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

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

9 The Human Skull Market

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

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

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

8 Baby Adoption Scammers

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

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

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

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

7 Exploitation of Grief

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

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

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

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

6 Terrorist Propaganda

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

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

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

5 Unattainable Weight Loss Claims

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

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

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

4 Black Market Verification Ticks

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

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

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

3 Toxic Siberian Lake

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

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

2 Cyberbullying Gets Out of Hand

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

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

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

1 Blackfishing

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

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

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

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

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

Hillary Clinton is one of the most recognisable people in the world. After serving as First Lady, Senator, Secretary of State, and being the first woman nominated by a major party, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn’t know who Hillary Clinton is. But when you’ve sat on the front lines of history for so long, mingling with the richest and most powerful people in the world, it is almost inevitable that you’ll find yourself wrapped up in a conspiracy or two. So here, we’re going to look at ten conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton.

See Also: 10 Trump Conspiracy Theories You May Have Missed

10 First Victim

Whether you love them or loathe them, there’s no denying that the Clintons have played a major role in American and world history. From Bill’s outstanding record on the economy, to Hillary becoming the first female nominee of a major party, there are plenty of things that the Clintons will be remembered for. And whether they like it or not, the Lewinsky scandal is one of them. Although, if this theory is to be believed, they may not have much of a problem with that.

According to Linda Tripp, the White House employee who secretly taped Lewinsky talking about her relationship with Bill, the scandal was less of a shock to Hillary than we believe.^[1] Not only does Tripp claim that Hillary was aware of the affair, she goes even further and says that “every scandal that originated in the Clinton administration was the brainchild of Hillary”.

The apparent logic behind Tripp’s accusations was that the scandal would improve Hillary’s image, making her more relatable and drawing in sympathy from the public. If that was the plan, it certainly didn’t work, as the affair has arguably done more damage to Hillary than either of the people who actually cheated.

9 Chelsea’s Father

Monica Lewinsky is not the only woman Bill has been accused of infidelity with, but she is the most well-known. And while there may be more than a few rumours swirling around about Bill, he’s not the only member of the marriage who is alleged to have strayed from their vows.

According to the likes of Donald Trump and Roger Stone, Hillary was less than faithful as well. Stone even goes so far as to name two of the men Hillary is alleged to have slept with: Vince Foster, and Web Hubbel.^[2] While Vince Foster may be a more famous name, it is Web Hubbel who is really at the heart of this theory, as he is purported to be Chelsea’s real father.

Admittedly, Chelsea does resemble Web somewhat, although nowhere near the degree to which she blatantly resembles Bill and Hillary. But a few connections, such as working in Hillary’s law firm, and a possible, oblique reference to him in one of her books,^[3] has led Clinton opponents to conclude that he must be the father. The problem with theories like these is that, much like David Icke claiming the moon is both a hologram and an alien spaceship, the people who espouse them often believe things that completely contradict them as well.

8 Hillary the Lesbian

Probably one of the more well-known Hillary conspiracies, the theory that she is gay goes all the way back to her time as First Lady of Arkansas. This theory most likely started as a result of her being an ambitious career-woman in the eighties, when being gay would have been a real spanner in the works of any political career, not least in Arkansas.^[4]

The fact that the Clintons only had one child is often used as evidence that their marriage is a sham, as are the rumours of Bill’s frequent dalliances with other women, which many claim are due to the couple’s “open marriage” arrangement. One of these women, Gennifer Flowers, claims that Bill told her that Hillary is bisexual, and has “eaten more pussy” than he had. Another, Dolly Kyle, claimed Bill told her Hillary wanted a baby to distract people from her “lifestyle” and convince everyone that they were a “real couple”. When asked about these rumours on the Howard Stern show,^[5] Hillary replied that she had “Never even been tempted”.

7 Hillary 2.0

If you were to ask someone to name the top five most shocking moments of the 2008 or 2012 campaigns, they’d probably struggle to three. Birtherism could qualify, but the most memorable moment of that is probably John McCain shooting down one of his own supporters. Maybe that time Rick Perry forgot the third branch of government he wanted to eliminate? That was funny. If you were to ask the same question about 2016, you’d probably struggle to limit it to 5.

Of the many shocking moments in that campaign, one of the most memorable has to be when Hillary fainted at the 9/11 memorial. To her opponents, this was proof of what they had been saying all along: that she was not in good enough health to serve as President. But apparently seeing her faint wasn’t proof enough, as when Hillary reemerged several hours later, a new theory was posited: that wasn’t the real Hillary.^[6]

The idea behind this is that Hillary is so sick, she needs to use a body-double for some public appearances. Proponents of this theory placed photos from that day alongside other photos of Clinton, pointing out apparent discrepancies between features such as her nose, cheekbones, neck, and stomach as evidence that they are two different people.^[7] A famous Hillary impersonator even tweeted that she was in New York at the time, but later confirmed she was actually on the West Coast.

6 Unhealthy Hillary

The fainting incident, which is said to have been a result of pneumonia, is far from the only time Hillary’s health has been called into question. When she suffered a concussion in 2012, the theory was that it was faked in order to avoid testifying at the Benghazi hearings. Once she had testified, the theory switched to the concussion being real and Hillary being unfit for office. A blood clot in 2013 then led to speculation that she had suffered neurological damage,^[8] again making her ineligible to be President.

Those incidents, combined with the fainting, led to speculation that Hillary could have Parkinson’s disease, or something similar. This was supported by a leaked email that mentioned Provigil, a drug often used by people with Parkinson’s disease. However, the drug is used to treat fatigue, not neuromuscular symptoms, and it is a matter of public record that Barack Obama used it during his Presidency,^[9] probably as a way to get more work done. As Hillary is the only nominee in history to release their medical records, this theory stands up about as well as Hillary at the memorial.

5 The Clinton Plant

While a lot of the conspiracy theories surrounding Hillary have common threads, such as being a sex fiend or knocking on death’s door, there is one thread that runs through every single theory out there: it’s all so she can become President.

With Hillary ultimately facing off against Donald Trump, indisputably the most unconventional nominee in history and a magnet for conspiracy theories, it was almost inevitable that the two would star opposite each other in a shared conspiracy. Namely, the theory that Trump was a Clinton plant.^[10]

This theory doesn’t require as much stretching of the imagination as many of the others. Quite simply, theorists on the left and right have pointed to the long, friendly, and publically established relationship between the Trumps and the Clintons. They attended his wedding, he donated to their foundation, and they were clearly friends long before they became enemies.

The main piece of evidence cited in support of this theory is a phone call from Bill Clinton to Donald Trump that took place about a month before he entered the campaign. According to the Washington Post,^[11] four Trump and one Clinton associate confirmed that Bill used the call to encourage Donald to get more involved in the GOP. Theorists claim the Clintons outright asked him to run a campaign so bad, it would destroy the Republican Party. Obviously, the most entertaining part of this theory is that the plan failed, keeping Hillary from her dream job and forcing Donald to do one of the hardest jobs in the world when he just wanted to be on TV.

4 The Impeachment Plan

As funny as it may be to think that such a grand conspiracy could go so drastically wrong, true conspiracy theorists won’t let themselves be distracted by humour. After all, the best way to convince people that something isn’t an issue is to make them laugh it off. So what if Hillary’s plan didn’t go hilariously wrong? What if this was the plan?

The phone call conspiracy is pretty straightforward: Donald says and does lots of terrible things in the name of the Republican Party, splitting the party in two, and setting those who supported him up for tough reelection bids. Hypothetically, this would cause an identity crisis for the GOP and move it more towards the center, giving Democrats an easy ride for a few years.

But according to one White House source, courtesy of Playboy’s White House Correspondent,^[12] Hillary was playing a much longer game. Rather than using candidate Trump to damage the Republican party, she wanted to use President Trump to destroy it. To do this, she colluded with the Russians to ensure that she lost the election, and then pinned it all on Donald. Once the Trump-Russia story was out there, all they had to do was sit back and wait for impeachment. Whether Hillary plans to run again remains to be seen, but if you believe any of this is true, that is the only logical conclusion.

3 The Clinton Body Count

Apart from her theorized lesbianism, the Clinton Body Count is probably the most well-known conspiracy surrounding both Bill and Hillary out there, and yet it hasn’t been discussed on since 2009. The theory has grown a bit since then, and while there is too much to dissect fully here,^[13] we can still convey the main points.

The theory kicks off with the aforementioned Vince Foster, one of Hillary’s supposed non-lesbian lovers, who was found dead in a park with a gunshot wound to the head in 1993. Proponents of the Clinton Body Count theory claim that this was not a suicide, but a murder, either to cover up the affair or to prevent Foster from implicating the new First Couple in any crimes.

