Bizarre Wikipedia Pages That You Absolutely Shouldn’t Visit Unless You’re Really Bored, Like Right Now
When you have a serious amount of free time to kill and in the right state of mind, Wikipedia can send you down a rabbit hole of interesting information. With a little can-do attitude sprinkled with some curiosity, you can easily find yourself on some weird, mildly concerning yet fascinating black holes. Wikipedia pages.
It's impossible to find all the hidden gems on the site, but we gave it a shot, and the results are incredible. These are the strangest of the strange. Some of them are dark, while other's are flat-out confusing, which will ensure everyone's satisfaction. Enjoy.
The "Human Lightning Rod"
Roy Sullivan was a United States park ranger who was hit by lightning an incredible seven times. That's seven different occasions that Sullivan was presumably chosen by Zeus and struck. Kidding, but he did earn the nickname "The Human Lightning Rod."
What's even more bizarre is that he didn't end up dying from the strikes. He was found dead in 1983 by his wife after he shot himself in the head over their relationship which he saw as very one-sided.
Domestic Animals With Better Diplomas Than You
There's literally a Wikipedia page that sets out to tell you all about the many animals with fraudulent diplomas. Both cats and dogs have beaten the system and become educated.
Most notably, housecat Colby Nolan was awarded an MBA in 2004 by Trinity Southern University which was ousted as an illegitimate diploma-mill. The cat, which is owned by the Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania, was all the evidence prosecutors needed to bring a fraud lawsuit on TSU.
Everything You Were Told Was A Lie
Photo Credit: Wikipedia / Randolph College
A Wikipedia page that is devoted to debunking common historical misconceptions. Each misconception and the corresponding facts have been published and discussed in books and other works.
For example, Albert Einstien (pictured above) didn't fail math, which is a very popular myth. In fact, he had mastered differential and integral calculus before he was 15. However, he did fail his first attempt at the entrance exam to get into the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School.
Black Eyed Children
While this is an urban legend, it's still a super creepy page to look at. Black-eyed children are creatures that resemble kids between the ages of 6-16 and are often seen hitch-hiking or showing up on residential doorsteps.
As late as 2013, the British tabloid Daily Star published an article saying there have been sightings of black-eyed children around a haunted pub that was closing. Ghost hunters believe these kids are vampires or ghosts that are experts at evading people.
The Unnamed Suicide
In 2001, Lyle Stevik was found hanging in a motel room in Amanda Park, Washington. What ended up making this case different from others was that his real name has yet to be identified. Lyle Stevik is an alias for the man that is based on a Joyce Carol Oates novel published in 1987.
In the book, the character, Lyle Stevik, attempted to commit suicide. It's possible that the family didn't put out a missing person's report because of estrangement. To this day his real identity remains unknown.
Airplanes That Were Never Seen Again
While it may seem impossible for an entire airplane to vanish off the face of the earth, this Wikipedia page will show you otherwise. This page doesn't include planes that are missing in action, it lists private planes that have disappeared.
The Malaysian Airliner that went missing over the South China Sea is fresh in our minds, but as recent as 2017 a plane went missing in the mountains of British Columbia, Canada.
The Program That Can Trigger Earthquakes?
The High-Frequency Active Research Program (HAARP) came to life in 1993, funded by the US Air Force, Navy, and other investors. Its purpose is to enhance communication through radio and surveillance, but the general public doesn't have good feelings about it.
Jesse Ventura, the former Governor of Minnesota, questioned whether the site is being used to manipulate the weather and bombard people with mind-controlling radio waves. Michel Chossudovsky published a book that alleges that HAARP can trigger floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes at will.
Prostitution Among Animals
There have actually been studies that show prostitution exists in the animal kingdom. Many people may call it transactional sex, but that doesn't have the same ring to it. Adelie Penguins and chimpanzees have been specifically singled out as species that partake in prostitution.
Sometimes penguins use stones to create their nests, but in the case of a shortage, they trade sex for rocks. Chimpanzees, on the other hand, trade food for sex which is very understandable, even to a human.
Death By GPS
Just when you thought that you were the worst navigator, this Wikipedia page shows up and tells you otherwise. It's about people who follow their GPS which leads them right into a death trap.
There have been several deaths by GPS in, conveniently named, Death Valley California. There have also been incidents in Washington State, Austrailia, England, and Italy. Some involve driving off a cliff; others include driving right into a lake.
The Weirdest Grammatically Correct Sentence In The World
The English language doesn't always make sense. Not only is it the most common language in the world, but it's also the hardest to understand. For example, there's an entire Wikipedia page dedicated to the grammatically correct sentence: "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo."
Basically, the sentence employs three distinct meanings of the word buffalo. It's used as a proper noun in reference to Buffalo, New York. It's used as a verb which the word can be used to mean "to bully, harass, or to baffle." And It's used a noun which is referring to the animal.
