7 Creepy Urban Legends That Happen to be True (Part 4) Once again, it's that time of year when Cracked goes out our way to fact check the outlandish stories that allegedly happened to your friend's former roommate's cousin's girlfriend. As we've shown three times before, sometimes the stories that get told and retold around a flashlight at slumber parties aren't as full of shit as we might've hoped. The Legend: We've all gotten emails about tourists who are abducted or drugged, only to wake up with a ragged scar where one of their kidneys used to be. These kind of stories sound like good fodder for an Eli Roth movie, but they couldn't possibly be true, could they? Survey says "yes". The Truth: Tell that to Indian construction worker Mohammad Saleem, who thought he had just lucked into a new, higher paying job working construction in New Dehli. Admittedly, we learned everything we know about India from Slumdog Millionaire. Unfortunately for Saleem, his new employers never showed up. Saleem wasn't the only victim either. Getcha' kidney! Ew.
6 Real Planets That Put Science Fiction to Shame George Lucas dreamed up planets with two suns and cloud cities, and Gene Roddenberry invented dozens of worlds that were all suspiciously similar to the Southern California desert. But as actual space exploration advances and we start to learn what's really on the surface of those distant worlds, it becomes increasingly clear that our imagination has no chance of competing with the jaw-dropping, pants-peeing craziness outer space is capable of cooking up. For instance ... #6. Gliese 436 b Is Coated in Burning Ice This may seem completely foreign to you, but just for a moment try to pretend you are Han Solo (ladies, you can pretend you're Princess Leia). Via WikipediaIn other words, T-shirt weather. "So where the hell did all this damn ice come from?" But Gliese 436 b has the remarkable ability to defy everything you know about the predictability of matter. Via WikipediaIt's like Satan's Aspen. #5. WASP-12b is the planet equivalent of a fly caught in a web. Via Nasa.govSorry, Europeans. #4.
6 MORE Creepy Urban Legends (That Happen to be True) As we are fond of pointing out, fact is usually much creepier than fiction. So around this time of year we like to share some of the most gut-wrenchingly disturbing stories, the kind we would tell around the campfire if we ever actually went outside. And most importantly, they're all true. Something Off About That Picture The Legend: A young man is dropping off groceries at the house of an eccentric old lady when he notices an old photo that makes the hair on his arms stand on end. "Oh," she replies, trying to stuff a cat in the dishwasher "isn't that beautiful? The Truth: While most folks today are too squeamish to take more than a glance into the casket during a funeral, in the late 19th through early 20th centuries someone dying meant it was time to break out the camera for a family photo. And, while it all sounds like the set-up for some terrifying practical joke on the photographer, there was actually a somewhat reasonable explanation for the practice. The Corpse in the Carpet
The 5 Creepiest Unexplained Broadcasts As we speak, broadcast signals are moving invisibly through the air all around you, from millions of sources. And some of them are really, really freaking weird. We know this because occasionally somebody with a shortwave radio, or a special antenna or even a common household television, will capture one of these mystery signals and suddenly start broadcasting utter insanity. Where do these signals come from? Who the hell knows? What is it? It is an irritating, electronic noise, not unlike the sound of a truck horn played through a cheese grater. Hammertime? In its 20-something year run, the sound has been interrupted only three times, the earliest known time being Christmas Eve in 1997. The case gets curiouser when you realize that the noise is apparently something held up to a live microphone rather than a recording or just some random feedback (distant conversations can be sometimes heard behind the sound, though they're difficult to decipher). It sounds like "robble-robble." Our theory?
7 Creepy Urban Legends That Happen to be True (Part 5!) Halloween's nearly here, and that means it's once again time to prove that the urban legends that scared you as a kid should still totally scare you as a rational adult, because they're totally true. As we've shown four times before, sometimes the stories told late at night at sleepovers really did happen to that kid's brother's cousin's sister. For instance ... #7. Man-Eating Escalators The Legend: Parents can't seem to resist the urge to play amateur horror movie director when teaching you the importance of tying you shoes. Getty"I thirst for child-blood." The Truth: Escalators are hungry like the wolf -- in this case, an unseeing, unfeeling robotic wolf that appears to grow hungrier once it tastes blood. GettyAre you listening, Hollywood? Toes and entire pieces of feet have been chewed off by escalators. For instance, in 2003 a girl lost part of her hand when she reached down to free her shoe, which the escalator was in the process of eating. #6. Everyone knows the feeling. #5. #4.
5 Terrifyingly Advanced Ways Animals Know How to Kill Whether you know it or not, humanity is fighting a war right now, and we are losing. Badly. That's because this fight is with Mother Nature herself, and while you're over there on the other side of this screen, microwaving tea and knitting tiny sweaters, that bitch is out there building biological superweapons 24/7. If all the world is a stage and we are but its players, then this show is called You Did What to My Wife? these things are Liam Neeson and you're the Eastern European terrorist who dies from getting repeatedly stabbed with his own frozen fear-urine. #5. Robert Whyte Right off the bat, it's clear we're in trouble. The gladiator spider (also called the ogre-faced spider, because scientists want to make very, very sure you don't ever fuck with it) first constructs a frame using the bare branches of nearby shrubbery. DMANLT.com"Screw you guys, I'm taking my net and I'm going home." #4. Peter Halasz Egon Heiss, Caudata #3. National Geographic They're called tentacled snakes (oh, yay!