The subsequent decades are filled with over 50 names of apparent victims of this scheme, ranging from political allies who couldn’t be trusted, to reporters who knew too much. The next major death was that of Seth Rich, a DNC staffer who was shot during an attempted robbery in 2016. Julian Assange hinted that Rich was behind the Wikileaks DNC email leaks, and that he was taken out as punishment. You may remember Sean Hannity pushing this theory,^[14] until his advertisers forced him to stop at the request of the Rich family. Rudy Giulianni also floated the theory, but said the family being in “some degree of pain” is no reason to stop.

Finally, the theory has been linked to Jeffrey Epstein, the billionaire pedophile that committed suicide in prison in August 2019. With Epstein being a known child-trafficker and elite socialite, it’s not hard to believe he would have some dirt on some very powerful people,^[15] and he is known to have socialized with Bill. A number of coincidences, such as the guards not doing their rounds when the suicide occurred, conflicting autopsies, and the security tape being accidentally deleted, have led to further speculation that Epstein’s suicide was just another fake staged by the Clintons.

2 The Sinister Sisters

If you have anything more than a passing interest in US politics, you’re probably already familiar with Hillary’s number one aide, Huma Abedin. Although she is an extremely accomplished careerwoman in her own right, you may remember her as the wife of pedophile Anthony Weiner, the unfortunately named Democrat who kept getting caught up in a myriad of underage sexting scandals. With Huma working as Hillary’s right-hand woman, and Anthony a rising star in the Democratic party, theirs was always rumoured to be a marriage of political convenience. And according to one theory, there may be a reason Anthony sought attention from women other than his wife, as Huma has long been rumoured to be one of Hillary’s lesbian lovers.^[16]

This allegation popped up every time Anthony found himself caught up in another sexting scandal, until their eventual divorce in 2017, which led to many jokes about how Huma was “done with Weiner”. But according to famed conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh,^[17] there is more to Hillary and Huma’s relationship than pure sexual dynamism.

During one of his radio shows, Rush pointed out that Huma Abedin’s mother is friends with Naglaa Mahoud, widow of then President of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi. Morsi was a well-known affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood and, according to Rush, his wife was a prominent player in its female equivalent, the Muslim Sisterhood. For Rush, this was proof enough that Hillary and Huma were agents of the Sisterhood, hellbent on advancing the Islamist agenda. The theory was repeated by a number of Trump supporters during the 2016 campaign, such as Michelle Bachman,^[18] but lacked enough substance or source material to really catch on.

1 Secret Police

Perhaps the most memorable “conspiracy” moment in Hillary’s life is one that turned out to be true: the infamous “vast right-wing conspiracy” that Bill was having an affair with a White House intern. Ever since that scandal came to light, Hillary has been roundly criticized for her attempts to discredit the women making accusations against her husband. But according to one of Bill’s former advisers,^[19] it didn’t stop there.

Throughout multiple books and interviews, Dick Morris makes reference to what he calls the “secret police”, claiming “Hillary built up a secret police for the purposes of conducting a systematic campaign to intimidate, frighten, threaten, discredit and punish innocent Americans whose only misdeed is their desire to tell the truth”.

The secret police force was apparently made up of private investigators,^[20] opposition researchers, and operatives embedded in a number of key agencies, such as the FBI, CIA, and IRS. Their job was to find compromising material on any Clinton critics, so that they could be silenced before dealing any reputational damage to the political power couple. But once again, if this theory does turn out to be true, it looks like it didn’t work out.

About The Author: You can follow Simon on Twitter here.

Until recently, international conflict was fought on the ground, in the sky, and across the seas. But now, warfare has found a new battleground: cyber space. The virtual world is becoming increasingly weaponized. In the online arena, assailants can deploy malware, paralyze digital systems, and steal sensitive information from behind a computer screen.

The techniques involved in cyber warfare are evolving at alarming rates. Here are ten sinister facts about the realm of computerized combat.

Top 10 Ways You Didn’t Know You Could Get Hacked

10 US Government Encouraged To Invest In AI Weapons

In armed conflict, decisions need to be made quickly. Reaction times are paramount when people’s lives are on the line. If military leaders want to compete in the age of technological warfare, they need to develop AI weapons systems. Otherwise, they risk being “paralysed by the complexity of battle.”

So says the National Security Commission on AI. In a 2021 report, they advised the US government to invest in algorithm-led weapons. The AI commission is made up of a handful of top political and technological experts. It includes former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and future Amazon CEO Andy Jassy.

For many years, the main focus of the US military has been hardware. They have specialized in tanks, planes, and ships. But soon, the security experts claim, the US may find itself technologically inferior to its rivals. If this happens, they run the risk of being overwhelmed by countries like China or Russia. Both countries are said to be working on advanced autonomous weapons.

But critics say the US government is veering towards an AI arms race. The consequences of which could be disastrous. Prof Noel Sharkey from the Campaign To Stop Killer Robots called the report “shocking and frightening.” He warned that the commission’s advice “could lead to the proliferation of AI weapons making decisions about who to kill.”

9 Stuxnet, The Digital Weapon That Paralyzed Iran

In the summer of 2010, IT workers in Iran were perplexed by the behavior of their computers. The devices kept crashing and restarting, over and over. No one could figure out why. Then a security firm from Belarus uncovered hidden malware lurking on the system.

The Iranian computers had fallen victim to Stuxnet, the world’s first digital weapon. Cyber security experts had never seen anything like it. Instead of just harming the computers’ software, Stuxnet was able to inflict damage on physical equipment. It wormed its way inside the system and caused the machines to go haywire.

The devastating cyber weapon is widely believed to have been created by US and Israeli officials. As well as damaging Iran’s IT systems, it had a severe impact on the country’s nuclear development. In 2009, Stuxnet infected the Natanz nuclear plant in central Iran. It sabotaged the equipment, causing the centrifuges to repeatedly break down. A centrifuge is a large, high-speed spinning tube used to treat uranium gas. It took Iranian officials months to figure out what was going on. In total, the plant lost 984 machines.

8 Islamic State’s United Cyber Caliphate

Islamic State is alarmingly Internet-savvy for a terrorist group. The extremists are known to wreak chaos online. Several Western figures have found themselves targets of pro-ISIS cyber-attacks. In 2014, hackers hijacked the Twitter accounts of US defense force CENTCOM. They used the account to spread propaganda and threaten military officials.

A year later, the high-tech wing of ISIS – the United Cyber Caliphate – claimed to have stolen the personal details of 2,000 people. Most of them, they said, lived in the US. Later that year, they boasted that they had hacked into a sensitive government database. The caliphate released what they claimed were the names, locations, and contact details of nearly 1,500 government personnel. They also stole the credit card information of several senior officials.

7 Ukraine Is A Live-Fire Space For Russian Cyber Weapons

For years now, Ukraine has been in the crosshairs of Russian cyber attackers. The country faces a daily barrage of malware from neighboring developers. Tech experts have described it as “a live-fire space for hackers.” In the conflict-ridden world of cyberspace, Ukraine is a key battleground.

The country is under constant fire. Government and legal officials are most likely to be targeted. The digital assailants are a mix of Kremlin experts, criminals, and keen amateurs.

As well as the long-running conflict between the two countries, Ukraine is rife with pirated software. The country’s cyber security is often lacking, which makes it vulnerable to attack. Ukraine also offers a digital passage into Europe. If hackers can access Ukrainian systems, they may be able to worm their way into the rest of the continent.

They do receive help with security from the US and Europe. By defending Ukraine’s IT systems, Western intelligence agencies can collect intel on the Kremlin’s activities.

6 French Hospitals Vulnerable To Ransomware Attacks

Cyber warfare can paralyze essential institutions. In February 2021, two hospitals in France fell victim to crippling cyber attacks in less than a week. On February 9, the staff at Dax Hospital in Landes had to work at reduced levels after their IT network became infected with malware. Hackers blocked hospital workers from accessing the computer system. They refused to leave until they were paid a ransom. The attack prevented some of the staff from using their computers. But, according to the hospital’s medical commission, none of the patients were affected.

Days later, the Villefranche-sur-Saône complex in Rhone suffered a similar attack. Staff were forced to transfer some patients to a different facility. Fortunately, none of the covid-19 patients were affected. A third hospital in the Dordogne narrowly avoided infection by cutting off their IT network.

In France, it is increasingly common for hackers to target hospitals. In the last year, hospitals in eight cities and communes have suffered similar attacks.

5 The Syrian Electronic Army

The Syrian Electronic Army thrives on fake news and misinformation. The group is said to be made up of young, tech-savvy supporters of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. They are known for hacking news websites. The Electronic Army target what they call a “distortion of facts” from Western media.

