Didn’t your parents tell you that you shouldn’t believe anything you read or anybody you speak to on the internet? And didn’t your teachers used to say that Wikipedia wasn’t a reliable source for research papers? The ultimate irony of this is that many of your parents have perhaps since fallen down the rabbit hole of credulously taking everything they read online at face value. Oops! And online resources like Wikipedia have gotten pretty darn good at fact-checking and all that.

But no matter how good certain parts of the internet may be (and how bad your parents might be at parsing information), there are a million things the internet insists are true that just… aren’t. In this list today, we’ll cover ten of those so-called “facts” that are actually completely phony. No matter how many people online parrot these tidbits—and no matter how long they keep sticking around—they’re still not true. Sorry. But at least now you know!

Related: Top 10 Unsolved Internet Mysteries

10 Go to Sleep!

There has been a rumor going around the internet for quite a while now that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has supposedly approved a dart gun that puts children to sleep. As the rumor goes, the gun works as a pretty simple tranquilizer. You aim it at your un-sleeping child, you pull the trigger, and a dart shoots into their neck and immediately puts them to sleep. If you’re a parent, and you remember those endless nights back when your kids were younger when they wouldn’t go to sleep, that certainly sounds like a fun and useful solution, doesn’t it?

But it’s also absolutely insane. The optics alone make it so that the FDA would never approve a dart gun that would allow parents to hunt down their children and get them to bed for the night. Sadly, for those overtired parents among us who are sick of reading books and praying their kids finally doze off, this rumor is completely phony. That said, we do have one possible solution here: having Samuel L. Jackson read Go the F**k to Sleep to your kids instead. Perhaps that would scare them straight and knock them out cold!^[1]

9 Er, No, Stay Awake!

Back in 2017, a news website called the “World Daily News Report” published a story about a morgue worker in Beaumont, Texas, who supposedly got incinerated by his colleagues after he fell asleep on the job. They mistakenly misrecognized his nap as that of a dead body ready to be burned up into ashes, so they threw him in the fire and blazed him away.

“According to the Beaumont Police Department, 48-year-old Henri Paul Johnson decided to take a nap on a stretcher after working for sixteen hours straight,” the report stated. “While he was sleeping, another employee mistook him for the corpse of a 52-year-old car accident victim and carried him to the crematory. Before anyone could notice the mistake, he had already been exposed to temperatures ranging between 1400 to 1800 degrees Fahrenheit and reduced to ashes.”

Sounds like an awful way to die, right? Well, it certainly would be… if it were true. According to online fact-checkers, that story is completely false, and the “World News Daily Report” isn’t exactly the most trustworthy source out there. Nevertheless, the story still has legs. Even today, despite being thoroughly debunked, it keeps making its way around social media. The moral here is to never nap on the job!^[2]

8 Twinkie Time

Undoubtedly, you’ve all heard this long-standing internet rumor: that Twinkies last forever. Some bloggers, forum hoppers, and social media users have claimed that the magic number is actually seven years of shelf life. Others have even taken it a step further online and claimed (for years and years now!) that Twinkies, like cockroaches, could survive a nuclear apocalypse. We’re not sure if cockroaches can really survive that level of devastation, but we know for a fact that Twinkies cannot. The delicious little convenience store snacks won’t last forever. They won’t last years. They won’t even last months!

Officially, the shelf life of the mass-produced baked treat is just 25 days. That’s it! If a Twinkie goes on the shelf at a 7-Eleven or somewhere else around the world, and it doesn’t sell in the first three(ish) weeks, it’s technically supposed to be yanked from the store and tossed in the trash. As it’s been determined, Twinkies are no good to eat more than 25 days after production.

So much for all those claims about them lasting forever, right? They couldn’t even make it a month! Yet, for some reason, the internet just can’t stop viewing Twinkies as some eternal being. Maybe it’s all the highly processed crap that makes up their delicious ingredient list.^[3]

7 Reject THIS!

It’s always been tough to get into college—especially at the best colleges in the country, like North Carolina’s esteemed Duke University. So it made sense that in 2015, a Tumblr post started going around that claimed to be from a high school senior who’d been rejected by Duke. As the story went, a girl named Siobhan O’Dell had applied for admission at Duke. Sadly, their admissions officers rejected her application. Apparently upset at Duke’s rejection letter sent her way, O’Dell fired off a rejection letter in return. That’s right! She supposedly rejected their rejection!

Things got even funnier when Duke (allegedly) came right back over the top and rejected her rejection of their rejection with yet ANOTHER rejection letter. Confused yet? Don’t worry, because we are, too. And we’re also relieved because we don’t need to track this rejection rumor any deeper than that. Because it never happened! O’Dell’s “story” is totally made up, and the Tumblr post that kicked it all off is 100% phony. It’s pretty darn funny to think about, though. You can’t reject us if we reject you first!^[4]

6 Really Milking It…

Do you have any idea why chocolate milk is brown? If you’ve been on the internet for any time across the last, oh, 25 or so years, you’d know the “answer” to that question is one of two options. Some say that chocolate milk contains cow’s blood, and it was rejected as regular milk and used for the “chocolate” variety after milk companies figured out how to sweeten it up and make it taste like chocolate. Other internet theories are even more hilarious in claiming that chocolate milk only comes from brown cows. At least that one is funny, as opposed to the (very disturbing) first claim.

But neither one of ’em is true! We hope you know that by now, but just in case you don’t, we will lay it all out there now. Chocolate milk is the product of (completely normal, blood-free) cow’s milk combined with real, actual chocolate. What a concept, right? For some reason, the internet has never believed this. And there are still people online who insist the whole chocolate milk industry has come about because of cow’s blood… or brown cows. They’re dead wrong, but they’ve been parroting that line for so long now that at least they’re consistent in their wrongness.^[5]

5 Flu-Like Symptoms

The idea that the flu shot is supposedly filled with the actual flu is nearly as old as dealing with the flu itself. For years now, we’ve all heard that story: that when you go to get the flu shot, in order to inoculate yourself from the flu in future months during the worst of its season, you get jabbed with a very small amount of the actual flu. That’s why you (supposedly) often get sick in the few days after the flu shot. But here’s the thing: it’s totally phony. In fact, the poor CDC has been yelling from the rooftops that it’s a total myth for years. Yet the internet just keeps on believing it!

In reality, the injected flu vaccine contains a strain of an inactivated flu virus that is used to prepare your immune system to fight the actual flu if and when it comes around every winter. The inactivated virus doesn’t give you the flu. It can’t! You simply can react in a slightly feverish or achy way because your immune system is being tasked with preparing itself to do battle against the actual, scary flu. That’s a totally normal response. Give it a day or two of light living, and you’ll be back to normal. Without the flu. But armed to fight it!^[6]

4 Cadbury Controversy

There’s no question that Cadbury’s chocolate treats are very, very delicious. But are they so delicious that they are fatal? That’s the claim that’s been floating around online for about a year now. Well, to be more specific, the actual claim is very disturbing: A Cadbury employee was supposedly arrested for adding his HIV-infected blood to the company’s chocolates. No, seriously. Who comes up with these things?!

A rumor circulated on social media over the last 12 months that this HIV-positive employee supposedly decided to try to infect possibly millions of people with his virus-addled blood. But that claim is completely false. No Cadbury employee was ever arrested for doing that, and there’s never been any indication that someone even attempted something like that. So, you can rest assured that any rumor about “HIV-infected blood” in Cadbury eggs (or its other chocolates) is an insane and mind-blowing lie.

By the way, those reading this who have been online for a while by now will recognize that this is not the first time a rumor like this has surfaced. Back in the day, people claimed that the same thing was going on with Pepsi’s products. And after that rumor ran its course, internet denizens tried to sell the same saga about Mango Frooti. Maybe we’ll all finally learn that this bloodlust is a bunch of crap. Or maybe we’ll be destined to repeat the rumor with yet another new product in another few years…^[7]

3 Rooted in Rumor

Root canals are definitely one of the least fun and exciting things that you can experience. But are they so bad that they cause terminal cancer? There’s been a rumor flying around on the internet for a few years now that people who get root canals have an insanely increased chance of falling victim to terminal cancer. That’s not exactly a pleasant rumor to read! After all, isn’t it always better to make sure your teeth and mouth are healthy? Yikes!

Thankfully, the internet got this one completely and totally wrong. There is absolutely no connection between root canals and terminal cancer. You are not at a higher rate of risk for getting cancer just because you got a root canal. And taken a step further, people who take care of their teeth actually tend to live much longer and have significantly better health outcomes in general than people who look the other way when it comes to brushing, flossing, mouthwash, and, yes, even root canals. Take care of your teeth, people! Let this weird and unsettling internet rumor die.^[8]

2 Spider Stupidity

Here’s a story that predates the internet, if you can believe it—but it’s been spread endlessly by online forums and social media, nevertheless. As this myth goes, back in the 1950s, a woman was wearing a huge bouffant hairstyle… as was the trend at the time. It was a lot of work to get it all dressed and up and perfect. So much work, in fact, that she flat-out refused to let it come back down and restart the work process all over again the next day. So she left it up. She never combed it out, she never washed it out, and she fell asleep with it every night.

Until she found that a spider had taken up residence in her hair one day. Uh-oh! The bouffant stayed up for so long and got so crusty that cobwebs eventually began to form. The spider made her hair its home and spent a life inside there. At some point, the myth claims that the spider gave birth to a baby spider, which then supposedly climbed down from the hair and bit the woman in her sleep. That bite, goes the story, was fatal. And there’s the lesson in this wild urban legend: always wash out your bouffant.

But if you couldn’t tell already based on the theme of this entire post, the spider story is completely phony. There’s never been any incident (on the record, at least) where a woman’s bouffant became home to a spider. And while certain bites from certain spiders can be fatal, nobody has ever been bitten and killed in this context.

The crazy thing is that this rumor has been around for a very, very long time. In the ’50s, it was the bouffant. In the ’60s, it centered on unkempt hippie hair. And in the ’90s, unwashed dreadlocks were the supposed culprit. Through it all, the internet keeps spreading it around. Even though it’s as phony as can be!^[9]

1 Spider Gum

Who doesn’t love Bubble Yum? If you were a kid in the ’70s or ’80s, you probably distinctly remember that first time (or those first few times) that you chomped down on a tasty piece of Bubble Yum. It was practically a religious experience back then! Kids today will never know what that was like. However, even back then (and certainly after the internet came around), Bubble Yum was the subject of a very disturbing rumor. And it, like the bouffant brouhaha, was also about spiders.

As the story went, Bubble Yum was supposedly made of spider eggs, or maybe spider legs, or possibly even spider webs. (Rumors flying around claimed all kinds of different sources, but they all had to do with spiders.) Allegedly.) Before the internet, it was a pretty annoying rumor. After the internet, it blew up and went viral again, and again, and again.

Things got so bad, in fact, that the company that produces Bubble Yum actually spent more than $100,000 in legal fees trying to battle the rumor. It was all in vain. The internet is wrong a lot, as we’ve seen, but one thing is for certain: it just doesn’t quit.^[10]

Throughout history, the world—particularly the the United States—has seen its fair share of conspiracy theories come and go. From reptilians disguised as humans to chemtrails, it’s fair to say that most of these theories are entirely absurd.

From time to time, though, a conspiracy theory that many thought to be ridiculous is shown, in fact, to be correct. In such cases, the truth can prove to be much more terrifying than fiction. The following are ten examples of such real-life conspiracies.

10 Project SUNSHINE

Despite its cheery name, Project SUNSHINE was by far one of the darkest conspiracies ever conceived and the most horrifying to be proven real. The project was commissioned by the US Atomic Energy Committee and the US Air Force.

Designed to investigate the effects of nuclear radiation on humans and the environment, Project SUNSHINE saw the US government harvest and use, often without the permission of parents, the body parts of dead children and babies. Younger children typically have higher amounts of strontium in their bones, meaning that their tissues are more susceptible to radiation damage. Thus, they made better test subjects for the project.^[1]

9 Project MKULTRA

MKULTRA is one of the better-known conspiracies. The general premise—now proven to be true—was that the US government was testing psychedelics and hallucinogenic drugs on unsuspecting American citizens and military personnel, in order to investigate the viability of behavior modification programs. Essentially, the US government was testing mind control techniques on its own populace and left many of its “participants” with trauma and even brain damage.

