Nudity is often dismissed as superfluous or sexualized, but these nude scenes left their mark on movie history and culture as a whole.

SEE ALSO: Top 10 Most Famous Adult Film Stars

Nude scenes can seem arbitrary and gratuitous, but some are markers of history that either moved cinema forward, shocked the world, or changed the culture. These are the 10 most iconic moments in movie nudity. A few caveats before the list: these films are natural nude scenes meaning they don’t include prosthetics or CGI (sorry, Mark Wahlberg in Boogie Nights). Here are the most important nude scenes in movie history and their impacts on culture as a whole.

WARNING: Videos in this list contain sensitive content. Images do not.

10 Hedy Lamarr in Ecstasy

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Leave it to Hedy Lamarr—one of the most fascinating people in global film history—to have a controversial nude scene in 1933. She runs naked through a field and also goes for a naked swim in this Czech film from director Gustav Machaty. The plot was liberating, too, as Hedy plays a woman whose husband is impotent. As a result, she decides to have an affair. She also had the first onscreen orgasm depicted in cinema! The film was a major success, slipping into the public before the strict Hays Code took effect. Hedy went on to become an inventor whose work in radio technology was used by Allies during World War II and is also the basis for Bluetooth technology. All of that from an actress who brazenly went nude!

9 Phoebe Cates in Fast Times at Ridgemont High

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There is no denying the power of the teen sex comedy and its height in the 1980s. From Revenge of the Nerds to Porkys, there were countless films where teens and college students were getting naked and ogling each other all in the name of good fun. One film stands out above the rest and it’s Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Directed by Amy Heckerling, the movie gives a little more attention to its female characters than other movies in the genre (David Lynch was actually approached to direct, but thankfully the honor went to Amy). One of the most memorable scenes is a dream sequence in which one young man is in the bathroom dreaming about Phoebe Cates slowly emerging from a swimming pool and opening up her red bikini top to show her bare chest. Why is this important? It’s definitely one of the pornier nude scenes in movie history that managed to elevate the genre of the teen sex comedy. When people think of the genre and this movie, in particular, that scene comes to mind.

8 Eva Green, Louis Garrell, and Michael Pitt in The Dreamers

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Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Dreamers is an ode to bohemian youth in 1960s Europe as an American spends time in Paris in 1968. He meets a brother and sister duo whose parents are out of town, so the three stay at the family apartment and spend time exploring that very 60s notion of free love. Threesomes have been depicted on screen in all kinds of ways (Y Tu Mama Tambien is a great example), but The Dreamers introduced incest and political unrest. The sensuality in the movie is juxtaposed with the greater cultural strife felt in Paris in the late ’60s. It feels like the entire city—and the world—is about to explode, and in this scene, the three find their curiosities also explode as the damn bursts, and they engage in a menage a trois. The dreamers love to escape the greater political revolutions going on around them, either in the apartment without parents, at the movies, or with one another’s bodies. It’s a beautiful scene in a poetic film that shows how people actively ignore the struggles of the outside world.

7 Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan in 50 Shades of Gray

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The film 50 Shades of Gray may be easy to dismiss for its campy eroticism, but the truth is that these wildly successful books-turned-movies brought S&M and kink to mainstream Hollywood. A young woman meets a powerful man who introduces her to a world of BDSM. The indie film Secretary before it playfully explored some of these themes, but 50 Shades was such a monumental hit by comparison. BDSM in a loving relationship simply wasn’t exposed to the mainstream in such a financially successful way before this. Star Dakota Johnson has been quoted talking about her admiration of BDSM that she developed after filming the movie. There were sequels, of course, which turned kink into a franchise.

6 Kathleen Turner and William Hurt in Body Heat

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In classic film noir (such as The Big Sleep, To Have and Have Not, and Double Indemnity), sex was confined largely to innuendo and subtle wordplay. To some extent, that was a response to the conservative production codes of the era, but it also lent the films a kind of latent sexual tension: We couldn’t see the characters having sex, so we imagined them having sex for the whole film. But in the ‘70s and ‘80s, we got to see the sex. And in Body Heat, we got to see a lot of it, as William Hurt’s lawyer and Kathleen Turner’s alluring, married socialite found themselves having a torrid, fatal affair. Indeed, it’s hard to pick one particular sex scene among the many featured in this film, but we’ll go with the mostly clothed one in which Turner, playing vulnerable but never taking her eyes off him, strangely seduces Hurt into breaking into her own house. After 1981, whenever anyone referred to a “steamy legal thriller”—and, curiously, people often did—visions of Body Heat began to dance in everyone’s heads.

5 Chloe Sevigny and Vincent Gallo in The Brown Bunny

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There are rumors about several realistic sex scenes in film history that are unsimulated, like Gaspar Noe’s Love and 1979’s Caligula. Still, one such famous scene that’s long been believed to be real is from the 2003 Indie film The Brown Bunny. This isn’t the only “real” sex scene in movie history, but it is by far the most famous. Chloe Sevigny gives graphic oral sex to Vincent Gallo who directed this bleak film about a traveling man looking for meaning on his way to California. Chloe Sevigny has said she thought the film would barely be seen and was surprised that this art-house flick got so much attention. She says the scene didn’t hurt her career, only some of her personal relationships and that she and her mom don’t talk about the movie at all. That’s fair.

4 Janet Leigh in Psycho

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Filmmaker Alexandre O. Philippe has been quoted as saying, “There were movies before the shower scene and movies after the shower scene.” While it’s not the most explicitly nude scene on this list, it essentially did away with the censorship code that ruled Hollywood for nearly thirty years. Not only that, but it made people terrified to ever take a shower again. This scene is another one that is so iconic, some people might not even know what movie it is from. It’s been widely parodied, remade, and referenced ever since its debut in 1960 to horrified crowds around the country. Director Alfred Hitchcock fooled censors by using extreme closeups and revolutionary editing techniques for a total of 78 camera shots and 52 edits. Not only was Janet Leigh in her bra and underwear having a post-coital conversation with a man she was not married to, but this shower stabbing had censors in a tizzy. The most controversial scene shot? The shot of the toilet flushing at the end of the scene. That was actually Hollywood’s first toilet scene. As for the nudity, Janet wore moleskin on her nipples to hide her most sensitive areas and a body double, Olympic swimmer Marli Renfro, stood in for her for some shots. Between the two women, the most famous shower scene in history was made.

3 Michael Fassbender in Shame

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Full frontal male nude scenes are very disproportional to female full frontal scenes. Leave it to the film Shame about a man struggling with sex addiction to boldly show Michael Fassbender’s penis as he walks in and out of frame. The NC-17 film is filled with nude scenes and sex scenes devoid of love to show what this man’s shameless addiction feels like. As shocking as the movie is as a whole, it’s most memorable for Fassbender’s penis making its way on camera. It’s rare to see this much male nudity in a movie that isn’t being used for comedic effect, which has partially become what the drama is most famous for. In some ways, that’s a “shame” because the movie is very good, but on the other hand, the world got to see Michael Fassbender nude.

2 Jaye Davidson in The Crying Game

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Jaye Davidson’s role as Dil in The Crying Game is an example of a nude scene advancing the plot. This story about a man who goes searching for a deceased soldier’s lover and ends up also falling for her. The movie takes a shocking turn when it is revealed that Dil is a transgender woman (shocking for 1992, anyway). The reveal of Jaye Davidson’s body is one of the most shocking and well-done twists in history while also showing the layers and complexities of gender and sexuality. The movie as a whole is filled with more twists and turns.

1 Sharon Stone’s Leg Cross in Basic Instinct

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It’s actually pretty rare to see a flash of a woman’s downstairs on the big screen, which is why Sharon Stone’s crotch flash was so shocking. It’s the kind of scene people know about even if they’ve never seen the movie. Sharon is effortlessly cool, wearing a white minidress with her legs crossed as she smokes a cigarette during an interrogation. She keeps her cool and her steady gaze as she very deliberately uncrosses her legs, opens them slightly, and crosses them again. She’s not wearing underwear and she lets everyone in the room see it! The scene is not only shocking and sexy, but it shows Sharon’s character as in control. She commands attention, and she knows how to use what she’s got to gain more power. This is a leg cross that will never be forgotten.

