The 9 scariest entries on Wikipedia

From TECHBOOK | Feb 26, 2023 at 7:48 p.m

Murders, unsolved crimes, supernatural phenomena and other bizarre stories. These 9 Wikipedia entries are scarier than some horror films.

1. Hinterkaifeck Murders

One of the probably scariest and most puzzling multiple murders in German criminal history took place in the Upper Bavarian provinces: In 1922, the skulls of six people on a farm were smashed in by an unknown person with a pickaxe. Even before the crime night, the residents of the remote observed Hinterkaifeck farm Unusual events: footprints in the snow led to the property, but not away from it again, a front door key could no longer be found, footsteps could be heard from the attic at night.

After the night of the murder, the perpetrator probably stayed longer on the farm – when the bodies were discovered four days later, the bread supplies had been used up and the cattle had been taken care of. The Wikipedia entry reads like a true crime case.

2. Black-eyed children

At least since horror film classics like “The Village of the Damned” and “The Shining” it’s clear that children can be damn scary. This entry on Wikipedia proves it. It’s about a myth that’s particularly popular in the United States: according to eyewitness reports, several American households in the 1990s were killed in the middle of the night black-eyed children haunted.

The sinister visitors, aged around six to 16, are said to have rang the doorbell on the pretext that they had to use the toilet or the telephone. The suspicious homeowners understandably did not comply with this request, and the children disappeared just as mysteriously as they came. None of these visits could be proven, so the myth is generally attributed to the “Urban Legends”, which include the slender man counts.

3. Therapy cat Oscar

Oscar is actually a very cute cat, but he is probably the scariest cat on Wikipedia. He prophesied deaths until his death in February 2022. As a therapy cat at a Rhode Island nursing home, Oscar regularly made his own visits to patients. If he realized that one of them would die in the next few hours, he would lie down with him and stay there until the patient died. Cat experts believe Oscar was reacting to the chemicals used in the dying process.

Oscar’s predictions were so accurate that the home’s staff called family members as soon as he lay down with a patient. Incidentally, he was not particularly friendly towards other residents and visitors.

Read from our colleagues from PETBOOK: Cats can’t stand these things

4. Disaster at Dyatlov Pass

The Disaster at Dyatlov Pass remains a mystery to this day. In 1959, nine experienced ski hikers went on a tour of the Ural Mountains – their bodies were found weeks later in the snow. Investigation reports indicated that the hikers’ tents were slashed open from the inside and their scantily clad bodies were discovered hundreds of meters away. Three of the deceased had fatal injuries that could not have been man-made, but no external wounds. Also, no traces of other creatures were found in their vicinity.

The clothing of the dead showed increased radioactive radiation. Relatives later explained that the deceased had a deep tan and that her hair was completely gray. The official cause of death is still called “force majeure”. However, the cause of the catastrophe could never be finally clarified. In early 2019 – 60 years after the incidents – the prosecutor’s office of the Ural region announced that it would reopen investigations into the case. In July 2020, however, the procedure was discontinued again without new findings.

Also interesting: “Tatort Reise” – the true crime podcast by our colleagues from TRAVELBOOK.de

5. Death photography

What seems like the stuff nightmares are made of today was common practice in the 19th and early 20th centuries: after loved ones died, theirs left relatives photograph themto remember them. Since photography was not yet widespread at that time, these photos were often the only pictures that the bereaved had of them, especially in the case of deceased children. The dead were usually shown as if they were sleeping. Sometimes they were also deliberately depicted “alive”, with their family members or favorite objects such as toys.

6. Somerton man

In December 1948 they were found on Somerton Beach in Adelaide, Australia corpse of an unknown man, who apparently died of poisoning. The well-dressed and well-groomed man in his mid-forties had no papers with him, the tags on his clothes had been carefully cut out. A small piece of paper with the inscription “Tamam Shud”, a Persian expression for “the end”, was later found in an additional sewn-in trouser pocket of the man. The note itself was torn from a book, and a nationwide search also turned up the copy to which the scrap belonged. Someone threw it into a doctor’s car the night before the body was discovered.

The book is a volume of poetry, the last poem of which had a part of the page torn off. On the back of the cover there were also handwritten letters that indicate a code. However, this has not been resolved to this day. For a long time it was also unclear who the dead person was and what happened to him. The body was therefore exhumed in May 2021 in order to obtain its DNA profile. Using this data, the Somerton man was later identified as Carl “Charles” Webb, believed to have been born in Melbourne in 1905. He was an electrical engineer and instrument maker. Today it is assumed that Webb killed himself.

7. Aokigahara

Aokigahara is probably the most famous forest in the world – for a tragic reason: For decades people have been drawn to the Japanese forest, who have committed suicide in the depths of the undergrowth. As early as the 19th century, families are said to have abandoned old people and children in the dense forest and left them to die in the event of famine. Since the 1960s, more and more suicidal people have been drawn there, which is why search parties regularly roam the supposedly cursed forest. Several dozen bodies are recovered there every year, but many missing persons are never found.

You may also be interested in: 7 things you’d rather not google should

8 June and Jennifer Gibbons

The identical twins June and Jennifer Gibbons presented their families and doctors with a puzzle: inseparable from birth, the girls soon began to isolate themselves from the outside world and only talk to each other in their own language. As the only black people in the school, they were shunned, excluded and bullied. This ultimately led to them leaving school early. Later they even synchronized their movements, people around them started to fear the girls.

After becoming criminally aware, the sisters, who had an interest in creative writing, spent several years in closed facilities where they were drugged to sedate them. There they came back to a pact they made when they were young. Said that if one of them died, the other would start living a normal life. After Jennifer died in 1993 from heart muscle inflammation, which can be caused by drug abuse, among other things, June began her normal life giving interviews to Harper’s Bazaar and The Guardian. Today she lives in seclusion and lives without outside help.

9. Coffin Birth

This medical phenomenon is as disturbing as it sounds or reads on Wikipedia. One coffin birth describes an apparent birth after a pregnant corpse has been buried with her unborn child. The putrefaction processes inside the coffin produce gases that cause the mother’s corpse to swell. As a result of the resulting pressure inside the body, the dead unborn child is then pushed out through the birth canal.

Incidents of this type have existed for thousands of years. Excavations of early graves already show bones of the mother, between whose legs lie the tiny skeletons – from embryos to babies about to be born.