Several governments and intelligence agencies are operating secret prisons. The fact that these facilities do not officially exist means they are well-protected from the prying eyes of human rights agencies and the courts. Torture is often the norm in these places, and detainees are kept in inhumane living conditions.

Various world governments don’t want you to know about the following secret prisons. Some were closed down before or after they were exposed, while others remain unconfirmed, with the governments in question denying their existence.

10 Salt Pit
Afghanistan

The Salt Pit is a secret CIA-run prison in Afghanistan. It is one of the several prisons set up by the CIA after the 9/11 attacks and was intended to hold people suspected of having links with terrorists. Torture was par for the course at the Salt Pit, and prisoners were often subjected to inhumane punishments and conditions, including mock executions.

The Salt Pit used to be a brick factory before it was turned into a black site. Its cells are small and without windows or toilets. All that the prisoners have to relieve themselves is a bucket. Inmates are stripped naked and made to sleep on cold concrete floors. CIA operatives always keep loud music playing as a form of psychological torture.

Dr. Ghairat Baheer, who was held at the prison for six months, revealed that CIA interrogators tied him to a chair and sat on his stomach. Another, Gul Rahman, who later died in custody and remains the only verified death at the prison, experienced more violent punishments. He was stripped naked with his hands chained over his head while he was repeatedly beaten and drenched with buckets of water.

Rahman died of hypothermia on the morning of November 20, 2002. He was half-naked. The CIA did not return his body to his family or inform them of his death.^[1]

9 Camp 7
Guantanamo Bay

While the prison at Guantanamo Bay is already infamous and controversial in its own right, it also has its own secret prisons, which are even more controversial. One such place is Camp 7, which was built in a hidden location, away from the main prison. Camp 7 was so carefully hidden that no one knew of its existence for two years after it opened in 2006. The few who did never talked about it.

When its existence was revealed, journalists were not allowed to visit. The Red Cross was allowed in, on the condition that it never publicly speak about what it saw. Camp 7 was home to 15 prisoners the CIA considered “high value detainees.” One was Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who is fingered as the mastermind of the September 11 attacks.

The CIA has been accused of torturing prisoners at Camp 7. During a tribunal hearing, one of its inmates, Ramzi Bin al Shibh, complained that his cell always vibrated and made some strange noises. The US military denied all accusations of psychological torture and claimed Shibh was just hearing things.

In 2014, Pentagon confessed that Shibh was hearing real noises but said it was the result of the prison falling apart. It claimed Camp 7 was originally constructed as a temporary structure and asked Congress for $49 million and $69 million to work on its drainage and foundation. Congress refused to allocate the funds.^[2]

8 Penny Lane
Guantanamo Bay

Penny Lane was another secret prison at Guantanamo Bay. Opened in 2003, the prisoners held there enjoyed a life of luxury. They lived in cottages, complete with a very comfortable bed, kitchen, patio, shower, and television. They could also request for additional luxuries, including pornography.

The fact that the inmates held in Penny Lane enjoyed a life of luxury shouldn’t be very surprising. The place was exclusively reserved for confirmed terrorists undergoing training as double agents. After their training, they were released and allowed to return to their terrorist cells, where they sent inside information back to the CIA.

This information was used to prepare drone strikes against targets of interest. In exchange, the CIA gave the terrorists millions of dollars in payment. The program was not a total success. Some of the terrorists rejoined their cells and never reported back to the CIA.

Some also became unwilling double agents after the CIA threatened to harm their children. Al-Qaeda itself knew the CIA would attempt to turn some of its people taken prisoner into double agents and had reservations about members released from Guantanamo Bay. The double agent program ended in 2006.^[3]

7 The Resort
North Korea

The Resort is the Penny Lane of North Korea. Its inmates are not terrorists but blacklisted relatives and officials of the North Korean oligarchy. It is not located on a remote island, either, but close to a town called Hyanghari, just 50 kilometers (30 mi) away from the Chinese border.

The Resort is believed to hold around 1,000 people. It has so many inmates because prisoners will often move in with their families. While heavily guarded, it does not look like a prison but more like a small town. Prisoners do not attempt to escape, since the living conditions aren’t bad. They don’t perform any hard labor or endure any additional punishment and get free cooked meals everyday.

Kim Song Ae is one of the people suspected of being held at the Resort. She used to be the second wife of the late president, Kim Il Sung. Another suspected prisoner is an aunt of the current president, Kim Jong Un. She is the wife of Jang Song Taek and was taken to the Resort after her husband was executed in December 2013.^[4]

6 Cat’s Eye
Thailand

Also called Detention Site Green, Cat’s Eye was a secret CIA prison in Thailand. For all we know, the site could still be in operation, since no one knows its precise location. Some say it is outside Bangkok, while others say it’s in Udon Thani. However, all agree that it is in Thailand, even though the CIA and the Thai government deny its existence.

Cat’s Eye was exposed in a 2014 US Senate report in which its location was listed as “Country [REDACTED].”

The prison was hurriedly set up in 2002 to hold Abu Zubaydah, a mujahideen fighter suspected to be one of bin Laden’s henchmen. Abu was picked up in Pakistan in March 2002, and the CIA was confused on where to keep him. They wanted a place far away from US jurisdiction and the Red Cross.

Abu was heavily tortured at the prison. For several months, he was the only inmate held there, and his torturers had lots of time to spare with him. He lived inside a box that was no bigger than a coffin and was continuously waterboarded until he fainted. The CIA used him to test out several of their “enhanced interrogation techniques,” which is just a fancy name for torture.

Cat’s Eye’s second prisoner was Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri, who arrived there in November 2002. Both prisoners were frequently slapped, stripped naked, and deprived of sleep. They were also slammed against walls in an aptly named punishment called “walling.” Cat’s Eye was reportedly shut down in December 2002, after the CIA moved the inmates to another black site in Poland.^[5]

5 Temara Interrogation Center
Morocco

The Temara interrogation center was a secret prison jointly operated by the CIA and the Moroccan government. Located in Temara, near Rabat, the facility originally opened as a CIA-run secret interrogation center following the September 11 attacks. However, the CIA soon turned it into a prison. The Moroccan government joined in but was more interested in detaining political prisoners.

Zakaria Moumni, a French-Moroccan citizen who was held there for four days for political reasons, said his Moroccan interrogators told him he was in a slaughterhouse and would leave in pieces. Another, Oussama Boutahar, who fought with a Bosnia-based Islamist militia group in the 1990s and in 2003, said the Moroccans told him they were torturing him because the Americans told them to.

A report by the US Senate revealed that the CIA knew Morocco was torturing prisoners at the facility. The CIA complained to the Moroccan intelligence agency, but the complaint only destroyed the relationship between the CIA and the Moroccan government. The CIA also planned on abandoning the Temara site for another prison but later changed its mind. Morocco denies all accusations of torture.^[6]

4 Camp Lemonnier
Djibouti

Djibouti is a small country. It is located in the Horn of Africa alongside several other nations, including the Al-Shabbab- and pirate-ridden Somalia. It is also close to Yemen, which is presently experiencing a disastrous civil war.

The strategic location of the small nation is the reason the US established a military base on its soil. From the base, called Camp Lemonnier, the US launches drone strikes against targets in Somalia and Yemen.

There are also unconfirmed claims that the CIA operates a secret prison at the base. The US Congress reportedly has information about the existence of this facility but has refused to declassify it. Congress is also said to be aware that some of the prisoners held there are innocent.

Mohammed Abdullah Saleh Asad was one of the inmates supposedly held at the prison. He said he was tortured there before he was transferred to another black site in Afghanistan, where he was also tortured.

Mahdi Hashi, another supposed former prisoner, said he was taken to the prison after he was kidnapped by CIA agents in Mogadishu, Somalia. He claimed he was arrested because he refused to spy for British intelligence.^[7]

3 Unnamed Gay Prisons
Chechnya

Chechnya is a Muslim-majority autonomous region of Russia. It has been involved in series of wars with Russia in an attempt to become an independent nation. To end the recurring wars, Russia granted it autonomy. Today, Chechnya has its own head of state, Ramzan Kadyrov, who Russia leaves to do as he wishes.

Kadyrov has been accused of running secret prisons where gay men are tortured to death. Russia and Chechnya do not tolerate gays. While Russia has introduced laws to keep gays in check, Chechnya prefers abducting them and keeping them in secret detention centers where they are repeatedly tortured, sometimes to death.

Some journalists who reported the existence of the secret prisons in Chechnya have been murdered. Novaya Gazeta, the first paper to report the kidnappings, detentions, and killings, has seen at least six of its journalists killed. Some of its living journalists are still being threatened, and others have even fled the country.^[8]

2 Unnamed Prisons
Ukraine

Between 2014 and 2016, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) operated a secret prison in Kharkiv. The site was used to hold people the agency suspected of supporting or sympathizing with Russia during that nation’s military intervention in Ukraine and the consequent annexation of Crimea.

At the time, the SBU denied the existence of any secret prison and dismissed the accusation as Russian propaganda. The SBU and Ukrainian military launched independent probes into the existence of the facilities, but both closed their investigations without reaching a conclusion.

Mykola Vakaruk was held at the secret prison for about 600 days, during which he was repeatedly tortured. When he arrived, one of his interrogators told him he would receive a blow to the chest for every incorrect answer he gave.

Vakaruk received repeated blows and was kept in a 2-square-meter (22 ft²) cell which was so cold that water turned to ice. This culminated in him losing a kidney. He was taken to a hospital, where he underwent surgery to remove the damaged kidney before he was returned to the prison. He said he was forced to confess that he supported the Russian-backed fighters.

Vakaruk was let go when Ukraine started a mass release of the prisoners due to pressure by human rights groups. He received a paltry 100 hryvnias ($3.80) as compensation, and he and other detainees were threatened never to disclose their experiences to anyone.

The secret prison in Kharkiv was one of the several clandestine facilities operated by the SBU. Amnesty International and the Human Rights Watch accused the agency of maintaining other secret prisons in Kramatorsk, Izium, and Mariupol. The Russian-backed fighters were also accused of operating secret detention centers.^[9]

1 Black Jails
China

The black jails are independent secret prisons illegally operated by various Chinese provinces and local governments. Because of the governmental structure in China, citizens are expected to report any grievance to their local and provincial governments.

If they do not get justice, they are allowed to report to the central government at Beijing. The central government itself uses the number of reports it receives to determine the effectiveness of the local and provincial governments.

To avoid getting into Beijing’s black books, the local and provincial governments employed over 10,000 people to hunt, kidnap, detain, and torture citizens who travel to Beijing to make reports. The prisons are usually unoccupied homes, psychiatric wards, and guesthouses.

In 2009, it was suspected that the provinces operated 73 black jails inside Beijing. The central government initially denied the existence of the black jails but later confirmed that they were real.^[10]

A large part of every conflict is gathering information about the other side. Throughout history, people have had to formulate crafty methods to get the vital intelligence they needed. The stories about how and what they did make for an interesting perspective of the past.

10 Ham Common Torture

Recently, controversy has centered around the use of torture—or “enhanced interrogation”—to get information from suspected terrorists. But it’s not a new tactic.

As part of World War II’s Operation Fortitude—the plan to deceive the Germans about the D-day landing location—the SIS (British Intelligence) held 19 German agents in a cellar in a home in Ham Common. The German agents were “turned” into double agents through sleep deprivation and gross physical and mental abuse that was in direct violation of the Geneva Convention.