About The Author: Stephanie Weber is a pop culture writer and comedian who has been published in Slate, The AV Club, Bustle, Refinery29, Reductress, and more. She is a staff writer for Mr. Skin.

It’s the weekend! Hooray! What better way to celebrate than to spend some time looking at videos? There are two basic methods for creating a time-lapse—recording one long video and speeding it up, or taking many individual images after set time intervals and stitching them together in the end. The first method is much simpler, while the second uses significantly less memory.

SEE ALSO: 10 Amazing Videos About Incredibly Unique Places

Time-lapse videos continue to grow in popularity because of their ability to condense information and show changes that are normally too slow to notice. There is something fascinating and deeply satisfying about watching a process that would normally take days, months, or even years, happen in only a few minutes.

Another reason behind their growing popularity is the rapidly increasing access to smartphones worldwide. Many of the recent smartphones have built-in features that make time-lapses easy to capture and share. Here are 20 amazing time-lapse videos that might even inspire you to make one of your own.

20 Water Evaporation

Water evaporation is usually associated with higher temperatures; so many people do not realize how quickly water can evaporate in a normal indoor setting. Although increased heat makes water evaporate faster, it still turns into a gas called water vapor at any temperature. Even ice turns directly into gas through a transition called sublimation.

Evaporation is one of the three main steps in the Earth’s water cycle alongside condensation and precipitation. It accounts for 90 percent of the moisture in the Earth’s atmosphere, while the other 10 percent is due to plant transpiration. But at lower temperatures, evaporation is typically too slow to be noticed. This time-lapse shows how water evaporates from a regular drinking glass over a period of 66 days.

19 Egg

Eggs contain a lot of two proteins—globulin and keratin. As globulin decays, a flammable and toxic chemical called hydrogen sulfide is released. And as keratin breaks down, it releases high levels of an amino acid called cysteine, which is full of sulfur atoms. Both of these proteins release the sulfurous smell that can immediately be recognized as rotting eggs.

Most people do not have the time, interest or tolerance of stenches necessary to leave a raw egg on a plate and watch what happens to it over time. Luckily, the creator of the water evaporation time-lapse also recorded this 13-day long experiment, so nobody else would have to.

18 Realistic 3D Egg Painting

Speaking of eggs, there is one man who is incredibly skilled at painting them. Italian artist Marcello Barenghi has created six hyper-realistic paintings involving eggs. Sometimes called “the hyper-realist artist of the common things in the era of YouTube” Barenghi began his YouTube channel in 2013 and has painted many amazing artworks over the years.

According to Barenghi, every single object has its own beauty—even an empty bag of potato chips. Without the time-lapse videos, many of his paintings could be easily mistaken for real objects.

17 Earthquake Resistant 30-Story Building Built In 15 Days

Although there is no sustained threat of earthquakes in China, the country has a long history of devastating natural disasters. Three of the ten deadliest earthquakes in known human history took place in China.

This lurking threat has led to a lot of innovation among engineers and construction workers in China. Speed and precision are key, as the Broad Sustainable Building company shows in this time-lapse by building a 9.0 magnitude earthquake resistant 30-story building in only 15 days.

16 One World Trade Center

Located in lower Manhattan, the One World Trade Center has 496 restaurants, 5,400 hotel rooms and 1076 places to shop. It is not only the tallest building in New York City but the tallest in the Western Hemisphere and the seventh-tallest in the world.

While it is fascinating to watch something as huge as the One World Trade Center be built, its construction started in 2006 and was not finished until 2013. Fortunately, a time-lapse of the building’s construction is available for those who do not have seven years to spare.

15 Bridge Demolition

Watching something be built is definitely enjoyable, but for some reason, it is even more satisfying to watch something be demolished. In this time-lapse, an entire bridge is taken apart and cleared within ten hours. Such a speedy accomplishment likely baffles the people who are used to seeing the bridge every day and suddenly find it missing.

The old M9 Chartershall Bridge near Stirling, Scotland, had been struck by overheight vehicles several times and was beyond repair. Eight 30-ton rock-breakers were used to demolish the bridge within the ten-hour window. It was later replaced by a new bridge with greater headroom clearance.

14 Kitten To Adult Cat

When you see your cat every day, it can be hard to notice how quickly it grows and changes. Kittens typically go from weighing around 100 grams to 2-3 kilograms within ten months after birth. At 5-7 months old, cats reach sexual maturity. And their development nears its end after only two to three years.

This short and sweet time-lapse shows the rapid growth of a silver tabby Maine Coon cat over a period of ten months. According to the video description, each image is taken 2-3 days apart at the start, increasing to 10-15 days by the end.

13 Flood Engulfing Railway

Floods are rarely taken as seriously as other natural disasters. Many underestimate their speed, power, and potential for devastation. However, floods can be just as dangerous and deadly as earthquakes, volcanos, and hurricanes. In fact, the China Flood of 1931 might be the deadliest natural disaster ever recorded.

The Yangtze River runs through southern China, one of the most populated areas on Earth. When the river-basin received far-above-average rainfall in April 1931, followed by torrential rains in July, the stage was set for disaster. An estimated 3.7 million people were directly and indirectly killed by the flood over the course of several months.

The flood in this unbelievable time-lapse took place in northern Queensland, Australia. It shows what has been called a “one-in-500-year” flood event, as a week’s worth of rainfall swallows the Corolla Creek railway. Thousands of people were displaced, and nearly 1,000 homes suffered severe water damage, placing the recovery bill at $124 million.

12 Giant Hornet Queen Building A Nest

Hornets are the largest eusocial wasps in the world. These social insects live in extremely organized colonies. The community hive, where hornet eggs mature into adults, is often constructed by chewing wood from buildings, fences, and telephone poles. By mixing the wood with saliva, it is converted into a papery construction pulp.

Despite their remarkable construction skills, hornets are rarely a pleasant sight. Most hornet species are less toxic than bees, but their massive stingers still terrify children and adults alike. The one case when spotting a hornet may be more fascinating than scary is during its nest construction, which can be seen in this time-lapse.

11 Solar Eclipse

Captured on March 20, 2015, this stunning time-lapse shows the sunrise and solar eclipse over Iceland’s capital Reykjavík. An eclipse of the Sun occurs when the Moon moves between the Sun and Earth, blocking out the Sun’s rays. Because the shadow of the Moon is not big enough to engulf the entire planet, this event is limited to a certain area.

Most calendar years have only two solar eclipses, with a rare maximum of five solar eclipses in a year. According to NASA, only 25 of the past 5,000 years have had five solar eclipses. The last time was in 1935, and the next year with five solar eclipses will be 2206.

10 One Month Of The Sun

For a giant burning ball, the Sun is surprisingly peaceful and relaxing to watch. This relatively long time-lapse shows one month of solar activity in great detail. The footage was taken by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), which captures an image every 12 seconds.

The SDO was launched in 2010 for NASA’s Living With a Star program. This program was designed to understand the causes of solar variability and its impacts on Earth. SDO allows NASA to study the solar atmosphere on small scales of space and time and in many wavelengths simultaneously. This time-lapse, for example, was captured on wavelength 304.

9 Milky Way

While we are on the topic of space, there is another amazing time-lapse that deserves some recognition. This one captures a tiny slice of our galaxy and highlights some interesting objects in the night sky.

At roughly 100,000 light-years across, the size of the Milky Way is difficult to even imagine. If one could look down onto our galaxy from the top, they would see a central bulge surrounded by four large spiral arms that wrap around it.

Because the Milky Way is constantly rotating, the arms are moving through space. And the solar system is traveling with them. The solar system travels at an average speed of 828,000 kilometers per hour (515,000 mph). Even at this speed, the solar system would still need approximately 230 million years to travel all the way around the Milky Way.