The Electronic Army first emerged in 2011, lambasting enemies of the Syrian government on social media. Their early actions included spamming the Facebook pages of the then-presidents of the US and France, Barack Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy. In 2013, the Middle Eastern hackers started a rumor on Twitter that there had been an explosion in the White House. This caused a temporary fall in the US stock market. More recently, the Electronic Army has been accused of hiding spyware in coronavirus-themed mobile apps.

4 WannaCry, The Ransomware Attack That Struck The NHS

WannaCry was the global cyber attack that struck over 200,000 computers back in 2017. The far-reaching malware had a severe impact on Britain’s National Health Service (NHS), along with Spanish businesses, and IT systems around the world. Similar to the Dax Hospital attack in France, hackers blocked computers and demanded payment for their release. The creators behind WannaCry asked for $300 (£230) in Bitcoin before they unlocked the sabotaged systems.

In total, WannaCry is said to have cost Britain’s state healthcare system $121 million (£92 million). The attack locked down IT systems in more than 80 NHS hospital trusts. During the week of the attack, 19,000 appointments had to be canceled. At the time, the NHS lost $26 million (£20 million) through lost services. Afterward, they had to spend a further $95 million (£72 million) to restore their IT systems. The British government had been warned about the dire consequences of an NHS cyber attack a year earlier. The public health department was condemned for failing to take sufficient security measures.

3 Hackers Target Microsoft Email Servers

In 2021, Microsoft email servers were targeted by what one cyber security expert described as “literally the largest hack I’ve seen.” Hafnium, a hacking group with links to the Chinese government, is said to have infiltrated the messaging servers of hundreds of thousands of companies. The hackers used unprecedented techniques to force their way into systems.

Microsoft announced the hack on March 2, 2021. The company released software updates to protect users from attacks. But even before Microsoft had brought out their updates, a second wave of hackers sprung up keen to get in on the action. Experts estimate that ten hacking groups are exploiting weaknesses in Microsoft’s system. Cyber criminals are hacking every email group they can, regardless of what that institution is or where they are based. Companies, schools, hospitals, even cities have found themselves at the receiving end of the stealthy attackers.

At the time of writing, this attack is still ongoing. The aims of the hackers are unclear, and thousands of servers are still vulnerable. Cyber security experts have described it as a “very rare” display of power.

2 The Yemen Cyber Army

Yemen is a country ravaged by years of violent conflict. The long-running battle between the Saudi regime and the Houthi rebels has resulted in a crippling humanitarian crisis.

In 2015, the confrontation spilled onto the Internet. On April 14, the Yemen Cyber Army infiltrated the website of the pro-Saudi newspaper Al Hayat. The hackers displayed a message threatening Saudi Arabia if it continued to interfere in Yemen. A month later, they hacked the Saudi foreign ministry. That summer, they published almost a million diplomatic messages via Wikileaks. These included cables for the funding of radical extremists, and a message from Osama bin Laden’s son asking for his father’s death certificate.

1 Israel’s Alarming Cyber Capabilities

In the field of cyber warfare, Israel is said to be head and shoulders above any other country. The Middle Eastern aggressor has developed a vast arsenal of digital weapons. Israeli organizations are behind some of the most advanced cyber systems in the world today.

The country receives around 20% of all cyber security investment. Unit 8200, the intelligence unit of the Israel Defense Forces, is thought to have launched some of the most damaging cyber attacks in history. In 2017, Israel Aerospace Industries collaborated with US engineers to create a navigation system that can shake off GPS jammers. And in 2019, officials eased restrictions on cyber weapon exports, a decision that flew in the face of human rights campaigners.

The Israeli government is acutely aware of the dangers of cyber warfare. “Today, warfare has changed again, dramatically,” prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu explained at a recent conference. “It’s moving very rapidly to a situation where, with the click of a button, you can bring down nations to their knees.”

10 Times Hackers Hacked Live Television

Over the last few years, OnlyFans has seen a massive surge in popularity. The London-based platform first emerged in 2016, allowing creators to charge fans for exclusive content. The site is particularly popular among sex workers, who make money selling explicit images and videos to paying followers. Creators can earn tens of thousands of dollars a month through OnlyFans, although most turn a modest profit.

Over the last five years, the platform’s 70,000 creators have earned over $150m (£120m) in total. OnlyFans takes a 20% cut of all takings through the site. They now boast 17.5 million users across the globe. Unlike PornHub, which is accused of ripping off performers and publishing their videos for free, OnlyFans is said to be giving money back to sex workers.

But, as with all things online, there is a dark side to OnlyFans. The platform is said to be a breeding ground of death threats, harassment, blackmail, pirating, fraudulence, and controversy. Here are ten disturbing news stories surrounding the platform.

Top 10 TikTok Controversies

10 Stalker Creates Fake Account For Ex-Girlfriend

This list begins with the disturbing story of British stalker Andrew Betteridge. In 2020, the 36-year-old set up a fake OnlyFans profile for his former partner. He created the account during six months of relentless stalking. Throughout that time, he threatened to publish a nude photo of his ex-girlfriend online.

Betteridge, a married man, started dating in 2019. But the relationship ended in early 2020. Not long afterward, he began his disturbing campaign. Betteridge’s stalking lasted from March to September 2020. He used social media to track down his former partner’s parents, applied for jobs in her name, and even followed her to her children’s school.

Betteridge’s ex-girlfriend reported feeling like “a prisoner in my own home.” In court, she told the judge that she would sometimes “wake up in the night in a blind panic.” In April 2021, the stalker was given an indefinite restraining order and a twelve-week suspended sentence. “Your creativity in making this woman’s life a misery has been extraordinary,” the judge remarked. “Stalking this woman appears to have become your all-consuming hobby.”^[1]

9 Mexican Prisoners Sell Graphic Videos

From Britain to Mexico now, where men behind bars have found an intriguing new way to make money online: homemade porn. The prisoners are uploading explicit videos to OnlyFans, and their mostly male fanbase loves it.

Although phones are banned in Mexican prisons, inmates have recorded a wealth of DIY porn. The videos available on their private account include blow jobs, group sex, and masturbation. There are also several photos of prisoners in the buff.

OnlyFans has now suspended the account, but it used to cost $6 (£4.35) a month to subscribe. Their steamy clips drew quite a following. “[You’re] gods in the art of sex,” one user commented, “but [make] those videos longer.” Another asked that they “Invest in a better quality phone and don’t move the camera too much.”

The majority of comments claimed to have been left by men. Below the videos, fans request everything from romantic tongue kissing to violent sex.^[2]

8 Pirated Content Leaked Online

Pirating is a major issue when it comes to videos on the internet, and OnlyFans is no exception. The platform is home to a large amount of paid-for content, not just from sex workers but also chefs, musicians, and online influencers. The site works because users pay to see photos and videos from their favorite creators.

But OnlyFans has warned that people are taking content from the site and uploading it where it can be accessed for free. A report says people are collecting stolen material in a file on Google Drive. The pilfered content is mostly explicit images and videos.

Cybersecurity firm Backchannel says the files include “videos and pictures stolen from hundreds of OnlyFans users.” The site is keen to stress that it has not been hacked. The content is paid for by users, then downloaded and shared illegally. OnlyFans say they are taking legal action to stop the leak.^[3]

7 Californian Children Expelled From School

People are usually kicked out of school for reasons to do with serious misbehavior or long-term truanting. But one school in California expelled three pupils over their mum’s OnlyFans account.

Crystal Jackson signed up the site in 2019 to add some excitement to her relationship with her husband Chris. On the app, she is known as Tiffany Poindexter and claims to make $150,000 a month. But, in July 2020, one of the parents at her children’s school discovered her profile and shared it with his wife. None of the news reports specify how he found the profile, but feel free to speculate in the comments below.

After her account was uncovered, some of the parents started demanding that Jackson’s three sons be expelled from their Catholic school. The parents reportedly sent adult photos of Crystal Jackson to school officials, as well as the bishop and the church.

At the time, Jackson’s three sons—aged eight, ten, and twelve—attended Sacred Heart Parish School in Sacramento. But they were expelled from school over their mum’s adult online presence. Theresa Sparks, the school’s principal, emailed Jackson saying: “Your apparent quest for high-profile controversy in support of your adult website is in direct conflict with what we hope to impart to our students.”^[4]

6 The Bella Thorne Controversy

In August 2020, OnlyFans and Bella Thorne found themselves at the center of a whirlwind of controversy. As a popular actress, Thorne gained a huge following on the site. Within a week of signing up, the former Disney star had amassed 50,000 followers and earned $2m from what were advertised as naked photos. But when Thorne’s steams snaps arrived, users were dismayed to find that she was not nude. They demanded that OnlyFans refund the $200 (£150) they had paid for the not-so-salacious pictures.

