BIGFOOOOOOOOT!

EXPOSURE

CONCEPTION

 

Hohenwart Monastery, 1742, Sister Josephine Rosenthal became pregnant. The nunnery was entirely cut off from local villages and after an examination, it was declared that she was a virgin, and also – to all intents and purposes unable to be with child. Despite this, Josephine carried the child to six months. By this time her story had reached the ears of the Abbot and she was brought before the council of Benedict. She was then examined again, and it was declared that Josephine had undergone immaculate conception...

Read the rest // meet sculpture's creator.

SELF-SURGERY

In June 2011, emergency services dispatched an ambulance to the home of 65-year-old Barrie Hepburn. Barrie was a retired sports car enthusiast and a paraplegic. He’d been left wheelchair-bound in 2000 after being shot by a neighbor in an argument. Barrie had told the emergency operator that he was bleeding heavily, and they feared the worst, as he had fallen silent during the call. They certainly weren’t expecting what they found, which was the shock of their lives, and the grisly stuff urban legends are made from.Barrie, who had lost all feeling in his legs, had made an enthusiastic attempt to remove one of them with a hacksaw. He had recently become despondent because he was having so much trouble getting into and out of his beloved sports cars, and his overtures to his doctors about amputation had thus far been rebuffed. Barrie had apparently decided that if he began the surgery himself, doctors wouldn’t have any choice but to continue. When the paramedics arrived his right leg was almost totally detached, the plastic sack he’d used for a tourniquet covered in massive amounts of blood, and his bag was sitting beside him, neatly packed for the hospital.

POPE JOHN PAU--OH MY GOD

JULIA

In 2008, Dr. Richard E. Gallagher, a board-certified psychiatrist and associate professor of clinical psychiatry at New York Medical College, documented the case of a patient nicknamed "Julia" whom he deduced was indeed possessed by demons. It's rare that a scientist and psychiatrist would acknowledge the possibility of possession; typically doctors think that possession is either fraudulent or a result of mental illness.

Dr. Gallagher personally observed items flying around the room, Julia levitating off the bed, speaking in tongues, and knowing things about people around her that she could not possibly have known. Here is an excerpt from Gallagher's statement:

“Periodically, in our presence, Julia would go into a trance state of a recurring nature. Mentally troubled individuals often ‘dissociate,' but Julia's trances were accompanied by an unusual phenomenon: Out of her mouth would come various threats, taunts and scatological language, phrases like ‘Leave her alone, you idiot,' ‘She's ours,' ‘Leave, you imbecile priest,' or just ‘Leave.' The tone of this voice differed markedly from Julia's own, and it varied, sometimes sounding guttural and vaguely masculine, at other points high pitched. Most of her comments during these ‘trances,' or at the subsequent exorcisms, displayed a marked contempt for anything religious or sacred.”

ALLIGATORS

A young woman in town married a man from another part of the country. He was a nice fellow, and they got along pretty well together. There was only one problem. Every night he’d go swimming in the river. Sometimes, he’d be gone all night long, and she would complain of her loneliness.

The couple had two young sons. As soon as the boys could walk, their father began to teach them how to swim, and when they got older, he would take them swimming in the river at night. They would often stay there all night long, and the woman would stay home, alone.

After a while, she began to act strangely—at least, that’s what the neighbors said. She told them that her husband was turning into an alligator and he was trying to turn the boys into alligators, too.

Everyone told her there was nothing wrong with a man taking his sons swimming. That was just a natural thing to do. And when it came to alligators? There just weren’t any in the area, and everybody knew that.

Early one morning, the woman came running into town from the direction of the river. She was soaking wet, her clothing dripping water. She said a big alligator and two little alligators had pulled her into the river and tried to get her to eat a raw fish. She claimed that they were her husband and her sons, and they apparently wanted her to live with them, but she managed to escape.

Her doctor decided she had lost her mind, and he had her put in the mental institution for a while. After that, nobody saw her husband or children again. They just vanished.

But every now and then, a fisherman would tell about seeing alligators in the river at night. Usually, it was one large alligator accompanied by two small ones. Most people said the fishermen were just making it up. After all, everyone knows there aren’t any alligators out here.