8 Dam Removal

On October 26, 2011, the nearly 100-year-old Condit Dam was breached at its base with 318 kilograms (700 lb) of dynamite. The reservoir draining took about two hours and the last piece of the Condit Dam was removed in late 2012.

Demolishing the 38-meter (125 ft) tall dam was a significant milestone for river restoration and dam removal nationwide. This spectacular time-lapse speeds up the draining process and shows how the White Salmon River in Washington state began to flow freely yet again.

7 Swarming Worms And Sea Stars

Many think that sea stars, also known as starfish, are adorable creatures. What they might not realize is that most sea stars feed by latching onto prey with suction-cupped feet and pushing their stomach out through their mouth. Then the starfish oozes digestive juices into its prey, dissolving tissues and sucking them out like soup.

Because sea stars are slow animals, this time-lapse speeds up the graphic process. This video may not be for the faint of heart, as it shows hundreds of carnivorous sea stars swarm and begin to consume a baby seal carcass alongside three meters (9.8 ft) long nemertean worms that burrow inside the seal through its eye sockets.

6 Corpse Flower

The corpse flower is one of the world’s largest and rarest flowering structures. It blooms rarely and for a short time, during which the flower emits an odor similar to rotting meat or a decaying corpse. The smell, color, and even the temperature of the corpse flower are meant to attract pollinators and ensure the continuation of the species.

In 2013, a time-lapse of Perry the corpse flower growing in the Gustavus Adolphus College greenhouse became famous due to the plant’s quick growth and massive size. The footage shows Perry from the moment it begins to grow, to the moment when the spadix collapses 45 days later.

5 Snowzilla

This minute-long time-lapse captures the blizzard unofficially nicknamed “Snowzilla.” The footage shows 48 hours of snowfall between January 22 and 24, 2016 in northern Virginia, USA. According to the photographer, the final measurement on the yardstick was 31 inches or 79 centimeters.

While “Snowzilla” may have set a record for snowfall, experts consider it an economically minor event. The fact that the blizzard hit the East Coast during the weekend meant it was far less disruptive and costly than expected. Estimates range from $850 million to $3 billion.

4 Bees Hatch Before Your Eyes

Bee metamorphosis begins when the queen lays a tiny egg, only about 1.7 millimeters (0.07 in) long. Worker bees clean and prepare the cells for raising the brood and the queen lays a single egg in each cell. If a cell is not spotless, she moves to another one. Eggs hatch into larvae, which transform into pupae.

That is when these little creatures begin to take on the familiar features of adult bees. The wings, legs, and eyes take shape until the fine hairs that cover the bee’s body finally develop. Fully developed bees chew their way through the wax capping and join their siblings. Thanks to modern technology and time-lapses, observing this amazing hidden process has become much easier.

3 Three Decades On Earth

Satellites have taken millions of high-definition images of earth over the years. NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey collated and assembled these images into something of a flip-book that reveals the slow changes of our world.

Google finished what the two science agencies started by turning some of the choppy, hazy images into smoothly streaming videos. The three-decade time-lapse of earth unveiled by Google condenses decades of topographic changes into short clips.

The Google Earth Engine team worked with over 5.4 million images taken since 1984 and gave images individual attention, filling in missing pixels and occasionally scrubbing away clouds. While the average high-definition TV image consists of roughly 300,000 points of light, the Google time-lapse images pack 3.95 trillion pixels into a single frame.

2 Earth From The ISS

The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest single structure humans ever put into space. Although its main construction was completed between 1998 and 2011, the station continually evolves to include new missions and experiments.

The ISS flies at an average altitude of 400 kilometers (248 mi) above Earth and circles the globe every 90 minutes at a speed of 28,000 kilometers (17,500 mi) per hour. Not only is this spectacular journey available in a time-lapse format, but there is also a continuous live stream from the ISS that can be found on Youtube.

1 Portrait Of Lotte

Dutch filmmaker Frans Hofmeester took one short video of his daughter Lotte every week throughout her childhood. Once these videos were sped up and stitched together, they created one of the longest and most fascinating time-lapses ever created, spanning 18 years.

This ongoing project has gone viral since the first video of Lotte growing from a newborn to a 12-year-old within mere minutes. However, as Hofmeester published new time-lapses every one to two years, his videos continued to gather millions of views.

Another portrait of 20-year-old Lotte is coming soon but the current most popular time-lapse summarizing 18 years of her life has more than 11 million views. The Dutch filmmaker has also done the same for his younger son Vince, who is currently 16 years old.

“Sometimes they did not feel like it,” said Hofmeester. “Then I said ‘Just one minute. Tell me about your ball game, did you win?’ That way I stalled them so I could complete the shot.”

Animals have an uncanny ability to know when a natural disaster is about to strike. Sometimes, they run away or hide, and their humans have no way of finding them in time to evacuate. More often than not, a pet owner has no choice but to leave their animals behind in order to save themselves.

At the end of every natural disaster – whether it be a flood, earthquake, tsunami, fire, or tornado, local shelters have to gather abandoned pets and attempt to reunite them with their owners. Many pets go unclaimed, and other times, people learn that their pets are not among the survivors. But in these next ten stories, pets are reunited with their owners in the most amazing ways.

10 Cadie the Cat

Judy Pugh was an elderly woman sitting in her home in Tuscaloosa, Alabama when a tornado hit. A wall fell on top of her, which held her body down as the rest of her house was sucked up into the twister. Neighbors called her name and lifted the wall off of her, and the storm continued to move on and ravaged the rest of the town. Pugh had three pet cats, and finding them after the storm was her only concern.^[1]

She managed to find two of the cats soon after. but sadly, she could not find her third cat, Cadie. Her family suspected that the 10-year old feline was carried away in the twister. Despite the fact that over a month had passed since the storm, she did not give up hope. Pugh continued to show up to the wreckage of her home and search for the cat every single day. A local TV station found Ms. Pugh standing by the wreckage and interviewed her. In the middle of the recording, Cadie the cat silently emerged out of the remains of Pugh’s house. He found his way home home after all.

Cadie was skinny, dirty, and could not even muster the strength to meow. Pugh walked over to him, gingerly scooping his tiny body into her arms. “I have everything in the world, now,” Pugh said as she began to cry. She cuddled her pet close to her chest. The TV microphone picked up the loud purring emanating from the tired cat.

9 The Farm in Plum Grove

Lester Morrow had no choice but to abandon his farm animals in Plum Grove, Texas during Hurricane Harvey. He was able to bring his dog with him, but they had no time to hitch a trailer behind their truck, and left behind several horses, donkeys, goats, and a potbelly pig named Patty.^[2]

When Morrow returned to his farm, he was recording the devastation on his cellphone, starting at the end of his long driveway. There was still a lot of water on the property, and he commented about the trash and debris that floated onto his land, when he saw in the distance that Patty the pig was so happy to hear Morrow’s voice, she was wading through the water to greet him. He immediately began sobbing, and recorded the animals who had survived the storm.

Many of his horses had broken legs, and over a dozen animals had died, but several of them managed to break down a fence and stand on the porch of the house in order to survive. He posted the video on YouTube to share with friends and family, and it went viral. He made a GoFundMe campaign to help his animals, and he raised $14,000.

8 Ban

On March 11, 2011, Japan was hit by an 9.0 magnitude earthquake that was followed by a tsunami that hit the northern part of the country. Three weeks after the disaster, the Japanese coast guard was still flying over the ocean to search for bodies that may be floating in the water. A mile away from shore, they spotted a dog walking around on top of the roof of a house that was floating in the water. Somehow, it had survived the tsunami. They lowered a man down from a helicopter to rescue the dog, who was later identified as “Ban”. The dog was wrapped in blankets, given food and water, and the rescue team carried him out on a stretcher.^[3]

Ban was reunited with his owner, who wished to remain anonymous in the media, so she wore a medical mask in the video of when they reunited to conceal her face. Ban still recognized her, and jumped up, wagging his tail and snuggling into her chest as she hugged him. “Thank goodness…I’ll never let him go,” she told the press.

