi’s government shut down services in the regions of Jammu and Kashmir in August 2019. Over 13 million people were left stranded for eighteen months, before the web was finally restored in February 2021.

1 Onslaught Against Internet’s Root Server System

In 2002, the internet was struck by what technology experts at the time called “the largest and most complex DDoS attack ever.” Cyber attackers orchestrated an onslaught of traffic against the thirteen root servers that, at the time, formed the heart of internet communications.

Fortunately, built-in safeguards prevented the web from being taken offline. But had the hour-long offensive lasted longer, it could have had severe repercussions for internet users across the globe.

Digital security expert Chris Morrow described the barrage as “probably the most concerted attack against the Internet infrastructure that we’ve seen.”

“The only way to stop such attacks is to fix the vulnerabilities on the machines that ultimately get taken over and used to launch them,” another security expert, Alan Paller, told reporters. “There’s no defense once the machines are under the attacker’s control.”

10 Overwrought Media Scare Campaigns About The Internet

As we move into 2013, a large number a cities around the world have started to use video surveillance in order to help solve crimes. In many cases cameras have been installed on public streets and in office buildings to watch over the area. This has made it extremely difficult for important events to go unrecorded and helped authorities uncover mysteries. The advancement was never more evident than on April 15, 2013 when two bombs exploded at the Boston Marathon. After the terrorist attack, thousands of videos and pictures of the event were taken which helped police find the culprits.

Since surveillance has become so prevalent in the world, a large number of crimes have been recorded and used as evidence in court. In many cases, these tapes are extremely sensitive and sealed from the public eye. This is to protect the families of the victims and prevent the spread of the videos via the Internet. However, this doesn’t stop people from searching the web for the clips. This article will examine ten real videos that you will not be able to find on the Internet. Most are part of an investigation or display sensitive material.

In the research for this article I came across a large amount of urban legend clips that supposedly show a wide range of disturbing images. These videos were not included in the list because I intended to focus on real videos. In some cases there have been videos that were thought to be lost forever and then suddenly appeared on YouTube. One example is the 1969 short Mickey Mouse in Vietnam. The short is one minute long and shows Mickey Mouse being shot to death in Vietnam. It was thought lost until April 22, 2013 when a silent version of the video was uploaded to YouTube. The clip has since been removed from YouTube and is once again hard to locate.

On February 18, 2013 eight masked gunmen stole approximately US$50 million in diamonds from the belly of a plane at the Brussels Airport. The heist was carried out after the men accessed the airport through a hole created in a security fence. After breaching the airport fence, the criminals, who were dressed like police officers, drove two vehicles directly to the area where the a Brink’s armored van was moving diamonds to the plane. In 15 minutes, the robbers loaded 130 bags of diamonds into their vehicles and left. They used automatic weapons, but never fired a shot during the heist.

It is thought that the robbery was an inside job because the criminals had prior knowledge of an unlocked gate, construction work at the airport, and arrived immediately after the diamonds had been unloaded. The men also showed knowledge of how to quickly work the plane’s hatch and had military training. The heist occurred during a five minute window in which the diamonds were being transported to the plane. It has since been realized that a large percentage of the diamonds were uncut, which makes them extremely hard to trace.

The entire event was captured by the airport’s security system. The police have since attempted to identify the culprits, but have not been able to because of their masks. The video remains sealed to the public and it is unlikely to be released in the near future. This has caused some people to express concern because exposure of the tapes could help find the diamonds. It is possible that somebody could recognize specific mannerisms of the criminals.

In May of 2013, it was announced that police in France, Switzerland, and Belgium had arrested more than two dozen people who are thought to be involved with the diamond heist. The police confiscated a significant amount of cash and diamonds. However, a huge percentage of the stolen gems remain at large. It was reported that one of the people arrested in France is thought to be one of the eight masked gunman who participated in the heist. It has also been reported that the robbers thought they were stealing money instead of diamonds.

On three separate occasions in the last ten years a major diamond heist has been carried out in the middle of February. All of the events have been connected to Antwerp. They include the 2003 Antwerp diamond heist, the 2005 Schiphol Airport diamond heist, and the 2013 Brussels Airport diamond heist.

On February 10, 1976 episode #847 of the American children’s series Sesame Street aired on television. The episode features Margaret Hamilton in her famous role as the Wicked Witch of the West. The Wicked Witch is one of the most notable villains in history and the character seems to have an influence on children. Hamilton was aware of her impact on children and continually tried to explain to kids that she was just acting. Margaret even appeared on an episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood in which she showed children how she dressed up as the witch. Despite this, when Hamilton is viewed on television as the witch, kids get freaked out.

In episode #847, the Wicked Witch comes to visit Sesame Street and loses her broom. The broom falls into the hands of David, who refuses to give it back to the witch. This doesn’t make her happy and the witch threatens to turn Big Bird into a feather duster. Meanwhile, Oscar the Grouch becomes friends with the witch. As the episode continues, the witch tries to regain her broom in a variety of ways. Even dressing up like a harmless old lady in order to deceive the group. The educational curriculum for the episode is fear and the value of planning, which was used by the witch to develop methods for retrieving her broom.

