Wikipedia is a fascinating rabbithole
of information. You click on one link, then another, and the next thing you
know you’ve wasted a whole evening. But be careful where you click - Wikipedia
is home to some seriously disturbing stories. Here are ten more of the most
terrifying Wikipedia pages out there. #10. America Sings What could be terrifying about Disneyland? The
original happiest place on Earth? The Anaheim theme park is known for its innovative
amusement park rides and stage shows, and has been thrilling guests for over half
a century. But not all their new attractions are winners, and in 1974 they brought in
one that would have an infamous legacy. The bicentennial of America’s
nationhood was approaching, and they wanted a new show to celebrate the
country’s heritage. The result was America Sings, a replacement for the classic Carousel of Progress
show. Both took place in a rotating theater where audiences would sit still and different scenes
would play out around them. This one replaced the family of the future with a collection of
funny audio-animatronic animals singing wacky songs about American history, led by the pompous
Eagle Sam - voiced by the famous Burl Ives. What could go wrong? All it
takes is one horrible incident. It was only nine days after the
attraction opened when tragedy struck. Deborah Gail Stone, an eighteen-year-old
working as a hostess at the attraction, was in the back of the attraction as the stage
show was shifting before the beginning of the next act. No one was there to know exactly what
happened, but it’s likely she was trying to get from one stage to another and slipped due to
the sudden movement. What is known is that she was crushed between a moving wall and one of the
stationary walls, with no one around to notice. The audience members heard her screams, and staff
members ran to the back to investigate - but she was already dead. The show was quickly shut
down, an investigation began into how something could go so horribly wrong, and Stone’s parents
sued. Disney eventually settled out of court, and many people assumed this would bring
the curtain down on America Sings for good. They were very wrong. While the attraction shut down after the
incident, Disney never stood still. As soon as they were cleared by the police to re-enter, they
cleaned the area and installed new safety lights, as well as drew up plans to remodel
the theater with breakaway walls. But only three days after the tragedy, the
America Sings theater was open for business again, pulling in thousands of guests to see Eagle
Sam sing only feet away from where Deborah Gail Stone met her end. The theater continued to
operate the show for fourteen years, with Stone’s death only being a footnote in Disney’s history.
Ultimately, the tragedy had nothing to do with its eventual closure - it just started getting out
of date as the bicentennial became history itself. But many of the audio-animatronics live on
- as members of the cast in Splash Mountain. This next entry may be classed as a hero
or villain, depending on who you ask. #9. David Paulides By all accounts, David Paulides is an
upstanding guy - working for twenty years as a police officer in San Jose and
serving on the SWAT team before becoming a detective. While he did have a brush with the
law when he was accused of falsely raising money for a charity, he seemed to be an agent of the
law. However, his true interests lay elsewhere, and after retiring he became increasingly
interested in conspiracy theories. His first passion was the mystery of Bigfoot, as he founded
a research group to try to find the mysterious creature. Like everyone else involved, he wasn’t
able to find the man-ape, but he spent a lot of time in national parks while searching - and
that may have led him to an even bigger mystery. Is there a secret horror lurking
in America’s national parks? Paulides was reportedly working in a national
park on his Bigfoot hunt when he talked to an off-duty park ranger. The man didn’t know
anything about giant man-apes roaming the park - but he had noticed something unusual.
