AND THE BAND PLAYED ON

The Nazis were truly sadistic when it came to psychological torture, and they were even able to turn music into a weapon of misery. The moment an inmate arrived at the camp, an orchestra (usually comprised of prisoners) would play obscenely upbeat music, which inmates had to sing and march to as they walked toward their death. The music continued even while people were being gassed; however, even with a full orchestra, they were rarely able to drown out the screaming.The guilt of doing this haunted survivors for decades after the war.

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DEEP DARK FEARS

EMACIATED

Below is not a still from any horror movie, but an actual photograph of a woman who was held captive in her room for 25 years.

Mademoiselle Blanche fell in love with a lawyer (who wasn’t very wealthy) and her mother did not approve. Her mother decided to trap her in a room upstairs. The police got an anonymous letter which led them to Blanche.

Police arrived at the home, forced open the door, and found an emaciated Blanche Monnier lying in a pool of feces and food debris on a bed in an upstairs room. Her head hidden under the covers, the 49-year-old woman, who now weighed a mere 55 pounds, was naked, scared and deranged. She hadn’t seen the sun in 24 years. A witness to the event described how Blanche was discovered:

"We immediately gave the order to open the casement window. This was done with great difficulty, for the old dark-colored curtains fell down in a heavy shower of dust. To open the shutters, it was necessary to remove them from their right hinges. As soon as light entered the room, we noticed, in the back, lying on a bed, her head and body covered by a repulsively filthy blanket, a woman identified as Mademoiselle Blanche Monnier. The unfortunate woman was lying completely naked on a rotten straw mattress. All around her was formed a sort of crust made from excrement, fragments of meat, vegetables, fish, and rotten bread. We also saw oyster shells and bugs running across Mademoiselle Monnier’s bed. The air was so unbreathable, the odor given off by the room was so rank, that it was impossible for us to stay any longer to proceed with our investigation."

Blanche’s mother, Madame Monnier Demarconnay, was arrested the next day and imprisoned at around six o’clock in the evening. Despite the precautions of the police, a surging crowd gathered at the prison with shouts of hatred and revenge. Madame Monnier Demarconnay was immediately placed in the infirmary (she suffered from heart disease) where she unexpectedly died 15 days later. It was said that her last words were spoken to doctors who entered the room just moments before she died. They recalled that she cried out, “Ah, my poor Blanche!”

Her brother, Marcel, stood trial alone, accused of being his mother’s accomplice. The trial opened on October 7, 1901. Four days later, Marcel was found guilty and sentenced to 15 months in prison. The judgment on October 11 raised applause in the courtroom and outside on the Palace Square, the crowd showed their approval, screaming and shouting hostile threats at the convicted man. Marcel immediately appealed the verdict and in a judgment announced on November 20, 1901, the court of appeal found that he had exercised no violence on the woman and hence, he was acquitted and released from jail.

Although Blanche Monnier did put on some weight over time, she never regained her sanity. She died in a Blois psychiatric hospital in 1913, 12 years after she was discovered captive in her room.

IN THE WILD

Taken from the article,"25 Hikers And Backpackers Reveal The Creepiest, Scariest Things They’ve Found In The Wild."

This one gave me the creepiest creeps:

Took my young children to a cave not far from the house. Popular spot, but we had the place to ourselves. You can walk through it in about 30 minutes without too much difficulty. It has a tiny exit at the opposite end. It was pretty muddy, so we decided to turn around and head back to the entrance. Halfway back, there was a lit candle sitting about eight feet up one side. It was definitely not there on the first trip. I went into full-on protective-dad-mode knowing there was likely someone hiding in the dark while we walked the rest of the way out.

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UNKNOWN

This is a picture my late great-grandfather Henry had in a collection of photos he took from an African hunting trip in 1932. According to my dad, who heard the story behind the photo, this animal was said to be about the size of a calf and had a long neck and long, beak-like snout. I showed the picture to a zoologist, who was unable to identify the animal. No one seems to know what it is.

WEAPONIZED ANIMALS OF WWII

Anti-Tank Dogs

Anti-tank dogs were dogs that were taught to carry explosives to tanks, armored vehicles and other military targets. They were intensively trained and developed by Russian military forces from as early as 1930...The intended targets became just tanks and instead of releasing the bombs and running to safety, the dogs would now have fixed bombs attached to them which would detonate as a lever was pushed while crawling under the vehicle. The resulting explosion would kill the dog, effectively making them suicide bombers.

Bat Bombs

At the time, most dwellings in Japan were still made out of wood, bamboo, and paper in the traditional style, and were therefore highly combustible. In 1942, a dental surgeon by the name of Lytle S. Adams considered this potential weakness and contacted the White House with the idea of strapping small explosive devices to bats and dropping them over a wide area. According to the plan, the idea was for millions of bats, specifically the plentiful and easily obtainable Mexican Free-tailed Bat, to parachute toward earth in an egg shaped container carrying small incendiary devices strapped to them. At the designated time, the container would open and the flying mammals would disperse to find their way deep into the attics of barns, homes, and factories, where they would rest until the charges they were carrying exploded.

Pigeon-Guided Missiles

During World War II, the U.S. began developing a missile guidance system under the code name Project Pigeon, which later became known as Project Orcon, for “Organic Control.”... In the plan, the pigeon would ride in a compartment aboard an unpowered, gliding missile as a screen was displayed in front of the bird showing the target. The pigeon would be trained to peck at the target on the touch sensitive screen and the missiles flight control systems would adjust according to where on the screen the pigeon pecked. This was a one way trip for the pigeons but they were seen as cheap, plentiful and fairly easy to train. 

Rat Bombs

The British Special Operation Executive developed a method of delivering explosives that involved the use of dead rats. The rat carcasses were to be filled with plastic explosives and left in targeted locations, namely factories, where it was speculated that stokers tending boilers would dispose of their revolting find in the furnace, thereby detonating the bomb and destroying the factory. 

Read the entire fascinating article.

PAJAMA GIRL

On 1 September, 1934, the badly burnt body of a young woman, viciously battered about the head and wearing only pajamas, was found in a road culvert in the township of Albury on the New South Wales-Victoria border in rural Australia. Although Sydney police reconstructed the dead woman’s features and made composite drawings of what she may have looked like in life, they also took the extraordinary step of preserving the body in a formalin bath. 

During the next decade, tens of thousands of people viewed the ghastly remains at the University of Sydney, and later Sydney police headquarters, before it was positively identified in 1944. When the body was examined, the victim, dressed in canary yellow and white pajamas, was determined to be between 25 and 30 years old. Her head had been protected from fire damage because it was wrapped in a towel, and she had a large laceration on the forehead and a puncture mark - most likely from a small-caliber bullet  - under her right eye. Her skull was fractured on the left side, but it was not until later that a local GP located the bullet with the use of an X-ray. The fact that the woman had been shot was not revealed to the public until the inquest in 1938. 

The dead woman was identified as Linda Agostini and it was her husband, Tony Agostini, who confessed to murdering her by accident. He was found guilty of manslaughter and served three years and nine months in prison.

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