DISAPPEARANCE

Little Pauline Picard, aged two, disappeared from her family’s farm in Brittany, France in April 1922. An exhaustive search failed to find her, but several days later, police received news that a little girl who matched Pauline’s description was found wandering in the town of Cherbourg, about 320 kilometers (200 mi) away from the Picard farm. Pauline’s parents arrived to examine the girl and announced that she was indeed their missing Pauline.

A few unusual facts stood out about the otherwise happy reunion. First, the girl did not seem to recognize her parents. Second, she did not respond to them when they spoke to her in their native Breton. Dismissing these peculiarities, Pauline’s parents took her back to the farm, where the neighbors quickly affirmed that she was Pauline, and the whole ordeal seemed to end on a happy note.

About a month later, a neighboring farmer walking near the Picard farm stumbled upon something horrifying: the mutilated and decomposing body of a young girl next to her neatly folded clothes. He alerted the authorities, who arrived at the gruesome scene along with the town’s inhabitants, among them Pauline’s parents. Although the young girl’s face could not be identified, the Picards made an unsettling realization: the folded clothes were exactly what Pauline had been wearing on the day she disappeared.

The area where the remains were found had been searched thoroughly when Pauline first disappeared, which suggested to detectives that someone had placed the body there fairly recently. The case became even more perplexing when the skull of an adult male was discovered next to Pauline’s body, adding a second potential victim to the case.

Early reports from the investigation indicated that there was one possible suspect. A few days prior to the discovery of the body, a middle-aged farmer visited the Picard farm and asked them whether they were sure that the girl from Cherbourg was really Pauline. He then stated “God forgive me, I am guilty,” erupted into hysterical laughter, and was hauled off to an insane asylum.

Even so, a myriad of questions still baffled officials and Pauline’s parents. If the body in the woods was Pauline, as the evidence suggested, then what had happened to her? Was the laughing man the killer? How was the unidentified skull related to Pauline’s murder? And who was the little girl from Cherbourg who had been living with the Picards for a month? It remains unclear whether these questions were ever answered: No definitive records exist of a resolution to this story.

Story source.

SURF BOARD CAM

LOST OASIS

LUNGE

LIKE A ROCK

Pyura chilensis is a creature that not only looks like a rock, but is also completely immobile like one, too. It eats by sucking in water and filtering out micro-organisms. Its blood also produces a rare element called vanadium.

It is born male, but becomes hermaphroditic at puberty. It also reproduces by tossing clouds of sperm and eggs into the surrounding water and hoping they knock together.

Locals of Chile or Peru (where it's found) eat it raw or in stews. They say it tastes “soapy” and "bitter."

MOTHER'S DAY GIFT IDEA

Frog purses!

HAPPY MOTHER'S

THE VOICES ARE BACK

I’ve always had trouble sleeping at night. Noises have disturbed me my whole life. I found out years ago that I have Hyperacusis (hypersensitive hearing), picking up all sorts of background noises.

Doctors couldn’t fix it, they only recommend the obvious techniques to mask the problem. Not that I hadn’t tried these already.

Ear muffs, listening to music, and even things like meditation. None of it worked. In fact, it made the situation worse. It made her more desperate.

I hear her most nights, no one else can. Why does she only come to me? There’s always the dread of lying there each night in dark silence, anticipating when she will come, and when I will hear her again. Usually, she likes to wait until I’m drifting to sleep, so that I jump back to my senses in fright to the sound of her presence.

Most of the time it begins with faint crying. She tells me that she “wants to make it end.” I know she’s getting closer to getting me and some nights I can even feel her cold breath in my ear.

I can sense when she is lying close beside me in the darkness staring at me, and sometimes she whispers things like “It’s only me,” right into my ear. She’s toying with me, like a cat does to a helpless insect before killing it. The thing is, I could never see her, but it slowly felt like she was becoming more real.

The doctor later informed me that I suffer from schizophrenia. I have been taking medication for a long time but it wasn’t really working. It just made me feel more helpless. It was difficult for a girl as young as me to deal with this. At least now I could accept that she wasn’t real. It was all in my head and there was nothing real to fear. That was until last night…

Last night, her presence felt more real than ever. I could hear her whisper, feel breathing on my neck and even smell her breath, it was all too realistic to handle. I got so scared that I fell back into my old habit of running through the darkness of the house into my mother’s bed to sleep beside her where I felt safe.

Now that I was older, I knew she was hoping I had grown out of this phase, although I had only stopped doing it because it made her sad, and I didn’t want her to be disappointed in me anymore. She was all I had. If I had the choice I would be in there beside her every night without fail.