A Murder Case That Stopped A Nation In Its Tracks
The murder of 12-year old Shanda Sharer is incredibly troubling. She was tortured and burned and beaten to death in Indiana by a group of teenagers aging from 15-17 years old. The story involves an abduction, constant torture, and a burning alive ceremony.
The group of girls who pulled off this murder claimed that Shanda had stolen her girlfriend and that they had to take action. The girls were tried as adults even though they were minors, but most of them are out of prison today.
The Whale Who Is Heard But Not Seen
The 52-hertz whale is a mystery to every expert that studies the species. It has been caught multiple times calling at a frequency of 52 Hz, but it's never actually been seen. This pitch is much higher than other whale species, and it has migration patterns that mirror other whales.
It's been described as the "world's loneliest whale" and has regularly been detected since the 1980s. For reference, blue whales usually vocalize at 10-39 Hz and fin whales at around 20 Hz. Biologists say that this whale must be healthy because it's maturity seems to have only increased over the years.
The Bizarre Signal Intrusion Seen Across America
On the evening of November 22, 1987, two unknown individuals barged their way into the homes of many Chicagoans after they hijacked the signal of two local TV stations. A homemade Max Headroom mask was seen on one of the intruders as he awkwardly pranced around on-screen.
The second interruption happened a few hours later and lasted ninety seconds. It featured a parody character of news anchor Chuck Swirsky. The end of the video showed one of the guys getting spanked by a flyswatter by someone before normal programming began.
A List Of Unusual Deaths
This is a page that you can easily spend several hours on. It's an incredible list that's in chronological order by the date that shows people who died in unusual ways. The deaths have to be unique and extremely rare while also being considered weird by multiple news sources.
For example, pictured above is Tennessee Williams, a famous American playwright. He died in 1983 after accidentally choking on a plastic cap from a water bottle. He was applying eye drops with the bottle cap between his teeth when he choked on it.
The Silent Twins
Jennifer and June Gibbons, also known as "The Silent Twins" are sisters from Wales who became the youngest girls to be admitted to Broadmoor Hospital because of their mental instability. They communicated with each other but no one else. Many people who were around the girls for a long time didn't even know they spoke English.
They turned to crimes like arson to fill their time, which was the original reason that they were admitted to Broadmoor. They stayed in the institution for 14 years. Jennifer died in 1993 under suspicious circumstances. The girls believed that if one of them died, the other would be able to live a normal life. After some deliberation, Jennifer decided she would be the sacrifice. Her cause of death was due to inflammation of the heart, and doctors couldn't pinpoint the cause.
The Man Who Documented His Own Death
Karl Patterson Schmidt was an American herpetologist (basically someone who studies amphibians). He died in 1957 after being bitten by a juvenile boomslang snake. He didn't think that the venom would be able to kill him, so he didn't seek treatment. Instead, he documented the effects to his body.
He was very wrong about the snake bite, which killed him within 24 hours. In those hours he made detailed notes about the symptoms he was experiencing. The venom ended up causing small clots in the bloodstream. He ended up bleeding in his lungs, kidneys, heart, and brain.
The Government's Attempt At Mind Control
Photo Credit: Wikipedia
Prepare yourself, what this page is about to tell you is mind-blowing — literally. Project MKUltra was also known as the CIA mind control program. It lasted for 20 years between 1953-73 and often used unwitting Canadian and American citizens as test subjects.
The project used different methods to manipulate peoples' minds and alter brain function. From drugs like LSD to hypnosis, sensory deprivation, isolation, verbal and sexual abuse, they applied many forms of torture. Many psychiatrists worked on the project, including Psychiatrist Donald Ewen Cameron (pictured above) who worked to correct schizophrenia by erasing existing memories.
Scaphism
Photo Credit: Wikipedia / Paul Venter
If you were impartial about getting executed by the ancient Persians, this Wikipedia page will change your mind. The execution method is called scaphism, and it's absolutely gruesome.
The victim would be strapped into a wooden tube and force-fed milk and honey until they vomited. They would get more honey poured on their ears, eyes, mouth, and other places. The honey would attract insects who would breed in the victim's flesh and eat them from the inside out. The whole process would take a few days.
Lists Of Lists, Of Lists
Photo Credit: Jim Sugar / Corbis / Getty Images
There's a Wikipedia page that showcases a list of articles that are lists of list articles that are in English. If there's a subject that you're interested in, there's going to be a list about it somewhere on the internet.
It can be as abstract as a list of curling clubs, or a page that lists every city in the world by their country. There are lists of people executed in Texas, to lists of offshore wind farms by country, and literally everything in between.
Euthanasia Coaster
In 2010, a Ph.D. candidate named Julijonas Urbonas designed a steel roller coaster which was guaranteed to kill its passengers. Urbonas had worked at an amusement park, and said that the goal of the coaster was to take lives with "elegance and euphoria."
The idea was that each inversion would get smaller and smaller to ensure that the roller coaster maintained 10g to passengers after the drop. The decrease in size was due to the fact that the coaster would be losing speed when it entered each inversion.