His park supposedly had an unusual number of missing people - some of whom had been walking
with a partner and disappeared without a trace when they turned around. While the hiking
partner was always suspect #1, the police rarely found any motive or evidence linking them
to the case, and the disappearances almost always went cold. Paulides began investigating, and
soon launched a new series titled Missing 411. In this, he claimed to uncover a mysterious
series of disappearances around the world - almost all of which lacked any explanation and no
evidence of where the missing people went. What’s even more disturbing is what isn’t there. National parks are dangerous places, especially
if you’re alone. There are often steep cliffs to fall off, and wildlife that might not be happy
to see human guests. But in these cases that Paulides spotlights, there are rarely any signs of
a struggle or a fall. He also pointed out that the national parks do not seem to keep a record of the
people who went missing in their parks, meaning key evidence is often missing. Paulides has not
given a theory for what’s going on at the parks, although he’s said he doesn’t expect it to simply
be a criminal matter. Skeptics have called his investigations overly theatrical and accused him
of trying to create a conspiracy where there isn’t one, but one thing’s for sure - the disappearances
he spotlights are real. Some may be criminal cases, some may be tragic accidents, but if there
is a connecting factor, no one knows what it is. Sometimes, the most terrifying
thing of all can be the human body. #8. Locked-In Syndrome By all accounts, the patient seems dead. There’s
no sign of movement, they’re not responding to any questions, and they don’t respond to
physical stimuli. Yet, their vital signs are strong. The likely scenario the doctors
assume is that they’re in a vegetative state, physically alive but with no higher brain
function, only kept alive by machines. But what the doctors can’t tell is that
inside, the person is fully conscious and aware of everything going on around them
- and inside, they’re screaming for help. This is reality for someone suffering from locked-in
syndrome, a terrifying condition where cognitive function is completely intact but the body is
almost completely paralyzed - with the only physical movements usually preserved being the
ability to blink and move the eyes up and down. What’s worse is that these are both movements
that could be mistaken for involuntary reflexes. Which raises an even more frightening prospect. In the past, patients who had locked-in syndrome
could often be misdiagnosed and assumed to be comatose. They would usually be put in a nursing
home where no effort would be made to rehabilitate them - like what happened to Julia Tavalaro in
the 1970s. A young woman who suffered a stroke, she was almost completely paralyzed - and it
took six years until anyone noticed that she was fully conscious, when nurses noticed subtle
movements in reaction to their comments. But many victims are unable to move even
that much. And what makes this condition even scarier is that there it doesn’t
have one cause - it has many. The most common cause is a stroke that affects the
brain stem, cutting off the function to the rest of the body. This can happen without
warning due to an invisible blood clot. But that’s not the only possible cause. Cases of locked-in syndrome have been caused by
poisoning from snake bites, damage to the brain, or even overdoses of medication. But the most
common cause of a similar condition may be the disease ALS, which damages the nerve connections
and slowly strips people of their ability to move. And for virtually all cases, there is no cure.
While some patients can regain movement or speech through extensive physical therapy, it’s rare
- but modern technology offers a little hope. While until recently, the only method
that could be used to communicate for locked-in patients was blinking to indicate
letters on a board, recently scientists have developed more advanced methods like
computers controlled only by eye movement. But the disorder can still strike at any time,
for a number of reasons, with no warning… This next entry is one of the most
mysterious disappearances of all time - in one of the safest places on Earth. #7. The Disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi Vatican City isn’t a normal country - with
only a few hundred permanent residents and smaller than most cities, it’s really more of a
fortress for the Catholic Church. And as a place of holiness and faith, one would expect it to
be safe. You probably don’t have to worry about getting mugged by a Cardinal - but you’re not
invincible within its borders, and the city-state has had a dark cloud hanging over it since
1983. That was the day when Emanuela Orlandi, the fifteen-year-old daughter of Ercole and Maria
Orlandi, left her home. Her father worked for the Vatican bank, and she and her siblings
had grown up in the shadow of the Pope. It was the start of summer, and she was
taking flute lessons over her vacation. She took the bus to her music school on June
22nd - but that day, she was late to class. And she wouldn’t be showing up - ever again. In the aftermath of the disappearance,
investigators tried to piece together the mystery. Her older brother Pietro often
accompanied her on the bus, but he was too busy to go that day - something that has
haunted him in the decades since. That night, a few hours after she had gone missing, her
family said that they received a phone call from her - and it was the last time anyone ever heard
her voice. She claimed to have been offered a job working for Avon Cosmetics - something that made
little sense given the isolated nature of Vatican City. A friend of Orlandi’s claimed they had seen
her get into a dark BMW, which drove off - leaving no trace of Emanuela Orlandi. The police
investigated, getting tips from various sources that they had seen Orlandi around Italy. One
claimed she said she had run away, while others said she had changed her name. The Pope even
personally got involved, pleading for her return. But what actually happened to Emanuela Orlandi? Many theories emerged in the decades since,
few of them good. Less than a month after the disappearance, a Turkish terror group