There are plenty of cases of MKULTRA subjects acting violently or dangerously, and the fact that the US government was so willing to endanger the lives of its own citizens without their consent is perhaps the most chilling part of the whole conspiracy.^[2]

8 The US Government’s Alcohol Poisoning

This conspiracy doesn’t have a particular name, but it’s one that has been the subject of much discussion over the years, particularly recently. During Prohibition, the US government tainted industrial alcohol with methanol—a commonly used antifreeze—in an attempt to curb the drinking of it. Reports differ on just how much methanol was added, though most agree that it wasn’t enough to be lethal and was intended more as a deterrent than a punishment.

On the other hand, it has also been reported that there were around 10,000 deaths during this period as a result of the poisoning, so perhaps the intention was darker than we think.^[3]

7 US Government Spying

In June 2013, intelligence contractor Edward Snowden released thousands of top-secret documents to various journalists, which detailed the sophisticated intelligence network the US, in conjunction with several other Western countries, had been using to spy on civilian populations around the world. Much of this spying was done through social networking companies; for instance, in 2016, US government agencies sent approximately 50,000 requests for user data to Facebook, roughly 28,000 to Google, and about 9,000 to Apple.

Perhaps the most disturbing part of this story is how the National Security Agency conducted multiple espionage operations on US-allied governments, such as Germany, Belgium, France, and Spain. Creepy stuff.^[4]

6 Gulf Of Tonkin Incident

On August 2, 1964, in the midst of the Vietnam War, the USS Maddox, on an intelligence mission along North Vietnam’s coast, allegedly fired upon and damaged several North Vietnamese torpedo boats that had been stalking it in the Gulf of Tonkin. The Maddox was also reportedly attacked by North Vietnamese vessels on August 4.

In 2005, an undated NSA publication was declassified, revealing that there was no attack on the Maddox on August 4.^[5]

Since the NSA’s disclosure, many have accused the US government of intentionally faking the incident to increase support for the US war in Vietnam and to justify further military action in the region. In fact, on August 10, the US congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, a bill that authorized President Johnson to do whatever was necessary to assist “any member or protocol state of the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty.”

This technique was also seen in the early 2000s, when the government administrations of President Bush of the US and Prime Minister Tony Blair of the UK asserted that the Iraqi government was actively constructing and stockpiling weapons of mass destruction, prompting the Iraq War. Later, US-led inspections found that Iraq had in fact not been stockpiling or producing WMDs to begin with.

5 The First Lady Who Ran The Country

In October 1919, President Woodrow Wilson suffered a stroke that rendered him incapable of governing. Some of us probably know that part. What you might not know, however, is that after his stroke, his wife, First Lady Edith Wilson, decided what matters were important enough to bring to Woodrow’s attention, essentially giving her the unofficial role of president until Warren Harding took over in 1921. Because Woodrow never technically resigned, the vice president at the time, Thomas Marshall, could not take over, and Wilson instead decided to allow his wife to govern for some time.^[6]

Perhaps the scariest thing about this whole story is that the US government didn’t inform the public of this. (The people only learned of Wilson’s stroke in February 1920, and even then, the full details weren’t known.) It’s events like these that are the framework of the relatively modern and widely believed Deep State conspiracy theory, which posits that there is an unknown party in the government, independent of changing administrations, that makes most of the decisions.

4 The US Government’s Weather Manipulation

In 1993, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the US military, and the University of Alaska created the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, otherwise known as HAARP. Since then, numerous conspiracy theories have sprung up surrounding the mysterious project, everything from satellites that can cause earthquakes to huge transmitters that can create tornadoes and tsunamis. However, what most people don’t know is that there actually was documented weather manipulation project during the Vietnam War—decades before the creation of HAARP.

Operation Popeye was an five-year project in which the US government used the age-old technique of cloud seeding to increase precipitation during the rainy seasons over North Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh Trail in order to disrupt the NVA’s moving of vehicles, weapons, and rations across the trail. The general idea of cloud seeding is to send an airborne object, typically an airplane, flying through a cloud while releasing small particulates that give water vapor something to cling to so that it can condense and become rain.^[7]

What’s scary about this is if the military has done it in the past (and given the length of the operation, it must have been at least partly successful), what’s to stop them from doing it again?

3 The Canadian Fruit Machine

Despite being one of the strongest proponents of the LGBT community today, Canada’s history isn’t as clean as one would think. In the 1960s, the Canadian government hired a university professor to create a “gaydar,” what it called the “Fruit Machine” at the time. The university professor, Frank Robert Wake of Carleton University, went about this by forcing subjects to look at same-sex erotic imagery while he measured pupil dilation, perspiration levels, and changes in pulse to gauge just how “fruity” they were.^[8]

The program was part of a long-term effort to remove homosexuals from positions of civil service. In the late 1960s, funding was cut off—but not before the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had collected files on over 9,000 suspected homosexuals.

2 The Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama is the designated spiritual leader of the Tibetan people. Those carrying the title are generally seen as embodying the tenets of Buddhism: inner peace, enlightenment, and virtuousness. However, CIA documents published by the State Department in 1998 indicated otherwise: For much of the 1960s and some of the 1970s, the current Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatzo, along with many other prominent Tibetan figures, were funneled millions of dollars by the CIA. This funding was part of a concerted effort by US intelligence to undermine Communist China, and global communist presence, by propping up Tibetan guerrillas in their fight against the communist state. According to the report, the CIA funded approximately 2,100 Tibetan guerrillas with $500,000 annually and gave the Dalai Lama himself an annual $180,000 subsidy.

The funding ended in the early 1970s, after President Nixon began to open up more to China in efforts to improve crumbling relations. The official CIA report stated that the purpose of the program was to “keep the political concept of an autonomous Tibet alive within Tibet and among foreign nations, principally India, and to build a capability for resistance against possible political developments inside Communist China.” The Dalai Lama wrote in his autobiography that he saw the cutting off of the funding as “a reflection of their anti-Communist policies rather than genuine support for the restoration of Tibetan independence.”^[9]

1 Operation Mockingbird

Operation Mockingbird was a 1950s program in which the CIA recruited and propped up various media organizations to influence public opinion. In April 1976, the Church Committee, a US senate task force, conducted an investigation into the CIA’s influence over both foreign and national news organizations and stated that the CIA maintained a huge global network that provided intel for the organization and “at times” attempted to influence opinion through the use of covert propaganda.^[10]

The damning report also stated that these same individuals gave the CIA direct access to a large number of “newspapers and periodicals, scores of press services and news agencies, radio and television stations, commercial book publishers, and other foreign media outlets” and claimed that approximately 50 of the CIA’s assets were individual American journalists or employees of US media organizations.

I’m a freelance writer and student who loves writing.

Our understanding of the past is in a constant state of flux—it is forever changing based on new clues and new ideas. Since a lot of historical writings aren’t especially reliable, we often end up dismissing ancient claims as mere stories. Occasionally, though, the opposite happens. Something that we presumed to be just a myth turns out to be true. Here are ten such cases of myths and legends that may well be grounded in fact.

10Sverris Saga

Between 1184 and 1202, Sverre Sigurdsson reigned as King of Norway. Despite being one of the nation’s most significant rulers from that time, most of our information about him comes from a single source: the Sverris Saga. This chronicle was written by abbot Karl Jonsson who was a contemporary of King Sverre and attended his court. While his account of Sverre’s reign seemed plausible, there was little evidence to corroborate it apart from minor references in some letters between Norwegian bishops and the Pope.

That changed recently when at least one portion of the saga was confirmed in remarkable detail. In 1196, Sverre engaged in civil war with a faction known as the Baglers who wanted to overthrow him. The following year, the Baglers sacked his Castle Sverresborg in Trondheim. They destroyed the walls, burned every building, seized all the valuables and, lastly, threw a man down the well and filled it with stones to ruin the water supply. Incredibly, archaeologists now believe they have found that man.

The site of the castle has been known for a while, but only recently have archaeologists discovered the location of the well. After some excavating, they found a skeleton. Recent carbon dating tests have shown that the skeleton is roughly 800 years old. This puts the Sverris Saga not only in the realm of the “firmly believable”, but also makes it unique, given how rare it is for centuries-old stories to be backed up by physical evidence.

9Bow & Arrow Wars

Quinhagak is a small town in Alaska with a population of less than 1,000. It became quite notable a few years ago when it proved to be an invaluable treasure trove of Yup’ik artifacts. The Yup’ik are a group of Eskimo people related to the Inuit who first settled in Alaska around 3,000 years ago. They inhabited the area around Quinhagak starting with the 14th century and recent archaeological discoveries show that they lived there continuously for at least three centuries.

The archaeological site called Nunalleq is actually located outside the town of Quinhagak and has already proven to be the biggest collection of pre-contact Yup’ik artifacts in the world, excellently preserved in permafrost. Thousands of items have been recovered but it seems that the bulk of the collection might already have been lost. Archaeologists are racing against the clock as the site is located along the coastline which is steadily eroding, washing away more artifacts with each passing day.

So far, the empirical evidence confirmed many tales of Yup’ik culture that have been passed down through oral tradition. Most notably, the evidence shows that the dig was once the site of a massacre in the mid 17th century described during a period of bloody inter-village battles known as the Bow & Arrow Wars. According to the legend, attackers burned the village and everyone in it, including the dogs. Anyone who survived the fire was shot with arrows and dismembered. Archaeologists found human and dog remains from that time with burn marks, as well as dismembered skeletons.

8Monster Waves

For hundreds of years, sailors shared stories of giant waves appearing out of nowhere, taking ships and their entire crews to their watery graves. Given how many legends are born out of a life at sea, this was also dismissed as another salty story. It actually wasn’t until 1995 that we had concrete evidence for the existence of these monster waves.

Today there can be no doubt. These giant waves, referred to as rogue waves, are real. Besides their massive size, rogue waves are characterized as unpredictable and spontaneous. While they are not the biggest waves in the world, they are unusually large for a given sea state and appear as a result of a combination of factors such as strong currents and high winds.

Rogue waves were confirmed on New Year’s Eve, 1995. A giant 25.6 m (84 ft) monster wave hit the Draupner platform in the North Sea off the coast of Norway. The Draupner wave became the first of its kind to be recorded by instruments, providing scientific backing to the anecdotal evidence collected over centuries.

Confirmation of the existence of rogue waves forced oceanographers to reconsider our understanding of the sea. Prior to this, they used a linear mathematical model to predict wave height. This resulted in a Gaussian curve that anticipated monster waves with extreme rarity such as once every 10,000 years. Now we know that is not the case and that rogue waves could have been behind many mysterious maritime disappearances that we must now re-evaluate.

7La Ciudad Blanca

La Ciudad Blanca (the White City) is a legendary city said to be hidden away somewhere in the Mosquitia region of Honduras. Similar to El Dorado, La Ciudad Blanca, also known as the City of the Monkey God, was said to hold untold riches and word of it first reached Europeans through the Spanish conquistadors.

Interest in La Ciudad Blanca was rekindled at the start of the 20th century when several people attested to its existence. Most notably, adventurer Theodore Morde claimed to have found the lost city in 1940. He never told anyone else of its alleged location and, just to add fuel to the conspiracy fire, he died of an alleged suicide under suspicious circumstances.

Decades later, archaeologists have found a pristine site that was once home to an as-yet-unidentified civilization. This site was first found in 2012 using state-of-the-art LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) technology and investigations of the dig started last year. Already dozens of artifacts have been excavated which have been dated between A.D. 1,000 and 1,400.

Other archaeologists have criticized the coverage of the discovery as being sensationalist. However, the team in charge has defended its findings, specifying that it never claimed the site to be La Ciudad Blanca or the lost city allegedly found by Morde. Indeed, it is looking more likely that there never was one single mystical city in the heart of the Honduran jungle, but many such sites throughout Mosquitia that point to something far more captivating—a lost pre-Columbian civilization.

6Pirate Booty

Legends of sunken pirate riches have excited treasure hunters for centuries and will undoubtedly continue to do so in the future. In the modern age, the most significant discovery happened in 1984 when we found the shipwreck of the “Whydah Gally” once captained by “Black Sam” Bellamy. Not only did we find concrete evidence of its identity, but also genuine pirate treasure consisting of over 100,000 pieces of gold.

In 1996 a private firm found the wreck of the infamous “Queen Anne’s Revenge” (QAR). Once helmed by the notorious Blackbeard, The Revenge was one of the most heavily-armed ships to prowl the seven seas. Salvaging it from the watery depths is a slow and ongoing process. Unlike the “Whydah Gally”, QAR didn’t have any treasure aboard and historians believe Blackbeard might have even sunk it on purpose.

In 2012, a wreck though to be the “Port-au-Prince” was found in Tongan waters. According to legend, King Ulukalala and his men massacred the crew and scuttled the vessel and most of its treasure after salvaging the iron. If this turns out to be true, it will confirm an important chapter of Tongan history.