Subsequently, they began to share information about the German military while sabotaging the Nazis at the same time. They told the Abwehr (German Intelligence) that the invasion would land in Pas de Calais rather than Normandy Beach. These German agents continued to cooperate with the SIS until the end of the war.

9 World War I Sardines

World War I was the start of several intelligence and counterintelligence activities by world powers. One ingenious method by the Germans was the use of sardine shipments.

Ludovico Zender was a native of Lima, Peru, and the son of Norwegian immigrants. In 1914, he arrived in Glasgow as a “tradesman.” Zender ordered a large shipment of Norwegian sardines in 1915, claiming to be taking them back to Peru.

However, the telegrams sent by Zender went to Oslo, a known drop site for German intelligence. Zender’s operation was exposed because it was the wrong season for sardines. In actuality, his telegrams were descriptions of British shipping movements disguised as sardine transactions. Zender was convicted of espionage and executed at the Tower of London in 1916—the last spy to be executed there during World War I.

8 Silver Bullets

During the American War of Independence, both sides devised brilliant techniques to smuggle information back and forth. One technique was writing on tissue paper and stuffing the message into small objects like hollowed buttons, quills, or small silver balls resembling musket balls. These objects could easily be swallowed if the messenger was caught.

In 1777, British spy Daniel Taylor was entrusted with delivering a message from General Henry Clinton to General John Burgoyne. It was stuffed inside a silver ball the size of a cranberry.

When Taylor was caught by an American sentinel, they observed him swallowing an object. They forced him to consume tartar emetic to vomit up the bullet. “Out of his own mouth,” he was convicted as a spy and hanged.

7 Musical Spies

In medieval times, most elite musicians made money by touring and performing in the courts of royalty. Since they were thought of as entertainers and nothing more, they were the perfect candidates to become spies.

Such was the case of spy Pierre Alamire, a celebrated musician and composer of beloved choir books, who was recruited by Henry VIII’s adviser Cardinal Thomas Wolsey (pictured) in 1515. Alamire was to gather information about Richard de la Pole, a loyal Yorkist during the War of the Roses who later allied with the French to wage war against the English.

Alamire traveled to Metz, France, where Pole was living. In a strange twist, Alamire became a double agent and began passing information to both courts. He was no longer trusted by the English and, after 1516, never returned to England.

6 Pancho Villa’s Mormon Cowboy

During the Mexican Revolution, Pancho Villa was forced to find friends at every turn to stay one step ahead of those who wanted him dead. One unlikely ally was a Mormon trader named Jess Taylor. Villa’s enemies were known to raid Mormon colonies in Mexico, stealing supplies and holding captives for ransom.

Villa agreed to help Taylor with these colonies if Taylor could show Villa the locations of the enemy. Taylor, who appeared to be an ordinary cowboy, raised no suspicion while he was leading Villa and his army to the enemy. They were successful in their efforts, and Villa remained forever indebted to the Mormon cowboy.

5 Captain Allan McLane’s Disguises

When George Washington needed vital information during the American Revolutionary War, he dispatched his bravest spy—Captain Allan McLane. Captain McLane had caught Washington’s attention by distinguishing himself on the battlefield. He was then appointed to be an intelligence gatherer, which would remain his biggest priority from 1777 to 1782.

Twice, McLane disguised himself and went behind enemy lines. He first did so when Washington needed information on where the British planned to go after leaving Philadelphia in 1778. Disguised as a farmer, McLane pretended to wander into a British camp in New Jersey. He gained access and gathered the appropriate information.

Soon afterward, Washington successfully attacked at Monmouth Courthouse. Later, McLane disguised himself as a country bumpkin and entered the Stony Point Fort, which the British had taken. From what he saw, he created a bayonet battle plan which allowed the Americans to take the fort in only 25 minutes.

4 The Nazi Generals At Trent Park

During World War II, Nazi generals who were captured by the British were treated with incredible kindness—or so they thought. At one time, around 59 Nazi generals were held as prisoners in a luxurious home named Trent Park. There, they were fed good food and generally given whatever they desired. They thought that they had managed to get a good deal as POWs, but little did they know that their every word was overheard by British intelligence.

Inside Trent Park was an “M room” where German refugees worked with British intelligence to listen to the generals’ conversations. The information they gained was crucial. As Winston Churchill acknowledged, “If it wasn’t for this bugging operation, we may well have not won the war.”

Some of the things learned at Trent Park were the location of a secretive V-2 rocket site, facts about vital military technology, and the abuse of Jews by the Nazis.

3 Gossiping Gertrude Bell

A few months before World War I, Turkish authorities permitted British archaeologist Gertrude Bell to explore in Constantinople. She went to the city of Hail, which hadn’t been reached by Westerners since 1893. Although she appeared to be traveling for archaeological purposes, she really went to the city because it served as the capital of the brutal al Rashids and the British wanted to know their strength.

Upon arriving, Bell was imprisoned, but a personal code of honor among the Rashids kept them from harming her. She began to ingratiate herself among their polygamous wives and listened to their gossip. They so casually shared their intrigues and personal information that Bell was able to report to the British that the Rashids were weakening and the British should ally with the Saudis.

This policy recommendation to the British after the fall of the Ottoman Empire influenced the fate of the Middle East for the next century.

2 The Black Spies Of The Confederate White House

Throughout the Civil War, Jefferson Davis and his wife, Varina, lived in their own White House in the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. Little did they know that every bit of their lives was watched and listened to quietly by their black servants.

William Jackson, their coachman, escaped the Davis home in 1862 and went to a federal camp where he divulged details of Davis’s plans for the war. Jackson said, “He plans advances, but [his generals] execute masterly retreats.”

Another slave-spy in the Davis home was Mary Elizabeth Bowser, who worked with an extensive Union spy network run by Richmond socialite Elizabeth Van Lew. It seems that Mary was installed as a waitress at the Davis home, and her efforts along with others by Van Lew provided valuable military information to the Union.

1 Sylvanus Morley
US Spy And Archaeologist

During World War I, archaeologist Sylvanus Morley played a seminal role in preventing German interests in Mexico, which could have drastically altered the course of history. A Mayanist, Morley traveled through Central America photographing ancient ruins and structures.

In 1917, he arrived in Honduras and attempted to photograph an old Spanish fort along the coast. When soldiers stopped him, he had to argue all the way up to the Honduran president before he was allowed to continue his activity. Little did they know that he was identifying German agents, photographing submarines, and hunting German shortwave broadcasts.

In all, he traveled 3,200 kilometers (2,000 mi) while documenting the German presence in Central America. Because of his efforts, Morley has been identified by historians as “arguably the best secret agent the United States produced during [World War I].” His method became the template for future efforts during World War II.

Gordon Gora is a struggling author who is desperately trying to make it. He is working on several projects, but until he finishes one, he will write for for his bread and butter. You can write him at [email protected].

Secret societies have interested people for a very long time, which makes sense; mysterious groups who remain hidden are understandably intriguing. However, they’re often seen as evil, corrupt, or insidious institutions that intend to do harm to humanity. From the Masons to the Illuminati, conspiracy theorists openly deride such fraternities (whether real or fictional) and claim that they control the world or would at least like to. Here are 10 secret societies that go against that nefarious stereotype, instead having been founded for a good cause.

10 Whiteboys

Formed in Ireland in the 18th century, the Whiteboys were a secret peasant group, bound by secret oaths and known by elaborate pseudonyms, who rebelled against the way that farmers and laborers were being treated by the establishment. Their name derived from group members’ tendency to wear white shirts and the fact they were exclusively young males.

The Whiteboys would proclaim new “laws” that wages were to be increased, tithes were to be reduced, or some other act to help the workers. If these laws were disregarded by the authorities, then the Whiteboys would enforce them through violence, intimidation, and destruction of property. Sometimes, they would even dig graves and place coffins on public roads as a sign of what was to come if the landowners did not change their ways and support the rural poor.

9 E Clampus Vitus

Sounding far more serious than it actually is, E Clampus Vitus is a fraternal society which has its origins in the 19th-century American Gold Rush. It is believed to have been created to poke fun at the actual secret societies that were spreading throughout the West at the time and is essentially a group that promotes alternative local history and having fun—so it’s not your average fraternity.

In good keeping with their original purpose, which was to provide miners with some humorous relief from panning for gold, the “Clampers” mocked institutions such as the Odd Fellows and the Masons with absurd initiation ceremonies. Even their name is a joke, since E Clampus Vitus is not actually Latin, and reportedly, nobody knows what it means. These days, they spend their time putting up plaques for places forgotten by more serious historians, such as saloons and bawdy houses.

8 Family Of Love

A little-known secret society founded in Holland in 1539 with a rather corny name, the Family of Love was a religious movement which sought to aid the poor and believed that religion was about the experience of divine love, not simply belief in one set of doctrines instead of another.

This lack of belief in one particular set of scriptures was quite powerful at a time when Europe was split between Catholicism and Protestantism. Having taken hold in England, the Family of Love was soon outlawed by Queen Elizabeth I, who ordered all adherents to be imprisoned and books to be burnt. Yet, it had a lasting influence on the development of the Quakers, a movement into which the Family of Love was eventually assimilated.

7 Mau Mau

African secret societies are rarely mentioned, and this one certainly deserves more attention than it gets. Mau Mau was a Kenyan nationalist society that originated in the 1950s and engaged in ritual initiations inspired by belief in magic. Unfortunately, Mau Mau’s adherents ended up perpetrating brutal crimes and a great deal of violence, starting an uprising which resulted in the deaths of thousands.

However, it should be noted that Mau Mau was formed to challenge the perceived cruelty of British colonialism in Kenya, and its members’ desperation, hunger, illness, and exploitation was the basis for their violence. Only a few years after this society disappeared, Kenya finally became independent in 1963, and its first president was reported to be a member of Mau Mau.

6 Patrons Of Husbandry

Better known as the Grange, the Patrons of Husbandry was founded as a national agricultural fraternity in 1867 in the United States. Formed along Masonic lines with oaths, passwords and closed meetings, it was alleged that they were essentially controlled by Freemasons and Odd Fellows. However, the Grange, unusual for its time, permitted women to become members, distinguishing it from other, similar organizations.

After a period of rapid expansion due to the Panic of 1873, the Grange became large enough to set up schools, lobbying for causes such as free trade, railroad regulation, and better education. From a peak of over 850,000 in the 1950s, the membership today has fallen to nearly 200,000, perhaps due to the fact that only two percent of Americans are now farmers.

5 The French Resistance

By far the most famous group on this list, it’s often forgotten that the French Resistance was a secret society, at least in some ways. After all, they opposed the Germans in Nazi-occupied France from within the country, something which could only be done in secret. The term “French Resistance” encompasses a broad range of different organizations that existed to fight the Nazis, some choosing to use violence and others deciding instead to spread underground newspapers and broadcast anti-German radio programs.

Led by Charles de Gaulle, who commanded them from the United Kingdom, the Resistance remained secretive and was central to the liberation of France. Regularly carrying out missions of sabotage against railways and intelligence gathering, membership is estimated to have been around 100,000, made up of nine different underground networks, by 1944. Around 50,000 French Resistance fighters were captured by the Nazis and sent to prison camps, of which half never returned.