7 Izzy

In 2017, wildfires spread across Santa Rosa, California, destroying thousands of homes in its path. The Weaver family was forced to evacuate, and they could not find their dog, Izzy, in time to escape. On October 10th, Jack Weaver and his brother-in-law Patrick Widen returned back to Weaver’s property to see if there was anything left. He began recording on this cellphone, and even from far away, he could see that their home was completely burned to the ground. Even though it was a long shot, they began whistling and calling Izzy’s name, in hope that he somehow escaped the flames.

Their disappointment was almost immediately replaced by joy, because Izzy the shaggy Bernese Mountain dog began walking towards them. Not only did he survive, but the loyal dog was waiting in the ashes of his former home for his master to return. It was totally unexpected, and the brothers began screaming out of joy as their reaction was captured on film.^[4]

6 Rica

Charles Trippy gained Internet fame by daily vlogging every single day for several years. He had continued to do this for so long, he even holds a Guinness World Record. When Florida was expected to be hit by Hurricane Irma in 2017, their town was ordered to evacuate. Charles and his family decided to take their chances by staying at home with their dogs and an electric generator. Since vlogging on YouTube is his job, Trippy recorded the experience of living in a town that was almost completely empty before, during, and after the storm.

Just as Charles and his wife Allie were driving home from with supplies from the hardware store to officially hunker down for the night, they spotted a tiny 4-week old kitten standing in the middle of the street. They got out and took her into their car and refused to leave the baby behind. That night, the amount of damage and flooding caused by the storm was worse than they imagined, and they were lucky that their house survived. They knew that if they had not rescued the kitten, there is no doubt that it would have died. They decided to name her Rica, which is short for Hurricane.

5 Junior

A tornado hit Granbury, Texas in 2013. A man named Jerry Shuttlesworth was living in a trailer park. Without a basement or a place to hide, he had no choice but to shut himself in the laundry room with his dog, a pitbull named Junior. The tornado directly hit his trailer, and Shuttlesworth described it like the home was being crushed down, and then sucked up. He flew into the air, and the wind flipped him upside down. He was desperately trying to hold on to Junior, but the tornado ripped the dog out of his arms.

The tornado dropped Shuttlesworth about 20 feet away, but the dog had completely disappeared in the twister. He laid on the ground with broken bones, looking up at the tornado. He described seeing debris circling in slow motion above his head, and it was so surreal, it was unlike anything he had ever seen in his life. After getting rescued and getting Internet access, Shuttlesworth posted a photo of Junior as a missing pet on Facebook.

By no small miracle, the local animal shelter found him. They called the news, and the best friends were reunited on film. He told the reporters that he was going to treat Junior to a meal of Kentucky Fried Chicken. “I think he flew through the air. Y’know, dogs weren’t meant to fly. But he had an angel with him.”

4 Snoopy and Abbey

After Hurricane Harvey, Texas shelters were filled to the brim with pets in cages, waiting for their owners to find them. In August of 2017, reporters rode along with The Humane Society of Dickinson, Texas. They were responding to phone call from people who were displaced from their homes, and pleaded for them to find their missing dog and cat. They arrived to the flooded neighborhood, whistling and calling the names of the pets, and found two dogs.^[5]

They were a poodle named Snoopy and English bulldog, Abbey. A kind stranger saw the two dogs swimming through the water together. She rescued them and brought them to her house, which was above the flood line. A man named Ryan Johnson showed up to claim Abbey and Snoopy from the shelter. He knew that they belonged to his father-in-law, who was having nightmares and losing sleep over the fate of his dogs. “He can finally sleep tonight,” Johnson said.

3 Odin

Ronald Handel lived on a ranch in California. He owned two Great Pyrenees mountain dogs who took care of their 8 goats. It was their job to protect the goats from predators in the California mountains. In 2017, when the wildfires were approaching in the distance, Handel scrambled to get his daughter and the dogs into the car so they could evacuate.^[6]

One of the dogs, Odin, refused to neglect his doggy duty. He laid down with the goats, and stared at Handel, as if to say, “I’m not leaving.” Handel waited as long as he could for Odin to come around, but they had to leave. He describes a horrific scene of the fire being so close behind him and his daughter as they drove, it sounds like a scene out of an action movie. They could see parked cars a few yards behind them filling with flames, and heard explosions from propane tanks, and the shriek of grinding of melting, twisting metal.

After the flames were put out, Handel and his young daughter did not expect to find anything when they returned to their property, but Odin was still there. He and the goats were slightly burned in a few spots, but he had managed to bring them all to safety, despite the fact that everything else around them was burned to the ground. He was limping, and very tired, so Handel knew that Odin had been on an adventure of his own to save his friends. If only dogs could talk.

2 Mei-Chan

After the 2011 tsunami in Japan, Fuji TV was filming the damage from the disaster, and they spotted a Brittany Spaniel. She walked up to them urging them to follow her. She walked over to an English Setter who was laying on the ground, clearly injured and unable to move. While the men sounded sad and concerned for the dogs, and they sent a message to “please help” to the Nippon SPCA, the witnesses failed to do anything to help the pups themselves.^[7]

The video made its way to YouTube, called “Stay together dogs”. It went viral, and people around the world were heartbroken and started sending money to the Nippon SPCA to help their rescue efforts. However, the video started a controversy, and the SPCA began to receive threatening phone calls from people accusing them of not working hard enough to save the dogs. Owners of dog food companies created raising money for their own campaigns to save the “stay together dogs”. People were very invested in the fate of the pups.

The dog’s owner saw the video, and recognized her dog, Mei-chan. The second dog, Lee-chan, also belonged to her. It took eight months for the Nippon SPCA to finally find Mei-chan, and she was reunited with her owner.

1 T2

In 2002, a retired K-9 police officer named Perry Martin adopted a ginger kitten and named it T2. Hurricane Jeanne hit Florida in 2004, and everyone lost their power, and they could not turn on the air conditioning in the summer heat. Martin started leaving his windows open to let some air in. The 2-year old cat climbed through a window and out into the hurricane aftermath. Martin searched for a long time, and notified all of the local shelters, but after enough time passed, Martin accepted that he would never see T2 again.^[8]

In 2018, a local animal shelter found a skinny stray cat and brought him in. The scanned him for a microchip, and called up Perry Martin. When they told him that they had the cat that had gone missing 14 years earlier, he did not believe them, but sure enough, he was reunited with his cat, who was now an elderly 16 year old. They have no idea where T2 was for 14 years, or how he managed to survive, but during media interviews, he looks very content curled up in Perry Martin’s lap.

Shannon Quinn (shannquinn.com) is a writer from the Philadelphia area. You can find her on Twitter @ShannQ

Cats are beautiful and dangerous. Tourists who want to experience the real-life dramas that come with these apex predators often consider going on safaris or visiting parks in Africa or Eurasia.

But if those tourists are from the Americas, they could see similar things at home. The New World’s large and small cats may not have the global fame of lions, tigers, and cheetahs, but their way of life is much the same. Ordinary people have witnessed some amazing events associated with wild American cats, while professionals have inched even closer.

10 Episodes That Were Banned From Television [Videos—Seizure Warning]

10 Mary’s Peak Encounter

One day, this person was just visiting the scenic wilderness of Mary’s Peak near Corvallis, Oregon, when this happened.^[1]

Seeing a large cat make a kill right in front of you is something that you would only expect to experience in places like the Serengeti, not a few miles from home!

Lesson learned: Always keep your phone charged, and have extra batteries on hand!

9 Mountain Lion In Heat

Here is a professional guide who is awed by the sounds echoing through the woods around him.

What would you do if you heard something like that? (Probably not turn to the camera and whisper “mountain lion in heat.”) Mountain lions (aka cougars or pumas) are included as “Least Concern” on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

However, these are not the only terrifying sounds made by wild cats in the Americas.^[2]

8 Lynx Males Screaming At Each Other In Tree

Even without the suggested earphones, this is jarring.

