PYF unnerving article or story: Why is everything always so fucking weird

The Something Awful Forums > Main > Post Your Favorite: Carefully Curated > PYF unnerving article or story: Why is everything always so fucking weird

ozza: Oct 23, 2008

bucksmash posted:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salish_Sea_human_foot_discoveries

Basically, over the last several years, random feet have been turning up in the waters around British Columbia and Washington state. Some have been identified, others are still unknown. The weird thing is in almost every single case, the severed foot was still inside a shoe.

Thankfully they seem to have tapered off.

Until today.

I thought this had been solved. If memory serves, it was deduced that the feet came from suicides. Someone would take the plunge off a bridge somewhere, and get washed out to sea. The ankle joint would break away from the leg after a few days in the water, and then the ocean currents would take the feet back to shore.

Edit: memory did serve http://www.seattleweekly.com/home/936778-129/story.html

# ¿ May 7, 2014 05:23

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# ¿ Apr 24, 2024 17:40

ozza: Oct 23, 2008

shock.wav posted:

From my experience (I've lived in Adelaide all my life, and known of this story for about 6 years) nobody in Adelaide has ever heard about this. And it's fascinating.

It makes me wonder if there are other towns around the world which may have an incredible story attached to them that the residents just don't acknowledge.

You must knock around in a parallel dimension, because in my experience it's pretty well-known among Adelaide folk.

But nowhere near as well-known as DUN-DUN-DUNNNNN the Beaumont children (who were coincidentally taken from somewhere very near the Taman Shud guy):

quote:

[the Beaumont children] were three siblings who disappeared from Glenelg Beach near Adelaide, South Australia on Australia Day (26 January) 1966.

Their case resulted in one of the largest police investigations in Australian criminal history and remains one of Australia's most infamous cold cases.

The huge attention given to this case, its significance in Australian criminal history, and the fact that the mystery of their disappearance has never been explained, has led to the story being revisited by the press on a regular basis. It is also viewed by many social commentators as a significant event in the evolution of Australian society, with a large number of people changing the way they supervised their children on a daily basis.

No trace was ever found of the Beaumonts. The chief suspect is Bevan Spencer von Einem, who was arrested for another murder in the early 1980s, as well as being a "suspected serial killer" (according to Wiki's wording). This is where it gets especially creepy and weird:

quote:

One of the witnesses, regarded as highly credible by police, related a conversation in which von Einem boasted of having taken three children from a beach several years earlier, and said he had taken them home to conduct experiments. He said he had performed surgery on each of them, and had "connected them together". One of the children had died during the procedure and so he had killed the other two and dumped all the bodies in bushland south of Adelaide.

# ¿ May 16, 2014 09:56

ozza: Oct 23, 2008

Solice Kirsk posted:

The Tsavo Man-Eaters

Two lions that terrorized a bridge construction project in Kenya towards the end of the 19th century. If the stories are to be believed they killed over 100 people and one of them was shot a ton of loving times before dying. I've seen them at the Field Museum a few times and always struggle to comprehend how, I don't know, obsurd the whole thing seems by today's standards. I just can't imagine that much carnage being caused by two animals.

Make sure you listen to this soundtrack while you read, and imagine Val Kilmer affecting a horrid Irish accent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTC56wpNwYg

# ¿ Jul 31, 2014 05:38

ozza: Oct 23, 2008

Wildeyes posted:

There's a nice article on Elisa Lam with this insight:

The article also mentions she has a blog...that has apparently been updated since her death by some unknown person.

Some additional creepy little details from that article:

quote:

The Cecil Hotel, as most reports hasten to mention, was at one time home to serial killer Richard Ramirez, a.k.a. The Nightstalker, and at another to fellow serial killer Jack Unterweger. It was also allegedly the last place butchered actress Elizabeth Short, a.k.a. The Black Dahlia, was seen before her grisly � and still unsolved � murder in 1947.

[...] And then there is the deadly recent tuberculosis outbreak just a few blocks from the site of [Elisa] Lam�s death, where, in a bizarre coincidence, the test kit used was called the LAM-ELISA.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2014 04:29

ozza: Oct 23, 2008

Let's get back on track with a spooky lighthouse mystery: the Eilean Mor disappearance, in which three experienced lighthouse keepers vanished under strange circumstances.

quote:

The first hint of anything untoward on the Flannan Isles came on 15 December 1900. The steamer Archtor on passage from Philadelphia to Leith passed the islands in poor weather and noted that the light was not operational.

[...]

A boat was launched and Joseph Moore, the relief keeper, was put ashore alone. He found the entrance gate to the compound and main door both closed, the beds unmade, and the clock stopped. A set of oilskins was found, suggesting that one of the keepers had left the lighthouse without them, which was surprising considering the severity of the weather on the date of the last entry in the lighthouse log. The only sign of anything amiss in the lighthouse was an overturned chair by the kitchen table. Of the keepers there was no sign, neither inside the lighthouse nor anywhere on the island.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flannan_Isles

From a non-Wiki site:

quote:

A few days later, Robert Muirhead, the board�s supernatant who both recruited and knew all three men personally, departed for the island to investigate the disappearances.

Muirhead immediately noticed that the last few days of entries were unusual. On the 12th December, Thomas Marshall, the second assistant, wrote of �severe winds the likes of which I have never seen before in twenty years�. He also noticed that James Ducat, the Principal Keeper, had been �very quiet� and that the third assistant, William McArthur, had been crying.

What is strange about the final remark was that William McArthur was a seasoned mariner, and was known on the Scottish mainland as a tough brawler. Why would he be crying about a storm?

Log entries on the 13th December stated that the storm was still raging, and that all three men had been praying. But why would three experienced lighthouse keepers, safely situated on a brand new lighthouse that was 150 feet above sea level, be praying for a storm to stop? They should have been perfectly safe.

Even more peculiar is that there were no reported storms in the area on the 12th, 13th and 14th of December. In fact, the weather was calm, and the storms that were to batter the island didn�t hit until December 17th.

The final log entry was made on the 15th December. It simply read �Storm ended, sea calm. God is over all�. What was meant by �God is over all�?

http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofScotland/The-Eilean-Mor-Lighthouse-Mystery/

# ¿ Feb 5, 2015 07:45

ozza: Oct 23, 2008

outlier posted:

Just finished reading about the Beaumont children and Derek Percy in one of the Underbelly Australian crime collections.

What a horrendous person. I'd always heard that in the case of the Beaumont kids, though, it was generally acknowledged that Bevan Spencer von Einem was most likely the perpetrator. From Wiki (and spoiler texted because it is graphic language describing child murder):

quote:

One of the witnesses, identified only as "Mr. B", who was regarded as highly credible by police, related an alleged conversation in which von Einem boasted of having taken three children from a beach several years earlier, and said he had taken them home to conduct experiments. He said he had performed surgery on each of them, and had "connected them together". One of the children had died during the procedure and so he had killed the other two and dumped all the bodies in bushland south of Adelaide.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaumont_children_disappearance#Bevan_Spencer_von_Einem

# ¿ Feb 16, 2015 02:01

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# ¿ Apr 24, 2024 17:40

ozza: Oct 23, 2008

outlier posted:

On Percy being "a horrendous person", the Underbelly article talks about him being smart and well-liked until a certain age then becoming progressively stranger and more deviant. There's also an story about an aunt discipling him by tying him up and leaving him in a locked dark room. He comes across as a badly broken individual that the system wilfully ignored for years.

Yes you're right a child murderer is not a horrendous person after all

# ¿ Feb 16, 2015 05:44

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