4 The Order Of Chaeronea

It is well-known that homosexuality has been repressed throughout history, and it is only recently that some parts of the world have fully accepted it. In 1897 in London, a man named George Cecil Ives sought to create a secret society that would allow homosexual men to communicate and gather support for their cause, safe from the rejection and disdain of society.

The Order of Chaeronea’s hard-to-pronounce name comes from the location of an ancient battle in 338 BC, but it remains important in the 21st century. Perhaps the most famous member of the Order was Oscar Wilde, who was imprisoned on charges of homosexuality.

3 Sons Of Liberty

The Sons of Liberty was a patriotic secret society that fought against British colonial rule in America and helped to pave the way for the Boston Tea Party. Initially known as the Loyal Nine when they protested against the Stamp Tax in December 1765, they got their name from words spoken by an Irish MP when debating that very act.

There are countless famous names associated with this society, including Benedict Arnold, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and Paul Revere. Although women had little political empowerment at the time, they were actively encouraged to become “Daughters of Liberty” and join the cause against the British Empire.

The Sons of Liberty organized acts of resistance by stockpiling guns, using tactics of mob rule and intimidation, and even methods such as tarring and feathering. As history shows, they got what they wanted in the end.

2 Grand Order Of Water Rats

The charitable fraternity known as the Grand Order of Water Rats was founded by two British musicians in the late 19th century, after they decided that the profits won by their prize racing pony should be used to help struggling performers less fortunate than themselves.

Their rather unimpressive name stems from one occasion when their pony was soaked in the rain, and a nearby bus driver called it a “bleedin’ water rat.” The story goes that because “rats” is “star” spelled backward, and “vole” is an anagram of “love” (the water rat being a type of vole), the name “Water Rats” would embody the society’s desire to bring people together with love and friendship.

However unlikely that may sound, the self-styled “brotherhood” has a long list of very famous members, including Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, and Brian May, all of whom have joined in the Grand Order’s cause to help other performers through charitable work.

1 Royal Society

The oldest national scientific society in the world, the Royal Society was founded in London in 1660 as the “Invisible College for the promoting of Physico-Mathematical Experimental Learning.” It was likely “invisible” because of the English Civil War. The society had tried to form in the past, but in 1658, they were disbanded when soldiers stormed their meeting rooms. Yet this group did eventually gain a royal charter from King Charles II, hence the Royal’ in their name.

Despite these turbulent beginnings (and early attempts to discover whether a spider could be trapped in a circle of ground unicorn horns), the Royal Society is far less secret than it once was and has gone on to spread knowledge throughout the world. It boasts an impressive list of members which includes Stephen Hawking, Alan Turing, and Albert Einstein, among many more.

He’s from a flat place with a big sky. Gotta fill all that sky with something, so he filled it with his dreams.

The idea of “secret projects” such as MKUltra were once considered complete fiction and nothing but conspiracy theories. As were secret projects to influence the weather or the use of remote viewers by such intelligence agencies as the CIA. However, we now know that these efforts existed, at least on an initial research and experimental level.

If these top secret and once-denied projects were more factual than authorities would have originally had us believe, then what should we make of some of the other, albeit bizarre, allegations of top secret projects and programs that operate in the shadows of governments, funded by the “black budget?” Here are ten such programs. Some are more believable than others, no doubt, but all are intriguing to the max.

10 Project Mannequin

According to several whistle-blowers, Project Mannequin is a joint operation involving the NSA and the British intelligence agencies.^[1] Although a variety of activities and projects operate under the Mannequin name, the main purpose is to train and develop units of “super soldiers.” Some of these are used as part of UFO retrieval and security lockdown operations. Others, though, are called “sleepers” and are claimed to be mind-controlled and activated remotely to carry out deadly assassination missions, of which they will not be aware.

Not crazy enough for you? Okay, most of these super soldiers become members of these programs via kidnappings or through years of grooming via military and high-status families, who apparently submit their children to such programs for rewards unknown.

The main hub of the operation is said to be in a top secret facility 60 meters (200 ft) underground in Berkshire in Southern England. In addition to the training sessions in developing super soldiers and mind-controlled assassins (if, of course, we subscribe to these apparent leaks of information, which most don’t) there are also remote viewing sessions. These occur for a variety of purposes, not least to gain political and military advantages. Some whistle-blowers even claim “astral attacks” take place from this facility under the Project Mannequin name.

Perhaps one of the most high-profile people to make claims of involvement in Project Mannequin was Max Spiers, who died in the most suspicious of circumstances and whose death—shortly after making such claims—remains unsolved to any satisfactory degree still today. Make of that what you will.

9 Project Bluebird/Artichoke

In contrast to the outlandish claims about Project Mannequin, our next entry is all too real. Most of us, even those who don’t involve themselves with “conspiracies” and the like, are aware of such programs as MKUltra, even if only by name. The forerunner to this very real project went first under the name Project Bluebird, and then, very likely for security reasons and for a lack of a clear paper trail, under the moniker of Project Artichoke.^[2] Perhaps this activity is indicative of the nature of the “black budget projects” that would seemingly become standard operating procedure for many intelligence agencies as the 20th century progressed.

These programs began around 1950, in the aftermath of World War II and, incidentally or not, Operation Paperclip. (The Nazis were known to have carried out extensive experiments with mind control.) While there is no direct evidence to link him to the programs, it is generally accepted by many researchers that the work of Jose Delgado, who was looking to replace the brutal nature of lobotomies with electrical stimulation of the brain, perhaps unintentionally provided intelligence agencies with the insight they required to use such knowledge to their own ends.

8 Project Dreamscan

While the objectives of Project Dreamscan have little documentation to back up the whistle-blower-type claims, the methods utilized within the program very much do. It is widely known, for example, that the CIA experimented relatively extensively with remote viewing, particularly during the Cold War (mainly due to intelligence that their Soviet counterparts were doing so).

According to the claims of some, the objective of Project Dreamscan was to have remote viewers leave their bodies and enter a target’s mind in a dream state.^[3] These missions were thought to have been attempts to influence the thought processes of the targets. Interestingly, some researchers suggest that such remote viewers often accompany high-ranking officials to meetings with the UN in order to use their powers on other countries’ officials for similar reasons. Rumors even exist that Uri Geller was employed in such a way.

Furthermore, a purported CIA document declassified in 2017 suggests that similar missions would “send” remote viewers not only to other planets but to different times, both in the future and the past. While most dismiss this aspect entirely, it is an interesting notion that time travel may be something achieved on an astral plane as opposed to a physical one.

7 Project Stargate

As we mentioned above, many of these secret programs were a product of the Cold War and the intelligence obtained by both US and Soviet agencies. In reality, it is tempting to say that each country likely fed the other a good helping of purposeful disinformation. However, in the paranoid nature of the times, neither side could afford to ignore possible intel, no matter how absurd. It is easy to see, then, where the murkiness of such projects comes from.

One of these operations was Project Stargate, which, according to what little information is available on it, was a “psychotronic research” program.^[4] Furthermore, beginning in the late 1970s, established and proven remote viewers would “teach” other to hone their skills—all at the expense of the United States government, of course. This was, according to some, the new “psychic warfare” that was taking place in full view of an unknowing and unsuspecting public.

There are even more bizarre reports from some researchers that suggest these talented remote viewers would, on occasion, be “loaned out” to friendly countries for use in their own private matters. Like many such programs, whatever the truth of their operations, Project Stargate would suddenly cease operating, at least under that name, in the 1990s.

6 Project Rainbow

Perhaps another seemingly outlandish “secret” operation was Project Rainbow, whose roots allegedly reside in such equally insane projects as the Philadelphia Experiment, which, of course, most people insist are mere fantasy at best. It also has more direct connections to another supersecret program in the Phoenix Time Travel Project, which some researchers believe is essentially the same operation under a different name.^[5]

While much of the project—if we accept, for a moment, the authenticity of the claims—revolved around the attempted creation of time tunnels and wormholes, the other part of the Project Rainbow umbrella would look at weather control. This, particularly in recent years, is something that is increasingly being dragged from the conspiracy tray to the fact tray.

Perhaps one of the most intriguing connections to other conspiracies are the claims that it was from these weather and space-time experiments that the seeds of the fully working mind control devices came from. It is another interesting layer to such conspiracies that sees a now all-but-proven “conspiracy theory” such as weather control coupled with the much more unpalatable prospect of controlling the minds of unsuspecting members of the public.

5 Operation Sleeping Beauty

Project Rainbow was not the only operation to involve experiments more akin to mind control. Rainbow’s weather control research allegedly also reportedly resulted in the secret program known as Operation Sleeping Beauty.

Whether these experiments ever made it off the drawing board is unknown, although as you might imagine, some conspiracy theorists insist they did. And what’s more, they contend that the experiments are likely still going on today.

The drive behind these conspiracy theories is the notion that mind-altering electromagnetic weaponry could be used to the US military’s advantage.^[6] They would, through such advanced and experimental technology, be able to achieve battlefield superiority. Their enemies would be mentally disorientated to the point of surrender.

Another interesting aspect of this approach was that the soldiers affected would not have the slightest idea of what was happening to them. This confusion alone would inspire substantial fear. In short, such a secret, advanced weapon is not at all beyond the realms of imagination or possibility.

4 The Mindwreaker Project

A very similar advanced battlefield weapon program would be Project Mindwreaker (sometimes called “Mindwrecker”) an effort to create a state of artificial paralysis through “mentally induced” weapons.^[7]

According to the conspiracies (and, once again, we should note that there is no absolute solid evidence to back these outlandish claims up), the project came to light through another unintended observation during the weather control experiments of Project Rainbow. Once they realized there was a potential to paralyze subjects through the technology they had created, they looked to weaponize it.

In a conspiracy claim already bordering on lunacy, further accusations suggest that this technology was derived from reverse-engineered alien spacecraft, which only made the conspiracy theory more appealing to some and more unbelievable to others. Perhaps just to add another layer of appeal to the whole affair, Mindwreaker is also claimed to be one of the last secret projects commissioned by the Reagan administration. Of course, who was actually in charge during the Reagan years is perhaps also open to debate and is, in fact, likely the bigger conspiracy.

3 Project Sigma

Maybe the claims behind the apparent Project Sigma are the most intriguing of them all, if only because they offer an admittedly tentative explanation for the alien abduction phenomenon.

The roots of Project Sigma go back to the alleged, and equally controversial, meeting between President Eisenhower and two different alien races. One race was the Greys, whose offer of advanced technology apparently won Eisenhower’s mind against the offer of “green technology” from the other alien race (said by some to be the Nordics). Further rumors suggest that Eisenhower didn’t wish this technology to end up in the hands of the Soviet Union.

So, then, if we buy into the theories that Eisenhower did indeed meet with two alien races, one of which was the Greys, what was the outcome of such a meeting? Well, according to some researchers, themselves relying on whistle-blower testimony, it was Project Sigma. This was essentially an alien-human hybridization program. The reason behind this is said to be that the Greys’ DNA had suffered “extreme degradation” due to exposure to radiation on their home planet. In short, they could no longer reproduce. So, in return for this technology, the Greys were apparently granted “access” to humans for abduction, under the condition the abductees would not recall such abductions and would be returned unharmed.^[8]

It is certainly an interesting notion. Might this be the ultimate reason behind the reports of abductions by Grey aliens since the early 1960s?