The Holy Grail of piracy remains the treasure of Captain Kidd and last year people thought they might finally have found it. A wreck believed to be Kidd’s Adventure Galley was found along with a 50-kg (110 lbs) silver ingot. Unfortunately, it later turned out that the ingot was 95% lead lost during port construction.

5Ancient Water Cleaning Trick

You would think that modern technology and medicine would render any practices used thousands of years ago obsolete. Actually, ancient Egyptians might have used a trick to clean their water which would definitely come in handy today.

It involves using the seeds of the Moringa oleifera tree. Archaeological evidence suggests that Egyptian women used to rub the seeds against the insides of their clay water pots and this was supposed to keep their water clean and fresh. Fast forward a few thousand years and researchers at Penn State University proved that the ancient Egyptians were on the right track.

We’ve known about the purifying potential of moringa seeds for a while, but it wasn’t until last year that scientists figured out why. The seeds contain a positively-charged protein called Moringa Oleifera Cationic Protein (MOCP). It has the power to kill bacteria and to clump them together so they fall to the bottom of the container. Researchers even worked out that the seeds should be harvested when they’re mature during the rainy season for maximum potency.

The Egyptians didn’t figure it out completely and this method, if used at all, worked only temporary. As the organic matter from the seeds remains in the water, it can become a food source for surviving bacteria which means that the water doesn’t stay clean in storage. However, the same research team showed that a mixture of sand and seeds can be used as a filter to pass water through it, clean it and store it for later.

4Secret Underground Tunnels

There has long been talk of secret ancient tunnels hidden underneath the Mexican city of Puebla. Late last year, this popular urban legend became a reality—the tunnels were found by city officials while performing regular public works maintenance.

The discovery is still very recent and there are a lot of details still to be uncovered, but experts believe the tunnels to be approximately 500 years old, built around the time of the founding of the city in 1531. So far, four separate entrances have been found with tunnels stretching between some of Puebla’s oldest forts and churches. This points to the tunnels being used for defensive purposes against invading forces.

As one of the oldest Spanish colonial cities in South America, this isn’t the first discovery of its kind made in Puebla. Years ago, defensive trenches were found that dated back to the Franco-Mexican War of 1861.

Workers also found an old bridge that was completely buried after a flood hundreds of years ago. As for the tunnels, they were filled with mud and silt and work is still underway to excavate them. Once they are finished, city officials hope to turn the 500-year old tunnels into a tourist attraction. At the same time, they will continue their search for more passageways as they believe that dozens of other tunnels may still hide under the city of Puebla.

3Bloodthirsty Vikings

For centuries, Vikings have been considered bloodthirsty barbarians who pillaged towns all over the world. Legends spread of their cruelty which has earned them quite a fearsome reputation. However, in recent times there has been a movement to portray them in a gentler light.

Just as soon as this new idea arose, other scholars began to dismantle it by examining two new aspects of Viking life—slavery and human sacrifices.

New clues suggest that slavery played an important role in the Viking economy. One Arab geographer made mention of the Viking slave trade in A.D. 977. Other sources talk of Scandinavia being a hub for northern European slaves that extended into the Mediterranean and the Middle East.

Some historians believe that slavery was one of the primary motivations for their raids. The maritime nature of Vikings created a demand for wool for sails which shifted them towards a more agrarian society. Certain ancient great halls are now thought to have been plantations powered by slave labor.

Tales of Viking human sacrifices have long been debated. Nordic sagas mention Odin demanding sacrifices, but this was regarded as legend. Except that archaeologists found a sacrificial site at Trelleborg where children and animals were killed and thrown down a well with jewelry and tools. And Viking tombs were found to contain decapitated skeletons that were not kin to the other remains. This makes it likely that slaves were sacrificed when their masters died and buried with their bodies.

2Secret Pyramid Chamber

There are probably no burial sites on the planet that have spawned more legends than a pharaoh’s tomb. And when it comes to pharaohs, none are more famous than Tutankhamun. Which is why this all sounds like the plot of a new B-movie starring Nicolas Cage, but archaeologists genuinely believe they have found a secret chamber hidden away in the young pharaoh’s tomb.

As if that wasn’t enough, they believe the chamber holds the answer to one of ancient Egypt’s biggest mysteries—the location of the burial site of Queen Nefertiti. She ruled over Egypt during one of its most prosperous periods and helped her husband Akhenaten institute a new monotheistic religion that replaced the old gods with the sun god Aten. Her death and burial have been the subject of many debates among experts.

This new hypothesis about Tut’s tomb has been put forward by English Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves. He claims that thin cracks in the decorative paintings showed that there were more rooms behind the walls. He has found support from Egypt’s Minister of Antiquities who believes with near certainty that the tomb hides secret chambers. However, Reeves’ idea that one chamber might hold the mummy of Nefertiti has been met with skepticism.

There is no way that Reeves or anyone else would have been allowed to drill holes in the tomb’s wall to prove this idea, so the next best thing was to use ground-penetrating radar. Those results have proven controversial and have also divided experts.

1Carthaginian Child Sacrifices

For centuries, stories of Carthaginians sacrificing their children have been dismissed as propaganda disseminated by the Greeks and Romans. However, at the start of last century archaeologists began excavating Carthaginian sites and found cemeteries known as tophets. The cemeteries contained cremated children’s bones placed into urns and buried under tombstones. Up until recently, scholars asserted that these were the remains of beloved infants that died during or soon after birth. To be fair, there are still scholars who believe this.

Even so, researchers who claim the cemeteries served a more sinister purpose have presented compelling evidence in recent years. They point to inscriptions on tombstones of people being blessed by the gods. While certain urns contained animal bones which were undoubtedly offered as sacrifices to the gods, these were presented in the exact same way as the urns with human remains.

Supporters of the hypothesis also point to a statistical anomaly. While hundreds of these remains have been found, they are nowhere near enough given the high infant mortality of that time if tophets were really just cemeteries for departed children. Carthage was one of the biggest cities of ancient history, but these burials averaged out at 25 per year. While child sacrifice was uncommon in the ancient world, it wasn’t the unthinkable taboo that some historians try to portray using our modern standards. Some even think that the first Carthaginians left their original home in Phoenicia to be able to practice this unseemly religious custom.

Radu is into science and weird history. Share the knowledge on Twitter or check out his website.

The first English colony in America was abandoned without a word or a trace. When a ship arrived with supplies, they found it deserted with no signs of a struggle. Only one clue was left behind—the word “Croatoan” etched in a tree.

The story of the lost Roanoke Colony has lived on as one of the greatest American mysteries, but the disappearance is far from where the story begins. That story is full of some absolutely horrible atrocities; it’s also one that just might hold some strong clues about the colonists’ fate.

10 The Colonists Burned Down a Native Village Because Someone Stole A Cup

The Roanoke settlers weren’t good people. They viewed the natives as savages, and they treated them like savages, too.

From the moment the colony was established, they built bad blood with the people around them. Shortly before their fort was built, a colonist discovered that one of their silver cups had gone missing. They quickly became convinced that a native man had taken it—and they weren’t going to let him get away with it.

By English law, the penalty for theft was usually whipping, but English law didn’t apply for the natives. Instead, the Roanoke settlers burned every inch of the native man’s hometown to the ground, all because they’d lost a single cup.

9 The Natives Tried To Involve The Colonists In Their Wars

The colony was not a success; they were almost immediately hit by famine and started to starve. The only food they could grow was corn. They had to rely on the help of natives to stay alive.

A tribe called the Secotans gave them food—but they didn’t do it for free. They’d seen the Europeans’ weapons and technology and knew that whoever managed to team up with them would have a major advantage when the next tribal war broke out. The Secotan chief, Wingina, vied for the colonists’ sympathy. An enemy tribe, he told them, had invited some of his people to a peace talk and then massacred them during the feast. He wanted revenge.

The English didn’t want to get involved, so Wingina’s attitude changed. He stopped sharing food with the settlers and told them that he didn’t have enough to spare. Wingina told the colonists that it wasn’t his fault the colonists were starving to death. There was simple reason why: “Your Lorde God is not God.”

8 The Colonists Kidnapped And Ransomed Natives

With their crops dying, the colony resorted to some desperate measures to get food from the natives. The governor, a man named Ralph Lane, was famously cruel. He would regularly kidnap natives and hold them hostage—not because they’d done anything wrong, but because they were useful bartering chips.

The natives weren’t too happy with his approach. One of Lane’s hostages, a boy named Skiko, tried to make a break for it. He ran for freedom, but Lane caught him. He locked Skiko up, beat him horribly, and threatened to cut off his head.

After torture at Lane’s hands, Skiko let slip that the tribes were planning to rise up and attack Roanoke, and Wingina was organizing them. Lane would be the first to die.

7 The Colonists Murdered The Secotan Chief

Lane decided to strike first. He gathered together an armed group and raided Wingina’s camp in the night, slaughtering every person they could find. The Secoans were caught off guard, and the Roanoke settlers ripped through them easily.

Lane spotted Wingina and becokoned him to face him on the shore, man-to-man. Wingina obliged. He rushed at Lane—but was shot in the back by another man. For a moment, he laid still on the ground. The settlers thought he was dead. Then, realizing all was lost, Wingina got up and fled into the forest.

He didn’t get away. A man named Edward Nugent chased after him and emerged from the woods a few moments later, carrying Wingina’s severed head.

6 The Croatan Chief Helped The Colonists Slaughter His Own People

In time, Lane left the colony. He sailed back to England, leaving an artist named John White in charge. Lane’s reign of violence was over, but there were still many more bodies to come.

“Croatoan” wasn’t just a nonsense word; it referred to the Croatan, the only tribe that actually got along with the colony. Manteo, the Croatan chief, was the colony’s most valued guide and interpreter. He was so dedicated to the colony that he was even baptized as a Christian. When the Roanoke tribe (which the colony was named after) became hostile, White sent Manteo out to talk with them, hoping to smooth out some of the tensions that Lane had left.

Manteo returned and reported that the Roanoke tribe had killed 20 Englishmen over the past two years. White was livid. He organized a group of 25 men and ordered Manteo to lead them to the killers so they could get revenge.

Manteo did as he was told, but he accidentally led them to the wrong place. By mistake, he took them to a group of Croatans, living peacefully away from the main tribe, and led the English forces as they massacred his own people.

5 The First English Baby Was Born And Lost At Roanoke

The first English child born in America was born at Roanoke and was lost with the colony. Her name was Virginia Dare, and she was the grandchild of Governor John White.

Just nine days after her birth, though, White left. The colony was still starving and in hostile land. They were in desperate need of aid. If his granddaughter was going to survive, White would need help from the empire.

He brought Manteo with him. The two promised to return within three months, but they didn’t. England was at war with Spain, and the fighting kept White and Manteo from making the trip back. It took three years before they made it back to Roanoke—and by then, it was too late.

4 The Spanish Army Found The Colony

The Spanish Army had heard about Roanoke colony. However, instead of a small group of 118 people, they believed it was a powerful English military base. They were hunting for it, determined to destroy it.

Shortly after White left, the Spanish found it. They’d thought it was in the Chesapeake Bay, assuming that Roanoke Island was too small to contain the enormous army they’d imagined. On the way back from a failed search of the bay, however, a man named Vincente Gonzalez was hit by strong winds—and blown right to Roanoke Colony.

Gonzalez didn’t enter the colony itself, but he found clear proof it was there. He reported his discovery to Spain, pushing for a total invasion of Roanoke.

3 Nobody Actually Tried To Find The Lost Colony

When White returned, the colony was abandoned. White was sure, though, that the word “Croatoan” meant they were safe, hiding with the one tribe that didn’t want them dead.

White wanted to find his family. He convinced the captain to sail to Croatan, but a heavy storm hit, and their food started to run low. Instead, the ships went south to get fresh water, but once they’d restocked, White couldn’t get anyone to go back and help him find his family. White was sent on to Trinidad and then ultimately back to England. He never saw his family again.

Other people tried to look for the colonists. Sir Walter Raleigh sent out teams to find them, but every one turned back due to bad weather before starting a real search. Over in England, Raleigh was soon accused of treason, and the searches stopped.

The Spanish, too, tried to hunt the colonists down. They got word that they were living in the Chesapeake Bay and planned a full assault, but the plan was dropped. Nobody ever saw the colonists again.

2 Archaeological Evidence Indicates The Colonists Joined Neighboring Tribes

James White marked a tiny star on a map of Virginia, so well-concealed that it was only found recently. It marked where he believed his family had fled. It took until 2012 before anyone searched the area White had marked. The archaeologists who did found 16th-century English supplies that could only have belonged to the Roanoke colonists.