Following Thorne’s controversy, OnlyFans brought in a cap limiting how much creators are allowed to charge for each item. Performers can ask for a maximum of $50 per post, and tips are capped at $100.

The new restrictions were met with outrage from sex workers. For many performers, OnlyFans is currently their only source of income, with other avenues drying up during the pandemic. A handful of creators, like British 23-year-old Kaya Corbridge, have earned over $1m from the site, providing custom content like text chats, videos, and even “personalized penis ratings.” But Corbridge has told reporters she stands to lose $12,000 a month from OnlyFans’ policy changes. She, like many other sex workers, is thinking of moving to a different platform.^[5]

5 YouTuber Sells Naked Childhood Video

Gabi DeMartino is a popular YouTube star, with over 3m people subscribed to her make-up tutorials and lifestyle videos. But in December 2020, the 25-year-old influencer had to apologize after selling a video of herself naked as a child. The clip, titled “Won’t put my panties on”, showed DeMartino at the age of three with no clothes on. It was on sale on OnlyFans for $3 (£2.20).

The site took down her account shortly afterward. DeMartino later uploaded an apology video to YouTube. She explained that she had become “disattached from reality” and had not considered the severity of the video.^[6]

4 US Military Account Posts Explicit Tweets

The internet is full of insulting, hypersexual content. Even so, Twitter users were taken aback to see a US military base posting explicit messages online.

Fort Bragg is home to several US military bodies. But, in October 2020, the Fort Bragg Twitter account started sending questionable messages to OnlyFans star Quinn Finite. It is unclear who was in charge of the base’s bizarre social media presence, but they were clearly a fan of the adult performer.

In one tweet, they expressed a desire to give Finite a “deep long kiss” along with other, more sexual, requests. They also replied to a disgruntled subscriber, saying: “He’s lost and doesn’t know a good thing when it’s staring him in the eyes, or tickling his nose in this case.”

“Someone come get their fort,” Quinn Finite replied, before adding, “Normalize horny tweeting from US Army forts.”

Initially, Fort Bragg tried to claim that they had been hacked but later admitted that the horny tweets were from an administrator.

“This may have been a bold move for Fort Bragg, but I hope the original poster still follows me on their personal account,” Finite told reporters. “They seem lovely.”^[7]

2 Scammer Steal Photos From Instagram

Imagine logging onto social media only to see a photo of yourself advertising a fake OnlyFans account. In 2020, that surreal scenario became reality for one young man in Perth.

Scammers had stolen photos from Dale Halliwell’s Instagram and were trying to get his followers to subscribe to a fraudulent OnlyFans account. They claimed there was a wealth of adult content behind a paywall. But it was all a deception designed to swindle people out of their credit card details.

At first, Halliwell was unfazed by the online scam. But he became more concerned when he saw that his friends and family were being duped. He told people on Facebook that the profile was fake and reported it once he learned people had entered their credit card details.

Cyber security experts say cons like this are common online. Instagram is quick to take down accounts pretending to be celebrities and public figures, but it much slower when it comes to ordinary people.^[8]

2 Blueface’s Weird OnlyFans Reality Show

You may not have heard of Blueface, but the California-born rapper shot to fame in 2019 following the release of his hit song Thotiana. Since then he has become an internet star in his own right and, in 2020, he launched an explicit reality show on OnlyFans called Blue Girls Club.

As the name suggests, Blue Girls Club is based on the contentious Bad Girls Club. In the show, Blueface asks a group of young women to move into his $1.3m house in Los Angeles. What ensues is a mix of late-night parties, exotic dancing, and near-daily fighting, which viewers can stream online for $50 a month. But, in May 2021, the show received a wave of backlash after footage emerged on social media.

Some users have claimed the rapper is running a cult and compared him to popstar R. Kelly. In one clip, Blueface—the hip-hop alias of Johnathan Jamall Michael Porter—is accused of using tattoos as a loyalty test. “Ready to get tatted?” he announces walking into the women’s shared bedroom. “Tattoo or go home, which one is it?”

The show is known for its wild brawls, in which the women can be seen punching, shoving, and tackling each other. In 2020, Musician Chrisean Rock lost a tooth in a punch-up with one of Blueface’s ex-girlfriends. One former participant, who refused to take part in the fights, claims she heard the rapper say, “How do you expect to come to Blue Girls Club and not expect to get hit?”

Blueface and his management deny the allegations, saying the show is supposed to empowering for the women taking part. “The purpose of the show,” he claims, “is to develop these women by exercising their temper, attitude, patience, and composure.”^[9]

1 Underage Girls Selling Nudes Online

In April 2020, the BBC released a documentary detailing the worrying trend of underage girls selling explicit content online. The show, #Nudes4Sale, reported on the role of OnlyFans in the porn industry. As well as following two women making a comfortable living from the site, the BBC looked into teenage nude accounts. The documentary revealed that a third of Twitter profiles advertising naked images and videos were owned by under-eighteens.

Presenter Ellie Flynn spoke to young women like Scottish seventeen-year-old Hannah (her name has been changed). Hannah opened an OnlyFans account at sixteen using a fake ID and, despite once being banned from the site, she still sells adult content. Flynn also interviewed Sasha (again, the name changed) who fell into sex work at fifteen. Sasha’s parents kicked her out of the house when an explicit photo of her was shared on social media.

Under British law, OnlyFans is not required to check for underage pornography. Instead, the legal responsibility is with the people who sell, distribute and receive illicit images from minors.

OnlyFans insists that it takes user safety seriously. In a statement to the press, they said: “We constantly review our systems to ensure they are as robust as possible, to ensure that OnlyFans operates in line with all legislation and guidance. If we are alerted to any underage individual who has gained or tried to gain illegitimate access to the platform we will always take immediate steps to investigate and suspend the account.”^[10]

Top 10 Sinister Facts About The Dark Side Of Instagram

For many, the U.S. is the authority on creepy, especially when it comes to urban legends and haunted locations. However, several countries around the world hold their own when it comes to eerie stories that will send a chill down your spine.

Here are 10 non-American urban legends to get your heart pounding and chills racing down your spine.

Related: Top 10 Bizarre American Urban Legends

10 Ghostly Marble Games

Singapore is the island of shopping malls and terrifying legends. When the Bishan MRT station opened in November 1987, several passengers reported seeing headless specters wandering around among the living. This might have had something to do with the fact that the station was built over the site of the former Peck San Theng cemetery. It also didn’t help that night-shift staff stated that they’d seen coffin bearers floating around in the tunnels linking Bishan and the Novena MRT station, which also just happened to have been built over a former cemetery.

Rushing home to the safety of your HDB won’t keep the spirits at bay, however. Legend still has it that several people complain about children in the apartment above theirs, in high-rise residential buildings, playing marbles until the early hours of the morning. When they eventually become frustrated enough and storm up to the apartment, they find it empty. Speaking to the landlord, they then realize that the apartment has been empty for months and that the family who lived there before never had any children.^[1]

9 Corpse on the Tube

In 2007, a strange urban legend started making the rounds on the internet. It described an art student taking the tube home late one evening from central London. She and another man, looking to be in his mid-thirties, were the only passengers on the tube until three other people got on a few minutes later. Two men were holding up a woman between them, and the student immediately assumed the woman was passed out drunk or high.

She was studiously avoiding eye contact with them when the thirty-something passenger suddenly sat down next to her and whispered urgently that she needed to get off at the next stop. Looking back and forth between the man and the decidedly creepy-looking trio, she decided to exit the train. As she and the man stood watching the train depart, he turned to her and told her that he’d seen from his window how the two young men dragged the woman between them and that a pair of scissors had been embedded into her skull. Another version of the urban legend has it that the two men strangled the woman, and the crime was eventually discovered by a ticket guard.^[2]

8 Last Resting Place of Terror

Australia has its fair share of terrifying animals and spiders, but in Brisbane, you’ll find creatures of the paranormal variety that might just send you running toward the Outback.

It is said that at the top of Avenue 12 inside the Toowong Cemetery, you will find the double grave of two sisters who died in a car accident. If you park your car at the bottom of the hill, the ghosts of the sisters will drag it slowly uphill to where a terrifying eternal fate awaits you.

At another cemetery, Goodna, a visitor has reported trying to leave after visiting a grave but could not get his car moving even though it was turned on. He struggled the entire night, and as the sun rose over the cemetery, he finally succeeded in getting the car going. Arriving home, he found deep scratches on either side of his car. Goodna Cemetery is filled with people who lived in the 1800s right up to the modern era. These remains include those of former patients of the old Brisbane Mental Hospital.^[3]

7 The Haunting of La Mussara

The once-beautiful town of La Mussara in Vilaplana, Spain, now echoes with a haunting silence as its ruins stand guard over the plains of Tarragona. Officially, the town was abandoned after a severe endemic insect invasion decimated the vineyards upon which locals depended for their livelihood. Unofficially, the town was cursed, leading to its residents fleeing its confines.