supposedly claimed responsibility, demanding the release of a gunman who
had attempted to assassinate the Pope. Others pointed to possible links to organized
crime. Orlandi’s father, who had access to billions of dollars in his role at the Vatican
Bank, would be an inviting target for blackmail by the Mafia - but kidnapping someone from
under the Pope’s nose might be a bridge too far for the often-devout Italian Mafia. Others
pointed to a darker secret - notably the controversial exorcist Father Gabriele Amorth,
who claimed a Vatican sex conspiracy may have been involved in the kidnapping. Orlandi may
in fact have never left the Vatican. But almost forty years after she vanished into the night,
the case is not giving up its secrets easily. Sometimes, the mystery is easier
to unlock - but no less chilling. #6. The Murder of Kim Wall Swedish freelance journalist Kim Wall
was never one to back away from a story, and when she got the chance to interview one of
Denmark’s most eccentric citizens, she was not going to say no. Peter Madsen was an entrepreneur
with a fascination with rocket fuel and homemade submarines, and he wanted to invite Wall into
one of his submersibles - the pint-sized UC3 Nautilus. It was a tight fit, and going deep under
the water in a homemade metal box with someone you barely know seems like a recipe for disaster
- especially as she was planning to move to Beijing only a week later. But Wall’s journalistic
instincts told her there was a story to follow, and she met with Madsen on a moment’s notice
to board his submarine and head to the deep. The ship would never resurface, and soon Wall’s
story would be on the headlines around the world. But this was only the beginning of the story. Wall’s boyfriend called the police
that night to report her missing, and the next morning the ship was found floating
in the water. Madsen was rescued from the water, and claimed he had dropped Wall off safely - but
soon admitted that she hadn’t survived the trip. He claimed she had died in an accidental fall
and he dumped her body at sea. He was charged with manslaughter, but a few days later the
disturbing truth would start to come out. A bicyclist discovered parts of Wall’s body on
a beach, and more body parts started washing up around the area. Most disturbing,
when police investigated Wall’s torso, they found evidence that she hadn’t died
in an accident - her body was covered with fifteen stab wounds. It was clear she had
been murdered, and there was only one suspect. What was behind the madness of Peter Madsen? The Danish millionaire was known to be…unusual,
but when police charged him with murder and dug into his past, they found he had morbid
obsessions far beyond what they feared. For one thing, his internet history was full of
videos of people being killed in horrible ways. He was soon convicted of murder and
sentenced to life in prison - but a maniac who kills someone on their homemade
submarine isn’t going to be contained easily. In 2020, he attempted an escape from prison
by claiming to be wearing a bomb belt and holding a prison psychologist hostage.
He’s considered to be one of Denmark’s most dangerous living criminals - which made it all
the more shocking when he got married behind bars to an admirer in 2020. We hope they’re
not planning any underwater trips together. It wasn’t the only recent
nightmare on the high seas. #5. COVID-19 Pandemic on Diamond Princess Ah, cruising on the high seas. Is there a
better vacation? Everything’s under one roof, the food is all-you-can-eat, and there’s never
a shortage of things to do even if you don’t want to take the off-boat excursions. That’s the
kind of relaxing vacation people were expecting aboard the Diamond Princess, a British-owned
luxury cruise ship that set sail in early 2020. They probably weren’t paying attention to the
news, as the mystery disease Covid-19 was starting to ravage the world - and it was soon going to
hit home. The ship set sail on January 20th, 2020 for a round-trip tour of Southeast Asia.
An eighty-year-old passenger from Hong Kong had been feeling ill, but he didn’t feel
like missing his cruise. He left after only one leg of the cruise - but his virus stayed on
board, and would soon be making itself at home. But the real trouble was yet to come. It was February 1st when the ship arrived in
Okinawa, Japan, and the staff received dire news - the old man who had disembarked had tested
positive for Covid-19. The ship was quarantined at port, but on board everything seemed normal
- facilities like fitness clubs and theaters remained open, and people bellied up to the
buffet. When the ship returned to the port again, it was quarantined for the second time - but
this time they wouldn’t be getting out nearly as easily. Officials from Japan’s Ministry of
Health boarded and began testing people for Covid. Sure enough, a full third of the people tested
were positive - which meant the virus had already been spreading on the ship for a while. There
were thirty-seven hundred people on board the Diamond Princess, and Japan quickly decided
to quarantine the entire ship for two weeks. Those who wished their holiday
would go on forever got their wish. The Diamond Princess would become the first
major flashpoint of the Covid-19 Pandemic, and over the next few days hundreds more cases
of the virus would be detected. At this point, no one knew much about the virus and there were
few ways to treat it. Soon, the infected started dying - all older patients, who were much
more vulnerable. The thousands of passengers, now stuck in their rooms with increasingly
sparse food supplies being delivered to them, were desperate to get home - but no one could
tell them when or if they would be released. It wasn’t until February 17th when the US
Government chartered planes to bring their citizens home from the ship, but other countries
would be much slower - the last passengers didn’t leave the Diamond Princess until March 1st,
by which point fourteen people had died. The cruise industry would be largely dormant
for more than a year due to the pandemic, but it’s likely the current cruises
will be at least 3,700 passengers short. But in a quite town in Wales, a different disaster that scarred a town forever began
in the most unexpected of places. #4. The Aberfan Disaster It was a quiet morning on October 21st, 1966.