After the episode was aired in 1976, the television station received a large amount of complaints from parents. It was reported that children were scared by the show and refused to watch any more Sesame Street. Some kids had problems sleeping and others experienced fits of terror. The response was so abundant that the creators of Sesame Street decided to conduct an experiment with the episode.

The group organized a large sample of kids who were willing to watch the episode in the presence of their parents. It was reported that the children were much more attentive during the scenes with the witch. However, the emotion of fear was difficult to judge as the kids had their parents present. After the experiment was completed it was requested that the episode with Hamilton not be shown on television again. The creators of Sesame Street agreed and the episode has not been aired since 1976. It is currently impossible to find on the Internet and has not been released on DVD.

One of the most disgusting stories you will ever read is that of Armin Meiwes. In 2001, Meiwes ran an advertisement on a website named The Cannibal Café looking for a willing victim to be “slaughtered and consumed.” A man named Bernd Jürgen Armando Brandes from Berlin responded to the message and agreed to meet Meiwes. On March 9, 2001, the two met at Meiwes house in Rotenburg, Germany and Brandes was killed. The entire event was filmed on a 2 hour long videotape. The details of the massacre are gruesome and hard to describe.

Meiwes started by amputating the penis of Brandes and the two ate it. Meiwes then slaughtered Brandes and placed the body on a meat hook. Over the next 10 months Meiwes consumed approximately 20 kilograms (44 lb) of the flesh. He even ground up some of Brandes’ bones and tried to use the substance as cooking flour. All of the events were recorded on the video, which was later seized by authorities and forever sealed from the public.

In December of 2002 Meiwes was arrested by the police after they had received a phone call from a concerned man who had seen a new advertisement from Meiwes on the Internet. It was also discovered that Meiwes had bragged about the crimes in chat rooms. On January 30, 2004, Armin Meiwes was convicted of manslaughter and given a prison sentence of eight years. It was ruled that Brandes was a voluntary participant in the killing, so it was not murder. However, in 2006 the case was revisited and Meiwes was convicted of murder and given a life sentence in prison. It has been written that Meiwes is sorry for his crimes and has become a vegetarian in jail. He believes that there are about 800 cannibals living in Germany.

Timothy Treadwell was a bear enthusiast that was fatally mauled at Katmai National Park in Alaska on October 5, 2003. At the time of his death Treadwell was with his girlfriend Amie Huguenard, who was also killed in the attack. For thirteen straight years, Treadwell had visited Katmai in the summer months to spend time with grizzly bears. He loved being with the bears in their natural habitat. Treadwell recorded over 100 hours of videotape at Katmai and took countless still photographs. The material was later used by filmmaker Werner Herzog to produce the documentary titled Grizzly Man.

In the years before his death, Treadwell had received a considerable amount of media attention for his annual trip to the park. He appeared on U.S. talk shows and was often criticized by researchers for his lack of safety in the presence of bears. In October of 2003, Treadwell and his girlfriend decided to stay in the park for an extra week in order to locate a bear that had not been viewed that summer. It was a dangerous decision because grizzly bears always become more aggressive in the fall months as they fatten up for hibernation.

On October 5, 2003 Timothy spoke to a friend in California on a satellite phone and indicated that he was having no problems with the bears. The following day, a Kodiak air taxi pilot went to pick up Treadwell and Huguenard and discovered an abandoned camp. Park rangers were called to the scene and it was revealed that Timothy and Amie had been mauled and partially eaten by grizzly bears. The rangers located a bear protecting the camp and shot it. A few minutes later a smaller bear charged the men, so they killed it as well. It was the first time in the history of Katmai National Park that a human had been killed by a bear. The deadly bear can be seen in one of Treadwell’s last recordings in which it is referred to as “The Grinch.”

In the moments leading up the mauling, either Treadwell, but probably Huguenard turned on a video camera and captured audio of the attack. The camera was either in a bag or had its lens cap on because the video is completely black, but the audio is chilling. The tape lasts roughly six minutes in which Treadwell can be heard screaming for two-thirds of the time. Sadly, Timothy struggled for his life. The bear makes very little noise during the attack and it was reported that only small growls and grunts can be heard from the animal. Towards the end of the recording, Treadwell is heard being dragged away from the camp by the bear.

After Treadwell is killed, the screams of Amie become extremely loud and the tape stop. It is believed that Amie was mauled shortly after. In the film Grizzly Man Herzog is recorded listening to the tape with headphones on, but no sections of the video are played in the movie. His reaction to the material is horrifying and Herzog urges the videos owner to destroy the tape. The recording has since been placed in a bank vault by Treadwell’s ex-girlfriend Jewel Palovak. In 2008, a section of the clip was supposedly leaked to the Internet, but the recording is thought to be faked. The real recording has never been released.

The Scarborough Rapist is a man named Paul Bernardo who terrorized the community of Scarborough, Ontario during the late 1980s and early 90s. In 1988, the police began to realize that a serial rapist was attacking young women in Scarborough. In response they created a task force to find the rapist. Between 1987 and 1989 Paul Bernardo attacked around 20 separate women and raped half of them. In 1990, the police gathered DNA evidence from 130 suspects in the case. One of the suspects was Paul Bernardo, who submitted DNA evidence and was released in November of 1990.