2 Project Moon Dust

The official reason for Project Moon Dust was to recover the remains of Soviet satellites that reentered the atmosphere and crashed to Earth. And they didn’t just recover these satellites in the United States but all over the world, in places such as South Africa, Bolivia, and even as far away as the Himalayan Mountains.

However, according to some researchers, most prominently Clifford Stone, a great many of the Moon Dust missions actually recovered crashed UFOs. Many of these craft are thought to have been taken back to the United States to various air bases and research facilities, with a view to reverse-engineering the technology available.^[9] Stone, who also claimed involvement in the missions, would state shortly before his death in 2014, “While we were doing this, we were telling the American public there was nothing to it [UFOs].”

Stone would also state that on most of these missions, the unit thought they were going for a satellite or a Soviet test plane. However, he would also state that on each of these missions, there was also a person assigned at the last minute who “wasn’t an Army official.” It would appear that these mysterious additions to the mission were the only ones in full possession of the actual facts of each incident. The claims, while perhaps requiring a pinch of salt or two, are certainly intriguing.

1 The CHANI Project

Perhaps one of the most intriguing of these alleged secret projects is the CHANI (Channeled Holographic Access Network Interface) Project, which one researcher described as an “orgasmic interaction between science theory and spiritual awareness.”^[10]

A simple way of explaining this apparent project is a moving of remote viewing and the use of psychics into the digital age. Through various computer software programs, the conspiracy says, a digital “channeler” or presence would make contact with spirits and energies from another realm—or, more accurately, with one energy or spirit, who was referred to rather ominously as “the Entity.”

Even more bizarre, the Entity was in contact with humanity on behalf of “the Elders,” the creators and overseers of the universe. This is an interesting notion and one that is found in the legends of many ancient civilizations. Ancient Egypt, for example, had legends of nine creator gods. Perhaps interestingly, it is claimed that similar channeling experiments in the 1950s and 1960s, themselves an offshoot of the MKUltra and remote viewing experiments, made contact with one of these creator gods.

We tend to think of history like a comic book: we have heroes, we have villains, the end. But that is not how real life works. People are too complex to be boiled down into one easily digestible image. However, that has not stopped history from conveniently forgetting a few things about some of its most famous figures. From the bizarre, to the disgusting, to the downright horrifying, prepare for a look at the secret lives of ten history class staples you thought you knew.

10Charles Dickens

Iconic English author Charles Dickens is probably the only Victorian figure most people can name. Aside from penning classics like A Tale of Two Cities and Oliver Twist, Dickens was the mind behind everyone’s favorite holiday ghost story, A Christmas Carol. It seems obvious that the man who dreamed up Ebenezer Scrooge’s uplifting transformation would himself have been a pretty kind fellow.

But he was actually kind of an obnoxious creep. When not busy scribbling tales of generosity and love, Dickens was known to be fond of incredibly annoying “pranks.” He would speak in a language he had invented. He would run up to strangers on the street and screech bizarre nonsense riddles at them. And during one particularly insane trip to the beach, he grabbed a random young woman, dragged her down to the water, and threatened to kill her. He claimed he had fallen in love with her and that the two must drown together. So ironically, Dickens was the last guy you wanted over for Christmas dinner.

9Charles Lindbergh

American aviator Charles Lindbergh made history with his famous 1927 non-stop flight across the Atlantic. This world-first rocketed Lindbergh to instant stardom and earned him the adoration of pretty much the entire planet. Maybe a little too much adoration, as it turns out.

Widespread affection and the ability to fly are apparently a recipe for temptation: Lindbergh had mistresses in far-flung locations the world over. When not with his wife Anne, he would spend time with his secretary, Valeska, or one of two sisters in Munich, Germany. These affairs lasted long enough for him to father children with all of them, and then kept right on going. Lindbergh kept a total of three families that knew nothing about the others. He would visit his illegitimate families a few times a year, stay for a few days, show them a good time, and then literally take off again. His children only ever knew him by a fake name.

8Alexander Graham Bell

Any grade school kid can tell you who Alexander Graham Bell was. This genius inventor gave us the telephone and connected people in a way previously thought impossible. Aside from being the grandfather of the smartphone zombie, this heroic inventor was a gleaming beacon of togetherness and social interaction.

So it is pretty ironic that he was also a devoted anti-deaf activist. Bell was a proponent of eugenics—the idea that people with disabilities were defective and should not be allowed to “contaminate” the human gene pool. According to Bell, deaf people were especially threatening to “normal” society, and he worked tirelessly to keep them down. He attempted to have sign language outlawed, deaf teachers thrown out of schools, and the marriages of deaf individuals banned. Most horrifically, like most eugenicists, he was in favor of the sterilization of deaf people. This was all done to destroy deaf culture and force those with hearing loss to simply put up with a society that refused to accommodate them.

7King Edward VII

England’s King Edward VII ruled in the very early years of the 20th century. During that time he did all of the things you would expect an English king to do: he signed treaties, posed for paintings, etc. But bizarrely, this seemingly mundane monarch became best known for the incredibly un-kingly things he did in his spare time.

Specifically, he had lots and lots of extremely kinky sex. After falling out of favor with his mother, Queen Victoria, for allegedly causing the death of his father, he decided to go for broke. No longer worried about repercussions, he embarked on a series of over-the-top sexual escapades that would continue until he eventually took the throne. These included royal wife-swapping, bathing in champagne with prostitutes, and the commissioning of a very special piece of furniture. Being a rather large fellow, the good king found sex to be too much of a workout. His salvation came in the form of an ornate “sex chair,” able to seat three people, which allowed him to get nasty in royal comfort.

6King Tutankhamun

Since archaeologist Howard Carter’s famous 1922 discovery of the Tomb of Tutankhamun, King Tut has become a household name. The mighty ruler is synonymous with the wealth and power of Ancient Egypt. When we think Pharaoh, we think King Tut.

Yet, despite the many discovered paintings of Tutankhamun portraying him as exactly the regal figure we imagine, he was actually anything but. Recent tests performed on his corpse have revealed the true form of this legendary pharaoh.

Like many royal families throughout history, Tut’s was absolutely packed with incest—his parents were brother and sister. As a result, the young king suffered from a range of horrifying deformities including a club foot, severe overbite, skeletal deformations, and abnormally wide hips that required the constant use of a walking stick. Far from the robust ruler we like to imagine, the real King Tut probably needed help to get up from his throne.

5H. G. Wells

When we think H. G. Wells, famed author of classics like The War of the Worlds and The Time Machine, we think science fiction. When we think science fiction, we think glasses, social awkwardness, and general nerdiness. We may not like ourselves for it, but we can not help but see Wells as just another shy, scrawny bookworm.

In truth, he had more sex than you will ever have, dream of, or daydream about. After a frustratingly boring childhood in 19th century England, he decided to really let his hair down and enjoy life. And so, between dreaming up alien invasions and invisible madmen, he went to great lengths to build a truly legendary collection of sexual adventures. Adventures which, ever the writer, he recorded in a detailed journal. The daughter of a close friend was described as “most interestingly hairy,” and the friend herself as “insatiable.” An Australian novelist was “entertained” on a copy of a bad review she had received, which was burned afterward. Wells even described himself as “Your Lord, the Jaguar” to some lovers. These erotic escapades continued right up until his death.

4Ulysses S. Grant

Aside from being the 18th President of The United States, Ulysses S. Grant is best known for his role in the Civil War. Working closely with Abraham Lincoln, he led the Union Army to victory over the Confederacy and ended slavery in the US. His valiant actions made him a hero to millions . . . millions who probably had no idea just how racist he really was.

While it is true he believed slavery was evil and worked to end it; he was still a dedicated white supremacist. He believed people of different races could never live together peacefully, and so after freeing the slaves and becoming President, he devised a plan. Rather than work to solve racial tensions among whites and their newly-freed slaves, he would simply ship all the black people to an isolated island. The Caribbean island of Santo Domingo was to be given $1.5 million in exchange for allowing roughly four million forcefully relocated former slaves to stay there. The proposal gained frightening support before thankfully falling through at the last minute.

3Hans Christian Andersen

Famed Danish author Hans Christian Andersen is second only to The Brothers Grimm when it comes to beloved childhood fairy tales. The Little Mermaid, The Ugly Duckling, even The Snow Queen, the story that was adapted into Frozen, were all his. We tend to think of him as a gentle, pure sort who had a permanent smile on his face.

And he probably did, but not for the reason you think. Andersen, a socially awkward and intensely lonely man, was completely obsessed with masturbation. Too shy to ever actually attempt sex, but with quite a sexual appetite, he often enjoyed some “alone time.” He even made a note of each, and every time he did so in his diary, as well as the person who had inspired that particular session. He developed a habit of visiting brothels and paying the prostitutes just to talk to him for a little while. He then went home, took care of himself, and made another journal entry, which sometimes consisted of nothing but the words “penis sore.”

2Mother Teresa

The name Mother Teresa instantly conjures thoughts of selflessness, kindness, and generosity. This Catholic missionary devoted years of her life to easing India’s rampant disease and poverty. So it should not come as much of a surprise to learn that she was canonized in late 2016, officially becoming Saint Teresa of Calcutta.

What may come as a surprise, however, was her horrifying treatment of the patients in her hospitals. Mother Teresa adhered to the nightmarish philosophy that the greatest gift a person can be given is to “participate in the sufferings of Christ.” Therefore, she would stubbornly refuse painkillers to seriously sick or wounded patients and allow wounds to remain open. The suffering, she believed, would bring people closer to Jesus. And even this terrifying cult philosophy aside, these facilities were laughably unfit to cure anyone; Mother Teresa encouraged her volunteers to remain completely medically untrained because “God empowers the weak and ignorant.” As such, needles were often reused, and curable patients were written off as lost causes. She may have meant well, but even a brief time in the care of Mother Teresa would probably have left lasting damage.

1Tibetan Monks

If you have ever seen a movie set in Asia, you have more than likely seen a Tibetan monk. These mellow, red-robed Buddhists, which include the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Dalai Lama, seem like the most peaceful men in history. High in their lofty mountain palaces, they meditate and spend their days in tranquility.

But that was not always the case. As recently as 1959 Tibet was less Nirvana and more Nazi Germany, gripped by a brutal system of segregation and exploitation. The benevolent monks—called Lamas—we know and love were once vicious tyrants that enslaved their people through fear and a crippling tax system.

The callous Lamas treated everyone without their own extravagant castle as purely expendable; kidnapping, rape, and torture were common practice. The rare few that stood up to them did not do so for long—cut hamstrings, and removed eyeballs were standard punishments for the disobedient. This horrifying regime was toppled after China invaded Tibet in 1950, finally ending the monks’ reign of terror and transforming them into the smiling clichés they are today.

The world’s powers have to be ready for anything. After all, war could break out at any moment, and they have to be ready to fight. It’s very likely that every country in the world has plans ready to invade each and every one of their neighbors, just in case.

But some of those plans aren’t the best-kept secrets. Some of our plots to crush each other have been leaked—and now we know exactly what would happen if, for example, the US and Canada went to war. These plans might seem crazy today, but if things had just gone a little bit differently, any one of them could have been a part of history.

10 War Plan Red: The American Plan To Invade Canada

There was a time when the United States wasn’t totally sure what side it would take in World War II. They were still considering the possibility of taking the opportunity to declare war on Great Britain—and it was going to start with an invasion of Canada.^[1]

If Great Britain attacked the US, they figured, they would position their troops in Canada. The Americans didn’t want to let that happen, so they were going make a preemptive strike. They would attack Canada first.