The quiet Welsh town of Aberfan had become a popular location for mining companies to harvest
coal, and the surrounding area was filled with Colliery spoil tips - what looked like small,
man-made black mountains. It was a part of the landscape by now, and no one gave it much
thought as the town went about its business. Families began the day, dressing the children
for school and sending them on their way before the parents went off to work. But
no one could see something was very wrong. One of the spoil tips was over a hundred
feet high, in violation of regulations. Heavy rain had inundated the coal with
water, and it was increasingly unstable. And as the school day began at the Pantglas junior
school, the coal began to slide forward, the mountain began to collapse, and a massive surge
of coal sludge lurched directly towards Aberfan. And the junior school was directly in its path. The massive spoil tip turned into a river of
sludge, with a hundred and forty thousand cubic yards sliding down the mountain, crushing two
cottages in its way and killing everyone inside. In the center of the village, witnesses said
they could hear what sounded like thunder, getting louder and louder. But
it was too late to do anything. The avalanche plowed into the junior school,
covering it with a thick and inky substance and destroying the structure - and
anyone in its path. The school was full of children and teachers, and teachers had
only seconds to try to protect their pupils. Nansi Williams, the school meals cleek, shielded
five children with her body. They all survived, but she wasn’t so lucky - becoming probably
the most famous victim of the disaster. But when the rubble cleared,
the toll would be devastating. At first, it seemed impossible to even get into
the school, with a massive mountain of sludge blocking the entrances. Local residents turned
up at the school to manually clear the rubble, many desperate to find their own children. Soon,
they started pulling the surviving children out of the rubble, with twenty-one students and five
adults surviving. But by eleven AM that morning, they weren’t finding any more survivors - only
bodies. In total, 144 people died in the Aberfan disaster - one of the worst industrial
accidents in the history of humanity. 116 of the casualties were children, and people
who grew up in Aberfan in the decades since said that it seemed like almost every
family in town lost a child in the disaster. A massive inquest into the mining disaster
ensued, many regulations were tightened, and today a memorial garden sits in the middle of
Aberfan, paying tribute to the unfathomable loss. The Aberfan disaster devastated Wales - but
could this next event devastate the whole world? #3. The Carrington Event It was September 1st, 1859, and the sun was
looking unusual. It was in the midst of a massive geomagnetic storm - in fact, the strongest ever
recorded in history. It was so intense that it was affecting Earth’s atmosphere, with displays
similar to the aurora borealis being reported globally. Scientists believe it was caused by a
coronal mass ejection that happened to be in the direction of Earth. It caused a massive solar
flare that was observed by astronomer Richard Christopher Carrington - who would later
become its namesake. But for most people, it was just a curiosity in the sky with
few effects. Around the world, people saw strange things happening in the atmosphere, and it
livened up their often mundane 19th-century lives. But select people noticed
something very different. Technology was in its early stages, and few
people had electronic devices to observe. The one exception? The early telegraph
systems all over Europe and North America. Suddenly, operators would pick up the
device and get a nasty electric shock. The pylons carrying the signals started
emitting dangerous sparks. Even more oddly, some telegraph machines seemed to still work after
being disconnected. The current was strong as ever - even stronger, in fact - and it seemed to
be coming from elsewhere from its usual sources. Some telegraph machines were damaged, while
others maintained their usual abilities - with one managing to maintain power for
up to two hours while disconnected. It was an odd chapter in history -
but it could foretell an apocalypse. In 1859, the Carrington Event caused
very little long-term damage because few items were affected. Most machines
then ran on steam or coal power. Today, almost all run on either electricity or delicate
digital connections. Another massive solar storm could cause a massive disruption in
those systems - as today’s connections could easily overload due to the surge of
electricity generated by the solar storm, not just causing massive blackouts but
permanently damaging the infrastructure and setting back mankind’s available technology
by decades or even centuries. The effects of a solar storm are hard if not impossible to
prevent - and if a solar storm happens, there is no way to predict or stop it. That means
that all of mankind’s technological progress could be at the mercy of something millions of
miles away - and totally out of our control. The world is full of mysteries -
but few as chilling as this one. #2. The Beast of Gevaudan The world is full of mysterious animals that
may or may not exist. The United States has the shambling, hairy Bigfoot. Scotland has the
potential surviving plesiosaur known as Nessie. Mexico has the small-but-hungry Chupacabra.