In 1990, Bernardo also got engaged to a woman named Karla Homolka and became infatuated with her younger sister Tammy Homolka. Bernardo eventually convinced Karla to drug her sister and allowed him to rape her. The two videotaped the event and mocked Tammy. During one attack on Tammy she began to vomit and choked to death. In response, Karla took the camera and filmed herself in Tammy’s clothes and pretended to be her. After an investigation, Tammy Homolka’s death was ruled an accident.

On June 15, 1991, Paul Bernardo kidnapped a young girl named Leslie Mahaffy and brought her back to his home with Karla Homolka. The pair attacked the girl and videotaped themselves torturing her to the music of Bob Marley and David Bowe. The following day Leslie Mahaffy was murdered by the couple. Bernardo claimed that Homolka killed Mahaffy with an overdose of Halcion, while Homolka claimed that Bernardo strangled her. In April of 1992 both Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka abducted a girl named Kristen French. French was taken back to the couple’s house where they filmed themselves torturing her in horrible ways. The following day Kristen was murdered.

Twenty-six months after his DNA evidence was submitted, Paul Bernardo was linked to the Scarborough rapist case and arrested. However, authorities could not implement him in the murders, so they turned to Karla Homolka who was given a plea bargain deal in order to testify against him. Homolka accepted the deal and was sentenced to 12 years in jail for her role in the murders. During the trial, Karla painted herself as a victim to Bernardo and in 1995 Paul Bernardo was sentenced to life in prison. He is eligible for parole in 2020.

In 1993, after Homolka was given the plea bargain deal, Bernardo led the police to a collection of videotapes that were hidden in his house. He also confessed to over thirty rapes. The tapes showed Karla Homolka participating and instigating the crimes. She was seen sexually assaulting and drugging multiple victims without Bernardo in the room. If admissible in court, the content of the tapes probably would have led to a conviction of murder for Karla Homolka.

In response to this fact, the Canadian media began to refer to her plea bargain as the “Deal with the Devil.” In December of 2001, Canadian authorities determined that they had no need for the torture tapes and destroyed them. An interview taken with Homolka as she watched the tapes with police remains sealed to the public. In 2005, Karla Homolka was released from prison and is currently living in Guadeloupe with her husband and three children under the name Leanne Bordelais.

On July 15, 1974 Christine Chubbuck committed suicide on live television during her program Suncoast Digest. The program was a community affairs talk show in which Chubbuck interviewed guests on a wide variety of issues. Chubbuck started her career with WXLT-TV as a reporter and then was given the opportunity to host the talk show. WXLT-TV was an ABC affiliate station in Sarasota, Florida. Leading up to her suicide Christine was said to be severely depressed. She had told her family that she was having a hard time connecting with people and had not had a boyfriend for a long time.

Three weeks before the event Christine did a news story on suicide and visited a local sheriff’s department to discuss the risks. During the interview, a police officer explained the most efficient way to commit suicide, which was said to be a gunshot to the back of the head with wadcutter target bullets. Sadly, Chubbuck used the same method to take her life. In the week leading up to her suicide Christine told a news editor at the station that she had brought a gun to work and joked about killing herself on the air. She was also disappointed with the news stations decision to focus on “blood and guts” stories instead of educational and inspirational news.

On the morning of her suicide, Chubbuck told her co-workers that she had to read some news stories before starting her Suncoast Digest interview. Christine covered three stories and then started to discuss a shooting that had occurred in a restaurant at the Sarasota–Bradenton International Airport. The station attempted to run a short clip of the shooting, but the tape jammed and the camera went back to Chubbuck. At this time Christine spoke her last words: “In keeping with Channel 40’s policy of bringing you the latest in blood and guts, and in living color, you are going to see another first, attempted suicide.” She then drew a gun and shot herself in the back of the right ear. It was reported that Chubbuck fell violently forward, hit her head on the desk, fell to the ground, and then began to violently twitch. The camera quickly went to black and the station ran a public service announcement.

It was later realized that Chubbuck had scripted the entire event, including her suicide. She told her colleagues to list her condition as “critical,” which they did. Chubbuck died at the hospital 14 hours after the shooting. She was only 29-years-old. Following her death, Christine’s family filed an injunction against the news station to prevent the release of the video footage. The tape was seized by the police and then given to the family. No copies have surfaced and the video is thought to have been destroyed. The event occurred before VHS tapes were widespread, so it is unlikely that it was recorded by a viewer. However, it is possible that someone captured the event with a primitive form of videocassette recording, such as the U-matic.

On April 15, 2013, two pressure cooker bombs exploded at the Boston Marathon and caused horrific damage, including the deaths of three people and the maiming of dozens. Due to the location of the bombs, thousands of videos and pictures of the event were taken. The FBI immediately asked the American public to send in videos to help with the investigation. Others conducted their own investigations over the Internet in an attempt to locate suspicions characters.