There was English pottery, flintlocks, and tools that the colonists seem to have taken with them as they fled to the safety of a friendly tribe. There’s also evidence that they didn’t stay put. Other 16th-century English artifacts have been found at the homes of various tribes on every side of the old settlement.

It seems that the colonists settled into native life. In 1701, a man named John Lawson visited the Croatan. Be then, they had light hair, blue eyes, and spoke fluent English. There was little doubt, he wrote, that the people he saw were the descendants of the lost colony.

1 Pocahontas’s Father Claimed He Killed The Colonists

Fleeing to neighboring tribes might not have been enough to keep the colonists alive. A few years after they disappeared, John Smith landed in the Chesapeake Bay. There, he met Chief Powhatan—best known today as the father of Pocahontas—and learned the fate of the Roanoke colony.

Powhatan’s priests had told him that a great empire would rise from the Chesapeake Bay, and he sent his men to slaughter the tribe living there. There among then, Powhatan said, were a group of white faces, living among a native tribe. The strange sight of white faces among the tribe didn’t stop Powhatan. He murdered every one of the Roanoke colonists he found.

It’s possible that some of the colonists escaped Powhatan’s onslaught, but no survivors were found. For most, the end likely came shortly after they’d finally learned how to live in peace with their neighbors—at the hands of a warlord who hadn’t.

Urban legends—from little elementary kids telling each other that swallowing a watermelon seed will make a watermelon grow in your stomach from teens daring each other to walk up to the “murder house” of the neighborhood—every one of us has heard them. The thing that makes urban legends so interesting is that they’re spread with the belief that they’re true. Urban legends come to be because of mysterious sightings, real experiences of people, and true historical events, so it makes them much more believable than simple creepypastas and scary stories. Most of them, however, are either completely untrue, remain unconfirmed, or extremely exaggerated. Only a small minority of urban legends have been confirmed as real.

10 The “Maine Hermit,” Christopher Knight

For years, residents of North Pond, Maine noticed the constant disappearance of items in their homes. Instead of watches and wallets, however, it was simple things like peanut butter, or apples. Considering the inconsequential nature of the items, the residents didn’t think much. Not until the break ins happened again, and again, and again—1000s times in fact.^[1] Finally, the police were able to catch and arrest the culprit—the “Maine Hermit,” Christopher Knight. When Christopher Knight was only 20 years old, he purposely stranded himself in the woods and lived without any other human contact for 27 years. He stole what he needed to survive, but avoided all other people. In the end, residents of North Pond finally got the answer to the mystery of their missing items.

9 The Boogeyman of New York, Cropsey

The story of Cropsey was once just a Staten Island urban legend kids told to scare each other. As it was said, Cropsey was an escaped mental patient with a hook for a hand that kidnapped children and murdered them in the underground abandoned tunnels of the Seaview Hospital. Parents would even use the story to scare their kids into keeping curfew or going to bed. In the ’80s, however, the urban legend manifested in real life. A bus full of children was hijacked by Cropsey, and five other children went missing at his hands. One poor child’s body was found in a shallow grave near the Willowbrook State School.^[2] Willowbrook State School, if you don’t recognize the name, was the subject of a national scandal in the 70s—children at the school were exposed to sexual abuse, corporal punishment, unsanitary conditions, overcrowding, and even unethical medical experiments. Our boy, Cropsey, turned out to be Andre Rand, the janitor at the school. Rand was convicted for kidnapping and lives in prison to this day.

8 Real Corpse Used as Carnival Prop

Real or not, corpses tend to give many of us the creeps. So to think that the haunted house zombie or the carnival mannequin beside you was more than just a prop? It’s the stuff of nightmares. In 1976, a film crew went to Pike Amusement Park in Long Beach, California for filming. While filming on one of the “spooky rides” of the park, a crew member reached for a hanged mannequin’s arm, which broke off. Upon examining the dismembered limb however, the worker saw real skin and bone. Turns out, that “mannequin” was no prop. In fact, it was the mummified corpse of outlaw and train robber, Elmer McCurdy. He was killed in a shootout after trying to evade the police. He was taken to a funeral and embalmed, but no one claimed the body, so the undertaker used him for display—people could see the body for dropping a nickel into the corpse’s mouth.^[3] A carnie eventually showed up a claimed to be a relative wanting to “lay the body to rest.” From then on, McCurdy’s corpse was used as a carnival attractions for decades. Eventually, the story of outlaw Elmer McCurdy was lost and the corpse was assumed to be fake. When the TV crew finally discovered the old boy he was laid to rest in Oklahoma. A layer of concrete covers the casket to prevent him from becoming a traveling attraction again.

7 Virginia “Bunny Man” Threatens Trespassers with axe

Many towns have their own share of local scary stories and haunted locations, and Virginia’s Fairfax County was no different. For decades, kids told each other the story of the “Bunny Man,” a threatening man in a bunny suit with an axe. Supposedly, Bunny Man was responsible for the murder of a couple children as well as some disappearances and the scattered presence of mutilated animal carcasses around the county. In truth, the story isn’t quite so wild. In October of 1970, the Washington Post published an article: “Man in Bunny Suit Sought in Fairfax,” after a couple had a hatchet thrown into their car windshield by a man in a bunny suit. The man threatened the couple for “trespassing” and then disappeared in the woods. Only a week later, the same event occurred once again with a separate couple.^[4] Though not quite as extravagant as murder, the bunny man was actually a very real man with an axe and everything.

6 Criminal Big Nose George’s Body was used to make Shoes

It’s not uncommon in horror movies for things made of skin, or bones, or something else more morbid. There was a case, however, where it was more than just a horror trope. George Parrot, or “Big Nose George,” was an ol’ wild west criminal. He stole horses, robbed stagecoaches and trains, and even murdered the local sheriff and detective.^[5] He did, at least, until he got caught. He was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death by hanging. After the deed was done, no one came forward to claim the body. Two doctors present at the time asked to have the body for medical study. Though one of the doctors did study his brain, George’s corpse was mainly used for… not medical purposes. In fact, the cadaver was skinned and made into shoes and part of the skull was given as a gift to a medical protege. The rest of the body was buried in a whiskey barrel. The shoes still exist today and can be viewed at the Carbon County Museum in Rawlins, Wyoming.

5 Mysterious “Charlie No-Face” Confirmed a Considerate Pennsylvania Resident

Many people near Pittsburg know the story of Charlie No-Face (also called the Green Man). Depending on who you asked, he was a ghost, a monster, or a simple factory worked who had been horribly disfigured as a child and lost his face. This Beaver County bogeyman was more than just a legend, however. He was a real man and resident of Big Beaver, Pennsylvania. His real name was Raymond Robinson and was a normal boy—up until the accident. He was burned by high voltage when trying to climb an inoperative trolley line and, though he survived, he lost his eyes and nose and his lips and ears were horribly disfigured. Wanting to get some fresh air, but knowing his appearance would frighten others, Robinson began walking the roads at night. Word spread to local residents and people began to drive down to try to see him. Some even brought cigarettes and beer.^[6] Eventually, the story of Charlie No-Face was passed on until it became an unrecognizable ghost story, but Charlie was really just a kindly victim of a tragic accident.

4 Missing Woman’s Corpse Found in Hotel’s Water Tank

Have you ever gotten a glass of tap water and thought it tasted a bit funny? Well, this exact thing happened to guests of LA’s Cecil Hotel but with a gruesome twist. Elisa Lam was a 21-year-old Canadian tourist visiting LA. After Jan 26, 2013, however, she went missing. For 2 weeks her whereabouts were unknown. Unknown, that is, until a maintenance man went to check the Cecil Hotel water tank because of “water pressure issues”.^[7] Inside one of the four large tanks he found Lam’s naked corpse. Surveillance from the night of her disappearance showed her acting strangely: pressing all the elevator buttons or getting in and out of cars. The police deemed the incident a tragic accident, and health officials assured hotel guests that the water was not contaminated because of the body. Even so, guests were understandably upset.

3 Mysterious Gas Mask Man of Switzerland, “Le Loyon” photographed

Cryptids are a common thing. Some of them are extremely famous, like Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster. Others like mothman or thunderbird are uncommon but still far reaching. Some, like our aforementioned Maine Hermit or Cropsey, are only known locally. Le Loyon is most similar to the latter two. For about a decade, residents of Maule, Switzerland have experienced sightings of a mysterious man in the forest wearing a gas mask, boiler suit, and a cloak. Most who have encountered the mysterious Le Loyon retreated in fear, despite him/her showing no aggression. In fact, one observer even saw Le Loyon holding a bouquet of flowers one time.^[8] Though questions about Le Loyon remain unanswered, one observer was able to snap a picture of the mysterious man, thus proving his existence.

2 Man Actually Makes Himself Fly with Balloons

Many of us have dreamed of flying as children. With movies like Up and Mary Poppins it seems to be a fairly easy task—just get a lot of balloons, or maybe jump down the stairs with an umbrella. Okay, so maybe these methods don’t quite work like we’d hoped, but one man was actually able to accomplish it. In the ’80s, Larry Walter tied 42 weather balloons to a lawn chair and was able to soar 3 miles in the air for multiple hours.^[9] To return to earth, he used a pellet balloon to pop the balloons one at a time. Unfortunately, the balloons caught on power lines and caused a 20 min outage in Long Beach. Though he was issued a $1,500 fine, he received international attention and ever appeared on “The Tonight Show.”

1 Woman was Buried Alive and Mangled Her Fingers While Trying to Escape

I think most of us have probably heard the story of someone being buried alive: some person was proclaimed dead and was buried but later woke up, alive in their casket. When the grave is later dug up, the person is found dead by suffocation with horribly mangled fingers and scratch marks on the inside of the coffin. The story of Octavia Hatcher is likely the source of this legend. She fell ill and went into a coma in the late 1800s. Not long after, she was pronounced dead and swiftly buried. Not even a week later, other people began showing similar symptoms to Octavia—falling into a coma with extremely shallow breathing. These individuals, however, woke up. Her husband, worried she had been buried alive, ordered her to be unburied. Sadly, his suspicions were correct. Octavia was found dead in her casket with a scratched face and bloody fingers. The lining had even been torn from the coffin’s lid.^[10] She was shortly reburied.

You can find the student and freelance writer, Elizabeth Boyer, on YouTube at “Lizzie Boyer.”

When it comes to true crime stories, urban environments often serve as a hotbed for vicious murders and nefarious deeds. Presented here are ten examples of urban true crime stories, ranging from mob violence to serial killers to meticulously planned robberies. This article does feature mentions of graphic violence, drug use, and sexual assault, so reader discretion is advised.

10. St. Valentine’s Day Massacre

When it comes to true crime stories, one can never forget the world of the mob and underground crime. This is most relevant to our first story, that of the  St. Valentine’s Day Massacre which occurred in Chicago on February 14, 1929. This story focuses on two gangs, each led by Bugs Moran and Al Capone respectively, both big players in Chicago’s mob scene. The two gangs were in a constant state of contention until things finally boiled over that faithful Valentine’s Day morning.

That morning, seven members of Bugs Moran’s North Side Gang were seized by men posing as police officers, lined up executioner’s style against a garage wall, and horrifically gunned down! Despite never being officially linked to the crime, all signs pointed to the massacre being the brainchild of Capone. Given the brutal and violent nature of the incident, the  St. Valentine’s Day Massacre proved to be a major turning point in the public’s perception of organized crime. 

Despite the widespread notoriety of the crime and subsequent investigations, no one was ever convicted of the massacre. This was most likely due to a lack of witnesses who were willing to step forward, compounded by the likely influence of mob intimidation methods.

9. The Great Train Robbery

Although the idea might seem quite old-fashioned now, train robberies were and still are a rather common crime in many countries. If you are looking for a major example of this rather theatrical crime, one needn’t look any further than the Great Train Robbery of 1963. On August 8, Bruce Reynolds and his team of 15 robbers halted the Royal Mail train in transit from Glasgow to London. After disabling the train’s signals, as well as overpowering its crew, Reynolds and the other robbers made off with around £2.6 million (or $3.3 million).

It wasn’t long before this cinematic-level crime was all over the front page news, capturing people’s attention due to the scale and meticulous nature of the robbery. Not only was there the aforementioned signal jamming but the gang had also used insider information to map out the precise layout of the train. Additionally, they were also well aware of the exact amount of cash that was going to be transported that day onboard the train well in advance. 

However, while these wannabee-Robin Hoods may have planned the robbery out to the last detail, the same can’t be said for their habits afterward. Due to many gang members’ excessive spending habits, as well as a concurrent police investigation, the crew was eventually brought to justice. 