But most of these cryptids have two things in common - they’ve never been captured, and they’ve
never left any bodies in their wake. The same can’t be said for the monster that terrorized
the French region of Le Gevaudan between 1764 and 1767. It all started when a young woman saw a
mysterious wolf-life creature approach her cattle. The bulls kept it at bay, and she would later
describe it as “like a wolf, but not a wolf”. No one paid much attention to her story - until a
teenage girl was killed by an animal only a short time later, and more attacks against livestock,
children, and even adults became common. A pattern emerged - the animal knew exactly how to
kill, targeting the head and neck of the victims. What was hunting the people of Le Gevaudan? Some speculated that a pair of animals might have
been behind the attacks, since it was hunting so fast and often in far-apart locations. In January
1765, eight friends were attacked by the beast and managed to fend it off by staying in a
tight group. These survivors eventually got the attention of King Louis XV - and hunting the beast
became a national priority. An elite military unit was sent to Le Gevaudan, including two
professional wolf-hunters. One of them killed a large gray wolf, one of the largest ever seen, and
proclaimed it to be the beast - but the attacks soon continued, with a dozen more people dying.
In the end, it was a local hunter named Jean Chastel that reportedly brought the beast down.
The body of the creature was taken to a surgeon who stuffed it for taxidermy - and reportedly
discovered the remains of the last victim inside. Which raises the question - what
was the Beast of Le Gevaudan? Many people considered the creature to have
supernatural origins, making it one of the first reported attacks by a werewolf. However,
most modern historians speculate it was likely a wolf or a pack of wolves, and some of the
incidents may have been embellished due to hysteria. The beast’s body was displayed for a
time at the castle of Louis XV, but it has since been lost and only drawings remain. Most reports
indicate it was a wolf - but one larger than any seen before, and with an odd posture. This has led
modern scientists to propose more exotic origins, such as a lion or a Tasmanian tiger. It may have
also been a cross-breed between two animals. But as terrifying as the wave of attacks,
it wasn’t as atypical as it seemed - France saw tens of thousands of deaths due to
wolf attacks in the 18th century alone. But the wave of deaths in Le Gevaudan
was undoubtedly among the bloodiest. But there is nothing scarier than…the end. #1. Endling It’s September 7th, 1936 in the Hobart Zoo in
Tasmania, and a single animal paces the ground. It’s a Thylacine, or Tasmanian Tiger, and the
carnivorous marsupial has been living here alone for a long time. It beds down for the night,
but it’s an unusually cold night in Tasmania, and sometime during the night the animal
known as Benjamin freezes to death. The zookeepers are later accused of neglect,
but they assume they’ll find another specimen to display at the zoo soon enough. But
after months of combing Tasmania, they never do - because Benjamin is an endling, the very last
Tasmanian Tiger in the world. With his passing, an entire species passes into oblivion. The cause?
A combination of hunting and the introduction of dogs and humans into its habitat. The species’
fate was sealed long before Benjamin passed. And it’s happened many times before. A lot of the time, humans don’t know when
extinction happens. Millions of species went extinct before we ever existed on this planet.
Other times, a species we barely know about goes extinct when its habitat is destroyed. But when
we keep endangered species in captivity as they reach the end of their existence, zookeepers
and scientists often bear witness to the very last specimen passing away. That was the case for
Lonesome George, the last Pinta giant tortoise. Hunting had decimated the slow-reproducing,
long-lived species, although scientists did try to get George to mate with other subspecies.
In the end, Lonesome George was well-cared for by scientists until his death in 2012, at
which point the entire species went with him. And there is usually only one cause. The passenger pigeon was one of the
most dominant birds in the world, but hunting and competition dwindled its
numbers for decades until it was heavily hunted, and the last passenger pigeon, Martha, died
in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914. And as we become more aware of the damage we
do to the environment, we find more cases. Sometimes, we become aware that we’re looking
after an endling before they pass - like in the case of the Northern White Rhinoceros.
The species is still currently alive, with two specimens known. The problem is,
Najin and Fatu are mother and daughter. They live in a sanctuary in Kenya, but are
believed to be the last of their species - and the last male passed in 2014. That means
this species is simply running out the clock. And looking at the list of endangered
species, it’s likely more will join them soon. Want some more disturbing tales to
fall asleep to? Check out “Scary Urban Legends That Will Keep You Up At
Night”, or watch this video instead.