These blood-chilling screams are a good way for the males to compete for a she-cat’s favors without risking harm in a physical fight. Although the males tangled a bit, each one survived the encounter. Of course, both had been at risk of falling.

The question is: What was the winning move? Not position. The cat on top lost the battle.

Did the other lynx have a louder yell? More teeth bared? Fancier footwork on the branches? We’ll never know.

Fortunately, outside of mating season, Canada lynxes are a little more approachable.^[3]

7 Lynx And Cameraman Have Working Relationship

It’s difficult to say which one is more hardcore here—the cameraman who kept at it through Canadian snow for almost 80 days or Mad Max, the lynx.

This time, it’s a win-win situation for cat and man. Mad Max got his meal. The cameraman took some unique footage and enjoyed the best day of his life.

Canada lynxes are also on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species as “Least Concern.” Together with the bobcat, they belong to one of the few intercontinental feline lineages. Their Old World relatives are the Iberian lynx and the Eurasian lynx.^[4]

6 Jaguarundi And Monkey

This common, small, Latin American wild cat is one of the least-known cats to residents of North America.

In this video, it’s not an otter going up the tree. That’s the jaguarundi. (Actually, it appears that a tayra has “weaseled” its way into the video. But we’re going to talk about jaguarundis anyway.)

Jaguarundis are built long and low to the ground with a very long tail. (Despite the name, they’re more closely related to mountain lions than to jaguars.)

You might want to take off the earphones for this video. It is a little horrifying—partly because it’s a kill but more because of the hapless victim’s screams and the predator’s harsh yowls. Also, this killer cat does not care that humans are nearby.

Jaguarundis, red-listed as “Least Concern,” usually hunt on the ground, which is another reason why this video would be special if that little sucker actually was a jaguarundi.^[5]

10 Mysterious Urban Legends Based on Video Footage

5 Jaguars vs. Otters

Jaguars are the only big cat that’s native to the Americas. At one time, they inhabited parts of what is now the United States, but today, they only live wild in Latin America.

Jaguars are excellent swimmers, but these two don’t want to go into the water!

What makes this especially hardcore (and hilarious) is that the jaguars are being laughed at by Panthera personnel.

By the way, those giant otters are endangered.^[6] This was probably just a learning experience for the young cats. No one laughs at a hungry adult jaguar.

4 Jaguar And Caiman

Jaguars are powerfully built and have massive jaw muscles. They can eat almost anything they want, including cattle. But in many parts of South America, caimans—relatives of the crocodile—are the favorite food of jaguars.

As we see in this video, the jaguar is good at sneaking up on a careless caiman that ventures a little too close to shore.

Jaguars have “Near Threatened” status on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, though they are rarer in some parts of their range. Caimans are considered “Unspecified.”^[7]

3 Andean Mountain Cat On The Prowl

At first glance, this is just a small, fuzzy-looking cat. However, two facts make this video especially impressive.

First, as this is the Andes above the tree line, many of those rocky surfaces are nearly vertical—and this doesn’t seem to faze the cat. It carries on its restless search for food at a steady pace regardless of the slope.

Second, it is a huge achievement that they are now getting videos like this. Until recently (when digital cameras became a thing), no one could be sure whether the rare Andean cat was still around or had gone extinct. Only native people reported seeing it.

Andean cats are “Endangered” on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

Experts aren’t sure where this mysterious little species fits into the cat family. For many decades, conservationists could only study a few pelts and some stuffed specimens. Thanks to modern technology and field evidence like this video, our understanding of Andean cats is improving.^[8]

2 Oncilla On The Prowl

What’s so hardcore about this camera trap video?

First, the oncilla (aka the northern tiger cat) is red-listed as “Vulnerable.” That means it’s at high risk of extinction.

Next, the pointy-nosed, feisty critter taken down by the oncilla is either a grison (Latin America’s version of the wolverine) or a coati (a species that snacks upon rattlesnakes, among other things).

They are both hard fighters, though only one looks like a pretty little house cat.

Finally, after murdering a rodent for dessert, the oncilla goes right back into adorable mode. Then it wanders off into the night to commit more mayhem, and we can only go, “Aww, how cute!”

Do not show this video to any friends who are already convinced that cats are all psychopaths.^[9]

1Mountain Lion Raising A Family

You can’t get much more hardcore than this.

Other than lions, most cats are solitary and just get together briefly during breeding season. Females then do the rest, bearing the young and feeding and guarding them for months to years.

During this time, Mom must do her regular hunting as well as catch more food to feed her family. Typically, the male doesn’t help her and is often a threat to the cubs.

The encounter with the cub’s father is just one of the awesome things about this video.

The young male’s eventual fate is sad. Over the long run, though, this tendency for male cats to disperse has helped mountain lions spread throughout the Americas.

It’s always a risk to set off on your own, but it has paid off. Today, as a species, mountain lions range through more latitude than any other mammal in the Americas.^[10]

10 Heartwarming Stories Of Pets Who Survived Natural Disasters (Videos)

TikTok creators are always cooking up new ways to attract and entertain fans. While many choose to impress by following challenges, others create content that shocks and amazes fans with every post. This list features the scariest videos from the platform that show that a horror hashtag can be just as popular as a new dance. Get a change of underwear ready! Here are the top 10 scariest TikTok videos out there.

10 Lip Syncing with a Demon

TikTok is home to millions of lip sync videos, and every time, users post themselves doing popular challenges. @herony is a master of surprises, and in this video, he has a shocking twist for his fans.

The video starts normally with the young influencer posing as if he’s about to lip-sync to a catchy pop tune. But within seconds the music stops and the camera zooms into a dark corner.

In a video that taps into stereotypical horror tropes, the young man looks possessed, spinning his head in super-speed like a demon. The creepy soundtrack running in the background further adds an eerie effect to the clip. As the video ends, the demon jumps from the corner hands out, looking to grab the viewer through the camera.

If the demon twist doesn’t get you, the outstretched hands will have you pushing your phone away from your face.

9 My Family Wants You for Dinner

School is the best place to meet new people and for kids, it’s the perfect place to make new friends. This TikTok video by @ashurgharavi tells the story of two kids on the verge of being best buddies.

After one kid cannot pay for lunch, a generous stranger offers to pay, claiming that it’s a “good deed.” As the kids build a rapport, the lunch kid gets invited to his new friend’s home. But when they get home, things go awry quickly.

“Mom! I brought dinner,” are the last words the new kid hears before the clip rolls to a stop. From this point, it’s easy to fill in the gaps as to what happens next in this Hansel & Gretel-esque scene. Kids, don’t go for dinner at a strange house without telling your grandma first. You might become the dinner yourself! 

8 Daughter Turned Doll by Store Owner

Individually crafted hyper-realistic dolls are a new fad, and they make for interesting gifts. This TikTok features a special doll that literally comes to life after its real “parents” visit the doll store.

The video posted by @jannet.regina starts with a couple visiting the doll store where they are amazed by a doll they see. But once they press the “ON” button, the doll comes alive, revealing that she’s their long-lost daughter. The text on screen helps drive the story forward, as the dolls narrate how the store owner used magic to turn her into a doll. 

If that one episode of “Night Gallery” wasn’t enough to turn you off to dolls—if “Annabelle” didn’t do the trick—maybe this one will. Any doll that comes to life is enough to make you say “nope,” and leave.

7 Frankenstein’s Monster in the Park

A walk in the park during perfect weather is always relaxing. But what happens when there’s a monster looking for blood in the park?

This video by @shortestblockbusters begins with incredible suspense as a person with a camera records a strange creature. The monstrous creature looks strikingly alien and, hunching over a bit, seems athletic. The user decides to hide behind a tree, avoiding the scary creature. But he’s not very successful.