8. The Zodiac Killer

In the annals of serial killer history, there are few names as mystifying and bone-chilling as the Zodiac Killer. Beginning in the late 60s, the Zodiac Killer began a string of five murders in the San Francisco Bay Area between December 1968 and October 1969. Additionally, on July 31, 1969, he sent three letters to three Californian news outlets: The Vallejo Times Herald, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the San Francisco Examiner. 

These letters were not only where he dubbed himself as the Zodiac Killer but where his other trademark, his cryptic letters and cryptograms, were established. In these crazed letters, Zodiac would tease and taunt law enforcement, all while claiming his victims would be his slaves for the afterlife. Despite only taking credit for a total of five murders, all within the state, Zodiac found himself linked to several other cold cases as well. 

In the years since his crimes and cryptic messages, Zodiac has never been caught, despite several suspects having been looked at in the years since. After all the books, podcasts, and critically acclaimed movies dedicated to him, the sinister legacy of the Zodiac Killer still looms over the Gold Coast.

7. The Boston Strangler

In one of the most gruesome crimes to ever hit the city of Boston, 13 women were assaulted and strangled in their apartments between June 1962 and January 1964. The twist perpetrator was initially dubbed the Mad Strangler of Boston, the Phantom Strangler, and the Phantom Fiend. This moniker stemmed largely from the Strangler’s M.O. which consisted of making his way inside his female victim’s homes with seemingly minimal effort. His other trademark was the brutal and horrifically efficient method he opted to kill his victims with, that being the use of their clothes as his instruments of murder.

Despite the widespread panic and a sizable manhunt effort, a culprit was never found, that is until late 1946 and the emergence of Albert DeSalvo. After assaulting a young woman in her own home, DeSalvo was identified by the victim with his photo later being published in the newspaper. Following the publication of his image, DeSalvo was identified by several past Boston Strangler victims, confident that he had been their assailant. Following his arrest, DeSalvo confessed to being the Boston Strangler, though some still maintain that he only did so under coercion or to attain notoriety.

6. The Cocaine Cowboys

Miami, Florida in the late ’70s and early ’80s was marked by a manic and violent chapter due to a massive influx of cocaine from Colombia. This is where the Cocaine Cowboys, a group of drug smugglers and traffickers, came into existence. Their smuggling efforts were nothing short of bold, frequently moving staggeringly colossal quantities of cocaine over the border with great frequency. This resulted in many of the Cowboys being able to afford the most lavish lifestyles one could have at the time, complete with fast cars, big yachts, and all-night parties. 

Many might be familiar with the Cowboys via the eponymous Netflix docuseries focusing on two key figures in the drug trade, Sal Magluta and Willie Falcon, AKA Los Muchachos. When all was said and done, both men were accused of smuggling at least 75-plus tons of cocaine into the United States, resulting in over $2 billion in profits. These two men were just the tip of the iceberg regarding the amount of people profiting off these highly illegal activities. However, the party couldn’t last forever, as eventually, law enforcement efforts caught up to the Cowboys, resulting in several high-profile arrests and prosecutions.

5. The Axeman of New Orleans

In the early 1900s, the streets of New Orleans were turned into a nightmare, with Italian immigrants being brutally murdered in their own homes. The Axeman of New Orleans claimed six lives while injuring six others, from May 23, 1918, until October 27, 1919. Based on his rather theatrical moniker, the killer’s weapon of choice was often a straight razor or, more frequently, an axe, the murder instrument he’d become known for. However, in additionally odd detail,  the killer would use an axe that was already on the premises of whoever’s home he had broken into. 

As previously mentioned, a majority of the Axeman’s victims were Italian immigrants, leading to theories that the crimes were motivated by mafia ties or ethnicity. The strangest wrinkle in the story came when the Axeman sent a handwritten letter to the local newspaper outlining his motives. The Axeman, claiming to be a supernatural being, noted that he’d spare those who played jazz music in their homes on a specific night. Motives from sexual sadism to jazz music appreciation were all proposed at one time or another, all varying in their likelihood. Despite many theories, the Axeman was never caught, leaving his specter to haunt New Orleans to this very day. 

4. The Atlanta Child Murders

Any fans of the David Fincher-helmed Netflix series Mindhunter will be immediately familiar with the events of the Atlanta Child Murders. From 1979 to 1981, close to 28 African American children youths ranging from children to adolescents to even young adults were abducted and killed. All of the victims, a majority of them male, were often found to have been dumped in remote areas such as nearby woods or the river.

As the murder continued and bodies kept turning up, Atlanta’s black community began expressing their outrage due to the slow response of local law enforcement. They attributed this slow response, not unreasonably, to racial biases that were present at the time, and sadly still exist today. The dark cloud of these killings loomed over Atlanta until eventually an arrest was made in the form of 23-year-old Wayne Williams. Through forensic evidence, Williams was convicted with two of the older victims with authorities simply opting to attribute the child murders to him as well. Despite his arrest, many people, especially the parents of the victims, weren’t satisfied, still maintaining there was more to the murders. Whether or not Williams was the sole perpetrator of the Atlanta Child Murders or if the case had multiple culprits is still debated even in the modern day. 

3. Ariel Castro kidnappings

In May 2013, the neighbors of Ariel Castro were alerted by the screams of 26-year-old Amanda Berry, who’d been imprisoned in his house since 2003. Following her escape, it was revealed that Berry was one of three kidnapping victims, the two others being Michelle Knight and Gina DeJesus.

All three girls had been subject to sexual and physical violence at the hands of Castro, with Knight having gone through five separate miscarriages. Additionally, all three girls were barely fed, only receiving a meal a day, and were only allowed to bathe twice a week if they were lucky. Berry ended up giving birth to Castro’s child in 2006 with the delivery being done in a small inflatable swimming pool.

Eventually, Castro got a bit careless and forgot to lock a large inside door that usually prevented the girls’ sounds from reaching the streets. This is what allowed Berry to flag down some neighbors who were able to help her escape, finally ending the trio’s decade-long nightmare. Following their rescue, all three girls were immediately rushed to a nearby hospital to begin their long recovery process. Castro was subsequently arrested and given a life sentence, something he’d escape by hanging himself a month into his sentence. 

2. The Night Stalker

Richard Ramirez, AKA The Night Stalker, was a serial killer who terrorized the streets of California in the mid-1980s. He earned his sinister moniker from the nature of his crimes, breaking into the homes of his victims often late at night and under the cover of darkness. After breaking in, Ramirez would viciously sexually assault, mutilate, and murder his victims, with only a few surviving to tell the tale. 

The most miraculous was Maria Hernandez, who survived a gunshot from Ramirez due to holding her keys in front of her head at the moment of impact. Others were not so lucky and would end up as just another gruesome victim claimed during the Night Stalker’s moonlight activities. During this time, many West Coast residents were gripped in fear, locking their windows and doors at night, lest they be the Night Stalker’s next victim.

Despite his illusive nature, Ramirez was far from a criminal mastermind, as the man was just insanely lucky when it came to his misdeeds. So it shouldn’t be too much of a shock that eventually his luck ran out when a widespread manhunt finally resulted in his capture in 1985. Ramirez ended up spending years on death row before dying of complications from B-cell lymphoma in 2013 before his planned execution.

1. Son of Sam

It was only a matter of time before our urban true crime discussion brought us to the streets of New York City. The city that never sleeps has played host to many a gruesome crime, whether in broad daylight or under rows of flickering street lights. 

However, when it comes to noteworthy crimes native to NYC, one needn’t look any further than the summer of 1976 to 1977 and David Berkowitz, better known now as the Son of Sam. From 1976 to 1977, the boroughs of the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn were hit with a string of horrific murders. Using a .44 caliber Bulldog revolver gun, Berkowitz claimed six people’s lives while wounding seven others, sending panic through the streets of New York. Though his choice of victims seemed fairly random, he seemed to frequently target couples parked in cars.

During his crime spree, Berkowitz would taunt the police, as well as the news media, with cryptic notes, wherein he’d dub himself the “Son of Sam.” He even went as far as to claim that he’d been commanded to commit these crimes by a demonic talking dog named Sam, hence the strange moniker. In August 1977, Berkowitz was finally arrested and sentenced to six consecutive life terms in prison, putting an end to the Son of Sam’s reign of terror.

The world of true crime is a diverse place of various incidents, running a wide gamut of locations and circumstances. From city prowling serial killers to incidents in international waters, you can never been too sure where evil will make its presence felt. Case in point, the suburbs, in any community, are often regarded as a safe haven for many, a calming place free from the hustle and bustle of bigger metropolitan areas.

However, as this list will show you, the suburbs and small communities have played host to a sizable crop of disturbing true crime stories. Fair warning, this list will touch upon some rather distressing topics, so definitely be ready before proceeding any further. 

10. Murder of Tara Lynn Grant

The murder of Tara Lynn Grant unfolded in Washington Township, Michigan, in 2007. Grant, a 34-year-old mother of two, disappeared under very mysterious circumstances, with her husband Stephen Grant declaring her as missing in February of that same year.  It was later revealed that Stephen himself had murdered Tara and dismembered her body following a domestic dispute. Authorities would later find Tara’s dismembered remains hidden in various locations in the state of Michigan.

Stephen was eventually convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 50 to 80 years in prison, with another six to ten years added on for mutilating her body. The Tara Lynn Grant murder case shocked the local community and even garnered national attention due to its brutality. It was simply unbeleivable for many people that such a heinous crime could’ve occured within such a seemingly normal family.  The case raised questions about domestic violence and anyone can be capable of some truly heinous crimes in the right circumstances. 

Tara Lynn Grant’s sickening murder serves as a grim reminder of the horrors of domestic violence and the tragic consequences it can have. Tara’s memory still lives on almost two decades later, still serving as a poignant symbol of the need to address issues of abuse within a familial environment. 

9. The Silk Road

If you’ve been plugged in to the internet for long enough, then the term dark web has likely entered your vocabulary. Basically it refers to overlay networks that use the Internet but require specific software, configurations, or authorization to access.

This brings us to the Silk Road, a notorious online black market that operated on the dark web from 2011 to 2013. Using the cryptocurrency Bitcoin as a form of payment, users were able to  buy and sell a wide range of illegal goods and services. The puppetmaster behind this illicit marketplace was one Ross Ulbricht, operating from his suburban home under the name of “Dread Pirate Roberts.”

While the website primarily branded itself as a place for more than just the purchase of drugs, that became what it was predominetly known and used for. This heavily contributed to growing concerns about public safety and the ease of accessing illegal substances online.

Ross Ulbricht was charged and arrested in 2013 for crimes including money laundering, hacking, and even conspiracy to commit murder. The latter charge involved alleged murder-for-hire, targeting various individuals who threatened the operations of the Silk Road website. In 2015, Ulbricht was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. 

8. The Austin Yogurt Shop Murders

In a disturbing act of violence, four teenage girls were found murdered at a local yogurt shop in Austin, Texas, on December 6, 1991. The victims, Amy Ayers, Eliza Thomas, Jennifer Harbison, and Sarah Harbison, were not only shot but also the shop was set on fire in an attempt to destroy evidence. News of the incident quickly traveled through the community, leaving the case’s investigators with a baffling and very disturbing crime scene.

Despite an intense and protracted investigation, the case remains unsolved, and numerous theories have emerged over the years. Complicating the matter, the crime scene was contaminated, and evidence was mishandled in the early stages of the investigation. Despite multiple suspects being considered, none have been definitively linked to the murders.

The Austin Yogurt Shop Murders continue to haunt both the victims’ families and the community as well, serving as a tragic aexample of an unsolved crime. At the time of this writing, he case still remains open, with law enforcement and amateur sleuths periodically revisiting it with hopes of one day bringing the perpetrators to justice, offering some closure to the families and the community at large.

7. The Menendez Brothers

Beverly Hills, that’s where I want to be, but we can’t think of too many who’d want to die there. This was the fate that befell Jose and Kitty Menendez, both murdered by their own sons, Lyle and Erik, in August 1989.  

The tale of the Menendez Brothers, Lyle and Erik, is regarded as one of the most sensational and disturbing murder cases in American history. In the late-’80s, the two brothers brutally killed their wealthy parents in their own lavish mansion located in Beverly Hills, California. The crime, initially regarded as a random act of violence, was soon determined to have been fueled by more sinister motivations. 