Their goal was to take Halifax so that the British couldn’t use it as a port. To make it fast, they would bomb the city with poisonous gas. Then they’d move to Niagara Falls and take over the power plants there.

From there, it would be a full-on invasion, with American troops charging through Quebec and Winnipeg and capturing the nickel mines in Western Ontario. Meanwhile, the Navy would move south and take Jamaica, the Bahamas, and Bermuda. Once they had British America, they figured, Great Britain would plead for peace.

Their only worry was that Canada might declare itself neutral and refuse to fight, in which case they planned on not letting them stay peaceful. If the Canadians tried to be pacifists, they would have to give up their ports and some of their land. Otherwise, the US Army would march in.

9 Defense Scheme Number One: The Canadian Plan To Invade the US

It’s a bit crazy that the US had a plan to invade Canada, but it gets weirder. Because Canada had a secret plan to invade the US—and they developed theirs first.

As early as 1921, Canada was already worrying that the Americans might attack. They were ready to strike back, and just like the Americans, they planned on doing so with a preemptive strike. They even sent an officer to travel through the US looking for weak spots they could attack.

Canada didn’t actually expect to conquer the United States. They just wanted to keep the Americans busy long enough for Great Britain to intervene. Their plan was to send troops down the West Coast while a team of Quebec fighters took Albany, and Maritime troops took Maine.

They’d catch the US off guard and then, when the Americans recouped, flee back over the border, leaving scorched earth in their wake. Every bridge, railway, factory, and farm would be burned to a crisp, crippling the US and buying enough time for their allies to move in.

If it happened, the Canadians figured, they’d have a lot of allies. Japan, France, and Mexico would join in and help them destroy the United States—because every one of them, they believed, had had enough of “the modern Yank.”^[2]

8 Operation Dropshot: The American Plan To Nuke The Soviet Union

If history had just gone a little bit differently, the Cold War wouldn’t have been cold at all. It would have been an all-out nuclear apocalypse that would have wiped Russia off the map.

Early on, the US was the only country with access to nuclear weapons, and they had every plan to use them. They developed at least nine separate plans to blow the USSR to Hell and back. One of the most intense ones called for a sudden strike of 300 nuclear bombs on 200 targets in the USSR, followed by a massive land invasion that they expected would be over in no time.^[3]

The US government had even marked the date on their calendar. On January 1, 1957, they were going to unleash their nuclear arsenal on the Soviets.

They only dropped the plan when the USSR tested its first atomic bomb. If it hadn’t been for that, the US would have gone through with it and left Russia a smoldering, radioactive wasteland.

7 Seven Days To The River Rhine: The Soviet Plan To Nuke Half Of Europe

The Soviets had their own plans, of course. They probably had more schemes than we’ll ever know, but one that was written up in 1979 has been leaked—and if they’d gone through with it, it would have sparked World War III.

The plan was based on the idea that NATO was going to launch a nuclear first strike on Poland, which is such a strange notion that some people think it was just penciled in to make the rest of the plot seem more justifiable. Either way, the USSR planned to hit NATO hard.

They were going to launch 7.5 megatons’ worth of atomic weapons at targets in West Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Denmark.^[4] Then they would send in the troops to seize every part of Europe up to the River Rhine.

They expected some casualties. Prague and Warsaw, they believed, would be destroyed by nuclear strikes, and they were planning on sending the Polish army on a suicide mission. Within seven days, they predicted, more than two million Polish people would die—and a new world war would begin.

6 The Nazi Plan To Invade Japan

The Nazis never believed that their alliance with Japan would last. Theirs was a marriage of convenience, and when the war ended, things would change. “Sooner or later,” Hitler warned his staff, “there will have to be a showdown between the white and the yellow races.”

He believed it wouldn’t happen until the distant future, predicting that there might be 100 years of peace before Japan and the Nazis clashed. Still, they needed to be ready for it.

Himmler was tasked with getting the SS ready to fight. His biggest worry was that the Germans would grow complacent and weak during peace. He planned on keeping his soldiers tough by having them carry on with merciless racial eradication and, when they seemed to be getting weak, posting them to “an ice-cold winter” in Siberia.

The key, though, would be to have a population that could handle it. He would spend the next decade getting the German people to breed like “a botanical garden” to get their population as big as they could.^[5] When the time came, he predicted, Japan would have an army of more than one billion men. Germany would have to be ready to match their numbers.

5 National Redoubt: The Swiss Plan To Stop Being Neutral

The Swiss weren’t totally locked into being peaceful. They flirted with the idea of jumping into the war, and in 1940, they nearly did it.

By then, Switzerland was completely surrounded by Axis armies and had to seriously consider the possibility that this whole “let’s leave Switzerland alone” thing might not last. They were pretty sure the Axis could turn on them at any moment, so they started getting ready.

The Swiss withdrew all of their troops from the borders and moved them into the Alps, where they set up a chain of mountain fortresses and bunkers to prepare for an invasion.^[6] They also ran drills, reenacting the battles that were happening in the countries next door. And they did everything in their power to let the Axis see them doing it, hoping they’d get the message that if they messed with Switzerland, it wouldn’t be easy.

It wasn’t exactly paranoia. The Nazis had a secret plan of their own called Operation Tannenbaum, and it was exactly what the Swiss had predicted. Switzerland, Hitler believed, was a “pimple on the face of Europe.” If the tides of war hadn’t turned against the Axis, the Nazis would have charged right into Switzerland—and the armies in those Alps would have had to put their practice to the test.

4 The Turkish Plan To Invade Syria

Most of the plans in this list are decades old, but that doesn’t mean countries have stopped coming up with ways to invade each other. They just try to keep the new ones secret. Sometimes, though, those secrets leak—like in 2014, when Turkey’s conspiracy to invade Syria was leaked onto YouTube.

In the recording, Turkish ministers can be heard talking about a possible terrorist attack on the tomb of Suleyman Shah, the father of the founder of the Ottoman Empire. Rather than being worried about it, one of the ministers says that a terrorist attack “must be seen as an opportunity for us.” If the terrorists attacked, they felt, they would have an excuse to send more soldiers into Syria and launch an all-out war.

Turkish intelligence chief Hakan Fidan took it even further. If the terrorists didn’t attack, he promised, he’d just send in actors to fake an attack. “I’ll send four men from Syria, if that’s what it takes,” Fidan promised.^[7] “Legitimacy is not a problem. Legitimacy can be manufactured.”

3 The Israeli Plan To Invade Iran

From 2010 to 2012, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defense minister Ehud Barak met on at least three separate occasions to discuss plans to invade Iran. And they would’ve gone through with it, too, if Gabi Ashkenazi, the chief of the Israel Defense Forces, hadn’t stopped them.

Three recordings that show Netanyahu and Barak discussing their plans were leaked onto the Internet. They came the closest to going through with it in 2010 but just needed to convince their ministers to support the plan.^[8] Ashkenazi, however, managed to talk them out of it with an impassioned speech about the lives that would be lost.

That didn’t totally stop them, though. In 2012, they ramped up plans again—and this time, it seems that the US Army was going to back them up. They were even running military drills to get ready for a joint invasion of Iran, although, for reasons unknown, they ended up calling the attack off.

2 Project A119: The American Plan To Nuke The Moon

In 1959, the US Army decided that just invading countries on Earth wasn’t ambitious enough. They were going to take it one step further. They were going to nuke the Moon.^[9]

The plan was partly to conduct a science experiment—which, as far as we can tell, must have been on the effects of overfunding a bored military—but they mostly just wanted to freak the Soviets out. They had scientists crunch the numbers to figure out how to make sure the explosion was visible from Earth, convinced that the USSR would crumble in fear if America blew a chunk out of the Moon.

The US didn’t go through with it because someone managed to convince the military that nuking the Moon wasn’t good PR. They came shockingly close to doing it, though. In fact, they even hired Carl Sagan to work on the secret plot to attack the Moon. And if they’d done it, they would’ve nuked the Moon before ever landing on it.

1 War Plan White: The American Plan To Fight Its Own People

During the first half of the 20th century, the United States made plans to invade pretty well every country on Earth—including themselves. It was called War Plan White, and it was the American plan to handle “internal disorder”—or, in other words, to fight its own people.

At the time, union workers around the country were fighting for labor rights, and the US government was worried it was going to build up into a communist revolution. War Plan White was their plan to deal with what they called a “leftist-radical insurrection.”^[10]

The Military Corps of Engineers were to take over every public utility, while the Navy protected military equipment and the Army marched through the people, trying to keep them in order. Meanwhile, a secret police force was going to be set up in Pennsylvania, which would spy on troublemakers to make sure they ready to stop them.

They’d even started working out the legalities of shooting American civilians, when it would be justifiable, and how far they could go. And as time went on, they reworked it for a new era. The most recent plan that has been leaked was for the US military to fight an uprising of black people wanting civil rights.

The Metro-2 system is supposedly one of the most secretive underground rail systems in the world. Said to exist under the equally intriguing Moscow Metro system, the line was alleged to be used by the elites of the Soviet Union.

Some say it remains operational today. What’s more, rather than being merely an underground rail system, some researchers suggest that an entire multi-floor residence exists under Moscow, perhaps as deep as 15 levels. Might those claims be true?

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10 A Long History Of Secret Underground Projects

Long before the plans for the Moscow underground system were dreamed up, Russia had a long history of secretive underground structures and locations. They go back centuries.

For example, a secret chamber room housed hundreds of ancient texts under the Kremlin before they were mysteriously lost at some point in the 1500s. Supposedly, they were invaluable manuscripts from the Byzantine library. Whether they were destroyed or remain somewhere in a secret location is open to debate.

Later in the 16th century, Ivan The Terrible oversaw his own underground network. He used it to imprison, torture, and even murder anyone who crossed him.

Perhaps an even more chilling detail about these underground torture networks is the fate of those who worked on them. According to the accounts, anyone involved in them was brought to the underground rooms and executed so as to protect these secrets.^[1]

9 Materials From Many Historic Buildings Make Up The Underground

Many of the raw materials that make up the apparent Moscow and Metro-2 underground are said to come from the stone and splendor of the buildings of the Russian royal family.

Although plans for an advanced underground system had existed for decades, work did not really begin until the early 1930s. Upon Stalin’s specific orders, a large portion of the materials came from the centuries-old buildings that were completely torn down and stripped of everything that could be used.^[2]

In part, this was undoubtedly related to the notion of “the elite” and the return of wealth to the people—at least in theory as it was sold to the people. In reality, it was a case of stripping down the lowest-hanging fruit. This attitude perhaps demonstrates clearly what underlies such ideology.

8 Much Was Constructed By Hand

Much of the work on the Moscow Metro system was conducted by hand by citizens of the Soviet Union. Officially, this was due to a lack of appropriate tools and demonstrated the commitment of the Soviet citizens.

However, many of the workers were political opponents. We should note that this is not an officially recognized fact. You won’t find any written records of such forced labor. However, knowing what we do of how such political opponents were often treated, it is likely that the rumors are at least partially credible.

Those who claim the secretive network exists under the official rail network say that only select individuals were allowed to work on the unofficial lines. These people were certainly not those who might have had differing ideologies to the officially recognized mindset.^[3]

Regardless of who toiled on what parts of the network systems, the work was long, backbreaking, and intense.