The most frightening part is when the creature charges at the camera, growling like a predator catching up with its prey. The shaky camera movement, in the end, leaves audiences wondering whether the creature catches up with the person recording it.

If Frankenstein’s monster looks like this, there’s no chance most of us would survive its fury.

6 Midnight Knock on the Door

Midnights are quiet and for any night owl, this is a time to relax or wash dishes before bed. This TikTok is both creepy and disturbing and may have you rethink your night owl ways.

The video posted by @secondhorror starts off perfectly, with a woman washing her dishes in the quiet of the night. She immediately stops when she hears a knock on the door. This is when the video gets interesting—cue mood lighting. Between the pounding at the door and the dog’s barks, the mood unpleasantly shifts.

When she checks and opens the door, there’s no one there. When this happens the second time, she doesn’t take any chances since she knows that something’s off. After scanning the area carefully, she notices a figure from a distance and spots a lady standing menacingly in the dark.

You can bet that she doesn’t go to sleep after this since the mysterious figure looks like she means business. What would you do in the same scenario? Would you go out and confront the creepy lady?

5 Creature Pops Up Behind You

Imagine watching a late-night movie when the TV starts acting up, changing the channel by itself. As you listen to static and see strange patterns on the screen, the TV starts talking to you. It knows what you’ve been doing. What a creeper.

In this @dreamanalytics video, the above scenario unfolds, but it doesn’t end there. As the TikTok continues, the TV gives the clueless man the idea that something sinister is afoot. Indeed, an intruder with a white clown’s face creeps up behind him, watching him closely. In the end, the intruder is beside the man, who is so fearful he isn’t peeking.

The TikTok ends with a crazy clown laugh that leaves you chilly as the screen fades to black. It’s so real that you might end up looking over your shoulder a few times after you watch the video. Are you alone? Are you sure?

4 “Stranger Things” In Seattle

Home is the only place most of us can find peace in a tough world. But it shouldn’t be where we rest in peace! This TikTok from @niko.kent shows how his haunted home robs him of both.

In the video, Niko is panting and breathing heavily. In the background of the video, he records a strange occurrence in his room. In what can only be described as a “Stranger Things” monster, he discovers that he was right to be suspicious. A creature with long skinny black fingers closes the closet doors while making some creepy tapping sounds.

The scared man rushes out of his apartment in an attempt to escape the monster. His caption expresses his fears at the moment, as it reads, “Anyone else seeing weird things in Seattle cuz I’m about to move.” But just when he thinks he’s safe, he hears some undefinable sounds coming from the bottom of the stairs.

Are the aliens here? Is Seattle haunted? Niko thinks so, and his evidence is somewhat convincing.

3 What’s in the Next Stall

School bathrooms are mysterious, and from the many stories people tell, it’s one place you don’t want to visit alone. In this TikTok, @bloodydeeb is in the bathroom when screams and vicious banging break the peaceful silence.

Like any curious soul, the lady investigates the curious noise. To her shock, the banging gets more vigorous and tense, forcing her to freeze on her heels. “Hello?” She probes from a safe distance before dashing out of the bathroom at lightning speed.

It’s only through slow-motion that we get a glimpse of whatever she saw and it is chilling. A disturbing figure with a pale face and black clothing pops out of the last stall at the far end. She didn’t wait to face the terrifying creature, and this might be the best decision she ever made. The video’s caption reads, “Was war das bitte?! (What was that? What was that please?!)

The lesson here is that if you discover a suspicious figure in the bathroom, don’t investigate! Get the heck out of there and find some professional help. But if all horror films followed this logic, we wouldn’t have any movies now, would we? But seriously, “What was that thing?”

2 Lurking in the Ocean

Are you afraid of the ocean? If you have thalassophobia, this video might trigger sleepless nights since it takes you to a place you might never come back home. In the TikTok, @shangerdanger goes out into the ocean and decides to take a dive that might as well be his last.

In a very Nietzsche “stare into the abyss” storytelling style, Shane describes how one can be mesmerized by the ocean to their own detriment. After sailing into the ocean, he dives into the water, and for a moment, things are calm. But once he tries to paddle his way back to the boat, he discovers he can’t.

Before he’s gathered his thoughts, he notices whales sailing away, sort of running from something dangerous. It’s a territorial tiger shark. In the end, “blue turns to black” as the diver accepts his fate.

The video is so creepy and realistic that it has a thalassophobia warning in the title. But you can bet that millions viewed it. When you think about it, the ocean is a magical place, but it’s definitely not where you want to take your last breath.

1 There’s Something in the Shadows

The list has some scary TikTok videos but the top spot goes to this video that had everyone jumping in fear. The video was originally posted by @artem_mokrushin on May 19, 2020, garnering over 20 million views. The horror TikTok was so popular that months after the user posted it on the app, it resurfaced and went viral on Twitter.

So, what made the 15-second video so scary? In the viral video, a man and woman are in their bedroom, probably at the end of a long day. As the man enters the room, he switches off the lights. The disturbing thing is that every time the light flicks off, you can see a creepy shadowy figure approaching the door. But when the man switches the lights back on, there’s nothing there.

When the man switches off the lights the third time, the creepy figure rushes to the screen accompanied by a screaming sound. The darkness, the mysterious character, the shrilling sound, and fast-forward effects catch you off guard. And temporarily make you hate whoever made you watch the video.

Users that watched the video confessed that it made them break their fingernails. They were not prepared for the jump scare. The TikTok scared plenty of folks and the strong reactions it got proves it’s striking. Think you can watch it without getting spooked?

For thousands of years, humans have worshipped and feared the power of curses. Whether brought on by wrathful god, spurned witch, or confluence of bloody history, curses have vexed hapless souls since the beginning of society. And whether any of these vengeful spells were ever real or just products of our innate tendency to fit patterns to events, it’s hard to deny their cultural impact. So much so that the word has taken on a second meaning in internet culture, referring to images, video, audio, etc., that is unusually disturbing and mysterious. These ‘cursed’ media become a special subset of memes, ones meant to disturb, scare, or challenge instead of amuse. 

This list looks at pieces of video and movies that show the whole range of curses: the allegedly supernatural curses that plague the unfortunate; the new, internet-styled cursed videos, which haunt psychologically instead of magically; and those that blur the line between the two. Here are 10 of the most cursed videos out there.

10 Internet – Rubber Johnny

This is one of the first cursed videos to haunt the early days of YouTube, and in those days, sneaking it into hidden folders and renamed URLs was a popular way to prank friends. Created as both an experimental art film and a music video for the song “Afx237 v.7” by electronic composer Aphex Twin, the film is wall-to-wall disgust and discomfort. 

The central focus is a deformed young man in a wheelchair, his head lolling about. He begins dancing to the EDM track while his chihuahua watches. But the blurred night-vision and quick editing with which the scene is presented takes any joy from the dance and makes the whole sequence erratic, nauseating, and disturbing.

9 Supernatural – The Japanese Kleenex Commercial

In 1986, a series of three commercials were released for Kleenex tissues. They feature Japanese actress Keiko Matsuzaka dressed in all white sitting on a bed of straw next to a young child dressed up as an ogre. On paper that sounds like just an odd creative choice and nothing inherently sinister. But then you watch the actual commercial. A haunting and vacuous love song plays in the background and gives the whole scene a deeply unnerving vibe.

Supposedly, many thought the song was actually a modern reworking of an ancient German curse. Many viewers called in to complain and the commercial was taken down. But on the air or not, the curse remained. It’s said that most of the commercial’s cast and crew passed away under mysterious circumstances, the lead actress birthed a demon baby, and thousands who merely watched the clip went insane. It only gets worse if you watch it at midnight…

8 Internet – My Dead Great Grandma’s Coffin in My Own Backyard

This one is chilling, not just for its content but because it is eerily plausible. In it, a man communicating only via ASL explains that his local cemetery is so mismanaged and unable to maintain its quality that he has decided to keep his great grandmother’s casket in his own yard. Above ground. Worse is that the video culminates in him opening the casket to reveal her partially decomposed body, which he then kisses. On the mouth. He kisses a rotten, decomposing corpse on the mouth. And it’s on video. This video. It’s hard to say more because seeing that is enough. More than enough. And it’s so disturbingly possible.