Rumor has it that dense fog covers the town often, causing visitors to become disoriented. Those who have tried to explore La Mussara’s ruins have also reported hearing horses’ hooves and voices whispering in the distance. Some believe that the town holds a gateway to another realm known as La Vila del Sis. Jumping over a particular stone outside a specific house will cause you to cross over into this realm, where you will be greeted by horrifying creatures of the underworld.

Adding to the speculation and legend is the alleged disappearance of Enrique Martinez Ortiz, who set off on October 16, 1991, with a group of friends to collect mushrooms in La Mussara. During the trip, Enrique lagged behind his friends, and when they turned to look for him, he was gone. He has never been seen again.^[4]

6 The Devil Himself

If it’s not the scream of a banshee shattering the tranquil atmosphere in the dark of night, it’s the scorched figure of Francis Bruen’s bride roaming around the Coolbawn House. Ireland has a horde of urban legends—and then some—when it comes to creepy ghosts, shadows, reapers, and more.

In 1766, the Tottenham family occupied the now-infamous Loftus Hall in County Wexford. When LordTottenham’s wife died unexpectedly, Tottenham soon remarried so that his new wife could assist in the bringing up of his two young daughters. During that time, many ships’ crews found themselves in trouble during storms, and after ending up wrecked on the shore, the survivors would be invited into Loftus Hall to take shelter. WhenTottenham’s youngest daughter, Anne, was grown up, yet another storm brought a young man to their doorstep. The man stayed for weeks as the storm continued to rage.

As time passed, Anne found herself drawn to the man. They would talk for hours inside the Tapestry Room and play cards until late. Then, one night, Anne dropped a card and noticed the man’s feet…or lack thereof. She screamed as she realized the man she had been growing close to was, in fact, the devil with hooves. The devil, in the meantime, transformed himself into a ball of fire and flew up through the roof before disappearing. Anne never recovered from the shock, and her family, who eventually grew fed up and embarrassed by her strange behavior, locked her in the Tapestry Room until her death in 1775.

Today, Loftus Hall is considered the most haunted house in Ireland, with Anne making her presence known every so often. You can also still see the hole in the roof, where the devil escaped after being found out.^[5]

5 Bad Light

The folklore of Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile includes the tale of the bad light. In northern Argentina, a light appears at night in the city of Mendoza. It hovers a few feet above the ground in the mountainside, with several motorists and especially truck drivers claiming to have seen it while on the road.

Native people in the area believe that the light is evil, and some visitors have claimed that it’s a fireball that chases those who travel alone. There is nothing to fear when the light is white, but if it appears green or red, travelers should run for their lives as they will be cursed with a lifetime of bad luck. Natives believe that the light could be the soul of a person who hasn’t received a proper burial and has come to seek revenge. A few of those who have tried to find the source of the light have apparently come across human remains.^[6]

4 Multicultural Monster

Even in this day and age, there are still parents around the world who scare their children into submission with stories of the Bogeyman. The monster takes on different forms and names depending on the country, region, or culture. Still, the core message remains the same: Start listening or be eaten/kidnapped/tortured/killed by “insert relevant bogeyman name here.”

In Latin America, the monster is known as El Cuco. It can take on any form, including that of a human, and can hide anywhere, undetected. The legend of El Cuco was first mentioned in texts written by Diodorus Siculus, who claimed that Iberian soldiers would behead their enemies and pierce the heads with spears as an offering to El Cuco. Stephen King’s version of the legend says that El Cuco is a body of worms that infiltrates a person’s DNA before transforming into their likeness. In Portugal and Spain, the monster is believed to have a pumpkin head lit from inside by a candle.^[7]

3 Come Tomorrow

Legend has it that during the 1990s, residents of small towns and villages in Karnataka in the southwestern region of India took to writing “Nale Ba” on their walls. This came after a rumor went viral of a witch knocking on a door of a family home and speaking in the voice of a beloved relative. This led a member of the family to open the door and unwittingly bring death upon the household. Families who heard this terrifying tale sought to protect themselves by writing “Nale Ba,” which means “come tomorrow” on their outside walls. When the witch approached their homes, she would read the words and then return the next day. This continued in an endless cycle, with the witch never again able to hurt anyone.

Today, some places still observe April 1 as Nale Ba day. In 2018 the Bollywood movie, Stree, was released with its director stating that some of the inspiration for the film was taken from the Nale Ba legend.^[8]

2 Out of Control Jealousy

Those who have the opportunity to visit Amsterdam often head over to the Zeedijk. It is now part of Chinatown but used to be one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city. Unfortunately, it is also where a cold-blooded murder took place, and the screams of the unfortunate victim can still be heard tearing through the night.

In the early 1800s, sisters Dina and Helen fell in love with the same man. Wouter was a sailor who was in love with Dina and sent her several letters while at sea. Helena intercepted the letters and burned them. When Dina realized what Helena had done, she confronted her sister, leading to a fight. Enraged, Helena pushed her sister down the basement stairs of their home in the Zeedijk. Rushing down to the basement, she saw that Dina was still alive, upon which she beat her to death and left her body down there. Dina’s parents assumed their daughter’s death was an accident, and Helena eventually got her wish when she married a broken-hearted Wouter. However, her conscience got the better of her on her deathbed, and she admitted to killing Dina. Wouter was shocked and disgusted. He turned his back on his wife and left her to die alone.

Helena still wanders the streets in the Zeedijk, unable to rest, and causes cold shivers to run down the backs of the living. And on stormy nights, Dina’s spirit howls and wails, her ghostly voice carried by the wind, causing those who hear it to batten down the hatches and wait for the safety of the morning.^[9]

1 The Screaming Woods

The Dering Woods have been nicknamed the Screaming Woods and are reputed to be one of the most haunted locations in Britain.

Those who have explored the woods have reported hearing screams coming from the depths of the forest and whispers floating up from behind them on foggy days. Some believe that the screams come from the restless souls of those who died during a massacre in 1948, after which 20 bodies were found among the trees on November 1. Residents who heard of the tragedy recalled seeing strange lights hovering inside the woods the night before, which happened to be Halloween night. Unfortunately, the autopsies performed on the bodies couldn’t determine a cause of death.

Others believe that a highwayman who had been captured and killed by villagers in the 18th century still roams the Dering Woods in a revenge mission. He screams in frustration and rage every so often at not being able to avenge his own death.^[10]

The world of golf is often seen as a gentleman’s place, where etiquette and following the rules are as key to the game as a set of clubs. Despite this, golf has a murky underbelly of murder, death, and disappearances. The much-covered plane crash of Major champion Payne Stewart in 1999 shocked the golfing pro world, but many of our stories today went unnoticed or are not remembered. Read on for ten times golf courses and the wider golfing world turned sinister…

Related: 10 Origins Of Sports Balls

10 Golfing During the Blitz

During Adolf Hitler’s relentless blitzing of England in 1940 and 1941, golf clubs across the southern coast of England had special provisions in place to account for the bombings. The rules committee of Richmond Golf Club in Surrey introduced a now-famous list of allowances while playing. The list included asking players to collect pieces of shrapnel while on their rounds, allowing players to take cover without time penalties during bombardments, and allowing a player to re-hit if their stroke was affected by an explosion.

The Nazi propaganda machine was aware of the rules, calling them “ridiculous reforms,” showing a “pretended heroism” as the Germans bombarded the golf course and surrounding areas with over 1,000 bombs. The raids destroyed areas of the golf club property and other part around Surrey, in which over 2,300 people were killed and more than 14,000 maimed or injured.^[1]

9 Answers to the Jimmy Hoffa Disappearance

In 1982, Jimmy Hoffa was legally declared dead after disappearing in 1975 without any trace of his whereabouts. According to some investigative reporters, Hoffa was murdered and is now buried under one of the greens of the Savannah Inn and Golf Country Club in Atlanta, Georgia. (Many theories still abound about Hoffa’s final resting place, including under a barn, a swimming pool, and even former Giants Stadium, among others.) However, the course was owned by mobster Lou Rosanova, who frequently urinated on a particular spot during his rounds of golf.

When challenged why he always did this, Rosanova confirmed it was the body of Hoffa who lay under the green. According to attorney accounts, Rosanova said Hoffa had been flown in from Detroit and buried under the green as this was somewhere “no one would ever suspect.” Other mobsters who knew this would also urinate on this spot during their rounds, laughing about the suspected burial.

