Man sits in a room. Man is bored out of his
mind. Man decides it’s time to go down the Wikipedia rabbit hole. Why not, it’s one of
the 15 most popular websites in the world. It has over 54 million articles that are read in
285 languages by about 1.5 billion people a month. Man looks at the computer like he’s staring
into the abyss, and as the famous saying goes, if you stare long enough, the abyss stares back
into you. Man doesn’t really know what that means, but he soon finds out that the abyss
contains some really freaky stuff. Welcome to Disturbing Wikipedia Pages - Part 2.
10. COINTELPRO Ok, let’s start with a classic rabbit hole, and
who doesn’t like hearing about secret programs led by the US authorities. In the last disturbing
Wikipedia pages show we talked about the CIA and its covert shenanigans, so this time let’s turn to
the Federal Bureau of Investigation, aka, the FBI. So, what has the FBI ever done to hurt its own
people? The answer is quite a lot. While the agency is there to serve and protect, it’s
also there to serve the interests of those whose side it's on. If you don’t believe that,
take a look at the Wikipedia “COINTELPRO” page. In the words of Wikipedia, this operation,
which is still around today, is “a series of covert and illegal projects conducted by the
United States Federal Bureau of Investigation aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting,
and disrupting American political organizations.” If you follow the rabbit hole, you’ll see that
this program tried to smear and discredit people at the forefront of civil rights movements,
feminist movements, anti-war movements, the American Indian Movement, and according to
some, it went as far as trying to get Americans to kill other Americans. At times, it was absolutely
against the constitutional right to free speech. How it did it, in its own admission, is
it used what are called “dirty tricks”. If you look at the FBI’s website you’ll
see the agency says it’s only interested in “identifying and neutralizing ongoing national
security threats” although some of its tactics have been what you could say were unethical.
The depth of this rabbit is quite astounding, and that’s why it’s such a disturbing
Wikipedia page. As you’ll see, some pages don’t require hitting lots of hyperlinks.
They are disturbing all by themselves. 9. Vladimir Demikhov
Few Wikipedia entries are as disturbing as that of the deceased Russian
scientist named Vladimir Petrovich Demikhov. What did he do? The answer is he transplanted
organs. He was the first guy to transplant an artificial heart into a dog. But you’re
thinking, c’mon Infographics, that’s nothing. Ok, we agree, but what about the
fact this guy put one dog’s head on another dog? How is that? Good enough for you?
Yep, Demikhov was the original mad scientist, a radical pioneer who was called unethical
and brilliant. There are still people that think what he did is myth, fake news, but the
photos don’t lie. There’s ample evidence that Vladimir Demikhov made two-headed dogs.
Both heads were able to hear, see, smell, and swallow, although the two-headed dog
didn’t last long. It died after four days. 8. Lina Medina
So, what did this Peruvian woman get up to? We’ve done quite a few shows in the past on outstanding
people, or people who have crazy habits, strange diseases, weird pastimes, but Lina didn’t
do anything out of the ordinary in and of itself. She’s special because she was the youngest
mother in the world. She had her child at 5 and did the deed pre-5. We won’t spoil
the page for you but will tell you that it’s one weird story. Don’t go there yet because
now we have some really strange tales to tell. 7. Anton–Babinski syndrome
Wikipedia is a great place to find all sorts of strange syndromes. We’ve
covered many here at the Infographics Show, but we haven’t ever talked about this one.
What it means essentially is a person is blind but refuses to accept that they are blind. If you
asked them they’d tell you they can see when it is very clear that they can’t see a damned thing.
They might bang into things, stumble down stairs, and still, they think they can see.
The best thing about this disturbing page is the fact that there are lots of
links that lead to equally strange places. Ok, now for something very, very dark.
6. Death of Don Henry and Kevin Ives This page might have attracted
a lot of conspiracy theorists, but we aren’t going to go down that route.
On August 23, 1987, two young men, 16 and 17, were found dead on train tracks in Alexander,
Arkansas. The first autopsy said it had been an accident, that the guys had smoked
weed and passed out on the track. Well, that must have been some super-strong weed, eh,
because weed doesn’t do that. The parents of the boys knew this, so they ordered another autopsy.
In the end, it was ruled “definite homicide”. It seemed that one boy had been stabbed and
the other’s skull crushed with his own rifle. We told you this was dark.
The parents hired investigators, but those men always hit brick walls. Moreover, a
handful of people who could have helped to solve the case and testify in front of a grand
jury mysteriously died. Books have been written about this strange case and countless
documentaries have been made, but no one knows what happened to the boys on the tracks.
If you like a good unsolved mystery, one that will blow your mind and send shivers
down your spine, we can’t think of a better example than this. The Wikipedia page in this case
is only the start, but it’s a good place to start. 5. Toynbee tiles
Back to more lighthearted weirdness, welcome to the story of the Toynbee tiles.
These are tiles that are found in various north and south American cities and no
one really knows where they came from. Hundreds of them are laid, all with
different inscriptions on them, such as this: “TOYNBEE IDEA
IN MOViE '2001 RESURRECT DEAD
ON PLANET JUPiTER” What does that mean? We don’t know, and
neither does anyone else. People speculate that they relate to the British historian
named Arnold J. Toynbee, while other tiles might relate to the filmmaker Stanley Kubrick
and especially his movie “2001: A Space Odyssey.” It’s all very mysterious and all very sci-fi.
We love the fact that no one knows who is laying the tiles, something that reminds us of the
graffiti artist named Banksy. The problem is, like Banksy’s work, sometimes the
tiles get removed. Some cities, such as that of Chicago, say the tiles are graffiti.