I knew my mother had been awoken by me, probably more saddened that I reverted to old ways when she thought the medication had been helping me. But it wasn’t helping, I lied all this time to keep her happy and let her sleep in peace.

I curled up in bed beside her and began to sob quietly. My mum looked uncomfortable from the noise I had made, and began stirring under the sheets so I whispered into her ear… “It’s only me.” She sat up abruptly, looking anxious. In the darkness I saw her reach over for her cell phone and begin to dial a number. I noticed on the screen that she was calling the doctor.

“The voices I used to hear,” she said. “They’re back…” 

 

 

 

Story source unknown.

TIME BOMB

When Ana Elvia went to feed her cows in the morning, four men quickly approached her and put a bomb around her neck. They ran away, leaving a tape that asked for a large sum of money. They also warned her that if she disarmed the bomb (or tried to) that it would go off.

A bomb tech (Jairo Hernando Lopez) showed up later that morning, without any of his tools, and tried to dispose of the bomb. He also came without his bomb-suit so he wouldn’t scare her. He was given a bandsaw and penknife which he failed to disarm the bomb with. Elvia didn’t think she was in any real danger; she kept telling her sister she had an idea who one of the men were. Later in the afternoon, they decided to take a break and the bomb went off. It killed Elvia and took off Lopez’s arm. Lopez later died in the hospital. The people responsible for the bomb have not been found and the case remains unsolved.

This photo was taken a couple of hours before the bomb exploded.

VAMPIRE SQUID

The vampire squid (Vampyroteuthis infernalis, lit. "vampire squid
of Hell") covering its body with tentacles.

TRAINES

TAGLINES

WASP

Neighbors in a village on Spain’s Canary Islands called the authorities about an abandoned house near them. They were worried as to what might be in the house since it had been abandoned for a long period of time.

What the police found lived up to their worries: A 22-foot wasp nest.

Officials said they don’t believe native wasps would build a nest so large, leading them to speculate it is an invasive species from Africa.

LIGHTS OUT

THE KINDLY KILLER

Dennis Nilsen was born on 23 November 1945 in Scotland to an alcoholic, Norwegian father and a strict Catholic mother. His parents divorced when he was four years old and he was sent to live with his grandparents. It was at this time that the first traumatic event occurred which shaped Dennis’ life. Due to his strict Catholic upbringing he was forced to view his grandfather’s body when he died.

A lot of children are forced to look at their dead relatives, and not all of them turn out to be necrophiliac murderers, but obviously this triggered something in Dennis Nilsen’s head, because that is exactly what he became.

As a teenager Dennis joined the Army Catering Corp and became a cook in the British Army. He served in the army for 11 years before becoming a police officer, and then a civil servant. During his time in the army he developed a fascination with seeing himself as a corpse. He would cover himself in talcum powder, paint his lips blue and masturbate over his image in a mirror.

It is not his background that is the reason for this article though…

Dennis Nilsen murdered and had sex with at least 15 boys and men between the years 1978 and 1983. Yes, he did it in that order. One of the ‘nicknames’ he was given was the “Kindly Killer” due to the (and this is his word) ‘humane’ way in which he murdered, raped, butchered, burned and discarded the men he decided needed to die.

Twelve of the murders occurred while Dennis was living at 195 Melrose Avenue North London with three more happening when he moved to 23 Cranley Gardens, North London.

The first person he killed was 14-year-old Stephen Dean Holmes. Dennis claims he met Stephen at a gay bar on 29 December 1978 and invited him back to his house. The following morning Dennis strangled Stephen with a necktie and then when he was unconscious, drowned him. He did not dispose of his remains until 11 August 1979, when he burned them and buried them in his garden.

Next he murdered one of the few victims who were actually reported as missing, 23-year-old Canadian student Kenneth Ockendon. After meeting in a pub, Dennis took him for a tour of Central London, and then invited him back to his apartment. He then strangled him with the cord of some headphones and drowned him.

Martyn Duffey was the third victim he murdered, a runaway. At only 16 years of age Martyn accepted an invitation to go to Dennis’ house, were he was strangled and drowned.

Billy Sutherland was a 26 year old male prostitute. Unlike the previous three victims Billy was strangled with Dennis’ hands.

And so on the list goes… many of his victims are still, to this day, unidentified. A few of them were male prostitutes, others were labourers, and Dennis only remembers small pieces of information about them.

What is very sad is that due to the era these attacks occurred, there were victims who got away and did not go to the police. The reason they didn’t report the attack was their concern about what would happen if their sexual predilections came to the attention of the public.