The 5 Creepiest Urban Legends (That Happen to be True) The best creepy campfire stories are always the ones that end with the words, "...And it’s all true, because I have the damned documentation here to prove it!" In that spirit, we've tracked down five of the creepiest tales and urban legends that really happened to real people, proving once and for all that nothing is more terrifying than everyday life. The Dead Body Under Your Freaking Matress The Legend: A couple checks into a hotel and have to put up with a foul odor in their room all night. They call the staff to complain and somebody figures out the stench is coming from the bed. Now, there's no way that scenario is going to have a good ending. The Truth:This actually happened, in Las Vegas. It makes sense if you think about it. The strangest part isn't that the bodies wind up in such a terrible hiding place (killers often aren't the type to plan ahead). Most people we know will complain if they detect that someone might have smoked a cigarette in their room four months ago. The Truth:
5 Terrifyingly Advanced Ways Animals Know How to Kill #2. Tarantula Hawk Paul Nylander, via Tucson Citizen Allow me to set your mind at ease for once: A tarantula hawk is not a flying tarantula. Nature doesn't hate us that much (yet). But it's not that far down on the terror charts: The tarantula hawk is a giant wasp that hunts tarantulas for baby food. But let's go back to that stinger: It's roughly a third of an inch long, which is a bigger blade than you're allowed to bring on an airplane these days. San Dieguito River ParkWhen the guy whose job it is to take the worst pain ever starts describing his feelings like the tagline to a horror movie, that shit has as astronomically high likelihood of being real. And while it is noted that the tarantula hawk is "relatively docile" and "rarely stings without provocation," don't you dare take any of that premature comfort. The tarantula hawk is one of the few insects that get drunk recreationally. #1. Tree of Life Web Project And you know what's even crazier? Creepy Animals"Did you say somethin'?
The 6 Creepiest Things Discovered by New Homeowners Approximately 99 percent of haunted house stories begin the same way: The owners move into a house that seems too good to be true. Then there is some foreshadowing via rumors from the neighbors, and finally a gruesome discovery. But that chain of events isn't just the stuff of movies and campfire stories. Real homeowners have moved into their new digs only to find horrors like ... #6. An Old Burial Ground OK, based on what you have seen in horror movies/novels/TV shows, what is the one single thing that ensures your home will be infested with ghosts and/or poltergeists? Getty"You could at least desecrate our graves tastefully." So of all the possible things in the world you can find in your new home, none can be quite as unsettling as plunging a shovel into the floor of your basement only to have a child's skull come rolling out. Getty"See, honey? Wait, What? That's exactly what happened to Helen Weisensel. wisn"We're just miffed about the dry rot. "Everybody asks me ... #5. #4. Holy shit!
5 Lovable Animals You Didnt Know Are Secretly Terrifying | Cracked.com - StumbleUpon If there’s two things Cracked is all about, it’s fucked up animals and dongs. And since they won’t let me write “The 7 Most Fucked Up Animal Dongs,” (Editor's Note: Only because it's been written already) I had to settle for focusing on just the animal stuff. So hey, here you go: Here’s a bunch of adorable animals that will probably nonetheless scar you for life. Bears are pretty intrinsically scary, but come on – look at that guy! Holy shit! If there was a color-coded scale for cuteness like there is for Terror Alert Levels, the red fox would be at Level Orange: way above Adorable Bomb Threat and just half a notch below Snuggle Jihad. I would name him Mr. Now, here’s the sound he makes: If you came of age in a small town, you’re probably already familiar with the sound red foxes make. You: Jesus, this weed is amazing. Your Dickhead Friend Barry: Ha! Red Fox:AWWAAUUUUGHHGGGHHHH!!!! Your Dickhead Friend Barry: What was what? You: Don’t "what was what?" You: There’s a fox raping a baby? Oh!
The 5 Creepiest Unsolved Crimes Nobody Can Explain Dear Internet: We have to admit something -- we've been getting kinda cocky, recently. Whether we're explaining the phenomenon of alien abduction, debunking every textbook ever or doing some third thing, we've been spending a lot of time acting like we have all the answers. And it's started to go to our heads. But that all changes now. There are unsolved crimes, and then there are the kind of creepy, "What the hell could possibly be going on here" capers that keep the cops, and anyone who hears about them, up at night. Here are the real cases that almost fall into X-Files territory: The victim was found dead at 6:30 am, December 1, 1948, under a street lamp at Somerton Beach in Australia. But more on that in a moment. Would have saved them a ton of time, and been exactly as helpful. So the cops must have been half expecting it when the coroner returned with the cause of death: "Sudden, acute onset of damned if I know." Every breakthrough seemed to increase the mystery. It Gets Weirder:
The 6 Most Badass Skills You Can Learn in Under a Week Become a Human Lie Detector Any secret agent worth his hidden cyanide pills is going to have to be prepared for intense negotiations. Whether you've captured a deadly SPECTRE double-agent working as an MI6 janitor, or are just buying a used car, you've got to be able to tell when the enemy is lying through his teeth to you, and how to best disguise the fact that you're lying through your teeth at the same time. Also you can be like that guy in Lie to Me, for the few of you who watch that show. The Coursework: This particular double-oh technique has been cleverly disguised as a business management lecture lasting only a few hours, steeped in the psychology of human information processing and body language. Liar!! Then you can watch as paranoia creeps in from the corners of your mind, slowly replacing lesser human emotions like "trust" and "compassion." In fact, there is a class just for you... We assume this is what Florida's combat training is like. Coins are stupid. Urban Escape and Evasion