Maybe if you go down this rabbit hole you could be the one to identify these tiles’ layers.
4. John F. Kennedy autopsy Was there another shooter? Who was
really behind this assassination? What the hell went down with Jack Ruby?
Those questions are asked all the time, but you don’t need to go down that rabbit
hole. The assassination itself, never mind who was behind it and why they did it, is really
disturbing reading. The Wikipedia page that is equally disturbing is the dedicated autopsy page.
It not only talks about the various theories as to what happened, such as the magic bullet theory
that not so many people think could be true, but it also has some photos on the page that
are hard to look at. Namely, a dead president. Reading about JFK on Wikipedia takes some
time. It’s like reading a history book, and one that involves many characters, such as
the assailant, Lee Harvey Oswald, and his killer, Jack Ruby. Then there are all the investigators
to read about. Everyone has a story. Ruby for instance is said to have blacked out and shot
Oswald while unconscious. After the shooting he came down with a bad case of psychosis and soon
after died. His doctor was the LSD mind control guy that worked for the CIA, one Dr. Louis
Jolyon West. It’s all on Wiki, have a look. Into the top three now. Let’s get deranged.
3. Bubbly Creek It sounds quite nice, Bubbly Creek,
but it isn’t, not by a long way. You see, if you read the Wikipedia page you’ll
discover that Bubbly Creek was part of the Chicago river. It was located where you could
find stockyards full of cattle. Back in the late 19th and early 20th century those places
weren’t very nice. The slaughtered animals were cut up and packed into meat packages, but
there was a lot of blood and innards left over. Back then that blood and those guts were just
thrown into the river, and we are talking about tons of guts and swimming pools worth of blood.
The result was that the river became so contaminated that it bubbled. This was
due to methane and hydrogen sulfide gas. This is how someone described it:
“One long arm of it is blind, and the filth stays there forever and a day. The grease and
chemicals that are poured into it undergo all sorts of strange transformations, which are the
cause of its name; it is constantly in motion as if huge fish were feeding in it, or great
leviathans disporting themselves in its depths.” That person said the blood and offal created
spouts of gases that rose into the air, but then came back down and looked like a
blood-filled lava. He then said that the lava made a great lard to cook with. He also
said the riverbank is lined with animal hair, something that poor folks collected.
Yep, it sounds awful, but hey, what a great blast from the past. Wikipedia has its detractors
but it can be an amazing resource for historical tales you would have never heard about in the
past when such information wasn’t easy to come by. We should add that the good news about Bubbly
Creek is that after people started talking about it, there was a lot of focus on the meatpacking
industry. That spotlight encouraged the industry to clean up its act.
2. Candace Newmaker She was born in Lincolnton, North Carolina, in
1989. Her original name was Candace Tiara Elmore, but the parents neglected their daughter and
she was eventually adopted by another family. Her new family loved her, but the
problem was her behavior. It was bad, very bad. She reportedly enjoyed killing little
goldfish and was deft at playing with matches. Her new parents took her to see a psychiatrist,
but that didn’t really work out. Then they discovered something called “attachment therapy”
a pseudoscientific practice that deals with attachment disorders. That’s a broad term relating
to children who have not been socialized well, that have mood disorders because they were
neglected or their parents were just awful. During the therapy kids might be tickled
really hard; they might be stared at for hours, they might be denied food and water
or oppressed so much by one caregiver that they regress back to an infant state.
Yep, it’s messed up, and at least six kids have died from it. So, attachment therapy itself
is one great big dark and bone-chilling rabbit hole to go down. But let’s go back to Candice.
Her parents thought a bit of tough love therapy would save more goldfish from getting squished
in their daughter’s hands. It’s a long story, but part of the therapy involved the 11-year old
Candice being wrapped tight in a blanket from head to toe that was covered with pillows. This was
supposed to stimulate the womb, and make Candice feel as though she were a newborn again.
The girl was in this black hole of sorts, and then four adults sat on her. They weighed
around 673 pounds (305 kgs). She was supposed to fight her way out, but it was hard to say the
least. During the session she complained all the time that she couldn’t breathe. Eleven times
she said she was dying, to which one of the unlicensed doctors answered, “Go ahead. Die right
now, for real. For real.” After 20 minutes of this there was excrement and vomit in the fake womb.
Another session followed and the doctor asked the girl if she wanted to be reborn. Candice
said “no” and that’s the last thing she said as she was hustled into the womb again and sat
on. The doctor called her a quitter and she died. That is one messed up story,
but we think we can do better. List of incidents at Walt Disney World
What! You are thinking, Walt Disney World at number one, that can’t be right.
Well, if you visit this page you might be surprised. The things that have
happened at Disney World are tragic, totally messed up, and a little bit funny. It’s
worth spending an hour or two just reading about the incredible things that have gone down there.
First of all, as you’ll find out reading this page, if you have a heart condition, you
might want to give the bigger rides a miss. People get on them and don’t get off alive.
Then there are the people that just pass out on various rides. It’s more common than you
think. A 16-year old British girl got off one ride and complained of a headache. It
turned out she had bleeding on the brain that led to a stroke that led to cardiac arrest.
People have fired guns in there, have willingly jumped off rides and have lost bits of fingers
while riding the Pirates of the Caribbean. This is one truly messed up page.
We think you need to take a look. Now you need to watch the first part, “Disturbing
Wikipedia Pages”. Or, have a look at this….