Once Dennis had killed his victims, he would generally bath and dress them before dismembering them. Using his training as a cook to butcher the bodies, he would store the dismembered parts around his apartment, under the floorboards etc. Eventually he would retrieve the remains and generally burn them or flush them down the toilet.

Dennis Nilsen’s murders were discovered two weeks after the last murder was committed, when a company specialising in cleaning drains were called out to his unit block to look at a blocked drain. The company found that the drain was blocked by a flesh-like substance. Suspicious, they reported it to the police. A more thorough search was conducted and small bones and “what looked like chicken flesh” was discovered in a pipe leading from the drain. Pathologist Professor David Bowen confirmed the remains were human.

When the police first confronted Dennis he showed disbelief, asking where the remains came from. The police explained that they could only have come from his apartment, at which point he agreed to go with them to the police station. Once there, he started talking. His confession was shocking! He explained in sickening detail all that he had done. A search of his closet turned up several bags which contained the remains of men, in varying stages of decomposition. Dennis told the police where to look, in the tea chest, under a drawer in the bathroom, etc. While confessing, he also told of the seven men he had attacked and tried to kill, but wasn’t able to. In a statement Dennis told the police that “the victim is the dirty platter after the feat, and the washing up is an ordinary, clinical task.”

His questioning with the police lasted over 30 hours all up, over a week long interview. Although being cautioned about what he said, he spilled the beans as though he had wanted to tell his story for a long time. During his questioning he answered clearly and concisely, as his army training would have taught him to, and showed absolutely no remorse for his actions.

Three of the seven attempted victims testified against Dennis at his court case in which he was charged with six counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder. He pleaded “Not Guilty” to all the charges and cited ‘diminished responsibility due to mental defect’.

The jury could not unanimously come to a decision, so the Judge agreed to accept a majority verdict, and therefore the jury delivered a verdict of “Guilty” to all charges. Dennis Nilsen was sentenced to life in prison and is incarcerated at HM Prison Full Sutton. He is named on a list of prisoners who are never to be released.

Story source.

BUY ME THIS: RUBBER CADAVERS

SynDaver™ Labs manufactures the world's most sophisticated synthetic human tissues and body parts. Our SynDaver™ Synthetic Human bleeds, breathes, and employs hundreds of replaceable muscles, bones, organs, and vessels which are made from materials that mimic the mechanical, thermal, and physico-chemical properties of live tissue. This validated technology is used to replace live animals, cadavers, and human patients in medical device studies, clinical training, and surgical simulation.

PLEASE COME

A letter from schizophrenic patient Emmy Hauck to her husband. It consists of only two phrases: “Herzensschatzi komm” (darling please come) and “komm komm komm” (come, come, come ) repeated over and over.

MIRROR

KING & CO.

NIGHTMARES IN 3...2...1...

3D

Not gonna lie...this totally scared the hell out of me when I first saw it.

MEDICAL TOUR OF THE PAST

Masks worn by doctors during the Plague.

Woman with artificial leg, circa 1890-1900.

Early plastic surgery.

Dr. Clark's Spinal Apparatus advertisement, 1878.

Lewis Sayre's scoliosis treatment.

Radiology nurse technician, France, WWII, 1918.

One of first surgical procedures to use ether as an anesthetic, circa 1855.

Leonid Ivanovich Rogozov, Soviet general practitioner,
performs an appendectomy on himself.

More.

CURSED DOLL

The doll was found beside a busy street in Singapore. The Arabic word on the cloth is translated as "bismillah." I think it’s to trap whatever jinn or curse is inside from coming out or following the owner back home. Others speculate it’s a product of black magic.

Stories from twitter revealed that the doll is possessed and has been moving around on its own when the original owner isn’t home. The owner binded the eyes and left it far away from home so it wouldn’t follow her back.

Some say the doll can be heard talking when it’s left alone in a room and is found with its head turned in a different direction. It is said that it spoke in a Malay language and sounds like an adult female.

Original owner found that the only way to get rid of it and make sure it won’t come back is to cover its eyesight. The curse is rumored to have passed on to someone else who found it and untied the cloth unknowingly.

The doll has been missing since. 

Story/images source.

THE STAIN

There is a stain on the top floor of the Athens State Hospital in the shape of a woman - Margaret Schilling - who died there nearly thirty years ago. Margaret’s story is shrouded in myth; some say she was a deaf mute who hid from the staff when they were vacating the hospital and ended up locked in the upstairs wing, unable to call out for help when she saw it was too late. The truth seems to be that she was simply a woman with profound mental disabilities who managed to lock herself in a ward which had been used for infectious patients and had been abandoned for years, on the top floor of ward N. 20. She disappeared on December 1, 1978. It wasn’t until January 12, 1979 that they found her, dead on the floor of heart failure, probably due to exposure in an unheated ward during the coldest part of winter. As she was dying, oddly enough, she took her clothes off, folded them neatly beside her, and laid down on the concrete floor.