Hoffa was known to be linked to Teamsters and was garnering mob support during his run for Union Presidency. Around the time of his disappearance, the caddy master at the club, David Days Jr., remembers some unusual activity at the club with “something going on, [but] we just couldn’t put our finger on it.”^[2]

8 Wrong Place, Wrong Time

During a July afternoon at the Pinetree Country Club in Georgia, the Director of Golf, Gene Siller, was shot in the head and killed while inspecting why a vehicle was left abandoned out on the course. Siller had been tasked with inspecting a white RAM 3500 truck, which was apparently left abandoned on the 10th green. When searched, however, it also contained two murdered victims. If all of this sounds like something more out of a game of Grand Theft Auto, you would be forgiven, as the three murders do not appear linked.

The two bodies found in the truck were said to have been bound by their mouth, hands, and legs and had been shot dead. When the unsuspecting Siller approached the scene trying to ascertain why there was a truck parked in the middle of the green, he was shot dead. Siller appears to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time—despite being a busy Saturday afternoon on the golf course where he was also a pro.

Days after the triple homicide, police arrested 23-year-old local Bryan Anthony Roden, who has been charged with three counts of murder, but a motive has yet to be determined.^[3]

7 Mysterious Dismembered Body Found

On the morning of April 29, 1955, the body of a middle-aged woman was found bludgeoned to death near the tee box of the 17th tee of Potters Bar Golf Course. The discovery of the corpse led local police to question over 4,000 men and, using fingerprint technology, managed to identify the culprit after matching bloody prints left on a tee box marker which was presumed to be the murder weapon. Eventually, a 17-year-old boy was arrested and convicted of murder. However, this incident was not the first time a corpse had been discovered on this course.

Seven years earlier, a young boy was diving in one of the ponds out on the course when he discovered a rotting, severed hand. After draining the pond, more pieces of a body were uncovered, with some of them evidently hacked to pieces and burned. A hacksaw was also found alongside the severed and burned head of the victim. Police identified the body as missing man Albert Welch, who had left his home with a single note to his wife in 1947, which simply read, “I have gone for a walk…Shan’t be home for tea.”

Using the best scientific techniques of the time, Welch was identified by a number of methods, including plaster casting, using fingerprints somehow found in the lake, and examining the upper jaw to match an apparent abscess that Welch had complained about. The mystery remains unsolved as to who murdered Welch and sawed his body into pieces, with key details set to be made public in 2031. Potter Bar Golf Club shut and ceased trading in 2018.^[4]

6 Found Hundreds of Miles from Home…on a Golf Course

In August 2015, 36-year-old librarian Saima Ahmed from Wembley, London, was reported missing by her immediate family. Her whereabouts were unknown until fragments of her skull and other bones were found at a Golf Course in Edinburgh—the Gogarburn Golf Club—in January 2016. How Ahmed’s remains were found so far away from where she lived has left her family and detectives perplexed. Found with her remains was a train ticket dated August 30, indicating she traveled alone to Scotland’s capital on that day. CCTV of her boarding a train at Wembley Central Station confirmed this.

A local dog walker in Scotland told police that they had witnessed a woman who matched the description of Ahmed “staring out at the sea” of Portobello beach. Other than this, very little is known about her movements once in Edinburgh. Police misconduct cases have been brought against the force for not treating the case with a high enough priority, and this has frustrated Ahmed’s family. They remain completely confused by the entire case. No amount of forensic examinations of the remains indicate any criminal activity, and a fresh appeal for information was mounted in 2020, yet the case remains unsolved.^[5]

5 Missing Golf Club Designer

The designer of Lynx Golf’s Parallax Irons, Dave Boone, left his Orange County apartment on the afternoon of December 5, 2006, and was never seen again. Boone had been successful in the golf club design world, with his award-winning Irons being used by winners of both the Masters and the U.S Open. Both Ernie Els and Freddy Couples used Boone’s Parallax Irons in the 1990s, enjoying incredible success.

His disappearance shocked many in the golfing world. Local police searched for Boone in the nearby Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park, using helicopters and dogs to try and pick up his scent, but no traces of Boone were found. Boone had four sons, aged between 17 and 27, and all four scoured the nearby wilderness on bikes looking for clues of his whereabouts. Boone left no sign or indication that he was preparing to take his own life.

Searches of his computer did not point to suicide, and Boone had left the apartment with only the clothes he was wearing and his keys. Some of the bloodhounds eventually tracked his scent to a part of the mountain range, but no other firm clues have been found. It is theorized by online investigators that Boone committed suicide in the wilderness, and his body would have been eaten by local wildlife. However, the case remains a mystery, tied forever to the golfing equipment world.^[6]

4 Death from Above

During a thunderstorm, a golf course can become one of the most frequently struck places when fork lightning occurs. For this reason, being stuck out on the course can be extremely dangerous. Numerous stories exist of golfers being struck while out, but earlier in 2021, a 70-year-old golfer was found dead on the 7th green of Burlington Country Club in New Jersey during the middle of the day. It was apparent from his condition that he had been fatally struck by lightning during the recent storm.

A near-fatal account occurred during an incident in Wisconsin in which four people were struck in the same strike during a round at the Big Fish Golf Club. One of the golfers recalls hearing an almighty cracking sound and then woke up on the ground. Even in the pros, fans may recall Tony Jacklin having his club struck mid-swing and it flying 30 feet away from him. Or Lee Trevino, who was struck by a lightning surge from a nearby lake, requiring hospitalization.^[7]

3 Pierced Through the Heart

Those of us who have played or watched golf before will know that frustration and anger can often lead to players throwing their clubs in disgust. This has been seen many times on the PGA Tour. But in Gloversville, NY, during July of 1994, a player doing this would find it backfire—fatally.

Young golfer Jeremy Brenno was playing a round at his local course, the Kingsboro Golf Club, when he very wildly hit his 3-wood on a bench after making a bad shot. The shaft of the club snapped and bounced backward toward Brenno, entering his chest and spearing him in the heart. Brenno was attended to by emergency services but was pronounced dead by 6 pm. He was only 16. His death reminds all who play golf to remember (despite this list)—it is only a game.^[8]

2 Food for the Crocodiles

Many golf clubs around the world have local alligators or crocodiles who live in the water surrounding the course, with many players posting videos of encounters on social media. In Kruger National Park, South Africa, Jacques van der Sandt was retrieving golf balls from the Lake Panic dam with his two legs in the water up to knee height. He was suddenly grabbed and pulled by a force from the unseen murky depths.

The crocodile, which was 12 feet long and had recently come out of hibernation looking for food, dragged van der Sandt into the water, biting him in the back and chest. He was not seen again by his friend with whom he was playing a game on who could find the most golf balls. His body was recovered later by police as it was not completely mutilated by the crocodile. Rangers later killed the animal in order to protect against any further attacks on locals.^[9]

1 Golfer Never Resurfaced

Many in the golfing world will know that searching for golf balls can be its own pastime in itself. In October of this year, two golfers in Northern Ireland at the Hilton Belfast Templepatrick Golf and Country Club went out in diving equipment looking for golf balls in the lakes out on the course. The men were employed by the hotel to retrieve the balls and then sell them back to the golf club.

At around 2 pm, one of the men resurfaced to find his partner had yet to come up from his dive. After a short period, emergency services were called as it was becoming apparent the second man might be in grave danger. Around five hours later, a body was recovered from the murky water of the course, with post-mortem investigations suggesting the man may have had a “health complaint” while diving. Unfortunately, the course claimed his life for the relatively cheap industry of used golf balls.^[10]

It seems obvious that a former president should be given an appropriate and honorable final resting place. For most who have served their country, that has been true. But there have also been a surprising number of issues with former leaders’ deaths. From George Washington to the present day, presidents have been memorialized in some strange ways. Worse still, some of their remains haven’t been allowed to rest as they should.

Here are ten tales of the strange fates of former presidents after death.

Related: Top 10 Faux Pas Committed By US Presidents

10 George Washington

When George Washington died in 1799, his will was clear: He wanted to be buried close to his Virginia home. But the mausoleum at his plantation, Mount Vernon, needed considerable renovation to hold the first President’s remains. Prior to his death, Washington himself laid out the issue. He wrote about repairs that had to be done to the vault: “I desire that a new [tomb] of Brick, and upon a larger Scale, may be built at the foot of what is commonly called the Vineyard Inclosure… In which my remains, with those of my deceased relatives… may be deposited.”

Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. Congress ignored his request and conspired to erect a crypt in the U.S. Capitol building. But by 1830, three decades after Washington’s death, that memorial hadn’t been built. Washington’s remains were still in Mount Vernon—but no renovation had been done on the vault there, either.