A couple of days after the attack, the FBI directed their attention to a pair of brothers named Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev. A manhunt was carried out for the brothers and they were located in the Boston suburb of Watertown. After a shootout in which a MIT police officer was killed, Tamerlan Tsarnaev was shot dead and Dzhokhar escaped only to be captured alive later in the day. It was realized that the brothers were born in different republics of the former Soviet Union, and are half Chechen and half Avar. They hold strong Extremist Islamic beliefs and blamed America for wars in Muslim countries.

One of the main factors that caused the FBI to directly target the brothers was video surveillance footage. It was widely reported that the police hold a video of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev dropping his backpack at the site of the second explosion. This is an extremely important piece of evidence that can be used to prove that Dzhokhar planted the bomb. For this reason, the video should be released under public domain for all to see after the trial has taken place. However, it appears the video could be sealed from the public.

A huge collection of conspiracy theories have emerged surrounding the bombings The attack sparked one of the largest Internet investigations in history, which caused many people to be misidentified and accused. One of the most notable cases involved a Saudi national named Abdul Rahman Ali Alharbi who was detained at the scene of the bombings and later released. In the wake of the disaster, conservative radio talk show host Glenn Beck insisted that the Saudi national was responsible for helping the Tsarnaev brothers.

On the day of the attack, it was reported by multiple witnesses that a bomb squad drill was being conducted at the marathon. People were warned not to be alarmed by the large presence of officers at the scene. It was also widely reported in the wake of the disaster that multiple bombs had been discovered and that a controlled demolition was going to take place, but this information was later disregarded.

Probably the most prevalent conspiracy theory surrounding the bombing suggests that a series of members from the elite private security firm Craft International were behind the false flag attack. This has been suggested because in the initial days after the bombings numerous pictures surfaced on the Internet of team members at the marathon. The men were filmed with communications gear and wore large black backpacks. One of these individuals was photographed fleeing the scene with his backpack missing. To add more fuel to the fire, the black backpack on one of the Craft members looked very similar to one used in the first attack. A couple months before the bombings, the leader of Craft International Chris Kyle was murdered.

On September 11, 2001 American Airlines Flight 77 was hijacked by terrorists and flown into the Pentagon near Washington, D.C., killing all 59 people on board as well as 125 people in the building. The event was witnessed by dozens of people and was recorded by a large number of security cameras surrounding the Pentagon. Despite the large amount of footage, the FBI confiscated the tapes and refused to release them to the public. This has caused people to speculate about why the videos are being kept secret.

In the wake of 9/11, it was widely reported that a Citgo service station right next to the Pentagon had recorded the impact of Flight 77 on its security cameras. The plane traveled over the gas station at an altitude of 50 feet and crashed three seconds later. The FBI visited the gas station minutes after the event and gathered the tapes. In the wake of the crash, the FBI confiscated approximately 85 surveillance tapes, including one notable clip from the Doubletree Hotel.

Despite all of the evidence, the U.S. government initially refused to confirm that the videos showed the crash. In response, a group named Judicial Watch filed a request on December 15, 2004 under the Freedom of Information Act to gain access to the “Nexcomm/CITGO gas station, Pentagon security cameras and the Virginia Department of Transportation videos.” On May 16, 2006, the Department of Defense released the first official videos of the crash with only one video showing Flight 77. The clip was taken from a security camera at the Pentagon and shows a blurry image of what appears to be a plane for 1 frame. The Citgo and Doubletree videos were also released, but Flight 77 is not visible.

Despite the release of the videos, the FBI continues to hold at least 84 surveillance tapes of the crash. There is currently an ongoing lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act to have all the tapes made public. According to Special Agent Jacqueline Maguire of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, the FBI has gathered approximately 85 tapes that are “potentially responsive,” but the plane was only captured on one, which was released in 2006.

Steve Irwin was a wildlife enthusiast that devoted his life to helping animals. On September 4, 2006 Irwin was killed by a stingray while traveling in Port Douglas and filming an underwater documentary titled Ocean’s Deadliest. During the event, Irwin was snorkeling at Batt Reef (part of the Great Barrier Reef) in Port Douglas, Queensland when the weather turned bad. In response, Steve entered the shallower waters of the area and decided to film some segments for his daughter Bindi’s television program named Bindi the Jungle Girl. As Irwin approached a stingray in hopes of getting some good television shots, the creature turned and jabbed its spine into Steve’s chest.

The spine of the stingray pierced Irwin’s heart and caused extensive bleeding. Steve was pulled from the water, but it was too late and he died shortly after being struck. It is believed to be the only time in history that a person’s death by stingray was caught on video. After the tragedy, Irwin was given a private funeral at the Queensland Zoo, but it is unclear if he currently holds a grave at the location. He was not given a coroner’s report and very little specific information is available on his death.

It has been reported that Irwin’s last words were “Don’t worry, they usually don’t swim backwards,” which shows that he recognized the stingray was acting strangely. After the accident, the video of Steve Irwin’s death was reviewed by law enforcement, but was eventually destroyed at the request of his family. Despite the fact, millions of people continue to search the web for Steve Irwin’s Death Video.

On December 14, 2012 Adam Lanza shot and killed 26 people in Sandy Hook Elementary School. Following the tragedy, it was reported that the school had recently upgraded their surveillance system and installed video cameras, so visitors who attempted to enter the school during business hours were required to be individually identified by video. The system was placed at the front of the school, but it is unclear if other cameras were spread over the grounds.