7 They Were Perhaps Created Out Of Paranoia

Despite any official rationale for the construction of the Moscow underground, the reason for the Metro-2 system was most likely a result of paranoia.

Following the end of World War II, there was a discreet underlying hatred of Stalin, what he represented, and those who ruled under him. In reality, this underlying animosity had been brewing for years among many in the Soviet populace.

Stalin had genuine concerns about attempts on his life. Many claim the Metro-2 system and the extensive underground living quarters connected to it were set up so that Stalin and any loyal comrades could escape if another revolution took place. Especially one that might result in an immediate danger to his life.^[4]

So it would make sense that only a select few would even be told about the network, much less enter it.

6 Only Those With Clearance Could Enter Metro-2

As we might expect, only those with top secret special clearance could enter the Metro-2 system. That essentially meant the elite. Furthermore, these conditions are seemingly still in place today—at least unofficially.^[5]

For various reasons, many researchers have applied for permission to enter the alleged tunnels. Almost all have been refused. Perhaps that should be telling enough in itself. For example, why would a request to see a network of tunnels that “doesn’t exist” be refused?

According to some sources, as late as 2008, the Moscow Metro trade union was undertaking discreet efforts to attract select drivers for “secret routes.” Of course, these could have been for legitimate government projects.

However, given the many rumors of the secretive Metro-2 network, it is easy to see why researchers would make the connection. If the claims are true, what activity might be taking place under the city of Moscow today?

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5 They Only Run Short Trains On Very Exclusive Lines

Although we should treat the reports with a pinch of salt (like all those concerning Metro-2), the claims of exclusive lines and “short trains” are of particular interest. These are perhaps to maintain safety and secrecy as much as possible—so much so that they most often feature only a single passenger car with room for a minimal number of people.

Researcher Yuri Zaitsev maintains that four exclusive and secret lines still operate today. These connect to key locations around Moscow, and from each, other important locations can be reached. (In the image above, the dotted lines supposedly reveal secret Metro-2 lines.)

These claims were seemingly corroborated by one-time government minister Mikhail Poltoranin. He declared, “I know that the Metro-2 has branches that go to the suburbs so that the command could move away from the epicenter of a nuclear attack.” He also stated that the underground network was “vast” and could easily “hide a lot of people.”^[6]

4 Many Former Politicians And Defectors Have Spoken Of The Metro-2’s Existence

Since the fall of the Soviet Union—and, in some cases, before—many high-ranking politicians have come forward to confirm the existence of Metro-2. Although it is easy to dismiss such statements as conspiracy nonsense, the many matching claims are at least of interest to us here.

For example, former information minister Alexander Muzykantskiy said that the gigantic network was “designed to ensure the stable operation of the senior military and political leadership in times of armed conflict, including a nuclear conflict.”^[7]

Oleg Gordievsky, a defector from the Soviet Union, made even more alarming claims. He warned, “You still do not know the main KGB secret yet: a huge underground city, a whole communications network of such facilities. But they will not show you. They will never, of course.”

Even now, many of these claims coming from the former Soviet Union are both intriguing and frustrating in equal measure because they appear soaked with disinformation.

3 They Led To Top Secret Underground Bunkers

As we will discuss in a moment, much more may be under and around the Metro-2 line than just a rail network. For example, several underground bunkers are believed to exist. These were all in the name of escaping nuclear annihilation.^[8]

However, it would appear that these bunkers were beyond mere emergency rooms. Many researchers claim that they were kitted out in the utmost luxury. What’s more, they were designed to accommodate long stays of many months, perhaps even years.

It is claimed by whistleblowers and defectors that these bunkers were for the exclusive use of loyal, high-ranking members of the Communist Party and the Politburo. In addition, each would be able to bring their entire families into what amounted to luxury underground apartment buildings.

2 Ramenki-43
A City Under A City

Perhaps an even stranger and more intriguing rumor surrounding the Metro-2 system is the supposed existence of a “city underneath the city” of Ramenki. It apparently goes by the name of Ramenki-43. This secret city was developed to house the Soviet elite in case of nuclear war or a similar disaster.^[9]

Various researchers and whistleblowers have made claims about the secret underground city. One former KGB officer even spoke to Time magazine about it. He said that the underground network could easily house around 15,000 people. In addition, the city was on various levels and connected to other secret locations around Moscow.

Incidentally, the alleged underground city can also be accessed by an abandoned lot near Moscow State University. These alleged secret entrances are said to be dotted around Moscow.

1 Many ‘Vacant Lots’ Lead To The Underground

Rumors and claims suggest that secret entrances to this underground network exist. They reside in the apparently “unfinished” buildings around the city of Moscow. Surprisingly, there are several such locations.

These vacant lots come in all shapes and forms—from unfinished hospitals to parking lots and all manner of unfinished buildings. Urban legends around Moscow state that all or some of these abandoned buildings offer entrances to this secret underground network.^[10]

Interestingly, many of these alleged secret entrances often attract unsavory elements of society—ranging from drug gangs to satanic cults. These locations also attract the homeless, who are merely looking for somewhere safe to sleep.

Whether any of these people have ever wandered into these secret entrances remains a mystery. If you walked around Moscow and into these out-of-the-way areas, you just might be surprised what you hear.

10 Dark Secrets Of The Russian Empire

About The Author: Marcus Lowth—writer at Me Time For The Mind—https://www.metimeforthemind.com/
Me Time For The Mind on Facebook—https://www.facebook.com/MeTimeForTheMind/

Millions of people travel across the world to experience the beauty, grandeur, and heritage of some of the planet’s most popular landmarks. However, there is often more than meets the eye to many historic attractions, things most tourists will never realize are there. For example, many famous landmarks house hidden spaces you may not notice at first glance.

Here are ten secret places inside the world’s most famous landmarks. Some of them can be visited by those with sufficient funds or the right connections. Others are entirely off-limits.

10 Mount Rushmore
South Dakota, US

Mount Rushmore is easily one of the most recognizable landmarks in the United States, as it depicts four of the arguably most famous presidents in US history: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. Yet, many people might not be aware that behind the chiseled sculpture of Abraham Lincoln is a hidden room, which is known as the Hall of Records. The secret room is roughly lined up with Lincoln’s forehead, and it contains text from some of America’s most important documents.

The designer of the famous political monument, Gutzon Borglum, originally wanted the room to serve as a vault for a selection of US documents. In fact, his vision was to install an 240-meter (800 ft) stairway that would lead to the grand hall, which would measure 24 meters by 30 meters (80 ft x 100 ft) and would be directly behind the US presidents’ sculpted faces. Inside the hall would be busts of great Americans from history, as well as a list of US contributions to industry, science, and the arts. Tragically, Borglum’s vision was halted due to his death in 1941. However, in 1998, monument officials chose to make Borglum’s dream a reality by maintaining records from American history in the secret hall.^[1]

9 The Eiffel Tower
Paris, France

The Eiffel Tower is one of the most famous landmarks in the world, which is why the city of Paris welcomes millions of tourists year after year. You might, however, be surprised to learn that the historic landmark features a secret apartment. Those who are lucky enough to visit the top of the structure will not only absorb the mesmerizing views of the French capital, but they might also enjoy a glimpse inside the secret apartment and office, which has only recently been opened to the public.

Gustave Eiffel, the structure’s engineer, built a private apartment for himself inside the landmark in 1889, and only he had access to this hidden room throughout his lifetime. In fact, many Parisians offered to rent the apartment for one night only, but he always refused, wanting to keep the space all to himself and the occasional guest. Visitors can now finally take a step inside the private apartment, which has been restored to its original condition. They can also view mannequins of Gustave, his daughter, and Thomas Edison, who he regularly entertained at the apartment.^[2]

8 Waldorf Astoria
New York City, US

The Waldorf Astoria is deemed one of the most luxurious hotels in New York. While many more modern hotels have emerged over the ensuing decades, it has continued to welcome every sitting US president, from Hoover to Obama. Many people might, however, be unaware that there is a secret train station located below the hotel, as the secluded platform was introduced to help President Franklin D. Roosevelt to inconspicuously travel from the presidential suite to Hyde Park, which was his childhood home. Track 61 was an integral mode of transportation during World War II, as the president’s private railway car could pull up inside the station, and he could take an elevator to gain direct access to the hotel. It is also believed that FDR used the train to hide his paralysis from the public.

The platform remains in use today, and it can be reached within minutes from JFK Airport. The Secret Service has been sworn to secrecy regarding some of its features. While the platform is still in working order, FDR’s custom locomotive now sits abandoned under the hotel.^[3]

7 The Statue Of Liberty
New York City, US

Millions of people visit the Statue of Liberty every year, with many tourists stepping inside the structure’s crown to enjoy beautiful views of New York City. Yet, many people might be unaware that it is possible to climb higher within the structure. Until June 30, 1916, tourists were able to enter a room located inside the Statue of Liberty’s torch, which offered breathtaking panoramic views of the city.

However, access was denied to the public when the pier between Jersey City and Black Tom Island was blown up by German agents. Sadly, the explosion ripped through various buildings nearby, which caused serious or fatal injuries for hundreds of people. Debris from the explosion became embedded within the Statue of Liberty’s arm, which made the route to the panoramic room unsafe for the public. The arm was repaired, but only National Park Service staff can enter the torch, and they must climb a narrow 12-meter (40 ft) ladder to gain access to the torch and maintain the floodlights.^[4]

6 Leonardo Da Vinci Statue
Rome, Italy

Travelers are welcomed into Rome by the Leonardo da Vinci statue located at Fiumicino-Leonardo da Vinci Airport. Yet, there is more to the structure than you might realize at first glance. Despite the 18-meter (60 ft) bronze statue being unveiled in 1960, the hidden hatch located halfway up the structure was not found until its renovation in 2006.

Workers found two parchments inside the statue. One parchment detailed the area’s history in classical Latin, while the other listed the attendees from the opening ceremony. It is believed both the hatch and parchments were the brainchild of Assen Peikov, the Bulgarian artist who won the competition to design the work of art.^[5]

5 Disneyland
Anaheim, California, US

You will not find a drop of alcohol in Disneyland unless you step inside the exclusive Club 33. It would be easy to walk past the club, as it sits behind an unmarked door in New Orleans Square. It was originally created as a place for Walt Disney to entertain his guests and business associates. Unfortunately, he died five months before Club 33 was officially opened.

Only those who become a member can now step inside the club, which offers both a restaurant and jazz lounge, known as Le Salon Nouveau, as well as access to the 1901 Lounge in California Adventure. Membership is not cheap; depending on the level of membership, the initiation fee reportedly costs between $25,000 and $100,000, followed by a $12,500 to $30,000 annual fee. The waiting list is reportedly years long.^[6]

4 Niagara Falls
New York, US

Niagara Falls is the umbrella name of the three waterfalls located along the international border between the state of New York and the province Ontario. Located a stone’s throw away from Niagara Falls is Devil’s Hole State Park, which many people visit to experience the beauty of the waterfalls. A cave inside the park was given the nickname “the Cave of the Evil Spirit” by the Seneca due to their belief that an evil spirit was trapped inside. It was believed that only warriors who were ready for battle would enter the cave.