That’s when things got strange. That year, Washington’s nephew and last surviving heir, John Augustine Washington II, fired a gardener who had been employed at Mount Vernon. The landscaper was upset about the dismissal and sought revenge. He crept into the crypt with the intention of stealing the late president’s skull. Thankfully, Washington’s body had been encased in lead to prevent post-death tampering. Even so, the crypt was in such bad shape that the bones of dozens of people were scattered and mixed together inside. Instead of taking a piece of Washington, the gardener swiped the skull of one of his distant relatives. A year later, the surviving Washington heir erected a new crypt to honor the president, and—pardon the pun—the rest is history.^[1]

9 James K. Polk

James K. Polk died only a few months after his term ended in 1849. The nation’s 11th President died of cholera, which at the time meant a quick burial in a mass grave to slow the disease’s aggressive spread. That burial was unbecoming for a former president, though. After a year in a common grave in a city cemetery in Nashville, lawmakers in Tennessee ordered the remains moved. The intended final resting spot was to be Polk Place, where the president died. And for a while, that was that. But in 1893, the Polk family sold the expansive property. When that happened, Tennessee officials moved Polk’s remains to the State Capitol in Nashville—and again, for a while, that was that.

In 2017, Polk’s final resting place came back into question. At issue this time was the late president’s last will and testament. In the document, he requested to be buried at Polk Place. That property was demolished not long after his family sold it back in 1893, though. So state lawmakers began the process of moving the remains to a property in the city of Columbia, an hour outside Nashville.

Polk had also owned that home during his life, and politicians reasoned the move would essentially fulfill the request in his will. In 2018, the Tennessee legislature passed a resolution to move Polk yet again. However, six months later, it was put on hold when the Tennessee Historical Commission refused to grant permission to disturb the remains. Today, Polk rests at the State Capitol Building—for now.^[2]

8 Zachary Taylor

Not long after Polk’s death, his successor died. Zachary Taylor had the unfortunate distinction of dying in office when he perished a year into his term in 1850. He was 65 years old upon death, which was an advanced age at the time. However, just days before passing, he was in good spirits at a Fourth of July ceremony. The sudden death left supporters wondering if he was poisoned. Taylor had been strongly against allowing slavery in the west at the time. Thus, his supporters wondered whether pro-slavery insurgents poisoned the milk and cherries he ate on the Fourth of July. But no definitive proof of poisoning was ever revealed.

Taylor was buried in his home state of Kentucky. For a while, he rested peacefully. But over the next century, the possibility of poisoning continued to be debated. In 1991, the former President was exhumed for an autopsy. Kentucky’s chief medical examiner performed the procedure. He conclusively found Taylor had not been poisoned. In his report, the death doc wrote Taylor died of “a myriad of natural diseases which could have produced the symptoms of gastroenteritis.” Satisfied at the conclusion, 140 years later, lawmakers had Taylor reburied. Today, he rests in the National Cemetery that bears his name in Louisville.^[3]

7 John Tyler

John Tyler was America’s tenth President, serving before Polk. The Southerner died in 1862, during the middle of the Civil War. He had been elected to the insurgent Confederacy’s legislature in his final days. Thus, rebels held the Virginia native’s body on their side of the horrifically bloody war. This riled up men on both fronts of the conflict and altered how Tyler’s final resting place was designated. The write-up of Tyler’s passing in The New York Times was vicious, asserting he went “down to death amid the ruins of his native State.” The obituary continued: “[Tyler] himself was one of the architects of its ruin; and beneath that melancholy wreck his name will be buried, instead of being inscribed on the Capitol’s monumental marble, as a year ago he so much desired.”

That obituary writer would be proven correct. Tyler had requested a simple funeral at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virgina. That did not happen. Seeing an opportunity to promote rebel pride, Confederate President Jefferson Davis threw a “grand event” for Tyler. Davis even draped Tyler’s coffin in a Confederate flag. In response, Union lawmakers refused to acknowledge the former president’s resting place. Today, Tyler is still interred in Richmond. The old bitterness has carried on, too. According to cemetery officials, he is still the only former president whose resting place is not recognized in Washington.^[4]

6 Abraham Lincoln

After Abraham Lincoln’s 1865 assassination, his body was taken by train around the country. Millions of Americans mourned their murdered leader. The body was embalmed for the trip—a relatively new procedure at the time. It hadn’t been perfected yet, though. The 19-day rail journey required morticians to travel with Lincoln’s corpse and re-embalm it at every stop. However, the experts were unable to prevent the corpse’s ultimate decay. When the train stopped in New York, a reporter wrote: “It will not be possible, despite the effection of the embalming, to continue much longer the exhibition, as the constant shaking of the body aided by the exposure to the air, and the increasing of dust, has already undone much of the… workmanship.” Thankfully, after three weeks, Lincoln was finally laid to rest in an Illinois tomb.

A decade later, in 1876, a group of criminals devised a plan to steal Lincoln’s remains and hold them for ransom. There were no guards at the late president’s tomb, and the marble sarcophagus serving as his resting place had only been lightly sealed. Unbeknownst to the group, they revealed their scheme to a man who was a government informant. He told the Secret Service, and on the day the crew went to the tomb, officers were waiting. Following that near-theft, Lincoln’s remains were secretly buried in the vault’s basement. In 1901, he was disinterred once more and reburied inside a steel cage under ten feet of concrete.^[5]

5 Warren G. Harding

Warren G. Harding suddenly died at a San Francisco hotel in 1923. At the time, he was in the midst of a nationwide speaking tour. He’d also recently suffered food poisoning. But nobody expected him to pass without warning. His wife, Florence, was adamant about the aftermath: no autopsy and immediate embalming. Harding’s doctors were furious. They wanted to know what had suddenly killed the sitting President. One frustrated medical professional even wrote: “We shall never know exactly the immediate cause of President Harding’s death since every effort that was made to secure an autopsy met with complete and final refusal.” The grieving widow was unmoved, though, and her late husband was buried.

For a while, the public blamed Harding’s doctors for his death. But a few years later, the truth started to come out. In 1928, a woman named Nan Britton wrote a tell-all book about an alleged affair she had with Harding. And in 1930, a former administration staffer wrote a book alleging Florence poisoned her husband after learning of the infidelity. Then, almost a century later, Britton’s descendants wanted answers about their lineage. Ancestry documentation linked them to Harding, and they took the late president’s offspring to court over it. Before Harding’s body could be exhumed for DNA proof, though, his progeny relented. They admitted Harding did indeed have an affair with Britton that produced a child.^[6]

4 Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt was one of America’s greatest presidents. He saw the country through a bit more than three terms spanning much of the Great Depression and World War II. When he died in 1945, he had been very sick for a very long time. Still, his death was not expected. Roosevelt had been at one of his vacation homes with an alleged mistress when he perished. He told her he felt “a terrific pain in the back of my head” and passed out. Three hours later, he was dead. But while officials knew the importance of embalming quickly after death, their response was slow. An undertaker wasn’t contacted until four hours after the president’s death. All the while, aides waited on Eleanor Roosevelt to arrive as the next of kin.

Nine hours later, the embalming process finally began. The undertaker, F. Haden Snoderly, recorded a detailed 15-page memo about the significant issues he faced at that point. “Rigor mortis had set in,” he wrote, and Roosevelt’s abdomen had been “noticeably distended” by the time embalming began. Worse still, FDR’s “arteries were sclerotic,” which meant it was nearly impossible for Snoderly to get embalming fluid into the great man’s veins. The process was so difficult that accusations later appeared in books that Roosevelt had been poisoned and his body had turned black upon death. Those claims were false, but rumors persisted. As for FDR’s afterlife, the president wanted to keep things simple. He wrote out a very detailed set of instructions demanding a bare-bones coffin, a low-key funeral, and no lying in state.^[7]

3 John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy’s body rests in the Arlington National Cemetery. His brain, however, is missing. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. During the autopsy, his brain was placed in “a stainless-steel container with a screw-top lid.” Secret Service agents stored it in a secured file cabinet for safekeeping. From there, it was later brought to a “secure room” within the National Archives. But then something horrible happened. Three years after Kennedy’s death, officials discovered the late President’s brain had vanished. But nobody knew when or how it had been removed from the National Archives.

Author James Swanson reported on the macabre caper in the book End Of Days, writing: “the brain, the tissue slides, and other autopsy materials were missing—and they have never been seen since.” There is no shortage of conspiracy theories focused on Kennedy’s death, but his missing brain has only added to the lore. Swanson played right into it with his own theory too. The author claimed JFK’s brother Robert F. Kennedy was the one who swiped the organ. “My conclusion is that Robert Kennedy did take his brother’s brain—not to conceal evidence of a conspiracy but perhaps to conceal evidence of the true extent of President Kennedy’s illnesses,” Swanson wrote, “or perhaps to conceal evidence of the number of medications that President Kennedy was taking.”^[8]

2 Tassos Papadopoulos

Tassos Papadopoulos, the former President of Cyprus, succumbed to lung cancer in 2008. Papadopoulos had been a political hero in the island nation. After his death, his body was interred in a cemetery in the city of Nicosia. But on the day before the first anniversary of his passing, the remains were stolen. On the morning of December 11, 2009, one of Papadopoulos’s former bodyguards went to the gravesite to light a candle of remembrance. It had rained hard the night before. When the mourning man arrived, he found an empty hole and a pile of dirt where the grave had been. The shocked man immediately called the police.