At about 9:35 am, which was five minutes after Sandy Hook had locked its doors for the day, Adam Lanza shot his way through a door at the front of the school with a Bushmaster XM15-E2S rifle and started the killing spree. At this time, he was caught on camera by the school’s security system. However, the tape has yet to be released to the public for viewing. The police have not even released a still shot of Lanza at the school, which has only fueled the incredible amount of conspiracy theories that exist around the event.

Immediately after the shooting people all over the Internet claimed the attack was a false flag attempt by the U.S. government to pass more severe gun control laws. The media initially made numerous mistakes in reports about the shooter, how he entered the building, what weapons were used, and his social history. Helicopter footage was taken at the scene of two men running from the school into the woods. These men were later identified as SWAT police officers, but it was never explained why they were fleeing the scene. During the attack, it was reported that the school’s principal turned on the intercom system and a collection of different shooters were heard by witnesses. In some accounts, one shooter is said to have been tackled and taken into custody.

The culprit in this attack was an expert in the area of high powered weapons, military tactics, and assassination. This has caused some to step back and wonder how a 20-year-old American boy could have carried out the Sandy Hook shooting. In the Sandy Hook Elementary attack, every victim was shot multiple times by Adam Lanza. He made sure that the victims were deceased. In one case, he shot a victim 11 times. In response to this, it has been suggested the massacre looked like the tactics of a trained death squad.

A large collection of bizarre conspiracy theories have been presented on the Sandy Hook shootings, including one that says the entire event was staged, which is quite absurd. Others have pointed to smaller coincidences, such as the fact that the words “Sandy Hook” appear on a map in the movie Dark Night Rises when Commissioner Gordon is talking about an attack on “Strike Zone One.” Others have pointed to the fact that Lanza’s father worked for GE Energy Financial Services and that Adam committed suicide with a handgun that was initially not identified among his weapons in the school. In response to all of this information, it would be nice if a short section of the video of Adam Lanza in the school was made public.

In today’s digital culture, we may often think of the internet as the place where mysteries go to get answered. After all, thanks to the world wide web, every obscure fact you’d ever want to know is now seemingly a few clicks away. But there’s a more mysterious and often darker side to the internet as well, one that presents us with just as many questions as it does answers. The internet might hold vast swathes of helpful information, but it’s also home to deceptive sites, hidden forums, eerie creations, hackers, and a whole plethora of weird and sometimes wonderful things. And that’s without even considering everything hidden in the deep web and dark web.

Over the years, the internet has stumped users with many puzzles, enigmas, and anomalies. Many, such as the mystery behind “Webdriver Torso,” have been uncovered. Here though, we’ll be exploring ten mysteries from the internet that all remain unsolved, from trivial but intriguing puzzles to mass cyber-hacking operations.

Related: 10 Of The Most Bizarre Modern Internet Trends

10 Publius Enigma

Beginning in June 1994, Publius Enigma may have been one of the first internet puzzles ever to take fruition. But, despite some information having surfaced regarding its origin, there have been no confirmed reports of a solution. Nor is anyone quite sure whether it’s solvable or if there’s even an actual puzzle there.

The puzzle began on a Pink Floyd fan site where a user going by the name Publius Enigma told fans there was a secret message in the Pink Floyd album Division Bell. The user informed fans that a unique prize awaited them if they worked together to solve the puzzle. Over the next few years, fans began to discuss and theorize about the enigma. However, some were skeptical of the whole thing; what was there to say that this wasn’t some random fan playing with them? Publius promised to prove that the entire thing wasn’t some hoax and told fans to keep an eye out during the band’s gig at the Giant’s stadium. Sure enough, during this concert, the words “Enigma” and “Publius” briefly appeared on screen.

It all certainly sounded like experimental marketing, and according to the band, their record label was behind it all. But that hasn’t stopped fans wondering if there is some hidden enigma on Division Bell still waiting to be solved, with many videos and websites still trying to piece the whole thing together.^[1]

9 Lake City Quiet Pills

Okay, so there’s a somewhat convoluted conspiracy theory related to this one, but the enigma that is “Lake City Quiet Pills” nonetheless remains an intriguing mystery and rabbit hole. The story begins with a Reddit user named ReligionOfPeace, who expressed an interest in, and apparent knowledge of assassinations and a liking of the phrase “Lake City Quiet Pills.” Around 14 hours after his last post on the site, another user named 2-6 posted news of ReligionOfPeace’s death, explaining that the two had met in the army years prior and that ReligionOfPeace’s real name was Milo.

Things got interesting when Reddit users linked this profile to a user from another site going by AngelTwoSix, whose email led them to a website named lakecityquietpill.com. On this site (which no longer exists), buried under pages of pornographic material, Redditors discovered a hidden forum. Sure enough, on this forum was a user named Angel discussing Milo’s death and that he had bricked (made useless) his “IronKey” (an encrypted flash drive). Also on this forum were dubious job postings, which some believed may have been linked to illegal activity.