7 Supernatural – Atuk

There is no curse I take more personally than the curse of Atuk. That’s because, whether by curse or sheer misfortune, the end result is four comedy legends—maybe five—meeting an untimely demise. 

 The curse surrounds a movie script based on the Canadian satire novel The Incomparable Atuk. The book tells the story of how an Inuit moves to Toronto and gradually succumbs to its big-city temptations, becoming as greedy and snobbish as those he initially despises. When it came to adapt the picture for American moviegoers, a few big names in comedy were considered for the role.

First was John Belushi, who died months after being offered the part. Sam Kinison got the lead role next and died while attempting to rewrite the part. Next was John Candy, who died months after reading. Then came Chris Farley, and within months he was dead, too. Allegedly, Farley showed his good friend Phil Hartman the script, who also met his death shortly after. 

Now, that’s all way oversimplified and also easily explainable. The lead role exclusively went to overweight actors, most of who had drug problems. But it’s easier to rage at a curse than to accept that those five titans are really gone without reason.

6 Internet- Man gets lost in the catacombs of Paris

Though its authenticity is dubious, this clip is frightening. An extensive, labyrinthine network of tunnels known as the Paris Catacombs snake their way beneath the French city. Though about a mile of the structure is open for tours and the rest off-limits, thrill-seekers and ghost-hunters often find ways to break into the restricted sections and explore their dark passages. 

On a 2000 episode of the ABC Family show “Scariest Places on Earth,” alleged found-footage was shown that chronicled a lone explorer of the forbidden tunnels as he gets lost and disorientated in the dark. In the video, the man explores the tunnels calmly, but gradually he starts moving faster and faster and eventually drops his hand-held camera and sprints away. The camera keeps shooting after he’s out of sight, showing a dark, quiet tunnel that begs the question: did he simply lose his orientation and panic down there, or was he running from something?

5 Supernatural – The Hungarian Suicide Song

Alright yes, technically this curse lies within the song itself and not any particular video, but that also means that any video containing the song’s full, unaltered audio is a potentially curse-inducing experience. The song is “Gloomy Sunday” by composer Rezső Seress, but came to be known as the Hungarian Suicide Song. This is because, shortly after its 1935 release, as many as 20 suicides in and around Hungary were associated in one way or another with the song. 

In many cases, anecdotal reports from those closest to the deceased claimed that the suicide victims had listened to the song just before doing the deed. Though these rumors are unsubstantiated in most cases, it is worth noting that Seress, the song’s creator, also committed suicide years later. In addition, rumors notwithstanding, the popular Billie Holiday version of the song was indeed banned by the BBC for harming public morale.

4 Internet – Croatian Stalking Tape

This video purports itself to be actual found footage released by Croatian authorities to find the video’s authors. The footage shows two Croatian teens as they test out their new videocamera in a park. Eventually, they notice that a man seems to be following them around. The man is hunched and apelike, and he has a sack over his head. It would be oddly funny in any other context, but he comes closer and closer to the teens, eventually getting right next to them. They run into a nearby building and seem to have lost the man. Then they call an elevator and when it opens… the video cuts out with the two screaming.

3 Supernatural – Poltergeist

“Poltergeist” is horror movie royalty. Produced by Spielberg at his height, the film was released in 1982 to acclaim from both audiences and critics, and became a commercial success. The story centers around a suburban family who unknowingly make their home atop a Native American burial ground, and thereby find themselves the victims of a wrathful, ghostly curse. But, just as the movie’s curse escapes from the family’s TV, the real-life Poltergeist’s curse seems to have found its way out of the big screen and onto the set.

A number of cast and crew died mysteriously and unexpectedly. Heather O’Rourke, the young lead of the series, died unexpectedly at age 12. Dominique Dunne, who played O’Rourke’s older sister, was murdered within a year of the first film’s release. Julian Beck and Will Sampson both passed away shortly after finishing their work on the second film. Other creepy rumors about production persist, such as actual exorcisms occurring on set and real human remains being used instead of replicas in the first film’s infamous pool scene.

2 Internet – Video Dating Tape

This one, too, seems eerily plausible. You have to assume that it’s fake like most every other, but just the fact that you’re left to wonder makes it terrifying. The video comes from a VHS on which a man has recorded a video dating profile. In a Hawaiian shirt, and in front of a tropical background, he sits and introduces himself, explaining why he’d make an excellent romantic partner. It’s more sad and awkward than anything. But at one point, a sound comes from off-camera that distracts and enrages him. It sounds like a woman, perhaps gagged, moaning and screaming in pain and terror. He explodes, screaming at her to shut up and getting up to deal with her… and then calmly begins recording another take of his dating profile. It’s just subtle enough to prevent being immediately dismissed like more overt horror would be.

1 Supernatural – The Omen

Producer Harvey Bernhard said at the start of production for 1976’s “The Omen” that, “the devil was at work and he didn’t want that film made.” He may have been right. Only two months before filming began, star Gregory Peck’s son committed suicide. During filming, Peck’s plane was struck by lightning. Producer Mace Neufeld’s plane was also struck by lightning. Another bolt of lightning almost hit Bernhard himself. The IRA bombed the hotel Neufeld was staying at.

A plane originally slated to capture aerial photographs for the film, but which was rechartered at the last minute, crashed and killed everyone on board. An animal wrangler on set was mauled by a tiger and died from his wounds. An assistant to special effects supervisor John Richardson was decapitated in a car crash. Is that all coincidence? …yeah, almost certainly. But it’s hard to discount just how much tragic coincidence there was.

According to the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N.), natural disasters are now occurring three times more often than they were in the 1970s and 1980s, also increasing in scale and intensity. This means they are wreaking a disproportionately large amount of havoc and destruction in the least developed and low- to middle-income countries, where people are least able to cope.

What happens when we combine Mother Nature’s propensity for reminding us who’s really in charge every now and again with the massive increase in the use of security cameras, dash cams, and camera phones around the globe? We get to experience—now more than ever—what it is like to really confront one of these disasters for ourselves (from the safety of our own homes, of course!). So here is a list of 10 home videos that recorded deadly natural disasters.

Related: 10 Myths Humans Have Used To Explain Natural Disasters

10 Earthquake—Luzon, The Philippines

The Philippines is an archipelago in southeast Asia that regularly experiences volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, typhoons, and all the terrible things that generally accompany them, such as tsunamis, flooding, and landslides. Given its location in the Pacific Ring of Fire, the Philippines is subjected to over 2,000 earthquakes every single year. Since 1951, they have claimed more than 4,800 lives without even counting the tsunamis that often follow them.

This video has no audio but shows a group of friends enjoying some free time in a local swimming pool when a magnitude 6.1 earthquake strikes their home of Luzon. The group struggles to evacuate the churning water as the tremors roll through, clearly shaking the trees and structures in the background before eventually subsiding after about a minute.

This was only a small rumble compared to some of the more destructive quakes the Filipino people have had to weather over the years, but the waves created in the pool really highlight how violently the ground moved. Unfortunately, eighteen people lost their lives in the quake, although everybody in this video escaped unharmed.^[1]

9 Volcano—Whakaari, New Zealand

Whakaari, also known as White Island, is a privately owned islet located off of the northeastern coast of New Zealand. It had been a popular tourist attraction for many years, despite being New Zealand’s most active volcano, before disaster struck in December 2019.

An increase in seismological activity had been recorded in the weeks leading up to the event. Still, no official warnings were issued, so two separate tour groups visited the island by boat that afternoon. Just after the first group completed their tour and their boat was leaving the island, Whakaari exploded, spewing a massive plume of rocks, steam, and burning gas across the island and 12,000 feet up into the air.