Officials were baffled by the heist. For weeks, they failed to determine any suspects. Then, three months later, an anonymous tip led police to a different cemetery in Nicosia. There, they found Papadopoulos’s body reburied in another grave. The tip gave investigators a lead, too. It turned out the late president’s body had been dug up by a man seeking leverage to ask for his brother’s release from prison. The scheme came apart after another accomplice called Papadopolous’s family and asked for money instead. The grave robbers were caught and quickly punished. Each man received less than two years in jail for the crime. Thankfully, Papadopoulos was reburied peacefully.^[9]

1 José Eduardo dos Santos

When José Eduardo dos Santos died in early July 2022, it kicked off a series of tense exchanges. Dos Santos had ruled over Angola for decades after taking power in 1979. During that time, his regime oversaw a brutal civil war. He died in Spain, thousands of miles away from his political opponents. But the geography and timing were both tough: Angola was on the eve of an already-tense election campaign when dos Santos succumbed in Barcelona.

His daughter openly claimed foul play had felled the 79-year-old man. She demanded an autopsy in Spain to determine his cause of death. The autopsy was performed, but the evidence of misdeed was not there. Certain of an unsuspicious death, a Spanish judge ruled weeks later that dos Santos was not the victim of foul play. The judge also ordered dos Santos’s body be released to his widow, Ana Paula, and not his children. The grieving wife flew it back to his homeland days before the August elections.

The current Angolan government protested that choice but eventually allowed it. Longtime supporters met the late president’s casket at the airport in Luanda and mourned as it traveled through the city. Finally, in August, dos Santos was laid to rest in the capital “after a long waiting period.”^[10]

Tobacco companies get a bad rap, presumably because they make profits by giving people all sorts of cancer. This article probably isn’t going to help their case, since we’re talking about nothing but the horrible depths they’ve sunk to keep cancer profitable, but it sure is interesting.

10. Free Cigarettes For Soldiers

Smoking and the military have such a close relationship, the subject has its own Wikipedia page. Soldiers love themselves some tobacco-based produce. But have you ever wondered why? Well, it may have something to do with the fact that tobacco companies long ago realized that the military represented a huge potential market, full of highly-stressed individuals with many hours of downtime.

Realizing this, some tobacco companies lobbied to have cigarettes made a standard part of a soldier’s rations, which said tobacco companies gladly provided for free. Though this may seem nice on the surface, the move was an incredibly shrewd one since, although they did give away a lot of their stock for free, they ensured that soldiers would be hooked and buying their brand, long after they left the military.

9. Suppressing The World Health Organization

The World Health Organization is kind of a big deal when it comes to matters of world health. Obviously. The WHO is incredibly powerful and respected, and able to affect change on an almost-global scale.

And tobacco companies couldn’t care less about any of that jazz. In secret documents leaked to the WHO, it was revealed that several massive tobacco companies have been undermining the efforts of the WHO for years. The range and scope of the tactics used is pretty staggering, but in a nutshell, tobacco companies threw money at things that threatened their profits until they went away. The things they wanted to go away, by the by, were the people trying to cure cancer, which makes them the exact opposite of Bill Gates.

8. Trying To Take Down China

It’s a pretty safe assumption that China will eventually run the world; sorry, Beyonce. However, standing up to the ever-present Chinese menace is a lone hero: big tobacco companies. As reported by Reuters, tobacco companies in China have deliberately resisted raising their prices, and even infiltrated anti-smoking groups, to ensure that Chinese citizens remain hooked and in turn get all of the cancer.

If that’s not evil enough for you, they’ve also refused to put health warning on their packs. Then again, if people don’t realize that the things that taste like kissing an old person’s couch are bad for you, they probably don’t know how to read anyway. Thanks for giving us a fighting chance, tobacco!

7. Paying Scientists To Play Down The Link Between Smoking And Alzheimer’s

The list of diseases and physical maladies that smoking helps cause is so long, the physical exertion of writing them all down would give us early-onset arthritis, and who wants that? Suffice to say, it’s real real long.

However, one disease that has constantly emerged in the papers is Alzheimer’s. And yet, every now and again, a paper would emerge that suggested that smoking was somehow beneficial to people suffering from the condition. When someone actually investigated this claim, they found that every single person or scientist that had made such a claim had undisclosed links to the tobacco industry. Because of course they did.

6. Making Smoking Fashionable

Smoking is cool and everyone knows it, because there’s nothing cooler than having erectile dysfunction and smelly eyebrows. Back in the heyday of smoking, Lucky Strike Cigarettes noticed that sales of their brand were lagging. So they hired one Edward Bernays to help them. Bernays noticed that Lucky Strike’s packaging was an incredibly garish green color. Realizing that people are largely idiots, he concluded that the ugly color was the reason people weren’t smoking Luckies. When Lucky Strike refused to change their packaging, Bernays decided that he’d simply make green fashionable.

Which he did, by throwing a green-themed ball. When all the biggest movers and shakers of the day were pictured wearing green, sales of Lucky Strike brand cigarettes shot up, simply because green was now awesome, because pretty people were dressed in green one night. Again, people are idiots.

5. Trying To Defraud The Government Of A Billion Dollars

Though smoking arguably causes the government untold billions in healthcare costs, it also makes it a fair chunk of change in taxes, which pay for things like roads, hospitals and policemen. Then again, it also probably pays for the things that cure all the people dying of cancer because of smoking, but we should probably digress before our heads begin to hurt.

Over in Canada, a former tobacco executive, Stan Smith, was caught red-handed conspiring to smuggle millions of cigarettes, the estimated tax on which would have been in excess of a billion dollars. Don’t worry though, because Mr Smith definitely got his just deserts, by which we mean he sold out all of his co-workers, and got off scot-free. Justice!

4. Targeting Children, Then Denying It

The argument about whether tobacco companies target children has always been hotly contested, by which we mean tobacco companies have been shady as hell about it, while hiding behind a constant shield of highly-paid lawyers.

For example, it was constantly argued that Joe Camel (a spokescamel for Camel Cigarettes) was aimed at children. Though Camel Cigarettes naturally denied the claim, critics countered with the fact that Mr. Camel was equally as recognizable to children as Mickey Mouse, and that he rode a skateboard. Camel responded by telling the critics to shut the hell up. Because that’s how you win an argument.

3. Convincing Women To Smoke, For Feminism

Back in the early days of smoking, the market was almost entirely limited to men. However, this wasn’t an ideal situation for tobacco companies, as their potential consumer base was effectively cut in half. They needed a hero, they needed a cowboy. They needed Edward Bernays. Again.

Bernays quickly got on the case, by leaking a story to the press that, during a parade, some women would be lighting “torches of freedom,” to pave the way for female equality. What he didn’t tell them was that said women were stooges, paid by a tobacco company to smoke in public. When the images of said women hit the papers, millions of women were exposed to the message that, in order for them to be equal to men, they had to smoke. So they did, because advertising totally works, if you’re willing to sell your soul to Satan.

2. Supporting Human Rights Abuse

With all the damage and death that smoking causes, how they’re made is oftentimes ignored. However, one human rights group decided to look into how British American Tobacco’s cigarettes were made, and found that they directly profited the brutal military dictatorship in Burma.

BAT countered the claims, by stating that their factory represented valuable jobs to the Burmese people, to which human rights groups responded by saying that BAT were only paying said workers 17 pence (25 cents) a day, or a third of what other comparable jobs in the area were paying. BAT quickly bowed out, and withdrew from the country.

1. Refusing To Inform People About How Dangerous Smoking Is

Nowadays, it’s virtually a universally-accepted fact that smoking is bad for your health. However, saying your product kills people isn’t a savvy business move, which is why a number of tobacco companies simply downplayed the hell out of, or outright lied about, exactly how dangerous their products were.

For example, they massively downplayed the dangers of “low-tar” cigarettes, advertising them as less dangerous than their full-tar (read: manly) cigarettes. Turns out, this was a complete and utter lie; saying low-tar cigarettes are less dangerous than full-tar ones, is like saying a shotgun blast to the chest is less harmful than one to the face.

When the government demanded that such companies issue full and frank public apologies at their own expense, Big Tobacco fought the decision so hard, that the first time you probably heard about it was right now, when we mentioned it in this article.