Some went so far as to link one of these job postings to the 2010 assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh (a Hamas leader). That would certainly be a stretch. Still, it’s hard not to imagine that any business going on in a private forum of a pornographic site could only be shady. But with no new evidence, the truth will likely never be known.^[2]

8 Who Was Behind Jack Froese’s Emails?

When you think of stories of people communicating from beyond the grave, you probably picture seances, Ouija boards, or plates flying across the kitchen. But when Jack Froese died unexpectedly at the age of 32, his family and friends were equally shocked and comforted when it appeared that he was communicating with them through his email address.

It certainly sounds like the work of a troll or hacker, but whoever was behind the email seemed to know intimate details regarding his friends and family. Jack’s best friend, Tim Hart, was contacted first, with an email telling him to clean his attic. According to Tim, before Jack died, they had been alone together in Tim’s attic, discussing what to do with the space. Meanwhile, a week after he broke his ankle, Jack’s cousin received a message that read, “I knew you were going to break your ankle, tried to warn you, gotta be careful.”

Whoever or whatever was behind the emails, it seems that Jack’s family found solace in them with Tim Hart commenting that “If somebody’s joking around, I don’t care because I take it whatever way I want.”^[3]

7 Who Is Chip Chan?

When internet users found a strange webcam showing a still figure draped in a blanket lying on the floor, some speculated that they were looking at a corpse. As it would turn out, though, they were not watching a lifeless figure but a reclusive South Korean woman. This woman would become known to them as “Chip-Chan.” Nobody knew who this person was or why she was filming herself, but people soon became hooked watching her day-to-day activities.

Observers soon noted that Chip Chan rarely left the house and only in disguise, sometimes slept for 20 hours at a time, and communicated through strange ramblings she scrawled across boards. When users tracked down a blog believed to have been written by Chip Chan herself, things only got weirder. Chip Chan claimed that a corrupt policeman called “P” had microchipped her and that this was the cause of her many hours of sleep.

Mental illness seems the most probable cause here, and it seems that police in Seoul are aware of Chip Chan and her condition. It’s also worth noting that Chip Chan’s activity online appears to have slowed down in recent years. But many questions regarding this unsettling case remain. Where is Chip Chan’s family? What is her real name, and how did she become such a recluse? Is there any truth to this “P”? As things stand, it seems we may never know the truth.^[4]

6 The Administrator Behind Valor por Tamaulipas

Some mysteries are best left unsolved. Such is certainly true when it comes to the identity of the original administrator behind the Facebook page Valor por Tamaulipas. The page provides security updates in the northern Mexico state of Tamaulipas relating to roadblocks, shootouts, and other drug-cartel-related violence. Not only a noble cause but also in a country where journalist assassinations are common, a courageous one.

Inevitably, the page would attract unwanted attention from alleged criminals. Soon after the page’s launch, thousands of fliers began appearing around Tamaulipas, offering 600,000 pesos (around $47,000) for any information that would lead to the capture of the person behind the page or their family. Thankfully, both the administrator and their family have remained a mystery.^[5]

5 Unfavorable Semicircle

In 2015, a YouTuber going by the name of “Unfavorable Semicircle” uploaded the first of many strange and unexplained videos. The video was only 4 seconds long, featured no audio, and contained nothing but a small black hole on a static brown background. Over the next year, the user would become one of the sites most prolific, posting some 72,000 videos, each as weird as the last.

At first, it seemed difficult not to draw comparisons with another mysterious YouTube channel, Webdriver Torso, which turned out to be nothing more than a testing channel. But there was something more inertly eerier about these videos, and Redditors soon began noticing strange anomalies buried within the channel’s immense back catalog. Distant screams, high pitch squeals, videos that featured nothing but hours of silence, a peculiar recurring voice: nothing suggested another testing page.

Speculation soon became rife, and Redditors began collecting a database of the videos. But just as the mainstream media began to notice, YouTube shut the channel down.^[6]

4 The Internet’s Most Mysterious Song

We’ve all had that moment where the name of a song or a band is on the tip of our tongue, but we can’t quite place it. Usually, the answer is just a quick Google search away. But when a man going by the name Darius tried to find the name of a track on an old cassette, he continually came up empty. So Darius’s sister, Lydia, took the search further and posted the song onto the internet. Soon, thousands of music enthusiasts from across the web banded together to track down its origin. But to date, no one has figured out who was behind the song or any tangible information concerning its origin.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of “The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet” is how eerily familiar it sounds. With its monotone vocals and new wave riffs, you could imagine it playing in an early ’80s club. Some would even suggest that it was an early Depeche Mode or Joy division demo (it isn’t). For now, Darius and Lydia’s hunt continues. But perhaps, though, in a world where seemingly all music ever made is a few clicks away, a little mystery and obscurity is something to be treasured.^[7]

3 Who Was Behind Ghostnet?

Ghostnet was the name given to a large-scale cyber spying operation uncovered in 2009. Infiltrating over 1,000 computers across 103 countries, Ghostnet has been described as one of the most extensive operations of its kind ever uncovered. Yet, no one knows for sure who was behind the operation.

The cyber-attacks were simple but highly effective. Emails bearing attachments or links were sent out to targeted individuals and organizations. By opening these files, users would unknowingly download a virus that granted hackers full access to their computers. Not only did this mean hackers could read, send, and move data, but they could turn on microphones and cameras as well.