The video, recorded by Allessandro Kauffmann, shows the tour boat he is traveling on returning to the island immediately after the eruption to try to help any survivors. Official rescue efforts were delayed because of the risk of further eruptions, but three heroic helicopter pilots launched their own rescue efforts, only to later be charged by the New Zealand health and safety authority, WorkSafe.

Unfortunately, a total of 47 people were stuck on the island when the superheated gas enveloped them, 22 of whom lost their lives. Many survivors suffered life-changing injuries as a result of their burns.^[2]

8 Tsunami—Indonesia

Indonesia, like its neighbor, the Philippines, can be considered pretty unlucky geographically. It consists of over 17,500 islands—most uninhabited, though—which are home to 120 active volcanoes. Also located in the Pacific Ring of Fire, it is regularly subjected to earthquakes, landslides, tsunamis, and soil liquefaction. In late 2018, the Indonesian people would experience all of these cataclysmic possibilities within a two-month period.

At 6 pm on the 28th of September, a 7.5 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Palu on Sulawesi Island, causing a huge underwater landslide that, in turn, triggered a tsunami. As early warning systems malfunctioned, people were completely unprepared when a 23-foot high wave smashed into the city of Palu. At the same time the wave hit, soil liquefaction occurred over vast areas, swallowing entire buildings whole. In total, more than 2,000 people died in this disaster with more than 4,200 injured. Some news reports included home video footage.

Then, just two months later, on December 22, the Anak Krakatau volcano erupted, which caused another landslide as the southwest flank collapsed into the sea. This massive displacement of water created a tsunami in the Sundra Strait that was also not picked up by early warning systems. At 8:30 pm local time, the tsunami crashed into the shores of western Java and southern Sumatra.

This home video was shot at a seaside concert in western Java. Popular local group Seventeen were performing to over 200 people, mostly families, when the wave struck them from behind. While the singer survived the terrifying ordeal, in later interviews, he claimed he wished that he had died too. He lost all of his bandmates and his wife in this tragic event that took more than 400 lives.^[3]

7 Flood—Henan, China

The term “once in a lifetime weather event” is being thrown around a lot these days, especially when it comes to flooding in areas that may have seen little in the way of disasters in recent years, such as New York or Germany. In July 2021, the flooding in Henan Province, China, though, really can be considered once in a lifetime. The provincial capital of Zhengzhou received an entire year’s worth of rainfall in three days, and as you might expect, the entire city was submerged.

This was a terrifying event for everyone living in the province, but those who faced the most immediate danger were the people who found themselves trapped underground in the city’s metro system as water levels began to rise rapidly up to their necks. In total, 14 people lost their lives in the city’s subway, and many more are thought to have died throughout the province as videos emerged of people being washed away all over the city.

This video shows passengers stuck in a train carriage with the doors closed as brown water quickly rises all around them. Fortunately, they were eventually able to evacuate to safety, although many others were not so lucky that day.^[4]

6 Wildfire—Manavgat, Turkey

Today, Americans are so used to experiencing wildfires in the summer that news of them happening in other countries really doesn’t garner much attention. However, the huge increase in the number of wildfires across the planet over the last few years has meant that people have begun to recognize that this isn’t just an issue in California.

Australia, Brazil, Turkey, Greece, Algeria, Italy, India, Russia, and Cyprus all had millions of acres of land reduced to smoldering ash due to huge forest fires over the last few years. This video comes from Turkey as some restaurant workers are trying to return home following a food delivery to firefighters tackling blazes in the Manavgat countryside. The hellish landscape of blazing forest seems to close in around them until they have nowhere to go and are forced to turn back. Fortunately, they were able to escape the flames unharmed, but many were not so lucky, with at least eight fatalities and hundreds injured across the country.^[5]

5 Hurricane—Florida, USA

Hurricane Michael struck Florida on October 10, 2018, and meteorologists soon realized that they were dealing with one of the biggest category 5 storms to ever make landfall in the eastern United States. Overall, it caused $25 billion in damages and was directly responsible for the deaths of 16 people. Still, despite all this mayhem and destruction, one plucky Callaway resident decided he would make a home movie documenting the damage caused to his community in this incredible video.

In just 15 minutes, you can watch his entire neighborhood get shredded by 150mph winds, and at the end, you get to see a walk-through of a residential street that has been reduced to nothing more than a pile of branches and shattered roof tiles.^[6]

4 Landslide—Kachin, Myanmar

This video was recorded at an illegal jade mine in the Kachin state of northern Myanmar. Kachin state has a long history of resistance against the oppressive Tatmadaw (Burmese Army). As such, the region is in many ways free from centralized Burmese control, meaning drug production, smuggling, and illegal mining are all common in the area.

One such illegal mine was experiencing unseasonably heavy rainfall when a miner decided to pull out his phone and begin recording. The landslide he captured on video sent a wave of mud and rock rolling down the valley like a tsunami and was responsible for the deaths of more than 162 people.^[7]

3 Sinkhole—Florida, USA

The idiom “I wish the ground would swallow me up” was obviously never meant to be taken literally. After all, the idea that you could just be minding your own business, carrying on with your life, and then, in a split second, the ground could open up and swallow you whole would be downright terrifying, no matter how embarrassed you are. Sinkholes happen more often than you might think, though, and every now and again, somebody ends up inside one.

One such unfortunate person was Jeffrey Bush, a 36-year-old Florida man who had just turned in for the night when the ground below him simply collapsed and swallowed him up. He screamed out for his brother, who rushed to his aid, only to find Jeffrey and all the contents of his bedroom had crashed through the floor into a sinkhole below.

This video was made as rescue workers tried to communicate with Jeffrey using a camera and microphone on a long pole to check on his whereabouts and condition. Unfortunately, he didn’t survive, and his body could not be recovered, so the sinkhole was filled in, the house and two neighboring properties were demolished, and the whole area was fenced off. That wasn’t quite the end of the story, however, as just two years later, the sinkhole opened up again, although this time nobody was hurt.^[8]

2 Avalanche—Mount Everest base camp, Nepal

Avalanches can have a variety of causes; sometimes, snow can just gradually pile up before collapsing down the side of the hill under its own weight. Often they are created deliberately with explosions, but sometimes they can be made by other natural disasters that occur many miles away. In the case of the Everest avalanche of 2015, it was the latter, as an enormous earthquake of magnitude 7.8 struck Nepal on the afternoon of April 25, 2015, killing over 9,000 people. A video shows just how strong the tremors were, hurling people back and forth as the city of Kathmandu was violently shaken by the quake.

Way up at Mount Everest base camp, the shock waves were not strong enough to hurt anyone, nor were there any buildings to collapse on top of the 2,000 people gathered there. However, minutes after the deadly earthquake struck Kathmandu valley, a huge avalanche of ice and rock came crashing down Mount Pumori, completely burying the campsite at its base.

At least 20 people died, and hundreds were injured by the falling debris. This video shows the ferocity and intensity of the icy blast created by the avalanche and just how lucky the cameraman and his friend were to survive, ducking into their tent just in time.^[9]

1 Tornado—Illinois, USA

This final video shows probably the most terrifying video of a tornado that has ever been recorded. (Please add a link in the comments if you know of any contenders!) It was filmed by 84-year-old Clem Schultz from his bedroom window after he and his wife noticed the twister forming behind their home in Illinois.

Living in an area that sees numerous tornadoes every year, the couple considered their options but decided that they were confident that the tornado would pass by their home to the west, leaving them unscathed. Assuming the power could go out at any time, Clem headed upstairs to grab a lantern when he noticed from his bedroom window that the tornado was gathering pace and growing bigger by the second. He decided to begin filming, and even when he realized that the tornado would not just pass them by, he said nothing at all as it smashed into him with a deafening roar before everything turned black and the video ended.

Somehow, Clem actually survived this incredible encounter with one of the biggest tornadoes that Illinois has ever seen. His wife was not so lucky, though, as she was one of two people killed. Many more were injured, and 24 homes were completely destroyed.^[10]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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