After their arrests, Lyle and Erik would claim that they acted in self-defense, stating that they were subjected to years of abuse, both physical and emotional,  at the hands of their parents. In 1993, the brothers were put on trial, a legal proceeding that ended up capturing the entire nation’s collective interest. On one side, the defense argued that the alleged abuse of Jose and Kitty Menendez drove their sons to murder, wheras the prosecution portrayed Lyle and Erik as sadistic bloodthirsty monsters. While not initially convicted, both brothers ended up being found guilty in a 1996 retrial, wherein they were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

6. The Original Night Stalker

Joseph James DeAngelo, better known as the Golden State Killer, was an elusive serial murderer, as well as sexual predator, who terrorized California from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s. DeAngelo’s crime were simultaneously heonous and extremely calculated, often targeting the residents of single-story suburban houses. This macabre methodology allowed DeAngelo to commit horrific acts of sexual assault before murdering several of his victims and their partners. These crimes earned him the fitting moniker of the Original Night Stalker, predating Richard Ramirez, another serial killer with a similar title. 

DeAngelo’s ability to evade law enforcement made him one of American history’s most notorious and feared criminals. It was wasn’t until April 24, 2018, that Sacramento County Sheriff’s deputies arrested DeAngelo in the side yard of his Sacramento home. DNA analysis had come a tremendously long way since the days of DeAngelo’s original crimes and finally gave law enforcement all they needed to track him down. 

After more than 40 years of eluding capture, investigators used modern DNA analysis to identify and arrest DeAngelo. In the summer of 2020, DeAngelo plead guilty to 13 counts of first-degree murder, as well as several acts of burglary and sexual assualt. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole later that same summer.

5. The BTK Killer

In the pages of The Last Book on the Left, written by Ben Kissel, Marcus Parks, Henry Zebrowski, they make a point of stating just how unlikable the BTK Killer is. They specify that no serial killer is actually likable but, unlike a few others who at least have a tragic backstory, the BTK Killer — AKA Denis Rader — is perhaps the most loathsome of all. 

The BTK stood for “Bind, Torture, Kill” which was Rader’s prefered method of handling his victims during his infamous crimes. Between 1974 and 1991, Rader turned Wichita, Kansas, as well as its surrounding areas, into his own personal hunting ground. As his disturbing moniker would imply, his sickening crimes were marked by the binding, torturing and eventual murders of his victims.  

Adding to his repugnant crimes was Rader’s immense ego, often taunting the media and law enforcement with cryptic lettes and detailed descriptions of his murders. He even went as far to include sickening mementos of his murders in his sinister little care packages. Rader went untouched by law enforcement for decades, that is until his ego got the better of him for the last time and was finally undone by the advent of modern technology. Rader was ultimately sentenced to 10 consecutive life terms in prison without the possibility of parole, much to the relief of many. 

4. The West Memphis Three

In the ’90s and early-2000s, the case of the West Memphis Three garnered immense attention and controversy. The case revolved around the  the convictions of three teenagers, Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley Jr., for their alleged involvement in the brutal murders of three young boys in West Memphis, Arkansas, in 1993. Much of this was fueled by the “Satanic Panic” revolving around the fact that the trio enjoyed playing Dungeons and Dragons. (In fact, the fan favorite, D&D-playing character of Eddie in season four of Stranger Things was directly inspired by Echols.)

The case itself was affected by several issues, not the least of which being the questionable confessions from Misskelley, who was intellectually limited. In addition to Misskelley’s comments, the trial was plagued by allegations of Satanic ritual abuse, which only intensified the proceedings. 

The case gained immense notoriety due to the efforts of various supporters who believed in the innocence of the three men. Additionally, documentary films like Paradise Lost and West of Memphis led to increased public scrutiny due to elaborations on the flawed investigation. However, in 2007, new DNA evidence did not link the West Memphis Three to the original crime scene.

After spending nearly two decades behind bars, Echols, Baldwin, and Misskelley entered an Alford plea, which allowed them to maintain their innocence while acknowledging that there was enough evidence for conviction. They were subsequently released from prison in 2011.

3. The Slender Man Stabbing

If you were the type to frequent horror message boards and binge creepy content on the 2010s internet, then you might be already familiar with the Slender Man. Simply put, the character is a internet-born horror character, a tall faceless man in a suit who often lurks in the woods of small towns. However, the character has also gained some unfortunate notoriety due to his involvement in the aptly named Slender Man Stabbing. 

In 2014, two 12-year-old girls, Anissa Weier and Morgan Geyser, lured their friend, Payton Leutner, into the woods where they brutally stabbed her 19 times. Thankfully, young Payton survived the attack and was able to crawl to a nearby road where she was eventually rescued. It was later revealed that Weier and Geyser committed the act as part of a ritual to become proxies of the Slender Man, protecting them from his evil powers. 

Soon the two girls and this once-niche internet character were making national headlines, raising discussions about the the influence of the modern internet. Both girls were ultimately found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect, and they were committed to psychiatric facilities.

2. The DeFeo Murders

If you grew up in New York, more specifically within the Long Island area, then the name Amityville should be instantly familiar to you. Back in 1974, on the night of November 13, the small town of Amityville was rocked by something ripped right from the pages of a horror novel. On that night, Ronald DeFeo Jr., the eldest son of the DeFeo family, murdered six of his family members in cold blood. This included his parents, Ronald DeFeo, Sr. and Louise DeFeo, and his four younger siblings, Dawn, Allison, Marc, and John Matthew. This alone makes it quite disturbing but it only gets creepier when you learn the specifics of the killings.

It was learned that Ronald, only 23-years-old at the time, carried his heinous actions out while his family members were in bed, shooting them all while they were asleep. However, physical evidence indicates that Louise DeFeo and Allison were both conscious prior to their respective demises. The story here doesn’t even end with the murders themselves, as the subsequent homeownwers, The Lutz family abandoned the home, citing supernatural disturbances as the cause. It was these paranormal claims that inspired Jay Anson’s 1977 book The Amityville Horror and the subsequent horror film franchise. 

1. The Cheshire Home Invasion

The Cheshire Home Invasion occurred in Cheshire, Connecticut, in July 2007. The incident involved the Petit family, consisting of Dr. William Petit, his wife Jennifer Hawke-Petit, and their two daughters, 17-year-old Hayley Petit and 11-year-old Michaela Petit.

Joshua Komisarjevsky and Steven Hayes, two career criminals, invaded the Petit family’s home, tied up the entire Petit family, and subjected them to various acts of horrific violence. The assailants set the house on fire, causing the deaths of Jennifer, Hayley and Michaela, leaving Dr. Petit as the only survivor. Following their horrific misdeeds, Komisarjevsky and Hayes were apprehended, tried, and sentenced to death. During the trial, it was argued that the crime may have had a few contibuting factors, the main one being monetary. Another reason may have been Komisarjevsky’s own sick interest in Michaela who had had sexually assualted amidst the invasion. 

Needless to day, the case shocked the nation, exposing many to the viscous brutality that some criminals are capable of. It jumpstarted new conversations about home security, the response of various law enforcement groups, and the how repeat offenders are dealt with via the legal system.

In Season 2 of Grey’s Anatomy, Meredith Grey wakes up during the beginning of episode 16 and refuses to go to work. When asked what the matter is by her roommates and best friend, Cristina Yang, she simply states that she has a feeling that she might die that day. Seeing as how she ends up with her hand inside a body cavity that also contains a homemade bomb that same day, one can easily say that her premonition came true. However, despite her premonition, she is not the one who dies. After the bomb is removed, the head of the bomb squad is killed when it explodes in the hallway of Seattle Grace hospital.

10 Unnerving Premonitions That Foretold Disaster

During the following season, Meredith’s eerie premonition is brought to fruition when she nearly drowns in the Elliott Bay. She is eventually revived, but not before having a strange after-death experience with several characters who had died in previous episodes. On this list are people who, like Meredith, had a persistent sense of impending doom. These feelings were validated by awful tragedies on a much larger scale. But in these cases, the stories are all true.

10 “Anyone perched above the crowd with a rifle could do it.”

On the morning of 22 November 1963, John F. Kennedy awoke at the Hotel Texas to find a crowd had gathered outside to see him. He greeted them saying, “There are no faint hearts in Fort Worth!” Back inside the hotel he remarked to Jackie that the previous night would have been a hell of a night to assassinate a president. His next words would go down in history as a premonition of what would happen later that day. He turned to Jackie and aide Ken O’Donnell and said, “anyone perched above the crowd with a rifle could do it.”^[1]

Whether JFK truly had a moment of revelation as to what would happen to him, or whether it was just a passing thought, we will never know for sure. What we do know is that at 12:30 pm that afternoon, a bullet struck the American president in the upper back close to the neck as his motorcade moved slowly through Dealy Plaza, followed by two more, one of which tore through his upper right skull. John F. Kennedy was pronounced dead at Parkland Memorial Hospital at 1:00 pm.

There is ongoing controversy regarding the premonition, with some believing JFK never knew or felt what was coming and would not have uttered those words. All the same, there were others who had similar premonitions, one of which was Irish president, Eamon de Valera. De Valera spoke of JFK during an interview in 1966. He claimed that when he met the young president in Ireland in June 1963, he had the fleeting thought that JFK would be an easy target and that no man would be able to protect himself if he finds himself in the position of wanting to meet his people.

9 “My mother came for me.”

On the night of 5 April 1936, Mary Hudgins Evans, had a disturbing dream. In the dream she was visited by her deceased mother who had only one thing to tell her: “I’m coming for you.” When Mary awoke the next morning, she told her husband, ‘my mother came for me’. She went on to say that her husband would now be responsible for raising their only child.^[2]

Mary then went to work in the offices of the Wright’s Ice Cream Parlor in Gainesville. Just after 8 am a deadly series of 17 tornadoes struck the South, with one wreaking havoc in Gainesville. A few minutes before the tornadoes touched down, Mary phoned her husband to tell him goodbye for the last time. Shortly after, Mary Hudgins Evans died. More than 200 others also lost their lives, with a further 1,600 injured.

8 “I told him we shouldn’t go there.”

Christine Delcros and her fiancé Xavier Thomas were strolling along London Bridge on 3 June 2017 on their way to the Shard as part of Xavier’s planned romantic night out. He wanted to show his bride-to-be the view of the city from the top of the skyscraper. Christine was happy and in love but couldn’t shake the nervous feeling that had been building inside of her ever since London Bridge came into view. She eventually became so terrified of walking along the bridge that she implored Xavier that they rather go elsewhere.^[3]

Xavier didn’t want to postpone his romantic date idea, and insisted that they carry on along the bridge, despite Christine’s increasing fear of an attack. A few moments later a white rental van struck the couple from behind. Xavier Thomas was flung over the balustrade of the bridge because of sheer impact and he landed in the Thames 30 feet below. It took rescuers three days to discover his body in Shadwell Basin. Christine survived the attack. Eight people in total died in the terrorist attack orchestrated by 3 men who drove the van and afterwards attacked people with knives. The attackers were all shot dead by police.

7 “A feeling grew upon me.”

Edward and Pamelia Bowen were married on 19 June 1893 in Ellsworth. By 1915, they had settled in Newton with Edward working in the shoe manufacturing business and making quite a lot of money. Edward travelled often to countries such as Russia, Holland, Sweden and Norway for work and had to travel to London in May 1915 for important business. The world was nine months into WWI, but the show had to go on, so Edward booked passage for himself and his wife on the next ship traveling from New York.^[4]

However, Edward was uneasy and grew more so as their departure day neared. Later he said, ‘a feeling grew upon me that something was going to happen to the Lusitania.” He had spoken to his wife and they decided to cancel their trip. Had they not done so they would have been part of the casualties that totaled 1198 after the Lusitania was torpedoed on 7 May 1915 by a German U-boat.

6 “Keiko, today you shouldn’t go to school.”

Eight-year-old Keiko Ogura was probably happy and excited on 6 August 1945 when her father said, “Keiko, today you shouldn’t go to school.” He added “something might happen”, but it probably didn’t register with the young girl who would have been glad to have a day off from studies.^[5]

At around 8:15, Keiko was out in the street near her house when a sudden flash turned the world white. Keiko fainted and when she came to, darkness had descended around her. At first, she thought it was night and that she had been unconscious the whole day. Then she realized the sky was filled with soot and debris. She stumbled to her feet and ran home, only to find it was burning. Hearing her little brother’s cry, she went to look for him and when she stepped out of the house again, it was raining. Only, the raindrops were black.

The world’s first deployed atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 at around 8:15. Keiko Ogura’s father most likely saved his daughter’s life by listening to his gut feeling and keeping her home from school. The explosion killed 80,000 people on impact and wiped out 90% of the city. Thousands of others would die excruciating deaths later due to radiation exposure.

10 Creepy Premonitions About The Sinking Of The Titanic

5 “We’re jinxed.”