Since the network originated within China, the Chinese government might be considered suspect no.1, though they have denied involvement. However, the answer may not be clear-cut, with Chinese patriots, Russians, and even the CIA all named potential suspects.^[8]

2 The Identity of Bitcoin’s Founder

Launched back on January 3rd, 2009, Bitcoin has become one of the most prominent and successful cryptocurrencies in the world, surpassing $1 trillion in market value back in 2021. Remarkably, however, next to nothing is known regarding Bitcoin’s founder, the enigma known as Satoshi Nakamoto. Moreover, no one’s even entirely sure if Satoshi is any one person or a collective.

Satoshi first appeared online in 2008, writing a paper entitled “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.” In the following months and years, Satoshi would not only create the cryptocurrency but also become one of its most prominent “miners” and advocates. Then he disappeared in 2011 after emailing a Bitcoin core developer that he had “moved on to other things.” Since then, speculation has been rife regarding Satoshi’s identity, with Australian scientist Craig Wight and Bit Gold (a precursor to Bitcoin) founder Nick Szabo identified as prime candidates. Whoever or whatever Satoshi is, they are still believed to hold a large amount of bitcoin, effectively making them a billionaire.^[9]

1 Cicada 3301

Back in 2012, an image appeared on the internet forum site 4chan. The image, which seemed to be nothing more than white text on a black background, read: “Hello. We are looking for highly intelligent individuals. To find them, we have devised a test. There is a message hidden in this image. Find it, and it will lead you on the road to finding us.” What would follow would be a series of elaborate and challenging scavenger hunts that inspired IT experts worldwide.

Over the next few years, the group that would come to be known as Cicada 3301 continued to post elaborate puzzles that baffled all but a small few. These puzzles often required advanced code-breaking skills and esoteric knowledge of medieval texts and Mayan numerology. Although a few did manage to complete these puzzles, no one has been able to verify their purpose. Some have speculated that the puzzles were part of some elaborate recruitment scheme for MI5 or the CIA. Others have suggested that some cyber mercenary group or other shadowy organization is behind the whole thing. Then again, it might just be a well-crafted ARG (alternative reality game).^[10]

Facebook’s motto is “Give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.” An admirable sentiment, but there are trolls in the undergrowth that seem hell-bent on dividing communities and forcing people further apart.

We tend to think of trolls as sad people who enjoy hurting others. They usually don’t personally know their prey and seem to delight in the damage that they cause. Others troll for political or commercial reasons, but a troll’s hallmark is self-centered arrogance. A troll is someone who doesn’t know the meaning of empathy and is unwilling or unable to keep their views to themself.

Unfortunately, we will never be able to completely shut trolls down because there is often a very fine line between abusive content and the right to free speech. We don’t want to close down comment sections, and moderating posts can often lead to arbitrary decisions about what is acceptable and what is not.

It’s a problem we must live with if we want a free exchange of views. Even with trolls inundating the internet, here are ten times when the internet shut down the trolls.

Related: 10 Of The Creepiest Corners Of The Internet

10 JK Rowling’s Wit

J. K. Rowling, the author of the popular Harry Potter series, is very private. Even so, she is not shy when giving her opinion. Many people think that the author’s views are not politically correct, but Rowling doesn’t care what other people think. She has her opinion and is happy to share it.

Rowling doesn’t personally attack people, nothing is insulting about her tweets, and she is more than ready to defend herself. As this example shows:

Troll: “Is it lonely up there on your high horse?”

Rowling: “Gosh, no, I’ve got several million women sitting beside me.”

Notice that the troll doesn’t insult Rowling; he is more subtle in suggesting that Rowling’s status somehow disqualifies her opinions. It doesn’t, as Rowling demonstrates in her response. Rowling’s replies to trolls show a quick wit and a knack for hitting the nail on the head. They would make for an amusing and interesting book in their own right.

Trolls often seem to have an inflated opinion of themselves. Usually, the best way to puncture them is with wit.

9 Swift Reply

A fan posted a harmless video on social media showing her reaction to what Taylor Swift had done. Someone anonymously commented about the fan:

“UR UGLY TO BE COMPLETELY HONEST…okay.”

Well, unnecessary, hurtful, and uncalled for. Adding “to be completely honest” is a trademark of trollers. It suggests that the poster is reluctantly being honest. He isn’t, of course; he is being nasty for the sake of being nasty.

It wasn’t the target fan who shot back a reply, but Swift herself. She replied:

“NO; ANONYMOUS; NO:”

Swift did the right thing here. She supported her fan and showed the anonymous poster that he was out of line. Swift’s reply showed that she found the comment unacceptable and helped strengthen a sense of community among her fans.

8 Gigi Answers Back

Gigi Hadid is a supermodel who received a message that said that she should:

“Practice how to walk properly instead of having a new boyfriend every two weeks.”

In a short text, the troll criticized both her professionalism and made a snide remark about her romantic life. People in the public eye must accept criticism about their work, and such comments can be constructive. However, private life is private and shouldn’t be open to public debate.

Hadid’s response recognizes both points:

“My walk can always get better; I hope the unrelated bitterness in [your] heart can too.”