The Devil’s Hole Massacre was a battle that took place between the Seneca and British soldiers in 1763.^[7] After the Seneca won the battle, they warned the British of the cave to prevent them from trespassing on the land. There is also a superstition that anyone who steals a rock from the cave will experience bad luck.

3 Empire State Building
New York City, US

The Empire State Building has been a tourist hot spot for nearly a century, as visitors have been enjoying the New York skyline since 1931. While most people can view the city from the observation deck on the 86th floor and the top deck on the 102nd floor, you might be surprised to learn that some visitors can experience an even better view on the private 103rd floor.^[8]

The secret deck offers only a knee-high ledge with a low railing, and visitors need to take a series of escalators to reach it. The elevator ride alone will be a unique experience, as visitors will pass the inner workings of the building on their journey up to the secret floor. It is an experience often only available to VIP guests, such as celebrities and dignitaries. For example, Taylor Swift had the pleasure of experiencing the VIP observation deck back in 2014.

2 Colosseum
Rome, Italy

The Colosseum welcomes four million tourists annually, who visit the landmark to view the Flavian Amphitheatre, which dates back to AD 80. Yet, many people might not realize that there is a network of (now exposed) underground tunnels below street level, called the Hypogeum, which were used to house various animals, such as lions and bears, which were then lifted into the gladiator arena via a pulley.^[9]

The maze was hailed as a superb archaeological discovery when it was initially uncovered. The Hypogeum is now open to the public, but tours are limited to a maximum of 25 people each time. Archaeologists have, however, criticized the tours, as they believe they could put the structure at risk.

1 Trafalgar Square
London, England

Trafalgar Square might be well-regarded for its remarkable architecture and beautiful fountains, but it also features a hidden room you could easily miss. The public square is the home of Britain’s smallest police station, which is located on the southeast corner of Trafalgar Square.

The tiny station was built in 1926 to serve as a watch post, as the square was often the location of many protests, riots, and marches. It therefore only offers enough space for one police officer or two prisoners. The box is no longer in use by the police and is now simply used as a broom closet for Westminster Council cleaners.^[10]

Elisabeth Sedgwick is An English freelance writer. You can view her growing portfolio at clippings.me/elisabethsedgwick.

For much of the Christian era, human blood was thought either to contain the soul, or to be the link between body and soul. Both human and animal blood have been drunk across history for a surprising number of reasons. And, from the Renaissance to the present day, human blood has been the site of some bizarre fantasies, from anti-semitic Blood Libels to QAnon theories.

Top 10 Bizarre Uses Of Blood

10 Satanists in the French Court

Paris, 1676. A naked woman is lying on her back on a mattress. A cross and chalice, placed on her belly, rise and fall just perceptibly with her breathing. From the shadows, a repulsive-looking priest appears, holding a baby. A blade flashes in the wavering candlelight; a cry; then silence. Blood flows from the infant’s throat into the chalice, which wobbles faintly. The woman trembles as drops spatter her breasts and throat. Later, the priest removes the baby’s entrails. They are given to a sorcerer named Catherine Montvoisin, who will presently distil them for her own uses. The blood is poured into a phial, and taken away by the woman who had acted as the living altar.

Did this really happen? Many Parisians of the day believed that it did; and that the woman lying beneath that blood sacrifice was no less a person than Madame de Montespan, sometime lover of Louis XIV, and mother to six of his illegitimate children. Rumours ran that Montespan, fallen from the King’s favour, was using rites such as this to win back his love; and also, interestingly, feeding him potions containing her own menstrual blood. These details were just part of a larger court panic in France, which became known as The Affair of the Poisons.

9 Doctor Faustus

The terror inspired by Christopher Marlowe’s play was beyond all description. Elizabethan and Jacobean spectators watching Faustus sign away his soul to Mephistopheles suffered wild nightmares, and in one case sparked a hysterical rush from the playing space, in the belief that an extra, unscripted devil had appeared onstage. Notoriously, Faustus signs the fatal contract in his own blood. Midway through, the blood congeals. Mephistopheles resourcefully fetches a small dish of hot coals, so as to liquefy the blood, and the signature is completed.

For many viewers, the horror of those moments stretched clean down into hell. Because of the status of blood as vehicle of the soul, Faustus was using his soul to sign away his soul. When the blood congeals, part of his soul is resisting this attempt. By responding with a simple physical solution, Mephistopheles employs science to defeat conscience, religion and the soul.

8 Slaughterhouses

“Fancy the richest cream, warm, with a tart sweetness … sweeter than any concoction of the chemist, the confectioner, the winemaker, the very elixir of life itself … No other earthly draught can rival such crimson cream”. The American journalist who penned these words in 1875 had just drunk a glass of animal blood at a slaughterhouse in Cincinnati. Many agreed with him. In that same decade, at the slaughterhouse of La Villette in Paris, ‘every morning between the hours of eight and nine, from a hundred to a hundred and fifty invalids … present themselves to claim their matutinal glass of blood’. Many of these patients were women, for whom actual meat was probably a rarity, with this habitually going to the husbands of poorer households.

Over in New York, women again seemed to be the main recipients of this blood therapy. But, as in the Twilight novels, there could at times be an uneasy slippage between human and animal blood. One very sick young woman graduated from animal blood to that of her husband until, weakened by the practice, he discontinued it. Interestingly, her health now relapsed, confining her to her bed. Another woman who had been using animal blood as medicine was one day confronted by the sight of her husband bleeding severely from a wound to his hand. Their landlady presently walked in to find the wife bewailing her husband’s plight, even as she gulped avidly from the severed vein.

7 The Vampire Sect of Kansas

In Kansas in the late 1880s ‘a man named Silas Wilcox went about the country preaching the doctrine of doing good for the sick’. He soon had enough followers to form a band called The Samaritans. When Wilcox began to ‘openly advocate the drinking of blood for all diseases’, because ‘the bible taught that blood was the life’, The Samaritans initially went to meat packing houses to drink the blood of cattle. But one day finding himself too sick to leave home, Wilcox persuaded Nancy, a fellow Samaritan, to let him drink her blood from her arm. A miraculous recovery followed, and thus the Samaritans became a fellowship of Good Christian Vampires.

Hearing of this, a Kansas man named John Wrinkle began, on falling sick, to drink the blood of his daughter Minnie, 13, and 11 year old son John. A tip-off from a neighbour brought official John Marran into the home, where Wrinkle initially denied the charges. Unnerved by the children’s emaciated condition, Marran inspected their arms, and found them badly scarred around the elbows. Although Wrinkle now caved in, admitting his vampirism, he still insisted that ‘the children had willingly given their blood to restore his health’.

6 Blood and Mourning Rituals

In 1577, the poet Edmund Spenser watched the Irish rebel, Murrogh O’Brien, hung, drawn and quartered at Limerick. And he also saw ‘an old woman which was his foster mother take up his head while he was quartered and sucked up all the blood running thereout, saying that the earth was not worthy to drink it, and therewith also steeped her face, and breast … crying and shrieking out most terrible’.

During the Tithe Wars of the 1830s one General Barry and others went to a Widow Ryan’s house in Rathcormac to demand the tithe. When her son ‘came out of the house to remonstrate with them … he was instantly shot dead at his mother’s feet’. During this dispute, British forces ultimately killed twelve and wounded 42 of the Irish. In the midst of this slaughter a widow, going out to look for her missing sons, ‘met their dead bodies coming home in a cart. She threw herself on the bodies in a state of frenzy, and sucked the gushing blood from the wounds, discharging her stomach, and sucking it again until she fainted’. These details came from the Radical agitator and journalist Feargus O’Connor, who was an eyewitness, and one of the last people likely to attempt to blacken the Irish with fantastical tales of barbarity.

5 Famine and Shipwreck

In 1884 three sailors, Captain Tom Dudley, Edmund Brooks, and Edwin Stephens were rescued from a small lifeboat, some time after the sinking of their yacht, the Mignonette, during a summer storm. The trial of Dudley and Stephens for the alleged murder of young cabin boy Richard Parker, on whom they fed to survive, brought to light many similar cases. Yet, whilst the popular image of these involved famine cannibalism, blood-drinking was very common during shipwrecks. Dudley and Stephens had in fact drunk Parker’s blood before eating any of him. In other cases, the ship’s surgeon let the blood of the living, which they drank, or which was sometimes mixed with flour to make a crude kind of bread.

After HMS Blonde was wrecked near the Sandwich Islands in February 1826, survivors began to feed on the flesh and blood of those who died of famine. Among the dead was one James Frier, a young man ‘who was working his passage home under a promise of marriage to Ann Saunders, the female passenger’. Saunders, ‘when she heard of Frier’s death, shrieked a loud yell, [and] then snatching a cup from Clerk (the Mate), cut her late intended husband’s throat, and drank his blood, insisting that she had the greatest right to it’.

4 Blood Baths

In and after 1610, the Hungarian noblewoman Elisabeth Báthory was accused of torturing and murdering hundreds of young girls and women at her home, the Castle of Csejte. The highest number of victims given was 650. In Tony Thorne’s book Countess Dracula, reports tell of girls having flesh sliced from their buttocks and made into sausages, being burned with red hot tongs, or staked out covered in honey whilst ants swarmed over them. Long after her own death, it was said that Báthory had bathed in the blood of her victims to restore her skin to youthful glory. Thorne argues that this was one of the few things she definitely did not do – in part because blood would normally coagulate so quickly after death as to make the baths near impossible.

Similar beliefs resurfaced several times during the worst excesses of the French aristocracy. In 1676 Paris chief of police Nicolas-Gabriel de la Reynie heard rumours that an ailing noblewoman was sending out agents to kidnap children, so that she could bathe in their blood as a cure against leprosy. When similar rumours burst out afresh in 1701, supposed abductors ‘were beaten almost to death’ by enraged parents. In 1750 Parisians rioted over the belief that King Louis XV was using the blood of kidnapped children ‘to cure his rumoured leprosy’.

3 Blood Money

In Nine Pints, her recent book on blood, Rose George notes that in 1998 ‘a barrel of crude oil was worth $13’ whilst ‘a barrel of blood would have cost $20,000’. As she also explains, much of the value of human blood now comes from plasma. Talking to plasma entrepreneur Jesse Karmazin, George was told that ‘two litres of plasma [price $12,000] can cure cancer, heart disease, and diabetes’.

Where is all this red gold coming from? Whereas Europeans giving plasma must leave at least two weeks between donations, the FDA allows Americans to sell plasma twice a week. George found that, in the ten years from 2006, the number of US people ‘selling plasma grew threefold, to 32.6 million’. Since the Great Crash of 2008, people living on $2 a day can ‘raise their income to $3 or $4’ as they might ‘by selling scrap metal or sex’. She adds that, ‘when the journalist Darryl Lorenzo Wellington became a “plasser”, as regular plasma sellers call themselves, he experienced extreme fatigue, passing out for five hours’. Other sellers he spoke to told of ‘pains, rubbery legs, and severe dehydration’. But, as one plasser put it, ‘“I can’t eat if I don’t plass”’.

2 Sanguinarians

In her book American Vampires, Norine Dresser describes how a woman named Kristin would bite her ‘donors’ on the neck with her small, fang like teeth to drink blood. Kristin told one donor that ‘there was a panther inside her … and at certain times didn’t know whether she might rip a person apart’. She told Dresser she needed one cup of blood per week in winter, but a pint or more in summer, adding that the blood ‘makes her feel energized, full of life, satisfied’, and that animal blood would not produce this effect. Kristin’s belief that vampirism ran in her family, making her pale and needing to wear sunglasses in daylight sounds less strictly medical.