On the morning of 11 September 2000, Monica and Michael Iken got married during a beautiful outdoor ceremony. As they were about to say their ‘I do’s” a jet zipped by overhead so loudly that they had to stop the service briefly. Monica wasn’t much perturbed by this incident, but Michael was unnerved. He told his new wife, “we’re jinxed.”^[6]

On 9 September 2001, the couple checked into a Boston airport hotel. Michael was jittery and couldn’t calm down while they were there. He told Monica that they needed to get out of the hotel immediately. Monica was at a loss, but two days later she understood. Michael went to work on the 84th floor of the South Tower on 11 September 2001. He died during the terrorist attacks that followed shortly after. Monica later learned that while they were in the Boston hotel, the hijackers of the planes were there too, casing the joint, so to speak.

4 “I feel like there’s something bad ahead, but I don’t know what.”

On 10 March 2019 Carol Karanja boarded Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 along with her three children and her mother. They were flying from Canada to Kenya to meet her Kenyan family for the first time. A week before the flight, Carol sent a WhatsApp message to her younger sister in Kenya telling her she had a bad feeling. The message read: “My heart isn’t really excited. I feel like there’s something bad ahead, but I don’t know what.”^[7] Before boarding the flight, she sent a similar expression of fear to her father.

Minutes after takeoff, Flight 302 crashed, killing all 157 people onboard including Carol, her mother and her children. In Kenya, Carol’s family had to hear the devasting news that three generations had been wiped out in mere minutes in the second of two fatal Boeing 737 Max crashes that occurred a mere five months apart.

3 “London is safer.”

During WWII, evacuations from London to surrounding small towns and villages were at the order of the day. Mona Miller and her young children were no exception as they were evacuated to Babbacombe in Devon. While these precautions were necessary, Mona couldn’t shake the feeling that she and her children were in the wrong place. Sure enough, while they were happier there, Mona didn’t feel any safer.^[8]

For four months, Mona spent each day in Devon with a little voice in the back of her head telling her that they needed to return to London. She resisted, knowing that London was being bombed. But somehow, something was telling her London was safer at that point in time. One morning she awoke knowing she could no longer postpone the inevitable; she and her children had to go back to London. They left on a Saturday late in 1942. A few days after their arrival in London, a letter came from Devon. Mona’s friend wrote that the day after they left, three bombs had been dropped on Devon, one demolishing the house Mona and her kids stayed in and killing neighbors on both sides.

2 “I’ll haunt him forever.”

Even after 16-year-old Shana Fisher turned down 17-year-old Dimitrios Pagourtizis’ repeated advances in 2018, the young man continued to pester her for 4 months. Shana finally had enough and stood up to him in front of their entire class in Santa Fe High School, Texas. While gathering up the courage to do this, Shana had told her mother Pagourtizis was going to kill her and that once he did, she would “haunt him forever.”^[9]

A week after the classroom confrontation, Pagourtizis burst into the school’s art room and yelled “surprise” before opening fire on students. He killed 10 of them, including Shana Fisher, with some reports claiming he shot her first. A further 13 were wounded. Pagourtizis was apprehended and held in custody. In March 2020, a Texas judge ordered the teen to remain in a mental health facility for a year to determine his competency for standing trial.

1 “I just had a premonition that I would never see her again.”

One evening, school teacher Christa McAuliffe, had a dream. Along with imparting knowledge to her students, she really wanted to travel to space. Her dream was realized when she was selected from more than 11,000 applicants to become the first teacher in space. She was to teach two lessons while on her space mission as well as conduct several experiments.^[10]

A few months before her departure, fellow teacher Mark Hampton chatted with Christa in the cafeteria at Concord High School where they both worked. Hugging her goodbye, Mark felt a chill down his spine. Afterwards he recalled: “I just had a premonition that I would never see her again.”

On 28 January 1986, Christa joined 6 other crew members inside the Space Shuttle Challenger. 73 seconds after its launch, the Challenger broke apart in the air killing everyone on board. The shuttle had no escape system and while the impact of the shuttle with the ocean surface after it fell back down to earth was too violent for anyone to have survived, it is thought that most of the crew would have survived the initial breakup of the shuttle in the air.

10 Premonitions That Should Not Have Been Ignored

Whether it’s the most crowded cities or the sleepiest of suburbs, one needn’t look too far for what evil men can do. However, the often tranquil countryside or the most desolate of rural locales can also play host to some truly horrific events. From small towns to scenic farmlands, these rural true crime stories will keep you up at night. As always, given the subject matter, we’ll discuss some rather disturbing topics, so keep that in mind before diving in. 

10. The Villisca Axe Murders

Terrifying true crime stories might be a fixture of modern media, but they’ve also been present since the early 1900s. Case in point is the tale of the Moore family, as well as two of their friends, who were slain one hot night in the summer of 1912.

The victims consisted of Josiah, Sarah, their four children, and two of their close friends, Ina Mae and Lena Gertrude Stillinger, who were visiting at the time of the murders. However, what should have been a peaceful evening soon turned into an unimaginable horror show. Following a pleasant night out at the local local Presbyterian Church, the whole group returned home and went to bed. Following their drift off to slumber, the still-unknown assailant entered their home and began their cruel work.

The next morning, several missed calls from Josiah’s clerk and the family’s absence during their usual morning rituals quickly set off warning signs for their neighbors. Eventually, the town marshall arrived on the scene, kicking down the door and eventually discovering everyone slaughtered in various rooms throughout the house. Amongst the mangled remains of the victims were a bloodied axe, a slab of bacon, as well as clothing covering any mirrors in the house. 

9. The Keddie Murders

In the early 80s, the small town of Keddie, located in Northern California, was rocked by a crime nothing short of stomach-churning. The sight of the murders, a quaint cabin, was populated by the Sharp family who had only moved in the previous year. The family consisted of the mother Sue, a divorcee, and her children – John, Sheila, Tina, Rick, and Greg. However, the charming Keddie Resort where the family made their home would soon become their final resting place in April 1981. 

On the evening of April 11, Shelia stayed at another nearby cabin, taking part in a sleepover with the Seabolt family. That night, a 14-year-old Sheila went to bed, comforted in the knowledge that her whole family was only a stone’s throw away. However, the next morning, upon returning to her family’s cabin for a change of clothes for church, she walked right into a waking nightmare. There, in the cabin’s living room, were the bodies of Sue, John, and Dana all bound with medical tape and electrical cords. Tina’s body was the only one unaccounted for, eventually discovered three years later roughly 100 miles from Keddie. To this day, despite some theorizing and several fruitless leads, the culprits behind the murders have yet to be identified. 

8. The Ken and Barbie Killers

Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka, as far as outward appearances go, were as unthreatening and normal as possible. However, underneath their blonde hair and white bread demeanors, were two greatly disturbed minds who’d soon turn Toronto into their twisted playground. 

Paul Bernardo was already well on his way to infamy before his marriage to Karla, having committed several sexual assaults in Scarborough, Ontario back in 1987. Bernardo’s sadism did appeal to one woman, Karla, who much like Paul, was far more unhinged than her appearance and upbringing would suggest. In a disturbing twist of fate, Karla was not only okay with Paul’s deranged sexual proclivities but encouraged and participated in them. In 1990, they carried out their most heinous crime when the duo drugged, beat, and sexually assaulted Tammy Homolka, Karla’s 15-year-old sister. 

This streak of sexually charged cruelty and murder carried on until early 1993 when Karla left Paul following a beating with a flashlight. Eventually, DNA evidence was able to link Paul back to his crimes in Scarborough leading to his arrest and both of them being put on trial. These circumstances turned the once-sadistically star-crossed lovers against each other, with Karla seeking a plea bargain in return for her testimony against Paul.

7. The Lawson Family Murders

We now shift focus to the farmlands of Northern Carolina and the disturbing crimes of tobacco farmer Charlie Lawson. Unlike a few of the aforementioned crimes in this list, while we do have a culprit, the reasons for Charles’ actions are, to this day, still an enigma. 

It was just a few days before Christmas, 1929, and Charlie Lawson had taken his entire family into town for some brand-new clothes and a family photo portrait. This included his wife Fannie and his seven children – Marie, Arthur, James, Maybell, Raymond, Carrie, and Mary Lou. However, in a horrific turn of events, it appears Charles made this day as pleasant as possible to offset the atrocity he was poised to commit. On Christmas Day, as the family was getting on with their day Charles went to work killing all of them one by one. In quick succession, Charles executed his family with a 12-gauge shotgun and blunt force trauma before eventually shooting himself in the nearby woods. 

The only family member spared from the murders was Charles’ eldest son, Arthur, who’d been running an errand at the time. One theory behind Charles’ actions has been his covering up acts of sexual abuse he’d committed against Marie. However, these claims have never fully been substantiated with any actual evidence beyond familial gossip and hearsay. 

6. The Rhoden Family Massacre

The crimes committed against the Rhoden family in 2016 were nothing short of a premeditated attack, carried out with an ample amount of malice. On the night of April 21 and into the early hours of April 22, eight members of the family were gunned down in their own homes. The victims included Christopher Rhoden Junior, Christopher Rhoden Senior, Clarence “Frankie” Rhoden, Dana Lynn Rhoden, Gary Rhoden, Hanna May Rhoden, Hannah Hazel Gilley, and Kenneth Rhoden.

The first of the four separate crime scenes was discovered when Bobby Jo Manley, Dana’s sister, came over to feed the house’s pets. After calling 9-1-1, Manley went to the second home on the property where she found more bodies waiting for her. Shortly after, her brother, James Manley, came over to check on her and discovered the third crime scene with more of the family’s bullet-riddled bodies. Finally, later on in the day, another 9-1-1 call alerted police to the discovery of another victim in a private residence in Piketon, a nearby village.

It wasn’t until 2018 that the culprits, the Wagner family, were arrested and charged for the eight murders. One of the driving forces behind the killings was revealed to be a custody dispute over Hanna and Jake’s then two-year-old daughter.

5. The Grimes Sisters

The 1950s were a time of great technological progress for America, especially following the conclusion of World War II, with America seeing growth in employment and birth rates. However, that didn’t mean that there didn’t still exist an undercurrent of darkness and malevolence lurking in the shadows of American streets.  

For example, on the night of December 28, 1956, Barbara and Patricia Grimes, two Chicagoian sisters, left their home for the last time. The two sisters had ventured to the cinema for the evening to take in a screening of the Elvis Presley movie Love Me Tender at the Brighton Theater. 89 minutes later, the two sisters saw the credits roll and exited the theatre to begin their journey home. They’d never make it back unfortunately as their departure from the theatre was the last time either of them would be seen alive.

Following a widespread search for the two sisters, their bodies were eventually found on January 22, 1957, just off a rural road in Burr Ridge, Illinois. To this day, no definitive culprit or explanation has been given regarding the Grimes sisters’ abductions and subsequent murders. While a few suspects were questioned and looked into, this sadly seems to be another true crime story that’ll go unsolved. 

4. The Sodder Children Disappearance

Christmas Eve, is a time of celebration and excitement for the wonders of Christmas day, unless you’re the Sodder family that is. As the Sodder family went to bed on that very evening in 1945 with visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads, their home would soon be set ablaze!

Following a strange late-night call from a woman with a strange laugh, the family’s mother Jennie was later awakened by a commotion on their roof. Within moments a devastating fire broke out and quickly engulfed the entire house, sending the entire family into a justifiable panic. Jennie, her husband George, and four of their children – Marion, Sylvia, John, and George Jr – were able to escape the raging inferno. However, this left their five remaining children – Maurice, Martha, Louis, Jennie, and Betty – still inside their burning home. 

Despite some failed rescue efforts, the family was left to watch their home transform into a smoldering wreck, accepting the likely demise of their other children. However, when the fire department eventually began culling through the house’s remains, they found neither hide nor hair of their remains in the ashes. Long after the night’s tragic events, speculation ran rampant regarding what became of the five missing children and where they went. 

3. The Gainesville Ripper

All discussions of illegal, illicit, and disturbing events will eventually lead to one or more stories set in the state of Florida. The “Florida Man” in this particular story is Danny Rolling, the Gainesville Ripper, one of America’s most notorious serial killers.

In late August of 1990, Rolling made Gainesville his personal hunting ground as he would claim the lives of five college students. The victims were Sonja Larson, Christina Powell, Christa Hoyt, Manuel Taboada, and Tracy Paules, all having their lives snuffed out in the most horrific ways possible. Rolling’s disturbing deeds didn’t end with simply killing the girls, as he would go as far as to arrange their bodies in ritualistic and intentionally shocking ways. This included placing the head of Christa Hoyt on the shelf opposite her decapitating body that was left sitting on the edge of her bed. 