Short and to the point.

7 Henry Hates Trolls

When celebrities Henry Cavill and Natalie Viscuso began a relationship, it seemed that not everyone approved. Henry’s Instagram account soon received posts from people who didn’t approve and some who were downright abusive. Henry decided to take a stand; he posted:

“I know it can be fun to speculate, to gossip, and to dive into our own personal echo chambers on the internet, but your ‘passion’ is misplaced, and it causes harm to the people I care about most. Even your most conservative of negative assumptions about both my personal and professional life just aren’t true.”

His post was reasonable and seemed to have shamed many of the trolls into silence. But this isn’t always the best tactic, the trolls had provoked a response, and they got it. It breaks the cardinal rule of “Don’t feed the trolls.”

6 Ex Pest

Nicola Roberts was a singer with the Girls Aloud group; she had also had a relationship with an ex-soldier named Carl Davies.

After the affair ended, Davies sent her over 3,000 messages, some of which threatened to stab and burn the singer. Her tactic was often effective, one of not answering any of the messages. Often, a troll is just hoping for a reaction.

But Nicola made copies of all the messages and handed them to the police. The courts didn’t send Carl to prison but gave him a restraining order. This seemed to do the trick as far as Nicola was concerned. But Carl later did the same thing with another woman. Under an assumed name, he threatened the woman and said that her daughter would be the target of rape. This time, he went to jail.

5 Soccer Shame

The men of the England football team haven’t won anything on the international stage since they won the soccer World Cup in 1966. In 2020, it looked like they might have a chance at last. The European international finals were on home soil, and England had a skillful squad of players.

The team reached the final and met Italy. Many believed that Italy was past its best, but on the day, the Italians played a well-controlled match that saw the game end in a 1-1 draw. The final went to penalties, and Italy won.

The black players on the English squad immediately became the target of abuse on all social media platforms. Most fans expressed their disappointment with the entire team—and it’s true that no English player did himself justice on the day. But why did many people focus only on the black players? The British like to claim that racism is a thing of the past. It isn’t.

An ex-player and soccer commentator, Gary Lineker, said:

“We’ve all been shocked by the way racist trolls have been targeting footballers recently.”

The England team denounced the abuse, as did the media and the public. These naysayers went quiet, but unfortunately, they’ll be back.

4 An Artist Treads on Toes

This case raises many questions about the right to free speech. Gregory Alan Eliot is an artist who seems to have seen Twitter as an extension of his art. Eliot sometimes sent as many as 300 tweets daily on every subject under the sun. His tweets were often strongly opinionated and could often be crude. Needless to say, he made enemies.

A woman named Steph Guthrie reported Eliot to the authorities for harassing her. Guthrie had founded a political group, and she and Eliot had once been allies. They fell out, and Eliot took her to task over various issues on Twitter.

The police arrested Eliot, and he spent three days in jail. He was abused by Guthrie’s followers and spent all of his money clearing his name. Finally, the court dropped the charges, but too late to save his reputation.

Surely, he was just exercising his right to free speech. Injudicious sometimes, perhaps, but criminal?

3 Teen Targeted

A teenage girl was an avid user of an appl called LiveMe. Until an anonymous user (or users) mounted a campaign against her. A message appeared on the app telling her to kill herself; her home address appeared on Twitter, suggesting that someone might like to rob the house, and someone superimposed her face on pornographic messages.

The girl, not surprisingly, suffered from anxiety attacks and reported the matter to the police. In this case, there was little that the police could do.

It’s all very well to advise people to ignore trolls, but young people are especially vulnerable to trolling, and some are driven to suicide. In these cases, social media platforms should exercise more control over their content.

2 Parent Persecuted

A young mother parked her car next to a river and nipped into a building for a minute. Tragically, she had left her two-year-old daughter in the car. The car rolled into the water, and the child drowned. Of course, the mother was to blame. She shouldn’t have parked where she did and shouldn’t have left the child alone. She admitted as much on Facebook as she blamed her own stupidity.

Trolls were quickly on the attack. Circling like sharks that sense blood in the water. Other users came to her defense, and the sharks went looking for other prey.

The woman left herself open to abuse. She posted online about what should have been a purely personal matter. We are open to hateful trolls when we do this, even if we are trying to bring awareness to bigger issues.

1 On a Large Scale

This example shows how big trolling can get and how far it reaches. Digital Africa Research Lab and Buzzfeed News exposed an enormous trolling operation based in Nigeria.

A PR firm based in Nigeria and a British nonprofit organization paid small sums to Nigerian influencers to tweet support for a dodgy Colombian businessman, Alex Saab, with whom the United States authorities wanted to talk to about money laundering. Saab had close contacts with Venezuela and did an estimated $135 million worth of business with Maduro’s government.

The Colombian government also accused Saab of laundering an estimated $25 million. On a brief stopover in Cape Verde, the local police arrested Saab, and a court authorized his extradition to the States.

The Nigerian influencers lent their names to a campaign to free Saab when most didn’t know who he was and couldn’t have cared less. The campaign operated on a grand scale but was unsuccessful. Twitter suspended 15,000 accounts of people who had taken part. I have lost count of the number of countries involved.