Nonetheless, more recent research supports the possibility that certain people require (rather than merely liking the idea of) human blood. Jana Britton has spoken to a number of sanguinarians who often partner up with their human donors. At least one of these people claimed to survive on nothing but human blood. Others complained of very low blood pressure, low body temperature and pulse rate. Mainstream medicine is shy of this topic, leaving us without clear scientific answers. But it is interesting that few of Britton’s correspondents, or those interviewed in the US by John Edgar Browning, complain of problems caused by blood drinking. Most of us would suffer the symptoms of iron toxicity, which (as Harvard psychiatrist Steve Schlozman informed me) range from confusion and seizures to death.

1 QAnon and the Blood of Innocence

When walking to Constantinople in 1990, author Jason Goodwin met a Romanian woman who told him that former leader Nicolae Ceaușescu had used a secret network of mountain caves where he had ‘reared babies like veal calves, and sought eternal youth with regular injections of their blood’. We can broadly see how Ceaușescu, like the French aristocracy, had earned such a reputation. But the targets of this enduring myth of power feeding on the blood of innocence are surprisingly varied.

For hundreds of years, educated Christians seriously believed that Jews kidnapped Christian children to use their blood in religious rites. Nowadays, we have QAnon. Here, anti-semitism is again present, with George Soros, Mark Zuckerberg and the Rothschilds often cited in wild conspiracy theories about the Deep State and child trafficking rings. Another target for these claims is Hollywood celebrities. Children are said to be trafficked for sexual purposes, and to have their blood harvested to produce adrenochrome for members of the ring. Although adrenochrome would be quite accessible through legitimate means, and no evidence exists to support these beliefs, QAnon has grown significantly in America and beyond since the Pizzagate controversy of 2016. Myths about children abducted for their blood or organs often have roots in genuine abuses (of the poor or powerless) by the powerful. QAnon, by contrast, seems to involve a mental loss of power or stability, on the part of people who are relatively privileged, yet traumatised by the nature of a changing world.

Top 10 Things You Need To Know About QAnon

About The Author: Richard Sugg is the author of 13 books, including Fairies: A Dangerous History (Reaktion, 2018), Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires: The History of Corpse Medicine from the Middle Ages to the Falun Gong (3rd edn, 2020), The Smoke of the Soul (2nd edn, 2020), Bloodlust (2020) and Ride Your Horse through the Chocolate Sauce! His work has appeared in The Guardian, BBC History, The Lancet, the Daily Telegraph, Der Spiegel, the New Yorker, and on international radio and television. He posts videos on his work on Instagram and Twitter @Dr Sugg.

Children’s TV Performers: they’re colorful, cute, and cooky, and unfortunately sometimes, downright creepy. Maybe it’s because we’re no longer kids ourselves and the charm has worn off. But unlike the Wiggles, entertainers extraordinaire with a very serious jazz-hands-for-pictures policy (to prevent even the slightest insinuation that they’re inappropriately touching a fan), there are many, many children’s performers who have turned out to be rotten apples. Whether it’s actors, directors, puppeteers (puppets, why does it have to be puppets!), or even America’s Dad, here are the Top 10 Children’s Performers Who Were Secret Perverts.

10 Paul Ruebens (aka Peewee Herman)

Paul Reubens, the actor most famous for playing Pee-wee Herman, is beloved by fans and co-performers alike. Between his television show and movies, the Pee-wee character entertained millions of children for a decade. But unlike Pee-wee, Reubens himself was not quite so innocent, seeming less into talking furniture and more into vintage porn.

Reuben’s first public sexual offense was in 1991 when he was caught masturbating in an adult movie theater and arrested, facing charges of indecent exposure and lewd public acts. Luckily, he was able to atone for the incident with community service in the form of anti-drug PSAs. He quickly recovered but in 2002 faced a similar charge when police searched his home and found a massive collection of porn, which they claim included child porn. Reubens maintains his innocence, claiming the images in question were either teenage models in art photos or child porn that had slipped into his collection via bulk porn purchases that he never entirely sifted through. It seems authorities were inclined to believe him, and he accepted a lesser charge, though, deserved or not, a lingering stigma follows Reubens to this day.

9 Sasuga Minami

Technically, this performer is an accidental pervert, which feels strange to even put into a sentence. In order to learn about Sasuga Minami, we’ll dive into Japan’s children’s TV show culture, where wackiness is the name of the game. The show “Miburi TV,” translated to “body movement,” was designed to get kids off the couch or tatami mat and up and moving with crazy dances, fun music, and colorfully dressed performers. Sasuga Minami was one of these performers who inspired kids with her zany-ness: colorful onesies, Bantu knot hairstyles, and accidentally, shirts with English phrases like: “I love p—y,” “I love c—k,” and “Love, f—k yeah!”

Clearly, these were not the messages meant to be portrayed on “Miburi TV” and were simply the result of being “lost in translation,” like a bad kanji tattoo. There did not really seem to be any complaints, but regardless, the phrases were removed from all of her outfits. These days Sasuga Minami is carrying on with her life’s work and is dancing with kids in refugee camps. Honestly, we love her for it.

8 Youtube: Elsagate

For all of you out there who don’t have children, you probably didn’t know that Kid’s Youtube is an actual thing. But you probably have seen a family plop their kid down with a tablet in hand to keep them quiet during their meal, and often they’re tuned in to Kid’s Youtube. Kid’s Youtube works by filtering age-appropriate material that brings up a new video to watch once one is over for continuous playing. And that seems to work… until it doesn’t.

For reasons beyond any rational person’s understanding (seriously, don’t even try to understand why), back in 2017, a multitude of YouTube channels that had entirely inappropriate content slipped through the algorithm’s cracks. Channels like Pranksgame and Toyscouter, would have characters like Disney’s “Frozen” ‘s Elsa, Spiderman, and other princesses, superheroes and animal mascots engage in all sorts of vile behavior: kidnapping, bondage, “pranks” such as fooling someone into drinking urine or feces, getting nails through their hands and feet, and other violence or sexual material. It wasn’t even limited to animated shows, and oftentimes featured real actors. 

7 Super Mario Logan

Someone call Nintendo; this is NOT the Super Mario we all know and love. A primary example of Elsagate that somehow slipped past Youtube’s control is Super Mario Logan, sometimes known as Super Bowser Logan, a Youtuber with ten years of video making under his belt and over 9 million views.

This person uses disturbing puppets as his drug of choice, portraying a wide variety of his homophobic, racist, misogynist, and somehow even worse views, all directly aimed at children. These puppets often feed into harmful cultural stereotypes and portray violent or sexual tendencies. One parent discovered their young children had been exposed to Super Mario Logan at a friend’s house when they began to sing the highly suggestive “Wanna see my pencil?” song. The pencil in question is… not a pencil.

6 Fergie Olver

Fergie Olver was a TV host of the show “Just Like Mom” back in the 1980s and a downright creepazoid. Think of him like an even less culturally appropriate Canadian version of Richard Dawson from the “Family Feud.” Olver liked to treat the young female contestants on his show truly “Just Like Mom.”

In particular, he liked to trick the girls into a kiss, even if they had already said no. In 2021, it’s not cool to trick even an adult into an unwanted kiss, but apparently at the time doing so to children was considered okay. The one saving grace out of this is that Olver only lasted one year on the show and was replaced in the second season with a husband and wife duo. His behavior lives on in infamy and he was parodied by Bryan Cranston in the sketch “Kid Smartz Game Show” on SNL in 2010. What an honor.

5 Ronald Brown

This is a bizarre case, where thankfully Ronald Brown was stopped before he could physically hurt anyone. Brown was an avid church-goer in his 50’s who would perform children’s puppet shows for the local youth ministry, as well as volunteer to drive children to church. He would even host young boys at his house for pizza parties, even though he didn’t have any children of his own. But in 2012, he was arrested for possession of child pornography and conspiring to kidnap a child… in order to murder, cook and eat children as young as two years old. We’re calling it here—the only puppeteer that could ever be trusted was Jim Henson. 

4 Seven Awesome Kids Network

After Youtube’s Elsagate, we’re going to take it one step farther into the darker side of the problematic children’s Youtube. While it is one evil to produce inappropriate content for children, it is another evil entirely to exploit young children for profit. There is a growing trend of “family prank channels” like Daddy of Five, which often feature children being forced to engage in a spectrum of disturbing behaviors, ranging from simply being nonconsensually filmed to being the butt of physically harmful “jokes.”

The Seven Awesome Kids Network, established in 2008 and featuring six separate channels, went beyond even that. In 2018, the owner and produce of SAK, Ian Rylett, was arrested for lewd and lascivious behavior with a 16-year-old minor, one of his actors, including demanding she strip for him, groping her while she did so, then threatening to fire her if she did not comply. Other girls, aged 8-18, had complained about his creepy behavior on set prior to this, as well.

3 John Wayne Gacy

Most entries on this list are famous children’s performers who are found out to be perverts, but John Wayne Gacy is the opposite. He is one of history’s most notorious serial killers, whom many are surprised to learn was also an actual children’s performer.

He was convicted of 33 murders, along with numerous charges of assault, torture, and kidnapping, and may have committed even more murders that have yet to be discovered and/or proven. But he also used his “Killer Clown” persona to entertain children. As Pogo the Clown, Gacy entertained sick children at hospitals, worked charity events, and often did so for no compensation. He simply enjoyed helping people in need. But I guess 33 young men also “needed” to be kidnapped, tortured, and killed.

2 Jimmy Savile

Imagine seeing a sexual assault on live television. Sound utterly impossible? Well, welcome to Jimmy Savile, host of British TV morning show “Top of the Pops,” where said assault occurred in 1976. You can see and hear her discomfort, as she states that, despite her physical protest he refused to move his hand. This, among many other assaults, was well known by the BBC and Sky News at the time. And this is the very bottom of his list of offenses.

Savile has been accused of child abuse dating back to the ’60s. He also previously protested against the treatment of consumers of child pornography, saying they did “nothing wrong.” Former Sex Pistols vocalist John Lydon stated back in 1978: “I’d like to kill Jimmy Savile; I think he’s a hypocrite. I bet he’s into all kinds of seediness that we all know about, but are not allowed to talk about. I know some rumors.” He added: “I bet none of this will be allowed out.” Savile died in 2012 and multiple inquiries and documentaries have been made about how this predator got away with it for so long.

1 Bill Cosby

It’d be impossible not to include Bill Cosby on this list. His ratio of cultural adoration to monstrous perversion is higher than anyone else’s. In other words: no other celebrity has ever been so high and fallen so far. Cosby was America’s dad. “Fat Albert,” “Kids Say the Darndest Things,” and “The Cosby Show” were iconic. And unlike the possible innocence of Paul Reubens or the simple mistake of Sasuga Minami, Cosby’s offenses were intentional and horrific.

All told, more than 60 women accused Cosby of sexual harassment and/or sexual assault, ranging from the ’60s through the ’90s. Most have details in common, including Cosby spiking their drinks or in some other way drugging them in order to render them unconscious and rape them. He is currently in prison after being found guilty of three counts of aggravated indecent assault. Though he is attempting to appeal that verdict, numerous other cases against him—both civil and criminal—are in motion, as well.