Weeks later, her decomposing body was found lying on the floor next to a window. When authorities attempted to move her body, they found that it had made a permanent stain in the outline of the woman’s body on the concrete floor. It seems as though the stain had been caused by the combination of her body naturally decaying, coupled with its position in front of big bay windows that allowed the sunlight to shine down on her. Despite constant scrubbing, the stain would not come up. Even more, people walking past the asylum at night would sometimes see the ghostly image of a woman staring down at them from the window where the body was found.

It is true that her body left a stain. You can still see it today. People sometimes leave flowers and other trinkets around it. Some say that Margaret Schilling’s spirit wanders the building at night. They say that other patients, especially those who died at the hospital, also wander the building at night. Rumors about patients shackled in basement torture chambers add fuel to the legends.

Tours of the Ridges are a popular Halloween event in Athens—so popular, in fact, that they had to cancel one year’s tour because of the unmanageably huge turnout. Other parts of the grounds are off limits, however.

DEEP DARK FEARS

HANDS

AN EXORCISM

A terrified mother claims she watched in horror as her demon-possessed 9-year-old son walked backwards up a wall and ceiling. Her claims would be easy to dismiss if a child services case worker and a nurse weren’t reportedly there to witness it all.

Latoya Ammons claims all three of her children showed signs of being possessed, including “evil” smiles and strangely deep voices, the Indianapolis Star reports. The mother says she also witnessed her 12-year-old daughter levitating in their Gary, Ind., home.

Strangely enough, the scary-sounding incident is outlined in official documents. Further, Gary police Capt. Charles Austin told the Star that he is a “believer” after making several visits to the home and interviewing witnesses. He first thought the family was making stories up as part of a get-rich-quick scheme.

Ammons’ home was “exorcized” by a catholic priest in a number of ceremonies that were reportedly authorized by the Diocese of Gary. The story apparently became so believable that officers with the police department said they were too scared to stay at the house and some city officials wouldn’t even step foot on the property.

The 32-year-old mother says the spirits that haunted her family’s house were only vanquished after she moved away and underwent several exorcisms. The unbelievable story has come to light after the Indianapolis Star obtained hundreds of pages of official documents relating to the case.

The Ammons family moved into the rental house on Carolina Street in Gary, Ind., back in November 2011. They soon noticed strange occurrences, including swarms of flies around the house, footsteps in the basement and wet footprints streaking across the living room floor.


But what happened next made those incidents seem pleasant.

In March 2012, Ammons claims she rushed to check on her 12-year-old daughter after hearing her screams. When she entered the bedroom, she says she witnessed her daughter levitating above her bed unconscious.

The family and some of the guests they were hosting prayed over the girl until she returned back to the bed. The girl reportedly didn’t remember anything about it.

The torment reportedly continued and the family wasn’t in a position financially to flee the home. So the family contacted churches and clairvoyants for help, but they received little relief. The clairvoyants allegedly told the family their house was haunted by more than 200 demons.


The house where Latoya Ammons lived with her family was on Carolina St. in Gary. [In the] photo taken by the police, a figure appears to show itself in the window at right. Photo provided by the Hammond Police Department.

Ammons claims her childrens’ eyes bulged and they regularly sported evil smiles, effects of their possession. Her youngest child would reportedly sit in a closet and talk to an invisible child that no one could see. She also claims he was once thrown from the bathroom when no one was even near him.

Most of Ammons’ allegations are backed up by her mother, Rosa Campbell, who also lived in the house.

Later in 2012, child protective services in Indiana was contacted to investigate the mother for possible child abuse or mental illness. A psychiatrist reportedly evaluated Ammons and determined she was not mentally ill.

A family case manager reportedly interviewed the family and witnessed a number of strange occurrences. Valerie Washington confirmed that she witnessed the youngest boy growling before his eyes rolled back in his head.

Washington also claimed she saw the 9-year-old boy flash a “weird grin” and then walk backward up a wall to the ceiling. Her account was corroborated by a nurse.

“There’s no way he could’ve done that,” the nurse told the Star.

After being sent to investigate Ammons, Washington concluded that an “evil influence” might be affecting the family.

Source.

DEEP DARK FEARS

NOLLYWOOD

Pieter Hugo.

DEPRESSED YET?

TOURIST TRAP