The next month, Rolling was arrested on unrelated charges in Ocala, Florida, but would still end up confessing to his five murders in Gainesville. 16 years later, Rolling was finally sentenced to death and was executed by lethal injection on October 25, 2006, at Florida State Prison.

2. The Oklahoma Girl Scout Murders

A crime this horrific is something that should’ve probably been left in the fictitious world of the Friday the 13th film franchise. Sadly, what occurred in Mayes County, Oklahoma, in June 1977 was far from fictional, it was quite real and aggressively disturbing.

When the young girl scouts of Camp Scott went to bed on June 12, none of them could’ve expected the horrors that would await them at daybreak. Early the next day, en route to the showers, a camp counselor discovered the first of what would soon be confirmed as three dead bodies. As the morning progressed, the bodies were identified as ten-year-old Denise Milner, 9-year-old Michele Guse, and 8-year-old Lori Farmer. In a stomach-churning revelation, it was later confirmed that the girls had all been sexually assaulted, beaten, and strangled. The neighboring community was horrified and Camp Scott was immediately closed off, with all remaining campers being sent home.

Following a long and highly publicized investigation, one suspect was arrested in connection to the case, though on unrelated charges, that being Gene Leroy Hart. Despite this, there was never enough substantial DNA evidence to confirm Hart as the definitive culprit fully. Given his death just two years after the murders, it’s doubtful we’ll ever get a definitive answer to who committed the Oklahoma Girl Scout Murders.

1. The Butcher of Plainfield

Much like many famous serial killers, Ed Gein was a product of his environment and his upbringing, specifically his aggressively religious mother Augusta. Known as a strange fellow even during his childhood, most people in Plainfield, Wisconsin only ever saw Ed as an awkward yet ultimately harmless guy. This assumption starkly contrasted the darkness that resided behind his withdrawn expressions, as Ed was nothing short of deranged. 

Ed was obsessed with his mother, committing his life to taking care of her after she’d suffered a debilitating stroke and up until she died in 1945. Her death seemed to flip a switch in Ed who began a dual hobby of grave robbing and fashioning human remains into clothing. Following his murder of Bernice Worden, a local hardware store owner, police swarmed Ed’s home where they’d discovered, not only Bernice’s corpse in the barn but Ed’s handiwork as well. This included chairs made of human skin, faces, skulls, noses, and even a belt made of severed nipples.

Ed’s heinous crimes quickly made front-page news, terrifying the masses and even stoking more than a few people’s creativity. One can see the influence of Ed Gein in several horror classics, including Psycho, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and The Silence of the Lambs.

Man’s love affair with fiction is sweet, but the marriage is almost always beyond strange when it comes to facing the facts. True-to-life conspiracy movies, for one, have always upped the ante for the genre, satisfying viewers who aren’t only looking to be entertained but also educated and perhaps even grateful for knowing what may only remain a mystery to the rest. 

Here are the top 10 T.V. and movie conspiracy theories that turned out to be true.

10 The Philadelphia Experiment

In 1984, British director Stewart Rafill helmed a film that would later earn him the Best Science Fiction Film Award at the Rome Film Festival. But it was not entirely fiction. Entitled “The Philadelphia Experiment,” the Michael Pare film was based on events during World War II when U.S. Navy scientists, led by Dr. Franklin Reno, supposedly embarked on a science-defying military experiment that would create an invisible, teleportable warship. Called the U.S.S. Eldridge and docked in the Philadelphia Naval Yard, the vessel was allegedly created in October 1943, but not without complications.

Legend has it sailors in the controversial ship developed a whole range of extreme or strange conditions, such as mental trauma, seasickness, spontaneous combustion, and even getting embedded into the warship or being invisible themselves. The U.S. Navy has always denied any truth to the Philadelphia Experiment, but this has only fueled speculations of a cover-up. At least the government provided an explanation. The experiment actually meant to hide ships from magnetic torpedoes during the war. In any case, the mysterious venture inspired a whole slew of movies, including Rafill’s. 

9 The Roswell U.F.O.s

Over 70 years ago, news of a “flying saucer” crash-landing on a ranch in Roswell, New Mexico, hit the Roswell Daily Record’s front page. At one point, the U.S. military corrected itself by saying they had collected no more than a crashed water balloon, but the retraction didn’t change anything. One of the world’s biggest, most explored conspiracy theories was born, strengthened by reports of officials taking the aliens to the Area 51 military base in New Mexico. By the 1990s, swathes of books, T.V. documentaries, movies and supposed footage of alien autopsies had been produced and circulated, all pointing to the U.S. government as a keeper of aliens. 

One of the most extravagant and commercially, not to mention critically, successful movies on the Roswell U.F.O. was Steven Spielberg’s “Close Encounters Of The Third Kind.” Released in 1977, the film expertly executed the phenomenon of sightings in the sky, alien abductions, and, of course, conspiracy. The movie even concluded by suggesting that American scientists had entered into some kind of exchange program with the aliens. In 2019, over two million people signed up to storm the Area 51 airbase near Rachel, Nevada, hoping to meet aliens despite the organizer calling the event a hoax. 

8 Men in Black

Speaking of U.F.O.s, modern-day theories have taken to a sleeker, cooler face with the sinister-looking Men in Black. Conspiracists claim that since the 1950s, Men in Black are present at each U.F.O. sighting. Donning their trademark dark suits and black Cadillacs, people believe the MiBs are undercover government agents out to quiet U.F.O. witnesses. Although, our definition of them has also evolved with implications that they could be robots or aliens. In the mid-1950s, ufologist Albert K. Bender said MiBs visited him and ordered him to stop investigating U.F.O.s. Bender believed they were secret government agents whose job was to suppress extraterrestrial evidence. 

This contemporary take on the MiBs stems from the 1956 book They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers by Gray Barker. It is unproven whether the author really believed in his own characters. He did admit writing the book for economic reasons. In 1997, director Barry Sonnenfeld’s sci-fi action-comedy “Men in Black” spawned a blockbuster franchise. But we’ve seen these creepy characters before. This includes John Sales’ “Brother from Another Planet” in 1984, and later in “The X-Files.” While no direct reference was made, “The Matrix,” another phenomenal movie franchise that began in 1999, had MiB D.N.A. written all over it. 

7 Moon Explorations

Aside from being one of mankind’s biggest ventures in the 20th century, moon landings were part of the Cold War’s Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union. This is why people believe Neil Armstrong’s first moon landing in 1969 was fake. In 2002, a French filmmaker named William Karel even released a mockumentary on the alleged conspiracy between the U.S. government and American film director, producer, and screenwriter Standley Kubrick to manufacture the landings.

Conspiracists view Karel’s film as a straightforward presentation of the truth and people often share on YouTube as veritable evidence. The 2012 documentary “Room 237” focuses on the various interpretations involved in “The Shining,” a film that delves into the filmmaker’s purported role in the landings and the hints embedded into the movie’s symbolism. In “Apollo 18,” a 2011 found-footage sci-fi horror, the movie suggested that American astronauts did go to the Moon, only to be terrorized by aliens.  

6 Dyatlov Pass Incident

One of the lesser-known but equally intriguing theories in the conspiracy universe revolves around the Dyatlov Pass incident. On February 1959, in Russia’s Ural mountains, nine otherwise healthy ski trekkers died and sustained unexplained wounds on their bodies. Someone had torn open their tents from the inside. It is said the trekkers had come across a top-secret Soviet weapon experiment, and some of the bodies had been radioactively destroyed. The incident inspired several books and films, including “The Devil’s Pass,” directed by Rennie Harlin. 

Also known as The Dyatlov Pass Incident, Harlin’s movie is a narrative about a group of students who investigated the scene of the tragedy years after it happened. In the film, the students take raw footage of the consequences of the failed experiment. While the Russian government eventually recovers and hides the file from the public, hackers managed to get a copy and show it to the public. The film closed, insinuating there was indeed a Russian military experiment that went horribly wrong; the government was keeping it under wraps.

5 Project MKUltra

MKUltra stands out from most conspiracy theories that ever toyed with man’s imagination. For one, it is a confirmed story, which makes it extremely unsettling as opposed to urban legends and their random, half-baked pieces of evidence. MKUltra, a C.I.A. project that rolled out in the 1950s, was a study on mind control and how certain drugs could alter human thoughts and senses. Researchers studied the impact these drugs had on the brain long term without the participants’ knowledge or approval. 

The extent of MKUltra is too comprehensive to be explained in one article, but suffice it today that while several documents related to the project no longer exist. The reclassification of some 20,000 files towards the late 1970s confirms the extensiveness of the two-decade project. Nonetheless, the 2013 American horror film “Banshee Chapter,” managed to sew all the threads seamlessly despite budget and timeline issues. “The Banshee Chapter” was the critically acclaimed directorial debut of Blair Erickson and was groundbreaking in its genre for being the first to directly reference MKUltra.

4 John F. Kennedy Assassination

Surveys of late still show that most Americans believe a conspiracy was behind former President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. This opinion was most prevalent in the early-to-mid 1990s. Three decades after the event actually happened, Oliver Stone released his lengthy but irrefutably engrossing film, “J.F.K.” It is so far the most convincing J.F.K. conspiracy movie ever produced in history. In the movie, Kevin Costner played Jim Garrison, a New Orleans DA who found critical proof that Lee Harvey Oswald was not Kennedy’s exclusive assassin. 

After its controversial release in cinemas, many major American papers claimed Stone had not been very accurate about history. This included scenes about Kennedy’s vice-president, Lyndon B. Johnson, being part of a coup d’état. These inconsistencies, however, did not stop the movie from gaining critical acclaim, especially for its cast’s performances, Stone’s directing, and other technical aspects of the production. 

3 The Watergate Scandal

On June 17, 1971, officials caught prowlers red-handed in the Democratic National Committee Office at the Watergate building complex in Washington. This was the beginning of the Watergate scandal instigated by former President Richard Nixon himself and told by two Washington Post reporters: Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. With information from an anonymous whistleblower nicknamed Deep Throat—revealed in 2005 as former F.B.I. associate director W. Mark Felt—the journalists exposed Nixon’s part in the conspiracy leading to the incumbent’s resignation on August 9, 1974. 

Woodward and Bernstein won a Pulitzer Prize each for the assignment, which inspired a political biographical drama film in 1976 entitled “All the President’s Men.” Directed by Alan J. Pakula and written by William Goldman, the film starred Robert Redford as Woodward and Dustin Hoffman as Bernstein. The film earned multiple Oscar, Golden Globe, and BAFTA nominations. The Library of Congress preserves it in the United States National Film Registry. 

2 The Rainbow Warrior Conspiracy

Codenamed Opération Satanique, the July 10, 1985 sinking of Greenpeace fleet flagship Rainbow Warrior was the French foreign intelligence unit’s handiwork. Said to be behind the operation were two operatives at the Port of Auckland in New Zealand, who attacked the ship on its way to a French nuclear test protest in Muroroa. Killed in the bombing was Portugal-born photographer Fernando Pereira, who was there to document the scheduled nuclear test and share his photos with the world. Just turned 35, Pereira drowned in a rush of water on the night of the attack. 

In the beginning, France was quick to dismiss reports of its involvement, even though New Zealand police caught two of its agents. The police charged them with arson, conspiracy to commit arson, murder, and willful damage. The controversy climaxed with the resignation of French Defense Minister Charles Hernu. But while the captured agents both pleaded guilty to manslaughter and received a jail sentence of ten years each, they were released a mere two years later by the French government. In 1993, Michael Tuchner directed a made-for-TV drama film entitled “Rainbow Warrior,” also called “The Sinking of the Rainbow Warrior,” top-billed by Jon Voight and Sam Neill.

1 A Pararescueman’s Medal of Valor

In a Vietnam War rescue mission on April 11, 1966, U.S. Air Force Pararescueman William H. Pitsenbarger saved the lives of more than 60 men with his own bare hands. Climbing out of the cover of his rescue helicopter, Pits joined people on the ground to help them despite his team members’ dissuasion. After saving several people, P.J. could have escaped in the last helicopter flying out of the acutely active combat zone but chose to stand behind his fellow soldiers before making the ultimate sacrifice. 

“The Last Full Measure,” a 2019 American war drama film directed by Todd Robinson, followed Pentagon staffer Scott Huffman’s efforts to investigate a Medal of Honor request for Pitsenbarger in 1998. As Huffman gathered testimonies from Army veterans, he discovered a high-profile conspiracy that had kept the Vietnam War hero from receiving the medal. This prompted Huffman to put a halt to his own career ambitions and dedicate his next years to pursuing justice for the fallen airman. Finally, on December 8, 2000, the government awarded A1C William H. Pitsenbarger the Medal of Honor posthumously.